His agent brimmed with health and dynamism and sheer love of the job. His brilliant blue eyes glittered for Ursula. He listened in animation to some piece of office news and used the thrust of his dimpled jaw to affirm what she said. Because John was always scuttling back and forth - Milan, London, New York - to find him physically incarnated in any one place was almost uncanny. John did not have time to be in one place. John’s time was so preciously and infinitely divided between the demands of his clients and the web of his activities that he had virtually ceased to exist in human form. He was ubiquitously absent and dynamically omnipresent. In some ways he was too switched on for ordinary social consumption, rushing through the day like a super-charged tennis pro, stretching, running, smashing hard. He had used cocaine in the past to good effect and would deploy it in the future. Ursula he clearly adored. A fabulous acquisition for the agency. With her full bosom and his dimple jaw what promoter could resist them? What artist could resist them? Young pianists would be smitten at a glance.
Philip gazed at Ursula and wondered what was in it for her. She had been catapulted into a milieu of the super-talented and frequently famous, but was it enough to be mere decorous scene-setting for those after-concert parties, an agency fillip for the brand-name clients? It was hard to believe the hand-holding and neurosis management would interest her for long.
John slipped off to the loo for a moment.
Ursula turned to face him, steering her legs round and flipping her hair back. She smiled uncertainly. She could see he was uneasy and no doubt felt uncomfortable herself.
‘I’m so looking forward to the concert.’
Philip inhaled deeply.
‘D’you get very nervous?’
He frowned.
She seemed to take this as a ‘yes’. ‘It’s such an honour to meet you. I’ve always admired your playing so much.’
Philip forced himself to sit up a little.
‘Isn’t this place incredible?’
He nodded.
She glanced over her shoulder. Her gaze was now very serious. She seemed troubled.
‘I do hope this isn’t an imposition.’
‘Um . . .’
‘If you think it doesn’t work out with me, please say. I’d love to represent you, but your wishes are paramount. I don’t want to come between you and John. I just want to help.’
She looked at him with sweet sincerity. She had taken a risk in saying this and it seemed impossible not to come to her aid.
‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ he nodded.
Her smile intensified to a new level. The warmth of her expression he found unsettling. She seemed already to have nurturing feelings in reserve for him. He looked awkwardly around, amazed that he had capitulated so easily. Things were happening that he had no control over. Was she very kind, or was she just handling him? Was he just product now, to be stroked and schmoozed by personable executives, or did she really care, and if so, why? What could she possibly want with a crabby bachelor like him, a bespectacled relic, a man of self-defeating self-knowledge and no horizons beyond the ceaseless toil of his trade? Just to look at her was to feel in a glance the immunity of her sparkling youth to his shelved middle age.
John was back now, rubbing his hands and checking his watch and glancing nervously at Ursula and solidly at Philip. He pointed in the direction of a pair of loudspeakers beyond the piano. ‘You want to hear those guys, Pip. Two hundred grand’s worth of high fidelity. Amazing.’
He tugged around to look over his shoulder.
‘British designed, God bless us. Bloke called Williams, lives in a shack in Suffolk or something. Total nutter.’
He nodded, unable to take anything in. Ursula was now looking at him with some concern and he found himself wondering in retaliation what reckless acts of submission she would perform for her lovers, what picturesque pairings she would instigate with the trendy young males whose lust she inspired.
They heard him first, barking orders in the hall with humorous menace. The grand vestibule took up the sound of his voice, distributing will power to the four corners of the house. Bulmanion entered the room and moved into their midst before anyone had time to stand up.
‘Have you had tea?’
John smiled appeasingly.
‘God, bloody hell!’
He swished off back to the door and bellowed down the hallway. ‘Jeremy! Guests! Tea! Music room!’
He returned quickly, huffing theatrically, his hand already extended in Philip’s direction.
‘It’s a great honour to meet you. I’m so pleased you could come.’
Philip rose and had his hand shaken.
