On the way back to Santiago from two weeks in the south of Chile, we stopped in Chillan and were met by the Principal of a Seventh Day Adventist school, who drove us to the school campus near the base of the Andes. We stayed for two days, and played our main recital program for the whole school. I remember they had to move the piano, which was an upright, putting it on the back of a truck, with me riding in the cab. It was a rocky journey, but several strong lads were holding it. I remember the Director's wife saying they had just done Handel's "Messiah", noting that it was an
arrangement for three solo treble voices, chorus plus violin and piano. That impressed me no end. The morning we lett was a Saturday, so the Director was in prayer and unable to be with us. The wife prepared a nice breakfast, and somehow I remember her saying that the local Indian population, which wasn't interested in their religion, were all waiting for the "Great Earthquake". I guess I am still figuring that comment out.
Back in Santiago we had a few days to regroup, and prepare to travel to the extreme north of Chile, right into the Attacama Desert, perhaps the driest on earth. This leg was done by bus, and they turned out to be quite nice, with an atendant to serve tea and coffee, and snacks. I remember a rest stop along the way, where there was a water pump, quite in the middle of nowhere. There was a small flower blooming beautifully, and beside it a sign saying "Dame Agua"....which apparently everyone did.
We arrived in La Serena, a beautiful small town, and were met by Jorge Pena-Hen, the director of the orchestra at a big school for orphans. He had started this orchestra some years before, and this is now felt to be the real begining of what is called El Sistema, the movement made famous by the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra in Venezuela. He had already taken the orchestra to Cuba, so he was leaning heavily towards the Socialist Front. I remember Patricio Cobos remarking that some of the money was coming from the Red Chinese, who were very prevelent in certain areas of South America. I spent a few hours with Mrs. Pena-Hen, a wonderful pianist, and we played for each other. I remember being struck by the beauty of the piano music of Humberto Allende, Chile's great composer. His music remeinded me of Albeniz and Granados,and in fact Debussy was one of his great admirers.
The sad conclusion to this story is that a few years later,
after the assassination of President Allende,and the take over of General Pinochet, the so called Death Caravan wove its way around Chile, and Pena-Hen was murdered and his body dumped along a road just outside La Serena. I often wonder what became of his wife. I only found this out a couple of years ago when reading the European Piano Teachers Journal, the author of the article having been in Chile during the same years I visited. It took me a long time to digest all this, but it puts in focus the fact that we never know so much in life until long after the fact. Judy Woodruff of NPR News did a documentary of this period in Chile, Judy being In Chile during this time.
We played out last concerts in Vina del Mar, the great resort town on the Pacific, close to Santiago. After the concert there, a very lovely lady invited me to return
if possible and play a solo recital for them. I did this two weeks later, and was excited to find a review of it in Chile's leading newspaper a few days later. This was a great turning point in my career, and led to over 150 solo concerts in the years ahead for the United States Information Service. Isn't it remarkable how things happen in life.
I left Chile with deep memories, and often I see pictures in my mind's eye. One that I often reflect on is traveling in the south of Chile on a cold day, by a very old bus. Suddenly I saw a man on horseback,with a second horse next to him waiting on a small rise by the side of the road. The bus stopped, after hours of travel, and a man got off with his suitcase and mounted the second horse and they rode off into the gloom. It made me realize the vast size of this country and the huge areas of very small population. A romantic scene....worthy of a song!
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Friday, November 16, 2012
South American Memories...1971
Chile in Revolt...Winter 1971 in Chile
Writing about this part of my life forty some years after the fact has it's own inherent perils and failing memories. But the fact remains, much remains vivid and thought provoking. I made this first tour of Chile when Patricio Cobos called me from Wintrop College to say his accompanist, pianist Jess Casey, would not be able to make the tour. He asked if I could possibly leave in two weeks time and also, if I felt comfortable about his repertoire demands. It was the end of term in Columbia, and I knew I wanted to go terribly. We met soon after and went through two of the larger works which I recall the Brahms Sonata in A Major for violin and Piano was one. In those days I had a large repertoire of music for strings, and almost as large for winds. A few shorter works were familiar, and there was also a mandantory work by an American composer, which I do not recall.
There was a rather humorous twist in that Patricio had just gotten married, and his bride would be accompanying us on our tour of 12 cities, lasting about a month. She was a lovely tall American beauty, and Patricio was barely up to my shoulder, and I was 5'11" in those days. Of course, everyone thought the bride was mine, and just who was this Chilean violinist tagging along. We had our share of humorous adventures to say the least.
Pat had arranged for me to stay in Santiago with his Aunt Clara and her family, and they lived near the center of town in a large apartment above a furniture store. That gave me the opportunity to get to know some locals, and also to rest up between segments of concerts. As we were playing for the United States Information Service, we made our base at the Centro Americano, where the main attraction was a large library and classes for teaching English. There was also a very nice Steinway in a small auditorium, and we practiced a great deal when we got there so as to make a team out of ourselves. After about a week we were ready to set off to the northern part of Chiles, that long narrow country that is as long as America is wide. We would be traveling by train and bus. Two days before we were to leave we were told that newly elected President Salvatore Allende would be touring the north as well, leaving the same day as we had planned. The American Embassy said we must go SOUTH instead....so in the space of two days the whole affair was turned around, and we indeed DID go south. This made me discover the fact that my sponsors were not fazed in the slightest, changing all sorts of concert arrangement for this long tour. Latins seem to like this kind of spontainiety, as evidently it happens all the time.
