Liszt snorted and stomped.  He vowed to cross swords with a man he’d never met, and in so doing bandy with the Parisian salonisti.  At the stoked-pipe age of twenty-five, Liszt considered himself the undisputed pianistic champ of Europe, 1836.  Had he not achieved greatness in Paris but eighteen months ago?  Now Paris had turned her back on him in favor of another virtuoso, and to this affront he, Franz Liszt, the virtuoso, would respond with all due harshness.

He gave the salonisti this much.  He had been away from Paris too long, traveling Europe with the Countess he stole on his way out of town – the calm and alabaster Marie d’Agoult, wife of the Count.  Theirs was a wondrous thing of naught, the two lovers electric with sin, triumph and amore.  Or could it be, thought Liszt, the salonisti had tossed him over for the love of the ...

Showing the rosy health of a ballet half its age, The Nutcracker, still comes around every Christmas, arriving in a flourish of pizzicato strings and tinkling triangles, exuding homey warmth, innocence, and sugary good cheer.  It proceeds to the holiday’s center stage and dances for audiences in the millions.  And yet -- kind reader, beware -- beneath its divertissement (shimmering!), beneath its perfumed pageantry, The Nutcracker also harbors a disconsolate spirit.

Before embarking on the ballet, Tchaikovsky was enjoying a rare period of fleeting happiness.  It was the summer of his fiftieth year.  Peter Ilyich told his friends he felt more at ease and sure of his talents than at any time in years.  His music, including five symphonies, was receiving praise across Europe.  Recently, Sleeping Beauty had scored a great success at the Imperial Theatre in St.  Petersburg.  He was flattered, as one is flattered by the praise of ...

The older I get the curiouser and curiouser I find it how certain tunes follow us as we hurry down the rabbit hole of life.  These tunes may be of our choosing, or not.  They may reappear to us in meaningful ways at any time under any circumstances, and often in different forms.  We may feel we can’t shake them.  They may catch us by shocking surprise, or they may bring us deep comfort.

Among the tunes that have chased after me is one strange animal.  As a boomer kid growing up in Norwalk, starting about age ten one of my primary chores was to mow the front lawn.  That was my Saturday morning, Dad close behind me with the edger.  Once the weather got warm I also mowed on Wednesday.  You may find twice a week excessive, but whatever Dad did to that lawn to make it grow it ...