anniversaries

I didn't want 2018 to get too far gone without taking note of some of the composer anniversaries. There have been plenty of Leonard Bernstein celebrations in the US, of course, this year being the 100th anniversary of his birth. Bernstein didn't write a great deal for the piano, and I don't play what he did write. Also, it's all under copyright so I can't legally record any of it. But you have probably gotten plenty of Bernsteinania elsewhere so I don't feel too bad about the omission.

There are some deathiversaries as well. Claude Debussy's is the biggest. He died in 1918--I haven't posted much about him, either, though there are a few short piano pieces in the archive.

But since the internet doubtless has him covered, it is worth mentioning a couple of smaller figures that might not be getting the blanket coverage.

One is Cesar Cui. I wrote about him in the spring, I think, when I discovered a little organ piece which I recorded. You can read the blog and listen to the piece here.

There is one more from the archive, though, and it stands right at the top of the page of piano music. The page is listed alphabetically by composer, so this fellow gets to be right at the top, even pulling rank on venerable Johann Sebastian Bach.

I'm talking about Felix Arndt. He didn't live very long, and the flu epidemic of 1918 didn't help. What he did compose would be classed as novelty piano, which I don't really specialize in. But a few years ago I was playing a concert in an old vaudeville theater and a short post-intermission crowd pleaser seemed in order. I chose Nola, a piece he wrote for his fiancee, the eponymous princess of his heart, a person, not a city.

Over the Christmas break I remember practicing the piece in the living room of a distant relative (I was really throwing this thing together fast--the four days between Christmas and New Year's Eve were about all the practice I was getting and I was learning this piece from scratch). My host thought she remembered some words.

If you are the right age, you might, too. I think I played the piece slowly enough that you might be able to sing along. Apparently, Liberace made a thing of playing the piece really fast and virtuoso, but I like the elegance of a more stately tempo. Here is my recording, which I made a day after we got the piano back to its environs from the theater to which it had been moved (I don't always take my own pianos when I play on location, just some times!). It might have been some moisture on my shoe, but the pedal squeaked a bit. If you have the recording turned up super high you may notice it. If you notice it, turn it down!

And enjoy the music. Here's Nola:

Nola by Felix Arndt