Open Writing

Northwards House, its stone walls warm and glowing in the late afternoon sun, stands on the Parktown Ridge, looking over Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. It is a national monument: designed by the architect, Sir Herbert Baker, built for John Dale Lace, a nouveau-riche Rand Gold millionaire.

At the heart of Northwards House is a magnificent, double-storey room. The lower half, the ceiling and opposing balcony and gallery are panelled in a dark, red wood; the upper walls, are painted pale cream. A larger than life, full length portrait of the first mistress of the house, José Dale Lace, hangs above the fire-place; Persian rugs in soft, rich colours lie on the gleaming wood floor. A tall window lights the foot of the L-shaped room, while shorter, north-facing windows are shaded by a veranda, looking across gardens just coming into spring bloom. In this room stands a Steinway grand piano. This instrument is over a hundred years old. It is often played at soirées by Johannesburg’s top musicians. Its gleaming, French-polished cabinet is of warm wood, inlaid with paler marquetry depicting lutes, guitars and ancient wind instruments linked with garlands of flowers and bundles of grass.

Russian-born pianist, Olga, was enthralled by the beauty of the gardens, the elegance of the house and the opulence of this room, where we were to perform. She sat on the piano stool, ran dainty hands over the keys – and fell in love. Her mouth quirked in a smile of delight, her dark eyes turned misty, and the sounds that she drew from that glorious instrument were nothing short of miraculous.

“It’s wonderful!” she exclaimed. “It’s bottomless! The more I ask of it, the more it gives back to me! I can do so much with it – so much colour it gives me!” Leon and I listened in awe as her strong hands explored the textures of ivory and ebony.

“I thought that I’d found all the emotion I could in the Rachmaninov, but – oh, with this piano there is so much more in the music! It’s glorious… Now I know why Chopin wrote his melodies in that particular register of the piano – older instruments like this one give so much more there; our modern pianos struggle to sing in that register and the lower notes swamp everything else!” A glissando rippled through the room. “The keys though, they’re a fraction of a millimetre further apart than I’m used to, I’ll have to play this way…” and she demonstrated with a cascade of sound. “I’ve only once played on a piano so old, but it was not so good as this one, this is the best I’ve ever played on.”

Coming from someone who grew up in St Petersburg, who studied where Rachmaninov himself studied, that was praise indeed.

Inspired by the instrument, Olga played better than ever before. Working with her that day was thrilling. With her exquisite interpretation of the piano part, we drew the most emotion possible from the challenging transcription for flute of César Franck’s rich and lovely violin sonata; the smaller works that I played, with her accompaniment, floated like jewels in the heights of that lovely room. Her interpretation of Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz and Consolation No. 3, were breathtaking. How could such small hands draw so much feeling from that antique piano; how did her fingers encompass all those notes, written by men with huge hands?

The true delight of that rehearsal was in watching Olga’s face as she fell ever deeper in love with the piano.

Our performance at Northwards two weeks later was enjoyed by all who attended; Olga and I were utterly focused on the music and on each other, and enjoyed every moment. After the audience left Northwards, Olga stretched her arms across that gleaming piano, laying her face on the surface in a touching gesture of love and farewell.

Music-making has as much to do with the quality of the instrument as that of the musician. When the two are of an equally matched high standard the inevitable result is sheer magic.

Until next week, ‘here comes Treble!’

By Isabel Bradley

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