Salon of Russian Music and Poetry

From left, mezzo-soprano Tatyana Rashkovsky,
pianist Katarzyna Marzec-Salwinski, and reader
and all-around good egg Inna Lobanova-Heasely. 

It's always an exciting challenge to find something to do on Super Bowl Sunday other than watch the game. This year, my Facebook (and real life) friend Inna Lobanova-Heasley invited me to a salon f Russian poetry and music held at the Ethical Society of Philadelphia on Rittenhouse Square. It was a lovely afternoon out that was also educational. Russian anything is a gaping lacuna in my cultural education.

The salon was dedicated to the memory of Alexander Pushkin. Inna read his poems (in Russian) and mezzo-soprano Tatyana Rashkovsky, accompanied by either Kasha Marzec-Salwinski or Rollin Wilber on piano, sang settings of his verses. The program also included solo piano pieces big and small, with Kasha and Rollin switching off.

I've never been a fan of Russian music, and the outer movements of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Sonata, with which Kasha ended the program, reminded me why. The score is stuffed with fat and carbohydrates  ― yummy, but not really good for you. (The fingering is so ostentatiously furious Kasha broke one of the black keys. Bravely, she kept whaling away.) Scriabin's Fifth Piano Sonata, however, which Rollin played at the end of the first half, was a wild ride. I especially liked the way it ended, suddenly breaking off as though the composer, or the performer, got sick of the effort and said, "To hell with it." The smaller piano pieces were lovely, too, even those by Rachmaninoff, and the songs were a revelation. The discovery of the afternoon had to be Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951), and who was represented by his songs "I Have Outlived My Aspirations," "Winter Evening," and "To the Dreamer," and whom I had never heard of. There was something old-fashioned and painfully nostalgic about the whole enterprise ― the youngest composer on the bill was Shostakovich ― but it was a memorable afternoon.

This morning, I found the Puppy Monkey Baby on YouTube. The commercial proves that combining one good thing with another good thing does not necessarily result in a third good thing. The Greeks understood this.

So, those of you claim to watch the Big Game for the commercials,tell me, which of us made the healthier choice?