A Bow to a Bow

Well, it was a revelation, and I’m happy to say it was a good one.

I had to taken my bow to my luthier—and if you don’t have a luthier, you should get one, if only because it adds total class to be able to say “my luthier.” Of course, you could be a little clearer by saying “string instrument repairman,” but in a choice between clarity and class? No contest….

Actually, his name is Rodrigo, and he’s a totally cool guy. More to the point, he’s a serious luthier, having studied at Indiana University’s Violin Making and Repair Program. So he was the person to whom I fled, several years ago, when I detected the perfect round hole, about the diameter of a pencil point. What was it? I knew too well—a termite.

“I’ll have to freeze your cello for a couple of weeks,” said Rodrigo.

He explained it all carefully. Did I listen? Of course not—I knew it had to be done, I knew he was the man to do it. But how was I going to live for the next two weeks, imagining my cello in a meat locker?

Two weeks later, I was back in his taller, or workshop (OK, how about atelier?) And while I fully expected the cello to sound as good as it had before, it didn’t.

“It sounds much, much better,” I told him.

“The concert master of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra used to take his violin to New York for the least little thing,” his mother boasted, “now, he won’t let anyone but Rodrigo touch his violin….”

Mothers get to say stuff like that.

So there I was on Monday with a bow that had its hair firmly attached to the frog (yup—bows have frog: that’s the black thing under the player’s hand; it has a screw in it, so that you can tighten the hair.)  The problem? The hair had popped out at the other end of the bow (logically called the tip).

So there were two orders of business, beyond getting the bow fixed. The first was to ask about getting a baroque bow—very important, since I’m doing Bach and Beer every day. And the baroque bow is designed to do so something very important: messa di voce. It’s when a sustained note starts quietly, gradually becomes louder, and then becomes soft again. Done right, it’s ravishing.

As I knew he would, Rodrigo had the answer, with the happy news that a good baroque bow wouldn’t cost me too much—under two hundred bucks. And if my father had collected Leica cameras, can’t I collect bows?

The next order of business was to see if Rodrigo had a spare bow lurking around, waiting for the errant cellist to drift by and claim it. Well, it turns out that Rodrigo has a seriously good bow—which he would lend Yo-Yo Ma, maybe—and another bow, a French bow with German weight. Guess which one I got?

There’s a difference between what you know intellectually and what you know experientally (well, computer, if Sarah Palin can do it, why can’t I?). Because when I start playing with that bow, it was what Stanley said to Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire: “baby, we’ve had this date from the very beginning!”

“The bow is more important that the instrument,” said a cello teacher to me when I was in my teens. So why had it never occurred to me: I had a very good cello, but I had never gone from what were essentially student bows to a better bow.

And if your cello is your sound, your bow is your voice. Or perhaps your speech, since the bow was somehow, miraculously suggesting nuances that I hadn’t thought of. I swear—that bow was telling me how to play Bach.

Bach—which I was playing because I had grown tired of killing myself playing stuff like the Dvorak concerto or the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations. They’re great pieces of music, but for the cellist? It’s a battle: one cellist against 100 musicians. I had gotten tired of working so hard, and besides, it’s strangely unusual how infrequently the Berlin Philharmonic or the London Symphony are calling me these days….

But the bow was having none of that. It wanted a robust, full sound—or maybe it was that just by using the weight of my arm, the bow produced a wonderful, warm sound.

It was, as I say, a revelation. Equally revealing was how much I didn’t know about bows, or bow makers. I knew that François Xavier Tourte (1747 – 25 April 1835) was a big name among bow makers, but I didn’t know that he’s big enough to be called, “the Stradivarius of bow makers.” (If so, my computer is less than impressed—“Tourte” gets red-squiggled, whereas “Stradivarius” sails right through….)

Not only was he a fine maker, but he was the father of the modern bow: he lengthened it, devised the little screw that tightens the tension of the hair, and also came up with a new way to make the curve of the bow. Previously, it had been carved; Tourte cooked up the idea of heating a straight stick of pernambuco, and then, on the edge of a wood table, carefully producing the curve.

For all this, he deserves to have his picture in Iguanas; here he is, in an engraving from 1818:

  

 Nor did I know that the experimentation with the bow is still going on, until I stumbled across Benoît Rolland, a Frenchman of—quite logically—the French School. Because there are, you see, at least three distinct schools of bow making: the French, German and English schools. I get this from a sentence from Rolland’s website:

A musician can sense whether a bow belongs to the French, German or British traditions.

