Crash and Burn, Ah Yes

A hectic week, my people. Two shows and one business luncheon, with just a few hours of precious rest in between. So what are my plans this weekend? I'm glad you asked. These plans involve a couch, melted cheese, chips, and a book.

My piano and I will have several intimate and serious sessions because I have three pieces due Monday and I can barely stumble through two of them. But, I must rest. And melted cheese is the essential ingredient. It is the caulk whereby the inner architect mends the shattered fragments of the shattered soul.

But soon...The Key of A Minor. You will be mine.

Franz Listz was a great pianist--and the Father-in-Law of Richard Wagner--who composed some very beautiful music. Much of this music has been made iconic by some of our favorite Looney Toon cartoons. Who can forget Tom and Jerry or Bugs Bunny frenetically playing the Hungarian Rhapsody Number Two?

I've included an amazing video here: Pianist Sandro Russo playing Listz's arrangement of Shubert's Ave Maria on Listz's own 1869 piano.



It's absolutely lovely, so enjoy it. I've always felt the Ave Maria, in all its forms, transcends its overtly religious connotations and speaks of our heart's yearning for our mother's love and approval--wherever she happens to be. Very few translations of this theme captures this yearning, in my opinion, as well as Schubert's.