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Singing-Masters of My Soul

by Carol Wootton; co-published with Towner

202 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #99-0025; ISBN 1-55212-256-5; US$20.00, C$21.95, EUR16.50, £11.50

Carol Wootton's new book, Singing-Masters of My Soul, is an anthology of radio and TV presentations, essays, fiction and memoirs spanning nearly forty years in the creative life of the Victoria writer, lecturer and musician. The earliest piece is her obituary tribute on CBC Radio in May 1961 to Clara Haskil who now enjoys legendary status among the Great Pianists of this century. In essays such as "Literary Portraits of Mozart" and "Frédéric Chopin and the Polish Ideal" and in TV programs such as "Aimez-vous Brahms?" we meet the great composers. Goethe, Yeats and Byron also stride through these pages. Memoirs include "Slavic Soul in Ladbroke Grove" and fittingly, the book ends with an Address to award-winning music students.

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about the book      about the author      table of contents      excerpt      reviews      catalogue info

About the Book Carol Wootton's new book, Singing-Masters of My Soul, is an anthology of radio and TV presentations, essays, fiction and memoirs spanning nearly forty years in the creative life of the Victoria writer, lecturer and musician. The earliest piece is her obituary tribute on CBC Radio in May 1961 to Clara Haskil who now enjoys legendary status among the Great Pianists of this century. In essays such as "Literary Portraits of Mozart" and "Frédéric Chopin and the Polish Ideal" and in TV programs such as "Aimez-vous Brahms?" we meet the great composers. Goethe, Yeats and Byron also stride through these pages. Memoirs include "Slavic Soul in Ladbroke Grove" and fittingly, the book ends with an Address to award-winning music students.

About the Author

Carol Wootton was born in Victoria, British Columbia and received her MA in Comparative Literature from the University of British Columbia and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon. She is also the holder of degrees in music. She has taught English at the University of Victoria and Comparative Literature at the University of Georgia and the University of Texas at Dallas. She has also lived and studied in London, Vienna and Zürich. She presently makes her home in Victoria. Her publications include Selective Affinities: Comparative Essays from Goethe to Arden and The Page Turner and Other Stories.

Table of Contents

Widmung	1
Mozart
Clara Haskil	3
Literary Portraits of Mozart	11
Plane Talk	25
Goethe and Yeats Within the Context of European Romanticism	33
Chopin
Frédéric François	57
Frédéric Chopin and the Polish Ideal	61
The Lure of the Basilisk	81
Lady at the Piano: E.M. Forster's A Room With a View	103
Aimez-vous Brahms?	111
Géza Anda	121
Francis Poulenc: Ma Musique est mon Portrait	133
Byron
The Rise and Fall of the Byronic Hero in O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet	143
Childe Byron	151
Literature's Image of the Physician	157
Slavic Soul in Ladbroke Grove	165
Born on the 17th of March	175
The Canary and the "Grand"	179
Tales of Tink	181
Two Great Pianists showed Perception for Smallest Things	187
Address to Award Winners	189

Excerpt from "Clara Haskil"

The words, "spiritual artist", apply to the select few. Of keyboard artists it can be said, that there are powerful performers by the dozen, brilliant performers by the hundred but an artist who appears to be a chosen medium for music itself is very rare indeed.

Such an artist was Clara Haskil, who, up until her death on December 7th, 1960, gave strength and comfort to concert audiences all over Europe and before her death, in America, as well.

Romania, the country of her birth, also produced another spiritual artist, Dinu Lipatti. Like Lipatti, Clara Haskil fought a constant fight against ill health and her tremendous willpower was the miracle that sustained her through the rigours of her many concert engagements. It was said of her that she could not possibly die as long as there were concerts to be played. In actual fact, she died just before she was scheduled to play a sonata recital with Arthur Grumiaux in Brussels.

I remember vividly the first time I heard her play in London in 1955, when my first reaction to her appearance was one of astonishment. I asked myself how this tiny, frail, bent old woman could command the keyboard and be equal to the challenge of the Festival Hall and the background of the Philharmonia Orchestra. However her opening to Mozart's A major Concerto No. 23 settled any doubts that were in my mind. Luckily I sat directly behind her on the platform and could watch her closely. I still see the picture she created sitting in front of me on the piano bench, her slight figure swathed in black, strands of her gray hair pulled away from her face, her shoulders stooped over the keyboard in an attitude of intense concentration, while her strong, masculine fingers spread out over the keys. I remember clearly the wonderful quality of tone she elicited from the piano - bell-like in the high registers, full and mellow in the lower ones - each note having a life and individuality of its own which must have come from the most specialized finger development.

Later, in Switzerland, where Clara Haskil had lived since 1936 and had subsequently been made a Swiss citizen, I was brought into contact with the teachings of Anna Hirzel-Langenhan who had been a mentor in the lives of both Artur Schnabel and Clara Haskil.

Langenhan's teachings were based on analysis of the best ways of producing good tone. She had come to the conclusion that each finger must first be strengthened by strengthening the muscle belonging to it - a process in which the arm must not take part at all. This was generally accomplished with silent exercises on the surface of the keys and the results are fingers of steel which produce tones of velvet. However, this cold, clear-cut analysis of finger development was only a means to an end for Clara Haskil and in no way explains the depth, the restraint, the tenderness, and indeed loveliness which infused her playing.

Born in Bucharest in 1895, she studied first under Richard Robert in Vienna and later with Alfred Cortot at the Paris Conservatoire. At the age of 14, she won the much coveted Grand Prix. Later, after the first World War, she accompanied such incomparable artists as Enesco, Ysaye, and Casals on extended tours in Europe and America.

Her deep understanding and love of duo playing dates back to those early performances and reaches a wonderful fulfilment in the recordings she has made with Arthur Grumiaux. In the complete Beethoven violin and piano Sonatas now recorded by them, no two artists could be more compatible. Grumiaux's pure violin tone is faithfully reproduced by Haskil at the piano, and the interplay between instruments is as near perfect as one could wish. As well, there is joy in their work which comes from mutual understanding.

Clara Haskil had reached the height of her art, with no falling off, before she died but it took a long time for her to achieve international acclaim. Three decades elapsed before she was to visit America for the second time, when her performances of Beethoven's third piano concerto, so subtly restrained and beautifully proportioned, brought cheers from audiences accustomed to the superficial glamour of the virtuoso pianist.

As a solo performer, Clara Haskil touched the heart through Schumann and Schubert. In Schumann's Wald szenen (Scenes of the Forest) which she has recorded, she creates exquisite miniatures of contrasting exuberance and wistfulness. On a larger scale, her performances of Mozart's piano concertos revealed her greatness as a keyboard artist. To commemorate this, on January 22nd, 1961 in Zürich, where she appeared so frequently, a tribute was played to her memory - Mozart's deeply moving Masonic Funeral Music; for Clara Haskil belonged to the initiated order of musicians who could reveal to us the secrets of Mozart's heart, his touching pathos, the humour which bubbles over in such a light-hearted work as the F major Concerto, and the lyricism which is to be found everywhere in his music. Her performances of Mozart, whether with the Philharmonia Orchestra of England or the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg aroused me to greater enthusiasm than anything else she played.