Читать книгу A Note In Time - Janina Fialkowska - Страница 7

Chapter 2

Scenes from Childhood (“Kinderszenen”) by Robert Schumann

My first public performance was not what one could term an unmitigated success. History relates neither the obstetrician’s nor the nurse’s reaction to my initial appearance on the world stage in 1951 but, according to family legend, the first words which fell from my mother’s lips following my birth were: “Oh God! Take it away! That’s not a baby – it’s a dried prune!”

Presumably such a remark, inflicted at such a tender age, could damage a person’s psychological makeup for the rest of their life. But this kind of wickedly humorous honesty was a family hallmark and therefore part of my genetic code. At home remarks that would send others scurrying to psychoanalysts were nonchalantly absorbed on a daily basis; to survive one needed to develop either a very thick skin or the capacity for lengthy periods of selective deafness.

That said, there really is a strong streak of eccentricity in my mother’s family that, coupled with a tendency to obsession, makes for an interesting agglomeration of personalities. To mention but two, I had a cousin who, at age seventy, streaked down one of the main streets of Victoria, British Columbia, stark naked, hand in hand with one of the most notorious town prostitutes, because he felt it was an amusing thing to do. And another cousin, a dear, loveable person who, for the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday, sought out and bought the very outfit Her Majesty wore on the day of her celebration, put it on, had his photograph taken proudly wearing it, and then sent copies of the photo to all of the members of his family as well as to Clarence House. But then, my own mother, having received a hand-knitted tea cozy as a wedding present from an elderly friend, decided it was far more suitable as headgear than as a pot cover, and for years wore it during the winter months without a trace of embarrassment. The scary part is that the family found nothing remotely odd in this behaviour.

In addition, the women of my mother’s family have tended to be strong-willed and bossy. And when, by some quirk of fate, there is a member of the family with a slightly more normal (boring?) outlook on life, chances are this poor person, feeling somehow inadequate and at a disadvantage, will seek out a glorious eccentric in marriage just to keep up the family’s reputation and pass the interesting genes on to the next generation. As for myself, the obsessiveness and strong will are definitely there; and eschewing a life of leisure for never-ending hours of struggle in front of a black box with white keys, could be interpreted as mildly eccentric.

We are definitely proud of our “oddness” – no question about it. But when the human cocktail of eccentricity and obsession is mixed with despotic tendencies, the result is sometimes a rather entertaining, perhaps rather overwhelming personality; my mother instantly springs to my mind.

The genealogy of my maternal grandmother is a typical Canadian mixture of Scottish and English adventurers who rose in the ranks of the Hudson’s Bay Company and made their fortunes. One of them, Robert Miles, my great-great-great-grandfather, actually became chief factor of the company and married a remarkable lady from the Cree nation. It has always been a source of great pride to know that I have some First Nations blood running through my veins.

The marriage of Robert and his wife, Betsy, was happy and successful, and their grandson, my maternal great-grandfather, rose to prominence as a great financier, becoming president of the Bank of Montreal and founding the Royal Trust Company of Canada. For his efforts, he was knighted and thereafter was known as Sir Edward Clouston. He was obviously a bit of a rogue, but he enjoyed life and was a kind and philanthropic man, particularly towards his less fortunate relatives, who regarded him always with great affection.

Sir Edward had three daughters; two died very young, and the third, Marjory, was my grandmother. An extraordinary beauty, she also appears to have been extremely strong-willed, especially in her choice of husband. Having been brought up in the lap of luxury and as part of the cream of Canadian Society (such as it was at the end of the 19th century), she was expected to make a high-profile marriage, preferably to a titled Englishman or, at the very least, to someone from a family of equal wealth and power. She chose, instead, a persistent suitor from Victoria who was a “mere” Doctor of Medicine. Although her parents overcame their initial prejudice, some of her other relatives and friends were aghast. The fact that my grandfather was one of the most renowned and decorated research scientists in his field didn’t sway them one bit. In just three generations the family had gone from carrying canoes in the wild and trading fur pelts, to considering an alliance with a professional man as a social faux-pas and a definite “step down.” My grandfather, a parasitologist, had already distinguished himself as a young man with his work in Gambia and the Belgium Congo, isolating the tsetse fly as the carrier of the dreaded “sleeping sickness.” Shortly after the First World War, he was sent to Poland, where a terrible epidemic of typhus was raging. For his magnificent work there, he was given Poland’s highest civilian decoration. Decades later, in 1976, when I was engaged to perform three concerts with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, I spent a day as an honoured guest at the renowned Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. The fact that I was a concert pianist was considered all very worthy, but the delightful attentions and kindnesses that I received from the Dean and the professors were mostly due to the fact that I was the legendary Dr. John Todd’s granddaughter.

My mother, Bridget or “Biddy,” was the youngest of three sisters. Incredibly strong-willed, like my grandmother, she seems to have been totally unsuited to the life she was expected to lead. Many of her early years were taken up in the pursuit of fun, since there were continuous house parties with masses of young people in their home, riding, playing tennis and hockey, acting in amateur theatricals, travelling luxuriously, and leading a life of utter ease. But my mother, early on, apparently developed a strong streak of rebellion, hating her governess–ruled education and desperately wishing she could go to a “regular” school and university to earn a degree and follow a profession. She refused to be a “debutante” and at the age of nineteen, while the family was spending a year in Paris, she suddenly decided she wanted to be a pianist. She enrolled herself into the École Normale de Musique which, at that time, boasted such luminaries as Alfred Cortot and Nadia Boulanger amongst its faculty, and she worked frenetically and fanatically for four years, until 1939 when the family, for obvious reasons, could no longer allow her to remain in Paris. Reluctantly my mother returned home, and her musical career was put on hold indefinitely … or at least until I appeared on the scene. Her only non-musical interest during those Paris years was ice hockey; she played Centre Forward in the European Woman’s Hockey League representing Great Britain, but then defected to the French team.

When her fiancé was killed in the early months of the war, my mother enlisted and earned a degree as a mechanic. She was sent overseas with the armed forces and, once in England, was assigned as a driver/mechanic to the Polish forces in exile stationed up in Scotland, which is where she met my father.

