Two-Part Inventions (29 page)

 

Again he thought of the Polish pianist Kosinski, that first recording he'd altered ever so slightly. As he'd expected, no one ever noticed the substitution of a few bars in the first Chopin nocturne, not even Kosinski himself. It was just afterward, a dozen years ago, that he'd persuaded Suzanne to try recording in the studio.

Philip worked very hard on that first recording, and it took him longer than most to edit. Suzanne never asked about it, and when he finally had it done and asked if she wanted to hear it, she shrugged. She was sitting in the living room, reading Ned Rorem's journals, and didn't enjoy being interrupted.

“I'm sure you've done a good job. I know how I sound.”

“Are you really sure? Don't you have any curiosity?” He held it out like a surprise package. “Look, there's a photo of you, and liner notes and everything.”

She finally took it and perused it. “Okay, why don't you play me a bit? Not the whole thing, just enough so that I get an idea.”

“Well, thanks,” he said, with some slight sarcasm. “I did it for you, after all.”

“I know. I'm sorry. The whole issue is just . . . you know . . .”

“It is now. But if this one does well, that'll change overnight.”

She listened for about fifteen minutes; Phil selected the passages carefully. In fact, despite his disappointment at her lack of interest, he was also relieved. He'd made one or two tiny substitutions, as he'd done for Kosinski. (Alterations, he preferred
to call them.) He was fairly sure she wouldn't detect them, but you never know. She had an amazingly keen ear.

That first Chopin CD did well. Although coming from a pianist who was little known and hadn't performed in public for years, it was fairly widely reviewed, both in print and online. It was the very oddness of Suzanne's obscurity, perhaps, that earned the attention, not to mention Phil's intense networking, calling in favors from what he termed the favor bank. There were deposits and withdrawals. Ever generous by nature, he had done a lot for his colleagues over the years, and now was the time to make his withdrawals.

The next time they went to the studio they did several Mozart sonatas, and the next time Beethoven, and then Suzanne said she'd like to try something different, so they did some Debussy and Ravel's
Le Tombeau de Couperin
, one of the pieces she'd struggled with at her New York debut years ago.

“You see?” he said. “You can do it. This one is a marvel.”

After those first two or three, she never wanted to listen. “I trust you implicitly,” she said gaily, throwing her arms around him. “You're a miracle worker.” She'd just read the latest review in
Gramophone
of her Mozart recording: It used words like “pellucid,” “luminescent,” “poignant.” She had the old intensity back; she was closer to the girl Philip had been so drawn to in their early years. He remembered that same transformation in high school, from the timid freshman to the talkative and sparkling girl he took under his protection. Now that it was happening again, he felt even more powerful. He didn't have to ask her anymore about practicing; she was so busy preparing for the recordings that she had to give up two students.

But there were spells when she was still plagued by the
mysterious symptoms no one could diagnose. Every couple of weeks she would spend a few days in bed, achy, weary, and when she came to the studio she could rarely play in top form for more than an hour and a half. She was willing to come back for more repeats, but most of the time Phil didn't push her. He didn't want to wear her out or discourage her.

“I don't know what's the matter with me,” she said. “I have no energy anymore. I should be able to do this. At school I could play for hours at a stretch. Do you think I'm getting lazy?” She cocked her head and gave a wistful smile. “Or maybe just plain crazy.”

“Of course not. Don't even think such things. You're a little down, that's all. Maybe it's the rainy weather.” They had just finished a takeout pizza after a tiring session in the studio.

“Come on, weather never stopped me from doing a Schubert sonata. I was stumbling all over the place.”

“That's okay. I can fix those parts.”

“What do you mean, ‘fix'?”

“Okay, yeah, we've got to do that one rough part over. But it's amazing how much I can accomplish with the technology.”

“Really? But is it still me?” she asked querulously. “If it's all edited by machine? If it makes me sound better than I am, or even different? Then what are the reviewers reviewing? Me or the technology?”

“It's still you, don't worry. This is how all CDs are made.”

“I wonder if listeners know that.”

“They don't have to know. As long as they get the music sounding as it should . . .”

“Well, I guess if everybody does it . . .” But she looked dubious. She wasn't quite sure what he meant by “fix,” but it was
simpler to trust him—he was so competent at his work. If she pushed him further, there would be complicated technical explanations that would only baffle her.

He didn't say any more, just started cleaning up the crusts, then took his recorder and went upstairs to practice. Soon the reedy, piping noise she had gotten used to would begin again. Handel tonight. It never lasted for more than an hour or so, though.

It would be so ungrateful, she thought, to object to his methods, his “fixing.” He had done everything he promised, as far as she would allow him. It wasn't his fault that she hadn't achieved a brilliant career as a performer—onstage, that is. She was entirely to blame for that failure and accepted the responsibility. If it were left to Phil, he would have kept arranging gigs for her, but she refused. True, the very thing she had longed for, she could not have. But this was the next-best thing and it made her happy, happier than she had been since her hopeful days at Juilliard. Her CDs were having an unexpected success, even selling well and bringing in money, which neither of them had counted on or even cared much about. If pride and ambition were her sins—their sins, for they were in this together—and perhaps a tinge of envy as well, she consoled herself by thinking that greed certainly was not.

