Saint-Saëns did well to make his pianists
prance up and down the drill board.
Young lion Liszt played as they said of
Beethoven the Younger,"two hands
and a lock of hair". But did he

seventyish, diddle up the same tricks,
wave his nose, draw back his hands
as if he'd crowned a monarch,
stare the keys out, sway about the hips?
I think not. Just watch the agéd ones

the Rubinstein and Horowitz, you'll see
they're like a rock, face frozen
in a stroke, expressionless to all that
dimpling of expression. So-much-music
from their finger ends gets hot applause

that way. Is it our Greats have really
understood what old Saint-Saëns revealed?
Piano rolls, they twiddle while a
Chopin, Brahms is pumping up their lives
and all that mellow yellow means their

liquid hopes have set like honey too:
they're classics, yes, but like that
Für Elise - again - in someone
else's room. Their act is billed,
and Saint-Saëns giggles still.