During the early stages of World War II, the Poles were hugely popular in Britain, especially after the heroic performance of the Polish pilots during the Battle of Britain. However, once Hitler had attacked the Soviet Union and Stalin became Britain’s ally, the Poles became somewhat of an embarrassment to the English and American governments who desperately wanted to keep Stalin appeased and the Russians fighting hard on the Eastern front. With Poland occupied by Russian troops who had no intention of leaving, what followed was a tragic betrayal on the part of the allies. It wasn’t that anti-Polish sentiment became government policy, but it certainly wasn’t discouraged in any way, and it flourished amongst left-wing groups in England and Scotland.

And so it happened that one day my mother, sitting in her truck with the window open, waiting to drive a Polish officer to a staff meeting, was spat upon and insulted by a young Scot. My mother returned to the officer’s mess that evening and recounted her story. The Polish officers, who doted on her, made a huge fuss, exclaiming that they would never forget how she had suffered for Poland etc. etc. – all the officers but one, who had just arrived and who was unknown to my mother. His only comment was that perhaps the next time she went out she should take an umbrella! Thus, my parents met, and two years later they were married in London, where they both had been transferred. My mother had become so proficient in the Polish language that she was assigned to the Polish headquarters in the Rubens Hotel, where she served as a translator for the Polish Underground Army.

As I’ve mentioned, my mother was obsessive, quite unreasonable and, on occasion, a bit of a tyrant. But she had a wonderful sense of humour and a wicked sense of fun. A lifelong rebel, she enjoyed flaunting orders, driving through red lights, backing up on major highways when she missed an exit, jumping to the head of queues with panache, and filling out serious forms with witty and thoroughly disrespectful comments. Even in her late seventies, when she was under strict instructions to stay indoors because of a bout of pneumonia, she sneaked out and went skating on the lake in front of our house because, as she put it with her own infallible logic: “The ice was so perfect.” And just to annoy all of us, she recovered from her pneumonia the next morning! She was exasperating, but I loved her.

Of my father’s family I know far less, my father not being interested in such things. All I know is that my grandfather was a Pole who came from the Austrian section of Poland (Poland before World War I was divided into three occupied sections: the Russian sector, the Austrian sector, and the German sector) and that he was fortunate enough to come from this more tolerant section, where he had a successful career in the military, becoming the Commandant of the Austro–Hungarian officers’ school in Wiener Neustadt and eventually rising to the rank of General. He married his best friend’s daughter, Ludmilla von Regwald, whose family owned great tracts of land in Bukowina as well as in Poland. An alleged bon vivant, full of charm, he died suddenly in 1919, leaving my grandmother destitute with three small boys, the war having devastated the family finances.

My father Jerzy, or George, was the youngest son and only eight years old when his father died. They were living in Lwów (formerly Lemberg), where times were terribly hard following not only the horrors of the first World War, but also the failed attempt to re-occupy Poland by the Bolsheviks in 1920–1921, when my uncle Konrad, still only a young boy, acted as a courier for the resisting Polish forces. At one time the family survived only with the help of the American Red Cross and their soup kitchens. But the Fialkowski boys were all over-achievers, and by 1939 my uncles Konrad and Gabriel were already successful doctors of medicine and heads of hospital departments. My father was an electrical engineer with a bright future, working for the German firm of Siemens in Warsaw. Called up to active duty after Poland was attacked by the Nazis, he took part as a young reserve officer in the defence of Warsaw, where the sadly under-equipped Polish army heroically staged the last cavalry attack of modern history against the German tanks. He then was ordered to evacuate and re-join the Polish army in exile. Through many hair-raising adventures, including dodging bullets, avoiding bombs and a daring escape from a prison camp in Romania, he made it to Greece, where he apparently had a marvelous few days sightseeing before embarking on a transport ship to France. My father had a passion for travel, and nothing made him happier than visiting exotic places, preferably in warm climates (even in the middle of a war!). After France he finally ended up in London via Scotland. During the war, he worked in the Polish underground as a communications expert.

Miraculously, my strong-willed grandmother and two uncles survived both the German and Soviet invasions, my uncle Konrad having been interned by the Gestapo and later persecuted mercilessly by the post-war communist regime. My uncle Gabriel, although a less intense, more happy-go-lucky fellow, also suffered mightily from deprivations and persecution; among other things, his home in Lodz was first commandeered by retreating German troops and then by Russian troops, who he found had chopped up all of his furniture to use for firewood! The rest of the family – cousins, uncles and aunts – were either killed or deported to camps, Nazi or Soviet. Some survived and one, a resistance fighter, escaped to South America after the war, but was hunted down by the communists and assassinated. My father spent over seven years without knowing if his mother was dead or alive, and only ventured back to Poland to see his family in 1958, after Stalin had died. Had he returned earlier he would most likely have been shot.

In Canada, my father worked for General Electric and then, when my maternal grandfather died, he retired from engineering and took over my mother’s third of the family estate, located on the western tip of Montreal Island, transforming it into a beautiful apple farm. He loved the property and was very happy living there, so long as he could travel each year to Europe or somewhere unusual. My father’s idea of heaven was to walk for hours in Paris, where he had studied as a young engineer, revisiting the “quartiers” of his youth. Since this coincided very much with my mother’s feelings about her early experiences in Paris, I always felt that their best times together were during our frequent trips to France as a family. My father was passionate about politics and read constantly, but although extraordinarily charming, in Canada he was very much a recluse, and could go weeks on end seeing no one but the family. Once he was in Europe, this changed dramatically and he became gregarious; I believe he just felt more at ease with the European style of life, of thought, of rapid conversation and discussion, as opposed to the natural reticence of English Canada.

But what my father cared for above all was his children. He was devoted to us and was always there whenever we came to him with any problem, wise and ready to support and reassure with reason and calm. My brother Peter had a particularly close relationship to him, and they often travelled all over Europe together while I stayed home with my mother and practised the piano.

Thanks to my parents, I grew up at ease with both cultures and inherited a profound love of Europe, a strong interest in politics and a passion for gardens and apple trees.

