Читать книгу A Note In Time - Janina Fialkowska - Страница 9

Chapter 4

A Maiden’s Wish (“Zycenie”) by Frédéric Chopin

I left Paris with tremendous reluctance and regret. A year was far too short a time. The elegant streets and boulevards, the patisseries and charcuteries, the language so beautifully spoken, the little corner bistros, the old creaking metro carriages, the Parisians themselves, so opinionated and never at a loss for words, the smells of Gitanes, unleaded fuel, strong coffee and fresh croissants, walks in the Parc de St. Cloud, the disreputable, overweight dogs owned and spoilt by every concierge, the Jeux de Paume, bathed in Water Lilies, the Place Vendome, where Chopin breathed his last, the Seine and all its miraculous bridges, and my new friends and colleagues, Martin, Roumiana, and Ray, had all become very dear to me, and I felt bloody mutinous at being wrenched away from this city of loveliness to start again somewhere else.

In August of l969 I flew down to New York City with Biddy to audition for Sasha Gorodnitzki, playing for him Beethoven’s Sonata opus l09, the Chopin “Funeral March” sonata, the Brahms-Handel Variations, Ravel’s Sonatine and the Bach Prelude and Fugue in E flat minor from Book I.

Without any obvious display of enthusiasm, in fact rather sourly, which was somewhat unnerving, he accepted me into his class. But my mother was unhappy about the idea of my living in New York so, after the relative freedom of Paris, I found myself once again back at home, in isolation, under her watchful – almost tyrannical – eye, flying down to New York every two weeks for a two-hour lesson alone with Mr. G. I didn’t feel unhappy, but a certain tension was developing between my mother and me; she was reluctant to relinquish her control over my life and I was longing for more independence. Certainly my natural shyness intensified during this period, and so I became totally withdrawn and alienated from the society of my generation. When not chained to the keyboard, I had for entertainment my father, with whom I would discuss current events and politics, my dogs, who acted as walking companions, and my books. I was too caught up in my work to contemplate how peculiar my life was compared to that of my old school contemporaries and, besides, I had a new goal: to participate in the famous International Chopin Competition, to be held in Warsaw in the fall of l970. This was actually a dream of my father’s which I had wholeheartedly embraced, and Mr. G., despite knowing full well that I was totally unprepared to take on the responsibilities of winning such a prize, reluctantly agreed to my pleas. A top prize at the Chopin competition in 1970 would have catapulted a young artist into a major concert career, and at nineteen I had neither the repertoire nor the performing experience to take on such a challenge. In the end, Mr. G. probably thought it would be a good learning experience for me, so we painstakingly prepared every piece for the competition until he was more or less satisfied with the result.

Warsaw in l970 was very different from the vibrant modern city it has now become. It was grim, dark, shadowy and depressed, with cold coal smoke hanging in the autumn air, bright colours nowhere to be seen, shops and restaurants devoid of any personality or variety of wares, and the destruction from the Second World War’s guns and bombs still very much in evidence. Perhaps as a result of these hardships, the city seethed with rebellion – like a pressure cooker about to explode. There was a terrible feeling circulating in the air that something powerful and violent was about to happen. The Poles, with Soviet troops breathing down their necks, were dangerously free in their ideas and their ideals; the churches, constantly harassed and persecuted by the government, were so full on Sundays that most of the congregations spilled out into the courtyards. The underground theatres, publishers and newspapers flourished, political satire was undercover but omnipresent, and the piano competition brought the entire country together for three weeks of passionate nationalistic fervour, fuelled by the Poles’ love of Chopin, the genius whose music represents the soul of their country.

The concert hall was oversold for every single round; students, children, elderly people – everyone came from all over the country or listened at home on the radio. Everyone had an opinion, everyone had a favourite among the contestants. The atmosphere was electrifying.

I had flown over to Poland with my parents; this was an opportunity not only for them to hear me play but also to visit with my aunts, uncles, and cousins whom Biddy and I had never met. Naturally, the pressure on me to succeed was extreme and I wanted to, at least, make the final round of twelve. This was not an unrealistic wish.

Already weeks before, my appetite had all but vanished as I was caught in the grip of cold panic, terror of failure and the resulting nausea. Luckily for me, however, all the competitors were billeted together in the awful Dom Chlopa hotel (which no longer exists) and I was separated most of the time from my family. And when, one of the first evenings, there was a knock on my bedroom door and a sweet roly-poly boy stood there saying, “Hello, my name is Emanuel Ax; my teacher Mr. Munz heard you at the Juilliard entrance exams and told me you were very good – want to come and have dinner with us?” life perked up, and I was altogether much happier.

Such encounters with other young musicians made the occasional visit to an international competition, even an unsuccessful one, truly worthwhile. I was able to meet and, more importantly, hear pianists of my own age from all over the world: the strong Soviet contingent, always two or three of them and always kept prisoner in their embassy until it was their turn to perform; the ultra-serious French pianists, always on the lookout for the best restaurants; the hard-working, opinionated Germans; the brash North Americans who never really fit any category; and the very few (at the time) mysterious Japanese. In those days, before globalization, CDs, and YouTube, the different styles of playing were clearly marked and quite fascinating. In that sense, a competition was a revelation for an isolated pianist like myself.

