Musical memories

  Debussy wrote his two books of Images between 1904 and 1907. Both books consists of three pieces each. Book I 1. Reflets dans l'eau 2.  Hommage à Rameau 3. Mouvement Book II 1.  Cloches à travers les feuilles 2.  Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut 3. Poissons d'or There is actually one recording of this piece that most critics and music lovers consider the best ever. That one is Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli's recording in Turin in 1962. His recording for DG a decade later is also masterful. This piece is recorded and played live often in concert, so there is a good chance you will be able to hear it in a concert hall near you. But the first time I heard this was at college in the early 1980s. Mary Przypyszny played it not only in her senior recital and several times in the small recital hall but also from the orchestra pit during a student dance performance. I was a "techie" for the performance, changing the gels on the side-lights between the dances, so ...

  It all started with her. Mary Przypyszny was a fabulous pianist and also happened to be a member of Gamma Phi Beta sorority, of which I was a big brother. Anyway, Mary played not only Chopin's Nocturne on several occasions my sophomore year of college but also Debussy's first book of  Images,  including what would become one of my favorite pieces, "Reflets dans l'eau."  I do have a way of jumping from one topic to the next, but that just shows how so many of my musical experiences arise from one source and are often interconnected. Enough about me - now Chopin!  At our college the music department scheduled a student recital nearly every Friday noon in Ewell Hall. This forum provided the mature players an opportunity to play in front of audiences and to get feedback or simply to gain experience on stage. Mary played this Nocturne at one of these recitals and I swore I'd never heard anything so beautiful before. A month later she played it in a master class g...