The piano appeared in my life when I was 8 and my parents took me to a concert at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. It was to be a performance by Arthur Rubinstein.

He appeared on stage. Faced us and smiled. He turned around, fusses with his tuxedo’s tails and sat down. It was a Buenos Aires winter in August.

People began to cough. Rubinstein waited. They coughed. He turned around and stood up. He came to the edge of the stage and pulled a pen or pencil from his pocket. In perfect Spanish he told us, “Todos juntos, tosan!” (all together cough) and conducted. He turned around and sat down to play. It was awful as he was drunk. He left the stage as the audience was throwing coins at him in disapproval.

We waited. Perhaps half an hour later he came back and played beautifully.

Except for Buenos Aires, there was always a piano in our home. In Buenos Aires my mother and I would take tram 35 to downtown to my abuelita’s flat. There we would meet with my Uncle Tony (a fine tenor), my Aunt Dolly (a so-so violinist) and my Abuelita who had a lovely coloratura voice. My mother at the piano would play. I was bored but something of the magic of the piano remained and I cannot ever listen to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata without thinking of her.

In the American Smelting and Refining two room schoolhouse in Nueva Rosita, Coahuila, I was in the 8^th grade and my mother taught us and the 7^th and 6^th grade. At the piano we would clamour tp her to play our favourite sing-along the US Marine Corps Anthem.

In 1972 when we were so broke that Rosemary and I could not pay the rent, my mother sold her Bechstein piano to help. It broke my heart.

When our across-the-street neighbour in Kerrisdale sold us her 100-year-old Chickering baby grand for $400 I had the idea (because of my guilt) of eventually having it restored. This happened when we moved to our present Kitsilano home. The splendidly restored Chickering is in its very own piano room. When my friend come for a visit they play it. Portland bassist Curtis Daily plays an exquisite La Danza de la Mosa Donosa by Ginastera that pleases me to no end.

And of course the chickering is now one of fave props for photographs. In the photos below that almost related instrument, the harpsichord is also present.

Similar blog to this one but I could not resist doing it again.