The Appassionata and me

A little while ago, just because I had dinner ready and Howard was not home yet, I sat down at the old Steinway and played Beethoven's "Appassionata."

Just because I could!

Well, I did not know it would go as well as it did. Aside from running through the first movement yesterday, I had not played it in yikes, 15 years. But it came back pretty easily, I have to say that.

Something is almost funny in a way. I think I play better than I used to. Which does not make sense considering I have played hardly at all in 10 years or whatever. When I went to California to see Leonard Pennario I stopped playing. I do not know what it was. I think it was that I loved Pennario and when he died I just did not want to play, because what was I next to him? Maybe it was something like that, who knows.

Who cares, at this point. The long and short of it is, I have been going back to it a little bit here and there, and oddly enough, I am a lot better. Every time I leave the piano for a few years and go back to it I am way better than I was. Another thing, it might be now that I have become a better listener. Part of that comes from listening to Leonard while I have been working on his biography. Part of it comes from working so long as The Buffalo News' classical music critic. I had to listen to a lot and listen carefully and with an open mind.

Not to brag, but when it comes to music, I amaze myself with my capacity to listen. I got better at it over the years. I can sit through entire long, long concerts and never cough or move or fall asleep. I sit there motionless but wide awake, listening, listening, listening.

So maybe that has made me a better pianist when I was not looking. Another thing, my teacher, Stephen Manes, he was great with me. Now and then through my life I have met people who, their teacher told them over and over how great they were, and they have these big egos as a result and it stunts them. Stephen never told me I was great. Heck, he never told me I was good.

Instead he worked me hard. As I was reading through the Appassionata just now, there were signs of a struggle. Faint signs, in pencil, but eloquent all the same. Stephen always wrote freely in my scores, but his writing was always very faint and in pencil and I was finding it hard to read. It was a victory when, at one point, I made out "Rich tone."

My writing was no picnic either. Mostly what I wrote was notes. The notes in the Appassionata get really high, way above the treble staff, and really low, below the bass staff. Now, as opposed to then, it occurs to me that Beethoven was pushing the envelope of what was the normal voicing of the piano. He had the hands very far apart, or else very close together high up or low down. Anyway, I would count up the lines and the spaces, and pencil in "E flat," or "C," or whatever. I seem to remember Stephen was kind of disgusted by that.

And now I can kind of see why. Often these notes are part of arpeggios or something, and you can figure out what the notes are without counting up the lines of the staff or having to write them. Well, having said that, I have to say that my old notes did come in kind of handy.

Anyway, the Appassionata. Because I can!!

I am going to get it back under my fingers and never let it go. I decided that. A half hour every couple of days to run through it, how much is that? After all...

Play the piano daily and stay sane!

Columbus picture opens a new world

Since I mentioned my print of Christopher Columbus finding the New World, people who know about art have told me that it was painted by N.C. Wyeth. That is Mr. Wyeth pictured above!

One Facebook friend, the esteemed artist Michael Gelen, told me that. And another Facebook friend chimed in and said that N.C. Wyeth was the father of Andrew Wyeth.

Do I know quality when I see it or what? Just like I know quality when I hear it, as in the case of Leonard Pennario.

The picture of N.C. Wyeth does seem to suggest he had something of a fevered imagination. Wikipedia says that he illustrated books including "Treasure Island." You know what, I think that was the book my father read to us from when I was little. It had fevered illustrations that now that I think of it, remind me of the picture of Columbus on the high seas.

The best artists are the ones described as illustrators, you know?

A neat observation from Wikipedia: "Wyeth's exuberant personality and talent made him a standout student. A robust, powerfully built young man with strangely delicate hands, he ate a lot less than his size implied. He admired great literature, music, and drama, and he enjoyed spirited conversation."

"He ate a lot less than his size implied." That is priceless and cannot be said of me.

I eat a lot more than my size implies!

Here is something terrible and tragic. In 1945, "Wyeth and his grandson (Nathaniel C. Wyeth's son) were killed when the automobile they were riding in was struck by a freight train at a railway crossing near his Chadds Ford home."

