IN Music News
THIS WEEK:
Dec. 12, 2006

A Pas de Quatre
of Conductors

Early Notice
for Romantics

How Young Is Young Caesar?

Music at Meyer, Season 4

Music Alive: No News Is Bad News

Conlon to
Direct Jewish Music Project

Threnody for Tower: From the Other Side
of the Counter

E-mail this page

San Francisco State violin professor Jassen Todorov, 31, has won a Crystal Lyre Award, the highest honor for achievement in music in his native Bulgaria.

Todorov won the title in the "young performers and artists" category. Awards are selected by a 27-member jury, and presented by the Union of Musicians and Dancers, and the Ministry of Culture. "Music is very much part of the culture in Bulgaria, and it is quite an honor to be recognized," said Todorov, who was nominated in the same category two years ago, but did not win.

The 10th annual Crystal Lyre awards ceremony was held last month, and broadcast on Bulgarian television. Todorov’s father, Nedjalcho Todorov, a noted violinist and 2003 Crystal Lyre winner, accepted the award on his son’s behalf. Todorov’s accomplishments include, at 26, being the youngest musician to record all six violin sonatas of Eugene Ysaÿe. After giving more than 100 recitals — also five years ago — he was called "a player to watch" by the music journal The Strad. He also holds a record number of master classes throughout Europe, Asia, and the U.S.

Todorov teaches courses at SFSU in violin, strings, chamber music literature, and career management in music. He also mentors violin students individually. The San Francisco resident will appear with the Plovdiv Philharmonic in Bulgaria on Jan. 12, which will be the first public performance with his father. It is also the first appearance in his home country in a decade.

Jassen Todorov

Helgi Tomasson's Nutcracker
Photo by Chris Hardy

Robert Wood

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson

Unlike many habitués, I was a Tower employee. When Tower opened its Manhattan store at Fourth Street and Broadway in the early 1980s, it opened big. The first time I entered its classical section, my nervous system almost shut down: It had what seemed like miles of records, most of which I'd never imagined that I'd ever see, much less be able to buy. Within two years, I was working there.

Working at Tower was seen, at least by Tower employees, as an extremely cool job, and the person who took my application apparently didn't think me so hip that he should pass it on to the classical manager who, with Christmas coming and Tower's just-opened Lincoln Center store having drained off the department's most experienced employees, was freaked about how to staff the floor. Once we'd overcome that hurdle, however, I found myself working the classical sales floor at the best serious record store ever.

You think that's hyperbole? Ray Edwards, Tower's national sales manager, worked out of the Fourth Street store, and his knowledge of recorded music was immense. Ray played me mint-condition 78s of obscure early 20th century pianists that sounded fresh enough to convince me that the piano was in the room. Gregor Benko, cofounder of the International Piano Archive, had established the department before moving on to PolyGram Records, and he'd stocked it with the deepest catalog of prestereo musicians I've ever seen. Marcel Möyse, Josef Hofmann, and Edwin Fischer were as common at the Fourth Street Tower as Casals and Horowitz were at other stores.

I worked side by side with musicians like Tim Berne, Melvin Gibbs, and Anthony Coleman, all of whom were already creating waves on the performance scene, but still needed the security of a steady paycheck and, much more important, the then-generous Tower benefits package. We called it "the Tower grant for working musicians."

The Tower customers were world-class, too. I rang up Alfred Brendel on several occasions. Once, when I expressed surprise that he was buying multiple copies of one of his own discs, he explained, "I donate the profits on this one to charity, so I always buy copies to give as thank-you gifts to my friends. That way, the charity gets all of the money."

I'm writing this over the Thanksgiving weekend, when we've just learned of the death of Broadway lyricist Betty Comden, a regular at the Lincoln Center Tower. I'll never forget the day she and Adolph Green walked into the classical department while we were playing "Conga!" from Wonderful Town. They'd barely cleared the glass doors when Green recognized their song and broke into a spontaneous softshoe, which Comden immediately fell in with. Comden and Green were precisely the way they seemed in their movie and cabaret appearances: witty, classy, and absolutely down to earth.

Vladimir Horowitz, on the other hand, was far from the distinguished concert pianist he appeared to be on stage. Every time I encountered him, he was a mischievous imp. He strode into the Classical Sales Annex one afternoon while one of Bach's English suites was playing on the store system. He pointed to the loudspeaker. "Who?" he said. "Ivo Pogorelich," a fellow employee responded. Flipping his hand dismissively, the maestro gave a loud Bronx cheer, turned around, and fled.

Pogorelich was the subject of one of the stranger Tower incidents I witnessed. Two nattily attired young-men-about-town walked in one day and demanded every Pogorelich disc we had in stock. We scurried about collecting them, and they proceeded to lay them out on top of the record bins and swoon over the cover portraits. "Oh, Ivo," they sighed. They left without buying anything.

It was the customers who made Tower interesting. One evening, about an hour before closing, two French tourists entered the classical department and, overcome by Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, began to grope one another in the back of the classical department. By the time fellow supervisor Paul Herzman got there, they were rolling on the floor shedding clothes. "New rule!" exclaimed Paul. "No more Wagner after 10 p.m.!"

Then there was the customer who wanted Pachelbel's Canon — with real cannons ...

(Janos Gereben is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice. His e-mail address is janosg@gmail.com.)

©2006 Janos Gereben, all rights reserved