I owe my love of this particular musical performance to a man whose name I've never known.
In 1991 I heard Claude Debussy's "Clair de lune" for the first time in the film Frankie and Johnny, starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer. I suspect I'd have some problems with the movie's gender dynamics if I rewatched it today (though that's another discussion!), but I loved how it used Debussy's piece -- delicate and tentative, then urgently romantic -- to underscore the characters' relationship. I wanted to get a copy of the music for myself.
I was a college student in Ann Arbor at the time, and I'd recently discovered a little classical music store whose proprietor was a slight, older gentleman with graying hair. I already knew I could rely on his encyclopedic knowledge; on a previous visit, he'd immediately identified for me a snippet of classical music that Sting borrowed for his song "Russians" when I hummed a single bar of it. (It was from Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kijé," which he promptly located in his crowded CD bins and recommended to me.)
So when I asked him for "Clair de lune," he gave a brief nod, pulled a CD from a display rack, and pushed it into my hands, saying, "This is the best one." It was an album of Debussy suites performed by the Hungarian pianist Zoltán Kocsis. And after listening to it as well as other interpretations over the years -- from piano solos to string quartets to full orchestras to, incredibly, dubstep and New Age remixes and more -- I believe he's absolutely right. No other version I've heard matches Kocsis' subtlety and depth of feeling; he plays as if he's somehow fully inside the piece, exploring the swirls and eddies in its flow, letting its silences breathe. And, for me, this recording has been equally listenable in moments of joy and sadness, contentment and nostalgia -- like a companionable friend.
I wish I had taken the time to learn the proprietor's name, or had remembered the name of his store. Digging around on the Internet makes me think that it was probably Liberty Music Shop, which in 1993 was turned by new management into Encore Records, with an expanded inventory beloved by vinyl enthusiasts. But there seems to be scant information about the little shop that existed before 1993, or about the man behind the counter. If he's still around, and if I run into him, I'd like to thank him for giving me a lifelong gift.
BONUS: The film Frankie and Johnny was adapted by the acclaimed writer Terrence McNally from his own play, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. McNally was, as many of you probably know, tragically taken by the coronavirus several days ago; so while I'd always meant to include this music in the playlist at some point, it now serves as a tribute to his work as well. Here's the last scene from the movie -- its various New York characters and their loves and hopes and disappointments, all wrapped up in the swelling chords of "Clair de lune" like a big and tender hug.
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