All these things we are learning. Some of them funny and some of them sad. Like Columbus we are discovering an uncharted world. Uncharted to us anyway.

Oh, man. This is something that hits home for me. Wikipedia also says that N.C. Wyeth painted the pictures of Wagner, Beethoven and Liszt for Steinway and Sons. I have been to Steinway Hall in New York and seen those paintings. Even if I had not visited Steinway Hall, I would know them from books. That is amazing! I had no idea. I will have to explore that on my Music Critic Web log.

Anyway we can all see now where Andrew Wyeth got his talent. Why is he so much better known than the old man, is what I would like to know.

No justice in the world!

The record I couldn't resist

Pursuant to the purchase of my new chair, and weeding out my vinyl, I am reluctant to buy new records. I have so many and no time in which to listen to them.

However the other day I could not resist a Beethoven Ninth.

Bruno Walter is conducting it and the baritone is Mack Harrell. Mack Harrell is the father of the cellist Lynn Harrell who has been so nice to me about the Pennario book. This Beethoven Ninth must be heard! It is amazing the people who are forgotten who do not deserve to be forgotten and Mack Harrell is one. I bet he is a fantastic singer.

Back to my vinyl weeding. It is amazing what a little clean-up can do. I love going out to my sun room and not having it so messy. I love just sitting there and admiring it.

And I have to say when I am out looking at records it is hard to resist some of them. I tried to declare a moratorium on them, aside from Pennario records, of course, but they do not turn up as often as you would think, considering how popular he was.

Howard says, there is not much that can beat just having space. He might be right.

But still.

I will always have room for records!

Bonn-anza

My friend Michelle went to the Beethoven Haus in Bonn, Germany, and came home with gifts for me.

Above is a blurry picture of a Beethoven eraser!

And here is a musical note cookie cutter with a Beethoven Gummi Bear in the background. Well, I guess it would be a Gummi Beethoven. Michelle says that everywhere in Germany they are crazy about things Gummi. I have not inherited that mania but I love it.

Here is the Beethoven eraser with a Beethoven violin pencil.

It is a most pleasant collection of Beethoven souvenirs! The eraser is especially appropriate. Beethoven loved to use the eraser as opposed to Mozart who did not. They had different ways of operating. Mozart would just write out of his head. He had everything pre-written in his mind. Beethoven would work things out on paper and that involved a lot of erasing.

My piano teacher, Stephen Manes, he once showed me a copy of a Beethoven manuscript that showed how Beethoven had erased right through the paper! I never forgot that.

Here is Pennario who dared to play the slow movement of Beethoven's "Pathetique" Sonata as a piano concerto. Perhaps Beethoven would have written it that way ...



... had it not involved a lot of erasing.

It is beautiful, however you play it.

Like my souvenirs from the Beethoven Haus!

Utter clutter

There is nothing like spending half the afternoon -- heck, three quarters of the afternoon -- cleaning your house, and then wondering if the progress you made is visible to the naked eye.

That happened to me yesterday!

I am having the family Thanksgiving so I must needs clean and child-proof the house. And there is just so much to do.

The problem is not dirt. The problem is clutter. I got that picture up above on the Internet but it is pretty close to the truth. All it needs is some Leonard Pennario albums and file cards to make the picture complete.

Then as I clean up I keep finding things I want to listen to and look at. Well, I am good at fighting that.

I found part of a Choceur chocolate bar from Albrecht Discount and ate it.

I found a Beethoven sonata book and so I stopped and played the piano for a little while.

Two steps forward, one step back! That is how the house is cleaned. At least I think it is cleaned. Well, I think I have started at least anyway.

Can anybody tell?

Sit facing the keyboard

The other day I decided I had to start playing the piano again. For a couple of months I had not so much as put my hands on the keyboard.

It felt terrible not to be playing because for so long I had worked pretty hard on the piano, you know? And I hate to let it all go.