My ambitious mother suffered mildly from the notion that, because as a girl she had never received a university degree or even a regular high-school diploma, her intellectual upbringing was somehow disadvantaged. Au contraire, her massive general knowledge of history, politics, art, music, literature, and poetry (of which she could recite hours and hours in three or four different languages) would have put many a university professor to shame. What she possessed was a remarkable mind that positively thirsted for knowledge and remained sharp and ever curious right until the end.

She was also an inveterate organiser and a perfectionist and, perhaps due to her upbringing and early social status, was extremely self-confident in social situations. So, it was partially out of her own frustrations at not having had the chance to continue her musical studies or, indeed, pursue any other kind of profession, that she focused on her children’s development with passion and commitment.

My brother Peter, three years older than myself, is one of the family’s most delightful and gifted eccentrics. But he was definitely not the appropriate recipient of this barrage of ambition and discipline from my mother. Instead, he escaped into a fantasy world, which he generously shared with me. He created an entire universe with kingdoms and time machines, armies and palaces, knights, cowboys and gangsters (all inspired by books he read or countries we had visited) and magical, imaginary places like “Ishkabible” and “Iccadiccadaccidak.” Peter would be the narrator and would play the part of all of the characters but mine. I was entranced and enthralled by his imagination and his absurd sense of humour. I can still see us walking up and down the driveway for hours and hours after I had finished my work, in any kind of weather (even snowstorms and days of 30 below Fahrenheit), totally oblivious to the elements, completely caught up in our fantasy world.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn’t had a brother who had utterly no interest in kicking balls and playing with other little boys but preferred my company and the world we created between us. He was always popular at school because he was so witty and such a good mimic, but his thoughts were never concentrated on anything scholastic or group oriented. For a little girl who was already sitting for five hours a day at the keyboard as well as attending regular school, those few hours with my brother each week were a true lifeline.

It was a crushing blow when he was sent away to boarding school in his early teens. My mother had had to give up forcing him to practise the piano because at one point Peter just dug in his heels and refused to co-operate, although he has loads of talent and had really become quite proficient. My father would patiently help him with his schoolwork and at university, seemingly without ever cracking open a book, he breezed through the courses and obtained his degree. Because of his good looks and talent, he was much in demand and always landed the lead parts in university theatricals, but the rigours of the acting profession were not for him, and in the end, he preferred a quiet life working for years as a television news-anchor and meteorologist in Peterborough, Ontario. His obsessions still include ocean liners, operas, railroads, sailing and trips to France. He was my closest ally as a child, as I was his, and he remains the best brother imaginable. My gorgeous Italian sister-in-law, Luisa, keeps him reasonably grounded, although many would affectionately consider him to be mad as a hatter. They have five children between them, and it is a relief to report that Peter’s two, Caroline and John, whom I love dearly, carry on the family tradition of eccentricity. Luisa’s three, Valerie, Andrea and John-Paul, are genuinely delightful and are an excellent counterbalance.

My mother found more fertile ground for her ambitions in her daughter. Peter was already playing the piano quite well when, at the age of four, I was clamouring to learn how to play myself; the sounds my brother was producing by pressing down the keys intrigued me. And so it was that my career began. My first piece was a Polish Christmas Carol, “Jezus Malusieńki,” that I played for my father as a Christmas present. Shortly thereafter, I was enrolled in the Sacred Heart Convent in Montreal as a day-pupil. My parents were unusual in Quebec society at that time, as my mother was a non-practising Anglican and my father a practising-on-his-own-terms Catholic. They decided the children should be brought up Catholic, as my father did actually attend church every Sunday and my mother never saw the inside of a church except for a funeral, a wedding or, more likely, as a tourist in Europe. I’m pretty sure they wanted us to be exposed to some sort of religion so we could develop our own theological philosophies later on. My father attended the village church regularly, but when we grew up and no longer went with him, he discontinued the practice because he found the local priests to be at best uninteresting and, at worst, as he would put it rather bluntly, “idiots.” He had strong beliefs, including some significant spiritual feelings for the pilgrimage town of Lourdes, where he had gone to pray at difficult periods in his life, including his time in France during the early days of the war. But he often found Church doctrine meddlesome and intrusive, mixing into areas he felt were none of its business. In many ways my politically ultra-conservative father was, in fact, an extremely forward thinker.

Actually, my mother was a far more religious person than my father; I think she had a very strong sense of faith, even though she was a child of agnostics with no real religious background at all. She had a wonderful sense of irreverence towards organised religions and never failed to chuckle over some of the passages from the reams of Catechism I was forced to learn by heart every day at the convent.

I loved going to school and I enjoyed all the rituals of the Catholic upbringing: the lily parades, the first communion, the incense, retreats, candles, ribbons, and medals. Confession every week did strike me as a little ludicrous and, already a performer, I worried that the priest would get bored with the tiny scope of my sins and found myself spending a great deal of energy and imagination dreaming up more exotic ones to keep him entertained; I believe he was quite amused. Unlike most of the other little girls, I never felt any desire to become a nun, probably because already, at the age of five or six, the concepts of freedom of thought and individualism had taken hold in my young mind. Also, I was already ambitious, and the thought of wearing black robes every day seemed rather dreary; the life of the Cloister and of obedience didn’t strike me as much fun or worthy of aspiration.

The education at the Convent in the 1950s was based heavily on learning pages and pages of grammar, Catechism and history by heart. Luckily for the nuns, early Canadian history is full of the exploits of Jesuit and other Catholic missionaries (not to mention nuns), so they had a field day, and it was all very exciting for a young mind – to ghoulishly revel in the horrific stories of Fathers’ Brébeuf, Jogues and Co.’s martyrdoms at the hands of my aboriginal ancestors. I also believe that this early memorising provided excellent training for when I later started to develop my repertoire at the piano. To this day I memorise new pieces extremely quickly, and I attribute this small but useful talent to the style of education I received at the Sacred Heart Convent.

