Ballet and loathing

Several weeks ago a friend who teaches piano invited me over to scavenge through a stack of music she was throwing away. Nothing remarkable--some Chopin, Mendelssohn and Rachmaninoff piano duets I gladly picked out, but it was something else entirely that caught my fancy. I was powerless to resist the urge as I placed it on the stand and eagerly played with more passion and relish than I have in a long time. I had made it to Dance of the Mirlitons before I abruptly stopped in the middle of an elegant gesture, slammed the book shut and reached for some Schubert. That's right, gentle reader, it was a piano reduction of the Nutcracker Suite that so delighted me until the shame of playing Tchaikovsky in February overwhelmed me and I had to move on and pretend it hadn't happened. I can't wait to play it again.