What is most important about this particular time in Chile was the fact, that after years of rule by the Social Democrats, Chile had elected a Socialist Party candidate, Salvatore Allende, as President. The country was virtually in an uproar, and the Socialist's drive to take land from large estate owners and parcel it out to poorer
people was having a chaotic effect, to say the least.
We played our first concert at the Centro, and a large audience attended. We had an
excellent review in the main newspaper, except I was puzzled by the comment that my
ornaments in the Mozart were "unusual". I never figured that out! We left by the night
train for Conceptcion, and I remember I couldn't sleep because the tracks were old and there was a clicking sound every few seconds where the ralls didn't quite connect! Pat made us go to the restroom and collect a share of toilet paper, saying it would mysteriously disappear. I guess there was a shortage along the line, so to speak!
Chillan is famous as the hometown of the great Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau. In fact, when we visited the marketplace I could hear him playing the Appasionata over the radio in one of the stalls. He was a hero, as he had come home after one of the worst earthquakes and played benefit concerts all over. I learned this from our piano tuner, who had accompanied Arrau on his tours in Chile. When we were leaving the following day, a man came to the train before it left and asked if we could come to his school some miles to the east near the base of the Andes. He said they didn't get much classical music, and the whole school would turn out. We accepted, and made plans to go there on our return in two weeks.
As we headed to the extreme south of Chile, we followed the Bio-Bio River for miles, and it was in flood stage, and often seemed like a vast lake. Temuco was Pat's hometown, and we had two concerts to play there. I remember the hall had no heat, and we played with a small heater at our backs. Afterward the last concert there was a banquet in a local hotel, and I remember the desert was called "Volcano" as it was the shape of one, and the top was filled with brandy sugur cubes, which ignited into a glorious plume of fire! Inside there was ice cream...so it was a kind of Baked Alaska, Chilean style. I was having to adjust to very late nights, Latin style, and soon learned the value of the siesta!
Our tour took us ts Valdivia, as far south as we could go without being much more
adventurous and heading into the mountains and glaciers of Chile Austral, where
Puntas Arenus is the most southern city in the world. That was not to be, but it
was the big regret of this trip. Valdivia was built along a river, and farmers brought boats with vegetables and fruits right into the heart of the city. We played for the
Goethe Society, as their is a huge German population in this area. Suddenly there seemed to be a lot of blondes of both sexes. We were entertained royaly, and I remember the beautiful hotel where we stayed, with the huge dining room with windows looking over the river.
Heading north again, we stopped in Concepcion, which is the home of one of Chile's great universities. Little did we realize that it was also a center of revolution, not the safest atmosphere during these turbulent days. Pat was to play with the school orchestra, but we received word that student unrest might lead to a demonstartion against visiting Americans. The concert was delayed one day, and took place quietly in the early evening. The orchestra was wonderful and Pat played two works of Saint-Saens.
A footnote to this is that, unknown to me, the composer Luigi Nono was in Chile at this time. He was associated with Stockhausen and Brono Maderna, leaders of the Darnstadt Group in Germany, but soon to establish his own studio in Freiburg. Patricio and I returned to Chile the next year, and again went to Concepcion. During that summer (winter there) a young leader of the Chilean Rovolutionary Front named Luciano Cruz was murdered under mysterious circumstances. Nono was deavastated at the news, and wrote one of his great masterpieces.. "Como una ola fuerza y luz" in memory of him. Just last summer 2011 I went to the Salzburg Festival to hear Luigi Nono's greatest work, "Prometeo", performed in the huge Collegiate Church. A massive work that takes two orchestras, several smaller orchestral choirs, two choruses, and two conductors...it is a work revered in Europe, but little known in the USA, where it still awaits a performance. I find such co-incidences thrilling in my life, even if it takes years for it all to clarify. There is much more to this story...and I will take up my pen again soon.
Writing about this part of my life forty some years after the fact has it's own inherent perils and failing memories. But the fact remains, much remains vivid and thought provoking. I made this first tour of Chile when Patricio Cobos called me from Wintrop College to say his accompanist, pianist Jess Casey, would not be able to make the tour. He asked if I could possibly leave in two weeks time and also, if I felt comfortable about his repertoire demands. It was the end of term in Columbia, and I knew I wanted to go terribly. We met soon after and went through two of the larger works which I recall the Brahms Sonata in A Major for violin and Piano was one. In those days I had a large repertoire of music for strings, and almost as large for winds. A few shorter works were familiar, and there was also a mandantory work by an American composer, which I do not recall.