Many of the nuns were from poor Irish backgrounds or French-Canadian country families, and their characters ranged from boorish to mostly very pleasant and kind. But occasionally one struck gold, as I did in my third and fourth year, when I was taught by a remarkable woman, the younger daughter of a distinguished Montreal family – the Duchastels – who were friends of my grandparents. Quite elderly at that time, she was highly civilised, well educated, had a wicked sense of humour and was a totally delightful person. I loved her dearly and believe the feeling was reciprocated. I flourished under her guidance, loving school and eagerly absorbing any bit of knowledge she would impart. However, she never seemed to award me any of the ribbons or medals so beloved in Convent life and that she would lavish on the other little girls. In frustration, I once asked her why I was always overlooked, citing my good marks and general good behaviour; Mother Duchastel just nodded wisely and, smiling, pointed out that I didn’t need any extra encouragement and that I was already far too pleased with myself!

In 1960, when I was nine, my world changed drastically and irrevocably. That summer we travelled to France, ostensibly for a family holiday. However, Biddy had ulterior motives, a vision of my possible musical career having taken hold in her mind. At the time I never questioned my mother’s actions or motives. One didn’t in those days. Besides, I was a self-satisfied little creature with plenty of ambition and a major desire to impress my parents. It was still all a big lark to me.

I had learned a short program to play for her pre-war piano teacher, Mademoiselle Anne-Marie Mangeot in Paris. The program (unimpressive by the standards of today’s mini-monsters, who play Rachmaninov’s 3rd piano concerto at the drop of a hat, shortly after leaving the cradle) consisted of a Bach two-part invention, a movement from a Mozart Sonata, Debussy’s “Golliwog’s Cake Walk,” and a Cramer Etude. After hearing me play, Mlle. Mangeot suggested to Biddy that perhaps now was the time for me to start up serious music studies at a conservatory or music school. This gave Biddy the green light to intensify and lengthen my practice sessions with her and the search was on to find me a teacher.

It was my great good fortune to be living in Montreal at a time when arguably the greatest piano pedagogue in Canadian history was teaching at a local music school. The school itself was impressive enough. Newly finished, it was the brainchild of an extraordinary nun, Soeur Marie-Stéphane. She had been in Paris as a young nun and had met the rather obscure French composer, Vincent d’Indy, who was renowned in Paris for having created his own unique music school, the Schola Cantorum. Armed with ideas, inspiration and a divine mission to succeed, iron-willed little Soeur Marie-Stéphane came back to Canada, started lobbying and by the time I appeared on the scene, in the fall of 1960, the impressive École Vincent d’Indy was practically completed; an imposing structure built on the side of Mont Royal overlooking the predominantly French Canadian sector of Montreal known as Outremont; it had a state-of-the-art recital hall, facilities for boarders, many practise rooms and pianos, a cloistered area for the nuns’ living quarters, a lovely chapel, library, kitchen, and studios and reception rooms. The quality of teaching was first-rate. My aunt Rosanna, who had never heard of Vincent d’Indy but was Quebecker enough to know that 90 per cent of the place names in Quebec are those of obscure saints, would innocently refer to the school as Saint Vincent des Indes, and so the name stuck in our family; it was affectionately and more commonly referred to, by irreverent students, as V.D.

When I arrived there with Biddy one early September day for my first lesson, we were met at the entrance by a beautiful young nun named Soeur Stella Plante. The daughter of a doctor in far away Thetford Mines, Quebec, she had originally wanted to be a nurse and had been promised by the Order that if she “joined up” at the tender age of seventeen, they would train her so that she could pursue her dream. She did take her vows, but the higher-echelon nuns had other plans for her. So obvious was her unusual talent for music that it was no surprise she ended up teaching piano at their best music school and the nursing was put on hold. She became my teacher for the next seven years – two lessons a week. She was enthusiastic, ambitious and had an incredible spark for igniting students’ interests and inspiring them to strive for perfection. I loved my lessons and was also, for a while, happy to practise for hours every day, as it was all very exciting and new. Biddy was happy as well; the teaching was sound and followed along the lines of the French schooling she herself had received in Paris: a great deal of Solfège and Dictation, Theory and History, Counterpoint and Gregorian Chant. The repertoire I learned consisted mainly of Bach, the classics and French music.

During the fall of 1960, there was another change. Biddy took me out of the French- speaking Sacred Heart convent and put me into the English Protestant school known as The Study, where they generously worked their entire schedule around mine so that I could have ample time to practise the piano every day.

By the age of ten, I had progressed enough to be playing the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto K. 466 with the Montreal Symphony, the venerable Wilfrid Pelletier conducting. To play with an orchestra for the first time was breathtaking. I was overwhelmed by the different sounds and orchestral textures all blending in so magically with what I was playing. I felt this amazing burst of warmth radiate through my body, and my inner eye was blinded by a kaleidoscope of fantastic colours.

By the age of eleven, although still going to The Study full-time, I was also practising at least five hours a day. I seemed to manage fine, juggling everything without fuss, although, other than seeing my classmates at school, there was never time for socialising during the off-school hours. If it hadn’t been for Peter, I might have turned into a far greater social recluse than I actually became.

Before entering The Study, my I.Q. had been tested and the results emboldened Biddy to take a few radical measures. I started skipping classes to be able to participate in piano competitions. I also started to skip whole years and ended up graduating with girls three years my senior. How I ever passed all my exams is a mystery, as I had been forced to miss so many of the lectures. But, once again, I was fortunate: most of the teachers were indulgent and perhaps a little sympathetic as well, helping me along while trying to keep me as level-headed as possible. For me, going to school was a joy and an escape – almost a holiday – and a welcome respite from what was becoming, after the first euphoric months at V.D., the increasingly stressful hours at the piano. Indeed, signs of stress were definitely showing; before every performance I was becoming physically ill, throwing up uncontrollably, much to the consternation of those around me. I soon learned to keep this disgusting occurrence secret, never panicking since I knew I’d feel fine once on stage.

