tadpole-596-918256 Review of The Cat Concerto

The Cat Concerto (1947)

During the time I've served as a piano tuner . . .

[7/10 · 14 August 2022]

. . . the main premise of THE CAT CONCERTO--a grand piano infested with one or more rodents--has been borne out time after time in Real Life. Most of my lumbering music boxes--whether grands or the space-saving uprights--belong to widows who seldom or no longer play, due to dementia, failing health and pervasive arthritis. However, from force of habit they or occasionally a rarely-seen housekeeper, think it is good for the morale of the house to shell out a couple hundred bucks twice a year for the benefit of having an experienced piano turner make a house call and put the musical elephant in their domicile back into as close a semblance of "working order" as possible. After awhile, the discovery of rodent droppings, decaying corpses and even live musical mice became so frequent that I was working in almost as much personal protective gear as an exterminator. THE CAT CONCERTO hits particularly close to home for me. Like most piano tuners, the famed Liszt rhapsody is my post-tune-up test piece. I play it to make sure that I've worked all the bugs out of a just-serviced keyboard instrument.