{"id":30624,"date":"2015-10-05T21:24:05","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T01:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=30624"},"modified":"2015-10-06T15:41:53","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T19:41:53","slug":"recommended-reading-ketzel-the-composing-cat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/recommended-reading-ketzel-the-composing-cat\/","title":{"rendered":"Recommended Reading: Ketzel the Composing Cat"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve written before that the most beneficial way to read a newspaper is in its print form<\/a>, even though it’s not always beneficial for newspapers to continue to produce a print edition these days<\/a>. But as long as print exists, I’ll read it, because act of turning the pages means I come across articles that I would never notice online.<\/p>\n

That happened this weekend, while I read the Wall Street Journal. I never seek out reviews of children’s books online, and I can’t imagine when one would be featured on the homepage of the websites I visit, but, in the newspaper, the illustration of a kitten romping on piano keys caught my eye.<\/p>\n

\"katzelpaper\"<\/a>

From the Wall Street Journal. Click to enlarge.<\/p><\/div>\n

Ketzel, the Cat Who Composed<\/a><\/em> — a picture book for 5- to 9-year-olds written by Leslea Newman and illustrated by Amy June Bates — is based on the true story of composer Moshe Cotel<\/a>, who was stumped by a contest to create a complete piece of music of no longer than 60 seconds. Then Ketzel the kitten took a walk on his piano keys. Cotel transcribed Ketzel’s 21-second atonal piece and won an award for the cat. (Being an honorable guy, Cotel attributed the piece to Ketzel, which means “cat” in Yiddish.)<\/p>\n

I could hardly believe this happened, so I looked it up online, which led me to a delightful New York Times obituary for Ketzel, who died in 2011.\u00a0 It begins:<\/p>\n

\n

“Ketzel, who won a prize for piano composition in 1997<\/a> and went on to be featured in a book, ‘The World of Women in Classical Music,’<\/a> died Wednesday in Manhattan. She was 19 and lived on the Upper West Side.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ketzel was a black-and-white cat.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s worth reading the whole article by James Barron, which is headlined “Noted Composer, Who Leapt Into Atonality, Meows Her Last<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Thanks to the WSJ’s print edition to leading me to the online edition of the Times. Now I have to see if\u00a0 “Piece for Piano, Four Paws\u201d by Ketzel Cotel is available on iTunes.<\/p>\n

UPDATED TO ADD: Late last night, MrB said, “That’s such a cute story about the cat, but doesn’t ‘Ketzel’ mean ‘kitten’ or ‘kitty’ instead of ‘cat’?” I protested, “The New York Times said ‘cat.'” But I had a feeling that MrB was right. Today I checked and the Yiddish word for “cat” is “kats.” The word for “kitten” is “ketsl” and the word for “kitty” is “ketsele.” So I award 10 points to Hufflepuff<\/a> <\/del>MrB and deduct 10 from the Times for this mistranslation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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I’ve written before that the most beneficial way to read a newspaper is in its print form, even though it’s not always beneficial for newspapers to continue to produce a print edition these days. But as long as print exists, I’ll read it, because act of turning the pages means I come across articles that…<\/p>\n

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