When I was eleven, it was time for me to start lessons with the master pedagogue, Yvonne Hubert, who came to V.D. on Fridays to teach the advanced students. Biddy, who sat with me and supervised my practising every day, and Soeur Stella, who taught me twice a week, had prepared me well so that my lessons with Mademoiselle Hubert were quite thrilling. A tiny little Piaf-like French woman whose breath always smelt of the gallons of coffee she drank, very highly strung and very serious, she had settled almost by accident in Montreal years before and became the most revered piano teacher in Canada. She had been a pupil of the legendary Alfred Cortot and, among her many gifts, she possessed the most extraordinarily agile left hand. Never demonstrating with both hands, she would sit on my right side and play everything miraculously with her left hand alone – a feat that never failed to amaze. A perfectionist, she instilled in me a desire for clarity, structure, and intelligent music-making. Her students produced mostly lovely sounds – they never banged – and she counted among them at that time André Laplante, my great friend William Tritt, whose brilliant career was tragically cut short by his premature death, then, a little later, Marc-André Hamelin and Louis Lortie, who are now pursuing major international careers.

Great rivalries grew up not only between the students but also between their black-robed teachers. As there were many national and international competitions taking place in Montreal, the rivalries thrived, but for the most part (at least among the students) they were amicable and beneficial. One little nun, though, was quite enterprising; she actually hid in the broom closet of the room where an international jury was deliberating so that she could get advance notice of which pieces her pupils would, potentially, be playing in the next round. She also gave her students little snorts of brandy before they went on stage. Sometimes, when she decided the pupil seemed lethargic, it became more than just a sip or two … which made for some wild performances.

Biddy, however, had her own agenda, and remained unfazed over whether I won or lost competitions. Of course, she was pleased when I won, but what concerned her most was the quality of my playing and that it should deserve to win (my father George, on the other hand, just felt I deserved to win everything regardless). She was not your typical stage mother because she never pushed me to perform in public and, for two years, much to the good nuns’ horror, she refused to allow me to enter competitions or to perform at all, insisting I use the time to learn repertoire and to develop my technique. Probably I was very overworked at the time and there was never really any break, since even holidays in Europe now consisted of daily searches for pianos on which to practise in hotel bars and restaurants, piano shops, even night clubs – a nightmare for me as I was convinced my playing was obtrusive and annoying to other guests or to the staff. But Biddy was adamant that I put in the hours every day.

Although holidays had lost any vestige of relaxation and the pressures of work were increasing at home, I still felt quite content most of the time. I was sure I could cope with everything and was proud to be able to do so, convinced I was enjoying my life. Nothing made me happier than having good music lessons, getting good marks and being no trouble to my parents. But there were dark shadows lurking: a few early indications of the discrimination I was to suffer in later years at the hands of the occasional xenophobic, separatist-inclined French-Canadian organisations made their appearance. Even as a child I was often overlooked for performance or prize opportunities because of the political incorrectness of my surname. Janina Fialkowska is a very Polish name and didn’t fit into the French-Canadian philosophy of the 1960s. Neither was it particularly popular with the arch-Anglo society of Toronto at that time. I may well have not noticed the occasional unfairness, but my parents suffered mightily on my behalf, and it was their suffering that hurt me.

I was still a confident and cheerful soul back then, however, even with my terrible pre-performance nerves. I had discovered early on how to compartmentalize different emotions in different parts of my brain, locking away the more unpleasant aspects of life quite successfully during the greater part of the day. Playing the piano was just something I did better than most children of my age, and I enjoyed the distinction it gave me. I realised that to remain at the top was a struggle and the work had to be done, but my fundamental passion for music had yet to be ignited.

I was already studying with Yvonne Hubert when Arthur Rubinstein came to Montreal. The first time I heard him play, in the mid-sixties, he performed Mozart’s concerto K. 466 and Beethoven’s Emperor concerto with Zubin Mehta conducting the Montreal Symphony. The following year he returned and played the Schumann and the Chopin E minor concerto, again with an admirable accompaniment from Mehta. Each piece was sublime, but it was the Chopin that was a revelation for me. I had never heard playing like this – not only the sound from heaven, the burning emotion, lyricism, divine phrasing, and structural perfection, but the fact that Rubinstein communicated all this incredible beauty to me, so personally. I was transported. That night I wrote succinctly and accurately in my little diary: “Thank you Chopin and thank you Arthur Rubinstein – now I understand what it means to be a musician.” From then on my whole attitude changed; music was now a noble profession in my eyes, not just a child’s game or a mother’s ambition, and I intended to strive as hard as I could to be worthy of its responsibilities and demands.

But then Peter was sent off to boarding school. I missed him desperately and practising piano began to overwhelm my life. I now went to school only to attend classes for the ten subjects I needed in order to pass my Matriculation. Recess, sports, school outings, Girl Guides, debating clubs, language clubs; all extra-curricular activities were banned from my life, and as I was practising five or six hours a day it was only at night that I could escape a little into a fantasy world. There was a streetlight that cast a beam onto my bed, and I would stay up into the wee hours reading exciting books by Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas and P.C. Wren, Sienkiewicz and later, Tolstoy. It is only in retrospect that I wonder how I survived it all. Biddy was less fortunate: driving me hither and yon to lessons, arranging extra tutoring for me in certain subjects, and bringing me to competitions all over the province, as well as sitting by the piano and practising with me every day – all this began to take its toll. During my early to mid teens, she had several serious operations to remove suspected tumours and illnesses. One massive depression confined her to a hospital for months at a time. George was amazing, coping admirably, visiting Biddy every day, running the farm, cooking for me and being there for all of us. By this time, I had so much discipline instilled in me that my work barely skipped a beat. Besides, I knew that what would please Biddy the most would be if I continued working as hard as I could. I missed her but it was also pleasant and relaxing to be just with my father, whom I adored. We would cook together at night, go to concerts, and he would help me in the evenings with my algebra and geometry homework. I remember those evenings with great nostalgia.

Around my sixteenth birthday I matriculated with honours and the following year received my Baccalauréat and Maîtrise in music from the Université de Montréal. And so it was that, at the age of seventeen, I became a full-time musician without having the slightest notion of what a career in music actually entailed. I had not made any choices; it had all just happened.

But before I close this chapter on my school years, I must introduce here a character who played one of the most important roles in my life.