But it occurred to me: shouldn’t there be an Italian school, since the modern violin originated in Cremona, Italy? But it appears no—the origin of the modern bow occurred later, and happened simultaneously but unconnectedly in France and England (John Dodd was the Tourte of England…).

At any rate, Rolland studied at Mirecourt, sometimes called “the Cremona of bow making” and was awarded the prestigious Maitre Archetier d’Art, which beyond sounding totally cool, has only been awarded a few times in history.

Nor is that the only thing Rolland has won—he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2012—and they don’t hand those babies out like candy. Why did he get it? Well, the quote below is drawn from his website:

Initially using marine technology, he conceived the first carbon fiber bow of concert quality. Bringing the project one step further, he invented a new generation of bows including a tension mechanism that allows the performer to adjust at will the camber of the bow. The bows embodying this invention were awarded First Prize Musicora in 1994 (also selected for Musicora Anniversary, 2004), and are distributed under the trademark Spiccato®.

Right—so I’m a bit more knowledgeable about bows and bow making. What don’t I know? How I could possibly give Rodrigo’s bow back to him.

Sorry—that’s not Rodrigo’s bow.

Not any more….

So here’s what I going to say to him: “Rodrigo, you’d better let me buy this bow, because I really don’t want to have to steal it!”

Ilia Conquers Mass Transportation

The good news—opera is alive and well in Puerto Rico. The bad news? One flu epidemic could kill it.

I tell you this because I saw one Met transmission last year—it was Giulio Cesare with David Daniels, and it was fantastic—and I got hooked. So Mr. Fernández and I hit on the idea taking his mother, the redoubtable Ilia, to the opera.

“We can take the bus,” said Ilia, when I told her a week ago about the plan.

“We’re taking a cab,” I told her—and firmly. It’s the only way to be with Ilia.

Well, we went last week to the opera, and the audience was there, and the theater was there, but the opera? Not there, since a storm had knocked out the power, and the generator wasn’t working. So we waited for a bit in the hot and humid dark movie lobby, until it occurred to us—grab a drink next door.

“A bus just passed,” Ilia informed us, “Aha, and the bus stop is right over there….”

Ilia either learned her technique from erosion or nature imitated Ilia. Anyway, it’s the same—drip, drip, drip!

“You’re 83 years, you have chronic and crippling arthritis, and one bump in the road could lead to a broken hip. No, Ilia.”

“They seem to come by very frequently….”

Right, so we hit on the idea of going to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which happens to be located in an old school that Ilia’s husband had attended as a boy. It was when Ilia was busy communicating this on her cell phone that disaster struck.

It was a sort of maze comprised of hanging paper panels, and we were drifting around looking out of the holes that had been punched into it. Ilia, head down, walked into one of the panels, dislodging one end.

“Well, there we see why you shouldn’t text and drive,” said Ilia. Having raised six children, she hasn’t lost the habit of finding the moral of the story.

No great damage done, we then went down to the gift shop, since Ilia is also a great one for little gifts—or regalitos. In fact, Ilia could send the whole family to London for a week with the money she spends on regalitos, but what fun would that be?

“Another bus,” Ilia was quick to note, as we left the museum.

“Ilia, what’s the problem with a cab?”

“Cabs are no fun. Buses are what kids do. I want to take the bus….”

There’s no use for it—you might as well give in early in the game because guess what? If you wait, you’ll give in and be exhausted.

“Now I want to take the trolley,” said Ilia, as she stepped off the bus.

“Ilia, the way you’re going, you’re going to want a martini and a cigarette….”

“Oh, no….”

“Wonderful,” she said, climbing down from the trolley.

Well, the opera was yesterday, instead—and guess how we got there?

Ilia parted the crowd with her walker—rather the way trains get cattle off the rails. But it has to be said, she was by no means the only person in the assisted-walking department. In fact, Mr. Fernández and I were almost the only people not with cane / walker / wheelchair.

Oh, except for Ivelisse, the woman sitting next to us, who happened to be an old student from Wal-Mart.

“Why don’t more people come to the opera,” said Ivelisse, as we sat chatting.

