(A friend told me about an orchestra concert she had heard led by the illustrious international conductor Ondray Prayvon. It took a minute to figure out she meant Andre Previn, a nice little Jewish boy from Hollywood, California. American music lovers labor to pronounce foreign names as would their bearer. Hosts of public radio music programs attack the syllables of this opera or that fantasy with a bone crushing meticulousness that borders on parody. Europeans happily corrupt foreign names to fit the intonations of their own language. Thus in France the “Moonlight” Sonata is by” Bay-tuv.” The French adored Liszt but could not say his name. As late as the 1960s classmates of mine at the Conservatoire were practicing the B-minor Sonata of “Litz.” On the other hand there is…)
Do you know how far I’d travel
To hear a piece by Maurice Ravel
Happily I’d go by bus, He
Was a friend of Claude Debussy
The Etudes keep the fingers hoppin’
That’s the problem playing Chopin
Fiddlers know the spots ornate
In every piece by Sarasate.
For rococo, and too Beaux-arts
Make room for W. A. Mozart
How to serenade a maiden?
Sing a song by Maestro Haydn.
The Heineken’s gone, the Bud Light’s drear
Let me have a Meyerbeer
Happily I’ll throw it back
To the fugues of old man Bach
The Requiem that I adore?
Gabriel’s, the last name’s Faure
Too there’s the one by Berlioz
I like it less. Why? Just because.
Tchaikovsky’s my symphonic man
So why does titchy sound so itchy.
In the ballroom who’s the boss?
Hard to beat a waltz by Strauss
There’s an opera by Bizet.
It’s definitely worth a visit
I’d prefer the works of Verdi
If his operas were less wordy
The sounds of music have no name
No occasions to defame
To composers give a thought
Correctness please, comme il faut.
BERNARD HOLLAND