Dana

It was shortly after Peter was sent to boarding school that Biddy and I drove over to V.D. one evening for my Monday lesson.

When we arrived, a little girl was sitting on the piano stool chatting with Soeur Stella in her studio. She was tiny, with arms and legs like toothpicks, rich dark brown hair tied back in two pigtails, big sparkling brown eyes and a mouth full of braces. She was giggling and laughing. Her name was Dana and her parents had sent her to V.D. from Buffalo to study with Paul Loyonnet, the other “big” professor teaching at the school. For a second, I was really put out by Dana’s presence: I was supposed to be Soeur Stella’s little girl and prize pupil. Who was this usurper? My jealousy lasted about five minutes because Dana was irresistible. And from that day on we became lifelong best friends.

Dana came from a dysfunctional family. Her father, who had sung at one time in the Metropolitan Opera Chorus, seemed to me to be peculiar, riddled with strange obsessions and habits. He loved Dana in his own way, but early on had decided she was a genius and that he would do everything he could to see her become another Rubinstein or Horowitz. Dana’s mother had had a rough childhood and was unsuited to having children of her own. She was certainly fond enough of Dana, but treated her more as one would a distant favourite cousin. She was a heavy smoker, a drinker and was clearly (and perhaps understandably) bored with her strange older husband. A good businesswoman, she travelled often for her job and had little thought or time for her daughter. Thus, at the age of twelve this English-speaking child who had never left home, who had been brought up Jewish like her father, was suddenly sent to Montreal to board with a French-speaking family and attend a French school run by Catholic nuns. It was her good fortune that she was put with Soeur Stella. But Soeur Stella was not able to be (nor was she permitted to even contemplate being) a surrogate mother to Dana, although she tried as best she could to fill the void. Dana must have been indescribably lonely, especially during her first few months away in the fall of 1963. I have a sad mental picture of her at that time sitting in front of the television in the students’ lounge all alone, sobbing as she watched the news reports of the assassination of President Kennedy: a lonely little American girl far from home. I felt lucky to have a domineering mother and doting father who would never dream of sending me away.

Every Wednesday night Biddy brought me to V.D. to attend courses in counterpoint and acoustics. Dana would be waiting impatiently for us to arrive; I would go off to the classes and Dana and Biddy would have their “Wednesday night chats.” She grew to adore not only Biddy, but also George, and would often tell me that she liked to pretend they were her parents.

That summer we both attended a three-week summer course at the school and boarded there for the duration. Although there were numerous classes and lessons, compared to what I went through during the winter at home it was a complete doddle and we had oodles of time to play and giggle and behave badly. We’d talk and laugh late into the night and when the supervising nun would bang on my door to see what all the commotion was about, Dana would quickly hide in the closet. I’m sure we fooled no one – I think the nuns were only too happy to see Dana, not to mention myself, carefree and having fun. One of our favourite pastimes was trying to sneak into the nuns’ cloistered area. I never managed it but, for her birthday, Soeur Stella secretly allowed Dana to run through the cloister on the condition that she kept running and didn’t stop to look.

Dana’s talent was extraordinary. This tiny little waif was already playing pieces like the Brahms F-minor-sonata and the Chopin 1st Scherzo. A few months after she arrived, she won the Montreal Symphony concerto competition. When she met the conductor afterwards, he asked her which concerto she would like to play for the winner’s concert the following year; “Beethoven’s 4th,” was her prompt reply. Soeur Aline feared this would be too much for her twelve-year-old protégée, but Dana learned the piece and performed it exquisitely. I recall being overcome with pride and emotion at hearing my friend play so touchingly well.

The following year William Tritt arrived. A “wunderkind” like Dana, with a sweet and loving personality, at age twelve he developed a huge crush on her, following her around like a faithful dog. To round off our circle of friends, there appeared a beautiful child named Marley Rynd, who played the violin as well as the double bass and whose mother, the archetypical Jewish mother, convinced that her daughter was being starved by the nuns, would bring over huge care packages from her local deli – bagels, cream cheese, lox, latkes, knishes – the lot. That summer we four were inseparable – a very happy group under the watchful eyes of the nuns and our highly involved (excluding Dana’s) parents. And then, just as suddenly as she had appeared, Dana suddenly vanished, and Bill, Marley and I were left to mourn her absence. Her father had decided that the nuns and M. Loyonnet weren’t good enough for his “treasure” and, just as she was finally settling in and had managed to create a whole new world and family for herself in Montreal, he yanked her out of the Vincent d’Indy School and sent her to New York to study with Nadia Reisenberg and to live alone in the Barbizon Hotel for Women. She was only fourteen.

The next time we had any news of her was when a telegram arrived from her father asking the nuns to pray for his daughter, who was dying. And how we prayed! It seemed unbelievable to all of us that this spunky, friendly little girl could be so gravely ill. Later, Dana told me that she had been feeling progressively weaker and dreadfully sick and had finally no longer been able to get out of her hotel bed. It was a reflection on her pathetic family relations that it never crossed her mind to call home to Buffalo for help. But, as Dana put it, somehow a latent maternal instinct prompted her mother to call her that very night for a chat. The next day Dana was flown to Buffalo and hospitalised. She was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. The treatments in those days were close to barbaric: radical surgery, which left Dana with terrible scars, and massive doses of radiation which left her with one lung in shreds and also resulted in repeated cancer episodes.

But Dana was extraordinary and, far from being defeated, she was back in New York within months. After she graduated from the High School for the Performing Arts, her parents asked her where she wanted to study next and she replied, “Paris,” without hesitation, the city of her dreams. And so it was that she and I were reunited, this time as seventeen-year-olds in the City of Lights.

From the funny little girl with the big smile full of braces there suddenly appeared a beautiful young woman with long, gorgeous hair and a figure like a model. Having already been in Paris for a month, she was there to greet me and my parents when we arrived in September. She had already developed an exquisite Parisian accent and a great passion for Parisian life, and was savouring her every moment there.