And why indeed? The opera was Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky’s best opera—the singing was glorious, the story is good, and the sets and costumes were terrific. And for three hours, the rest of the world can spin around without you.

Others—including The New York Times—disagreed. Anthony Tommasini, the critic for the Times, called the production drab and muddled, as well as an “also ran.” That’s an ouch….

But what did I care? I had heard some beautiful music, I had reconnected with an old friend, and I had taken an 83-year old lady out of her apartment, where she had been cooped up all week watching bad television with her ailing husband.

“Maravillosa,” said Ilia, as she stood up after the end of the opera.

And then we headed for the damn bus.

Opening Night Gets Heated

It was, apparently, a noisy night at the opera.

I pondered in this blog several weeks ago whether I should sign an online petition asking the Metropolitan Opera House to dedicate its opening night—a more-champagne-than-beer night out—to the cause of LGBT rights.

There were good reasons to sign the petition. First of all, Anna Netrebko, the Russian-Austrian soprano at the top of the field, and Valery Gergiev, the Russian conductor, were singing and conducting. And both, to some degree, were supporters or perhaps friends with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who signed into law draconian laws against even speaking about homosexuality. More to the point, neither artist had condemned these laws. Oh, and the opera to be performed on opening night? Eugene Onegin, by that most lavender composer, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

There were good reasons not to sign the petition. First of all, it was mere coincidence that the two Russian artists were appearing in a gay Russian composer’s opera that opening night; the Met was hardly endorsing or even acquiescing to homophobia. Second, the opening was in New York, not in Moscow—the Russians weren’t making any money off this one. Third, the Met has never endorsed any cause in its 130 year-plus history. And, look guys, we’re not the only game in town. In the last 130 years, there have been a LOT of atrocities. The Met could have devoted every performance to a different cause, and still not be done with them….

So I didn’t sign, but 9,000 others—including Mr. Fernández—did. And yesterday evening, the opening night took place. And was Netrebko in good voice? Did Gergiev conduct with a toothpick, as he has been known to do? How was the staging, or the lighting?

Well, readers of The New York Times this morning won’t be able to tell you. What they will find is the story with the headline: Gay Rights Protest Greets Opening Night. Here’s the Times’ description of the event:

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Sister Lotti Da, passing out leaflets, was among the demonstrators in front of the Metropolitan Opera on Monday.

After the lights dimmed for the Metropolitan Opera’s Russian-themed opening night gala on Monday evening, the first solo voice that rang out in the house was not of a tenor or soprano, but of a protester criticizing the recent antigay laws signed by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

“Putin, end your war on Russian gays!” a man shouted in the vast auditorium, which was packed for the black-tie gala opening of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” before turning to two of the evening’s Russian stars: Anna Netrebko, the popular Russian diva, and Valery Gergiev, the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. “Anna, your silence is killing Russian gays! Valery, your silence is killing Russian gays!”

Was it true? I had looked it up, and discovered that Netrebko had issued a watery statement of support—not mentioning the laws or Putin or homosexuality, but valiantly coming out and stating that she supported equality for everybody! Wow, talk about living on the rim of the volcano! Brave move, Anna!

OK, so what about Gergiev? Here, the water is murkier; in an article from March of 2009, The New York Times said: 

“I don’t know of any case in musical history, except maybe for Wagner and mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, where a musician has been that close to a powerful ruler,” Richard Morrison, the chief classical music critic of The Times of London, told me.   

And it may be that, in Russia, you have to be a politician to be a musician. Gergiev’s passion was to rebuild the Kirov—which had a fabled history—into a glittering opera house. And to do that, he needed swagger, and the nerve to say to politicians what he said to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. Here’s The New York Times again:

Gergiev arrived with Irina Arkhipova, a great singer already advanced in years. Representing the Bolshoi, she had one overriding mission — to obtain financing for the Glinka competition for young singers.

