Sunday Morning

I hereby promise not to complain about our piddly weather variations here on the Western Slope. Not as long as the West Coast is on fire. That is a problem, a heartache, a series of disasters. Our cold rains, too-hot days, dust blown in our eyes, early frosts … these are annoyances.

I may mention local meteorology, but I will not complain. Not that this will be a difficult thing to do, because I have a naturally sunny and forgiving disposition and a discourteous word rarely drops from these lips.

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From The New Yorker

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I know that I’ve told this story before, but no matter. If I were not to allow myself repetition this journal would grind to a halt very quickly. And we wouldn’t want that now, would we? (No answer required. A rhetorical question, that)

I first heard Recuerdos de la Alhambra at a concert when I was an undergraduate at the U. of Minnesota. I was a callow youth … actually I might have been the callowest of the freshman class, to be honest. But I had grand ideas of self-improvement, and one of those was that I would learn something about classical music.

So I coughed up the shekels necessary to attend a concert of the great classical guitarist Andres Segovia in Northrop Auditorium, which at the time was the premier performance space at the U, or in all of the Twin Cities, for that matter. I was in my seat early, because why would I take a chance on missing a single note that I had paid so dearly to hear? The concert was scheduled to begin at 8:00 P.M. There was a single plain wooden chair in the center of the stage, out in front of the gigantic maroon velvet curtain.

At precisely 8:00 Andres Segovia walked out to the chair, looked out into the audience, and saw people still streaming in through all of the doors. Without saying a word, he walked off the stage. The ushers looked puzzled, but they continued to seat attendees and the huge leather-accented doors to the hall remained open.

At 8:10 Mr. Segovia walked back onto the state and again stood by the chair. A few stragglers were still entering, and he silently walked off the stage into the wings. Again.

This time, everybody got it. The ushers slammed those big doors shut and if you weren’t already inside it was too bad for you. The seated audience realized what was happening and were ready to strangle the next trespassers with a thousand willing hands if they had to, in order to hear the music they had come for.

At 8:20 Andres Segovia walked onto the stage in an absolutely silent hall, sat down on that lone chair, and proceeded to play Recuerdos de la Alhambra. I never forgot the moment, and the piece has been a favorite ever since that night.

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