more down-to-earth terms …
composed for music-lovers
refresh their spirits

I am not sure when I first heard the music known as the ‘Goldberg Variations’ by J.S. Bach.

Much like the ending in Casablanca, I don’t remember when I didn’t know how the movie ended and I don’t remember not knowing the Goldberg Variations.

I envy my wife because, one, she didn’t know the ending to Casablanca and was shocked to see Rick not get on the plane and two, she can’t remember how it ends, so she is consistently re-surprised by the ending.

I wish I could remember what it was like to see that for the first time.

And I wish I could remember what it was like to hear the Goldberg Variations for the first time.

I realized I would never be able to play the piano after I took piano lessons when I was the 3rd grade.

Me taking piano lessons had not be planned but happened by accident.

My sister Lisa had been signed up for lessons as my other two sisters, Mary and Janet had both had lessons from ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld.

Then Lisa started to play the violin and she told Mom that, much as she loved the piano, she felt she did not have time for two instruments.

Well, those lessons had been paid for so I was called in and told that from now on, no more carefree Wednesday afternoons, I would be going to see ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld.

Her real name was Miss Schonfield and I have no idea how old she was but all I ever thought of her was as ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld.

‘Ol Lady Schonfeld was the scariest person I have ever met in my life and as proof, talking about her with Lisa, who is a really good person, admitted, she too was scared to death of her.

But I went along with the idea without complaint and goodness knows I was good at complaining in those days.

In the back of my mind it seems I had the idea that soon I would be sitting down at the piano and effortlessly calling the notes of the Goldberg Variations out the keys much to amazement of everyone in my family, so I figured why not.

With genuine enthusiasm I got out of the car and ran up the steps to ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld ‘s house and knocked on the door.

The door opened like something out of Dracula movie and I swear she said, “Von’t you Come innnnnnnnn,” just like Bela Lugosi, and I entered a room where time had been stopped for many years.

I swear I could hear timid little voices calling from the walls, run … run now.. get out of here, but I shook them off and sat at the piano bench ready to learn.

That was my first mistake.

Lesson’s didn’t start at the piano.

They started at her dining room table where she taught me to drop my hand straight down and collapse my fingers into the proper, relaxed position to have my hands on the keyboard.

You did not drop your hand from your wrist, but from your elbow.

I positioned my hand and dropped it down on the table with what I thought, a graceful lilt.

‘Ol Lady Schonfeld tightened her lips and demonstrated the drop once more and then told me to do it again.

She kind of squinted as she crossed her arms and glared at me as I practiced.

“Again”, she would say then shake her head and say, “again!”

And I would do it again and again, and again and again, I would do it wrong.

That hand dropping took up the first lesson.

It lasted one hour and I saw my Mom’s station wagon out front and ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld was as grateful as I was that the hour was over as I felt I had aged a year.

My Mom asked how it went.

I replied, “I learned to drop my hand.”

Mom said you had to start somewhere.

And I thought about it and decided Mom was right and was ready for another go.

The next Wednesday came and I ran up the steps of ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld’s house and once inside, again sat at the piano.

She kinda glared a minute then crossed her arms and set, ‘Let me see you drop your hands.’

And I held out my right hand and let it fall on the piano keys and collapse on my fingers.

Which made a pretty loud and satisfying bang

I turned and looked at ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld with a big smile and she turned red and her eyes got big and with her arms crossed, she squeezed her upper arms until the muscles bulged (she must have weighed about 57 pounds).

Then she uncrossed her arms and raised a bony finger and pointed at me and said, “You didn’t practice!”

I remember looking around the room like people were going to jump out and yell surprise!

This had to be a joke, right?

But it wasn’t.

The only things in that room were me, that piano and one very mad ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld.

Things went down hill from there.

I think something clicked in my mind that day about the value of upper education.

But we slogged on together side by side on the piano bench.

Me trying so hard, not to play right but to play in such a way that she wouldn’t touch my hands with those bony fingers that could turn a glass of water into ice.

I do remember that I learned a little tune at some point but I never was able to grasp the barest rudiments of playing a piano.

I also found that sitting on the piano bench, I would be so nervous that my legs would start swinging like a pendulum and the arc would get bigger and bigger until I kicked the piano with the loud bang that set ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld into a tizzy for about 5 minutes.

It wasn’t long until I realized the more often I kicked the piano, the less often she was trying to teach me.

After a couple of months, we both realized that this wasn’t going to work.

Me, I more or less quit even pretending to have practiced.

And ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld?

Well, sorry to say, she had a stroke.

Sometimes these things work out.

I understand that she made a good recovery but on Doctors orders she had to give up teaching the piano.

Sometimes these things really work out.

I never made another serious attempt at learning a musical instrument.

And it was years later that it was discovered that I had no natural sense of rhythm.

I can’t even clap in time to the Michigan Fight Song.

All those times of gym teachers being mad at me for being out of step or unable to bang my rhythm blocks with the rest of class were all real, not me going for a laugh.

But I have always liked music.

Recently the Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson released a new recording of Mr. Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

As a bit of an extra, the Guardian published the story about the recordings titled, “An encyclopedia of how to think and dream on the piano.”

The article is written by Víkingur Ólafsson.

How does Mr. Ólafsson explain the effect of Bach’s music?

He quotes Mr. Bach and the words Bach wrote on the score.

Mr. Ólafsson writes, “Or, in the rather more down-to-earth terms that Bach himself used to describe his variations on the title page of the original 1741 edition, they truly are a work “composed for music-lovers to refresh their spirits”.

Mr. Ólafsson writes, “The one thing that rivals Bach’s complete intellectual mastery of his craft is his inspired, creative playfulness. When we play and listen to the Goldberg Variations, we are also in the company of Bach the cheerful, at times ecstatic, master improviser, the greatest keyboard virtuoso of his time.“

When I was younger the recording of the Goldberg Variations you just HAD to listen to was the recording by Glenn Gould.

Mr. Gould was a gifted musician but with the reputation of someone wrapped so tight he just might burst.

I don’t know.

Maybe he had ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld as a teacher.

Maybe he had ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld as a teacher and LIKED IT.

For me, listening to the Gould recording, you can hear the anguish, the tense nature.

Maybe I am listening with a suspect animus but that’s what I hear, tho I love the recording.

I don’t know but I’ll tell you this.

I remember reading about Duke Ellington and John Coltrane collaborated on an album.

They would finish a take and Duke would sit back and say that’s a wrap.

Mr. Coltrane would shake his head and say, one more time.

The story went that by they 30th take, Duke would almost be in tears and Mr. Coltrane would still be searching for ‘that’ sound.

If you listen to their recording of In a Sentimental Mood YOU CAN HEAR THAT.

It is an incredible piece of music in my ears but in my head, I see Duke Ellington about to clobber John Coltrane.

But I digress.

Listening to Mr. Ólafsson play the exact same music played by Mr. Gould, I hear the inspired, creative playfulness of Mr. Bach.

Let tell you, inspired, creative playfulness were words never mentioned at ‘Ol Lady Schonfeld’s house.

But this recording.

This music.

The music is composed for music-lovers to refresh their spirits.