But she also had a great need for human companionship and an even greater need for love and a home. Very soon she fell in love with a strange young man named Gérard. I never actually met Gérard but certainly heard all about him, or at least all that Dana deemed acceptable for me to hear! He was the first of a series of disastrous love affairs that plagued her life, although Gérard was one of the few who at least occasionally made her happy. Dana was one of the friendliest individuals in the world and one of the few people I have ever met who had had not an iota of prejudice in her. She was interested in people and wanted to be friends with everyone, whatever gender, race, size, colour, body-build, age, or religion they happened to be. It was quite natural for her to walk up to complete strangers and start a conversation … which is how she met Gérard. She had been standing on the Pont Neuf watching the Seine when he walked by. She asked him if he knew how deep the water was and they started a dialogue.

When Dana was in love, she gave herself totally over to the man she was with – subjugating her mind, her wishes and her desires to his. After a while she’d snap out of it, but in the early stages it could be a rather disconcerting process to watch, especially considering some of the men! Gérard felt that where she was living (a respectable boarding house with respectable bathrooms) was inconveniently far from him. He moved her to a garret near his apartment, with no running water and no toilet. As she was so caught up with her studies at the Conservatoire and with Gérard, and I of course was practising and living a little outside of Paris, we rarely saw each other. But when she did come (for a visit at Christmas or on a few other occasions), her first wish would be to take a long shower and wash her hair in my bathroom – always laughing and making fun of her predicament – always courageous.

She stayed in Paris for three years – I left after one. I believe that she tired of Gérard, who became quite obsessive, once even threatening her with a knife. I know he later turned up in New York looking for her, but eventually he disappeared.

I next saw Dana in New York in the Juilliard School cafeteria two years later, holding court with a strange looking assortment of friends. She had managed to get into the Gorodnitzki class where I had been a pupil since leaving France. Bit by bit, Dana had realised that she could never be a concert pianist, her health being far too fragile and, I think, also realising deep down that she didn’t have long to live. Her natural talent carried her through Juilliard with the absolute minimum work. Mr. Gorodnitzki, one of the great disciplinarians of the school and a stickler for hard work, was transformed into an indulgent grandfatherly type every time she would walk into his studio. In fact, she would rarely even head for the piano, but would sit down on the visitor’s couch while he sat in his big leather armchair, and they would have delightfully amusing conversations for an hour. This gave Mr. Gorodnitzki a pleasant and much needed break from the tensions of teaching ambitious and demanding students, and Dana found herself yet another possible father figure whom she adored. He was extremely kind to her, and gentle, but a week or so before the final exams of the year they both would wake up to the fact that she hadn’t learned a single new piece all year long. In a panic they would throw together some old pieces, usually a lot of Bach, because he was her favourite composer and she played him well, and she would typically pass her exam with flying colours, albeit by the skin of her teeth!

Boyfriends came and went until she finally got involved with a particularly unsavoury fellow who ended up leaving her homeless, broken-hearted and with nowhere to go. This was just when I got my first apartment in New York all on my own, so I invited her to stay. She assured me that she only needed to come for the weekend and would find a place of her own within a few days. She stayed for five years.

We were certainly an odd couple, but I loved having her around and she was devoted to me. Every summer thereafter she would also come up to my parents’ home in Canada on the Lake of Two Mountains; it was heaven for her. Dana would love to sit on the porch while I practised, sometimes playing scrabble with another visitor, or discussing world events with George, patting the dogs or helping my mother pick vegetables and flowers. She was my staunchest supporter and I remember clearly when, at the dinner table, someone mentioned that André Laplante would be playing the Rachmaninov 3rd piano concerto in Montreal – Dana, without hesitation, said: “Oh, Janina plays it far better than André!” Whereupon my father, understandably curious, asked her where she had heard André play the piece, to which, without batting an eyelid, Dana replied: “Oh, I never heard him play it, I just know Janina would play it better!” The remark was hilarious and totally untrue, but it demonstrates her utter devotion to me.

Her friendliness to the world in general continued undiminished, despite her unhappy love life. She simply seemed fearless when it came to people, always expecting the best from them. And she had an interesting collection of characters in her circle of friends – from an elderly Puerto Rican handyman to a Korean girl who spoke no English, a Chinese biochemist, a photographer who specialised in quasi-pornographic subjects, a nymphomaniac former Seventh Day Adventist, the innocent son of a Belgian millionaire, a kleptomaniac from Rhodesia and Arthur Ashe, the famous tennis star. I remember once waiting for her to arrive at Montreal airport. Among the early passengers to come through the gate before her was the actor/big-time wrestler, André the Giant – someone easy to recognise. I instantly thought to myself that somehow Dana would emerge with a story to tell about him. Sure enough, André had spotted her on the plane and had come to sit next to her, starting up a friendly conversation and inviting her out when they got to Montreal. She said he was very nice and that she would most likely have gone out with him – all ninety pounds of her to his over three hundred pounds – had she not already been invited to our place.

One day, walking along the corridors of Juilliard, Dana heard a young boy speaking in a strange tongue over the payphone. She discovered that he was speaking to his mother in Turkish and had just arrived in Juilliard alone and bewildered. Dana took him under her wing and this early act of kindness was to have a far-reaching effect on her life. His name was Danyal (Danny for short), and he is a very talented pianist with a heart of gold.

She also soon made friends with my colleague and good friend Jeffrey Swann, although this relationship was always a bit strained as both considered themselves to be my best friend and I wasn’t about to play favourites. One day, Dana and I were walking over to Jeff’s, as we often would in the evenings, to cook dinner together. Dana suddenly and urgently had to go to the bathroom, and it was a mad dash to get to Jeff’s apartment on time while I helpfully whistled Ravel’s “Jeux d’Eau” along the way. We made it only to find that a friend of Jeff’s, who we had never met before, was taking a bath. Unfazed, Dana marched right in, introduced herself and used the facilities. Then she stayed on for half an hour chatting away with her new friend, who was still in the bathtub.

