She interspersed her unsophisticated
Yiddish with English phrases like "rare technique," "vonderful
touch," "bee-youtiful tone," or "poeytic temperament." She
assured me that her son was the youngest boy in the United States
to play Brahms and Beethoven successfully. At first I thought that
she was prattling these words parrot fashion, but I soon realized
that, to a considerable extent, at least, she used them intelligently
She had set her heart upon making the greatest pianist in the world
of Bennie, and by incessantly discussing him with people who
were supposed to know something about music she had gradually
accumulated a smattering acquaintance with the subject. That she
was full of it there could be no doubt. Perhaps she had a native
intuition for music. Perhaps, too, it was from her that her son had
inherited his feeling for the poetry of sound. She certainly had
imagination
"Some boys play like monkeys," she said in Yiddish. "They don't
know what they are at. May I know evil if they do. My Bennie is
not that sort of a pianist, thank God! He knows what he is talking
about--on his piano, I mean.
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