Frequently Asked Questions

What is this all about?
It's about a pianist who is trying to escape the world, the nastiness of critics, the falseness of society that doesn't value anything difficult. The last place he finds is an abandoned monastery several weeks' trek into the Himalayas. A producer tracks him down, and makes a night-long recording of him. There are enormous difficulties leaving the monastery, several people die, and at some point the pianist goes missing.

Is it a climbing story?
No. The actual story has yet to be told.

What is it then?
It's the producer's story of making the recording. It also contains extensive notes and comments by the pianist on what he plays.

What's so special about a pianist talking about music?
The way he talks about it is much looser, much more free-flowing than usual, much more personal and real, with none of the musicological jargon that makes program notes so actually uninformative.

Are the pictures real, or just stock photos from some service?
They're real, taken by the pianist just before he disappeared in the Himalayas. The film was found in his knapsack, along with his camera, manuscripts, a diary, and the usual climbing gear: carabiners, pitons, crampons, an ice axe, rope, a survival blanket, etc.

How many pages are there?
Really only about 150. The type has been made bigger to make it readable on TV screens, and to emphasize the poetry of the pianist's writing style. The 765 pages on the album cover is a dyslexic error: there are 675 screens, many of them taken up by photographs.

What are the hyperlinks?
They are found in the Program Notes. You have to go to the Contents and scroll down to the Program Notes on the second and third page of the Contents, and then click on the notes for the piece you're interested in. Some notes have more hyperlinks than others. For instance, the notes to Un Sospiro have hyperlinks on the first few pages.

You use the arrow key on your remote control to arrow up to the link you want. It then becomes underlined.

Then you press "Enter" on your remote to play the link. It only lasts for a few seconds to illustrate what the text is talking about. For instance, in Un Sospiro, the word "arpeggio" is blue. When you arrow to it and press Enter, you see a photograph with the word "arpeggio" on it, and hear an arpeggio played, so you know what an arpeggio is. It is the opening arpeggio from Un Sospiro, so the example is in context.

If I don't have the patience for 675 pages, what should I do?
Click on the chapter called "Chess." It's only a paragraph. It's pretty dense, but it's interesting. You could also click on "Turret," which is a fragment by the pianist describing his growing up wealthy and isolated. He later suffered reversals and had a very hard time of it, although this part of his life remains to be documented.

Why is his music so special?
Click on the chapters "Tempo" and "Slowness" to read briefly why he believed in playing music as if the pianist were discovering it for the first time, rather than the slicker way a pianist would play a piece for the 100th time to impress people with his mastery of it. Brinkerhoff believed in discovery.

Why is every piece in D Flat?
Actually, Brinkerhoff played for eight straight hours, and he played pieces in many different keys. It was only later that we discovered from the notes found in his knapsack that he had intentionally played the first 13 pieces in D Flat. Each piece is about nature, such as rainfall, wind, or moonlight, and when you put them all together, it's a portrait of 13 things which would normally happen to you if you spent a day outdoors, so it's kind of an "outdoors suite," except it's by many different composers, so it's interesting to see how each composer saw a different aspect of the day.

But what makes D Flat so special?
I guess that was Brinkerhoff's quest, to explore the reasons why composers picked D Flat instead of another key. You have to read all his Program Notes to get the complete picture, but if I could sum it up, D Flat is a very soothing, contemplative key. Anytime a piece goes from another key into D Flat, you can hear nature calm down. Everyone has a sacred spot, where you go to feel safe, cozy, loved, at peace. Maybe it's a church, or a pond, or a park bench, or bed. D Flat is that kind of place for composers.

Two of the pieces on the album, "Paysage" and "Down a Country Lane," start in the key of F and gradually slide into D Flat and then go back to F. You can actually hear the calm when D Flat is reached.

What makes the DVD any better than the web site?
The sound is better, the photos are almost luminous and there are more of them, the way the text sits on each page makes it feel poetic, there are hyperlinks, and, of course, you can hear all 13 pieces.

I just have an ordinary TV and a stereo, none of the modern 24/96 high-end equipment. What do I do?
You do need a DVD machine.

Plug the left and right audio outputs of your DVD machine into your stereo's left and right inputs, and plug the video output of the DVD machine into your TV's video input. You can then push the "Menu" button on the DVD remote to see the "Audio Setup" button.

Use the arrows to go to "Audio Setup" and hit "Enter," and then click on "Dolby Digital" and hit "Enter." All DVD machines can play Dolby Digital.

However, almost all new DVD machines can also play 24/96, and it sounds better. Since that's the "default" setting, it will play automatically if you just put the disc in your machine and hit "Play."

Obviously, the better your system, the better the disc will sound.

I don't have a stereo, just a TV.
That's fine. JUst plug your DVD machine into your TV. The better your TV, the better the album will sound and look.

Can I play it in the upcoming DVD-Audio machines?
Only the Dolby Digital track. Unfortunately, DVD-Audio machines don't have any of the special features of DVD-Video machines. They can't play movies, hyperlinks, or text.

However, the "Universal" DVD machines coming out around July of 2000 should be able to play the album and access its special features.

How can I buy the album?
Go to towerrecords.com, amazon.com, or everycd.com. It's listed under "classical music" or "new releases."