Bulmanion nodded quick hellos at Ursula and John and reversed on to a sofa. He ran a finger around his cheek, as if to clear thoughts, and then launched in quickly. ‘I think you are one of the great artists of our time,’ he intoned. ‘I’m immensely grateful that you’ve agreed to see me. I’m wealthy but I take no one for granted. I wanted to meet here because this room is a shrine to the sort of magnificent playing one hears on your records. I’ve sat in that chair and listened more times than I can remember to your Brahms and Liszt and everything else.’
He seemed to halt rhetorically. His eyes were fastened on a point in the air. His mouth ran agape.
Philip looked at him in amazement. Bulmanion was a rotund and emperor-like figure with a sack of a jaw that slumped on his collar and Humpty Dumpty legs that hung weakly from the sofa. He wore a fleece, tracksuit bottoms and open-toed sandals.
‘I’m interested in artists,’ he announced, ‘not record companies. Recordings, not labels. Music heritage, not marketing. My mission will never be corporate. I aim rather higher, or so I like to think.’
John and Ursula came nervously to the edge of their seats, as if in support of their patron’s candour.
‘ I want to make possible things that are not possible for conventional record companies.’
This was his rallying call. This was why they were all here.
‘Forget the balance sheet.’
Philip was unblinking.
John nodded wisely.
‘You see’ - Bulmanion cleared his throat oratorically - ‘so many of the great artists have been underserved by the record biz.’
He had the gravelly voice of a boardroom conquistador, the vowels of a football-club owner. His authority in the realm of classical music was utterly incongruous.
‘You, for example.’ His gaze was unflinching.
Philip was unsettled. ‘I haven’t been underserved!’
‘ I would say that you have.’
John leaned forward. ‘Frank isn’t . . .’
‘I’ve done OK.’
‘Yes, of . . .’
‘Grand Prix du Disc. Diapason d’Or.’
‘Very good.’
‘Gramophone Record of the Year.’
‘A magnificent recording!’
Bulmanion nodded emphatically.
Philip stared back at him.
‘What are you trying to tell me?’
‘Given your stature, you’ve been undermarketed, badly positioned, under-released.’
Philip regarded his host irritably. ‘I’ve been bloody difficult!’
‘You’re entitled to be bloody difficult.’
‘Am I, indeed?’
Bulmanion calmly smiled.
John leaned into the conversation. Frank was clearly inexperienced at dealing with artists and somewhat socially abrupt. His own legendary emollience was in order. ‘Frank has spotted something key. You hate recording, but whenever you go into the studio the results are marvellous. You’re brilliant in spite of yourself. The problem is that without forward-planning those recordings are a series of one-offs. The repertoire is fragmented, the portrait of an artist incomplete. Frank’s idea is to provide the most flexible partnership fully responsive to your creative impulses so that, in a completely spontaneous way, you can do yourself justice and your recordings can do you justice.’ He smiled
definitively.
Philip glanced sharply at Ursula. She reciprocated his glance. Her expression was one of humble complicity with whatever he chose to say.
He stared them both down. ‘I have never done myself justice. That is the condition of my life. Make of it what you will.’
‘You could record whatever you liked, whenever you liked.’
John was direct. ‘How many record companies would offer that?’
Philip could not believe he had to go through this meeting for the sake of a deal he would never sign on the eve of a concert he was determined to cancel. He was annoyed about everything now.
‘Very flattering,’ he said voicelessly.
‘I’m not trying to flatter you.’ Bulmanion was level. ‘I’m trying to register my commitment.’
‘Yes.’ He felt like a different person today. ‘Probably I’m not ready.’
John laughed uneasily and swapped looks with Frank.
The businessman remained calm. ‘The frequency of releases would be dictated by your timetable, your musical agenda.’
‘I mightn’t be ready for years.’
‘Come on, Philip!’ John was suddenly exasperated.
‘That would be a loss,’ said Bulmanion flatly.
