Music Appreciation 100
In the spring of the year, our teacher opened the large windows in the classroom to let in any cooler air. Across the hallway from the third grade classroom, the stage doors to the auditorium were located. An ebony Baldwin grand piano sat on that stage. Miss Louise Lewis taught piano lessons in a small room on the high school side of the building. A few weeks before the annual recital for her students, she would bring them to the stage, push back the heavy velveteen draperies and open the stage doors to allow a bit of ventilation.
Then the music began. Sitting still and staying in my desk was very hard for me. I can remember deliberately breaking my pencil point so that I could walk to the pencil sharpener. Or going to the teacher’s desk to ask a question to which I knew the answer just to get rid of the jittery feeling that meant I had to move. When the music began, it worked its way into the core of my being and wrapped me in a calm ecstasy. I worked; I listened. It was the best part of my day.
I eventually learned that one I liked best was Chopin’s “Polonaise No. 3 in A, Opus 40.” The music of other composers drifted across the hallway every spring–compositions I now recognize as works of Mozart, Bach, Hayden and others. I never told anyone of the joy and wonder that I experienced as these students practiced. My family and friends were country music fans and they would have laughed me to scorn. But even today, when I hear those pieces I am grateful. Miss Lewis and her students, who never knew me, gave me the first and most important music appreciation lesson. Thank you Elizabeth, Patsy, Wayne, Mary Clare and all of you who practiced for your recital on the Baldwin grand. It was a grand experience for me. The music that you played more than half a century ago lives on in the heart of your unseen audience.