To Play Again

by Carol Rosenberger

  To Play Again

  Copyright © 2018 by Carol Rosenberger

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2018

  Printed in the United States of America

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63152-326-7

  E-ISBN: 978-1-63152-327-4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017950295

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1563 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  Cover design © Julie Metz, Ltd./metzdesign.com

  Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC..

  Dedicated to the memory of the heroic Amelia DaCosta Stone Haygood (1919–2007). Amelia believed that the impossible could become possible and helped to make it so for many. Her remarkable life was devoted to enabling and encouraging others in significant ways. Amelia’s unique insight and generous participation transformed the arc of my own life, and I am honored to recount, within this memoir, a few of the many stories that could be told about my dear friend.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 Chopin Interrupted

  Chapter 2 The Attack

  Chapter 3 The Unthinkable

  Chapter 4 A View from the Broom Closet

  Chapter 5 Dreams, Sun, and Pain

  Chapter 6 “Household Gods” and the Oracle of Paris

  Chapter 7 Kinship with a Damaged City

  Chapter 8 Struggling Forward in Vienna

  Chapter 9 Clarity in Copenhagen

  Chapter 10 Webster, Santa Fe, and the Move West

  Chapter 11 Amelia and the Death-Defying Leap

  Chapter 12 The First Miracle

  Chapter 13 Back Onstage, and Heartbreak in LA

  Chapter 14 Hope Hopkins and the Second Miracle

  Chapter 15 A Time of Triumph and Transition

  Chapter 16 Carnegie Hall and Amelia’s Brainstorm

  Chapter 17 Braving the Microphone—and a Tragic Loss

  Chapter 18 A Concert and Recording Diary

  Chapter 19 New Frontiers

  Chapter 20 My Walk with Beethoven

  Chapter 21 To Everything There Is a Season

  Acknowledgments

  Quotes from Recording Reviews

  Carol Rosenberger Discography

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Chopin Interrupted

  “That’s something no one can take away from you!” said the tall man, whose large hazel eyes were glistening with tears. He bent over slightly and gripped my hand so firmly that I couldn’t help wincing. “Oh, sorry, I mustn’t hurt those valuable hands!” he added and relaxed his grip, looking down at my hand as if he expected it to have extra fingers or other strange properties.

  There was still a long line of people who had come backstage to greet me after my performance, but he lingered for a moment longer. It was intermission, and the musicians of Michigan’s Pontiac Oakland Symphony—the men in tails and the women in black gowns—were milling around, playing their warm-up scales and snatches of music for the second half of the program. I could hear somebody humming a melody from the Beethoven Third Piano Concerto, which we’d just played. The year was 1955. I was twenty-one, and felt on top of the world.

  There’s nothing quite like the afterglow of performance. You work yourself up to a nervous pitch beforehand; you walk on stage with exaggerated calm; you bow and smile to the audience, trying to keep your hands from shaking as you begin. You hear the sound as if it’s coming from somewhere else, as if it’s not really connected with your hands on the keyboard.

  But gradually the music takes over, and the nervousness is transformed into excitement. It heightens everything you want to express about the music embedded so deep within your being; and suddenly you feel that you’re one with the music and the audience. There’s nothing else in the world but that current from the source to the sound and back, a pulsing current that seems to stretch toward eternity. That’s what your entire life is about. You’ve always known that, but you know it more clearly at such moments.

  The man with the hazel eyes was right, I had thought, as he walked away. Usually backstage comments don’t register. I’m too high after the performance. I remember faces and expressions and handclasps and embraces, but words usually get lost in the music I’ve just played. I remembered that comment, though. It was a little like a reassurance of immortality; my piano playing would always be there, no matter what.

  I’d been playing the piano for as long as I could remember. My earliest memory is of the keyboard high above my head as I stood in front of it, holding onto it for support. I still remember the excitement of reaching up to the smooth white keys and pressing one of them. The sound drew me into it; I floated with that sound, as it seemed to fill me and the space around me. Even then, I couldn’t get enough of that sound and the thrill of producing it.

  After nineteen years of bonding with the instrument and many performances over the latter half of those years, I still felt that way about playing the piano. But now it was more than my greatest joy. It was me. It was my very identity. If anyone had asked me that key psychological question, “Who are you?” my immediate response would have been, “I’m a pianist.” Then I might have thought to add, “I’m Carol Rosenberger.”

  I was “on my way,” as one says of a concert career. Literally, I was on my way to Europe, where I planned to enter some of the big competitions, which have served as important springboards for young talent. I also wanted to play for two of my particular heroes among twentieth-century musicians: Nadia Boulanger and Walter Gieseking.

  I wonder if there is a time for every young person when the dream seems perfect—when one has experienced enough to know what is possible and has not yet discovered what is impossible.

  It’s incredible, as I look back on the day when the most shattering event of my life occurred, that I had no premonition of disaster, no vague unease. Instead, I felt almost euphoric that warm August morning as I climbed the elegant curve of the steps outside the Palace of Fontainebleau in the beautiful little French town of the same name.

