Random Thoughts by Daniel Morganstern

I played Saint-Saëns’s “The Swan” for a great number of distinguished and famous ballerinas during a ballet called The Dying Swan. It often came up in galas (galas are a potpourri of the best moments in an upcoming season, performed on either opening night or for some fundraising event). My most memorable rendition of “The Swan” happened on a Saturday night between the two acts of the ballet Giselle.

Every week of the eight-week American Ballet Theatre season at the Metropolitan Opera House had twelve services. Six days a week we had either a rehearsal and a performance, or we had two performances. By Saturday night, I required a little bit of alcohol to ease the pain.

One Saturday evening I was in the pit warming up during the noisy intermission of a performance of Giselle, when I heard the harp player, Bob Barlow, playing the introduction to “The Swan.” I naturally joined in with the melody, and as I was playing I noticed that the sound of the audience had died down to nothing. I was in full spate, and simply couldn’t stop playing. When we finished the audience started applauding. Bob Barlow stood up and yelled out to them. “Throw money.” Nobody did.

I was listening a recording of a recital that Leonard Rose gave shortly before his death, and was very disturbed by how tired he sounded. Moments of his glorious past would come shining through, but on only an occasional basis. The playing was good, but definitely not great, and some of it was actually not good at all.

After listening, I thought about something that happened when I was teaching at the String Academy at Indiana University. I was in the bathroom soaking my hands in hot water, when Menahem Pressler, the pianist of the Beux Arts Trio, came through the door and asked me what I was doing. I explained that I always soak my hands in warm water before I start to practice because it softens up my callouses and warms up my hands. He said. “I played with Bernard Greenhouse for thirty years, and I never saw him do that.” “Good for him,” I responded. Pressler then said, “You know, I must’ve played close to ten thousand concerts in my life, and I can honestly say that I was never 100% satisfied that I had achieved perfection.” I told him my point of view: if I’m having a bad day and can only do 25% of what I could do at my very best, but I did all 25% of it, I give myself the same credit that I would if I was playing great when it was easy to do so. To that he responded, “You’ll never get any place that way.” I asked him, “Where do I have to get?”

At the time of that final recital Leonard Rose had recently recovered from both a broken arm and an operation to remove a kidney. Three weeks after that recital, he entered the hospital with terminal leukemia. It occurred to me that under those circumstances having the courage to play a long and difficult recital in front of 2000 people and not cancel was Rose’s version of doing all 25% of what he could have done when he was at his very best. That, more than anything else, revealed Leonard Rose’s true character and greatness as a human being.