THE JOSEPH PATELSON MUSIC HOUSE WILL BE MISSED, BUT SOLICLASSICA AWAITS IN ASHEVILLE

There it is, in my personal address book: Joseph Patelson Music House, 160 W. 56th St., New York, NY. At the end of April, I will erase the entry. After more than sixty years of operating at that address, the legendary Patelson’s is shutting down.

From 1985 until 2000, I frequently visited my son Ted, who was then living in New York City. Before a concert at Carnegie Hall, we would often drop by Patelson’s. This justly famous music store is immediately across 56th Street from the stage entrance to Carnegie Hall. If the impending concert was by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, we might be rubbing shoulders with oboist Lothar Koch. Waiting to ask a question of one of the sales associates, we would suddenly realize “that’s Beverly Sills over there browsing in the stacks.” All the Manhattan-based musicians and all the visiting musicians knew and respected Patelson’s.

One day in 1990, I asked about Dussek piano sonatas. (Dussek is the German or English spelling of the Bohemian surname Dusík.) The clerk immediately recognized the name (not every musician does).¹ Gesturing to some student collections, he said, “You don’t want the sonatinas, do you?” Told that I was looking for middle and late sonatas, he scurried behind the scenes to the extensive stacks. Shortly he reappeared with Volumes I and II of the Musica Antiqua Bohemica edition of the complete Jan Ladislav Dusík piano music, published by Supraphon in Prague. The clerk apologized that someone else had bought Volume III, which contained “Elégie harmonique” and “Le retour á Paris,” but pointed out that the Opus 35 sonatas were in Volume II. This is but one example of Patelson’s extremely knowledgeable staff.

In 1938, Joseph Patelson took over ownership of a Cooper Square music shop. In 1947, the store was moved to its current location in a nineteenth-century carriage house. Joseph Patelson died in 1992. His son Daniel took over but died in 2004. Daniel’s widow strived to cope with the changing scene of Internet sales and free downloads of public domain classical music, but it was a losing battle. The current recession was the final blow.

Karen Sams, who opened SoliClassica in Asheville in 2008, says that Patelson’s was one of the models for her store. Like Patelson’s, SoliClassica contains music for all instruments and an extensive inventory arranged where possible in open bins. Sams says that “musicians need a place to browse and to find inspiration.” She points out that sheet music bought on a whim will later turn out to be a gem that was simply waiting for the right time to shine in the life of a musician.

The closing of Patelson’s is yet another sign that mass marketing is driving out the humane and civilizing influence of independent bookstores and music stores. Just as we in Asheville are fortunate to have Malaprops Bookstore, we are now blessed with SoliClassica, arguably the most complete and finest source of sheet music in the Southeast.

So I will erase Patelson’s from my address book. In its place now is SoliClassica, 114 Fugazy Center, 1550 Hendersonville Rd., Asheville NC 28803, telephone (828) 277-4111. Drop by to meet Karen Sams or Marion Sprott, her knowledgeable assistant. And do browse a little.

© 2009 Edward C. McIrvine

Arts Spectrum column #429 

April 17, 2009

^1. Jan Ladislav Dussek was a talented Bohemian pianist and composer who had the misfortune to be born between Mozart and Beethoven, and thus has been overshadowed by those giants. Dussek was a favorite of Marie Antoinette in Paris in the 1780’s. He was a friend of Haydn, Clementi and the young John Field in the 1790’s in London, where he attracted large concert audiences. He returned to continental Europe and Russia after 1800. The best of Dussek’s piano sonatas, such as Opus 35 #3 and “Elégie harmonique,” are superior to the weakest of Beethoven’s.