Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

A Philadelphia Bookseller’s Recollections of Jules Massenet

When I started my book business in Philadelphia in the mid-1990s, it was the pioneer days of AbeBooks – an online service (ABE an acronym for Advanced Book Exchange) that allowed independent dealers to hawk their more esoteric wares to a worldwide audience. In 2008, ABE was swallowed by the great Satan, Amazon.com (earlier, there were seller agreements with all the major platforms), but by then I was closing up shop anyway and eager to move on to other things. For those 13 years, I was a house divided against myself, as I had been hired as a classical music radio host right after I had negotiated my lease on my first storefront!

As you can imagine, I had built quite the music inventory. I was located about block from the Curtis Institute, people wandered in after Philadelphia Orchestra matinees, and thanks to ABE, I developed a decent international clientele. But when you’re a bookdealer, if you want to be successful, you really have to draw the line between being a seller and being a collector, and I couldn’t always do that. Furthermore, I was maddeningly inconsistent. So I would sell off books inscribed by Louis Armstrong, Fred Astaire, and John Philip Sousa, but I would turn around and skim off for myself a letter scrawled by Jean Sibelius. (I’m not crazy!)

My greatest regret was the time I sold one of the original, privately-printed pamphlets of “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Doren Stern, which he sent out to friends as a Christmas card and later became the basis for the perennial favorite “It’s a Wonderful Life.” There were only 200 of them in existence. It’s a piece of memorabilia that’s only going to go up in value, and I sold it to some pig lawyer for cash on the barrel. He was a regular customer, a real arrogant son-of-a-bitch. He held a lit cigar between his fingers as he counted out the bills. I wish it had gone to anyone except him. But I had to keep the doors open.

Seller or collector… grrrrrrrr.

Further blurring the line between the sides of the register occurred because I often viewed transactions from the point-of-view of a customer. It was a great weakness of mine, because I knew as a booklover how excited I’d get when I discovered a real book bargain. So I underpriced many of my items, understanding the thrill, even when I could have squeezed more money out of a lot of them. Another upside, of course, was that I was able to turn over my inventory fairly quickly.

There wasn’t always a lot, if anything, online in those days to guide one, so a dealer had to rely on his knowledge and intuition, not only to stock and price books, but to come up with attractive and witty descriptions of their contents for the ABE catalogue. Naturally, I couldn’t read everything. But on this birthday anniversary of the composer Jules Massenet, I am reminded of his memoir, “My Recollections,” that, in leafing through, struck me as especially witty and eccentric, as it concludes with a chapter describing his own death and departure from this world. It was so bizarre that it popped into my head yesterday, as I was glancing at today’s music birthdays.

While my own description seems to have been lost to time (I thought I might have been able to find a sales invoice in the far reaches of my email account), I have managed to locate the actual text, reproduced by Project Gutenberg. As proof that people never change, when Massenet’s memoir was first published in installments in the newspaper L’Écho de Paris, some readers pointed out that the story was incomplete and asked him why he hadn’t included a chapter about his death (!). Massenet, as an intelligent person, laughed this off, but after he turned 70, contemplations of his own mortality were inevitable. It was then that he decided to add an appendix, “Pensées posthumes,” a translation of which follows.

CHAPTER XXIX

THOUGHTS AFTER DEATH

I have departed from this planet and I have left behind my poor earthly ones with their occupations which are as many as they are useless; at last I am living in the scintillating splendor of the stars, each of which used to seem to me as large as millions of suns. Of old I was never able to get such lighting for my scenery on the great stage at the Opéra where the backdrops were too often in darkness. Henceforth there will be no letters to answer; I have bade farewell to first performances and the literary and other discussions which come from them.

Here there are no newspapers, no dinners, no sleepless nights. Ah! if I could but counsel my friends to join me here, I would not hesitate to call them to me. But would they come?

Before I came to this distant place where I now sojourn, I wrote out my last wishes (an unhappy husband would have taken advantage of the occasion to write with joy, “my first wishes”).

