Rick Inzero says:

> Holy Marimba Roll, Batman!  Her fingers are smoking!

By chance, I attended the 1979 AMICA Convention in Philadelphia, at
which Pauline played for us at our banquet.  Here's Molly Yeckley's
report of that concert:

".... then on to the entertainment for the evening.  Pauline Alpert's
fingers were noteworthy.  I love her style of playing -- she sounds
like a transposing tracker bar with her marvellous modulations, melding
one song into another.  I counted 10 songs, mad applause, another 10
songs, more applause, and then another 10 songs for a finale.  Thirty
songs in all from patriotic songs like "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean", to
"Yankee Doodle" to help us celebrate the upcoming 4th of July in
Philadelphia, on through "Crazy Rhythm", "Embraceable You", "Penthouse
Serenade", "Chopsticks", "Make Believe", "Japanese Sandman", and many
others.  From slow to fast, moody and sentimental, to peppy and
finger-tangling -- except that her fingers don't tangle!  The
"Whirlwind Pianist is Alive and Well and Playing in Philadelphia".


.... which I guess is a concert paraphrase of sorts.

At the end, her audience exploded in marvellous spontaneous standing
ovation.  None of us could believe what we had just seen and heard.
She was a remarkable artist.  I still have a 'leventy-7th' generation
copy of her concert and can vouch from personal observation that indeed
she was "FAST", absolutely incredible performance.  While the video is
poor, the sound comes through quite well.

What has not been mentioned anywhere is that in on-stage conversation
with Pauline following her performance, she apologized to the owner of
the piano for messing up the keyboard.  It seems her performance
actually resulted in her fingers bleeding.  I saw it for myself, along
with the band-aids and keyboard clean-up.

I have an album of four 10-inch 78-rpm records, "Sonora #MS-460,
Sparkling Piano Melodies, by Pauline Alpert", showing a picture of
her as a beautiful young woman.  The first side in the set has been
autographed by Pauline in gold ink.  Here's what the cover notes say:

"In her current series of broadcasts over the Mutual Broadcasting
System, Pauline Alpert is called the "Whirlwind Pianist."  Comedian
Fred Allen, when introducing Pauline over his radio program recently,
presented her as "The Young Lady Who Sounds Like Two Pianos".

But perhaps the best word description of all came from Broadway
columnist Nick Kenny, who wrote, "Pauline Alpert should be called First
Lady of the Keyboard":

"Pauline Alpert takes a piano apart, she babies it, she scolds it, and
she makes it stand up on its sounding board and holler "Auntie".  Here
is classical skill in modern tempo at its peak.  And we do mean "peak".

"Miss Alpert is one of the most versatile and capable pianists today.
Starting out to become a great concert pianist, after winning a
scholarship at Rochester's School op Music, she was later won over to
jazz completely -- but it's her own type of jazz.

"She plays the classics frequently; the tempo and the technique,
however, are distinctly a Pauline Alpert creation.  Her modern
arrangement of the classics and her interpretations of popular songs,
as presented in this album, are perfect explanations of those titles
from MBS, Fred Allen and Nick Kenny."


The eight sides of these four records contain the following selections:

  Dream of a Doll    (autographed)
  Where or When
  Hungarian Rhapsody #2
  Toy Trumpet
  Chopsticks
  Sweet Sue
  In a Country Garden
  Parade of the Wooden Soldiers

Original retail price in 19??  -  $3.27

Regards,

Terry Smythe                   smythe@mts.net
55 Rowand Avenue               smythe@freenet.mb.ca
Winnipeg, MB, Canada  R3J 2N6  (204) 832-3982
http://www.winnipeg.freenet.mb.ca/~smythe