New York Times, Wednesday, April 19, 2017

AX: I have been a passionate devotee of the Times puzzle for more years than I can count. When I travel, the daily puzzle is one of the things that makes me feel close to home. I am also very happy that my children seem to have caught the bug, and are far better than me at solving. Getting to try to make one for the great Will Shortz has been a true highlight for me, and I am grateful to Brad for his expertise, inspiration and patience.

WILBER: I minored in applied piano at college, and I'm still occasionally a church player, though when Will paired me with Mr. Ax ("call me Manny") he was only aware that I had a general classical music bent. I wanted a theme with some musical component, if possible, and once we sketched out a decent idea, Will and Joel had the brainstorm of the visual grid element and deftly tweaked the roster of theme entries to allow them to cross, thus clearing the middle.

Another frequent collaborator of mine, Doug Peterson, lent a hand with the nitty-gritty of grid design. Manny himself ably put crowning touches on the puzzle fill (including the revealer) and was game to do an even split of the clues. (I counseled against RUNS at 16A as a duplication of a theme entry, but I see it's back and I get it - TUNS or DUNS is not exactly commonplace.) After years of solving, Manny showed a nice affinity for New York Times style, I think - my favorites are 1A, 23A, 32A, 53D.

We worked over e-mail and by telephone, sometimes from wherever he was performing (Brahms concerto no. 2 in Milwaukee, Beethoven concerto no. 2 in Detroit, etc.), and more recently from his home as he was premiering the HK Gruber concerto with the New York Philharmonic.

Given my puzzle bylines over the last several years, you might correctly surmise that I derive lots of satisfaction from co-authoring, and this was one I won't soon forget. Beyond the joys of connecting with Manny and his enthusiasm, it's a special way for me to mark my 50th appearance in the Times, as Will mentions in his intro.

Love, love, love that Emanuel Ax and Brad teamed up to make a crossword related so closely to their lives! Visuals in crosswords can be so much fun — the musical eighth note made of black squares delighted me. It has been done before (Liz is a violist!), but it's still neat.

"Words that can follow X" puzzles have fallen by the wayside, so if you're going to go down that well-worn road, I think it's important to do something above and beyond. The musical note visual helped in that regard.

Having NOTE as a revealer (SOUR NOTE, MASH NOTE, HIGH NOTE, HALF NOTE) was a let-down though. I like to work a little for my a-ha moment, especially in a mid-week puzzle — no spoon-feeding! I'm not sure what would have been better, but something like HINT clued with a reference to the musical note?

I loved QUAKER GUN, what an evocative term! DAYMARE too. GRETA GARBO, MANGIA (Italian for "eat!"), ANECDOTAL, even PLAY AREA clued cheekily toward Ax's profession = so much great bonus fill! Almost felt like a themeless puzzle in that regard.

Prices to pay for these goodies, though. I don't mind a little ENE RONS UNAS LEROI SASE; generally minor and forgettable. But the upper left and lower right corners ended up giving the puzzle a rough-around-the-edges feel. It is difficult to fill around crossing themers — the starts of WHISKEY SOUR and MONSTER MASH combine to create inflexibility up in the NW — but A CENT + ERE I + LE ROI makes for an inelegant start to the puzzle.

Same for the end — A FATE + N CAR + the tough HALLO and AGLET…

(I usually would employ cheater squares (a black square at the R of RHODE or first A of AFATE to smooth these sections out). But some constructors much prefer a cleaner, more stark look to a puzzle.)

But overall, so neat that two musically-driven people came up with something so related to them.