I had indicated that above all I wanted to be buried at Égreville, near the family abode in which I had lived so long. Oh, the good cemetery in the open fields, silent as befits those who live there!

I asked that they should refrain from hanging black draperies on my door, ornaments worn threadbare by use. I expressed the wish that a suitable carriage should take me from Paris, the journey, with my consent, to begin at eight in the morning.

An evening paper (perhaps two) felt it to be its duty to inform its readers of my decease. A few friends – I still had some the day before – came and asked my concierge if the news were true, and he replied, “Alas, Monsieur went without leaving his address.” And his reply was true for he did not know where that obliging carriage was taking me.

At lunch acquaintances honored me among themselves with their condolences, and during the day here and there in the theaters they spoke of the adventure,

“Now that he is dead, they’ll play him less, won’t they?”

“Do you know he left still another work?”

“Ah, believe me, I loved him well! I have always had such great success in his works.”

A woman’s lovely voice said that.

They wept at my publishers, for there they loved me dearly.

At home, Rue de Vaugirard, my wife, daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered and almost found consolation in their sobs.

The family was to reach Égreville the same evening, the night before my burial.

And my soul (the soul survives the body) listened to all these sounds from the city left behind. As the carriage took me farther and farther away, the talking and the noises grew fainter and fainter, and I knew, for I had my vault built long ago, that the heavy stone once sealed would be a few hours later the portal of oblivion.

THE END

You can find the complete text of “My Recollections” here:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36728/36728-h/36728-h.htm

Happy birthday, Jules Massenet, wherever you are!

May 12, 2026
William Grant Still: Still the One

I am proud to say I was a William Grant Still advocate before it was cool to be so. When I first encountered his “Afro-American Symphony” in the early 1980s, it was love at first sound. It remains one of my favorite symphonies by an American composer.

Perhaps it’s not “The Great American Symphony,” self-consciously aspirational, oratorical, or grandiose in the manner the third symphonies of Roy Harris, William Schuman, or Aaron Copland; but it does go straight to the heart, which is something none of the composers of that great American triumvirate do, at least in those particular works.

Still’s symphony is poetic, it’s genuinely reflective, it’s beautiful, and it brims with great tunes. It’s congenial, and in the end quite moving. When I want “big statements” made on an Olympian scale, I will turn to those Lincoln Center composers, who would have us believe they are eating out of lunch pails in their spare time and riveting skyscrapers or busting sod in denim overalls. But let’s face it, they are mostly hobnobbing in suits, jostling to get their music conducted by “Lenny.”

Still is a composer in the mold, if not the manner, of Charles Ives. He’s a perpetual outsider, and always true to himself. His music grows directly out of his autobiographical experience, the blues, ballads, and spirituals of his childhood, in Woodville, Mississippi, and Little Rock, Arkansas, and later his experience playing in pit bands during the Harlem Renaissance.

He also studied at the Oberlin Conservatory and privately with George Whitefield Chadwick and Edgard Varèse, of all people. There is no Varèse to be found in Still’s music.

He composes with the directness of a Virgil Thomson, but with none of Thomson’s affected naiveté. He shares with George Gershwin a refreshing lack of pretention – or at any rate his music does (he did, after all, subtitle one of his symphonies “Autochthonous”) – and a wonderful facility with melody.

Of course, any discussion of Still must come with a litany of “firsts.” His “Afro-American Symphony” was the first written by a black composer to be performed by a major orchestra (the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall). He was the first to be given the opportunity to conduct a major orchestra (the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl). His opera, “Troubled Island,” became the first to be produced by a major company (the New York City Opera). Another of his operas, “A Bayou Legend,” was the first to be performed on national television (as late as 1981). His works were performed internationally by the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, and the Tokyo Philharmonic.