Recalling the meeting, Gergiev emphasized his persuasive bluntness. “The prime minister had 15 minutes, in between Chechnya war meetings,” he recalled. “Arkhipova ate 10 minutes talking about the Glinka competition. She wanted $10,000. I saw that the next person was waiting outside the door for his meeting. It was my turn. I said, ‘Viktor Stepanovich, if you don’t give $10 million now to each theater, both will be lost.’ The most upset person was her. She thought she would lose her $10,000. I said, ‘You don’t know that the salaries are so pitiful that the only ones who can survive are those who work in the West.’ He said, ‘Where am I supposed to get $10 million?’ I said, ‘It’s the money you spend in one hour in Chechnya.’ He said: ‘It’s nothing to do with Chechnya. Why do you speak of it?’ I said: ‘The money disappears. It wasn’t you who built these opera houses. It is a glory of the nation. You should come see. And maybe first the Bolshoi — they are in even worse shape.’ He at some point shockingly realized that I was telling him directly and openly what was going on. We spent one hour extra there. The prime minister immediately gave $10 million together to the two houses. A very Russian story.

In the same interview, Gergiev says that Russia is a big country—you need a loud voice to be heard. And you need to get into bed with some unsavory characters, because an enemy in the Kremlin is far worse, and more powerful, than an enemy in Washington. In short, that $10 million for the Kirov—now called the Mariinsky—doesn’t get given to a guy who protests human rights abuse.

According to Anthony Tommasini, the Times’ music critic, it was not the best of nights at the opera—not the least because the director pulled out at the last minute, and was replaced by Fiona Shaw, who had never directed at the Met, and who anyway was directing elsewhere at the time.

Tommasini points out that street protests are one thing—protests within a theater another. Very true—if the protests had lasted long, the Met could have gone into overtime, and that, dear Reader, is something you don’t want to do. But the protesters left gracefully.

So let the Met off the hook on this one, guys. But the Sochi Olympics?

No frigging way….  

A Gala and a Controversy

Moral dilemma, here—should I sign the online petition asking for the Metropolitan Opera to dedicate the season’s opening gala to the LGBT community?

Factors in the decision—the season opens this year with a performance of Eugene Onegin, by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Right, so would dedicating the gala to the LGBT be a sharp stick in the eye for Vladimir Putin and the 430 legislators of the Duma who passed a draconian law outlawing even talking about homosexuality, much less getting down and…well, getting down? Somehow I don’t see it.

Nor is the Met’s choice of a Russian opera an endorsement of Putin and his law, given that the law is three months old, and the Met undoubtedly scheduled this years ago. You don’t run out and ask Anna Netrebko, whom the Associated Press called “the reigning new diva of the early 21^st century,” if she’s up for singing next week.

However, there is the fact that Netrebko is Russian, as is the conductor, Valery Gergiev. However, Netrebko came out on Facebook—that’s how it’s done, these degenerate days—with this statement: “As an artist, it is my great joy to collaborate with all of my wonderful colleagues — regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. I have never and will never discriminate against anyone.”

Well, good to know! It may not be a ringing denunciation of Putin and the wretched law, but it’s something.

Both Gergiev and Netrebko supported Putin in the past, but there’s no indication that they support the antigay legislation.

OK—but consider the fact that Tchaikovsky was homosexual, despite a two-and-a-half-month attempt at marriage—which left him drained and unable to compose. And though the Russian government is trying to deny that fact, Tchaikovsky mentions the fact himself in his letters. Here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

In any case, Tchaikovsky chose not to neglect social convention and stayed conservative by nature.[100] His love life remained complicated. A combination of upbringing, timidity and deep commitment to relatives precluded his living openly with a male lover.[101] A similar blend of personal inclination and period decorum kept him from having sexual relations with those in his social circle.[102] He regularly sought out anonymous encounters, many of which he reported to Modest; at times, these brought feelings of remorse.[103] He also attempted to be discreet and adjust his tastes to the conventions of Russian society.[104] Nevertheless, many of his colleagues, especially those closest to him, may have either known or guessed his true sexual nature.[105] Tchaikovsky's decision to enter into a heterosexual union and try to lead a double life was prompted by several factors—the possibility of exposure, the willingness to please his father, his own desire for a permanent home and his love of children and family. There is no reason however to suppose that these personal travails impacted negatively on the quality of his musical inspiration or capacity.

Well, we have a sad story, here—a gay man living in a troubled time. Russia then, and perhaps now, ran on “understandings,” according to one writer. The laws were on the books, but were they enforced? Well, you came to an “understanding” with whatever authorities you needed to and you were OK—until the winds blew in an unpleasant direction.

Another factor in the decision: the Met is not going onto Russian soil to do this gala—it’s taking place, of course, right at home in Lincoln Center. So it’s not quite like the Olympics, which will be taking place in Sochi, and which is expected to cost 12 billion.

