Читать книгу A Note In Time - Janina Fialkowska - Страница 8

Chapter 3

The Sounds and the Scents (“Les sons et les parfums”) by Claude Debussy

Returning to my own story, Anne-Marie Mangeot continued to have a great influence on Biddy, and it was on her advice that, the year I turned fifteen, I was enrolled in a summer course given by Yvonne Lefébure in Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris. Madame Lefébure was one of the most sought-after teachers in a nation that prides itself on its long and illustrious relationship with the piano.

The master classes took place in the charming eighteenth-century Pavillon de Noailles, owned by a Monsieur Guy, who was a great admirer of Mme. Lefébure and who donated his jewel of a house (which he had just acquired, and which was still unfurnished) for the duration of the course. Some students slept in camp beds right in the house. Others commuted every day from Paris and a few of us, myself included, stayed in the pension next door, where the simple French bourgeois fare was delicious.

Mme. Lefébure would appear two or three times a week to give master classes. Between times, we would all practise like crazy and be coached by one of her four assistants. The one I was assigned to was a capable and knowledgeable younger woman, with clearly burning ambitions of her own and very little tolerance or patience with the lesser students. Her better students adored her, but the rest spent their time fearful and generally in floods of tears. To me she showed only her most encouraging and rather artificially sweet side, but I was smart enough to realise that she was probably just hedging her bets with an eye to a possible good future recruit for her own class.

The fun began when Mme. Lefébure arrived. She would be driven into the courtyard like royalty, followed by a large retinue comprising her husband and various sycophantic assistants and admirers, each with their own function: one to carry her music scores, another her shawl, another her glasses case and another her umbrella. She was tiny, but with a perfect little figure and masses of hair of a rather determined shade of gold (she was sixty-eight years old at the time) tied back in a chignon from whence long wisps would escape and fly about dramatically while she played. She wore magnificent straw hats with brightly coloured ribbons to match her outfits, and tiny little shoes with the highest heels imaginable. Dreadfully short-sighted, she wore thick glasses with dark frames, and when she was pleased she would grin, showing all her teeth and conjuring up memories of Lewis Caroll and the Cheshire Cat. She had an aura of stardom about her, due primarily to her extremely strong personality and her conviction of her superiority to all of those around her. She cut a striking, quasi-Napoleonesque figure as she paraded through life, constantly surrounded by a coterie of devoted fans.

For the course I had prepared the sixth partita of Bach, the second Ballade of Chopin and Ravel’s “Jeux d’eau”. These were new pieces for me, but I had worked very hard on them under Biddy’s supervision and was well prepared. Since nothing much was expected of a fifteen-year-old girl from far-off Canada, my playing surprised them and caused quite a stir. Mme. Lefébure enjoyed teaching me because I tried so hard and could understand and absorb what she showed me fairly quickly. Her star pupil at that time was Imogen Cooper. I was a little in awe of Imogen, who seemed so relaxed and professional and who played the fourth Ballade of Chopin and Debussy’s “Reflets dans l’eau” exquisitely. She seemed to have so much more maturity as a musician than I had, although we were almost exactly the same age. There was a little rivalry between us, but nothing serious, as I already admired her and she, I think, was reasonably impressed with me. I lost track of her after this summer, only to meet her again after fourteen years in 1980 when she turned up backstage at my London recital debut; we have been close friends ever since and I continue to be in awe of her prodigious talent and profound musicianship.

Early on in the course, Biddy approached Mme Lefébure to ask her if she could take her photo. The reaction was swift: absolutely not, she wasn’t prepared for such a thing – total horror at even the suggestion of such a bold request. Biddy was amused and thought no more about it until a week later when, sitting quietly in the garden reading during a break in the afternoon session, she was accosted by Imogen, who had come out of the Pavilion in search of her with the announcement: “Madame is ready.” Biddy, a trifle taken aback, asked: “What for?” It appeared that Madame was ready to be photographed. And so it was that we have some lovely photographs of Mme. Lefébure standing in the garden of the Pavillon de Noailles all dressed up in her gold silk dress with bright purple polka-dots, her matching purple silk shoes, and a great big straw hat with a wide purple ribbon around it, looking as pleased as punch with herself.

