Back in the good old days when I was on the air I used to run a lot of contests. They were fun, they opened up communication, and they let the listeners have a voice for a change.
The recent brouhaha over Catholic bishops reminded me of an entry I received from a music teacher who had taught music history at a small school in the south. One term during a class in Western European Music Up To 1500, a number of students went to the dean to protest about her prejudices. They complained that she taught only Catholic music and left out Protestant music entirely.
On Valentine’s Day I often partnered with a chocolatier to make it even better. I was just looking through some old entries. One from a friend named Jerry was a Valentine card he asked his sister-in-law to send to his wife. Jerry’s brother is named Ben, so you can see where this is going. On the front of the card it said, “Hey girl, let’s get together for Valentine’s Day. Neither of us should be lonely.” Inside the card are two girls eating Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. The punch line said, “I’ll take Ben and you take Jerry.” I played Quarteto Gelato in the background when I read it on the air.
My favorite was a story sent by a listener. I’ve lost the original, but it went something like this. A country family had to go to the hospital in the city, but they had never been in a modern building before. When they got there they saw the most amazing thing. Two doors opened and an older couple walked into a very small room holding hands. The doors closed but moments later they opened again and out walked a very young couple holding hands. The family’s faith in the hospital rose dramatically. (Any elevator music will do for a music bed.)
A more recent story comes from husband and wife pianists Orion Weiss and Anna Polonsky. I’ll let them tell it:
Weiss: When we first started dating we had our separate lives — two separate apartments with different pianos, and then it started being like what you would do on a date, a fun thing to do, just to come over, bring a bottle of wine – actually no bottle of wine, because neither of us really drink – but bring maybe Schubert, four-hands, and a pizza and read through music that we would want to learn. Not a pizza, actually, either, just the Schubert four-hands.
Polonsky: Well, maybe not Schubert so much but Dvorak. We’ve been coming to this festival [Seattle] for the last four or five years, and, well, we’ve been dating for a few of those years, but it was last year that I was here and Orion wasn’t scheduled to be here at the same time; but lo and behold, instead of the stage hand opening the stage door, there was Orion, and I had this moment of disbelief and I didn’t even –Weiss: She didn’t recognize me. And I thought to myself, “Well, if she doesn’t recognize me, I may not propose, because that would sort of be embarrassing if she doesn’t remember who I am,” but she did remember at that point – Polonsky: But then you introduced yourself. Weiss: I introduced myself and it seemed to be going smoothly after that. I was going to take her out to dinner, but I had been so focused on not losing the ring, that I’d lost my wallet …so Anna had to take me out to dinner that night. I didn’t have any other plan besides just surprising you in Seattle. That was as far as I could think ahead.
They did get married, and now they have three pianos in their NY apartment. Got something good for Valentine’s Day besides playing schmaltzy music?
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