Musée d’Orsay. New lighting, new ‘accrochage’ (hanging of the paintings). An obligatory morning visit to the French Impressionist Collection, and especially with the secret purpose to approve – or disapprove – the topic of the new medium-gray walls, hitherto in deep, saturated tones to bring out the hues from the wonderful artwork. With my trusty Leica I captured this shot, a favorite by Renoir, which has somehow catapulted me back to several recent thoughts and conversations, still zigzagging in my mind.
Recently the lovely soprano Donna Brown posted a comment about wonderful old houses that always had a piano. Even the poorest households, it seems. I know this well, for when we grew up, both my grandmothers always had noble and well-used pianos. And I recall falling under the spell of music for the first time while standing tiptoe at the side of my maternal grandmother’s bench as she played on the upright and sang for me, barely tall enough myself to see the keyboard. Nana lovingly placed my fingers on the keys for the first time, and observed that my hands were well-made for the piano, with an easy wide reach (now over a tenth). My Aunt Alice, one of her three daughters, went on to have a piano for her four girls – plus an organ – and the duos of hymns and songs performed at her house with my grandmother bring sentimental recollections from early days. My lessons followed with dear old Mrs. Kemp in LeRoy – who also had taught my Aunt Betty on the paternal side a generation before – when my Mom bought a used piano for me. It was not a ringing, resonant old upright, but our own house, and my life, changed forever that day.
Mom got a very welcome visit at her nursing home last week. None other than Elsie Lutz, her childhood friend, who is still with us at 101 years of age, while Mom won’t be 100 until February. Don’t forget, you don’t have that many friends around when you’re 100! Elsie comes with her walker and amazing stories of the days near Lockport, NY, where their families often got together to make music for the whole evening. Her father was born in Germany, and he had a tenor voice. Mom’s parents also loved to sing and join in the fun around the piano. The whole family stayed in fact for several months with the Lutz’s, when they were homeless after the fire that burned my grandparent’s home to the ground during the Great Depression (they witnessed the horrible last moments of the fire, and Mom watched helplessly as their piano fell through the floor to the basement. She must have been around ten). I’ve known Elsie all my life, and love the stories of those people dear to me whom she knew so well as young adults. To her my grandparents were just Vi and Bill, Bill and Vi. She remembers well the timbre of my grandfather’s voice, as well as Nana’s. So do I. I also remember Fufa listening to me play a short solo piano piece back on Jackson Street in Batavia, sitting motionless in a straight Morris chair, the arms made of solid oak. His expression was serious, but not severe. After my piece, his comment to me, while looking me straight in the eye, was “That was good.” I don’t recall a compliment over these many years that had such importance to me, nor has nourished me so well in so many moments of doubt. He was a straight shooter, and he fought in the trenches of Normandy. That’s why Elsie just called him Bill, I guess.
In the generations that followed I’ve seen amazing old player pianos abandoned in farmhouse barns, unable to be even given away. I’ve seen old 78’s used as target practice. I’ve seen homes where making music is not even a possibility, and I’ve seen the result upon our society.
My doubt today is about the wisdom of the new gray background and its effect at the Musée d’Orsay in the Impressionist galleries. Looks wonderful behind the richly gilded frames and the glorious colors, but seems to unify the vast spaces in a tiring, almost monotonous way, with no surprises as one progresses from room to room. Of course, the surprises are the paintings, and they are worthy of many, many more visits, rekindling other, fond memories for me and for thousands of other visitors. Even Nana had a reproduction of this painting on a calendar in her dining room on Jackson Street, back in the 1950s, and I remember it well.