We’ll let Padarewski play this one himself, but not for long. Sheila says she has a recording of Mom playing this. When I get it, it’ll be ‘Roll Over Padarewski!’
Tag: Mary Bland Swanepoel
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Louis, Imperial Schoeman
Mom Mary fondly says bachelor Louis Schoeman was quite important and quite full of himself – ‘He thought he was the Prince Imperial!’ she says teasingly. ‘Louis the Seventeenth,’ she says, adding one to the last of that French line of kings.
‘He played polo, you know, and that was very posh. He walked with a regal bearing. So when he walked in to Havengas bookstore one day and threw down a document on the counter in front of Dad saying, ‘Pieter! Sign here!’ Dad said ‘What for? I don’t sign anything unless I know what I’m signing!’ all the assembled men’s heads turned to Louis, sensing drama.’
‘I’m getting married!’ he announced, ‘to Cathy, the sister at the hospital.’ Well, like sympathetic, caring, thoughtful bachelors will do when a friend is in need, the men roared with laughter and teased Louis unmercifully!
‘And you know what?’ says Mom Mary: ‘It was the best thing that ever happened to him! Cathy bore them five lovely children and was a wonderful companion, mother and home-maker. Wonderful sense of fun and humour, and they were very happy together.’
~~~oo0oo~~~
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Liszt Mom Used to Play – Liebestraum
Quite one of my favourites, this would invoke peace. Some of the others caused some melancholy! Not this one.
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Chopin Mom Used to Play – Nocturne E Flat Major Op.9 No.2
No.6 of Mom’s Chopin repetoire – played at night on the Bentley upright while we lay in bed listening down the other end of the long passage. Sometimes she would practice her hymns for Sundays – she played the organ at the Harrismith Methodist church for a hundred-odd years – sister Sheila christened her ‘Mary Methodist’ cos o’ that. Other times were not as classical, nor as holy – that would be when friends gathered round the piano full of smoke and booze and belted out popular tunes with various degrees of talent.
Thanks again to the pianist standing in for Mary now that she’s 91 and can no longer read her sheet music. She still plays, but only her favourite popular tunes ‘off by heart.’
In the comments Sheila informs me it was a Venning – probably mischievous Barbara – who first christened her Mary Methodist. Well, it stuck!
~~oo0oo~~
