This concert honors my grandmother, Dora Goodman, who died of tuberculosis in 1927 when my father was just six years old. The concert also honors the thousands of people who have suffered from, or lost their lives this year to COVID-19.
In 1927, when Dora died, a vaccine was not yet available to the public. An injectable vaccine was first demonstrated by French scientists Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin in 1921, and endorsed by health authorities in 1928. The first antibiotic which could actually cure a patient with TB (streptomycin) was discovered in 1943 by Albert Schatz and Selman Waksman.
In choosing the pieces for this concert program, I image the feelings that my father as a young person might have experienced as a young person in New York of the 1920's, growing up and losing his mother to TB. The first three scenes from childhood are happy and playful. The fourth seems to be a reprise of the No.1, but ends unresolved. The next piece, Remembering Dora is an elegy for cello and piano. Dora is represented by a plaintive two-note theme which appears throughout, but is eventually silenced. The final scene from childhood, The Poet Speaks, provides some resolution, and suggests one way to come to terms with loss is by creating meaning through art.
Program
Scenes from Childhood Op.15 Robert Schumann
1. From Foreign Lands and People
2. A Curious Story
3. Catch Me
4. Pleading Child
Remembering Dora Daniel Goodman
(Elegy for Cello and Piano)
Scenes from Childhood Op.15 Robert Schumann
13. The Poet Speaks (arr. for cello and piano)
