Join us as we feast on festive (musical) finds
If you’ve been baking cookies (or basting turkeys, or rolling out pie crusts) over the past weeks, I’m sure you’d understand why I chuckled when I read these lines in my book club’s current pick:
“Why should we hand over the secrets of our kitchen for no reason?” asked Ba. In any case, why would the Colonel’s wife make such a request when everyone knew a person must always render a sly omission when pressured for a recipe–subtract an ingredient, jiggle a quantity to leave the recipient tormented …
from The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny: A novel (Kiran Desai)
Now, not fessing up about why the pie is so tasty is one thing (because Wholefoods made it and it fit perfectly in Grandma’s dish … ), but when it comes to musical discoveries, I’m about as naïvely eager to spill the beans as a five-year-old. Why? Because why keep amazingly exciting facts to oneself? Life’s too short to hoard information (or slave over pies if you’re not a baker) and suffice it to say that I’d love to blow your musicological minds today in the same way mine was when I stumbled upon this website: rachmaninoffdiary.com
If you need convincing of why this is a sure-fire way of losing yourself to hours of enthusiastic clicking, reading and scrolling, here’s a summary: This lovingly curated, beautifully maintained and completely free website is a comprehensive digital catalogue of all known performances and recordings by Sergei Rachmaninoff – searchable by locations, dates, works and keywords. Never have I ever been so fast to type “Portland, Oregon” into a browser.
Just look at the results! On Monday, February 17th, 1941, Rachmaninoff played at the “Public Auditorium” (the very same building on 222 SW Clay Street which would later be remodeled to become the Keller Auditorium … ) to an enraptured audience, even indulging his Portland fans with the obligatory C sharp minor Prelude as a last encore. “It was a superlative performance”, Hilmar Grondahl, Music Editor of The Oregonian concludes in his review of February 18th, 1941. (Elsewhere in the world, on this same day, German U-boats continued their campaign, sinking the British ship Black Osprey, a Luftwaffe raid on Newmarket in the UK caused heavy civilian casualties, and thousands of Australian troops arrived in Singapore to prepare for a possible attack by the Japanese.)
Picture of the Public Auditorium, also sometimes called the Municipal Auditorium, around the time of its inauguration in July 1917, as found on the website of Oregon Metro (oregonmetro.gov).
Why is this all so compelling and how on earth does this link to PPI, to recipes, to sharing of information? Simple, really: We are all part of a larger story than the one we’re immediately able to see. We all have the tendency to think that our reality is singular, that what we experience is particularly unique and that the world we inhabit is worse, now, than ever before.
Except that in so many ways, it’s not! Just like in the winter of 1941, we still have our beloved performance halls and get visited by incredible international artists (surely the Rachmaninoffs and Horowitzes of tomorrow) who can delight us and lift our spirits, as the world keeps turning and life keeps unfolding in all its glories and horrors. And just like a fresh batch of cookies (home baked or store-bought), the joy of music is so much better when shared among friends!
When Kolesnikov and Tsoy play Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances during the second half of their January 4th performance, I’ll be imagining the great Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff in his overcoat on Portland’s streets, reminding an Oregonian staff writer of something that rings true to this day. When asked whether enough good music has been written, the great composer apparently almost shouted: “For bad things, there is enough; for good things, not enough, never enough!”