‘Not in my opinion.’
‘Art is long and life is short,’ said Frank.
‘Art is bloody difficult.’
‘You’re at a vintage period in your life as a pianist. Maturity, vision . . .’
‘I’ll be the judge of that.’
Frank nodded, as if in acknowledgement of Philip’s adverse temper. He could draw the meeting to a halt if he chose. As a rule, people were more in need of his money than he was of their goodwill.
‘I want to be responsible for moving you from the cult fringe to the canonical centre.’
John made no facial response, but did not demur, either. Only Ursula seemed uncomfortable on Philip’s behalf. Her posture became more erect, as if in disdain of such terms.
‘Cult fringe,’ said Philip ominously.
‘The reality of your position in posterity.’
This was too much. He had no need of such home truths today. Why was he here? ‘Oh, I see. You can do that, can you? De-cult-fringe me?’
‘With your help.’
‘What Frank means is that you’re not a corporate pianist,’ said John tensely.
‘Well, thank you very much!’
His agent looked darkly into his palms. He had not anticipated this kind of prickliness. He offered Philip an expression of unsmiling seriousness so as to leave him in no doubt of the critical importance of the meeting.
‘Listen,’ said Bulmanion judicially. He halted for a moment. He knew his mind and wanted others to know it, but as Philip later realised this was not the egotism of power so much as the unvarnished manner of a man who never expected to be liked for himself. He spoke at length, not to proselytise, but to expand an understanding. He did not trouble to ‘sell’ his ideas because he perceived them as facts.
‘You’re an artist. Your whole life is music. That’s as it should be. What you don’t see is the slowly turning wheel of musical fashion. We see it, or think we do, because it’s a function of our perspective. Modern marketing. An oscillation between style and substance. Classical-music recording is one of the few areas where you can’t fake it. The diametric opposite of pop - where you absolutely must. The listener is so sophisticated, the product so incorruptible that style can never triumph over substance. Even so, audiences crave contemporary talent with something distinctive to offer, and that something is more often than not a kind of technical charisma. Awesome virtuosity has always been a calling card. You don’t get in the door unless there’s something sensational about the mechanism, some standout quality that tells the listener, “Wow! With this kind of equipment the unprecedented can happen.” So every few years there’s a Kissin, or an Ivo Pogorelich, or some other whizz-kid. These guys get pulled to the fore and set in the limelight, and suddenly everyone else is made to look kind of “also ran”. The biz has to have tentpole newcomers. But they’re rarely the best or the most enduring, and what we’re now seeing is a thirst for true greatness as opposed to marketable panache. The mass-media culture is so junky and reprocessed there’s an upsurge in the need for profundity.’ He paused, enjoying this last phrase. ‘People want an older kind of pianist. Performances from artists who are miraculously untainted by the emotional shallowness of contemporary culture. It’s a definite trend. And that’s where you come in. Because you’re in a line with the three great British pianists of the last century: Curzon, Solomon, and Hess. Music history is ready for you to take centre stage.’
Philip looked away in distaste. This was a perspective he found utterly trite.
Bulmanion was thoughtful. ‘The public domain has limited reputation-carrying space. It’s like a highway, with only so many lanes, which is why in every branch of the arts there are great talents unjustly on the fringe, awaiting their moment of motorway access to the brand-name freeway. Then suddenly the time arrives when a talent can be slipped into the zeitgeist, because the opening is there, and the talent fits the opening.’ Bulmanion regarded him with a profound expression. ‘Once on the freeway you have irreversible fame, an asset nobody can take from you, and the inherent value of what you do is disseminated to the widest audience. Philip, it’s my perception that your time has truly come. I see it as my role to create that access.’
There was a moment of silence in which John waited respectfully and appreciatively, Ursula’s melting gaze swung from Frank to Philip, and Philip sat inertly, hands clamped to the ends of his chair arms.
