Then it was on to Baltimore, where Amelia and I would be staying during the rehearsals and performances in Washington, D.C. A couple of years before, Anne O’Donnell had introduced us to Rosa Ponselle, the legendary American opera star, who lived in Baltimore. Rosa had invited us to visit at her home, Villa Pace, whenever either of us could be in the area. Amelia and I had been longtime fans of hers through her archival recordings and had much enjoyed getting to know her over several visits.
Rosa was excited about Amelia’s mission of recording American artists. This led Amelia to ask questions about the early days of recording, when musicians performed in front of a flared metal horn, which gathered and funneled sound waves toward a diaphragm whose vibrations caused an attached stylus to etch the sound waves onto a wax rotating cylinder or disc. The engineers made balance adjustments by altering the performer’s position relative to the horn. Rosa told us that the engineers had always made her stand “farther from the horn” than most other singers, since her voice was “too big.” I was especially interested in Rosa’s description of her long and careful advance preparation for recording sessions. Since editing wasn’t part of the process, the takes had to be as flawless as possible.
It was relaxing to stay at Villa Pace with Rosa. She understood performance preparation and anxiety, and empathized with my strenuous climb back from polio and the musical reason behind it. She had retired from professional activity herself, but could be heard joyfully vocalizing any time she was alone in a room or on her way up or down stairs.
The concerts were intense, but another milestone for me. Jimmy, with his personal warmth and sensitivity, was a very supportive conductor. I had played the Chopin E-Minor Concerto effortlessly in my teens, but wasn’t yet sure how it would hold up with my rebuilt playing mechanism. Both Jimmy and Amelia had encouraged me to take the step, and so I did, with Rosa cheering from the sidelines.
Back in Santa Monica, I began my play-throughs of the program for the “Chopin tour” that was set to start in November of 1973 and climax at Alice Tully Hall in New York in April of 1974. On Sunday, November 4, just after my fortieth birthday and a few days before I was to leave on tour, I had an excited call from Chris. He described a project he was working on for me and a party that was taking place at his apartment that evening. We discussed the Ms. article to be released that month and some plans he had for future PR projects. Then he mentioned needing to do some window cleaning, apartment tidying, and other preparations, and promised to call after the party or the next day.
The next morning, I got a call from Chris’s brother, Rupert, whose voice sounded strange. He could hardly get the words out. “Carol, I have terrible news,” he managed to say. “Chris fell out of his apartment window . . . yesterday . . . onto the sidewalk . . . eleven stories.”
I was frozen in shock. Everything went out of focus, and I couldn’t take in what Rupert was saying. When he could speak again, he went on: “Some are suggesting that it . . . might have been . . . suicide.”
At the word “suicide” my voice suddenly returned. “No, Rupert!” I cried. “I talked with him . . . yesterday! He was excited . . . about the party!”
When I could continue, I told him that the last thing Chris had mentioned was the need for some window cleaning and tidying up before his guests arrived. Rupert hung gratefully onto everything I said, and there were more silences while we both tried to speak again. I explained that Chris had told me about some of the people who were coming that evening and repeated that he had been excited about the event. I insisted that suicide was out of the question and that it must have been the most tragic of accidents.
As soon as I told Amelia, and added that some were suggesting suicide, she shook her head. “Chris would never endanger the lives of others,” she assured me. “If he had been suicidal, he would have found another way.”
I called Rupert back immediately and repeated what Amelia had said. Evidently no one else had thought of that important factor. Amelia’s insight was clearly reassuring to him.
This devastating event cast the imminent tour in a completely different light. Chris and I had been discussing the significance of the Chopin B-flat Minor Sonata, and its place in my internal cycle. Now, with terrible irony—if I could bring myself to do it—I would be playing the sonata built around the famous Funeral March, with its transcendent middle section, in Chris’s memory.
