Graduation present

Piano Quintets; Johannes Brahms, composer; Antonin Dvorak, composer; Guarneri Quartet; Artur Rubinstein, piano

I graduated from high school on a Monday. So did my sisters. I always considered it a stroke of genius that Sioux Valley Schools administrators regularly scheduled its annual graduation ceremonies on Monday evenings. So many other schools in the vicinity competed with one another by arranging their commencement exercises for Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening. We never heard of anyone else having Monday evening graduation. If there was any way in which SVHS graduation activities coincided with anyone else’s, it was when our school held baccalaureate services on the Sunday evening before, with the local churches conducting and sponsoring the worship event.

It was after the Sunday evening Baccalaureate service that Mom and Dad had a graduation party for me at our church. After the graduation ceremonies on Monday evening, all of the graduating seniors (plus two others) that had attended the elementary school in our little town had a combined reception in the gymnasium next to the old school.

My piano teacher, Dr. P., and his wife came to the Sunday evening party. He brought me a book: “The Great Pianists: From Mozart to the Present”, by New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg. It made great summer reading. I noticed that of all the pianists Mr. Schonberg chronicled, he wrote most lovingly of the pianism of Artur Rubinstein.

Mr. Rubinstein handed history his own account of his life with, not one, but two autobiographies: “My Young Years” in 1973 and “My Many Years” in 1980. According to the first book, he was a naturally talented child who didn’t really need to practice very much. His mother, however, insisted that he practice two to three hours a day. So, to appease her, he would sit at the piano and practice mindless piano passages while reading a book and eating chocolates.

A few years ago, my friend E.G. gave me the score to Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34. I didn’t have a recording of this piece, so I “pawed” through the selection of CD’s available for download on iTunes and determined that Mr. Rubinstein and the Guarneri Quartet would provide me with the most satisfying read-through of the work.

The image of the consummate, tuxedo-clad master manifesting his craft before an audience clothed mostly in reverence, wonder and beholden esteem stood in stark contrast to the comedic, yet artful, weekly performance of his Hollywood son, John, in the show “Crazy Like A Fox” that ran from 1984 to 1986. Whenever I watched the younger Mr. Rubinstein undergo the antics of his co-star Jack Warden, I couldn’t help but contrast and compare the two types of performances that this father and son rendered. I would guess that anyone that knew my father and I around the time of my graduation would have thought something similar.

Credits: To Dr. P., for five years of unforgettable instruction at the piano. And for being yet one more “Great Pianist”.