REMEMBERING LEO

       The music world is populated with a few performers for whom the cards fell nicely into place, assuring them both fame and fortune. There is a second tier of performers, much larger in number, occupied by their professional equals but who weren’t quite so fortunate. Performing a few concerts a year is not adequate to a good living, so these fine musicians  commonly drift to a career in private teaching, or in the employ of an established school like Julliiard or Eastman School of Music, with an occasional recital.
Leo Smit, composer and pianist, teacher exemplary, fell into the second tier, though so highly esteemed that the State Department sent him on world tours as part of its cultural exchange program.
Leo was a family friend for  nearly forty years. In the past few days I had occasion to speak and mention him in my writings. It now seems appropriate to recall that interesting and rewarding association in more detail.          
       Leo Smit was born in Philadelphia on January 12, 1924. Showing early signs of musical talent, his mother took him to Russia at an early age to study with composer Dmitri Kabalevsky. Later he studied in New York with  Isabella  Vengerova and Jose Iturbi and composition with Nabokov. Performance of his Symphony No. 1 by the Boston Symphony in 1957 (he composed three symphonies) was one of the highlights of his career. In that year he moved to Los Angeles to teach composition and piano.
It was then that my wife Joy, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, majoring in piano and organ, made his acquaintance. She had previously pursued graduate study with noted pianist E. Robert Schmitz at his  school in the old Embassy building is San Francisco. She contacted the University of California in Los Angeles, and, after stating  she wanted to  continue study, the university recommended Leo Smit, She telephoned him. Intrigued that someone as far away as Santa Fe had called to study with him, Leo was interested, then later was somewhat bemused on learning that she had called from Rancho Santa Fe, California, a hundred miles down the pike.
Leo often gave thematic recitals – sometimes illustrated with his own slides – sometimes reading letters written by the composers. He  performed a great deal of new music, especially works by Aaron Copland. He performed a  Mozart recital at my home one day, to which organists from the San Diego region were invited.
  He wrote two operas: The Alchemy of Love (1969), in collaboration with the British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, with whom he also worked on an oratorio.
Leo was smitten with American poet Emily Dickinson and bemoaned the fact that he was born  years too late.  He  set to music nearly a hundred  of her poems. A final work in his life was to record thirty-three of the poems. He performed and recorded them with Soprano Rosalind Rees.  
Leo was a frequent visitor at our home in Rancho Santa Fe. He was happy in those surroundings, a few miles from the Pacific.
In 1962  he left for Buffalo where he had taken a position with the Music Department of  New York University. He settled  comfortably into a a huge old mansion on Jewett Parkway, where he lived alone, but in the midst of company. 
       In 1969 we moved from Rancho Santa Fe to a home in La Jolla, a few miles away, bordering the Pacific Ocean. 
Leo spent his summers in Encinitas, California, a few miles north of San Diego, occupyng an ocean front condominium with a rented upright piano. We met frequently and often dined together. At one time I introduced him to the computer software, Finale, which I had mastered in order to render some of Joy’s  compositions into publishing quality. In a few minutes he was composing with my keyboard.
It happened that one evening, Joy received a telephone call from Leo. He was at the airport, awaiting arrival of British Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, who was traveling from Australia to England, with a stop-over in San Diego to see Leo. He asked if he could use her piano, as Fred was in town and he wanted to play for him. Of course, he was welcome. Shortly, the pair showed up and we met the famous  Fred Hoyle. 
Leo sat at the Steinway forthwith and played from memory the entire Beethoven Diabelli Variations, all thirty three, to a rapt audience of three.  Then they left. Afterwards I regretted not remembering to ask Fred Hoyle to sign my copy of his science fiction novel, “October the  First,” resting on my bookshelf

Stricken with congestive heart failure, Leo made a final return to Encinitas, California, late in 1999, where, a short time later, he came to a lonely end at the age of 78. 
       Leo Smit, a fine musician, a fine friend.

CAUTION ADVISED

        In the Dec. 19 Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton stated that she would rely on her husband in matters relating to the economy, “which he knows something about.”  
        Bill Clinton, in the last days of his presidency, was blindsided into signing a bill that gutted the Glass Steagall Act, which served the country well since the 1930's. That set the stage for banks and financial houses to undertake all kinds of high risk instruments which eventually brought about the economic collapse of 2008.  It cost taxpayers $750 billion to bail them out. No one was prosecuted. No one went to jail. Hillary has stated she would not reinstate Glass Steagall, but it is not clear why. Following the advice of her husband?

SOLEMNITY

The solemnity in those eyes
Runs deeper than one can imagine.
It goes back to the days he first
Frequented campfires,
Pledging that in exchange for 
An occasional bone
And the comfort of sleep
By the fireside,
He would guard the children
And spell their parents
When occupied in other matters.
He would hunt when the master calls,
Stand guard while he sleeps.
He would make no judgment, ever,
In uncompromising loyalty.
The solemnity in those eyes tells you
He would die for you.

-e. hujsak

SPAGHETTI RECIPE

Composer/Pianist Leo Smit’s recipe for Spaghetti.

(Leo was a close friend. He showed me that the spaghetti is done when you can toss a noodle against the wall or ceiling and it sticks there.)

INGREDIENTS

1 lb Italian Spaghetti.  (Fine or regular)
1 lb sliced bacon
Ground parmesan cheese
2 eggs
1 cup grated  white cheddar cheese
Pepper
1/3 cup olive oil

DIRECTIONS
Cut the bacon into 1/2 inch squares and fry until crispy brown. Drain and set aside.
Mix thoroughly  1/2 cup parmesan cheese with the two eggs and set aside.
Cook the spaghetti per directions, drain and return to pot.
Add the olive oil and cheddar cheese and mix while still hot to melt the cheese
Add the parmesan cheese mix and stir.
Add the bacon pieces and seasoning and stir.

Serve with sour dough oven heated bread and wine. (never heat bread in microwave)

THE FIRST SNOW STORM

Posted on yourdailyoem.com, Dec 4 2015

It came and went in the night.
It left fence posts capped
like ice cream cones
and pines laden so heavy
their limbs touched the ground.
A rising sun lent Dawn
a dazzling brilliance.
White smoke rose
from a red chimney
up, up to a cerulean sky.

Tinned pails in hand.
I trudged through snow
toward the barn door
for the morning milking.
An elongated shadow 
of an invisible white cat
accompanied me.
Searching,
her black eyes betrayed her.

TERRESTRIAL CRUISE MISSILES?

        How big a leap is it from Google’s self driving car to a terrestrial cruise missile? Do we want cruise missiles to be licensed to the general public? Will terrorists be big customers?
What is Google thinking? Why hasn’t the Department of Transportation weighed in on this? What problem does a driverless vehicle solve? What problems does it create?
As for doing anything to abate climate change, the car is electric, its batteries charged from the grid. Two thirds of power on the grid is provided by fossil fuel power plants with thermal efficiencies ranging from thirty to thirty-eight per cent. Overall efficiency of  the electric cars will be in the mid-twenties, far below the forty percent efficiency common for modern motor cars. So much for abatement of climate change. 

Advancement of technology is fun and often profitable. But too often it creates problems rather than solving them, some of them deadly.

HERMIT

Milosz, had he known you,
Would have revised his thoughts to read:
She locked herself in a tower, 
Read ancient authors,
Fed birds on the terrace,
Only to forget having to learn about herself.
Buried in antiquity, 
Forgetting to live, 
Forgetting to love.

-e hujsak