I couldn’t get past the horrifying image—Chris setting out to clean his living room windows, leaning out to get a swipe at something on the other side of a window, his foot slipping on the hardwood floor, the terrifying recognition that he couldn’t save himself, the unthinkable moments of plunging to the sidewalk below. It haunts me to this day.
But soon I had to set out on the first part of my fall tour. I hoped I could find a way to keep it together despite my profound grief at the loss of such a beloved and irreplaceable friend. One of the first performances was back in Baltimore, at the College of Notre Dame, where I also did a workshop with students. Rosa came to the concert, and her presence and understanding were reassuring. The young students seemed excited about what we worked on, and their excitement carried me through the workshops. The tour also took me to Jacksonville, Florida, where I had done previous concert-workshop appearances. The warm reception from people I’d come to know there helped, too.
Throughout the next five months of touring, especially before each solo program, I questioned how I could make it through the Chopin “Funeral March” Sonata. And I worried even more how I could get through that piece in New York. In my mind, the city was intertwined with Chris, and he had been planning a celebration there after the event on April 22. Amelia promised to fly in for the concert, and thought the music would be especially meaningful to Chris’s friends, many of whom would undoubtedly be there. That was a powerful argument.
A couple of days before the concert in Alice Tully Hall, a memorable note arrived from the entire Ms. Magazine group, in anticipation of my upcoming performance. “Give ’em hell!” it read, signed first by Gloria and then, in two columns, by everyone else on the staff. When I walked onto the stage, I saw Gloria, Donna, and a substantial number of my other “sisters” in the front rows, smiling broadly. They had been extraordinarily kind to send me their vote of confidence. But it was quite another level to come to the actual event and seat themselves up front so I would see them and feel their support. That act of “sisterhood” has stayed with me ever since.
Many of Chris’s friends were there, tearful but grateful that I was going through with the performance. It was unspeakably difficult when I got to the Funeral March. I wasn’t sure I could make my way through it without breaking down. But the collective support from all of Chris’s and my friends helped give me strength to focus on what I was there to do: playing for Chris, in memory of him, and completing an important step in the back-from-polio cycle, which he had been anticipating with such confidence.
The Ms. group’s strong support that evening went farther than coming en masse to the concert. Gloria was watching for a review, as she had noticed a New York Times critic in attendance. After a few days went by with no sign of a review, Gloria called the Times and asked to speak with the Arts Editor. She gave specifics about the concert, mentioned that she had seen the reviewer there, and asked when the review would be published. No specific date was given, but a couple of days later a glowing review appeared, bearing the headline: “Carol Rosenberger in Elegant Pianism.” As a career journalist, Gloria knew that, in general, other topics tended to edge out arts news; and in her friendly but fearless way, she had made a difference.
Amelia and I had been planning to invite all of our “sisters” to the little apartment on West 72nd Street for a party, and once we agreed on a time, nearly everyone came. At one point, I was standing right behind Gloria and Amelia, who were engaged in animated conversation, when Donna sat down at my piano and silently pressed a couple of keys.
Gloria leaned toward Amelia and said
to her, sotto voce, “The hem of the garment!”
That casual comment really hit me. Did I perhaps have a little magic back, after all this time?
Chapter Eighteen
A Concert and Recording Diary
I rarely made diary-style notes during my tours or after other concert performances. In the early days, I wrote a few letters. But during most of my tours, I chose to call people rather than write them—in order to save my shoulders, arms, and upper back for the scheduled activities. Still, I made a few exceptions to this pattern, two of which I’ve included in this chapter. I wrote some of these notes in the present tense, as the events were so fresh that I could easily relive them afterward.
The first two entries describe a two-concert, one-workshop appearance at UCLA in late February and early March of 1976. The third and fourth entries describe a Delos recording session about three weeks later.
February 28, 1976
I am sitting on the stage of Schoenberg Hall, UCLA, in Los Angeles, at a nine-foot, ebony, concert grand piano. Behind me is a dark acoustic shell. The house lights are dim, so I can’t see out into the hall very well, but it is empty except for the ushers getting the programs ready for the evening’s performance.
