Philippa Schuyler - Adventures in Black and White

N EW YORK IS A SOMBER CITY, one of perpetual turmoil.

Restless, striving, beautiful, impressive, dangerous, cruel, full of calumny and rivalry.

I did not realize its intense competitiveness when I was a child. Rather, I found wonder in each new discovery museums, concerts, theaters, books, and parks.

Only when I was thirteen did my parents show me my clippings, press releases, and inform me that I had a career for the past nine years.

Before then, I had played for enjoyment, without realization of the weighty importance of each concert. As soon as I knew, I felt a sense of responsibility about each appearance, which precluded enjoyment, and opened the door to anxieties and nervous apprehension.

I even felt anxious, at thirteen, when I heard the New York Philharmonic Young Peoples Orchestra, under the direction of Rudolph Ganz, give the first performance of my symphonic tone poem, Manhattan Nocturne.

Theyre playing it too slow! I thought, in anguish to myself at the rehearsal, and though this was remedied at the performance, I lived years of self-torture listening to each note. One can never enjoy hearing others play a work one has written, for one goes through in ones mind, as the music spins out, all the torments one underwent during the composition: the uncertainties, confusion, anger, months of revision, and hundreds of wee morning hours spent laboriously copying out scores and parts. My teacher, Otto Cesana, always insisted that I copy scores and parts of my orchestral works myself, so I would realize the significance of it.

Composition, to me, recalls a series of thousands of hours of copying out, replete with such horrifying moments as when one suddenly realizes one has just copied five pages of the Flute II part on Oboe I line, or forgot to transpose ten measures of the A Clarinet. Then out must come razor blade, glue, and scissors again.

On a fine July morning the following year, I arrived with my mother at the back entrance of Lewisohn Stadium for the one and only rehearsal I would have with Thor Johnson, the conductor, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for my orchestral debut that evening.

A worried stage manager met us and announced that no piano had been delivered from Steinway Hall. The Stadium Society, which had been in constant touch with us, had forgotten to order it, or to tell us to do so. He added that it was impossible now to order a piano because Steinway Hall was closed on Saturday, and besides, the unions did not permit Saturday deliveries.

We did find a small, battered piano in the wings, used by City College students for rallies, and it was rolled out for the rehearsal. Mr. Johnson and the men of the orchestra entered into the spirit of the adventure, and we optimistically went through my concerto. At the same time, my mother was making frantic telephone calls. Through mutual friends, she located Mr. Theodore Steinway just fifteen minutes before his departure for Europe. He graciously agreed to order his watchman at the store to have Rubensteins favorite instrument ready for the truck; but he said that his contract with the union did not allow him to request delivery.

Fortunately, my mother recalled that Mother Josephine Morgan, my first harmony teacher at Manhattanville College and Convent of the Sacred Heart (which was just across the street from the Stadium), had a family in the trucking business. She contacted Mother Morgan who promised to do her best.

The piano arrived just before concert time, too late for me to try it. The people were already cued up to buy tickets.

I stood trembling in the wings while the orchestra performed my scherzo, Rumpelstiltskin. Then I walked to the open piano, painfully aware that the Stadium was full. The Saint Saens Concerto in G Minor opens with a fateful, passionate series of arpeggios. Playing them, I forgot everything else.

Afterwards, Jean Tennyson, Gladys Swarthout, Carl Van Vechten, Deems Taylor and many others embraced me; and hundreds of young people walked me the short distance home. There was a party, but I was too stunned to enjoy it.

Next day, to my surprise, the reviews were glowing.

In 1953 and 1954, I gave Town Hall recitals, and in July 1955, reappeared at Lewisohn Stadium with Thomas Scherman conducting. Seven months later, I flew from Spain to New York to play with the Brooklyn Philharmonia under Siegfried Landau, in a Gershwin-Copland Festival. At Idlewild Airport, my practice keyboard, which I had carried everywhere, was stolen. However, I had a new one made in two sections which could fold up and was much easier to handle. That October, I gave my third Town Hall recital.

In June 1959, after a world tour, I made my Carnegie Hall recital debut. It was a benefit for the Church of the Master to help build a Youth Center on West 122nd Street, drawing a large, colorful, and international audience.

Among our sponsors were the United Nations ambassadors from Liberia, the Philippines, and Korea; the consuls of France, Belgium, Dominican Republic, and Haiti; members of United Nations delegations from Nationalist China, Ghana, Lebanon, Britain and Malaya.

Among the prominent New York sponsors were Colonel Archibald Roosevelt, Spruille Braden, Alfred Kohlberg, Reverend James Robinson, Dr. and Mrs. Max Yergan, Roy Cohn, Bishop R. Lawson, Monsignor Cornelius Drew, J. Raymond Jones, Roy Wilkins, Elmer Carter, Clarence Holte, the Richard E. Webbs, Lester Grangers, Edgar Hendersons, and George Meares; Doctors Vernon Ayer, J. B. Matthews, Leslie Allen, Cecil Marquez, Arthur Grieg, and Arthur Gellis; Mesdames A. A. Austin, Carolyn Mitchell, Ellen Dammond, Regina Andrws, Frances Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, The Musical Art Group, and delegations from three unions. Elegant Fania Marinoff and Carl Van Vechten had front seats. Carlo applauded vigorously after each group; at seventy-nine, he was the most distinguished looking man there. Old friends like Captain William Spears, Henry Steigner, Deems Taylor, Laura Jane Musser, and Joyce Cooper made me forget I had just risen from a hospital bed after an attack of tropical virus contracted in Africa.

Marion Preminger, radiant and beautiful, came backstage accompanied by Charles Ross, who was carrying a huge package. I unwrapped it wonderingly. It was a bust of Dr. Albert Schweitzer! A gift from Marion.

The management reported that we had the largest audience for classical music of the season, with a box office of $7,000.

Outside, New York is hard and pitiless. But if you can reach its heart, you find it to be warm and generous.

Then my friends urged me to write a book. It seemed an intriguing idea to try to share ones experiences with others. Little did I realize the difficulties! I had always kept a diary. It would be a simple thing, I thought, just to transcribe it. I soon discovered my mistake. A book is as different from a diary as a concerto is from a collection of songs.

I decided that if it was to have any value, it would have to show me as I was at the time of the experience, not after I had thought it out. That is, not always wise, and sometimes very foolish.

It could not be consecutive. Tours are not straight lines but mazes.

Since I had to learn about life on the run, the form would have to be looser than a sonata, yet held together. I beg the readers indulgence for the way I worked it out. (And for so much use of the personal pronoun.)

This book is a series of snapshots of adventure, of exotic people, ideas, and scenes caught swiftly in passing.

Wherever I traveled, people confided their intimate lives to me, as if they were still puzzled themselves by what had happened. I listened eagerly, often shocked but fascinated. This was my college education. It all helped me form a more accurate picture of life.