Music For A While
Wednesday August 30th, 2023 with David Cavlovic
Songs of Laughter, Love, and Tears

There are many people who have considered violist Rivka Golani to be somewhat intimidating. Rivka for sure does not suffer fools but my experience of Rivka is of someone far from intimidating. Many many years' ago, after the end of my first marriage, and I did the typical Gen-X thing after such an event of moving back in with my parents, I was working on another project with Rivka. During that period, Rivka was in the process of recording Berlioz' Herold en Italie, his great composition for viola and orchestra, based on Lord Byron's epic Childe Herold. Rivka was listening to a number of recordings of it. I told her I had a recording featuring William Primrose with the Boston Symphony conducted by Serge Koussevitzy. This recording is from the 1930s and predates Primrose's more famous recording of the work in England with Sir Thomas Beecham conducting. Rivka never heard the earlier Primrose recording so I had her come over to play it for her. My music room (before and after my first marriage) was in the basement of my parental home, next to the laundry room. My mom was doing the laundry at the same time we were listening to the recording. After listening, mom and Rivka started chatting, and comparing notes as it were, both of them having been of Polish heritage. I went upstairs for a bit. Forty five minutes later I could still hear them talking. When I went back down to the basement, there they were, my mom and Rivka, gabbing away, both folding laundry....