Degas' Dust. Carnie Matisonn
chamber into the heart of the great hill, many of which conveyed water, like tributaries of a river fading into the dark. Like the long procession of human generations who had been there before me, I marvelled at this geological sanctum.
In this magical and slightly ominous environment, I discovered an acoustic effect that allowed my humble Mehitabel to be transformed. Her notes soared magically around me and I lost myself, and many, many hours, to those sounds.
When I emerged from that cave, from its complete blackness, into the milky depths of the evening, I experienced one of my life’s greatest and most lasting epiphanies.
I stood there, my violin case in hand, the other hand’s fingers throbbing from the long hours of punishment on the strings in the darkness. I looked out at the distant and fast-growing city and the main road far below. I felt fascinated by the lights of the completely soundless vehicles as they moved like little more than fireflies on their hidden trajectories along the city’s arteries.
I felt like Gulliver looking down on the Lilliputians. As I stood outside my cave, I felt imbued with a sense of personal power over my destiny. This, to me, was an entirely new perspective on not just my life, but also the world and the universe itself, which stretched away in a wash of intoxicating stars beyond the black horizon. Surrounded by the profound solitude of nature, I imagined how preoccupied the occupants in their vehicles far below were with their lives. For the first time, I had a sense of some kind of bigger perspective in the cosmos; with effort, I realised I might be able to keep that in mind and work towards something far greater than myself.
I imagined how so many of those troubled Lilliputians in their minuscule cars could be obliterated under the foot of a malevolent Gulliver.
Until then, I had always thought of myself as a vulnerable, small being in a large, hostile world. Many children must feel insignificant and diminutive, particularly if they don’t live in a protective environment.
My life up to that point had seemed little more than day after day of not enough food and long winter nights with subzero temperatures that made a mockery of the thin wooden walls of my caravan. My makeshift home was sometimes little more than a fridge. If my body so much as rolled against its sides, the cold alone could wake me like an electric shock. But I realised I was also becoming something more, something like a wandering minstrel. I felt my occasional sojourns with Mehitabel and the world’s long-deceased composers, whose thoughts and feelings she helped me bring back to life, made me part of something intangible and near-immortal: like being part of an undying chain of masters and patrons, whose faces had dulled in the fading light of time but who could linger in the best of human culture, of which I was a part.
Astride my little mountaintop, I felt I was Gulliver. I was the one on the outside looking in. And I felt I could see it all. It was a profoundly spiritual experience, independent of religion or faith.
It was a powerful moment, an illusion of some sort, or perhaps a vision, and one that is difficult to describe, but it was a turning point and I am grateful it came at such a young age. From that moment on, no insult, provocation, threat or warning, be it from my mother, father or a president, would be able to sway me from what I set my mind to. I knew my life would never be the same.
By the time I was finally back in my little caravan, to carefully clean the rosin off Mehitabel’s belly and lock her up for the night, it was almost midnight. And as I wrapped myself up in my little bed, I knew something in me had changed forever.
Chapter 5
I started playing in Dr Aronowsky’s Jewish Guild Orchestra at about the age of fourteen. Among the fifty-two members in his orchestra were great musicians such as Jos De Groen on bassoon, his son Jos on clarinet and the oboe; Dr Giuseppe Vitali on trumpet; Rudi Ursher on trombone; a few Wits University mathematics lecturers, including the inimitable George Buric; the violinist and composer Ronald Rapport; and a pianist and percussionist who later became a respected conductor in England. I was, of course, the youngest – there were about three others of high school age, but they were several years my senior.
From that first audition, Solly had been sure I would eventually become a part of his orchestral mix – entrusted with minor roles I could handle at the beginning, but allowed to grow in skill, confidence and presence.
None of this struck me, like much else that happened at the time, as particularly unusual. It was just how life was. Our rehearsals were on Sunday mornings for three to four hours and concerts were usually on Saturday nights and sometimes on Sundays. We were expected to practise on our own the rest of the time.
I also played for an operatic company while still in my teens, in the school orchestra and in small ensembles on weeknights if one of the members provided me with transport. Because it did so much charity work and because of my love for Solly, I played in the Guild orchestra without remuneration – but all other gigs were for money. Every bit helped, though my main interest was simply to be part of a talented group, to recreate performances from the dreams of the great composers.
My material needs were mostly limited to food; I didn’t care much about clothes or anything else. As long as I had one change of clothing and a jersey, I was content. Transport was usually hitch-hiking or walking.
I practised at least two hours a day and up to four if there was no concert. I never did much homework – and intensely disliked everything about school, mainly because of the narrow-minded attitudes of many of the teachers and the bravado and pseudo-machismo of the select group of anti-Semitic bullies who considered Jew-baiting their favourite sport.
Nobody in the orchestra commented much on my age and I gravitated towards those between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. We were mainly interested in playing and spoke mostly about music and what we thought about performing guest artists and visiting conductors. Most importantly, we made sure we had fun together at after-concert parties.
The orchestra took the place of family in my life and was always a happy, familiar sanctum. Few of our concerts took place in Johannesburg, as we often accompanied high-profile soloists who enjoyed a fan base outside of the city. Our venues were mostly civic centres and city and town halls, and we could sometimes travel together for hours on the bus. Outbound journeys were jovial affairs with lots of noise from the brass section. After performing, we could arrive back in Joburg as late as 2am. We used a luxury coach with rows of double seating. It wasn’t unusual, in the dark hours of the night, for a carefully chosen companion, such as – in my case – the charming and talented eighteen-year-old blonde clarinettist, Vanessa, to offer some respite from a frantic night.
I played in the orchestras several nights a week, often returning to my caravan in the early hours of the morning, though on many a concert night I would stay with Vanessa, despite her being older than me. Neither of us ever thought about that or commented on it.
To Vanessa and me, it was all about the music – the melodious expression of thought, emotion and wisdom. She and I played to hear and feel the sorrow of the composers. I played to feel in touch with myself and experience goodness. Music was harmony and the beautiful Vanessa complemented that harmony to create a kind of musical symmetry with me. Naturally, I also liked her figure, elegance, poise and femininity. She had the demeanour of a quietly spoken English lady, though she was of Dutch descent.
This, my first love, was the purest and most uncomplicated romance I would ever have. Other than the physical side, our relationship revolved around the orchestra, its music and what being in the orchestra exposed us to. Our discussions were almost always only about composers, the interpretation of the music, our sense of its dynamics and how we experienced any alternative interpretations under the batons of different conductors.
In a way, we thought our lives were a song, with all of its notes, phrases and nuances brought to life on each intimate ride in our dark bus on those lonely roads. We wrote tunes and songs of our own. We were friends and young lovers, but expected nothing from each other beyond knowing that, as long as the orchestra was the shared canvas we could apply ourselves to, we could happily mix upon it. We knew each other there alone – in the concert halls and on the bus. And in that space, words were superfluous; we wanted only music and our time together.