In the master class she would sit in the front row near the performing student, her eyes closed as if in prayer, listening intently. When the pupil had finished, a feeling of tense expectation hovered over the company. Everyone watched Madame, not daring to utter a sound. Sometimes she would nod and say: “Bravo!” and then everyone would applaud enthusiastically and cheer lustily. But if Madame were displeased, the assistants would leap into action like a pack of jackals, tearing the poor frightened student to shreds. This was definitely not a playground for sissies, more like an ancient Roman arena. I was, luckily, one of the survivors.

As a result of this first encounter with Madame Lefébure, I returned to Paris a year and a half later to become her private pupil. She had resigned from her position at the Conservatoire de Paris just before I arrived, and it was generally thought that she had taken this step to dissimulate the fact that she was fast approaching seventy – the mandatory retirement age in France.

Biddy and George took a small apartment in Saint-Cloud, after two earlier brief occupancies in other locations where the neighbours complained so bitterly about my practising that we had to move. Even in Saint-Cloud I could only practise a couple of hours a day on a muted piano in our flat, and spent most of the time working either in an unheated garden-house owned by a local school, in which there was an upright piano, or in the basement of the Steinway dealer in Paris. The garden house was pleasant in the spring and summer but was cold and damp in winter; I had to work in my overcoat and was forever catching colds. Biddy was not very well at the time, and although she still attended most of my lessons, she had finally started leaving me alone while I practised, the cold in the garden house helping my emancipation enormously. However, I almost welcomed her presence at the lessons because of Freddy. Freddy, Madame Lefébure’s husband, was very tall and as messy looking as she was neat, with long straggly hair and a face like that of a predatory bird. He was a source of general amusement amongst the students, except when he would find one of us girls alone, and then he was not so entertaining but downright lecherous. Biddy came in handy for this reason, although she herself was not exempt from his attentions, which seemed only fair as Madame had a huge crush on my father and would flirt with him outrageously whenever she had the opportunity. Freddy saw himself as a brilliant conductor, although none of us ever found evidence of his ever having conducted anything at all. However, when a pupil in the class was playing a concerto and someone had to play the orchestral reduction part on the second piano, he would position himself by the wretched accompanist and conduct very much in their face singing loudly. This could be rather disconcerting, as he spat a lot when he spoke or sang and would invariably be smoking as well, never flicking off the ashes but allowing then to fall gently all over one’s hands or onto the keyboard. Amazingly, Mme. Lefébure, who rather endearingly lived in an enchanted world where only music existed and only her view of music-making prevailed, seemed oblivious to Freddy’s shenanigans and quite tolerant of his deplorable behaviour. She was sometimes even influenced by his opinions, which always seemed strange to her followers as she was so much better a musician and brain than her husband. She once confided in Biddy that she was “au fond, une petite bourgeoise1” who liked to save her money but was invariably hard up because Freddy spent so much of her money on his petites amies. Rumour had it that Freddy was a frequent guest in certain Parisian establishments of ill repute. Freddy was also as short-sighted as she was, but would happily drive her all over Paris, paying no attention to traffic lights or parking restrictions or indeed anything to do with basic regulations. Once, when they came to our flat in Saint-Cloud for dinner, I happened to be watching out for their arrival from my bedroom window. There were three wide stone steps which led down from the parking lot to the entrance. Freddy, blind as a bat, never saw the steps and blithely drove his old Humber car straight down them, deposited Madame at the front door, turned around, drove right back up the steps again and parked the car.

Mme. Lefébure’s studio was a few blocks from her apartment. To reach it one walked down a sinister back alley to a derelict building (where a truly frightening woman would answer the doorbell and let us in, babbling nonsense and shaking her head a lot), up a staircase which looked ready to collapse at any moment, and then through an antechamber into a large, surprisingly pleasant room where Madame had her two pianos and held court. It was heated by a small coal stove, and in the winter was very dark but somehow quite cozy.