There was a rather humorous twist in that Patricio had just gotten married, and his bride would be accompanying us on our tour of 12 cities, lasting about a month. She was a lovely tall American beauty, and Patricio was barely up to my shoulder, and I was 5'11" in those days. Of course, everyone thought the bride was mine, and just who was this Chilean violinist tagging along. We had our share of humorous adventures to say the least.
Pat had arranged for me to stay in Santiago with his Aunt Clara and her family, and they lived near the center of town in a large apartment above a furniture store. That gave me the opportunity to get to know some locals, and also to rest up between segments of concerts. As we were playing for the United States Information Service, we made our base at the Centro Americano, where the main attraction was a large library and classes for teaching English. There was also a very nice Steinway in a small auditorium, and we practiced a great deal when we got there so as to make a team out of ourselves. After about a week we were ready to set off to the northern part of Chiles, that long narrow country that is as long as America is wide. We would be traveling by train and bus. Two days before we were to leave we were told that newly elected President Salvatore Allende would be touring the north as well, leaving the same day as we had planned. The American Embassy said we must go SOUTH instead....so in the space of two days the whole affair was turned around, and we indeed DID go south. This made me discover the fact that my sponsors were not fazed in the slightest, changing all sorts of concert arrangement for this long tour. Latins seem to like this kind of spontainiety, as evidently it happens all the time.
What is most important about this particular time in Chile was the fact, that after years of rule by the Social Democrats, Chile had elected a Socialist Party candidate, Salvatore Allende, as President. The country was virtually in an uproar, and the Socialist's drive to take land from large estate owners and parcel it out to poorer
people was having a chaotic effect, to say the least.
We played our first concert at the Centro, and a large audience attended. We had an
excellent review in the main newspaper, except I was puzzled by the comment that my
ornaments in the Mozart were "unusual". I never figured that out! We left by the night
train for Conceptcion, and I remember I couldn't sleep because the tracks were old and there was a clicking sound every few seconds where the ralls didn't quite connect! Pat made us go to the restroom and collect a share of toilet paper, saying it would mysteriously disappear. I guess there was a shortage along the line, so to speak!
Chillan is famous as the hometown of the great Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau. In fact, when we visited the marketplace I could hear him playing the Appasionata over the radio in one of the stalls. He was a hero, as he had come home after one of the worst earthquakes and played benefit concerts all over. I learned this from our piano tuner, who had accompanied Arrau on his tours in Chile. When we were leaving the following day, a man came to the train before it left and asked if we could come to his school some miles to the east near the base of the Andes. He said they didn't get much classical music, and the whole school would turn out. We accepted, and made plans to go there on our return in two weeks.
As we headed to the extreme south of Chile, we followed the Bio-Bio River for miles, and it was in flood stage, and often seemed like a vast lake. Temuco was Pat's hometown, and we had two concerts to play there. I remember the hall had no heat, and we played with a small heater at our backs. Afterward the last concert there was a banquet in a local hotel, and I remember the desert was called "Volcano" as it was the shape of one, and the top was filled with brandy sugur cubes, which ignited into a glorious plume of fire! Inside there was ice cream...so it was a kind of Baked Alaska, Chilean style. I was having to adjust to very late nights, Latin style, and soon learned the value of the siesta!
Our tour took us ts Valdivia, as far south as we could go without being much more
adventurous and heading into the mountains and glaciers of Chile Austral, where
Puntas Arenus is the most southern city in the world. That was not to be, but it
was the big regret of this trip. Valdivia was built along a river, and farmers brought boats with vegetables and fruits right into the heart of the city. We played for the
Goethe Society, as their is a huge German population in this area. Suddenly there seemed to be a lot of blondes of both sexes. We were entertained royaly, and I remember the beautiful hotel where we stayed, with the huge dining room with windows looking over the river.
Heading north again, we stopped in Concepcion, which is the home of one of Chile's great universities. Little did we realize that it was also a center of revolution, not the safest atmosphere during these turbulent days. Pat was to play with the school orchestra, but we received word that student unrest might lead to a demonstartion against visiting Americans. The concert was delayed one day, and took place quietly in the early evening. The orchestra was wonderful and Pat played two works of Saint-Saens.
A footnote to this is that, unknown to me, the composer Luigi Nono was in Chile at this time. He was associated with Stockhausen and Brono Maderna, leaders of the Darnstadt Group in Germany, but soon to establish his own studio in Freiburg. Patricio and I returned to Chile the next year, and again went to Concepcion. During that summer (winter there) a young leader of the Chilean Rovolutionary Front named Luciano Cruz was murdered under mysterious circumstances. Nono was deavastated at the news, and wrote one of his great masterpieces.. "Como una ola fuerza y luz" in memory of him. Just last summer 2011 I went to the Salzburg Festival to hear Luigi Nono's greatest work, "Prometeo", performed in the huge Collegiate Church. A massive work that takes two orchestras, several smaller orchestral choirs, two choruses, and two conductors...it is a work revered in Europe, but little known in the USA, where it still awaits a performance. I find such co-incidences thrilling in my life, even if it takes years for it all to clarify. There is much more to this story...and I will take up my pen again soon.
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