Rage Over a Lost Penny
Beethoven's Rage Over a Lost Penny
What one has thought so often yet never said so well.
From Wikipedia:
The "Rondo alla ingharese quasi un capriccio" in G major, Op. 129 (Italian for "Rondo in the Hungarian [i.e. gypsy] style, almost a caprice"), is a rondo for piano written by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is better known by the title Rage Over a Lost Penny, Vented in a Caprice (from "German: Die Wut über den verlorenen Groschen, ausgetobt in einer Caprice)". This title appears on the autograph manuscript, but not in Beethoven's hand, and has been attributed to his friend Anton Schindler. It is a favourite with audiences and is frequently performed as a showpiece.
Despite the late opus number, the work's composition has been dated to between 1795 and 1798. Beethoven left the piece unpublished and incomplete; it was published in 1828 by Anton Diabelli, who obscured the fact that it had been left unfinished. The performance time runs between five and six minutes; the tempo of the piece is Allegro vivace (quarter note= 132–160).
The indication alla ingharese is of interest, as no such word as "ingharese" exists in standard Italian. To people of Beethoven's day, "Gypsy music" and "Hungarian music" were synonymous terms. Beethoven seems to have conflated alla zingarese (in the Gypsy style) and all'ongarese (in the Hungarian style) to come up with the term alla ingharese.
Robert Schumann wrote of the work that:
"...it would be difficult to find anything merrier than this whim... It is the most amiable, harmless anger, similar to that felt when one cannot pull a shoe from off the foot,"
Schumann cited the work as an instance of Beethoven's earthliness against those who exult in a transcendental image of the composer.
Erwin Schulhoff arranged the work for orchestra.
The "amiable, harmless anger," tone of the piece, as expressed by Schumann, endears itself to me so. The piece, and that theme of amiable and harmless anger—possessing an entertaining and even performative quality—evokes early memories of my family.
We "Z's" (paternally) have a penchant for this kind of humorous overboiling of mundane frustrations, and particular events standout in my memory as having made me giggle under my breath at my father and grandfather when I was young.
I tried to not let the fun I was having at their irritations show, but on one occasion my Dad couldn't help but notice me laughing at some especially elaborate performance of annoyance he had displayed—and cursed me:
"Just you wait," he said to me. "I used to laugh at my Dad, too."
There was a knowing, foreboding prophecy to that light curse.
As they say, the fruit never falls far from the tree. Thus, now, an adult myself and with my father and grandfather now mercifully released from the pesky irritants of this world, I am the sole family inheritor to these precious moments of fun aggravation.
Not to mean that these instances happen only to my genetic lineage—though that'd be fun, too—but the incensed "dance" I undertake when a particular annoyance grabs me is something I've only distinctively observed in my own ancestral tree.
For example, to the tune of Rage Over a Lost Penny, imagine a scenario that exemplifies this amiable anger Schumann and I are describing:
There I am, on the phone in an official capacity—i.e., not for pleasure—doing my utmost to "present" myself in a manner that's both composed and competent to the representative I'm speaking with.
As these phone calls can oft contain, careful confirmations are being concocted, plans are being parsed out, and actionable items are being aligned. All this requires my careful annotation for diligent follow-up.
*Do you have a pen?* the speaker on the other end asks, hardly waiting an instant before fluttering into a litany of details and numbers that I should be taking down.
A pen! A pen! My kingdom for a pen!
Do I have a pen. I just so happen to have a gallon-sized glass jar of writing implements lying in wait. Whenever I happen upon a pen, or the odd pencil, I extract it from its place in the wild and drop it into this menagerie of quills, so that one is always readily available at a moment's notice.
I dip my hand into the pen-jar, withdraw one lucky plastic ball-point for my use, overturn a wayward envelope and begin to scrawl.
Alas! It is but vanity.
Stupid thing's dry...
No matter. I set the extinguished pen down, still attentively listening to the cacophony of facts and data pouring out of the speaker and into the caverns of my ear, and pluck another pen from the jar. Retractable. Satisfying little button.
Click-clack! (Obligatory)
Returning back to the envelope, I begin to write. To my dismay, the tool only yielded inconstant and spattered lines. I make a frantic scribble on the page in a desperate gambit to get things flowing. The pressure of my scratching indents the paper more than anything.
Two in a row. I'm feeling nervous, but I shake it off.
It's okay. I'm an adult. I've been through worse things than this.
Tossing this pen aside, I quickly withdraw another. Surely, three times a charm—eh?
By now, some details from my faceless telephone advisor are gone forever—lost in the ether where all untranscribed words go. Forget it. All that's in the past. We're starting fresh, starting now!
Scribble-scribble.
I endeavor to write down something—anything—that I'm being told...
...only to see that this pen, too, is uncannily dead upon arrival.
Okay, I think to myself, face frozen, expressionless.
What the actual, real-life fuck?!
I hurl the transgressor as far away from me as my arm can throw. It strikes a wall in another room and then decides to spill some ink, leaving a mark. Whatever. I'm done with you. You can go to hell.
I dunk my fist into the jar and pull out a whole handful of writing implements—they stick out from between my fingers and knuckles like porcupine quills.
I hear the sound of my voice, speaking into the phone, but I'm not present in the words:
"Uh huh. Yeah—just... Hold on, can you say that first part again?"
Opening my entire hand like a child struggling with finger dexterity, dozens of pens and pencils fall onto the envelope I'm trying to write on. Fuck pens. Who needs pens? Fuck pens and fuck Herschel Penn for inventing them!
