# Newman, Anthony



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Anthony Newman (born May 12, 1941) is an American classical musician. While mostly known as an organist, Newman is also a harpsichordist, pedal harpsichordist, pianist, fortepianist, composer, conductor, writer, and teacher. A specialist in music of the Baroque period, particularly the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, Newman considers himself to have played an important role in the movement towards historically informed performance. He has collaborated with noted musicians such as Kathleen Battle, Julius Baker, Itzhak Perlman, Eugenia Zukerman, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Leonard Bernstein and Wynton Marsalis for whom he arranged and conducted In Gabriel's Garden, the most popular classical record of 1996.
Newman was born in Los Angeles, California. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a professional dancer and an amateur pianist. Newman started playing the piano by ear at age four and could read music before he could read words. He was five when he first heard the music of J.S. Bach (the fifth Brandenburg Concerto) and was "delighted, elated and fascinated." At five he began piano lessons but decided to add organ after hearing his first Bach organ music (Toccata and Fugue in D minor). He had to wait until he was ten to begin organ lessons because before then his feet would not reach the pedals. From the age of ten to seventeen he studied the organ with Richard Keys Biggs.
At age seventeen Newman went to Paris, France to study at l'École Normale de Musique. His primary teachers were Pierre Cochereau, organ, Madeleine de Valmalete, piano and Marguerite Roesgen-Champion, harpsichord. He received a Diplôme Supérieur, with the commendations of the legendary pianist Alfred Cortot.
Newman returned to the United States and received a ****** in 1963 from the Mannes School of Music having studied organ with Edgar Hilliar, piano with Edith Oppens and composition with William Sydemann. He worked as a teaching fellow at Boston University while studying composition with Leon Kirchner at Harvard University. He received his M.A. in composition from Harvard in 1966 and his doctorate in organ from Boston University in 1967 where he studied organ with George Faxon and composition with Gardner Read and Luciano Berio for whom he also served as teaching assistant.
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Professional life*
Newman's professional debut, in which he played Bach organ works on the pedal harpsichord, took place at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York in 1967. Of this performance the New York Times wrote, "His driving rhythms and formidable technical mastery...and intellectually cool understanding of the structures moved his audience to cheers at the endings." Based solely on the Times' review, and without an audition, Columbia Records signed Newman to a recording contract. Clive Davis, head of Columbia Records, took his cue from the prevailing anti-establishment sentiment among young people and Newman's long hair and interest in Zen meditation and marketed Newman as a counterculture champion of Bach who could draw young audiences. As a result, according to Newman, it took some years for him to "live down" the image created by Davis and to be taken seriously in the classical music world. But Newman did indeed draw young audiences as noted by Time magazine in a 1971 article in which they dubbed him the "high priest of the harpsichord." After recording twelve albums for Columbia Records Newman left along with pianist André Watts, another of Davis' protégés, when Davis left Columbia in 1979. Newman has gone on to make solo recordings for a variety of labels including Digitech, Excelsior, Helicon, Infinity Digital/Sony, Moss Music Group/Vox, Newport Classic, Second Hearing, Sheffield, Sine Qua Non, Sony, Deutsch Grammophon, and 903 Records. Newman has recorded most of Bach's keyboard works on organ, harpsichord and piano as well as recording works of Scarlatti, Handel, and Couperin. On the fortepiano he has recorded the works of Beethoven and Mozart. As a conductor Newman has led international orchestras such as the Madeira Festival Orchestra, the Brandenburg Collegium, and the English Chamber Orchestra.
For thirty years, starting in 1968, while Newman continued to record, concertize, compose, conduct and write, he taught music at The Juilliard School, Indiana University, and State University of New York at Purchase.
Although initially intensely interested in composition, he became discouraged by the non-tonal music that was the focus of conservatory composition departments in the 50s and 60s. He returned to composition in the 1980s and developed a post-modern compositional style that took over from where pre-atonal post-modernism left off. He makes use of musical archetypes from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries as well as 20th century archetypes he has devised himself with the intent making new but accessible music. Newman has written music for a range of instruments including organ, harpsichord, orchestra, guitar, violin, cello, flute chamber ensemble, piano, choral music and opera. In 2011, Newman released a 20-CD set of his most important compositions on 903 Records.
Newman is music director of Bach Works and Bedford Chamber Concerts, is on the Visiting Committee for the Department of Musical Instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is on the board of Musical Quarterlymagazine.