The comparison with Solomon he found suffocating, unbearable. He looked askance. He was not a pianist any more. That was the problem. He was a distressed fifty-two-year-old man with nothing in his life to cling on to. They might have been talking about someone else.
‘Maybe. . Ursula was hesitant. Her hands moved gracefully, as if to break in an idea before it was uttered. ‘I totally agree with what Frank says, but I think that maybe Philip is worried that we are trying to canonise - to use Frank’s word - recordings that haven’t earned their reputation yet. Which puts pressure on Philip.’ She looked at Philip, collecting her thoughts. ‘I mean, Myra Hess didn’t worry about ending up in the Great Pianist series every time she recorded a Beethoven piano sonata. If Frank is right, Philip will have a brilliant posterity on the strength of his occasional recordings, rather than absolutely everything he commits to disc under a new label . . .’
He stared at her. She was beautiful. She was articulate. It got worse and worse.
‘Correct,’ said Bulmanion, adroitly incorporating Ursula at once, and suggesting a dialectical process of evaluation so conscientious that Philip did not need to think for himself. ‘My concern is to be on call when Philip is doing his best stuff. Retrospectively every pianist has a golden period. Look at Solomon in the early fifties. Richter in the sixties. Pollini in the seventies.’
‘Maybe I’ve had mine.’
‘I think you’re there now.’
Philip’s face creased up. This was too much. Their words were hurting him.
‘Is my view completely irrelevant?’
John tensed.
‘Of course not,’ said Bulmanion more gently.
‘God,’ Philip gasped. ‘I really admire people like you! You have to deal with hard cases like me.’
‘That’s because there’s more at stake than pretty conversation,’ said the financier. ‘You have great talent.’
‘Philip!’ said John breathily. ‘Frank wants to record the three concerts as the basis for a CD sequence on the great sonatas. I think it’s a fantastic idea, nobody’s ever done it before, a themed sonata series, mixed composers, mixed eras, with maybe a biennial concert series and a tour to drive the releases.’
‘One small problem,’ said Philip, looking away.
‘What?’
‘I’m going to cancel the conce
rts.’
John’s head turned slowly.
‘I don’t think I can play next Wednesday.’
There was a silence, a snapshot of nothing.
‘We’ve got to talk.’ He covered his face. ‘I’m going to have to cancel.’
Ursula’s hand slid from her thigh on to the sofa cushion.
‘Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.’ Frank rose from his seat. ‘I’ll be with you in a second.’
He pulled the door shut behind him. They heard him calling someone in the corridor.
John glanced over his shoulder at the door. Then he looked at Philip with an expression of needling incredulity.
Philip remained embedded in the armchair. His expression was frozen.
‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m indisposed.’
‘You’re not indisposed!’
‘Can’t play.’
Ursula let out a deep breath, almost a gasp. ‘Has something happened?’
He could not answer this. He could hardly speak.
There was a peculiar silence, a stock-taking silence as John tensely figured his options and wondered how to proceed. He looked glassily at Philip, maintaining the pressure of his astonishment. Ursula glanced discreetly back and forth, panic in her eyes. Philip remained stubbornly haunted and fraught.
‘What d’you mean, “can’t play”?’
‘I’ve been trying to tell you.’
‘So tell me now.’
He shook his head. He was suddenly unwilling to explain. He gazed off in the direction of the garden.
John pulled himself to his feet and passed slowly around the coffee table, hands in pockets. His face was distorted by the sense of emergency. He bit his underlip, eyes flickering uncertainly. Suddenly he spun round, almost like a sharp-shooter. His gaze was burning. ‘Hah!’
They both looked at him in surprise.
‘You’re not . . .’ He composed himself, tried to slow down, swallowed. ‘You’re not upset by that silly monkey’s arse of a review?’
He flinched.
‘Philip!’
He looked away, feeling foolish.
‘Is that what this is about! For God’s sake, it’s a wonderful recording! A magnificent recording! You can’t let some idiot reviewer cramp your style.’
The Concert Pianist Page 6