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Adrianne Geffel

Page 6

by David Hajdu


  The school didn’t really have free rooms for us. Anybody would know that but my mother. And we sure as hell didn’t have enough money for a hotel. So we kind of waddled our way to the parking garage where I left my aunt Connie’s Datsun. I think we walked around ten different blocks till we found the place. We had to go past this ticket-taker guy in a glass booth by the entrance, and he gave us the big once-over as we stumbled by. We made it to the car and crawled in the back together and locked the car doors with a big whack. We were all giggly and feeling fan-fucking-fabulously adult and irresponsible. We curled up on the back seat—our own personal haven in New York City for the night—and the two of us just laid there, snuggled and quiet for a very long time. I was pretty lightheaded and watched the roof of the car slowly spinning around. After a while, I closed my eyes and said, “Good night, Adry,” and I felt her kiss my hair. And . . . well, you’re a big boy.

  I have no clue what time it was, but there was a rap on the side window of the car. I opened my eyes. There was a little daylight in the garage, and the ticket guy from the front was glaring down at us. He waved his wristwatch at us and gave us the pointy-thumb sign to get the fuck out of there. I guess his shift was over, and he must have been keeping an eye on our car all night, to make sure we didn’t get robbed or raped or killed or all of the above. He was a skeleton of a guy with like two teeth in his mouth—the scariest thing I saw in New York—but he was alright.

  As everybody knows, Adry was accepted at Juilliard, and she went there for a while. I drove her in and helped her carry her stuff and get set up in her student housing place—it was a room in part of an old hotel or haunted house that Juilliard was renting out or some weird New York arrangement like that. I had to turn right around, because I didn’t go to college, and I was working nights at the Denny’s. But I ended up keeping my aunt Connie’s Datsun—I never returned it to her, so she gave it to me, you could say. So I was able to drive in and visit Adry sometimes.

  Brenda Magnoli-Schuschert (Dean of Student Life, Juilliard):

  I joined the Juilliard administration in the academic year of 1982–83 as an Assistant Dean, and I was promoted five years later, in ’87–88, to Associate Dean of Student Affairs. It was a new position, of my own initiation, and from there, in ’90–91, I was appointed the first Dean of Student Life at the Juilliard School. Historically, before I came to Juilliard, the policy was to address considerations of student life as the need arose. In the absence of student life as we would recognize it, the need was never deemed to arise.

  Speaking historically, once again, the Juilliard experience was a fairly solitary one. Students were expected to dedicate themselves entirely to the music. They were required to practice their instruments, and beyond that, to be breathing. For the administration of the school—and by extension, for the young musicians at the institution they were administering—student life was conceived as the fact that the students were alive, and that was all the school required of them. That and practice. A great deal of practice. Long, long, lonely hours of practice.

  Having arrived when I did, I never had the privilege to know Adrianne Geffel in the brief time she was a student here. However, I did get to meet her once, after a concert she gave for the benefit of the New Music Society of America, at the 92nd Street Y. This was 1981. She had become quite the phenomenon by then. There was a reception, and a large crowd was gathered around her. I waited my turn to pay my respects—I introduced myself as a dean at her near–alma mater and told her how much I enjoyed the concert. I made a friendly quip about not understanding it but finding it fascinating. There were so many people talking around us that she must not have heard me, because she didn’t respond.

  F. Dieter Wundt (piano instructor, Juilliard):

  Of course I remember Adrianne Geffel. She was an unusual case. I provided her individual piano instruction when she was a first-year student at Juilliard.

  My ideas on the pedagogy of piano performance are well established. I refer you to my many books on the topic. I recommend you begin with the first volume in my series, Muscle Unbound: Toward a Physiology of the Mechanics of Keyboard Technique, Vols. 1–7. I would imagine that for your purposes as an interviewer of musicians, a familiarity with the first several volumes would suffice.

