My Soundtrack: Tough Times

Remember your early twenties?  Mine were messy years full of failed romance, late nights at bars, career disappointment, money trouble, all the usual growing pains.  This Chicago Symphony rendition of the Ravel “Valses Nobles et Sentimentales” stays in my memory as the medicine of those years.  Somehow these boozy, edgy, elegant, almost-out-of-control waltzes carried me through–not that I noticed it at the time.  They come back to me like the shape of ashes after the years burned away.  I really love these little pieces.

Scroll forward about fifteen years and you come to me writing my thesis at Dartmouth.  I was still a frenzied mess, but enjoying it a lot more.  Lou Reed’s 1978 version of “Sweet Jane” was on a loop for days while I sweat out the last few pages of the short story collection that would be my culminating work.  This is still my favorite version, and really the only Lou Reed cut I like at all.

The first time I heard the Morten Lauridsen ”Lux Aeterna” was on September 11, 2001, when an NPR journalist played it in tribute to those who died in the World Trade Towers that day.  This piece is a smooth stone I’ve carried and stroked for the past decade.  It has been a sturdy accompaniment to all kinds of challenges:  untimely deaths of several friends, spiritual crises, family drama.  Sometimes I just need a “good cry” and this Agnus Dei always obliges.

I was seriously injured in October of 2005 and by the summer of 2006 I started to wonder if I’d ever be able to play the piano again.  My back and shoulders were nearly immobilized and my left arm was out of commission with pain and dystonia.  I made myself hack away at this Bach invention (#8 in F major) day after day.  It is a compact little piece and though Glenn Gould makes it sound like the easiest thing ever, I advise you it is not.  However–it saved me.  Bit by bit my shoulders became more mobile and my left hand simply went along for the ride.  I know the reason I’m able to play now is that I held onto Bach and wouldn’t let go.  I still play several inventions whenever I sit at the piano.  They are truly my life’s tonic.

In the winter of 2009 my life was at its nadir.  I couldn’t work and was nearing two years without any income; my house was a shambles after a burst water pipe ruined the kitchen and the electrical wiring; I was tired, cold, and discouraged.  One day everything changed–just a little bit, but enough for me to see some light at the end of the tunnel.  I had just received good news from my lawyer when this “Serenade for Strings” came on the radio.  The bright, bright opening phrases were sunlight pouring into the room.  This piece radiates hope for me and has come to be my theme song for this part of my life.  It promises joy and maybe even some lightheartedness.  We all need these moments of sunlight–life is pretty hard without them.

A Chinese Garden Attitude

When I was I China I spent a lot of time on trains in the countryside.  It was the middle of the summer and the fields were bright green with rice and squash.  I loved to observe the beautiful landscape, complete with water buffalo and those characteristic terraces that give the place such distinction.  One of the things I found most satisfying was the way the Chinese used every available inch for growing food.  Little places we might ignore, such as traffic islands and boulevards along streets or the sides of drainage ditches, were alive with vegetable vines and trellises.  I have often thought about how much space we take for granted and how different our diets would be if we would cultivate food crops instead of lawns.

Anybody who’s known me for more than five minutes has heard about how I can’t grow any vegetables because my yard RECEIVES NO SUN!  Except for this tiny strip next to the driveway, which until recently has been overgrown with weeds.  It’s a problem area:  Reggie, the snowplow guy, scrapes it and piles snow on it all winter long so you can’t have grass or perennials there.  We used to pile wood along the driveway, but it became too much hassle with the snowplow.  What to do?  I decided to go Chinese on this one and cultivate it for hill crops and pole beans.

I realize there are few neighborhoods where this course of action would be acceptable.  It looks pretty funny to see my heavily mulched cukes, squash, and pumpkins (never mind the “rustic” trellises for the pole beans) right out front along the driveway.  Our neighbor next door is actually excited about the veggies.  We’ll see how he feels when the ninety-fifth zucchini hits his doorstep.  If the experiment is a success, we’ll have pickles and slicers and fresh beans…and Halloween Jack O’Lanterns.  And I’ll feel virtuous making good use of formerly wasted space.

