If I can be this nervous after I’ve played the repertoire so many times, can I really trust my reflexes after all? If I tighten, I’m too tight. If I loosen, there are too many breaks in the fabric.
The tranquilizer I take late in the evening works in a strange way. I’m sleepy in between waves of anxiety. Then I hope it wears off in the course of the next afternoon. Maybe I’m building this thing up out of all proportion. Maybe last time was a fluke. I know I’ve gone a long way, considering where I started. But I feel as if I may have used too much to come up to this point. So there is nothing left for public performance.
Amelia responded to my letter by calling me long distance. She suggested that I first try weaning myself off the tranquilizer for a few days to see if that helped. She thought I might be having an adverse reaction to the tranquilizer itself, experiencing peaks and valleys rather than the calming effect I was hoping for.
She also understood why I felt more pressure this time around. My shoulders began to relax a little just because of her understanding. We discussed how the “acting as if ” and talking myself into an attitude of communicating could begin to outweigh the fear. If I could talk myself into simulating a state of greater calm, it would gradually become internalized and integrated. Amelia was right, as usual. After the first performance, I wrote:
My God, what a relief! I don’t even care what the reviewers say. After the nerves of yesterday and today I’m glad to have played decently. As it was, I think I did more than that. I almost died during the Handel. Tried like mad to loosen up in the Beethoven. I did, halfway through, and simulated what I do when relaxed as well as I could. It was basically my Beethoven, though. Musically the fabric did hold all the way through because I gave through the tension, and kept forcing myself to play rather than to be held back by terror.
After the concert I had the first meal I’ve enjoyed since I left California. I have forced lots of food down; still lost a little weight, I think. I don’t mind that, but what a way to lose it.
During the rest of the tour I gradually became a little less agitated, considerably helped by a few more long-distance talks with Amelia. She would remind me of something she found unique in my playing and that, in her opinion, this part of the process was well worth the struggle.
Knowing about the major problems Amelia faced every day helped me to put my own fears into perspective. She had become the chief psychologist at Lathrop, a treatment center for young people who had been in lockup and were potential candidates for reuniting with their families. The Los Angeles County Juvenile Probation Department had started this innovative treatment program, with Amelia at the helm. She held weekly meetings with each of the youngsters in the program, along with any family members she could pull in, and the probation officer, social worker, and nurse counselor assigned to the case. The objective was to get the young people back home whenever possible. During the same period, Amelia was also driving around the county to teach probation officers how to work with families.
My next group of performances took me to the Nether-lands—Haarlem, The Hague, and Amsterdam. The concert manager, Harry de Freese, was based in Amsterdam. Harry was a lovely person, and welcomed me into both his management “family” and his own, in heartening post-concert get-togethers. One such party, at his daughter’s apartment, was memorable for the climb up very steep stairs to her sitting room. It felt like climbing a ladder, but I had lots of help in both directions, supported by smiles and laughter all around. As I had found during my first tour in Holland, the demonstrative warmth of the audiences helped me to relax and “give” more.
As I continued touring, smaller problems like saving the muscles in my hands and arms for the big job of playing were an ongoing issue. I summed up those difficulties in a letter to Amelia: “Leave out things you have to do with hands and wrists, and not much is left! I even gave up trying to cut the entrecôte I’d ordered from room service, and left the rest of it. Next time I’ll order something soft!”
But I had an exciting bit of news to tell Amelia and Eve after my performance in Salzburg: “Imagine finding out that Wilhelm Backhaus was in the audience! He liked the ‘Waldstein.’ In fact, he told Gmachl [the presenter] that I was exceptional. Gmachl told me he thought I was good last year, but much better this year. He said the Beethoven was a true interpretation. One of life’s pleasant surprises. . . . ”
Then it was on to Vienna to play the new program, and to London for a meeting with Wilfred van Wyck, the presenter of my UK appearances scheduled for early 1966. And finally I returned to Malibu, my two dear friends, and those much-anticipated relaxing walks on the beach.