_The infamous Clive Davis marketing strategy. It worked on me._
*
Baroque performance controversy*
From the beginning Newman's interpretation of the music of J.S. Bach brought disdain from many musicians. His chosen tempos are generally extremely fast, and he often takes liberties with rhythm and ornamentation. Newman's argument in favor of his tempo is that what he calls the "traditional" approach to Bach began 100 years after Bach's death and is misguided by a mystique and reverence for the composer that results in performances which are slow, rhythmically restrained and without the vivification of ornamentation. In contrast, Newman's recordings of Bach have been considered "exciting" by some who are skeptical of the validity of his interpretations. In Newman's scholarly text, Bach and the Baroque, published in 1985 and revised in 1995, Newman supports his performance of Baroque music with a thorough analysis based on contemporary 17th and 18th century sources. Newman discusses how alterations to the written music - rhythmic variations such as rubato and notes inégales as well as improvised ornamentation - were common in Bach's time and that fast movements were played faster than has been traditionally accepted. Scholarly opposition to Newman's approach was led by Frederick Neumann who had long-held that notes inégales were limited primarily to French performance practice and that Bach, who traveled relatively little, would not have been exposed to this technique. In reviewing Newman's Bach and the Baroque in 1987 Neumann was at first somewhat gracious calling Newman "...a splendid keyboard performer who can dazzle his audiences with brilliant virtuosic feats. He can, and often does, play faster than perhaps any of his colleagues, and shows occasionally other signs of eccentricity." However he takes Newman to task for "careless scholarship" citing misuse of terms such as tactus and misinterpretation of Bach's notation. But his strongest objection is to Newman's defense of the use of notes inégales in the performance of Bach. Most of Neumann's complaints question the validity of Newman's sources.
Music critics too have been of two minds about Newman's interpretations of Bach, as illustrated in the following excerps from the New York Times:


"A hiccup effect, or a sudden pause…is it rubato or something else that Mr. Newman applies…whatever it is, it lurches absurdly."
"His use of rubato as a structural device is particularly subtle - tiny pauses at various key spots to isolate and define vertical blocks within a phrase"
"…his accents…startle, even outrage…it is like listening to someone who speaks your native language with breathtaking fluency but in a thick accent, sprinkled with outrageous mispronunciations."
"His free use of rhythm to define larger phrase structures…does serve its purpose admirably in addition to adding a touch of drama to his performances."
Over time Newman's fast tempos have become relatively common in the performance of Bach's works and his championing of the use of original instruments foreshadowed the historically informed performance movement in America by at least ten years.
*
Personal life*
At 28 Newman became a student of Zen Buddhism. He has practiced meditation several hours a day since then. Newman was a volunteer at the hospice unit of Stamford Hospital from 1995 to 2004. He is married to Rabbi Mary Jane Newman. They have three sons.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

And here, I thought Glenn Gould was eccentric!! Monsieur Couperin must be fair amazed. :lol:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Some of what you say about him makes me think of Ton Koopman, and Walcha. 

I listened to some French Suites, I don't know when he recorded them or what instrument he used. In the 6th I thought there was nothing else going on besides speed. He sometimes pounds the chords too, which I don't like personally. The 5th sounded much less offensive, but at the price of being a bit mediocre.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

@barbebleu: Does it really sound _that_ unusual to you? I think it sounds perfect.

In 1972 or whenever I first heard this, I'd never heard a muted harpsichord, and I thought it was some kind of lute or something, until the (unmated) harpsichord kicked in.

This is only one of the tracks from the Columbia album (pictured above, with the lotus, etc.). There is a close-mic'd recording of Bach's Chromatic Fantasy that is absolutely pants-leg flapping. Unfortunately it is not available except on the original vinyl LP record, that I know of. He's done other versions on Newport, etc., but this one is special. It must have been Clive Davis' doing.

I would do anything for Anthony Newman. He strikes me as a very, very special person.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Barbebleu said:


> And here, I thought Glenn Gould was eccentric!! Monsieur Couperin must be fair amazed. :lol:


It's interesting that in that one he hardly uses any rubato at all, a bit but nothing compared to eg Rousset, and yet he's trumpeted as being a pioneer. And the rubato he does use seems to me to be intrusive and pointless.