Every lesson was exciting and dramatic, and she would keep me sometimes for three or four hours at a stretch. I felt as though I were a character in a play or a Proustian novel – I was the nervous but devoted student anxious to glean every grain of knowledge I could from her superior mind, and she played the part of the revered, flamboyant teacher to perfection. The lessons were a mine of precious information, but they were also high entertainment.

Part of the great attraction was the anticipation of her occasional, totally outrageous personal comments. It was when I was playing for her the “Sonatine” of Ravel that she told me she had worked on this very piece with Ravel himself. She had also, apparently, given him pointers on how to improve on it, which she assured me he gratefully accepted and used. “Mais naturellement, je n’étais qu’une toute jeune fille!”2 she added hastily.

And then the name of Dinu Lipatti came up one day and I mentioned how much I enjoyed listening to the recording of his last recital. “Mais ma chérie,” she exclaimed, “les disques de Dinu Lipatti, eh bien, c’est moi!”3 and proceeded to explain that he had been very sweet and charming but had basically not a clue how to play the piano and that she had taught him every single note. Of course, she fully believed what she was saying, which made it all the more fun.

And there was the time when, exhausted after a day’s work and suffering from the onset of arthritis in her arms and hands which clearly gave her considerable pain, she dramatically took Biddy’s hand, telling her that she could confide in her because she was like her petite soeur;4 then she added, her eyes misting over with emotion and speaking in a voice theatrically tinged with a sense of destiny and an unearthly, distant quality: “Tu vois, ma chère Bridget, quand je passerai,” here there was a tremulous sigh as she closed her eyes and bowed her head, “il faudra que j’aie laissé quelque chose de moi au monde; c’est pourquoi je donne tellement à ces deux chouchoux.”5 The two chouchoux were myself and the English pianist, Martin Hughes, who was her special favourite. Martin had masses of temperament and fire and was ferociously committed to music and the piano. He was also highly amused by Madame Lefébure, although we were both devoted to her. She enjoyed pitting us against each other. When I first arrived, she would tell me in hushed tones, while he was playing, that he had only started playing the piano two years previously (totally untrue, of course) and that at the extraordinary pace he was developing, he was sure to surpass all his colleagues. To Martin, she said that I had learned Liszt’s “Mazeppa” (a piece I had learned when I was fourteen and had worked on sporadically for the next three years) in exactly eight days. Both Martin and I eventually found out the truth, but not before we had suffered many days of despair at our own ineptitude and insignificance.

There were wonderful times as well in that dimly lit room, when her four best students at that time would have lessons together. Imogen had already left her class to go to Vienna, but there would be Martin, myself, a beautiful Bulgarian girl named Roumiana Athanassova, who had a magnificent fluid technique and delicate musicality, and Ray Luck, a marvellous Guyanese pianist of Chinese descent, whom Madame Lefébure kept introducing to the world as Monsieur Ray Luck, “Bree-teesh subject,” and poor Ray had to endlessly correct her, as Guyana had shed its colonial past several years earlier. The four of us would take turns playing, and the lessons would go on all night. Even though, in retrospect, there were musical ideas Madame Lefébure imparted to us that probably would no longer coincide with my own, she had such energy and such a passion for teaching and for music that her lessons were both irresistible and inspiring. She was immensely theatrical but could perform Bach beautifully, with an extraordinary facility for differentiating all the voices, and also play with tremendous intensity, which was most impressive in works such as the late Beethoven sonatas. But her approach to music was also rather intellectual, a bit cold, and her teaching dealt often in abstracts. Her sound had a crystal-like clarity, but there was no lushness to it, no particular warmth or lyricism. However, it was gripping, and she produced fantastically varied colours with wonderful textures and layers of sound. Her Debussy and Ravel were delightful, and she was compelling to listen to, whether one agreed with her interpretations or not.

