Thank you Anton Arensky

I didn't purposely intend on not posting anything for so long. Time passes....as the saying goes. I suppose i've avoided checking in the blog for a while because............well, I dunno............just haven't felt much like writing. Kinda of brain-dead.
But something happened tonight that recharged my writing batteries.

It started the other day when I was driving my Dad to a doctor's appointment. Usually these kinds of drives are spent with me exhausting myself to keep Dad from talking about religion, money, or politics. Those conversations never go well. This time was different though. We were no more than 30 seconds from the house when Dad started in with some melody I had never heard before--"BahBaDaBa...Bah BAaaaaaah..." Then he suddenly interjected "First piano"...then more "bahbahbahahaaaaahh" then "second piano"...and so on.

I'd never heard this melody before. It took me completely by surprise. So I asked Dad, "What was that?" He told me it was Arensky's piano concerto for two pianos. I made him spell Arensky because I wasn't familiar with Arensky as a composer. In fact, I never knew my parents played anything for two pianos.

The rest of the drive to the appointment was Dad describing to me a time when he and mom always owned two pianos, when they would open the doors to their apartment or house and practice piano pieces for two pianos. They left the doors open at the neighbors' request. All I could think was how much I would give to have heard my parents playing piano together. Any memory of my parents doing anything together....I mean, truly together.

So my eyes welled up at this wonderful, incredible memory that I didn't have. At least I didn't have it first-hand.

Now fast forward to today, which is about a week later. Dad said that their music for the Arensky piece was out in the barn in the big metal filing cabinet, where every piece of music that any of us ever used was stored. He couldn't remember which Arensky concerto or suite it was that he and Mom always played. Mom couldn't remember either. But Dad had the music in his head. He could "bah baa hhbhaha" out loud. I knew if I could find the music, it would be like reunited two wonderful old friends. So out I headed for the barn.

I found one of Arensky's suite for two pianos. Opus 15. I scanned the music thinking, I don't even know what for.... I guess I was thinking there might be some notation in it or something. Some kind of clue that this was the piece that my parents would serenade the neighborhood with, all those years ago, before I was conceived.

I brought the music in to the house. I was carrying it down the hall to show Dad. And, I don't know how it's even possible since Dad has only one barely-passable-eye and has to read the newspaper with a jeweler's visor over his bifocals while holding a flashlight, BUT.............as I was walking down the hallways holding Shirmer's music for the Arensky Suite for Two Pianos, Opus 15, Dad called out loud, "Arensky! There it is!"

He was all over that music in a heartbeat. Out came the flashlight, down came the jeweler's visor, and I just stepped back and watched in awe. Dad was like.............you know little kids on Christmas morning? Like they're soooo excited, soooo full of anticipation and joy, that they're kind of shaking in ecstasy? You know that kind of excitement? That was my Dad as he hunched over the Shirmer's music. It was literally like he had found his most cherished possession. An old friend he hadn't seen for fifty or more years. I can't remember seeing him so excited. He started thumbing through the pages, like he was looking for something....reminded me of that scene in Miracle on 34th Street when Natalie Wood is searching frantically under the Christmas tree at the end of the movie for that particular gift she had asked Santa to bring her. Remember that scene? Well, that was my father--searching for, I'm not sure what, as he frantically scanned page after page of Arensky's Suite for Two Pianos.

Then eureka. "Ah hah!" he called out. And it was a golden moment. I had to turn away and collect myself. Dad was hunkered down over the page, flashlight in hand, visor down, his eyes were no more than four inches from the page. He pointed. He showed me, "Look here it is! 'bahbahdahdahbah' first piano 'bahbahdahdah bahdahbah' second piano" And he was totally wrapped up in the music playing in his head. I wasn't there. He wasn't standing in the kitchen in Sequim. He was somewhere else, sixty years ago, in a little living room in Westwood, the back door swung open, the summer air rushing in, the music of Arensky's Suite for Two Pianos rushing out. Mom playing the part for Piano I (because, as Dad told me, she was better) and Dad playing the part for Piano II. The image in my head of my parents, who I have never seen do anything truly together, really together, performing Arensky's music in their free time......like....they just did stuff like that back then.....well, it just makes my heart want to erupt.

Ever since I moved in with my parents, I've searched for some explanation for "them." I've never understand why a lower class Southern Californian, lifeguard, womanizer, art major from UCLA, pilot, would hook up with an upper class Northwestern music major from an upper class family in Evanston.

But the Arensky story make a lot click for me. They played piano together! Who else could Dad play classical piano with? His lifeguard friends? His UCLA friends? His pilot friends? Not a chance. Most of Dad's friends didn't even know he played classical piano. He kept that part of his life to himself because, as he tells it, it wasn't cool to play piano. And who would Mom play piano with? Her snotty football player friends from Northwestern? Her sorority friends from Kappa Kappa Gamma? Not hardly. It starts to make sense for me.....why Mom and Dad came together and stayed together.

I'm going to close this now, but I don't want to end without emphasizing again that moment, that picture of my dad pouring over the piano music. The excitement in his body, his withered hand holding the flashlight, the sheer joy on his face........my father was shaking with excitement over piano music. Piano music. I'll never forget it. Thank you Anton Arensky for writing the music that helped to cement my parents' relationship together for 65+ years.