For years, all I could find was the “Afro-American Symphony,” and that only in two out-of-print, albeit very fine recordings (with Karl Krueger and the Royal Philharmonic, and Paul Freeman and the London Symphony Orchestra). It wasn’t until the digital era that the other four symphonies gradually – very gradually – became available. Thankfully, all of them now have been recorded and are available for purchase.

I think we have to thank the revival of the fortunes of Florence Price for the boost in exposure brought to so many other Black composers recently. Who would have thought that Price, Still, and William Levi Dawson would not only be performed, but recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra – for the Deutsche Grammophon label, no less?

Of course, it would nice if DG didn’t change horses midstream and issue the final installment of their Price cycle exclusively as a digital download. I don’t do downloads, at least for the purposes of collecting. I would snap up the rest of their Price, Still, Dawson, and Margaret Bonds recordings if they actually existed on physical media (even if I was less than impressed with Yannick’s Dawson in concert). It’s exciting that a world-class band would take up the cause of these composers. I don’t need any more Philadelphia Orchestra Rachmaninoff!

Be that as it may, whether or not DG eventually grants him the respect of some compact disc releases, for me, William Grant Still is still the one.

Happy birthday, WGS (1895-1978).

—–

“Afro-American Symphony”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S-g-qYnqQQ

May 11, 2026
I Remember Mama

My mother encouraged me in everything I did. I remember when I was just starting to buy classical records, she suggested that if there were certain composers I enjoyed, I should consider exploring what else they wrote. I took Beethoven’s “Pathètique” Sonata and Wagner’s “Die Walküre” out of the library (the latter was way over my head), but mostly I went to the record store with my allowance and purchased what I could from the 99-cent bin. Now my record collection is so big, even I’m a little afraid of it. The same thing happened with books.

When I was small, she read me Grimms’ fairy tales and watched black-and-white monster movies with me. Later, she read short stories and novellas I wrote and encouraged me in whatever projects I got up to, including making Super 8 films with my friends.

We colored eggs on Easter; we carved pumpkins at Halloween. One year, she supervised my sister and me in the construction of papier-mâché costumes. I was a scarecrow, which required a pumpkin head, and my sister was Mr. Peanut. Once, we attempted gingerbread houses for Christmas. For a time, she popped popcorn on the stovetop so that we could prick our fingertips with needles as we attempted to thread it with cranberries for old-fashioned garlands for the Christmas tree.

Another time, we painted antique steamer trunks in the styles of our choice. I painted mine red, white and blue. It still sits in my old attic bedroom at my parents’ house. I sometimes think of stripping the paint off and restoring it to its former state, but I don’t think it was anything special to begin with. The paint is as vibrant today as the day it was applied, probably 50 years ago.

From time to time, she brought my sister and me along to her art lessons at the community art league. But I evinced no talent as a painter. I did, however, draw my own comic books. I’m a fun doodler and an okay cartoonist.

One summer, she drove us over to New Jersey, and we pulled off to the side of the road to watch a hot-air balloon race, dozens of them floating in the skies like so many tulips liberated from their stems. Another time, she sat with me in the car at night so that we could view a lunar eclipse.

She did make a few missteps along the way, as when she signed me up for all the stereotypical guy stuff. I played basketball, but was never comfortable with it. She arranged tennis lessons, but I had no finesse or restraint, and she had me try out for Little League. I was pretty good on the sandlot, playing with the neighborhood kids, but I was less successful with crazy, type-A 9-years-olds and abusive coaches. I spent my one season mostly as a bench-warmer.

I was also not big on summer camp. That kind of stuff was for kids who didn’t know what to do with themselves. I was never bored.

At last, she arranged for me to take piano lessons. You’d think, given my mania for music, that I would have been a natural, but I wondered what all those tedious scales had to do with making music. I was always a mediocre student, because I always wanted to hang out with my friends, and then I got interested in girls. But my teacher understood my sincere enthusiasm and lent me records of Brahms and Mahler.

