Strings

Hearing some lovely Beethoven string trios recently made me remember how dearly I love violins and cellos—and how horrified my father would have been to hear me say that.  Though he listened avidly to everything from Puccini to Pendercky, Beethoven to Strauss to the Grateful Dead to David Lee Roth’s “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” for some reason he loathed chamber music, and I would consequently not discover how essential it is to my being until my late twenties, when I came to it (that inner hushed, holy frisson) almost like a religious conversion.  Did I ever dare say so?  If I did, he would have been dismissive, scathing, as my mother was when I mentioned the trios.

But they touch my core, strings, and today I’ll listen and be glad.

Here's the fine adagio from Beethoven's Violin Sonata 5—

image:  Amedeo Modigliani, Cello Player