Rainy Day Anniversary

Yesterday, a rainy day, was the 42nd anniversary of my father's death. Today, another rainy day, I don't much feel like writing about what's going on outside, so I'll write about something that my 92-year-old mother recently told me about my father.

Our memories of him, as his life and death recede in time, are growing fewer, and the ones that remain tend to take on a sort of oracular tint. But my father was no oracle. He was a man. Or, I should say, he was a musician. He would have wanted that to come first, I think.

A few months before he died, the local symphony put on the first performance of his Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer, been told in the heartless way of that era that there was nothing, nothing at all that could be done for him. I attended the performance--in a miniskirt so short that I had to spread the program over my lap when I sat down--with my brand-new husband. I don't remember anything about the music. I just remember, despite the miniskirt and the new husband, the crushing, constant awareness that my 53-year-old father had been sentenced to die.

Here is what my mother remembers. As they were getting dressed for the concert--his dark suit already hanging loose on his thin shoulders--she asked him if he was nervous.

"Why should I be nervous?" he said.

"What if they don't like the piece?" she said.

"That would be too bad," my father answered. "But they could never take away the pleasure I had in composing it."

That, I like to think, was my father all over. He played his violin, he composed his music (always, alas, with a cigarette nearby), and if people liked it he was pleased, but that probably accounted for no more than three per cent of the reason he did it. Did he look ahead? Did he scheme for ways to promote himself, to get attention? According to my mother, despite her best efforts, this aspect of the artist's life never interested him in the slightest. And because after all he supported us with his music, she couldn't really complain.

These days, my father's entire opus has been published by a Barcelona firm. His music is being performed in Spain and other countries. A number of recordings have been made. The Spanish press wants to know more about his life.

I can imagine what it would have been like if he'd been around for all this. He would have said "Life is good!" and smiled. Then he would have gone to the piano, spread his long, tobacco-stained fingers over the keys, and started work on the next piece.

Five Memories Of My Father

1. The feel of his mustache on my neck.

2. His gray hat and his winter coat, which made his head and shoulders look gigantic.

3. Sitting on his lap and being accidentally burned by ashes from his omnipresent cigarette (he would apologize profusely).

4. In the summer, sitting on a little seat on the back of his bicycle and going for a ride on country roads.

5. Being allowed to make one pizzicato on his violin.

Happy solstice to all!

Words That Stayed With Me

I was eleven years old and about to step on the stage to play a solo violin arrangement of Schubert's Overture to Rosamunde in a recital of my father's students.

My father, who was also my teacher, tuned my strings (I was not advanced enough to do it myself). Then he handed me the violin and said, “serenity, intonation, and a beautiful sound.” And with that he sent me on stage, where I acquitted myself honorably.

Now, a lifetime later and my father long dead, I am revisiting those words, and it occurs to me that they apply to a lot more than to the performance of a student recital piece. In fact, they sound like good advice for how to live my life.

First you have to have Serenity, the clean slate without which nothing good is possible. Next comes Intonation, which means, get it right, be accurate. Then, once you've made yourself calm and gotten the basics right, you strive for A Beautiful Sound. That is the thing that cannot be taught, the mysterious gift of the Muse, made of feeling and talent and luck .

I find that I can apply my father's three precepts to everything from writing to dog training. If I intend to write something, first I have to get calm and clear my mind. (Often, attaining serenity before a writing session means taking a short nap.) As I write, I try to make sure that I get the “intonation” right—not just syntax and spelling, but logic and the flow of ideas. A false note here can cost me a reader's attention. And then comes the Beautiful Sound part--what the cellist Pau Casals used to call “putting in the rainbow”--the part that you never know about in advance, but that you hope with all your heart will somehow happen.

If I am about to train Wolfie, the first part, serenity, is really important. If I am not serene, he won't be either, and the session will be a disaster. I have trouble with serenity when I work Wolfie, because I want too much to succeed, and quickly. I have less difficulty with intonation—stuff like giving clear commands and instant praise. If I get all this right, then on a good day Wolfie and I get to the Beautiful Sound part, where he watches and attends to me and enjoys the challenges I set for him, and I watch and attend to him and manage, for a little while, to speak fluent Dog.

In retrospect, I can empathize with my father at that long-ago recital. He must have felt a measure of anxiety if not compassion on my behalf. And in that last moment before I went in front of the audience he managed to distill into those simple words all his wisdom as an artist, which was also his wisdom as a man.