5 May 2020. Brahms Impromptu.
Not entirely sure where this will take me. Listening now to one of Toscha Seidel's early recordings---the Brahms First Piano Sonata, II--the Adagio, with Arthur Loesser's piano--from 1923 or so. Toscha was my godfather--from the war years, when so many artists of note ended up in San Diego--as if the entire country had been tilted up onto one corner, and everyone available rolled southwest.
Oscar and Alice--my parents--were great hosts--their dinner parties around the long banquette (built in clear redwood by my father) in the house on California Street, overlooking the harbor--the Convair aircraft plant somewhere below. Where I was born--but that was 1945--which must have felt like a part of the new beginning. I'm sure some of that came to me, too, by osmosis. (So why now the reverie? Maybe also a new beginning...?)
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Yesterday evening, a little warmer, walking down Solano at dusk, the sound of a violin. I've listened for it many times--I think I always do, if only subconsciously, ever since I first heard the person playing so beautifully, high up in the apartment building on the corner--the one with the pokey exposed elevator and unexpected chamfers to the roof. A very accomplished violinist, extraordinary, really, when you consider that we're on a nondescript business block in North Berkeley. But so be it--the sound--the intonation--unforgettable. I stopped there in front, by the Thai place (still take out) that Myron and I visited once, years back--and stood on the edge of the street, looking up to locate the source. A open gazebo passageway--on the top floor, with rattan screen attached along the railing. Which registered (unconsciously, at least) as a wattle fence--as in so many of the old Chinese poems, an image of countryside seclusion, if only because the poet had found a place of respite beyond the city's red dust...
Two small figures, high above--they saw my wave--and then my doffed hat (a theatrical gesture, but this seemed only right!) and the one called out for a request. I couldn't place the right sonata, though, so I called back, Hungarian Dance--which was apparently understood just as I'd intended, for then, after the briefest pause, the notes of the Brahms poured forth...
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Note: The player, a young Asian woman--I've never seen her face. The Thai place--Sweet Basil. And Myron, my dear friend from Reed, all theater and story...
Toscha Seidel was a Russian-born concert violinist, a student of Leopold Auer in Saint Petersburg. He and Jascha Heifitz were contemporaries. Story has it that Auer would refer to Jascha Heifitz as "my angel," and to Toscha as "my devil." I have a very early memory of him sitting at that California Street banquette, his intense personality, wild hair in all directions. When Peter and I would play by crawling along the top of the back, Toscha would object--strenuously. Only room for one prodigy at a time...
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Tell the story of Aunt Stelly (Toscha's wife) and the trip to Portugal--only not right here...
