Dorchester Man’s Home Houses 13 Pianos
There is an exciting story in the Sept. 22 Boston Globe about Richard Marcus, 58-year-old child psychiatrist, of Dorchester, Mass., whose hobby is collecting pianos. In his three-story Victorian house he now has 13 pianos, all but two of which are grands, and he is still looking. He also collects contemporary paintings from artist-friends; 1950 furniture, of which Eames chairs figure heavily; exotic musical instruments collected from his travels to far-flung places; and ammonite fossils that recall the days when he thought of becoming a paleontologist.
But pianos are his true love. He says he grew enchanted with the instrument and classical music at the age of 5, listening to a recording of Artur Rubinstein playing Frederic Chopin. Marcus learned to play at around 13, and has played intermittently since. He bought his first piano, a 1947 Baldwin, nearly 30 years ago, while living in Los Angeles; it has accompanied him across the country twice and now sits in his bedroom on the third floor. Today he favors pianos made in classical music’s romantic era of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Over the past three years, he has hosted a small series of concerts at his home, which have featured acquaintances.
A five-column-wide half-page of pictures at the end of the article about Marcus shows pictures of five of his pianos, with descriptions:
His newest acquisition: Erard grand, built in 1906, and made of rosewood, “This fits in with the direction I’d like to go in, to get more European pianos,” says Marcus, who purchased it from a French family in New York around 1-1/2 years ago, at the piano are two Eames chairs with Eiffel Tower bases. “I figured those should go with the French piano.”
His oldest: Clementi & Co. square piano, built in 1817, made of mahogany. The smallest one he owns, it once was in the Camden, S.C., winter home of William F. Buckley Jr. “I had no idea of that when I went to buy it. I just wanted it because it was an earlier piano.”
His current favorite: Chickering & Co. grand, built in 1906, made of mahogany. “It’s hard to choose a favorite, but this is the one I’ve been playing the most lately.” He adds that it is very similar to the one that Canadian composer Glenn Gould played as a child. Its keys were replaced with ivory keys from a piano that Marcus and a friend found abandoned in a Hyde Park alley.
His first: Baldwin grand, built in 1948, made of ebonized wood. The piano, Marcus’s youngest, has graced several of his residences and has traveled with him across the country twice. One moving incident in Cambridge nearly ended in disaster. “The balcony (the piano was being moved across) almost broke because the piano was heavier than what the balcony could support.”
His most notable: Seinway & Sons grand, built ca. 1890. This piano, made of quarter-sawed oak that was charactistic of the Arts and Crafts movement around the turn of the 20th century, is a departure from typical Steinway models. At $25,000, it is one of the more expensive in Marcus’s collection. “It wasn’t easy to get.”
What a museum he has. Wouldn’t it be fun to attend one of his concerts!
Several Pianos In Our Local Area
I thought it would be interesting to check out the variety of piano manufacturers in homes and Grange halls in our area. Here are a few, listing the owners and their pianos:
Beatrice Straw, Gorham, a Howard, quite new; Malcolm Cass, South Portland, a Baldwin, grand piano; Mary Levesque, Westbrook, a Baldwin, a heavy-duty upright; Jan Usher, Westbrook, a Young Chang, bought in 1999; L. Jordan Berry, Windham, A Wurlitzer, an upright and a Krakauer, a parlor grand, with a brilliant tone and special action, which he especially enjoys playing.
The owners, mentioned above, are all pianists. Bea Straw and Mr. Berry are both Grange pianists, and Malcolm Cass is organist at Peoples United Methodist Church. Also, Jan Usher and Mr. Berry play organ at various churches as well.
Deering Grange has an upright Steinway piano, which used to be in North Yarmouth’s Westcustogo Grange Hall. When it closed, Bunny Easler, a prominent member there, was responsible for having it moved to Deering Grange, in Portland, where Bunny was an active member. Presumpscot Grange, in Riverton, has a Steinert piano, by Berkshire of Boston. The piano at our house is an upright, made by Theodore J. Kraft, of Boston. It was in the home of my childhood friend, Eleanor Wood. I had played for many years on my family’s Sohmer grand piano, which had been in our aunt’s apartment in the Braemore Hotel in Boston.
Man Climbs Washington In Wheelchair
Three years ago a reader from Steep Falls wrote a letter to this newspaper, excoriating me for my article about a man who, with much assistance, being lifted over large rocks on the trail, etc., made the climb in his wheelchair to the hut on Mt. Lafayette, in New Hampshire. (Yes, excoriate is the correct word. It means “to censure scathingly.”)
I hope that reader sees this article, as one of my suggestions was that the wheelchair-bound might choose to use the auto road on Mt. Washington, to reach that summit. (I still refer to that road as the Carriage Road.)
I read in the Aug. 13 Sunday Telegram that Cameron Shaw-Doran, 26, paralyzed from the chest down, reached the summit of Mt. Washington, in his wheelchair. He is a student at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. He began the 7.6-mile trek up the Auto Road on Mr. Washington at 5:30 a.m. Aug. 1, and was at the top of the mountain 14 hours and 32 minutes later. He said his arrival at the summit was an incredible feeling of accomplishment.
He said his thumbs were numb during the last few miles, and, with the moisture from the rain and clouds, he had a hard time keeping his grip on the wheels. (No, it was not a motorized wheelchair.) His reaching the top is an apparent first in the road’s 140-year history.
Such endurance – we surely praise him and want to read more about his journey and those accompanying him. It will undoubtedly be reported in the AMC’s next publication of “Appalachia.”
RECIPE
This week’s recipe is one you’ll enjoy making, if you make cookies, as it does not require baking. I had almost given up baking cookies, as it takes so long. But this recipe, given me by Ellie Saunders of Westbrook, takes less than a half-hour, from start to finish!
PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES
2 cups sugar, 1/2 cup milk, and 1/4 lb. of oleo. Bring these to a rolling boil, and cool a bit. Add to the above mixture, 3/4 cup of peanut butter (the smooth kind), 2-1/2 to 3 cups of quick-cooking rolled oats, a pinch of salt, and 1-1/2 tsps. of vanilla.
Drop by teaspoon on wax paper. Allow to cool, and store in a container.
Yield, about 3 dozen cookies.
I doubt if these cookies will stay in the container for long at our house, as they are disappearing rapidly – very tasty!
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