One of the best things about gardening is there’s always next year if this plan doesn’t work out.  I’ll let you know…

My Soundtrack: The Early Gigs

Ken Davenport, my first orchestra teacher, probably saved my life.  He gave me real music to play and took me seriously as a musician, so I started to believe in myself.  I could write a book about all the difference that made in my life.  Instead, I offer this witty performance of “The Elephant” from St. Seans’ Carnival of the Animals, the first piece I played as a 13-year-old accompanist for a soloist (in my case, the soloist was Mr. Davenport himself, a fine double-bass player).  “The Elephant” has been immortalized in family lore as the piece I hummed for HOURS on a plane trip to keep my antsy baby daughter subdued.  It worked.

I liked the role of accompanist (I still do).  My first gig with a REAL opera singer was with a soprano in this Handel aria.  I learned a lot about ensemble playing–and about following a soprano through forests of arpeggios.  I have to confess it didn’t irk me as much then as it does now.  I guess I’ve had to follow one too many sopranos.  At any rate, I’ve probably accompanied vocalists, especially opera singers, more than any other category of musician in my life.  I’m always thrilled with the voice and truly admire people who sing.  And I’m a sucker for the opera repertoire, corny as it may be.

“The Sting” came out while I was in high school and I performed “The Entertainer” for a pops concert.  Learning ragtime was fun.  It’s loose and happy and quite technically challenging.  I also played piano and violin in pit orchestras for “Fiddler on the Roof,”  “Hello, Dolly,” and “Bells Are Ringing.”  I went to a huge suburban high school with a fine music program and will be forever grateful for these experiences.  My biggest musical moment as a teenager, though, had to be the final concert of my high school career when I played the Beethoven Piano Concerto #3 with full orchestra.

This performance by Emil Gilels (be patient–the solo part doesn’t appear until about 3:25 into the video) is exactly like the one in my head.  This is a muscular piece I’m sure I couldn’t play at this point in my life.  I’m glad I did it when I was young and healthy.  It is also the only big piece I’ve ever done as a soloist.

Other big pieces:  massive choral works, tough chamber music, complicated oratorios…were yet to come.

Stay tuned!

My Soundtrack, Part I

I was about ten years old and had my ear pressed against the scratchy cloth cover of the console stereo speaker.  My mother had allowed me to turn on the radio, a rare treat, but the volume had to stay at “3″ (out of a possible 20–you get the picture).  I listened to the classical station, a choice influenced by my parents’ acquisition of FIFTY GREAT MOMENTS IN MUSIC, an album given away with a qualifying gasoline purchase.  Add to that the fact I was starting to study the classical repertoire on the piano and you see a music nerd in the making.  I was a product of what’s come to be known as “Middlebrow” culture–the movement of a post-war middle class to expose itself to great books and great music.  For many, including my parents, a Great Moment in Music was enough.  For me, though, the first taste only gave rise to a ferocious hunger.

On that day I heard the Bach Double for the first time.

I don’t know how to explain to you what that experience meant to me.  My Rubicon?  The Road Less Taken?  The Food of Love?  It was truly profound.  I heard the Largo and could hardly breathe.  I was flooded with sweetness.  All I could think of during that experience was that I had to hear it again and again–forever, maybe.  As soon as the piece ended I went to my mother and begged to get a recording of the Bach Double Concerto (I had carefully memorized what this magical thing was called) for Christmas.

I don’t remember how close we were to Christmas at that point, but I remember it seemed an eternity away.  I was willing to wait, however, as long as it took to finally possess that gorgeous music.  I would remind my parents frequently of my desire.  Their responses should have tipped me off about the likelihood  of getting the record:  “We don’t know where to get something like that.”  (I suggested Schmitt music in Minneapolis, where my piano teacher bought my sheet music)  “It’s probably not available around here.”  “You don’t really need that.”  Etc.