The piano is silent for the moment, as I have just finished my pre-concert warmup—an hour and a half of playing slowly through the three Beethoven sonatas that make up the program. I’ve been thinking through the music, listening to it in the hall, getting acquainted with the sound and feel of the piano. The piano is dull on top and too bright in the middle register, which means that I cannot shape some things—especially in the first two sonatas—as I had planned. I have decided what compensations I can make: how I can best work with the unevenly voiced instrument.
I think back over the three sonatas, wondering if there is anything I should go over again. I decide that I have done what I can, that I’m at about the right point—warmed up but not yet fatigued.
If I were to look back through my life, I would find that much of it has arranged itself around concerts—the high spots of a life I will probably remember through events of this kind.
Barbara, the stage manager, opens the door of the green room and looks in. She has close-cropped blond hair and an open smile. She is dressed casually in shirt and slacks. She knows her job and does it calmly; her routine is well established.
I glance at my watch, which is lying on the table. 8:35. So they wait only five minutes for late-comers here.
“Ms. Rosenberger? It’ll be about five minutes.”
Barbara has everything under control. However, she can’t do anything about the women who are bustling around the kitchen attached to the Green Room. They are going to sell cookies and coffee at intermission, so of course they are preparing the refreshments just as I am trying to calm myself before the concert.
Barbara opens the door again and smiles. Rare to find a woman stage manager. It’s nice to work with Barbara; she’s gentle at a time when my nerves are taut. She doesn’t have to say anything; her wordless smile means it’s time to start.
My stomach gives the familiar lurch, my heart starts pumping blood at a faster rate. I force myself to move slowly, to breathe deeply. I have my handkerchief in one hand and my thermos cup of warm herbal tea in the other. My parasympathetic nervous system has it all wrong. It’s not the internal organs that need the blood now; it’s my hands. But they always get cold before a performance, and the tea is a good antidote. I smile back at Barbara and demonstrate—more to myself than to her—that I am in control.
“Guess it’s that time then,” I say, nonchalantly, brightly, as if I think it doesn’t matter that much. There are concerts in this hall all the time, I tell myself. I have played many concerts that were harder to do, and were crucial to my career. But my gut knows it’s important. It’s always important.
I’ve got a lot of friends out there, I tell myself. But I know that’s one thing that makes my heart pump at its present rate. A lot of friends who say, every time I come back from a concert tour, “When are you going to play here in Los Angeles?”
So here I am at UCLA, about to play two programs. They haven’t heard me here publicly for a couple of years. A lot has happened since then, and I want the performance to be the best I can do.
Barbara and I walk back behind the stage, between two sets of black curtains, to the other side. There are two bouquets on the table, one of yellow roses and one of red carnations. Barbara had asked if I wanted them in the Green Room, but I told her about my hay fever, and suggested that she keep them at a distance until after the performance. There they were—the promise of the other side of the performance, that there would be an Afterwards.
“Your dress is lovely,” Barbara says. Flame, my best color. A strong color that won’t wash out under the stage lights, that looks good with blond hair, and that gives a warm tone to an otherwise severe setting—an imposing-looking black piano in front of a dark brown shell, and, for the audience, a pianist in profile.
“It’s marvelously comfortable,” I answer. “The fabric is stretchy and moves with me.” Almost as comfortable as the jerseys I always practice in. I swing my arms to help circulation and relax the muscles, and to illustrate my point.
I put my cup of tea on the little ledge, where Barbara has also placed a pitcher with cold water and a glass. I’ll need that later, when I come off between sonatas, hot from the stage lights. She takes her position at the light board. She looks over at me and raises her eyebrows.
“Any time,” she says. “Whenever you’re ready.” I breathe deeply again and let my arms hang loose. The muscles want to tighten, but I try not to let them. Fight or flight is not appropriate here.