At first she'd read the reviews in
Gramophone
,
Chanticleer
, and the other music magazines with astonishment. Was that really her they were talking about? “One of the most vigorous and lively performances of Beethoven's Opus 10 Piano Sonatas we've heard in a long while.” “A masterful interpretation of Rachmaninoff, faithful without being slavish, played with keen understanding and consummate skill.” “A pianist with an
extraordinary range. It's amazing that we haven't heard of the reclusive Ms. Stellman before, but wherever she is, we hope for more of these profoundly sensitive recordings, and of course hope to hear her perform in public.” They were the kind of reviews she used to make up in her head when she was still a teenager in high school. Or with her friends at Juilliard, before the pressures of the contests and the uncertain future sobered them. Her reviews nowadays reminded her of those absurdly overblown fragments they would compose, sitting over coffee after the day's classes.

None of it would have happened without Phil's urging, his efforts, his encouragement. Or what she occasionally called—in petulant moods—his badgering. “It's my badgering that'll get you what you want—don't forget that,” he would say, undeterred.

Now he never needed to ask what she did all day, as he had done tentatively, those years in their Greenwich Village apartment and after they first moved to Nyack. Then he had dreaded asking, and she had dreaded hearing the questions and giving her vague replies: She took walks, she cooked, she read, gave her lessons, practiced. Now, besides the practicing, there were letters from fans, addressed to the studio and brought home by Philip. There were her polite responses to other recording companies making offers. She thanked them for their interest, but she worked exclusively with Tempo Recordings. She was sought out by more students than she could handle, and had to limit herself to only a few advanced ones, who came to the house.

And a year or so after the CDs started appearing, there were the interviews. At first Phil had thought it better if she handled
them by phone, and she did two that way, for the online magazines. But when one website, called
TheWholeNote.com
, ran a feature headed “Does the pianist Suzanne Stellman really exist?” she insisted on allowing the reporters to come to the house, or even meeting them in midtown. She knew the headline was a joke, but when she remembered her childhood fears about not being real, it gave her chills. “Of course I exist. They can come and see for themselves.”

“If you're sure you want to,” Phil said.

“Why not? Are you afraid I'll say the wrong thing?”

“Not exactly. But we ought to go over what you'll say.”

“You mean, to be sure it fits with what I said to the others? I can remember what I said.”

“No, not necessarily. But journalists are very tricky, especially if you sit down and have a drink with them. You think they're being friendly, so you relax and forget it's an interview, and later you'll find every chance personal remark exaggerated. Did you tell the others you had studied abroad, as I said?”

“Yes. I was kind of vague about it, though.”

“Vague is good. Though you might mention a few names this time. Paris, say. Nadia Boulanger. Milhaud. Emil Gilels. You might well have met them. Actually, Milhaud even lived here for a long time.”

“You're kidding. It's one thing to say I studied in Paris—okay, I can live with that—but I can't say with a straight face that I knew those people.”

“That's what I'm concerned about. If you can't say it with a straight face, then you should do it on the phone or in an email. And you don't have to tell them all the same thing. Tell one you were in Paris, and for the other, say . . . oh, Vienna.”

“I don't get why we need all this lying.”

“It's not exactly lying. It's just sort of stretching the truth. You did study at a major conservatory in a large city. It's good to have an aura of mystery. Then they'll talk about you—who is she and where did she come from? By the way, you can be vague about where you're from, too. Lots of artists say they moved around in their childhood. You have no idea of the fantasy lives they create for themselves. And by the way, don't forget to mention that you studied with Madame Kabalevsky. She's legendary now. You become attached to the legend.”

She was reluctant, unaccustomed to stretching the truth, as he called it. But after all, it did no harm in the end. The facts of her life didn't matter; only the music mattered. She didn't lie in the music—there was no way you could lie in music.

After the interviews appeared and the CDs continued to sell well, she was invited to give a master class at the Manhattan School of Music, which occupied the old site in Morningside Heights where Juilliard used to be, while Juilliard itself was long since settled in its more lavish quarters at Lincoln Center. The streets and the old rooms were very familiar, even if the administration was a different one. The students seemed the same, too: eager, anxious, a curious blend of confidence, awareness of their own gifts, and fear. As for her, she felt no anxiety at the prospect of demonstrating a passage, or even a large part of a movement. Her panic always let her have a few moments of grace at the beginning, a short-lived generosity that made its succeeding cruelty worse. And it was the students being judged, not her. Remembering how she'd felt at the master classes at Juilliard long ago, she was kind. She didn't interrupt unless it was absolutely necessary, and she preceded her
corrections with kind words—she could always come up with some merit in the student's playing. She played with virtuosity and grace; her visit was a success, and led to more.

“We were told you were very reclusive,” one of her hosts remarked over coffee after the class. “But here you are, and you seemed quite willing to appear.”

“Oh, yes,” Suzanne said, laughing. “I heard there were rumors that I didn't exist, that the CDs were a kind of . . . I don't know, emanation. But I assure you, I'm quite real. And so is my music.”