And it wasn’t only with people that Dana bonded so easily. Twice I returned home from concerts to find a stray cat ensconced in our apartment. I had no real objection, as I love animals, but it did become a bit of a trial as I am quite allergic to cats. These animals were constant companions to Dana and went with her whenever she flew to Buffalo or to France. There was also Morris the hamster, whom she would put in her pocket at the airport because she didn’t really have the money to pay for the fares of three animals. On one memorable flight during the winter, she got on the plane, took off her coat and her winter boots, transferred Morris from her coat-pocket into one of her boots, and settled back to read one of her favourite books, usually one of three which she endlessly re-read: À la recherche du temps perdu by Proust, Le grand Meaulnes by Jean Fournier, and Thomas Mann’s Joseph und seine Brüder. She was quietly reading when suddenly her neighbour, a nice elderly lady, started to emit little screaming sounds. Dana looked at her full of concern and the lady seemed to be on the point of fainting, her complexion as white as chalk. Gasping, she pointed to Dana’s boot in horror. Morris, bored with hanging around in a dark hole, had climbed up to get some fresh air and was peering over the rim. Dana reassured the lady and calmed her down, subsequently collapsing with laughter as she recounted the story over the phone.

There was also the Christmas tree episode. We had bought a little tree for our apartment and decorated it simply but prettily. When Epiphany came around, I took down the decorations and started to remove the tree. Dana begged for me to leave it a little while longer as she loved it so much. By Easter, when all the needles had fallen off and only dry sticks remained, I finally threw it in the garbage while Dana was out one day, only to be accused of heartlessness and given great big reproachful looks upon her return. Mind you, she was laughing not only at me but at herself all along.

It was hard for me to refuse Dana anything. For one thing she was so disarmingly funny, and for another it was wonderful to have such a devoted friend. She honestly believed that I could achieve anything and treated every career triumph I had as her own. This was a woman who as a child had been a prodigious talent, yet she felt absolutely no jealousy towards me. I was at the start of my career and extremely insecure about it all; Dana, although frail and fragile, provided me with huge strength and support.

And then one day she went to apply for a job teaching French at a language school in midtown New York. Fearful that she wouldn’t be hired because of her American-sounding name, she introduced herself using her middle name Patricia and invented a whole French background with a family living in Creteil outside Paris. For good measure she also lopped a few years off of her age. Her employer, François, was a nice young man with a handsome face and within a day or two they were “in love.” The romance lasted for nearly a year before Dana found out that François’ name was actually Saïd and that he was a Moslem from Morocco, and he found out that she was actually a Jewish girl from Buffalo, NY. But love can be a great builder of bridges, and for a while it almost seemed as though this could work. It didn’t – there was a miscarriage, then some nasty scenes, and suddenly illness reared its ugly head again and Dana was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

She recuperated for several weeks up at my parents’ home and seemed to bounce back remarkably quickly, although she never could talk much above a whisper due to the damage to her vocal cords.

Back in New York she started up with François again only to come back to me soon after, distraught and in tears. For the first and only time in my life, I got quite furious with her as I heard her sobbing and being sick in the bathroom, having watched her not being able to eat for days. I stormed in and in an exasperated, angry voice told her that I was fed up with her – constantly getting involved with scum, breaking her heart and then coming back to me expecting me to pick up the pieces. To my total discomfiture Dana started laughing and laughing. She said that she had never seen me angry before and that I looked hilarious.

Shortly afterwards she upped and left for Paris where she had once been so happy. There she met a piano technician named Jean-Pierre, who had a certain Gallic charm and seemed harmless enough at first. She married him, had two delightful little girls and moved to Queens in New York, where Jean-Pierre got a job taking care of the pianos at Juilliard. But the marriage was doomed. She became ill again with breast cancer and a sick wife with two babies was simply too much for the weak and irresponsible Jean-Pierre. Their relationship disintegrated and Dana took the girls and returned to France where, never complaining, she had a dreadful winter. Jean-Pierre didn’t send any child support and, unbeknownst to all of her friends, she could barely afford to feed her children or heat her apartment. I remember sending her cheques occasionally, but they were supposed to be for toys for the girls or an extra nice article of clothing for her. I never suspected in what dire straits she was living because her letters were always so upbeat and full of funny anecdotes. I admired her courage and stoicism, but sometimes it was misplaced and illogical. If only I could have helped; if only she had asked for my help.

Then, in February 1991, Danny got a call from France; friends of Dana’s had taken in the two little girls and Dana herself was in hospital. She had been working as an accompanist in a small music school located far from her home, and it had meant walking several kilometres across town every day with her girls to get there, as she could not afford public transport or a baby-sitter. Her body had finally given out after so many years of disease and strain; she just collapsed. Danny and his partner Lou immediately flew over to France, collected Dana and the girls, and brought them home to New York. The night they returned, they celebrated Jessica’s (her eldest daughter) fifth birthday, and the next day they took Dana to the emergency ward of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. I saw her there twice that week, in a room surrounded by photos of Jessica and Nathalie, the children whom she considered the greatest and most valuable achievement of her life. With these two beautiful little girls, Dana, despite all the horrors and suffering of her last years, found her ultimate happiness – the family and the love she had craved so desperately all her short life. While I was there, they were aspirating the liquid that had built up in her lungs – an excruciating procedure, but she showed amazing courage. And then a young resident doctor came in and gently told her that they were going to have to start massive chemotherapy as the cancer had spread extensively over her emaciated body. With her frail thin little voice, she begged him to do whatever he could: “I have to live, you understand, I have to live for them,” and she gestured towards a photo of her children. Danny and Lou lovingly and devotedly watched over her and cared for the girls – shortly before the end they brought the girls to the lobby downstairs, arranging a little picnic there with their mother. I said good-bye to my best friend and told her that I’d see her again in two weeks’ time. With a smile, she bravely said that she hoped she’d be out of hospital by then. I had to leave for Milano, where Jeff Swann and I were to play the Brahms “Liebeslieder-Waltzes” with the La Scala Choir. Two days later, Biddy called me at my hotel with the news that Dana had died; she was forty years old, and she left behind two little girls of five and four years old and literally hundreds of grieving friends.

As I write this, I cannot see the page for tears. So many years later, I still miss her: that indomitable spirit, that courage, that extraordinary humour. And, above all, I miss our rare and priceless friendship.