Читать книгу Degas' Dust - Carnie Matisonn - Страница 9

Despite our humble circumstances, my father regularly took us to attend dress rehearsals at the city’s theatres. He had a great love of Yiddish, never missing the opportunity to read and perform in the language of his ancestors. His mother, Kate, born in the 1800s in Lithuania, was most comfortable speaking in her native Yiddish. My mother, of Polish descent, was equally fluent in the language, and alternated between English and Yiddish in her discussions with Natie.

They shared a common love of Yiddish literature, theatre and the arts. You had only to mention the writer Solomon Rabinovich by his pen name, Sholem Aleichem (a variant of Shalom Aleichem, meaning “peace with you”), and they would both giggle with pleasure. The musical Fiddler on the Roof was based on stories about Tevye der Milchiker (the dairyman) that dramatised Jewish life in Eastern Europe – and there were dozens of other plays and musicals like it, all of which we knew and loved.

Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe to South Africa had risen in the 1880s due to the increase in pogroms, and peaked again after World War Two. As much as 80% of the 70 000 Jews in South Africa today are of Baltic descent, most of them from Lithuania. Many more arrived from different parts of the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust.

South Africa, for a time, became more Litvak than Lithuania itself, with almost 100 000 Jewish immigrants in the country. They preserved Jewish culture and society while at the same time committing themselves to achieving excellence in as many fields as they could in their new country. As Litvak culture had been decimated in Lithuania, with the murder of 94% of Lithuania’s 220 000 Jews, their culture, for a time, found fertile soil and thrived in South Africa. Natie was culturally Litvak. Steeped in Yiddish tradition, he read all the volumes written by Sholem Aleichem and often quoted from his autobiography, Funemyarid (From the Fair). He admired the natural way Aleichem presented the tragedy of life in the shtetls, depicting with good humour how inhabitants had coped with adversities of all kinds.

Many of Natie’s peers were members of once-thriving Jewish clubs and cultural societies. In the 1950s, it wasn’t hard for him and other actors to find audiences at the Beaconsfield club in Johannesburg, the Jewish Guild Club and even, occasionally, the Alexander Theatre. But as time went by and the older generation passed and others left South Africa, increasingly more of the plays had to be performed in English for the benefit of the younger generation.

Natie’s shows proved popular when performed primarily in English, but incorporating several much-loved Yiddish phrases. Though fluent Yiddish-speaking audiences were becoming a rarity, the next generation still knew many of the most common or colourful terms and phrases. But, in time, even that started to fade.

For a while, Natie remained sought after as a compère of variety shows in both Johannesburg and Durban. He had a knack for telling Jewish stories in a mix of English and Yiddish that endeared him to the Jewish community but was still comprehensible to English speakers – no small task, but he pulled it off with aplomb. As a child, I took great pride in being an “actor’s son” and developed a warm affection for the colourful descriptive phrases that showed off the best that both English and Yiddish had to offer.

A love for the stage took deep root in me. After I turned ten, I started playing the violin, when an uncle on my mother’s side passed on a small, three-quarter violin for which he had no further use. I took lessons briefly with a violinist in the neighbourhood before my father and I attended one of the dress rehearsals of a fifty-two-piece orchestra one Sunday morning under the baton of Dr Solly Aronowsky.

Solly had been the leader of the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra since 1944. The orchestra featured some of South Africa’s greatest soloists and conductors. It hosted unforgettable performances by Alan Solomon and Vincent Fretelli on the violin, Andre de Groote on the piano, the magnificent voice of Deon van der Walt and symphonic performances under the baton of Charles Manning, Joseph Trauneck, Jeremy Shulman and Theo Wendt.

In 1946, Solly founded the Jewish Guild Orchestra, made up of both amateur and professional multi-denominational musicians dedicated to performing for charities while accepting engagements to entertain dignitaries and celebrities in city halls and theatres countrywide.

Solly had spent eight years studying violin and another four learning the piano at a renowned Hungarian musical conservatory. He became not only a brilliant performing artist but also a well-respected conductor and linguist who somehow mastered thirteen languages and regularly spoke to both the Eastern and Western European members of his orchestras in their home languages.

He later founded the Promenade Orchestra, comprising professional musicians plucked from the SABC and national orchestras. His musical work was well publicised and he became something of a national celebrity, not only due to his own gifts but because he was able to attract such highly accomplished South African soloists as Mimi Coertse and other celebrities who were respected internationally.

At that first dress rehearsal, Solly somehow noticed my rapt attention. I couldn’t believe it when the great man – my father had told me exactly who he was – took a moment to speak to me at the interval. Solly asked about my interest in music and I must have gushed.

“So … you play an instrument yourself then, young man?” the conductor asked, smiling.

Somewhat foolishly, I declared: “Yes, I’m a violinist!”

He waved over the orchestra’s nearest violinist. “Please be so kind as to lend our young prodigy here your instrument.” He turned to me. “I would love to hear you play, young Sir. Please.”

I was taken totally by surprise. I was also slightly horrified at my own audacity. All the same, I took a deep breath and lifted the instrument – which was bigger than the three-quarter violin I was used to. After allowing myself a moment to feel my way along the fingerboard, I reminded myself that the size was not too important, and I had played on bigger violins before.

I launched into the opening bars of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Almost instantly, Solly recoiled in disbelief.

“Stop!” he ordered, his hand up in protest, actually waving it in front of his nose, as if to dissipate a bad smell. “Mozart was not a gypsy! He did not look like a gypsy and his music was not meant to sound like a Hungarian folk dance. Instead of falling asleep on the violin with your eyes closed, you should hold it in front of you. Straighten your back; lift your arm!” he bellowed.

At the stunned look on my face, his expression changed. He looked almost apologetic. “I would like to teach you,” he said, more gently. “You have the tone and the talent, but you will have to start from scratch, as though you are stepping into a musical conservatory for the first time. You could become a great musician, but it will take tremendous discipline and several hours of work each day. You will start with scales and arpeggios and play them in your sleep, so that soon you may join my orchestra.”

I was astounded, and I think even my father was impressed. It was an unbelievable promise and opportunity, as well as one of the greatest early challenges of my life. It was one I intended to make the most of, and Solly was true to his word. I visited him once a week.

He was a hard taskmaster, but I knew from the outset I was in special hands. His pupils included a professor of applied mathematics and a senior lecturer in the department of physics. The professor lectured at Wits University and came directly after me for his own violin lessons with Solly. I liked to stay on after my own faltering attempts, simply to watch Professor Buric’s technical mastery – and feel inspired every time.