There’s also the question of politics in art. It’s all very well to say that politics and music don’t mix, but in the past they certainly have, at least in some cases. Casals wouldn’t play in Spain for years, in protest of Franco. No one dared to play Wagner in Israel, until Barenboim did it—and he barely got away with it. 

Well, the Met is in an uncomfortable position. Prepare to be stunned, Readers, but opera is to gay men what softball is to lesbians. The LBT community might safely be snubbed, but the G? Tread carefully.

The good news? I’ve decided, no, I won’t sign the petition. But I have listened to the opera, and it’s a knockout….

A Norwegian Song Cycle

First scenario—I tell you that I’m taking you to the symphony tonight, and that we’ll be hearing some Beethoven. What are your chances of guessing what we’ll hear?

Not very good, I’m afraid—besides the nine symphonies and the five piano concerti and the violin and triple concerti, there are roughly half a dozen other orchestral works, mainly overtures.

Second scenario—I tell you that I’m taking you to the symphony tonight, and that we’ll be hearing some Grieg. And here, you’ll very likely be able to pin it down in the first three guesses. It’ll be the piano concerto, Peer Gynt, or possibly the Holberg Suite. Unless you’ve got a conductor willing to scrounge into the forgotten corners of Grieg’s repertoire, that’s all you’re likely to hear.

So Grieg falls into that enigmatic category—you might call it famous but not well known. He certainly has his place in the pantheon, but only for a handful of works. And given that he died at age 64, shouldn’t we know more music of his? He had to have been doing something other than writing merely three pieces in nearly half a century of creative life.

Yes and no. He wasn’t a very healthy man; a lung condition he picked up at age 17 plagued him most of his life. He was also a conductor, and worked for many years with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, for which he served as music director from 1880 – 1882. But he was unusual for his time in not producing a symphony, except for an early work that he suppressed.

He was, said one commentator, a man of little works, almost a miniaturist. He struggled even to produce a string quartet, although he came up a creditable one—Debussy, not an easy man to please, thought highly of it.

He got around, this man from Norway who studied in Leipzig, disliked the rigidity of the system, and went back to his native land. He met Liszt, who was impressed with him (and sight-read the famous piano concerto and invented a reduction of the orchestral score—they were giants on the earth, some of those guys…). He also met Tchaikovsky, and was struck by how sad he was.

You could—perhaps fancifully—say that he met me this morning on the daily trot, when I was cruising my iPod for something new to listen to. It’s a discipline for me, now—how much new music can I listen to? For years, I was buying CDs of interesting music that I never found time to listen to. Well, now’s the time.

And so it had been with a CD of Grieg’s songs, as sung by Anne Sofie von Otter. And instantly I was struck by the rich harmonies, the deftness of the piano part, the freshness of the music.

What I didn’t know was that I was listening to a song cycle, indeed the only song cycle that Grieg ever wrote. And what, you ask, is a song cycle? A musical form that crops up with Beethoven and is still going on—a group of songs that are meant to be performed together, often because they are telling a story, or are thematically linked. And the 19^th century was a sort of golden age for the song cycle: Schubert with his Winterreise and  Die schöne Müllerin; Schumann with Liederkreis, Dichterliebe, Frauenenliebe und Leben.

Grieg wrote the song cycle Haugtussa over a three-year period, and mind you, the work only lasts 25 minutes. But it was worth it; Grieg later wrote that it was his best effort in song. Sadly, though, in the YouTube clip below, we’re missing the one crucial component of a song cycle—the lyrics themselves.

So here is what will have to suffice, a brief description of the work from Wikipedia:

Haugtussa opens and ends with the nature mysticism of "The Enticement" and "At the Brook". The second extended stage includes the two melancholic portraits "Veslemøy" and "Hurtful Day". Between them the climax is reached in the central love songs "The Tryst" and "Love", which have a cheerful, pastoral approach, and approached and transitioned from in, respectively, "Blueberry Slope" and "Kidlings' Dance". The main character, the Veslemøy, is a shepherd girl who has abilities that others do not have and therefore can not find a place for her personality in rural communities. She turns to nature for answers to her desires and questions. During the course of the text she falls in love with the boy Jon, and "Hurtful Day" describes her feelings when she is deceived by him. In the last song, "At the Brook", which is often compared with the last song of Franz Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin or Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe,[4] she seeks refuge by a mountain brook, musically represented by a rhythmic figure on the piano. From verse to verse, Grieg gradually changes this passage using different harmonizations.

