SALON XXI

Dear, dear salon:

It's been a long time. Things (dissertation proposal) came between us. But we press on. And what a salon. By my counting, which is impressionistic, there were approximately ... A LOT of people out last Saturday, March 14.* They broke down the doors with a battering ram, set fire to the the piano, threatened the cats, swung drunkenly from the balcony and ran off with the pizza. From now on, I'm carrying a big stick and making loud noises. I ... really mean it ... now.

The program was spectacular. Really.

Irene Claude, flute; Clara Christensen, piano; Meg Lauterbach, cello

[Trio for flute, cello and piano, H. 300, c. 1944 (Bohuslav Martinu, 1890-1959)]

Charlie Williams, piano

[transcription of principal theme from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,

Music for Scientists (i.e. what Charlie's been up to)]

Larry Zbikowski, guitar

[Fantaisie Elégiaque à la mort de Madame Beslay, op. 59, c. 1836

(Fernando Sor, 1778-1839)]**

Laure Dutirou-Mason, speaker

[presentation & tasting, on & of Armagnac]

Joshua Adams, poetry

[poetry reading]

Roger Moseley, ne'er do well, piano
[death-defying improvisation in the style of Imaginary Composer X {1750-1815}]

*My third-grade classroom held a competition at Easter [secular = schmecular] to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. There were probably 250, and since the average third-grader is open to wild speculation our submissions ranged between 4 and 2,000. I guessed that there were 2,000 jelly beans. I'm thinking there were a million people at the salon. Just to be on the safe side.

**excerpted from Larry's performance note and subsequent written communication: "This work was written in memory of Charlotte Beslay, who was Sor's student ... a pianist who had come to the attention of Rossini; perhaps because of this the fantasy is written in a compositional register that is by turns operatic and pianistic ... [I]n the concluding section of the piece the compositional register changes significantly away from the operatic/pianistic tropes Sor uses and toward something much more contemplative. From this contemplative music there emerge a couple of brief fragments of melody. [Editor's note: I urge the faint of heart to stop reading beyond this point.] In the published score (from c. 1836) there is written above these fragments, 'Charlotte! Adieu,' and one can clearly hear the melody setting these unspoken words."

-m.