In the meantime, Dad had retired from General Motors, and he and Mom had moved to Southern California. It was wonderful that we could see each other more often, since they were only a two-hour drive away. Typically, they had found a “fixer” in a good neighborhood, just as they had as newlyweds in Detroit and later in the Detroit suburbs in 1942. Their new home was in Rancho Santa Fe, a rustic area north of San Diego that they were enjoying, and my father was cheerfully fixing up a house yet again. I was delighted to discover that this house, like many in Southern California, had a pool, where one could swim all year around.
In early January, I began the second lap of Bichurin’s European tour for that season, with performances in Brussels, Cologne, Berlin, and London. The Berlin audience was as warm as the climate was cold, but the next day something went wrong at Tempelhof airport. We were forced to sit in a cold plane for some hours, waiting for the connection to London; and as London passengers, our papers were not cleared for us to go into the terminal. When I finally arrived in London, it was too late for warm water or anything else to dispel the chill, and I woke up with a cold the next day. My main concern during that London concert was getting through it without sneezing. Fortunately, my ever-reliable performance adrenalin came to the rescue, edging out the histamine reaction until well after I had finished playing.
While I was on tour in Europe, Sherman had been busy lining up interviews and concert dates in Portland, Seattle, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Houston, and other cities. He particularly enjoyed a review by Corbin Patrick in the Indianapolis Star:
The Grieg served admirably to introduce the beauty, grace, and talent of Miss Rosenberger, a truly gifted young artist who could just as well be (and maybe she is) the heroine in a romance. She revealed style and sensitivity, not to mention the complete technical equipment we expect of young artists these days. . . . Highly expressive performance.
Once back in Malibu, I began catching up with private students, working on a new solo program, and planning new repertoire play-throughs in Eve’s living room. One day she said that in the next gathering she was going to include a young man she thought might be fun for me to meet. His name was Morrie Peltz, whom she had met a couple of times at a neighbor’s house, along with his young children, Caroline and John. He was recently divorced and, in her estimation, was brilliant. He had been something of a child prodigy, accepted by the University of Chicago at age thirteen and graduating at sixteen. He had gone on to study Asian and Middle Eastern philosophy and culture, had worked abroad for a few years, and was now consulting in Santa Monica.
For the next play-through, Morrie—tall, intense, and with a winning smile—was among the guests. When I finished playing the first piece, Morrie leapt to his feet, applauding loudly and shouting, “Brava! Brava!” That didn’t happen very often in Eve’s living room, or in Carolyn’s for that matter, so I was quite amazed and couldn’t help laughing along with his lively cheers. After I had played the rest of the program, Morrie had the same enthusiastic response.
During refreshments afterward, Morrie and I fell into conversation, and I found out that he loved theater, as did I, and obviously seemed to enjoy classical music. He asked me if I’d like to have dinner with him sometime soon, and I agreed that I would indeed. We felt an instant, mutual attraction.
It wasn’t long before we were se
eing each other often, and soon Morrie wanted to bring his children over to meet me. They lived with their mother and saw Morrie mostly on weekends. As they were coming up the stairs, I heard a young voice say to him, “Is this the lady with the nice apartment?” Evidently the answer was yes, and both children seemed to enjoy the balcony that overlooked the Santa Monica Bay. We all went for a walk on the beach, then to dinner, and it looked as if I had passed the approval test with both Caroline and John.
Things escalated as quickly as my schedule would allow, but I was still surprised by Morrie’s marriage proposal just a few months after we had met. When I told Eve, she was horrified, which somewhat confused me, as she had, after all, introduced us. “I just wanted you to have fun dating someone!” she exclaimed. “I never meant for you to marry him!”