In Warsaw we became a little pack; there was Emanuel, of course, but also Garrick Ohlsson, Jeffrey Swann, Diane Walsh and the German pianist Christian Zacharias. Very soon we realized that with our few dollars, and the comparative worthlessness of the Polish zloty, we could live like kings, so most evenings would find us at the Europejski hotel drinking champagne and eating at one of the only decent restaurants in the city. It was a thrilling emancipation for me. We were all so young, excited, nervous, but we also felt quite liberated, sophisticated, and wild with our sudden new wealth. We would order the most elaborate meals and drink many giddy toasts to the Russian pianist Yevgeny Mogilewski, reputed to be one of the Soviet Union’s best, whose name and photo were in the competition program but who had never turned up – much to our relief!

The first round lasted for over a week and my turn to perform came during the morning of the fourth day. Having been so petrified for so long, I had the marvelous experience of completely shedding all traces of nerves as I stepped out on stage. I played better than I ever had before – everything fell into place and, amazingly, I even enjoyed myself. My parents, who had sat through most of the first-round performances, were extremely pleased, the newspapers were very complimentary and there seemed to be no doubt I would pass to the second round. So, for the next few days I practised my second-round program with relative equanimity. But then the results were posted on a wall at the Filharmonie, with the names of the competitors who had made it through listed in alphabetical order. At first, I thought that there must be a mistake and I kept reading and re-reading the names Ikuko Endo and Nathalia Gawrilowa – E and G, but no F, no Fialkowska – and I was flabbergasted. I felt as though the oxygen had been sucked out of my body and that somehow, I had been the victim of treachery and betrayal. That day I was forced to grow up a little and a first thin layer of cynicism found its way insidiously into my personality. Of course, it was all made much worse by my parents’ presence as well as the presence of all the Polish relatives. Biddy and George were bitterly disappointed. The journalists provided some consolation, as they actually wrote articles decrying my elimination, and two concerts were hastily organized for me and another talented contestant, Mona Golabek, who had also seemingly unfairly been eliminated. So, I did get to play my second-round program and my concerto for sold-out and very partisan crowds. During the concerto performance, surrealistically, a corgi ran barking across the stage …

I left Poland with my confidence a little shaken but still intact and with a whole circle of new friends. The Warsaw experience, however, was not quite over. The juror who represented France, Mme Eliane Richepin, had been so outraged at my elimination that she organized a recital for me six months later at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. After the recital she held a lovely reception in her home with delicacies provided by Fauchon, and proceeded to show me all the marks of the various jurors. The highest possible mark was 25 and the five jurors from non-Communist countries all gave me marks above 22, the Japanese judge being particularly generous and awarding me a perfect 25. From the dozen or so other jurors, all from Communist countries, my marks were considerably lower, mostly below l5, and a Russian judge had given me a one. Only a couple of the Polish judges gave me normal marks of around l7 or l8. It was educational to see this – not shocking, as one had suspected something of this sort, but just a confirmation that competitions with a majority of Eastern European jury members were to be avoided. In those days, Canadians were rarely asked to sit on juries, so there was never anyone, if only by their presence, to put a halt to this sort of dishonest manipulation and criminal hanky-panky. So, it was easier for a juror from the Soviet Union, for instance, to eliminate a candidate from Canada than a candidate from the U.S. because there would always be a corresponding juror from the U.S. to safeguard the American contestants.

In hindsight, it is hard to put blame on the wretched Eastern judges. To give high marks to all the candidates from Communist countries regardless of their level of talent was a prerequisite and was their only way to be allowed out of their stifling countries – Poland, for instance, was a relative paradise compared to Bulgaria, Rumania, the Soviet Union or even East Germany. But the price they paid for this little bit of freedom was inordinately high, as it involved the loss of their artistic integrity.

In all honesty, in my case it all worked out well in the end. Garrick Ohlsson won the first prize, and it was well deserved. Yes, I probably should have reached the second round and might even have made the finals. But to win a prize and to start a career at that stage of my life would not have been beneficial. I was totally unprepared mentally, far too young and had far too small a repertoire even to contemplate concert tours. And so, back I went to the practice room, but not home to my parents. My deus ex machina had appeared in the form of a Canada Council jury, to whom I had applied for a study grant. This jury stepped into my life and provided me with the escape hatch I so desperately needed. Basically, they refused to “subsidize the airlines,” as they put it and, with sensitive perception, felt that I would be much better off leaving Canada and living in New York, where I could not only study but also take part in chamber music classes and absorb all the marvels of the New York cultural scene. Biddy tried to fight their decision, but they made the move to New York their condition for awarding me the grant and they stood firm.