  The legendary Nadia Boulanger, revered teacher of many greats among twentieth-century classical composers (Aaron Copland, David Diamond, Walter Piston, Roy Harris, Elliott Carter, to name only a few), was the director of the music conservatory housed in one wing of the palace. I was thrilled to have history all around me. It was here, on these very steps, that Napoleon had said adieu to Josephine. As a young person from a young culture, I wanted this older culture to reveal some of its secrets. Surely Europe, with its direct line to the past, must hold all sorts of clues to the mysteries of Art and Life. I didn’t want to miss anything.

  I was thinking that morning about my first session with the formidable Boulanger, known to everyone as “Mademoiselle,” which had taken place just a few days before. She didn’t have much time for private sessions during the summer, but she had listened carefully as I played the Chopin B-flat Minor Sonata for her. Her gray-white hair was drawn back into an ascetic bun, and her eyes burned with the intensity of her own devotion to music. Mademoiselle had asked me many questions in her French-accented English. She wanted to know all about my repertoire, what I thought my strengths were, and what needed to be filled in. She had said that she found my playing “sensitive and intelligent”
and pointed out some musical connections that I might have missed. Best of all, she made an appointment to hear me play again. As I was about to leave she added, “You will go far.”

  And now I was on my way to the practice room where I spent eight hours a day of concentrated but exhilarating work. When one says “practice room,” any musician or onetime student of music automatically thinks of a tiny cubicle, bare of furniture, with piano and bench literally on their last legs, where sound ricochets mercilessly to and fro, and ear fatigue is chronic. But this practice room was a large, airy, high-ceilinged room with a fine Erard grand piano in one corner. The room looked out on one of the palace gardens; and I could sometimes hear, mingled with scraps of sound from pianos, voices, and violins in other practice rooms, one of the brilliant peacocks screaming from below.

  I don’t think it’s the coloring of sentimental memory that makes me remember this as one of the best days I’d ever had at the piano. I was working on the Chopin sonata that I had played for Mademoiselle and with which I was planning to enter a competition in three weeks’ time. Though it’s perfectly logical that I would have been playing the Chopin that day, it does seem a strange coincidence. That piece, with its life-death juxtaposition in the powerful Funeral March, formed an eerily apt musical setting for the sharp turn my life was about to take.

  I remember how satisfying it was to dig my hands into the rich figuration of the first movement. It was going particularly well. This sonata had been one of my biggest successes in public performance, but I felt that now it was flowing better than ever. A heightened vision of the piece was forming in my mind, and I felt just on the brink of realizing it.

  Suddenly a sharp pain shot through my left hand.

  It was a kind of pain I’d never felt before. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew it wasn’t a muscle ache. I’d had those on occasion when I’d plunged into practicing after a few days away from the piano, or when I had practiced too many octaves at one sitting. But this was different. Something about it made me think of the Novocain needle in a dentist’s office.

  I knew I should stop practicing for the day. Protecting my hands was an automatic reflex. I avoided sharp knives, kept a safe distance from a closing car door, and had developed a similar list of automatic responses that any serious pianist would recognize. You just don’t take chances with the investment of a lifetime.

  I got up from the piano and walked around the room, shaking my hand and swinging my arm. Even though I knew it wasn’t a muscle ache, I couldn’t think what else to do. But the pain didn’t stop.

  Chapter Two

  The Attack

  That evening over dinner I discussed the strange pain with my closest friend, Martha Ritchey. Martha and I had met at Carnegie Mellon’s music school in Pittsburgh and arranged to come to Europe together. She was a slim, sharp-featured girl with short, sleek hair turned in a sweeping curl over each ear. Her blue eyes softened her face, and a little perpetual frown was a clue to her extremely active mind. Martha was a singer, and even in ordinary conversation had the singer’s precise diction and careful delivery. Her speaking voice had a tone that sounded disdainful to those who weren’t used to it, but I knew it hid an excess of idealism. Martha expected too much of the world, and was always being disappointed. I saw myself as more realistic, and therefore less vulnerable.

  Martha’s first reaction was exactly what I thought it would be. “Anybody could expect some sort of pain after practicing eight hours!” she enunciated, as if I were slightly stupid not to have thought of that. I had to smile. Martha joked about it sometimes, but I knew she looked upon my singleness of purpose with more than a little awe. Then her frown deepened. “Maybe you’re not entirely over the flu yet.”

  It had never occurred to me that this strange pain could have anything to do with the flu epidemic that had hit Fontainebleau a couple of weeks before, and had spread rapidly and widely. Everybody had been sick for a few days with a slight fever and a variety of familiar viral symptoms. I had been a little wobbly after about three days in bed, but was feeling fine now. I couldn’t imagine that there was any connection. I took another sip of wine, enjoying the feeling of warmth it gave me. I didn’t often drink wine, because it interfered with my reflexes, but tonight I thought it might relax me, might dull the pain, which had begun to spread up my arm.