Looking back I realize my parents were intimidated by the whole classical music milieu.  Listening to an album you pick up at the gas station is one thing.  Walking into a big music store in the city and asking for a strange record album is another.  Needless to say, they didn’t come through.  When they told me “We couldn’t get it because it was out of stock,” I knew even then they hadn’t tried and would never try.  I gave up on the idea.

Not long after Christmas I went with my parents and my holiday loot to a record store at Brookdale, a new mall not far from our home town.  I found an album featuring Robert and Gaby Casadesus playing the Bach Concerto for Two Pianos.  I knew this was not the Bach Double, but it cost 99 cents and I had the money.  Despite the stern counseling of my mother (“How do you know you’ll like it?  Do you even know what that is?  You probably won’t listen to it enough to justify spending the money on it.”  Etc.) I made the purchase.   It was the first record album I ever bought and I almost wore it out.  From that point my life filled with recordings, rehearsals, performances, background and foreground of classical music and I never looked back.

Now, 45 years later, I can have whatever music I want whenever I want it from about a thousand different sources.  Interestingly, I don’t own (and I never have owned) a recording of the Bach Double.  It has become, I guess, my Holy of Holies–that place marking the meaning of existence where you can never go.  I listen for it in the ether–a chance broadcast on the radio, a serendipitous performance, the background music at a bookstore.  Even posting the link for this blog I only listened to the first few bars of the Largo.  Some things are too precious to be consumed, posessed, controlled.  Romantic, isn’t it, that I believe I’ll hear this Largo someday as I sail toward heaven.

The Brandywine Protocol

 

Remember Vito Corleone in the tomato patch at the end of The Godfather?  I don’t have much in common with the Mob boss except an obsession with a nice, ripe tomato and if I die in a tomato patch like old Vito–well, that wouldn’t be so bad.  Every year I make a good-faith effort to grow some slicers in my sun-starved garden and every year I fail.

Here’s my latest attempt.  I decided to try to eke out one decent Brandywine vine.  As you can see, I couldn’t find just one starter plant at the nursery.  I had to buy a six-pack, so the plants are smaller than I would have liked.  Strike one.  The Brandywine tomato takes about 100 days to maturity, which is a long shot here in Vermont.  I will grow mine in containers on a warm patio with a south-eastern exposure, but even that is fraught with peril.  Tomatoes need some hot days, which we may or may not get.  Strike two.  I transplanted the starter plants into larger pots and fed them some yummy compost.  I’ll keep them on the screen porch until it’s warm enough to transplant them again into their permanent outdoor containers.  And I’ll try to keep them dry and well aired, because this heirloom variety isn’t too disease-resistant.  Strike three.

Why do I bother?  I live within a mile of several good farm stands that will be brimming with tomatoes come August and September.  In fact, I decided years ago to give up trying to grow my own canners.  I buy canners by the bushel from a local farmer for far less than it would cost me to grow them.  There will be plenty of beautiful slicers, too, in several varieties and plum tomatoes in gorgeous piles of yellow and red.

Like Vito, though, I really want the pleasure of stepping out of my back door and plucking a warm tomato from the vine.  The last time I tried to grow Brandywines I literally got ONE tomato for my trouble.  And it was delicious.  I’ll keep trying, partly because this is the kind of puzzle I like to solve and partly because I believe my luck could turn any day.  At this point in the gardening cycle, everything is possible.  Maybe ALL SIX plants will thrive and I’ll be drowning in tomatoes.  Just maybe.

Terroir

my lettuce, Opus I, May 5th

Sometimes we act like we just invented eating.  I’ll admit I’m a bit of a sideline foodie–I read a few food blogs, I watch Top Chef, I only use eggs from free-range chickens.  When I encounter the full-blown rhapsodizing about terroir and localvorism (?), though, I can only muster a weak smile.  I do grow some of my own food using gallons of homemade compost but can’t get too worked up about the unique qualities of this patch of earth.  For, you see, if we get technical about it, most of my home-grown produce has its roots literally in coffee grounds.

