Ernesta
  
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F. Chopin

Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin

 

Ernesta:

What is that you’re doing, babosa? Stop it now; it annoys me.

Music Student:

I’d been playing a Chopin waltz for Señora Ernesta. It was the Op. 42 in A flat. And I (as was my wont) let my body sway lavishly: I was a single dancer in a crystal ballroom, solitude and grace propelling my fingers across the keys.

 

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Opl 42 in A flat

Rubinstein plays Chopin Waltz Op.42

 

Clara Wieck

Clara Wieck Schumann

Ernesta:

That old bastard Leschetitzky,
To whom I was sent to study in 1885
Pushed me out disdainfully
(After I’d I rejected him) onto
Clara Wieck, relic of the dead composer,
Robert Schumann,
At Frankfurt am Main,
And mistress (I didn’t know at the time)
To that fellow Brahms.

  

Beethoven

Ludwig von Beethoven

 She was, I thought,
Not a bad pianist,
And she performed for me
The last sonata of Beethoven.		  

Beethoven Op. 111

Jonathan Tsay - Beethoven - Sonata op.111 - II. (Part 2)

Brahms

Johannes Brahms

We were oddly twined, Brahms and I.
He overwhelming the Grosser Musikvereinssaal in Vienna
While I, the plodding dray-horse,
Through Malagueñas, Granaínas, Media Granaínas,
And other tedious transcriptions
Of Spanish dance music
For the Ladies’ Tea Society,
Or some such,
Located somewhere
Near the wharf.

Hungarian Dance

Brahms, Hungarian Dance No. 5

Schumann

Robert Schumann

 What had happened?
I’d been playing
Robert Schumann’s "The Poet Speaks,"
Its lovely grace, its sadness.
I alone on the empty stage,
In dreaming. As usual,
The music done, I bowed,
Retired in modest dignity,
A caress to the souls
Of each listener.
But this night
I had not
Awoken from the dream.
(That must be the answer, I surmised.
I’d remained in the music
Even leaving the stage
And almost into the street.)

Alfred Cortot

Alfred Cortot plays and talks about Schumann's Kinderszenen Op.15 The Poet Speaks (Subtitled)

Enrique Granados

Enrique Granados

***

They were nothing,
No threat to me,
Like the real threat
Of Enrique
Granados.

He, a likeable man,
A genuine Spaniard,
Wore no fancy costume
When performing—instead
In mufti—and playing
His own compositions,
Originals,
That left the sting of lemon
On your tongue,
And the red Sahara dust
Of the leveche
On your tongue,
And the yawning
Coolness
Of the afternoon veranda.
Tropical is what he was,
And boon
To frigid European winter.

Spanish Dance

Granados: Spanish Dance nr. 5 - Claudio Carbó, piano
Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

***

“Music,” she continued,
“Is a wild beast.
She must be controlled,
caged
Else she turn upon you
Destroying all.”

Unbelieving, I
Shook my head,
Not speaking.

“You need to see.
I’ll show you,” she declared,

And took me
To Byreuth, to vulgar Wagner’s operas,
Der Ring des Nibelungen.
The horror of them!
¡Ay! ¡Ay! ¡Ay!
Through their music
I saw what Wagner saw:
Shades of the monumental:
Males and females towering above mountains,
Lumbering over the earth,
Lathering bloody ancient ritual,
Never intended for
Modern times.
The Ride of the Valkyries

The Ride of the Valkyries