Anyway, on Sunday night I think it was, I walked past the old Steinway in the living room and it was just sitting there forlornly all quiet with nobody playing it. Howard does a lot of his playing at Big Blue. It felt like forever since anyone had played this piano. And I remembered when my world revolved around it.

So I felt for the piano, sitting there like this big silent animal. And I sat down.

The first thing I did was play this Schubert Impromptu that I could play in my sleep pretty much. I thought I could start with that. Here is Al Brendel playing that piece.



I always have to say "Al Brendel" because that is how Earl Wild wrote it in his book.

Howard came in while I was playing the Schubert and he stood there and listened and told me it sounded great! Not only that but he took that picture of me up above, playing the piano. I am going to keep it to commemorate the occasion.

After the Schubert I got brave and decided to play a little part of Beethoven's "Appassionata" Sonata. I love the slow movement ...



... how Beethoven gives you this melody and then he doubles up the notes, then he takes it in threes, and then in fours. The part where he goes into fours is my favorite part. And, more importantly than what I felt about it, the music was sitting right there.

I started playing the Beethoven and then something funny happened.

I wound up playing the whole sonata!

I could not believe it!

It is not as if it was the greatest but it was way better than I had thought it would be. And this one part that used to give me problems mysteriously no longer gave me problems. I could not believe that. I stopped and checked myself to make sure I was nailing all the notes. Yep, I was.

Thank you God! Thank you Beethoven!

Today I felt different because I had played Beethoven's "Appassionata" the night before. I mean, already I am different because I am the authorized biographer of Leonard Pennario. But having played the "Appassionata" the night before added that other dimension.

I am one lucky gal!

A night at the cheap theater

Will someone please tell me where the weekend went?

One thing I remember, I went with my mom to see "Water For Elephants." That is a bad title, you know? I know it was the book title but it is still bad. I keep wanting to say, "Like Water For Elephants." As in: "Like Water For Chocolate," another ridiculous title. People kept explaining to me the meaning behind "Like Water For Chocolate" and I never could remember it and I still think it was dumb.

But anyway, "Water For Elephants" was about a Depression-era circus. This guy is trained as a veterinarian and he joins the circus and promptly falls in love with the ringmaster's wife.

There were good scenes of trains and animals. They had the cutest elephant and one scene that I loved had them putting up the big top. You could tell they knew how good a scene that was.

Reese Witherspoon looked kind of trashy all the way through but I think she was supposed to be that way. She was a circus babe!

One thing about "Water For Elephants," it did not know when to end. There was one ending and then another and then another. Personally I think it should have ended the first time around, when the hero and heroine have escaped, jumped out of the train or something, I forget what happened. My mind is too full of Leonard Pennario. Want to hear what happened to him in the spring of 1951? I can tell you. Name a year, any year.

I am loving this cool weather. All day it was quiet and I could work. Take your summer! I do not miss it.

Where was I?

Oh, right, the endings for "Water For Elephants." It ended once and then it ended twice. Sort of like the end to Beethoven's Fifth. ...



You are going, OK, Ludwig, enough chords, wrap it up. Time for the artist to lift his brush, as Howard likes to say.

But all in all the movie was fine and my mother liked it which is good enough for me.

My mom and I have been going to the movies once a week but I cannot help thinking, pretty soon we are going to run up against a week with no good movies. There are not many good movies out there and very few you can take your mother to, that is for sure. It is living on the brink, trying to go to the movies once a week.

Next week, what? It adds to the challenge that we go only to the cheap theater, i.e., Movieland 8.

Ha, ha! That reminds me! Before the movie we went to the Wehrle Restaurant. And the waitress there, we mention we are going to the movies and we need the check. She brings and asks what movie we're seeing. And we tell her.

"Ah," she says. "The cheap theater!"

We all call it that here in Buffalo! They can go ahead and call themselves, ahem, Movieland 8. But it is the cheap theater. Two nights a week, Wednesday and Friday, admission is only $2.

That is what movies were when I was a kid!

Amazing, that one thing did not change.

