By James Call
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-916500.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – He's been called an everyman, a troubadour, the voice of a generation. In many ways Bob Dylan is a human chameleon. For more than forty years, whenever his fans think they have uncovered the real Dylan, he re-emerges in a different incarnation. Now, James Call reports a classical pianist says Dylan's musical talent is in the tradition of Gershwin, Porter and Chopin.
Nina Deutsch is a graduate of Juilliard and Yale. She has performed at Carnegie Hall. The New York Times wrote of one of her performances, "Miss Deutsch held the audience spellbound for an hour and a half."
Deutsch is an acclaimed specialist in the work of Charles Ives. Few attempt to interpret more than one of his pieces; Deutsch has mastered and recorded them all. In 1982 as part of a cultural exchange program, she gave an American music concert in China and discovered what she called the genius of Bob Dylan.
"He's a genuine composer. When you hear those melodies and you hear his gift for melody, there's a special gift, a lyrical gift there that people are not aware of. Most of the music that you hear by him is in arrangements with three or four instruments or more. By the time you listen to the arrangement, a lot of the progression of the melody or the harmonic movement of the melody has been disguised."
People find all kinds of things in Dylan's songs. Jimi Hendrix discovered a cacophony in the starkly composed "All Along the Watchtower." Eric Clapton uncovered a childlike innocence in a dying man's words in "Knockin' on Heaven's Door."
Dylan's genius, said Deutsch, shows in the way he juxtaposes dark moods with uplifting music. She is particularly drawn to "Song to Woody." The words are about a tired old world, but Deutsch hears a different story in the music.
"Even though he may not have intended ever to become a spokesperson for any specific political idea, format or group, his music consoles and supports everyone who listens to what they love of his music. And part of his creative gift is the creation of an optimistic musical sound underneath his critical judgment and testimony on difficult world conditions."
Deutsch has given a classical treatment to twenty-six Dylan compositions. She became intrigued by his work when she redid "Blowin' in the Wind" as part of a cultural exchange initiative with China during the Cold War. It was in that exercise that Deutsch said she found what she refers to as Dylan's harmonious gifts.
"When I did those pieces, I strung them together as if they were a group of Chopin preludes, so that you could play them one after the other and they would be in different keys that would work together just as the short Chopin preludes do. They are one page pieces or two page pieces many of them, but they express many different kinds of emotions. Some of it is on the grand scale. Some of it is very intimate."
Nina Deutsch studied under legendary Florida State University music professor Edward Kilenyi. Her "Music of Bob Dylan" CD was recorded as a live performance in one take. Her classical interpretations of American folk music can be found on a host of social media websites.