  “Why don’t you take a day off practicing tomorrow?” Martha suggested, her tone of voice telling me she was anticipating resistance to that idea.

  “But I missed three days already with that stupid flu!” I protested, shaking my head. “And the contest is only three weeks away.”

  This was a competition sponsored by the conservatory. The prize was $600 and a couple of appearances in Paris. I had been telling myself that all competitions were totally unpredictable and that one couldn’t take any of them too seriously; but at the same time I was thinking how helpful the $600 would be and planning what I might play in Paris.

  “Well, a lot of people are saying that you’ll probably win,” Martha assured me, “so why don’t you relax a little tomorrow?”

  “I’ll see how it is in the morning,” I compromised. It was sure to be better by then.

  But the pain woke me up the next morning. It was more intense and had continued spreading up my arm to my left shoulder and into my neck and upper back. I had a severe headache, too, which seemed to be connected. It was bewildering. I couldn’t imagine what I could have done to hurt myself to this extent. I felt abnormally tired—and dizzy, too, when I tried to get out of bed. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared out the window. The morning was bright and clear, but I felt enveloped in a haze. The only thing that was really in focus was the pain.

  On the little table beside my bed sat my silent practice keyboard, a reminder of what I should be doing today. It was silent in that it produced no music; its plastic keys made a thump as they went down and a clack as they came back up. But it was useful for exercises and for reinforcing patterns with my fingers when I couldn’t get to a piano. I shook my head at it wistfully. I wasn’t going to be able to practice today.

  I looked over at the desk, where I wrote long letters home to my family on onionskin airmail paper. But today I didn’t feel like writing a letter; besides, the last thing I wanted was to worry my family.

  What could I do about the pain? Heat was good for stiff or sore muscles; maybe heat would be good for this pain, whatever it was. Perhaps the pharmacy down the street would have a hot-water bottle? I got shakily out of bed and made my way over to the armoire—the most charming thing about this little room on the top floor of the old Hôtel d’Albe. It was ornate and appropriately antique, and a logical substitute for a clothes closet. Today, it seemed unreasonably far away from my bed. I opened the armoire and held onto the door, wondering what I should put on. As I reached for a shoe my hand seemed to drift shakily past it. Nothing was working as it should this morning.

  Just putting on my clothes was tiring, and they felt scratchy, as if my skin were unusually sensitive. Usually I ran down the creaky wooden stairs, but this morning I went slowly, hanging onto the banister. The familiar musty smell of the d’Albe had always seemed to give it an exciting air of antiquity, and I had loved the idea of living in a hotel that had history in its favor. But now the combined odors of must and coffee made me feel slightly queasy.

  As I made my way out into the bright sunshine, I wondered how I could feel chills on such a warm day. My body felt heavy; my head felt light. The dizziness was coming in regular waves; with each crest I would almost black out. I knew I should stay close to a wall, a railing, or a gate—something I could hang onto when the waves came. There was a rhythmic pounding in my head, as if iron hands were grabbing my temples, letting go, then grabbing them again.

  I held onto the counter and tried to describe to the pharmacist what I wanted. His voice seemed to come from far away, and I had to sort out syllables before I answered. My high school French teacher would not be proud of me, I thoug
ht.

  I tried to walk steadily as I left the shop, clutching the precious hot-water bottle, but was glad when I got outside and could lean against the wall until the dizziness let up enough to allow another few steps. It occurred to me that I could have asked someone to get the hot-water bottle for me. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  Back at the hotel again, suddenly the steps looked very steep. I had loved having a room on the top floor, but now it didn’t seem so appealing. Just take one step at a time, I told myself, then rest, then one more step—and hang on. My room seemed a haven when I finally reached it, and it was a relief to put on my pajamas again. I had never been so grateful for the washstand in my room; I could fill the hot-water bottle immediately.

  I lay face down on my bed and pushed the comforting warm bottle onto my upper back, where the pain was most severe. “Please, Hottie,” I said to it, “do your stuff.” When I was a small child in Michigan, my mother used to bring me a hot-water bottle on the cold winter nights. She would slide it into my bed and put it at my feet. As soon as she had kissed me goodnight and left the room, I would pull the hot-water bottle up and put it beside me on the pillow, its head and neck out of the covers and the body of the bottle tucked in. I would pat it comfortingly. “Now, Hottie, you can breathe, too.”

  I was hoping that Hottie would now return the favor and relieve the pain. But I soon noticed something else. There was a regular, rhythmic twitching or jerking sensation along with the pain. It felt as if I were bouncing up and down on the bed. I don’t know how long I had been lying there when Martha knocked and came in. She took in the hot-water bottle and my prone position.

  “Are you worse today?” she asked, and when I nodded, she felt my forehead. “Well, no wonder, you’ve obviously got a fever. I wish one of us had a thermometer!”