Thanks, Monica. Sounds really tasty.
First I´ll play a bit Chopin, thenI´ll read chapter 16.

Ok, I just finished ch. 16.

I like that music school that Thad found for his children. And isn't it neat that Debussy and Albeniz (others as well) also studied there? I am hoping to go to Paris in a couple years. If I do, I will try to find this building. I'm also going to visit every place where Chopin visited and lived. Maybe if I am lucky, his ghost will pay me a visit me too.

Phew, I have finished chapter 16.
Yes, it´s really a school full of history and atmosphere, I think. I like Thads idea, to look for a piano-teacher for his daughter, which will motivate her and not to teach her "solfège". This kind of theory has made me dislike music, too, when I was a child. I still could play the guitar, which I learned in private lessons, and sight-read, when I had to learn "solfège" at the civic music-school, where I first started to learn Cello with 11 years. After a half year I stopped with this (very beautiful and soulful) instrument and changed to piano, because this was my very wish.
It must be a very interesting atmosphere with all the old Erards, Pleyels and Gaveaus on the one side and the more modern instruments on the other there in the Schola Cantorum.
My tuner says, that the individual characters of the piano-brands decrease more and more, because they all try to approach to the Steinway-like piano-building and give up their old manners to built pianos. As an example he mentioned Bechstein. They always said, that their manner is better and that they don´t need steinway-like building-manner, but now they have taken over some techniques of piano-building, which Steinway uses.

All this development is really a pity IMO! Sometimes I wished to have lived in 19th century. May be we should open a synthesizer-forum to stay up to date and write a book called "The synthesizer-shop on the right bank", isn´t it? Oh my dears, we are on the headed south.

Monica, if you´ll meet the ghost of Chopin, tell him, I´ll try my very best to play his third Scherzo and send him my regards!

I wonder why albeniz is so neglected in comparison with some others??

It must be a joy to be surrounded with so much sound. I find myself quite envious of Thad.

andreas, I read ridiculously fast ... just like I make love! I'm trying to rein myself in and go at same pace as you guys ... so I'm reading other books while we do this one together! ... if only I could use my powers for good ....

Albeniz was very good friends with Granados.

very VERY?? good friends?? hhmm

How good was the "very"?

Oh, you guys....

I'll explain in a few minutes. Just walked in the door from shopping and have to unload my car.

Ok, I'm back. (not that you knew I was gone - LOL)

Anyway, Albeniz and Granados were not that THAT close. I put that heart next to my last post because I love Granados! If I could go back in time and meet with him, I would flirt with him a little. Well, maybe a lot.

Granados and Albeniz were just good friends. They hung out with each other almost daily, usually in a cafe where they ate the wrong kinds of foods, drank too much wine, smoked too many cigars, talked about their problems, told about all the women in their lives, (secret love affairs) etc... Each of them had their own health problems because of that kind of lifestyle. When Albeniz died, he had not yet finished a piece of music he was working on, and so his wife or daughter - can't remember which one - asked Granados to finish the piece, which he did. I think that is kind of touching - don't you?

Pianolady wrote:


You really touch me with this, Monica.


Seriously, wow, that were really friends. That´s very nice and very touching.

You are funny, Andreas. I bet you spend more time looking for just the right smiley than on actually typing out your comments! haha ( I do too - LOL) (I'm too lazy right now put one up right this second).

Ok - Chapter 17:

That poor piano! My goodness, I can’t believe how terrible Jos behaved!

I can relate to Anna paying him anyway just so that he would leave and to prevent something else bad from happening. My tuner has never done anything wrong to me or to my piano. He is a very nice and normal guy. But when I think about it, he comes to my home when I am by myself. If he were to become ‘weird’, I would pay him so he would leave right away too.

And what do you guys think about Anna and Thad talking about how they can ‘escape’ into a different place in their minds when they play music. That’s exactly how it is with me. I am most of the time making up a story in my mind when I play. It’s not always good to do that though, because often times I get to the end of a piece without realizing I just played the whole thing. I really should have been working on some technical issue and instead just wasted all that time with my fantasizing! So then I have to back to the beginning…

What say you both?

O.k., chapter 17 was a sad one somehow. It´s really sad, that Luc seems to be an alcoholic and at the end it isn´t clear, if he had replaced also the broken string in Annas Bechstein. It´s just clear, that he has retuned the piano and that he has done this properly now.
I had good luck until now, because never a string break down in any of my pianos until today. (O.k. anytime there will be the first time, I think.) But I knew, that a new string has to be retuned several times, until it sounds correctly.

I seldom can be absent, if I play piano, Monica. I´m mostly very concentrated. In the case it´s a piece I know well and if I´m not concentrated I can play it through while thinking on other things, f.ex. what happened in my school-lessons or similar. If it´s a new piece (or a more complicated one), I´m not able to play it properly through, if I´m not truely concentrated.

It's not Luc that is the alcoholic, but the piano tuner, Jos.

I have never broken a string, either. I have never even seen a broken string.

But Andreas, are you saying that you broke a string today? How did that happen? What were you playing? Did it make a loud noise when it broke? Did it shoot out of the piano? Did you jump?

Pianolady wrote:


That´s what I meant, when I told you, that I´m an absent-minded professor sometimes. I´ve read so much literature (because of my profession of a German-teacher), that in moments, I´m tired and not more so concentrated, it easily happens to me, that I change names of the figures of the novel. Of course, I knew, that´s Jos.



I have seen some during my life, but fortunately on other pianos than mine.



No Monica, that´s also fortunately a missunderstanding. May be I didn´t express me correctly. I have never broken a string, not today either. I just think: anytime always could be the first time, so it´s possibel (and probable), that it´ll happen to me and to most pianists one day. (Especially to such wild players like me. )

Chapters 18 and 19 are short, so here is my summary on both.

Chap. 18 – Thad is finally getting his pedal brace. And what quirky behavior from that locksmith. It does seem like a complicated relationship between the business owners in that little neighborhood. I think that is kind of neat, though; like a sort of ‘you rub my back, and I’ll rub yours’ kind of way. And weren’t you excited to know about the new Erard coming in? And especially if Luc was actually going to receive it?

Chap. 19 – Never mind the Erard, now we have what could actually be Beethoven’s piano! Wow! I would love to have seen that. And now we clearly know why Beethoven seemed to easily smash pianos – they did not have the metal frame yet.