Marjorie just found a piece of music that she hasn’t been able to find for a long time.  She’s thrilled.  It is “Toccata” by Pietro Domenico Paradisi.  It amounts to three pages of eighth and sixteenth notes, with just a few quarter notes in the left hand.  In other words, it’s lively.  There’s nothing dull about it.

The reason that it was lost for so long is because she removed it from the book that it was in so that she could assign it to the Emerson girl that she was teaching.  When the girl was done with it, she returned it; but the pages ended up in another book.

It’s a very difficult piece.  The girl wanted to compete in a music competition.  Marjorie was hesitant to give her the piece because she wasn’t sure if it was the kind of music that the judges wanted.

Nevertheless the girl mastered the piece, and played it at the competition in La Grande, after which the judge, Matt Cooper, praised her and told those assembled that “I really appreciate this song.  I just wish you piano teachers would branch out and have more of this kind of music.  It really shows off the performer’s technique.”

The Emerson girl’s goal was to beat the Chadwick girl who always won the competition.  The Emerson girl won the regional competition, and went on to place 4th at state.  She reported that the judges there loved it, too.  It was different than the pieces that they normally hear.

I”m glad to be hearing it, too.  It’s exciting, just like my lively, exciting wife.