Amelia had a far more positive reaction. She knew that, in the decade-plus since the polio attack, I had missed out on normal romantic relationships. There had been a couple of brief flings after my relationship with Sam ended, but nothing emotionally satisfying. Amelia was clearly hoping that my relationship with Morrie would be a positive experience.
When Morrie met my parents, Mom guardedly accepted him, while Dad looked as if he didn’t trust him at all. On the other hand, Morrie’s parents were quite friendly, and his sister, Mary, very much so. Mary was about my height, and their parents were of relatively short stature. When Morrie’s tallness came up, Mary chuckled and confided the family joke that they must have brought the wrong baby home from the hospital. In general, everybody but Eve and Dad seemed pleased.
We were married in a simple wedding ceremony in September of 1966, with Amelia as my matron of honor. Morrie and I drove through some beautiful parts of California on our brief honeymoon, then settled down in my Malibu apartment. Wedded bliss was mine at last! Here was an intellectually stimulating and romantically attractive man who wanted to be in a committed relationship with me—something my post-polio experiences over the previous ten years had told me was unlikely to happen.
But soon I had concert dates, auditions, interviews and, when I was at home, my private piano students to catch up with. It wasn’t long before Morrie began to mention feeling left out when I shut myself into my little studio to do the necessary piano work for these ongoing activities. Since Morrie had a job as a consultant, some of his work could be done at home, and he didn’t have to go into the office every day, or at least not for long. He had anticipated fun times at home when he could hear me play pieces of music, but he found himself bored by my endless practice and teaching sessions. I had tried to explain to him what my work as a pianist and teacher entailed, but he was still unprepared for the day-to-day reality. I hoped he would get used to it as time went on.
On the other hand, Morrie and I had a great time going to out-of-the-way films and taking long walks on the beach, when he would do much of the talking about all sorts of far-flung ideas and experiences. He had an extensive knowledge of Asian culture, and he knew a lot about the Middle East as well, since he had traveled there soon after his graduate study. He’d even worked a couple of years for the Shah of Iran. Morrie was always full of surprises, and he kept me guessing and laughing.
A simple visit to the Malibu supermarket turned into a scene that lingers in my memory. Morrie—clad in bathing trunks, a loose shirt, and tennis shoes—rode the shopping cart like a slow scooter through the aisles of the market, reciting eloquent passages from Shakespeare’s Henry V in his most resonant baritone. I expected someone to come along and ask him to keep it down, but both shoppers and employees seemed to be enjoying the show.
A few months further into our marriage, something happened that was a positive for me but probably a negative for Morrie, even though it promised to make us more financially secure. Following a curriculum vitae mailing I had sent to area colleges and universities, the head of the music department at Immaculate Heart College, Sister Mary Mark Zeyen, responded and asked to set up a time to talk by phone.
The ensuing conversation, a delightful meeting of the minds about many aspects of music and teaching, lasted about an hour and a half. I already knew that Sister Mary Mark and her two real-life sisters, a violinist and a cellist, had formed the Immaculate Heart Trio and built a fine reputation in Los Angeles, partly through their performances and partly through their recordings for Capitol Records. Sister Mary Mark had been teaching piano at Immaculate Heart and had recently become head of its music department. Now she was looking for her part-time replacement as piano faculty.
She was impressed by the review quotes in my résumé and not a bit dismayed when I told her about my post-polio fight back to the keyboard. But what we bonded about most was our mutual love of teaching, which for both of us had begun at an early age. By the end of that conversation, I had a job on the piano faculty, sight unseen and piano playing unheard. Mary Mark told me a few months later that when one of her other piano faculty members heard how I’d been hired, he had exclaimed, “Over the phone? You hired a new faculty member over the phone?” We laughed about that for years.
It didn’t take long to recognize that the prevailing atmosphere among the Immaculate Heart College faculty was flexible and innovative. Mary Mark became a friend, as did a member of the voice faculty, Sister Theresa di Rocco; and one weekend when Morrie was off with his children and Amelia was home, I invited both sisters to come out to Malibu and meet Amelia and Eve.