When you really need to write—when failure is not an option—adhere to the tried-and-true, No. 2 Ticonderoga Wood-Cased pencil.
Except I didn't have one of those. Damn.
But even a mechanical pencil would be fine, like the one I happened to have in my hand.
Just need to get some of the lead out...
Click-click.
Good. That done, I applied the tip to an exposed portion of the envelope, not already littered with my previous desperate, fruitless scrawls—
Here we go... "Okay, sorry, could you repeat... ?"
Snap.
Grr.
Click-click.
Snap.
Eyes bulge. Jaw clenches. Toes unconsciously grip the inside of my shoes. Sweat beads.
Don't lose control...
You're 39 years old...
You've lived a life...
A full life...
Full of hard-fought lessons...
You've trained for this moment...
Thumb on the eraser.
Click.
Click.
Hypodermic-like graphite, like a hornet's stinger, protrudes from the tip. Come on. Don't fail me now...
Hand--trembling--
Snap.
If you throw a mechanical pencil hard enough, it will bounce.
Kind of like a football. There's no telling what direction it will go.
Fuck pencils. Fuck pencils and fuck Bartholomew Winston Pencil for inventing them.
Pens, I'm sorry I ever doubted you.
The woman on the phone, ignorant of my dilemma but nonetheless sounding concerned (bless her heart): *Did you get all that, sir?*
"Uh, no?" I admit, wondering if this call was being recorded for quality assurance purposes.
"Okay—let me back up,"
"Yes, please," I say, trying to mask the irritation in my voice.
Another pen. One of those weird, glittery turquoise ink ones that nobody buys but comes included with every home kitchen drawer.
Let this be our final battle...
This one had never been used before. It's still got that glooby bit at the tip, sealing the ball point shut.
I utilized the oldest tool available to man for its removal: the thumbnail.
The gloob popped off and, through the magnified power of my articulated senses, I heard that tiny bit of hardened gloob land somewhere on the dining room tile a few feet in front of me, waiting to be swept up with the rest of the fallen dust of my home at a time TBD.
I apply the tip of the turquoise glitter pen to the envelope, thinking surely, at long last, finally I will be able to set down a single word this woman is telling me. Just one thing. That's all I ask. I've worked too hard to not at least write something down.
I tune in to what she's saying. Out of context, it makes no sense to me, but I'm ready now.
*...an analysis caused by the basic elemental necessity as a valid and thorough equivalent to a paramount vehicle for transmission and information will occur on Monday, October thirteenth...*
At first, the letters flow like elegant script from my pen:
Monday, October 1▄▄▄
The ink started coming out too fast... pooling onto the envelope.
That's it. The odds are just too astronomical at this point. I must be a character in a video game about finding a working pen.
My entire life was a lie.
"Wait, I'm sorry," I said—grimacing like a maniac at my damnable luck. My attention was so pointed and consumed by these pens and pencils failing me that I think I actually told her, as an attempted explanation, "This confounded pen!"
"Why don't I just send you the information," she said—a touch cautiously to my ear. Oh. Great. I didn't realize that was an option this whole time!
"That'd be great," I admitted with a sigh, sitting on the floor in exasperation.
"What's your email?"
Email? Could I even do that? The stakes were high. I knew I had to get this right.
To describe it, here, for the purposes of retelling, the event takes on a veneer of singular frustration; irritation eclipsing all else, even self-awareness. Admittedly, there is an element of hyperbole at play. I was dimly aware of the ridiculosity of the circumstances and felt entertained by my own plight.
I was alone, and thus, was my own audience, and like any performer—I played up the irritation if only for my own benefit.
This is what Schumann and I mean by "amiable anger." How "amiable" it was wasn't absolute: I understand that some outside viewers would find this display pathetic, or overindulgent, but I remember being a boy and watching my grandpa or my Dad vent their frustrations over menial inconveniences in this progressively and increasingly elaborate manner and biting my tongue trying to hold back laughter.
I suspect that they were aware of their own ridiculosity, and that they had my attention. They were not the type to take themselves too seriously, and I would suspect secretly delighted that I was having some fun at their expense.
"Just you wait. I used to laugh at my Dad, too."
For a more succinct example, I recall a moment when my grandpa was trying to pick up his car keys off the dining room table.
As can sometimes happen when we're not paying full attention, his fingers slipped and the keys scooted out from beneath his grip.
No matter. Reaching again, this time a bit more deterministically, he increased his effort and attention to scoop up the keys off the table.
He grasped them, but as he attempted to tuck them into a front jacket pocket, his hand didn't catch the opening of the pocket and he accidentally let the keys drop—not into his jacket pouch—but to the floor.
A resigned sigh of acknowledgment.
Is nothing so easy that it cannot be made difficult through effort?
Stooping, his brisk and articulated gestures really strained to be sure he got it right this time—as his hand encircled the keys on the floor before standing upright.
And even if it was fabricated for comic effect, or another sincere slip—the keys somehow managed to fall out of his grip yet again. I had to bury my face in the couch cushion to keep from laughing at the look on his face.
Eventually, he must've managed to get it right, because I have other memories of him that took place after that event. But I don't remember him successfully picking up his keys and leaving the house, grumbling and murmuring about the arrogance of gravity ("Someone's got the gravity turned up all the way, in here...").
However, I do remember the exaggerated procedure my grandfather administered simply to do something as innocuous as pick his car keys up off the table.
I also don't remember him, or my father, as an angry fellow—despite savoring these moments of "harmless, amiable anger," that I still find so endearing, even if I find one of these instances playing out in my own life.
All the while, feeling:
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