The Virtuoso

Prologue

I’m satisfied.  All I ever wanted to do was create music, and that is what I am doing.  Everyone said the piano would bring me fame and fortune, and it has given me enough of both to make me happy.  If the prophets were unduly optimistic I really don’t care.  I have everything I want.

As long as I can remember, I devoted my life to the piano.  But the piano is just a servant of Music, and Music is an unforgiving tyrant – a merciless mistress.  She demands total, unwavering servitude from her subjects, and in turn I was a willing, dedicated slave, totally faithful to her – almost.  Only once did I rebel.  (How could it be possible not to revolt against such a tyrant?  Is there a serious musician anywhere who never questioned the wisdom of his all-consuming dedication?)

In her defense, however, this tyrant of a mistress gave herself back to me, enough to make keeping her worth whatever it cost.  But like the other kind of mistress, she kept me in a perpetual state of anxiety, lest I give her too little, or somehow give her cause to abandon me.  On those rare occasions when I did protest, my protests were never overwhelming.  Above all, they were temporary.

But Music is a ruthless mistress.  She demands more than is humanly possible to deliver.

This is the story of my affair with the piano, and a few other affairs as well.  Some were also demanding, but never as demanding, never as uncompromising, never as unforgiving as the piano.

Chapter 1

Houston, Texas, 1915

Pop had always wanted a boy.  So had Mom.  All Jewish parents want boys, and the Steinbergs were no exception.  While Mom waited for her first child, they pondered the future of their son-to-be.  Mom wanted a doctor.  Pop wanted a son to assist in, and later inherit his clothing store.  Either way, a son would bring nachas [honor, joy] to the family name.  If Pop and Mom disagreed on details, at least they agreed they wanted a boy.

Fate settled the issue, for the baby was a beautiful girl, whom they named Shirley.

Six years later, Mom waited for her second child.  “This one will be a boy, because we already have a fine little girl.”  By then Mom’s position had softened somewhat.  She would have settled for a lawyer or a professor.  Pop remained nearly as unyielding in his desire for a son to share his store, but he would have settled for a rabbi, or even a chazon [cantor].   Again fate settled the matter, for their second baby was another beautiful daughter, whom they named Irene.

Girls were nice to have around, and these two sisters received much love from my parents.  Still, it would take a boy to make the family complete.  Their boy did not come along until four years later.  I was their first and only son, and I – Samuel – entered the world with a mission: To fulfill the dreams of fame and wealth for the Steinberg family.

Both Shirley and Irene grew into doting, motherly sisters, hardly able to wait until they too would bear children, preferably boys.  I entered this world in the Roaring Twenties.  I am told it was an exciting time to be alive.  The Great World War was finally over; the Armistice was almost seven years old when I was born.  Houston was a small but spirited Southern city in the southeastern part of Texas, not far from the Gulf of Mexico, and Houstonians had just done the impossible.  They had dredged and widened a muddy creek.  If you are not impressed, ponder this: They dug so deep and so wide that large ocean-going ships now steamed up the Buffalo Bayou, ending their journey fifty miles inland at a large, man-made harbor.  Within a few years, land-locked Houston was transformed into one of the world’s leading international seaports.  Optimism and prosperity were in the air, almost to the moment of the Crash. 

Pop spoke of Houston’s accomplishments with a pride that bordered on chauvinism.  It was not necessary that he be involved personally, for he was quite content to root for his team, and live its deeds vicariously.

By profession, Pop was a businessman.  Steinberg’s Clothing Store was successful enough to make our family comfortable, but never affluent.  The Steinberg family did not personally experience poverty; it would have been hard to know that by listening to Pop.  He talked as though his financial world constantly tottered on the verge of collapse.

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