Mildred Dilling’s harp?

[michael-rockowitz]

Hi to all,

I came across this on the New York City craigslist, doing a search for harp.

[carl-swanson]

I knew Mildred quite well and I was never aware that Mildred Dilling had a nephew. I’m also not aware that she left him anything in her will. All her harps went to her secretary, Geraldine Ruegg, and her lawyer.

[Dwyn .]

I don’t really know anything about her, but the ad doesn’t say she left it to anyone in her will.

[stan-guy]

Carl —the next post quotes the NY Times as saying Miss Dilling had 65 harps in her apartment.

[carl-swanson]

Stan- You might want to go into the archives here and read the 4 part blog that I wrote a few years back on Mildred Dilling. If you have trouble finding it let me know. I can email you the whole thing. If you do find it, make sure you read the sections in correct order, which means that you have to scroll way down to get the first one. They are in the archives in reverse order, meaning that the most recent entry(the last part) is at the top of the thread.

[carl-swanson]

The Mildred Dilling blog starts in March of ’06. At the top of that page is part III. So you have to scroll down past part II to get to I. The last part, part IV, is on the April ’06 page.

[stan-guy]

Carl —Many thanks.

[carl-swanson]

I never counted the harps in her apartment, but there were a lot of them. I think that number counts everything, including the little tiny harps as well as larger pedal harps.

[stan-guy]

Carl —

[unknown-user]

Well, to have a nephew, Mildred Dilling would need a married sibling with a male child.

[Jerusha Amado]

Ivan,

How have you been?

[unknown-user]

I traveled from Philadelphia to New York about once a month for lessons with Mildred Dilling in her New York apartment during the 1970’s.

[Julie Koenig]

I took lessons from Miss Dilling in June/July of 1982, a few months before she passed away. It seemed like you couldn’t turn around in her apartment without bumping into a harp!

One of the most interesting things I remember was after a few days, I noticed a piano sort of buried by harps behind the little stage. She told me it had belonged to Gershwin and he used it when composing “Porgy & Bess.” I don’t know if it was true but the story fascinated me.

Carl, do you know anything about that piano?

Julie in Atlanta

[carl-swanson]

I too remember a piano “buried” behind a forest of harps. I don’t know what became of it but I’ll ask Geraldine Ruegg next time I talk to her. She’ll know. I’ll also ask her about the Gershwin provenance. I never heard that story and suspect that it is another of Mildred’s tall tales. The tallest one she told was that a small 18th century harp she owned belonged to Marie Antoinette. It was a plain little thing by 18th century standards. I’ve seen 4 harps that did belong to Marie Antoinette-they belong to the French Government- and they are decorated beyond anything you have ever seen and are just gorgeous. Again, Mildred was an entertainer and rarely if ever turned off that switch.

[barbara-brundage]

Well, you know, Carl, if your skepticism is based solely on decor, don’t forget that Marie Antoinette tried like mad to reign in all that baroque extravagance–it was one of the things that made her so unpopular (she just couldn’t win–first everyone howled about her extravagance, then when she started to simplify they complained she was plotting to ruin the French economy by driving all the silkmakers and jewelers into bankruptcy).

I’d wonder, too, but I seem to remember something from several years back about a note being found in that harp that tied it to the Carnation plot?

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