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Writer's pictureGeoffrey Dean

For Christa's Birthday: "Cello a mellow refrain"



Ever used "cello" as a verb? Harry Williams did in the 1921 song "Mello Cello," originally performed by the “Bronson and Baldwin” husband-and-wife vaudeville act of Percy Bronson and Winnie Baldwin. Charles N. Daniels, better known under the pseudonym Neil Moret, wrote the music. “Mello Cello” was one of their last collaborations.


Only the cello can bring forth the narrator’s happy memories of a past love:


But Cello a mellow refrain / And dear, you are with me again.


The cello—sometimes mellow, sometimes not—also connects me to my own love, my cellist wife Christa, whose birthday it is today.


Mello Cello sweet and low. In the moonbeam’s mellow glow.

Sing and bring my love to me.

Mello Cello melody.




2 Comments


moristotle
moristotle
Jul 17, 2021

Perhaps even more inventive than using the Alwinac to wish your wife “happy birthday” was using her birthday to embroider on this tapestry in honor of Alwin Schroeder, and to honor the musical instrument I could see in your eyes and in the glow of your smile as we listened to a Beethoven recording those almost fifty years ago in our living room on Calero Avenue in San Jose, California.

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moristotle
moristotle
Jul 15, 2021

Lovely way to work cellist Christa into the Alwinac. And as the grandfather of her may-be-a-cellist-too?-daughter, Vera, I also say to Christa, “Cello a mellow refrain”!

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