Beethoven's Banister
Yellowhammer |
The other day - maybe due to my advanced age, or upon hearing that I've been writing a memoir - a friend asked me how I would choose to come back in the next life, if there is one.
"As a busker," I responded. I didn't give my answer much thought, except that I've always liked street performers. "Maybe as a great orchestra conductor, like Toscanini, maybe a pianist too, or Arthur Fiedler. My mother took me to see the legendary Fiedler lead the Boston Pops at the Shell in the summer of 1941 beside the Charles River. I recall the outdoor spectacle vividly though the mists of early memories. After that, I took to conducting radio music with a yellow pencil. One of my aunts gave me a baton, real or perhaps a toy one.
Beethoven |
Luisa Ardizzoni Tosi |
She was very young to have a five-year-old son, something of an embarrassment in those straightlaced times, married - in a hasty shotgun union - to my Nonna Luisa's middle son. But who was counting?
My grandparents had a live-in maid. I was the only child among a family of adults. I slid down a mahogany banister every morning from the upstairs bedrooms, with my mother holding her breath each time.
ETA Hoffmann self-portrait |
I would stand in front of the console in my kiddie pajamas and conduct symphonies with my baton in time with the music. I had memorized classics enough to anticipate passages, the location of instruments in an imaginary orchestra and to "direct" the passages they would play. I was the floor show as guests hummed along, sipping espresso and brandy, nibbling small helpings of Italian pastries.
Arturo Toscanini |
Beethoven's symphonies were my specialty, particularly the iconic 5th, "the Fate Symphony" with its familiar, electrifying dah-dah-dah DAAAA opening. Spelling "V" in Morse Code, Beethoven's masterpiece had become a wartime signature of "victory," a favorite of anti-fascist Toscanini, who had left Mussolini's Italy to lead NBC's Symphony Orchestra in New York.
Later in life, I learned oddly that - according to the eccentric German composer and critic E.T.A. Hoffman (of Jacques Offenbach's opera fame) - that the sweet, high-pitched call of the tiny Yellowhammer songbird had inspired nature-loving Beethoven to build his symphony on the famous phrase - raised to monumental proportions.
I loved to read up on music as a grew up, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Verdi, Rossini, Puccini et al, leading me into worlds of literature and history besides music.
Ma (Alba) and I c. 1945 |
Lockheed P-38 Lightning_1942 |
So here I am, collecting coins for royalties, although still with a passion for the symphonies, concertos and opera. Beautifully performed, fine music of all kinds chokes me up, and at age 87, I still struggle to hide my tears, feeling unjustifiably foolish. Such is social conditioning. We have to admit we are complex beings who don't always make sense. Neither does art.
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Cover by Eleanor Spiesss-Ferris |
His nonfiction essays and articles have been published widely in print and online. He began his career at the Los Angeles Times as a staff writer and managing editor for its prize-winning, Sunday magazine, West.
He was also editor of San Francisco Magazine. and managing editor of Francis Coppola's City of San Francisco. He joined Authors Electric in May 2015 and has contributed to Another Flash in the Pen and One More Flash in the Pen. He has four adult daughters. He resides in Chicago.
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Comments
One thing that struck me was your reference to the Lockheed Lightning fighter-bomber which your father contributed to the construction of. I vividly remember making an Airfix model of one when I was seven and the disapproval of my father on seeing that I had given it bright pastel colours instead of the regulation camouflage. He had been an astro-navigator in WW2 and expected me to have an instinctive knowledge...
Thanks for a great post and best of luck with the memoir.