CHARLES BAXTER
HARMONY OF THE WORLD
I
In the small Ohio town where I grew up, many homes had parlors
that contained pianos, sideboards, and sofas, heavy objects signifying
gentility. These pianos were rarely tuned. They went flat in summer
around the fourth of July and sharp in winter at Christmas. Ours was
a Story and Clark. On its music stand were copies of Stephen Foster
and Ethelbert Nevin favorites, along with one Chopin prelude that
my mother would practice for twenty minutes every three years. She
had no patience, but since she thought Ohio-all of it, every scrapmade sense, she was happy and did not need to practice anything.
Happiness is not infectious, but somehow her happiness infected my
father, a pharmacist, and then spread through the rest of the household. My whole family was obstinately cheerful. I think of my two
sisters, my brother, and my parents as having artificial pasted-on
smiles, like circus clowns. They apparently thought cheer and good
Christian words were universals, respected everywhere. The pianos
were part of this cheer. They played for celebrations and moments
of pleasant pain. Or rather: someone played them, but not too well,
since excellent playing would have been faintly antisocial. "Chopin,"
my mother said, shaking her head as she stumbled through the prelude. "Why is he famous?"
When I was six, I received my first standing ovation. On the stage
of the community auditorium, where the temperature was about 94~,
sweat fell from my forehead onto the piano keys, making their ivory
surfaces slippery. At the conclusion of the piece, when everyone stood
up to applaud, I thought they were just being nice. My playing had
been mediocre; only my sweating had been extraordinary. Two years
later, they stood up again. When I was eleven, they cheered. By that
time I was astonishing these small-town audiences with Chopin and
Rachmaninoff recital chestnuts. I thought I was a genius and read
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