Mary Mark and Theresa were part of a group of nuns who believed in the interconnectedness of education and general improvement of a community. They immediately felt a “common cause” with Amelia and her work. They were also interested to meet Eve, whose family was Catholic and whose younger cousin, Sister Joel Read, was the president of Alverno College in Milwaukee. Sister Joel was also a founding member of the then-new National Organization for Women (NOW).
I suggested to Mary Mark that at IHC we might try some joint classes with both voice and piano students working together on some of the great art song literature. She loved the idea, and we set up, together with Theresa and another member of the voice faculty, Gloria Steppe, such a workshop as an elective part of the curriculum. I also suggested an experimental class in Schenker Theory. Mary Mark welcomed that too, and as we got it going, we were all delighted at how quickly the students could grasp and make good use of Schenker’s concepts.
The music department was small enough that I quickly got to know the other faculty members as well. It was the perfect job for me since it was part-time, and the piano students Mary Mark assigned to me included a diverse group of abilities, interests, and ages. Some of my students loved coming out to Malibu for their lessons, which gave me some good flexibility in my own schedule; for the most part I needed to drive into the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles—where the college was located—only a couple of days per week.
My parents were delighted that I had formal employment, as they had worried for some time about what I would do if our modest farm income dried up. Although Morrie had his consultant’s job, he needed to pay expenses for his ex-wife and two children. For him, it had been a financial relief to move in with me.
One day I invited Morrie to hear some of my students play a recital at the IHC Auditorium. Since I had scheduled a rehearsal for the performers beforehand, Morrie said he would come separately. He turned up in a college football sweater, while my students, their families, their friends, and I had all dressed up for the occasion. When I thought about it, I realized that due to his accelerated intellectual development, he had been of high school age during his college years, and had probably never fit in. No wonder he might misjudge the costume for the role he was playing that evening. For all I knew, his Joe College sweater might have been to enliven the atmosphere and relieve the tension of the students’ performance nerves. Morrie’s thinking was unlike anyone else’s, and he always had a sense of fun, along with a desire to lighten things up.
One day, Eve told Amelia and me that she wanted to take a long-anticipated trip to Mexic
o and Central America. She had been experiencing some physical symptoms that had no clear diagnosis, and wanted to take the trip while she was still feeling up to it. She invited Amelia to go along and added that, as far as she could see, Amelia hadn’t had a real vacation in a long time.
Eve also knew that I was discussing my marital problems with Amelia, and thought I should deal with that issue for a while without the “cushion” of being able to talk it through with my trusted friend. I encouraged Amelia to go, as I knew she loved to experience parts of the world that she had never seen. So off they went, and Morrie and I were on our own.
When I looked objectively at our relationship, it was clear that Morrie and I had met at the wrong time in my career, and probably too soon after his divorce from his first wife. Even though I was very much in love, I had already paid too high a price to let my piano work slide or to turn my back on either performance or teaching opportunities. Morrie, after being hurt by the divorce from his first wife, probably needed much more care and attention than I had anticipated.
Although I had explained to Morrie many times that I was trying to keep the piano sound contained in my home studio so that he could do whatever he wished in the rest of the apartment, that did not satisfy his expectations. He wanted more from me during the normal daytime and evening hours than I could realistically offer.
Morrie had always done a wide variety of things with such ease that he couldn’t possibly have understood the enormous effort I’d had to make over the twelve-plus years since my polio attack. His brilliant brain also moved along too fast to stop and take in what I was up against, even at that stage of my recovery.
In an abstract way, Morrie knew that I was still a physically damaged person. He had heard me say that I was stretching my upper-body neuromuscular endurance as far as possible each day. It was a difficult thing to explain to most people, and I had been hoping for his gradual understanding. But Morrie could never quite grasp how far I had to push myself, and whatever I could give just wasn’t enough to keep him content.
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