My little patch is on a north-facing bluff overlooking a lazy oxbow in the Black River.  It’s taken years for me to realize that though most of Vermont is Zone 4, my own particular piece of it is more like whatever the zone is for the North Pole.  Bordering this arctic landscape are four giant maples, my lovely friends, who provide thick shade for the entire growing season.  So I can grow lettuce, spinach, a few herbs, coleus, hosta, impatiens, bleeding heart, and a few willful lilies.  I feed them with compost from the backyard bin.  I feed the compost every day with vegetable peelings, egg shells, rotting leaves, and the like but mostly with coffee grounds.  We drink several pots of coffee every morning and I dutifully dump the grounds out of the filter into the compost bowl as I refresh each pot.  The compost degrades with local microorganisms, mixes with local minerals, soaks up local rain, and becomes unique to this spot.  With a little jolt of caffeine, perhaps.  In any case, I’m willing to eat this bright lettuce where I eschew most other lettuce as more trouble than it’s worth.

When I was growing up we drank milk from a local dairy.  I  remember during certain times of the year the milk tasted pretty funky as a result of what the cows were eating.  That’s terroir.  I remember the way my auntie’s fried chicken tasted on the 4th of July after she butchered a few hens from her own flock.  I remember pork and beef from the same farm, meat my mother wouldn’t allow to be touched by ketchup or A-1 Sauce because it would “ruin the flavor.”  I guess most people nowdays haven’t had the experience of tasting where their food comes from.  Some of the tastes of specific places are not entirely pleasant and that’s probably why the move to standardization.  One of my favorite moments of terroir-related ecstasy is in the film Mondovino where the old Italian guys gush about the vineyard soils.  Let’s face it–there are some “earthy” tastes in wine we don’t always like.  We tend to gravitate to the familiar and the predictable.  You have to be a pretty die-hard foodie to accept constant gustatory surprise.

My small education in organic chemistry tells me there’s really not a lot of difference in the composition of food from site to site.  chlorophyll is chlorophyll, cellulose is cellulose, on and on.  But I do love the bright color, the immediate smell, the feel of young lettuce cut in the cool morning air.  I love looking out at the plants in the morning sun, a cup of coffee in my hand.

I Need a Masterpiece

I feel restless.  The world around me is changing, vaporizing, turning to little spots of dull light instead of a monumental canvas portrait or seascape.  The editors of Commonweal describe this as a post-modern condition, this notion that each individual interprets the “good and true,” no longer relying on a social prescription.  Nobody listens to the dictates of the Church (unless he really WANTS to) or any other institution in matters of beauty or taste.  Aesthetic judgments are reduced to the level of “American Idol.”  And I’m left with a hunger for something truly fine, an elevation, an inspiration.  There’s always Mozart.

Mozart thought the wind quartet was the best thing he ever wrote.  For me, today, it’s not as important to analyze the merits of the quartet as it is to appreciate the fact that Mozart made a value judgment.  Some things are better than other things.  I think it would be better for us, as a society, to help people who are having a hard time through no fault of their own.  It would be better for us to provide good food and safe places for children than to think of these costs as liabilities.  It would be better to be circumspect about killing terrorist leaders than to openly celebrate their deaths.  It would be better to be modest, diligent, and generous than to be arrogant, lazy, and greedy.  It would be better to listen to Mozart than to watch another episode of NCIS.

When the world gets too cynical, too dark or depressing, too heavy to bear, I am grateful that I have a piano and a tattered old copy of the Mozart sonatas.  When you grapple with masterpieces you have a chance to see what human beings really have to offer.  I need to remind myself not everyone is lined up to be a contestant on “Extreme Couponing” or “The Biggest Loser.”  Schubert, Giotto, and William Carlos Williams were just regular guys who made masterpieces.  It happens all the time.  And right now, I need to get me some.