  As I note in each of my books, piano technique is a mechanical science. My work builds upon and improves greatly upon the ideas of the fledgling theorist of musical science, Otto Ortmann, who taught that the laws of mechanics—action and reaction, equilibrium of forces, dependence of a force upon mass, and the acceleration laws of the lever—apply to physiological motion as well as to mechanical motion in general. The human body is a machine, much like the piano itself. However, as I have pointed out in my work, the piano is not a human body. It need not be caressed, fondled, provided affection. As a machine, the piano is in every way superior to a man—or, for that matter, a woman. For a musician in performance, working in competition with the instrument, intimidation is inevitable.

  Musical notation is nothing more than data to be translated into sound by the transfer of mechanical energy from one machine, the human body, to another, the piano. I require of my students to process the data before them in the form of a musical score with the unerring precision and unyielding indifference of a machine. To do this successfully, the musician needs to repress all human emotion and adhere to the purely mechanical task of playing the notes. When Adrianne Geffel read music, she was able to do this sufficiently well for a short duration. I observed her with great satisfaction as she would open the score, shake her head clear, and attempt to shut down emotionally. She had the capacity to play every note correctly, wonderfully devoid of feeling, for a brief period. Unfortunately, she would inevitably lapse and give in to her emotions. She would soon begin to play material not on the page, at which point I would cut the lesson short. This occurred fairly often, as a matter of fact. She withdrew from my class after a small number of sessions.

  Andres Appelbaum (Juilliard classmate):

  Didn’t know her well, to be honest. Wish I did! Nice, pretty, quiet. Adrianne Geffel—the mystery girl. None of us heard her music till the First-Year Recital, so we had no idea who she was, really. She was just this mystery girl.

  I asked her out once, kind of. I thought it was a date. Not sure she agreed. Outdoor concert in the bandshell at Lincoln Center, across the street from school. The Sylvan Wind Quintet, playing Stamitz and Dahl. I knew it would be fun. We met there, concert started—casual atmosphere, outdoors, warm night. We’re chatting between the selections. And . . . she’s staring at my lips when I’m talking to her. I’m thinking, Oh, wow—this girl really likes me. She’s checking out my mouth! Oh, wow . . . We’re watching the concert, and she pulls her hair back for a second and scratches her ear, and I see that she’s wearing earplugs and probably can’t hear a note of the music. She’s reading my lips, just to figure out what I’m saying to her. And that was my big date with her—Adrianne Geffel, the mystery girl.

  Biran Zervakis (Juilliard classmate):

  I want to say something first, before you ask me anything. I need to make something completely clear. My relationship with Adry, however you’d define it—and who can truly define a relationship between two people, or any number of people?—it was . . . [Zervakis pauses to drink from a bottle of water.] I can’t put it in words. Words cannot describe it. It was something that happens just once in a lifetime, for those who are lucky enough to live the lifetime I’ve had. Adry and I were . . . us. Whatever that was, whatever words you would choose to use to describe that thing, those words would be inadequate. I just want to make that clear.

  This is for a real book, right? Not just a school project? Nothing against school—I had the great gift of meeting the magnificent Adry in a school, when we were both young students at Juilliard. I just want to know if this is for a master’s thesis or a dissertation that two old professors will glance over to keep their tenure before the thing is filed away in the baseme
nt of a library—I just want to know, because my time is valuable.

  [Zervakis is assured that the interview is being conducted for a book for prospective publication.]

  Alright—just a note, since this is going to be printed: My first name—it’s pronounced “Byron,” like Lord Byron, but it’s spelled . . . and be sure to get this right—write it down . . . [Zervakis stops talking until the interviewer has a pencil in hand to write.] B-I-R-A-N—Biran. Not Brian, for God’s sake—Brian’s just my legal name. [Zervakis takes a deep breath and has another drink of water.]