What’s good about the clip? It has the wonderful Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter singing at her best, and that “best” is nearly unbeatable. And how fortunate we are that von Otter is Swedish, and can thus sing in a language most other singers wouldn’t tackle.

Which leads me, perhaps, to the last strike against Grieg—he’s Norwegian, he’s identified as a nationalist composer, and ever so slightly looked down on. However much the piano concerto gets played, among musical snobs—and you don’t have to be told that snobbery is rampant in classical music, do you?—Grieg isn’t considered in the absolute top drawer.

But listening to this song cycle, I think he is….

An Inhabited Life

It’s well past obsession and most of the way into electronic stalking, this interest I have in Martha Argerich. It started out with seeing her play, which is a riveting experience. Here’s the conductor Antonio Pappano:

“It’s impossible to separate the person from the musician – she is music. First of all, what a dynamo! Despite all the energy and mercuriality she has in her playing she manages to get every nuance along the way – which very few pianists can do.

You can’t put her in a cage, you can’t put her in a box, she’s a free spirit. She has such class, such old-world elegance, it’s from another era, almost…  just wonderful!” says conductor Antonio Pappano.

True enough. What Pappano doesn’t comment on is her technique, for which the adjective of choice among commentators is “prodigious.” And she admits it: her natural preference is for a faster, rather than slower, tempo. To see her play a section of octaves in the Tchaikovsky Concerto is akin to watching a landscape from a speeding train. It almost makes you queasy.

She wears no makeup since her trademark hair usually ends up covering her face, anyway, so why bother? Nor is she entirely sure of her nationality, since she rarely returns to her land of birth, Argentina, and has lived in Europe most of her life. Her English is excellent, as is her French, Spanish, Italian, and German.

She arrives to study with Gulda at age fourteen; Peron made it possible by appointing Argerich’s parents to the Argentine Embassy in Vienna. At age sixteen, she has won two major competitions, and is travelling alone and performing in Europe. Here’s her description of the time.

When I was seventeen I lived like a forty-year old. I wanted to have the life of a young student, other people of my age were free, had fun, had no stage fright. I found that my life was sad. I’d travel a lot, on my own. I was very shy, I still am because I think that you stay shy. Today, it’s true, I have friends everywhere, and they look after me,” she smiles. 

Catch that reference to stage fright? Here’s the New York Times on the subject.

Like other legendary performers, including the cellist Pablo Casals and the pianist Vladimir Horowitz, Ms. Argerich has suffered from stage fright. “Sometimes I was in terrible panics,” she says ruefully. “I’d imagine the worst things, imagine a full hall. It’s terrible.” Her knees would tremble so forcibly, she says, that her feet would inadvertently bang on the floor, and she suffered chills and runny noses.

It’s hard to believe, looking at her, that she has anything but supreme confidence and nerves. And really, Argerich on her worst day would be way ahead of most concert pianists. But the anxiety and loneliness got so bad that she stopped her career when she was 19 or 20, went to New York, and, in the words of the Times, “spent a few years watching late-night television.”

She decided in midcareer that she really preferred making music with others, so she turned to chamber music, at which she excels. And she is not a lady who tells all, who reveals all. There’s a mystery about her, there are curtains firmly drawn in her life. She stated once that she wasn’t “lucky” in the marriage department, and that was that.

She surprises. No, she doesn’t enjoy playing, she’s working too hard, it’s not fun any more. She doesn’t know what she thinks about the second movement of the Ravel, and then corrects herself: she enjoys it if she’s hearing, not playing, the music. Her head, when she speaks, is so often bent to her right, as if she is pondering something. The eyes drift up as she considers her response. At times she answers the question instantly, at other times she pauses, thinks, ruminates. And always, she ends each response with a smile that lights her face better than a spotlight.

She is intense, private, and very intelligent. She’s a bit removed, distanced from herself and life. One senses—she has given more joy to others than she has herself received. And she has worked very hard to do so.

Has she lived? Or has she rather been inhabited by that prodigious technique, that enormous talent, that driving and driven demon that pushes her—nose running and knees trembling—onto the stage so many nights?