Pathétique S’notta

I get up and it’s January 1, 2010.
A new year; a new decade.
Good old Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi is airing Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata — one of my favorite pieces of classical music, I guess primarily because it’s for piano, and seems within range.
I’m a keyboard man; violinists are string players; a much different breed.
And once you play a Steinway Model D concert grand, everything else in junk.
My sister and I had classical piano training; me at least nine years.
That’s what we called ‘em: “s’nottas.”
So too Frank Sinatra was “S’nottra.”
I’m sure sometime in my piano lessons I played Beethoven’s Pathétique.
But Beethoven’s Pathétique is much more than a beautiful piano piece I once played.
The second movement was the introduction to Karl Haas’ Adventures in Good Music; a radio program I started listening to long ago on WXXI.
I always consider a lot of what I know about classical music came from that program; Copeland, Howard Hanson, Stravinsky.
Sadly, what piano ability I may have had seemed vaporized by my stroke.
I’ve tried to play piano since, and it’s all compromised.
If I had a Steinway Model D it might lead me otherwise.
But a Steinway Model D is like a Ferrari — way out of my price range.
The last Steinway Model D I played was in college.
Just the same a piano score is waiting in a drawer: Gershwin’s “Andante con moco e poco rubato;” his second piano prelude.


• “Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi” is WXXI-FM, 91.5, the classical-music radio-station in Rochester we listen to, publicly supported.
• “My sister” is “Betty” (Elizabeth). She’s second after me, 63 (I’m the oldest at 65). She lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and is married to a guy named Tom.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.