  Adry and I . . . Adry and I . . . I have to say that again—I so love the sound of it. Adry and I . . . first met in the hallowed halls of the Juilliard School. Adry was studying piano, by the way, and I had recently begun to study the cello, with the kind encouragement of my maternal grandmother, who knew about the instrument from being on the Board of Directors at Lincoln Center. I would watch Adry reading in the lounge or walking between classes. I loved the way her headphones bobbed back and forth when she moved. Whenever I would see her heading toward the piano practice rooms, I would follow her there, and while she was playing, I would watch from behind her back through the little window on the door. I could feel the connection between us for months before we ever spoke.

  The two of us would talk at school sometimes, of course, though we didn’t need to say much or have the occasion to. After a while, when we passed each other, I would say “Hi,” and she would answer in exactly the same way. There was something there that was so special that it would have been virtually undetectable to anyone, even to Adry herself.

  Ruth Sirotta LeMat:

  Pierson [LeMat’s late husband] took Adrianne Geffel on as a piano student in the second or third month of the fall term. She had been with Dieter Wundt, and that was a failed endeavor. Dieter’s approach to piano technique was terribly limited. Practically all he cared about was muscles, whereas Pierson was concerned not only with the muscular system, but with skeletal structure, as well. He was thought of as broad-minded.

  Pierson gave his lessons in our apartment. As a result, I had the opportunity to meet Adrianne Geffel and observe her at the piano. I got to know her very well over time. If I was home during the lesson, I always offered Pierson’s students a cold drink and something sweet. Adrianne and I sat together in the dinette, and we talked. I liked her very much. She always had a book with her, whatever she just happened to be reading. She had an active inner life—some would say overly active, especially when she was making music. I didn’t see her that way.

  In the spring term, Pierson was guiding Adrianne in preparation for the First-Year Recital, in May. If memory serves, Adrianne was working up Beethoven’s “Fifteen Variations and Fugue in E-flat major, Op. 35.” Adrianne liked to play a couple of pages of the piece, then take a break and improvise. This was highly unorthodox. It frustrated Pierson to no end. One day I told him, “Pierson, darling—what’s the harm? Let the girl blow off her steam. Besides, her improvisations are remarkable—and don’t forget, Beethoven also like to improvise.” He consented to permit her to work this way. In time, I believe, he grew to look forward to hearing the improvisations. I surely did.

  As she progressed in her preparation for the recital, I knew she was getting anxious. The last day she was in our house, I gave her a drink and a piece of pound cake. She poked at the cake with her fork, and she said, “Mrs. LeMat, can I tell you something?”

  I said, “Of course, Adrianne. What is it?”

  She said, “When I play the fifteen variations, I hear another hundred in my head.”

  I said, “Play them, Adrianne—play them.” And she took a huge bite of pound cake and devoured it.

  Barbara Lucher:

  Next question. I don’t want to talk about that [Geffel’s First-Year Recital]. I wasn’t there. I couldn’t make it. I wanted to go. I planned to go and told Adry I would be there. Then, the very fucking same fucking day, my loser-ass father takes it upon himself to give his sister Connie my car. Yeah, yeah—it used to be her car, but now it was my car. She never asked for it back, as far as I know. If she asked him for it, I didn’t know anything about that. How could I be expected to know that? I didn’t wiretap his fucking phone.

  And now, at the last minute, I have no way to get to New York for Adry’s recital. I left a message for her at the school. That’s all I could do, and I really don’t want to talk about this. It was the first time I ever let Adry down.

  Biran Zervakis:

  The recital is etched forever in my memory. You can put that down in those exact words—I like that. I chose to play an excerpt from the Brahms Sonata for Cello and Piano in F major, Op. 99, because I knew it would be excellent for Adry and I to do as a duet. She would have done it with me and it would have been beautiful in every way, for sure, if I had asked her. It was a shame I was obliged to play it with one of my teachers, Paul Andrade, at the piano, because he insisted on trying to help me.