It was clear I was never going to be a virtuoso, but Mom and I kept up doing musical things. We attended piano recitals and string quartet concerts at the local college and at the town theater. I scribbled furiously through many of these, as my head filled with plentiful images and ideas for stories. She was also my regular companion when I attended any Gilbert & Sullivan productions.

Mom drove me everywhere, usually without complaint, although once I remember she did voice her despair when I wanted her to drive me to my cousin’s house for the afternoon. It was an hour’s round-trip, and she had to drop me off AND pick me up.

At the dawn of the home video era, I assembled my friends for annual 24-hour film festivals, which, in those days, required renting from four or five different accounts at different video stores. The coffee was always on, and my mom got up to cook us all breakfast, even though our stomachs were all feeling a bit unstable from sleeplessness.

I’m saying nothing new when I remark that being a mom is not for the faint of heart. There were plenty of times when I had to be rushed to the emergency room, including once when a friend’s mom had to drive me home covered in blood because someone dropped something heavy on me during a rock fight. When I was 10-years-old, I sustained a long-term injury, and she had to nurse me for the better part of a year. But she always shepherded me through.

She’s been gone for quite a while now. I was trying to figure out if it’s been twenty years yet, but not quite. She lived long enough to listen to me on the radio and visit me in my bookstores, but never saw any of my newspaper articles. She knew “The Lost Chord,” but never “Picture Perfect” or “Sweetness and Light.”

She was the single greatest influence on my life. I don’t have that many photos of her (I still have to go through everything), but in this one, we’re clearly in sync.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom, wherever you are. And thanks for everything.

May 10, 2026
Fancy Feline Footware on “The Lost Chord”

You can tune an orchestra, but you can’t tun-a fish.

This week on “The Lost Chord,” we put the “cat” in Catalan music with selections from Xavier Montsalvatge’s one-act opera “Puss in Boots.”

“Puss in Boots,” Montsalvatge’s first opera, was composed in 1947. We all know the story. The tale, in its best-known guise, was published by Charles Perrault in 1695 as one of the “Tales of Mother Goose.”

A poor miller laments his inheritance. Most of the family property – the mill and the mules – goes to his elder brothers, and all that’s left for him is an unprepossessing cat. He wonders of what use to him a cat could possibly be. He contemplates eating it, perhaps using the skin to make a hat. The cat, however, promptly endears himself, and offers to gain his master a fortune, a kingdom, and the hand of a beautiful princess. All he asks in exchange is a pair of boots to spare his feet, a stylish hat with a plume, a cape, and a sword fashioned out of bone.

Since the cat presents him with a ring from the hand of the princess, the Miller considers it a fair deal, and sets about getting, by hook or by crook, whatever the cat desires.

Throughout the course of the story, with his cunning and superior wits, the cat is able to deliver on everything he promises.

We’ll heard selections from a 2004 recording on the Columna Musica label, with Argentine mezzo-soprano Marisa Martins as Puss (an unusual take on the traditional “trouser role”) and tenor Antonio Comas as the Miller. The Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu is conducted by Antoni Ros Marba.

Listen for charming cat-like touches in the strings and the use of piano throughout to emulate the decorative style of 18th century recitative.

That’s “Fur Love and Valor” – highlights from Xavier Montsalvatge’s “Puss in Boots” – on “The Lost Chord, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!

——–

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu

May 9, 2026
The Mother of All Shows for Mother’s Day on “Sweetness and Light”

Get ready for the mother of all shows this week, on “Sweetness and Light.” It’s music for Mom for Mother’s Day!

Enjoy works on nursery themes by Grace Williams, Charles Williams, and Vaughan Williams (all unrelated). Also, odd man out Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Of course, Mom deserves more, so I’ve also enlisted Yo-Yo Ma (despite his name, not really a mother, though if said properly, guaranteed to get Mom’s attention) and Luciano Pavarotti (accompanied by Henry Mancini, no less).

Start your day with a musical candygram. It’s a suite of sweets for Mom on “Sweetness and Light, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 EDT, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

May 9, 2026

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