Songs of a Blithe Spirit

Whilst whiling away the night writing a sentimental story that wouldn't overtask the intellect of an eight-year-old, I listened to YouTube classical music videos for the first time in a while, and came across a black-and-white film where Mischa Elman, accompanied by Josef Bonime, plays Antonin Dvorak's "Humoresque" and François Joseph Gossec's "Gavotte." Altogether I find the film pleasantly atmospheric; from the introductory text, through the setting — a tall window in the back with the heavy drapes to either side, pilasters, the curve of the piano smothered in a sumptuous coverlet, and the pompous bust at the wall — to, above all, the romantic playing and lightly antiquated sound quality of the recording.

Both of the pieces happen to be in the canon of the Suzuki Violin School, in which I was placed at the age of five and remained for two or three years. I play the "Humoresque" rarely now, first of all because I only pick up the violin about every two weeks, and secondly because that piece is particularly difficult to play if one is used to the multitude of notes in piano music — where notes tend to be part of an aggregate and not independent entities — and doesn't know how to make a melody sound meaningful on its own. In the Suzuki score, the second voice is missing, too (but it seems only to be the melody transposed down a third, so maybe I should pencil it in).

Elman, I find, gives the pieces dignity, warmth, and life. The Gavotte is delightfully gay (in the original meaning of the term (c: ) and seems perfectly suited for a session of chamber music in an airy room in the summertime. Also, I hope it isn't pretentious, overgeneralizing balderdash to say that his rendition has an optimistic and naïve mood that is intriguingly unmodern.

And Beethoven's Spring Sonata as played by Henryk Szeryng and Artur Rubinstein is also well worth the listen.