I remind myself what I am here to do; that for right now the last three Beethoven sonatas belong to me, or I belong to them, and the fusion belongs to the audience. That fusion has already taken place. I can’t undo it by nervousness or a mediocre piano, by cold hands or sweaty palms or strange shadows on the keys. It will be there always, slightly different, but there at the core. Nothing will shake it now. Like the mountains I look at every day across the canyon from my house, they will appear in different lights, but they will always be there.
Three magnificent works about life and death and transcendence. They have woven their way into the drama of my life over the past twenty years. They have seen me lose everything and gain much of it back. I had only to look around, and they were there. A soundtrack of my last twenty years would have them as a leitmotif.
Appropriate that I should play all three of them here in Los Angeles, at this point in the journey, when I am feeling very strongly that I am coming full circle. An ever-widening circle in some ways, and yet one that seems to be coming ever closer to the center.
Mom and Dad have driven up to be here tonight; they have seen the whole cycle from the beginning. Amelia is here; she came into that cycle at its lowest point. I think of all three, and imagine their thinking in perspective, which helps me to do so.
I nod to Barbara. I’m ready. The house lights go down slowly, and the volume of audience conversation follows like an echo, as if Barbara were gradually lowering the level of voices with one of her levers. I take one more deep breath and step out onto the stage.
How familiar it all is: the lights that seem too bright after the dimness of backstage, the slight ringing in my ears, the knees that feel a little shaky as I bow. I bow low and slowly, thanking the people in the audience for their presence here. Maybe they had to worry about babysitters or fight freeway traffic. Maybe they spent time dressing for the concert, finding a parking place, standing in line at the box office for tickets. They have made the effort, in this age of televised and recorded entertainment, to get to the concert hall to hear Beethoven and me, this evening. I am grateful for their confidence, for their interest. My warm feelings for them expand and edge out the nervousness. I smile my greeting to them and sit down.
The concert bench seems too high now that I am full of ad
renaline. From experience, I know to leave the bench the way it is; I know that it will seem right again shortly. I make my gestures slow and smooth as I put my handkerchief on the piano, into the metal hollow where the serial number is stamped. I have carefully dusted out that hollow beforehand.
I turn toward the audience from my seat on the bench. “There are a couple of mistakes in the printed program,” I say, noticing that my voice sounds natural, though lower than usual. “The second Sonata on the program, the Opus 110, is not the Sonata customarily known as the Hammerklavier.” I am interrupted by delighted laughter—scattered chuckles telling me that many in the audience know very well that the gentle Opus 110 is quite different from the massive Opus 106. It is like listing velvet as a “rough and ready” fabric.
I think my way into the gentle color of the opening of the Opus 109. I want to start it as if it has been going on for a while under the surface, and I have joined it at the point where the audience can hear it. Once I begin to play, I give myself fully to the fusion. If I keep it coming from the core, it will be all I am capable of at this moment. I am trying to give this performance everything I am and know, up to this point in my life.
Gradually the adrenalized state smooths out, and there is fusion between the musical intent and the audience—flowing through me, through the instrument, out into the hall to the people there, and circling back to the starting point—all one continuous circle. The beautiful Opus 110 enchants, exhilarates, and takes both performer and listeners on an inspiring journey to luminous glory.
During intermission, I think toward Opus 111 and reflect on Opus 109 and Opus 110. Barbara locks the door. I have a little applesauce and the rest of my tea. I get a dry handkerchief out of my backstage bag. How can hands be cold and perspiring at the same time? Now I’m warm.
What does one remember from a performance? Each performance gives the work more substance, more dimension. Webster said of the Schubert sonatas that they hang inside him like chandeliers. Performance also gives the work more sheen, luster, more illumination. Webster’s description is good, except that the Beethoven sonatas are more substantial for me than chandeliers, and they seem an integrated part of the whole of me rather than identifiable parts of my inner dwelling.
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