Music: Casadesus in St. Louis

Musical history is slyly footnoted by the mishaps that befall famed artists. Metropolitan Opera veterans still chuckle over the horse that ate Hagen’s beard years ago in Gotterdammerung, the slap Geraldine Farrar gave Caruso in Carmen, the hot potato he mischievously pressed into Nordica’s hand. Playing Tosca in Vienna before the War, Jeritza fell on her face, coolly sang the tender aria Vissi d’arte prone. Margaret Anglin once stalked out onto the Carnegie Hall stage to declaim Electra’s grief, was appalled to find a cat peering out of her flowing Greek gown. Once when Mischa Levitzki was performing in Carnegie Hall, a mouse crept close to the piano, sat up when the pianist played softly, scuttled off when he played loudly, returned for the pianissimi, required four men to catch him. Performing last week in, St. Louis, plump French Pianist Robert Casadesus added a lively chapter to the chronicle of musical mischances.

More than 3,000 music lovers packed the Municipal Auditorium, sat enthralled as Pianist Casadesus rippled through Scarlatti, were breathless as he began a Mozart sonata, suddenly winced when the piano’s right pedal dropped off. Flinging his hands wide apart, Pianist Casadesus shrugged pathetically, ordered attendants to wheel the piano upstage, concluded the sonata on the house piano.

Repaired during the intermission, Piano No. 1 was wheeled forward and Casadesus undertook a Chopin ballad. Before he had got through 20 bars the pedal dropped off again. Pianist Casadesus leaped up, wrung his hands, sobbed, “I’m sorry,” bolted backstage for the attendants. Only one attendant could be found, so Casadesus had to help him push back Piano No. 1, bring forward No. 2. While they were straining with No. 1, a leg fell off. Half hysterical, the pianist put it back on. He was about to sit down at the relief piano when an unidentified clergyman seized the opportunity to stride onto the stage, make an impromptu appeal for United Charities. Stunned, the audience let him speak for a few minutes, then booed, hissed, whistled him off the stage.

Pianist Casadesus grimly returned. The audience roared with applause. He sat down, tore through Chopin and Ravel, wrestled till the last encore with the relief piano, which, propped up on a roller frame, struggled to roll out of his reach. Local critics were sure that St. Louis would never forget Casadesus, that Casadesus would never forget St. Louis.