Lydia Tár, originally Linda Tarr from Staten Island, New York, was born on the Sunday afternoon Young People’s Concerts: What Is A Mode? was being broadcast on CBS-TV the second time around. (I saw it the first time around, 23 November 1966 when I was 11 almost 12; Lydia would have seen this repeat episode for the first time when she was 8 or 9, an impressionable age.)
Lenny’s presentation of the Lydian mode begins at 24:43. “…A strange piercing note that seems to come from faraway places, like the Middle East and Eastern Europe…” as Bernstein describes it—”A tangy mode.” His description lit the first fire in pre-teenage multi-award-winning accordionist (see VN26) Linda; for here was a genuine and thrilling connection with music and the world of Lydia’s immigrant father, Zoltan, (see VN07).
And as we can see in VN03, the girls we see in this segment aren’t the type Lydia would go for at all—but the type of girls who would go for Lydia. Sleek, assured, highly educated, upper class, these girls are an aggressive tribe…
You know, I’ve been reassessing this scene in my mind and I now think Lydia was playing not to us the audience, not to the young lady herself, but to Francesca…
PINY Press 