I suppose what I learned most from that year with her in Paris was a level of dedication and respect for music heretofore unknown to me. What I also found in Paris during the 60s was that an artist who was mainly a teacher, such as Mme. Lefébure, was not only revered and respected by the music community, but also considered an essential and important figure in the make-up of French society. It seemed likely that Mme. Lefébure’s name would be familiar not only to the upper classes or the educated bourgeoisie, but to the local shopkeepers as well. In North America at that time, a great piano teacher or concert pianist (other than Paderewski or Van Cliburn) was barely known outside of a very elite group and, even in that group, might be considered something out of the ordinary, a luxury or somehow a bonus to society. Mme. Lefébure showed me how, in Europe at that time, a musician of her stature was certainly treated like royalty, but no more so than a great scientist or doctor; the values of their respective professions were basically regarded as equal. I was also highly influenced by the level of intense commitment I felt around me in the class. And to this day when I perform certain pieces of French music, or even a piece like the Beethoven 4th piano concerto, I recognize certain important “Lefébure aspects” – voice differentiation, crystal clarity, intensity throughout and amazing fingerings – which were drilled into my subconscious so many years ago.

Madame Lefébure was also a delightful snob, and it pleased her no end that her pupil Gersende de Sabran, a lovely girl with a very respectable talent, was engaged to be married to one of the Comte de Paris’ sons. For a people who had suffered through a gloriously bloody revolution, chopping off the heads of all the aristocrats they could lay their hands on, it was amazing to see such a passion for titles and such a preoccupation with the goings-on of the descendants of the various pretenders to the throne. Never was Madame happier than when young Jacques de France would show up at Gersende’s lessons, and she would welcome him with the words: “Ah! Mon petit prince charmant, quel bonheur que vous soyez là.”6 Gersende, meanwhile, would roll her eyes heavenward.

Madame decided to put on a recital at the Salle Gaveau; we were all to play, and it would be entitled, with typical modesty, “An evening with the disciples of Yvonne Lefébure.” Madame told us that she needed an opening piece because, even though the concert was scheduled for 8:30 pm, and wouldn’t actually begin until 8:55, she still feared that people would start turning up only around 9:00 (she was quite right; in fact, that was the accepted way in Parisian concerts at that time!). So Gersende and I were to open with the “Valses Romantiques” of Chabrier for two pianos, four hands, which was great fun. Then I was to play the Brahms-Handel Variations. Madame didn’t like Brahms, (and she despised Wagner, although one wonders how much Wagner she had actually heard in her lifetime, and if this anti-Wagner stand was just a position certain French musicians of her era automatically took), but Martin and I were, at ages eighteen and seventeen, very attracted to the lush dark romanticism of Brahms; Martin was learning the d-minor concerto, which I used to accompany – marvellously passionate stuff. Anyhow, Mme. graciously allowed me to learn the Variations and at lessons, while she was demonstrating passages to me, she would become quite seduced by the music and moan in delight: “O! La vieille Allemagne! Freddy, je joue Brahms tellement bien! Vraiment, je devrais le jouer bien plus souvent!”7

Martin played the Schumann Fantasy superbly at the recital and then Roumiana played the Brahms-Paganini Variations followed by Beethoven’s “Les Adieux” Sonata from Gersende and Liszt’s Mephisto-Waltz from Ray.

There had been a terrible dilemma for the snob in Madame on the positioning in the program of the various sponsors of the concert. The biggest donors, by far, were Madame Bernheim and her son-in-law and daughter Marc and Miriam Stein. They were charming people who owned a gorgeous apartment on the Seine where they sometimes hosted “salons” or “house concerts” in which we would take part, and then they would regale us with petits fours from Fauchon. They were absurdly generous to Madame and to her pupils but they were Jewish, and in Madame’s mind this caused a huge problem because the name Bernheim starts with a “B” and if she listed the names alphabetically, Bernheim would come first, ahead of Madame La Princesse “so and so” or Madame la Duchesse “such and such,” whose names began with a letter lower down in the alphabet. I remember her airing this dilemma in a conversation with Biddy who, I am proud to say, was disgusted by the hypocrisy and said so in no uncertain terms to her face. There was a certain coolness between them after that but, like a spoilt child, Madame Lefébure felt that no one could possibly be irritated with her for too long, and she was right of course.

This childlike behaviour was never more evident than when it spilled over into her everyday domestic life.

