My
mother dragged me to my first string quartet session when I was in
junior high. I was mortified, of course. I knew with the certainty of
a 14-year-old that if my mother wanted me to do this, it had to be
totally uncool.
Despite my protests, I found myself one Saturday afternoon in the Veblens' living room, holding my cello and eyeing Helen Veblen, a haughty 15-year-old violinist, with mistrust. Another violinist showed up and then a violist. I sensed that none of them wanted to be there any more than I did. Then Helen's mother set a Haydn quartet in front of us. With no possibility of escape, we played.
How we managed, I'm not quite sure. I don't think any of us had any great skill with our instruments. But when the mothers came to pick us up several hours later, we returned to our awkward adolescent selves with a shock. We had been transported, separately and together, to another world, one of emotion and expression, delight and transcendence. The four of us had danced and sung, fought, lost and won. "Can we play again next Saturday?" I managed to get out. I was in love, totally and forever.
I'd been playing the cello since I was 8, but before chamber music, I hadn't guessed what music was actually for. Now everything was different. For one thing, I discovered that playing the cello felt physically wonderful. You rest the instrument against your chest, just above your heart. From there, it transmits its vibrations directly to the center of your body--almost into your soul. Just to draw notes out of a cello gave me pleasure. But to play with two or three other people, approaching some of the most beautiful works of art ever made--well, I didn't know that much about sex in those days, but I did sense that this was probably one of the top two things you could do with your body.
All through high school, I played chamber music whenever I could. My cello had an old-fashioned wooden case that reminded me of Queequeg's coffin in the old movie of Moby-Dick, and now that I think about it, I clung to it like Ishmael. Then I took it with me to Swarthmore, where I found some kindred souls and formed a string quartet.
Sometime toward the end of our freshman year, we decided to give a concert. Big mistake! We were reviewed in The Phoenix. Crushingly. I can't recall now exactly what the review said--I think it touched on poor phrasing, lack of musicality, and bad intonation--but it was awful, and it killed our quartet. We were too embarrassed ever to play together again. I felt I had flunked out of paradise--clearly, I didn't deserve a place in this other world. I put my cello away and decided I'd just have to live with reality because I had been found unworthy of transcendence and joy.
It's tough for me to admit to having been so vulnerable that a single review could destroy five years of passion. Perhaps there was more to it. Like everyone else, I was busy. I had to study, and then I had to earn a living. For my first 10 years of adult life, I lived in Europe, traveled a lot, and kept all thoughts of chamber music out of my mind. Then I got married and returned to the States. I thought vaguely that I might take out my cello again, but my husband put up bitter opposition. It appeared that he disliked classical music and couldn't bear the very sound of a stringed instrument! I hadn't the will to persevere. I sometimes attended concerts and caught a breath from the other world, but I never, ever entered that world myself.
Ten more years went by. The marriage ended. In the brief period of clarity that follows a major upheaval, I somehow managed to grasp how much I needed to get back to chamber music. My cello was still there (my mother had kept it), but when I tried to play it, I got a major shock. Instead of the thrilling sounds it used to make, I could only get it to creak or groan.
What
had happened was that it had gone dead. This is actually the term
that is used for what happens when an instrument isn't played for too
long a time. The varnish is designed to be constantly caressed by the
vibrations of playing. In their absence, the varnish grows stiff, and
the sound almost disappears. I held the cello against my heart, and
both of us felt as stiff as old leather. Experts told me that the
only cure was playing. My cello might or might not come back to life;
all I could do was try. So I played, by myself, gently, fearfully,
sometimes in tears, but with growing determination to find some way
back to the other world. Little by little, its sound began to
return.
One day, a friend happened to mention something called the Humboldt Chamber Music Workshop. It seemed that every summer a group of people gathered for a week at Humboldt State University in northern California and played chamber music from early morning to late at night. It sounded like heaven, but did I dare? Was I good enough? Would they accept me? Was my cello ready? Were there reviews? Well, never mind all that. I decided to go.
Once there, I knew from the first hour--no, from the first minute--that I had come to the right place. If my adolescent awkwardness had been transformed by music, now my adult problems--the divorce and all the challenges of starting again--faded. They were there, but so what? This was where I belonged! Reality might wait at the end of the piece--it's always there--but the door to the other world had cracked open, and a healing light was coming out.
There at the workshop, every day was like that first day in Helen Veblen's living room. You sit down with a few other people and some music. Your skill levels are whatever they are--of course, you always want them to be better, but it turned out not to be so overwhelmingly important after all. When you're playing, you hear what's on the page, or on your favorite recording, or in your head. You don't experience your performance itself--you experience the music, directly and from the inside.
Listeners, conversely, hear what you actually play--which is why chamber music should be a participatory sport, not a spectator one. So I finally could put the review in perspective. What difference did it make what someone outside the group thought? We were playing for ourselves. We should have just skipped the concerts.
During my fourth summer at the workshop, I found myself one day playing Beethoven's Opus 95 quartet with a violinist named Ralph Morrison. I admired his playing but found him personally a bit intimidating. However, it became apparent that he was more than a little taken with me. After our morning session, he followed me to lunch. After our afternoon session, he stayed on, making earnest conversation while I practiced my part. I felt annoyed. I was in the middle of my favorite week of the year. I didn't want it to be about him--I wanted it to be about the music and about me.
But after I got home, what remained with me about him was how beautifully he'd played the Beethoven. So when he called and asked to see me again, I agreed. On our first date, we went to the home of another couple and played quartets. It was the best date I'd ever been on. Later, at our wedding, we walked in to the slow movement of Beethoven's Opus 18, No. 6. At the reception, I took out my totally reborn cello, and we played Haydn's Opus 20, No. 5 for our guests. He did make it a condition of the marriage that I learn all the late Beethoven quartets, which he lives for, but this was a prenuptial agreement I felt I could agree to.
Now we live in Eureka, Calif., quite near Humboldt State, and attend the workshop together each summer. We might look like a normal North Coast couple, but we're not. We actually live in the other world! Do we have all the usual problems of life at the end of the 20th century? Sure. Do we wait in line at the grocery store and worry about the cost of health insurance? Yes. Have we found a way to enter paradise every Tuesday and Thursday evening and all day for a week each summer? Absolutely yes to that, too!
Editor's Note: In My Life features first-person essays. Readers interested in submitting an essay for consideration should first write for editorial guidelines. Address: Editor, Swarthmore College Bulletin, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA 19081-1397, or e-mail bulletin@swarthmore.edu.
All rights reserved. Swarthmore College 1999