Never Can Say Goodbye

Never Can Say Goodbye

Many times it was impossible to find what you were looking for at Patelson’s, but inevitably other things found you. In some ways, my entire aesthetic outlook derives from this way of acquiring things. I eschew seeking things I want, because if I only looked for what I wanted, I’d miss all the stuff I didn’t realize I needed.

Written By

Frank J. Oteri

Frank J. Oteri is an ASCAP-award winning composer and music journalist. Among his compositions are Already Yesterday or Still Tomorrow for orchestra, the "performance oratorio" MACHUNAS, the 1/4-tone sax quartet Fair and Balanced?, and the 1/6-tone rock band suite Imagined Overtures. His compositions are represented by Black Tea Music. Oteri is the Vice President of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) and is Composer Advocate at New Music USA where he has been the Editor of its web magazine, NewMusicBox.org, since its founding in 1999.

Now that Sequenza21, Musical America, and even The New York Times have all weighed in, I too should probably write something about the imminent closure of Joseph Patelson Music House. While this might seem to be a local New York tragedy, the store attracted customers from around the world. In fact, the first written account of the demise of this 60-year-old shop came from Philadelphia.

I first got a sense that Patelson’s was in the process of going out of business back in January when I popped in between sessions of the 2009 Conductors Guild conference, which was held in a hotel around the corner. The store was quieter than a funeral parlor and there were many empty spots on their once-brimming shelves. I apologize for not writing about this sooner. All I can say in my defense is that my silence is a contradictory amalgamation of disbelief and collector’s mentality (e.g. if I broadcasted it here before I went back just one more time, nothing will be left). But now that the sad rumors of the past four months have been universally confirmed and, after six trips there, I’ve completely wiped out my bank account and then some, here goes:

Shortly before I entered high school, I chanced upon this quaint sheet music shop housed in a small, incongruous-looking 19th-century building across the street from the back entrance of Carnegie Hall. Believe it or not, it was the place where I first saw in notated form music other than popular songs. Although I had been a songwriter since I was nine years old, I date my identification with the word composer from only shortly after my initial visit to this store. At first I gravitated toward the stuff with which I was already familiar—vocal sections from various Broadway musicals and piano/vocal reductions of the most famous operas, which I was only starting to discover. But within a year I started to acquire inexpensive pocket scores of Bartók concertos and even one of the 21st Symphony of Nicolai Miaskovsky which I greedily snatched up for only two dollars about 30 years ago—it must have been sitting there for at least another 30 and was never re-priced. But once I got completely immersed in new music, Patelson’s felt less and less like an oasis for me: its wares were the past. Some pundits have commented on a seemingly negative attitude toward anything contemporary and I must admit it was something I felt, too. I remember asking about John Cage scores and being looked at like I had descended from another planet. I special ordered several Penderecki scores from them and they took forever to arrive. I was hoping my patronage of such fare would result in them eventually keeping it regularly in stock. It did not. So eventually I stopped going more than once a year.

Although it always operated on a much smaller scale, Patelson’s (affectionate patrons inevitably add the possessive) was something of a sheet music version of The Strand. Many times it was impossible to find what you were looking for there, but inevitably other things found you. In some ways, my entire aesthetic outlook derives from this way of acquiring things. I eschew seeking things I want, because if I only looked for what I wanted, I’d miss all the stuff I didn’t realize I needed. While sites like J.W. Pepper and Sheet Music Plus offer many choices, arguably more than Patelson’s had in quite some time, if you can’t peer through a score you’re tempted to buy, you’ll probably only buy scores you already know something about. And while tons of self-published composers and even some of the bigger houses are starting to post perusal materials online, there is no aggregation of the material in a way that allows a chance discovery. Serendipitous browsing inspires thinking outside the box, and it will be a long time before an online simulacrum of such a process can truly replace this kind of interaction. For me, this is the saddest result of Patelson’s demise. And it is a demise that transcends geography because there are few places like it anywhere else in the world at this point, although I did chance upon a Patelson-like shop in London last September.

So now my apartment has piles of scores of all types all over the floor—everything from a Daniel Pinkham harpsichord piece to a series of miniature chansons by Erik Satie to a crazy looking indeterminate percussion composition by Hungarian conceptualist László Sáry. It will probably take the rest of the year to get through it all. And then I’ll be really sad.