Reverie in A Major (“Bella’s Apartment”) for my mother, Judy Reverie in A Major was initially intended for development into a simple “soundtrack” to accompany a video tribute to my mother Judy, which was presented at her
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Reverie in A Major (“Bella’s Apartment”)
for my mother, Judy
Reverie in A Major was initially intended for development into a simple “soundtrack” to accompany a video tribute to my mother Judy, which was presented at her 70th birthday party in Boca Raton, Florida in 2007. While we chose to use some existing recordings of Romantic piano repertoire for the video (a very good decision – you can never go wrong with Brahms), for me Reverie feels a bit like a soundtrack to my mother’s first 70 years, with a particular leaning toward her childhood and teenage years as a young student of Romantic piano music.
The reference in the subtitle is to Bella Shumiatcher, a New York City piano teacher at the Juilliard Pre-College Division with whom my mother (and her younger brother, Steve) studied while growing up during the 1950s. I have always enjoyed hearing stories about this beloved teacher on Manhattan’s Upper West Side – several long trains and busses away from their childhood home in the Bronx – and am touched by the affection with which Mom and Uncle Steve still speak of her. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, Mom would follow in Bella’s footsteps, becoming a successful piano teacher on Long Island and instilling a love for the piano repertoire in me, our family and countless fortunate music students over the years.
Reverie was essentially improvised, and recorded during its “first take.” When composing through improvisation, my normal instinct is to go back and “correct” things afterward – to make figures more consistent, fill out chords and “optimize” various spots within a piece of music. However, I have decided instead to leave well enough alone (within reason), aiming to retain some of the simplicity and spontaneity of the original improvisation by transcribing it with minimal corrections.
--Adam Glaser, 2008