All the more ironic given that Francois Couperin was explicit about the need for rhythmic rubato.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Baroque performance controversy[/B]
> From the beginning Newman's interpretation of the music of J.S. Bach brought disdain from many musicians. His chosen tempos are generally extremely fast, and he often takes liberties with rhythm and ornamentation. Newman's argument in favor of his tempo is that what he calls the "traditional" approach to Bach began 100 years after Bach's death and is misguided by a mystique and reverence for the composer that results in performances which are slow, rhythmically restrained and without the vivification of ornamentation. In contrast, Newman's recordings of Bach have been considered "exciting" by some who are skeptical of the validity of his interpretations. In Newman's scholarly text, Bach and the Baroque, published in 1985 and revised in 1995, Newman supports his performance of Baroque music with a thorough analysis based on contemporary 17th and 18th century sources. Newman discusses how alterations to the written music - rhythmic variations such as rubato and notes inégales as well as improvised ornamentation - were common in Bach's time and that fast movements were played faster than has been traditionally accepted. Scholarly opposition to Newman's approach was led by Frederick Neumann who had long-held that notes inégales were limited primarily to French performance practice and that Bach, who traveled relatively little, would not have been exposed to this technique. In reviewing Newman's Bach and the Baroque in 1987 Neumann was at first somewhat gracious calling Newman "...a splendid keyboard performer who can dazzle his audiences with brilliant virtuosic feats. He can, and often does, play faster than perhaps any of his colleagues, and shows occasionally other signs of eccentricity." However he takes Newman to task for "careless scholarship" citing misuse of terms such as tactus and misinterpretation of Bach's notation. But his strongest objection is to Newman's defense of the use of notes inégales in the performance of Bach. Most of Neumann's complaints question the validity of


Here's Walcha in the 6th English Suite. He doesn't use rubato much but he has some of the same ideas about vitality, speed. What I'm trying to say is that Newman's not as eccentric as the OP makes out, even in terms of his peers, still less so if we look at modern Bach musicians.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> It's interesting that in that one he hardly uses any rubato at all, a bit but nothing compared to eg Rousset, and yet he's trumpeted as being a pioneer. And the rubato he does use seems to me to be intrusive and pointless.
> 
> All the more ironic given that Francois Couperin was explicit about the need for rhythmic rubato.


It is what it is, for me. I knew nothing of Rousset or Couperin before I heard this. The WIK entry does trumpet him as being a pioneer in HIP performance, for several reasons besides rubato. I guess you know too much, Mandryka, so it's ruined for you.

Ahh, ignorance is bliss! I'll be Anthony Newman's faithful servant whenever he needs me.

I think ideas about vitality and speed are the result of him being touched by a greater power, spiritual energy, and whatever is was that fueled Bach. I sense this directly in his playing.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's my favourite thing by Anthony Newman, Bull's Walsingham Variations. You get a real sense of the anger that these exiled catholics must have felt about the destruction of Walsingham cathedral - only Leon Berban comes close to Newman for that as far as I know,


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Hey, I've got a John Bull CD, and really like it. It has organs with weird tunings, and all sorts of keyboard instruments.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I got to know Anthony Newman (well, his music anyway) back in the psychedelic years – thus some of those album covers. My first LP of his was the Goldberg Variations. Later I had an album of pedal harpsichord and another with a fiery Italian Concerto, with a cover shown in MR’s post above.

More recently he published the complete organ works of Bach, played on various organs, as a ten buck download. This is a go-to set for me, even though the recording quality is variable! Sadly, it appears to be no longer available.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Hey, I've got a John Bull CD, and really like it. It has organs with weird tunings, and all sorts of keyboard instruments.


That's excellent.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

@Mandryka, Yeah, you can hear that energy kick in at 1:40. 

Sorry for the double-post. I had an electrician out here & the power was cut. The good news is, this guy is a fantastic electrician!

Just goes to show you we need geniuses in all fields, not just music. There must be something Chinese that applies to this.

@KenOC: any friend of Anthony Newman is a friend of mine!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> @barbebleu: Does it really sound _that_ unusual to you? I think it sounds perfect.
> 
> In 1972 or whenever I first heard this, I'd never heard a muted harpsichord, and I thought it was some kind of lute or something, until the (unmated) harpsichord kicked in.
> 
> ...


Each to his own MR. Enjoy Mr Newman as you will. In Scotland we have an alternative meaning for 'special'!!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Barbebleu said:


> Each to his own MR. Enjoy Mr Newman as you will. In Scotland we have an alternative meaning for 'special'!!


In America, we have an alternative meaning for "men who wear kilts." :lol:


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> In America, we have an alternative meaning for "men who wear kilts." :lol:


If you are ever in a conflict situation you might be glad of the support of 'men who wear kilts'. :lol:

Nemo me impune lacessit 
Or as we say in Scotland
'Wha daur meddle wi' me?'


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## JosefinaHW (Nov 21, 2015)

I'm going to check out his/Newman's music; I ADORE the eccentric!

As to men in kilts....... LOL...... Have you all seen the episode in _The Thin Blue Line_ when Stephen Fry (?-major brain fog??) plays the nature God? OMG!!! God help me, there's is nothing like British humor!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Barbebleu said:


> If you are ever in a conflict situation you might be glad of the support of 'men who wear kilts'. :lol:
> 
> Nemo me impune lacessit
> Or as we say in Scotland
> 'Wha daur meddle wi' me?'


What will they do? Throw haggis at the enemy?


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