Moon over Buffalo

Last night I went to Artpark and it was a beautiful night with a full moon. My friend Lizzie went with me. Lizzie is a corrections officer and she was telling me that when there is a full moon the inmates go crazy.

That sounds like something out of "Carmen" but it is true! Well, a lot of things out of "Carmen" are true.

My Uncle James used to be in charge of the Psych Center, the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, and my dad said that Uncle James said that when there was a full moon they had to put on extra staff.

Pennario had a hilarious story about what a woman said to him once after he played Clair de Lune.

Perhaps there was a full moon then!

It is fun to wonder what exactly happens when the moon is full. It is a barometric pull, or a magnetic pull? On the other hand I do not actually want to know. Once I saw a book all about what actually happens when you hear a Beethoven symphony, the neurons that fire in your brain, things like that. I stayed well away from that book! Talk about ruining the pleasure for yourself. What if you went tonight to "Beethoven Rocks the Harbor" on the Buffalo waterfront? When you heard the Allegretto from the Seventh Symphony you would be thinking all about your neurons.

TMI, as our public officials in Buffalo like to say!

It is best to savor the mysteries of music and the moon.

Can it!

Today the chili sauce I made yesterday was sitting bubbling in two gigantic Crock pots, awaiting my attention. So I had to can it.

What a task!!

You always think it will be easy. Then something always complicates things. Today it was that I had all wide-mouth jars and not enough wide-mouth lid rings.

I did have the lids. I found them in a plastic bag in the cellar, still in their little supermarket box. But the rings that fit around the lids and hold them down, that was my fatal error. When I cleaned the kitchen a few weeks ago I do remember throwing a couple of them out because I got into clutter-cleaning mode. This was the wages of that.

Many many trips were necessary into my cobwebby 1920 cellar. Every spider in the Western Hemisphere must be in my cellar! I could not walk anywhere without going, "Eeeeeuuuwwwww!"

As the project squeaked forward there were long vast lots of time that had to be filled. I went over to the piano and sat there in my apron and played Beethoven's Sonata Op. 101 which always calms me down in stressful situations. It is like getting a massage! Not that I have ever gotten a massage but I think if I got one that is what it would feel like.

Then I got the big pot of water boiling for the jars and played Beethoven Op. 109. That is my favorite Beethoven sonata! Well, I do not like to talk about favorite anything because there is too much competition.

When it came time to put the chili sauce into the jars, that is the really stressful part! I am always worried about whether the jars will seal right. There is always something.

I sealed up the first seven and got them into the boiling water. While they boiled I horsed around with my new record player/CD burner. I was trying to make a CD of Leonard Pennario playing this Beethoven sonata I love. I was in a Beethoven mood today! And I thought tomorrow being Monday it would make my life easier if I could take along Pennario's Beethoven.

Nothing is simple and when I got to the last movement the display on the record player was reading: "Fail."

I failed!

The appliance is telling me I failed!

Howard and I always joke about appliances telling us stuff. Our favorite is when the appliance tells you "Wait." You are standing there waiting because the appliance is telling you to.

Now tomorrow I will have to settle for Alfred Brendel ...


... playing that sonata which, I am sorry but it is nowhere near as much fun. Pennario's is explosive. It is as if you took your TV and turned up the contrast.

The good news is all but one jar sealed. Ta da! I have 12 jars of chili sauce sealed and only one that is not and what the heck, that one I can eat right away. You always want one jar not sealed properly because that is your excuse to eat that one right away. Maybe I will make something with it and take it into work tomorrow.

I will not have Pennario playing Beethoven but I will have chili sauce. That is something anyway.

Isn't that a great canning picture at the top of this post? Here is another one I love.


Now I kind of want to do more canning. Canning is like that. You get everything assembled ... the jars, the lids, the rings, the little grabber thing that grabs the cans out of the water. And then you see pictures like this.


And you want to do more.

Hmmmm. I have so much in my kitchen. I have so many options.

What will it be next?

Saturday shopping

Zut alors, here I am late again posting! Guess what I did!

