Rachmaninoff?

The west side of Broad Street between Locust and Spruce Streets is known as the "Walk of Fame." At this place the sidewalk is dedicated to Philadelphia's contributors to the paean of music. Plaques identify the "great" both alive and dead immortalized under the shoes of passersby. Annually new commeratives are added and unless the number is reduced the city will someday have an all bronze pedestrian way for these two blocks. No matter!

Certainly a "Walk of Fame" cannot be barren. At first glance to some it might be difficult to homogenize Leopold Stokowski and Chubby Checker, Eugene Ormandy and Teddy Pendergrast, Samuel Barber and Frankie Avalon, Rachmaninoff and Fabian.

Rachmaninoff?

Out in Fairmount Park, between the Japanese House and the Horticultural center, Verdi, Liszt and Schubert are immortalized in sculpture erected by friends. None had any inclination to Philadelphia. Kate Smith did though and her effigy at the Spectrum seems anxious to warble for Flyers' fans as in yore when the superstitious swore "God Bless America" was the factor that gained the hockey team the Stanley Cups.

My older sister and I, in childhood, were given over without initiative or consent to piano lessons whereby we could escape the cultural poverty of the immediate environment. Those torturing exercises did little for me because they were timed to compete against (and impede) more practical agendae. Forts had to be built, baseballs had to be hit, mischief had to be sought after. Our teacher, a Miss Chapin, labored for us and our recitals at the Women's Club or the YWCA benefited her infinitely if we all did well.

Alas, I was neither good (or interested) nor notably bad at recital, only another kid who lumbered through some appointed piece that was not much above "chop-sticks" I suppose. The whole idea ended, those piano lessons, not by embarrassingly bad performance but through mischief.

We had a cat. Our piano was an upright, one of those that housed piano-rolls. Player pianos didn't do much in the way of incentives. It was easier to play Rachmaninoff by manipulating foot pedals than to struggle through "Beautiful Dreamer" or even "Chop Sticks." Anyway, the cat, curious and with my help, found himself in the foot-pedal compartment and I closed the door on him. Inside, he was captive and an unwilling audience to my practice time. After this cacophony I went out to play. He was found later, still trapped inside and somewhat unnerved and it was decided that I couldn't be trusted with a weapon such as a piano. Adieu to lessons and to Miss Chapin. And boyhood was resumed.

A second attempt to direct me to music was made later. I was enrolled as a chorister at the parish church. Choirboys were professionals. We were paid handsomely for practices under Mr. Holz and more handsomely for Sunday performances. There were residuals as well: trips to Washington and New York and weddings and recitals and formal breakfasts. We, being specialists, were a fraternity of boys trading mischievous ideas and raising hell before the maestro arrived and protecting the name "choirboy" by indulging in incessant fighting. It was in the choir that we found the meaning of miracles. Sunday morning this collective rabble became angels in cassocks, cottas, starched collars and big ribboned bowties. Yet we were all doomed. The foul inevitibility of puberty was heralded by a cracked voice and that season of some contrived innocence that thrilled old ladies in the pew was passed on to another generation.

So, I can look back somewhat fondly noting that I had a brief career as a professional singer (later returning undistinguished as Peter the Broom-maker in Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel" with the unfamous Kowalewski troupe — another story) and with the knowledge that I played piano while Rachmaninoff was still playing. I played better on the linoleum.

Oddly Rachmaninoff is not canonized in Philadelphia. Four major works (3rd Symphony, 4th Piano Concerto, The Variations on a Theme of Paganini and the Symphonic Dances) were premiered by our orchestra. His association here and with Stokowski and later with Dr. Ormandy is glorious. The master proclaimed the orchestra as noted on the Columbia recording jackets as "The World's Greatest Orchestra." I liked that.

If current society was capable of producing sculptors like Rosen or Ste. Gaudeans and had genuine patrons of civilized works then Schubert and Verdi and Liszt should share company with a Philadelphia friend...Rachmaninoff. We've tended though to idolize lesser spirits and we are reduced to companion Kate Smith at the approach to our sports cathedral with a mythical "Rocky." It's all a matter of taste to prefer "Yo" to eternity in sound.

Give us Barabbas!