As my mother puts it, my parents got their Steinway the same time as they got me. At that point my father went through a period of serious playing which lasted until just about the point my memory begins.
It was my father's mother who was the pianist, as in the professional pianist who taught and performed in New York City in the 30s, 40s, and 50s (to no particular renown, although my father has a recording of her performing on a radio program.) My grandmother studied at the Conservatory in St. Petersburg, which she continued to call St. Petersburg for all the years it was Leningrad. This is the same place (at approximately the same time) where Jascha Heifetz studied, as we learned from his obituary in the Times. Had my grandmother still been alive when he died she would at that point have claimed to have dated him, no doubt.
To the best of my recollection and understanding, my grandmother's relationship with music was entirely different from my father's (and mine for certain). I don't think my grandmother would have understood the idea of music divorced from performance. It's not fair for me to conjecture about her at this point, of course, but I know she never understood my parents' involvement in the folk scene at all.
Anyway, after my grandmother died my father played the piano practically nightly for about a year. He played the oddest things (to my ears) --things his mother had taught him, of course. What I remember in particular is his playing Czerny (although I was no longer living at home at this point, so my view is selected). Czerny? How common is that?
A couple of hours a night for a year and my father did get some of his technique back, to the extent that a friend who visited me at the time was impressed. But then he worked through whatever he was working through by his playing, and that piano-period ended.
Maybe when my father does finally retire he'll get back to i
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2003-10-28 03:42 pm (UTC)At that point my father went through a period of serious playing which lasted until
just about the point my memory begins.
It was my father's mother who was the pianist, as in the professional pianist who taught
and performed in New York City in the 30s, 40s, and 50s (to no particular renown, although my
father has a recording of her performing on a radio program.) My grandmother studied
at the Conservatory in St. Petersburg, which she continued to call St. Petersburg for
all the years it was Leningrad. This is the same place (at approximately the same
time) where Jascha Heifetz studied, as we learned from his obituary in the Times.
Had my grandmother still been alive when he died she would at that point have claimed to
have dated him, no doubt.
To the best of my recollection and understanding, my grandmother's relationship with
music was entirely different from my father's (and mine for certain). I don't
think my grandmother would have understood the idea of music divorced from performance.
It's not fair for me to conjecture about her at this point, of course, but I know she never
understood my parents' involvement in the folk scene at all.
Anyway, after my grandmother died my father played the piano practically nightly
for about a year. He played the oddest things (to my ears) --things his mother had
taught him, of course. What I remember in particular is his playing Czerny (although I
was no longer living at home at this point, so my view is selected). Czerny? How common
is that?
A couple of hours a night for a year and my father did get some of his technique back,
to the extent that a friend who visited me at the time was impressed. But then he worked through
whatever he was working through by his playing, and that piano-period ended.
Maybe when my father does finally retire he'll get back to i