Did I hear someone say, "Go shopping with your mother?" We have a winner! Above is a picture of me shopping.

I was gone all afternoon. First we went to an estate sale on Lorfield in Snyder and next we went to an estate sale on Alberta Drive which is near the Boulevard Mall. Not Alberta Drive. Another street just like that. I cannot remember which one.

All I got at the estate sales was a kitchen timer. For a buck! It is the old-fashioned spring kind that does not take a battery and goes "ping." I want it for when I am baking bread.

One thing, at the estate sale where I was buying the timer, the line got really long. I waited it out because what the heck, my mother was with me and I was not going anywhere fast anyhow.

They had a checkout lady in training, was what the problem was. Someone was paying with a credit card. And there was lots of back-and-forth:

"OK, now you need to ask for the driver's license."

"Can I have your driver's license?"

"Now write down the information."

"What information?"

This went on and on. And I am standing there with this stupid kitchen timer. I should have set the timer for an hour, just to hear it go "Ping!"

Luckily my timer was just a dollar so I did not have to use a credit card. Oh, wait, I do not have a credit card anyway.

After that estate sale we stopped at the Salvation Army on Niagara Falls Boulevard so I could scour the vinyl. OK, I bought a dress too. And a skirt. And a tank top!

But the vinyl I found! I got "The Best of Leonard Pennario, Vol. 3" which, my brother George has snapped it up because yesterday he just got his record player up and playing. Miklos' Rozsa's "Spellbound" Concerto is on that record and George is a fan of Miklos Rozsa.

I also got an extra copy of "Rhapsody Under the Stars."

And "Concertos Under the Stars." You cannot have too many of those!

All these Pennario albums! Luck was with me today. That is for sure.

Then I got "Horowitz on Television." There is this great picture of the weaselly little Horowitz sitting there with this gigantic TV camera focused on him. It looks huge and inhuman, like an X-ray machine or something. See and believe!


Also I got Glenn Gould playing Beethoven. And Claudio Arrau playing Beethoven's "Eroica" Variations which I love and I play myself. I had the Arrau performances on CD already but I prefer vinyl.

Here is the last part of the "Eroica" Variations, the part I love. It is magical! It is not Arrau but it is Emil Gilels. Pennario liked Gilels and I do too.

So that was nice, three albums by Pennario, three by lesser pianists but you know what, I still enjoy them now and then. Also I got an album by Ahmad Jamal. I have a weakness for Ahmad Jamal and this one had him playing Duke Ellington's "Squeeze Me" which is a song that I love.

As I was standing at the checkout loaded down with these albums wouldn't you know, the woman in front of me goes through this big show of emptying out all her change on the counter, looking for a nickel or whatever.

This was as bad as the estate sale!

I know I am not at Lord and Taylor but still I am thinking: Can we once, just once, buy something without incident?

Not on a Saturday in my life, I will tell you that right now.

Breeches of protocol

Wow, those Tea Parties! I did not go to the one in Buffalo and now I think I should have. What fun!

Not because I would like to have joined the protest. I have gotten to the point where I think it is useless to protest anything. I tried to protest my church closing, and no use, mean Bishop Kmiec closed it. I tried to protest my library closing, and you know what? It closed. Now we have no library at all in North Buffalo because the paltry branch they grudgingly left open closed, too.

I did not want the Aud knocked down and I did not want "Artemis and the Stag" sold and I am not wild about this huge deficit, either. But guess what? Nobody cares what I think. So.

Here is the real reason I wish I was at the Tea Party.

I love men in 18th century clothes!

It goes back to when I was a kid and was in love with Mozart. Certain things were planted into my brain and one is that knee breeches and buckled shoes and tri-cornered hats are appealing. These images ...


...were hard-wired permanently in my mind when I was a teenager and watched the Masterpiece Theatre series "Poldark." Check out that picture at the top of the post. Ha, ha! That did not come from the actual show. There was this one family who held a picnic in Cornwall and they all dressed up as Poldark characters. I guess I am not the only one with a taste for frock coats and ruffled shirts!

