The "Archduke"

Earlier this evening, I joined a large crowd huddled outside the Alfred Newman Recital Hall in the misting rain. We were waiting for the doors to open, to grab a ticket to see the Schoenfeld Sisters and John Perry perform. It was certainly worth the wait...okay, I admit, I waited for no more than 35 seconds, but it would have been worth easily minutes more than that.

The program, free for USC students, consisted of two piano trios, Beethoven's "Archduke and Dvorak's "Dumky." I booked it at intermission because I was famished, but it was quite a show beforehand. First, the music.

The "Archduke" is known more accurately as the Piano Trio in B Flat, op. 97. Its regal pseudonym comes from its dedication, unsurprisingly, to the Archduke Randolph. The piece apparently was a personal favorite of Beethoven and he performed it on many occasions himself.

To a musician, the performance was no doubt a highly technical piece that could be dissected into terms like scherzo, semplice, Presto stretta, and the like. I recognize those terms vaguely (either from the third of Greenberg's lectures I waded through or the lunch menu at Olive Garden), but that was not the story of the night. The Schoenfeld Sisters were.

The Schoenfeld Sisters are famous. Mega-famous. At least in the world of music. They're a spectacularly talented pair, one on the violin, the other on the cello, and are a delight to watch perform. Apparently, they've spent decades touring the world, teaching the greatest musicians and performing with anyone and anything important. And that's just it: they have spent decades upon decades. These wonderful ladies are well-advanced in years.

To be sure, it adds to their charm, and I doubt it has much decreased their talents. But it did plant one ominous seed in the back of my mind: what if these legends were, well...off. I didn't fear that they would slip up in any major way. But I was surrounded, as the lights went down, by dozens of musicians, student and professional, eager to hear them in person and I couldn't help but worry what would happen to their mystique if they weren't in top form.

The tension only mounted with the advent of the performance. Eleonore, on the violincello, muttered audibly in the first several measures, then emitted what sounded suspiciously like a surprised grunt several minutes subsequent. Her sister Alice gave off the curious and terrifying sensation that at any moment she might simply overlook a bar or two. I was on the edge of my seat, no doubt irritating the man in front who was comfortably ensconced in the rear of his and couldn't have appreciated my dank breath fogging his personal space.

Fortunately, my great work ethic saved me: having risen quite early to be on my best game, I was plumb tuckered out. In short, the strains of Beethoven escorted me to the Land of Nod posthaste and I dreamt sweet dreams of beautiful aged women playing all kinds of stringed instruments as I floated through clouds.