  Everyone in the recital was told to meet backstage [in the Juilliard Theater] beforehand. Adry hadn’t arrived yet, and one of the teachers called out, “Adrianne Geffel? I have a telephone message for Adrianne Geffel.” Wanting to be helpful, I said, “I can take that. I’m her friend. I’ll give it to her.”

  Adry showed up right before the start time and took a seat. I went up to her and said, “The school got a phone message for you. Here it is.”

  This piqued Adry’s curiosity about me. I handed her the message, and as she unfolded the paper, she said, “Do I know you?”

  I glanced over the note as she read it, and she crumpled it up and threw it on the floor.

  One by one, each of us was called to go onstage and play our piece. The order was alphabetical, which made this the one time in my life when I was happy to be a Zervakis. I never got to go on at all. Adry went out when it was time for the G’s, as you would expect. I was watching from the side of the stage as she walked over to the piano, very quickly. She dropped her music down, flat on the lid of the piano instead of opening it up on the rack—just plopped it down, sat on the piano bench and started to play.

  She was pretty fired up. I’m not sure what she was playing, but it wasn’t Brahms. It was like nothing I ever heard. Weird music—fantastic . . . but weeeeird. The teachers and parents in the theater started muttering to each other, and the rest of the students backstage were gathering around me to watch from the wings.

  It didn’t take long for Mr. Wundt to march out to the piano. He smiled a ridiculous plastic smile, glared at Adry like he was trying to burn her with his heat-ray vision, and he propped her music up neatly and opened it up. He bowed at the audience, gave Adry another heat-ray-vision glare, and went offstage, walking sideways so he could keep staring at her. Adry never stopped playing the whole time. She just watched Mr. Wundt go through his routine, and she played what she wanted to play.

  A bunch of people in the audience applauded when Wundt walked offstage. For a minute, I didn’t know if they were clapping for what he did or the fact that he was gone. But it was clear soon enough that a lot of the people—all of the students, definitely—were loving Adry. There were “ooh” and “aaah” sounds, and not another sound in the hall other than Adry’s wild music, which just kept getting wilder. Somebody in the Juilliard administration got to the light board and started flicking the stage lights on and off, and that sent Adry off on a tear, playing crazier than ever. People in the audience were clapping for her while she was playing, and that was egging her on. She was bobbing and swaying at the piano, throwing her head back and spinning her hair around as she played. People kept clapping. Finally, somebody in the Juilliard brass had enough, and the stage went black.

  People kept applauding and applauding, but Adry wasn’t playing anymore. The lights came back up, and she was slumped over the piano, unconscious.

  CHAPTER 4

  Psychosynesthesia

  (1978)

  Carolyn Geffel:

  I never dreamed that my first tr
ip to New York City would be to see my own daughter in the hospital. I had numerous opportunities to see the Big Apple over the years before that day—they just never panned out. The class of 1954 in our school made a big end-of-the-year trip to New York and saw a Broadway show and went to one of the museums, everything. It was Pajama Game, which I eventually saw when they made the movie and absolutely adored. I love movie musicals, even when they’re on the stage. I’ve often wondered how different things would be if Adry had gone into that type of music instead of whatever term you would use for what she used to do and, I say, could very well still be doing today. But I was in the class of ’55, and we didn’t go to New York that year. I think we went to Hershey Park. I can’t remember. It’s not important.

  We got the phone call from the Juilliard School that Adry had been brought to the hospital, which was not a call I was expecting. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a daughter at Juilliard who was suddenly hospitalized, but this was the first time for me, and it was frightening. We turned the business over to Donny for the day and headed for New York. It was nearly closing time, anyway—how much damage could he do? Greg did the driving, and I navigated. I have no problem driving, even on the highway, but we were in a hurry, and if we got pulled over for speeding, Greg is a smoother talker. That’s why he excels at the sales in our business, and I take care of the books or, if we’re in the car like we were that time, the maps.

 

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