It had been snowing in Paris all day, and by four o’clock the streets were dark and the sidewalks covered with brown slush. Christmas decorations glittered in the shop windows and there was a smell of burning coal and roasting chestnuts in the air. We had arrived early for my lesson, and the strange concierge had let us in but had forgotten to turn on the lights, so we stood waiting in the dark outside the studio in the chilly antechamber. Presently Mme. Lefébure appeared, complaining bitterly to Freddy all the way up the stairs, although she hadn’t noticed that Freddy wasn’t paying the slightest attention and was telling her that they should have dinner that night at le petit chinois du coin. Exasperated and wiping tears of frustration from her eyes with her little lace handkerchief, she said in a quavering voice: “On aurait cru qu’ils m’auraient avertie; ma bonne était là, ma secrétaire était là, Freddy était là – personne ne m’a dit de me changer de souliers à cause de la neige!”8 Unthinkable! Such selfishness and lack of devotion on their part! It was hard not to start giggling, but she was evidently extremely upset.

Then there was an occasion on which we were all to take part in a competition where Madame was to be a member of the jury (for starters, a peculiar situation to say the least). Exhausted with judging twelve hours a day, she nevertheless ordered us all to come to the studio in the evening so that she could review all our pieces one last time before the finals. Martin, Ray, Roumiana and I arrived in the little antechamber only to hear a Clementi Sonatina being played childishly and extremely badly in the studio. We stood rather surprised and had begun to speculate what the hell was going on, when Freddy rushed in telling us to keep our voices down: “C’est la petite-nièce du General de Gaulle.”9 We all had to wait at least another half hour, Madame’s priorities striking us as being somewhat askew that day.

During my year with Mme. Lefébure there were other events occurring in Paris – trifles such as the May revolution and the fall of de Gaulle – but we were completely oblivious. Looking back, I feel nostalgic for that wonderful sensation of other-worldliness we had created and the total absorption we had in our music. Occasionally I did feel the single-mindedness a bit stifling, so followed, in my all too little spare time, some fascinating courses at the Institut Catholique on the plays of Racine and Victor Hugo. I needed some kind of balance, and this was a way of keeping my mind from atrophying. I also managed to do quite a lot of sightseeing both in Paris and in the outskirts – various fascinating châteaux, the cathedrals of Saint-Denis and Chartres, and Ravel’s country home out in Montfort l’Amaury, which gave me a touching insight into Ravel, the human being. And, of course, I appreciated the restaurants and the food tremendously, growing to love Paris even more than before, if possible.

But Biddy had plans for me and they did not include another year with Mme. Lefébure. Instead, I was to return to and find a teacher in the United States where, in the 1970s, there was a veritable plethora of pedagogical talent. Madame was not at all pleased by this defection and “betrayal” and kept repeating to me that Art languished in the United States and that one only went there to make money.

One of her best and most outrageous statements came after someone had played Debussy in a master class. First, she demonstrated how it really should sound and then, after all of her stooges had “oohed” and “aahed” and had exclaimed that no one could play French music as she did, she nodded pensively, acquiescing and in a voice full of the exhausted resignation of bearing such a heavy burden she said: “Mais oui! Après tout, Gieseking – il jouait la musique française d’une certaine façon, enfin, pas mal; mais, avouons-le, ce n’était pas … enfin, vraiment, il ne jouait pas tellement bien. Mes enfants, au fond, il n’y a que moi!”10

1 Basically I am just a little ‘bourgeois’ lady.

2 But of course, I was just a very very young girl!

3 But my dear, Dinu Lipatti’s recordings, they are all Me!

4 Little sister.

5 You see, my dear Bridget, when I pass on, it is necessary that I leave something of myself to the world; which is why I give so much of myself to these two darlings.

6 Oh! My little prince charming, what joy to have you here.

7 Oh! The Old Germany! Freddy, I play Brahms so extremely well! Really I should play him much more often!

8 You would have thought that they would have warned me; my housekeeper was there, my secretary was there, Freddy was there – no one told me to change my shoes because of the snow!

9 It is the grand-niece of General de Gaulle.

10 But yes – after all, Gieseking – he played French music in a certain way, actually not badly – but you have to admit – it wasn’t – well, really he didn’t play all that well. Children, basically, there is only me!