I also like those decanters of brandy everyone in British movies keeps handy at all times. I asked Leonard Pennario if those brandy decanters really are everywhere in those grand British houses and he said yes.


That is the kind of thing Pennario and I would be discussing when we should have been talking about Beethoven.

Speaking of which, by the time you associate with Beethoven, which would be the early 1800s, the fashions had slid. Those empire-waist gowns could make you look fat and the guys, Beethoven included, all had those sideburns. That is one reason I could never quite jump on the Jane Austen bandwagon.

People do not know this about Beethoven but before he got old and scruffy he was a clotheshorse and a fashion plate like Mozart. Here is a picture of Beethoven with his 'burns.


What about Robert Burns? He was from the same time so he had them too.


I could talk about this all day! But alas.

Speaking of fashions going to pot, my morning is going to pot. I must go and take my daily constitutional.

No empire-waisted gowns for me!

Of mice and men

This is terrible but Howard thinks there might be mice in the bedroom. The other night he heard a rustling coming from his nightstand.

"What's that?" he said.

"I'm sure it's nothing," I said. That is my answer to everything like this. If I am driving and the car starts making a funny noise, my solution is to turn up the Beethoven. That is what I do.

"I heard something," he said.

Then I tried to tell him it was his sleep apnea mask. Howard has this sleep apnea mask he wears and it always making these rustling and puffing sounds. At least I always thought it did. Maybe it was mice I have been hearing! Maybe he is right!

Howard says maybe the mice are in the walls. That makes me remember when I was 16 and I spent a summer in Chautauqua with my cousin Caroline, when I was studying piano there. I can't remember what Caroline was studying. I think she was studying partying. Whereas I was like this little nun. It was a miracle we got along as well as we did.

Anyway, Caroline and I in addition to our respective studies worked as chambermaids at the Maple Inn. It is still there! We slept on the third floor, in this bed under the eaves. Back then everyone always shared beds and no one thought anything about it. And all night long we would hear these mice in the walls, inches from our ears. They would scamper around and you could hear their little paws scrabbling this way and that. And sometimes one would take a tumble, and you would hear it fall down a great distance and then clamber up again.

Here is a picture of the Maple Inn. It is on the left. They do not show you the mice! We got used to having them around.


But just because I got used to them then does not mean I want to get used to them now!

So what I am going to do is clean up the bedroom from top to bottom. It will be tough because the bedroom is a mess with dressers too crammed with stuff and clothes lying around. I have just had no time to clean it up.

When I started writing my book on Leonard Pennario no one told me there would be days like this! I think I am too preoccupied with Pennario's life to look after my own life adequately. I am afraid that is what is happening.

Well, I am not going to let this depress me. Everyone has a mouse story. That is because in Buffalo we have these long winters and old houses. Long winters + old houses = mouse. That is the geometrical truth.

My piano teacher, the eminent pianist Stephen Manes, had the world's best mouse story. That is Stephen pictured at left. I wish I could have found a bigger picture on the Internet but that is all I could find. There are no pictures of him out there. It must be his way of making sure he stays off my blog. Ha, ha! Lots of luck!

Once years ago, I interrupted my performance of Beethoven's Opus 109 to tell Stephen about a mouse problem I was having. He got that funny look people always get when they have a mouse story and are not sure whether to tell it to you. Their sense of humor is struggling with their sense of shame. I know that feeling, believe you me.

But then Stephen spilled. And it was a good story. There had been these mice in his house. They had tried everything to get rid of them but the mice seemed to survive everything. Finally he found out why.

What was happening was, every night, he and his wife would set the table for breakfast. And they would put out their vitamins so they would remember to take them.

And the mice were eating the vitamins!

They were turning into Supermice!

I can't remember how Stephen was ultimately able to solve the problem. I was laughing too hard to absorb the story's ending. But maybe I should ask him.

Then again, maybe the noise in the bedroom was really Howard's sleep apnea machine after all. Yes, I am sure that it was.

And if I find out it isn't, I can always just turn up the Beethoven.