Introduction
Prelude
and The Raft of Poverty
In the Circus
Ring
The Pedlar's
Prediction
Hail Caesar!
Jealousy
is Dead
A Steam Engine
for a Piano
Stalin
Organs
Hungarian
Rhapsody: a failure
White
Nights
All
or Nothing
ALL OR NOTHING
How
could my character have remained unaffected
by such an upheaval in my existence?
I was like an animal at bay, its instincts
deeply perturbed and living in fear
of its life. My reactions were a disconcerting
mixture of contradictions. I was at
once tender and brutal, considerate
and boorish, dreamy yet cold-hearted,
the beloved child and the black sheep
of musicians, a fervent advocate of
brotherhood among men and a retiring
misanthrope, an aggressive libertarian
bowing to authority, a strict moralist
staggering into seedy bars, affectionate
and unsociable, a sensitive soul under
the influence of his bear-like moods.
The piano was, of course, the main cause
of this personality split. No longer
was it a lost love, a threatened ideal:
I had given it up as a bad job and drawn
the necessary conclusions. I had become
more modest. The piano existed on a
lower plane as a means of earning a
living. Fate continued to dog me. Try
as I might to consider the problem from
all sides and put it in perspective,
even taking up my nightly activities
again was out of the question: after
just a few hours, the joints of my fingers
and wrists swelled.
While
in prison, I had been accorded the privilege
of transporting blocks of stone. My
muscles, stretched to the limit and
hardened, could no longer withstand
hours of daily practice. Not even my
will-power was what it had been. In
order that my fingers, swollen by work
of a very different nature, could gradually
grow used to the piano again, I was
obliged to continue wearing wristbands
to hold my joints in place and lessen
the pain. I was to wear these accessories
for quite a time to come.
After
leaving prison, my hands needed four
months’ physiotherapy before I could
go into Budapest to start looking for
work all over again. After about ten
days, I managed to find a fairly stable
job and relieved my wife of her stevedore’s
duties at the factory for the second
time. Like a well-trained beast of burden,
I was soon back in harness and my hands
ran up and down all sorts of keyboards
in restaurants, taverns and bars. One
evening, two men came in for a drink
in the bar where I had just gone on
duty. Their concentration, touched with
disbelief, increased as they listened
to my multiform fancies which, in their
apparent complexity, must have contrasted
strangely with the doleful indifference
with which I trotted them out. They
gradually drew closer to the piano and
observed my playing as if wanting to
be sure there were only ten fingers
producing such an avalanche of notes.
At the time, I thought they were drinking
pals of the more distinguished variety
or music lovers in search of strong
emotions. As soon as I had finished,
they congratulated me warmly.
These
were no ordinary night birds in the
swarming fauna of the city. One was
a piano professor at the Liszt Academy
[This was György
Ferenczy]; his friend held a
high position at the Ministry for Cultural
Affairs.
"We’ve
been following you around for some while,"
said the professor, "because we’re
most intrigued by your past record and
even more by your playing. You seem
to be the chosen one who can draw Ulysses’
bow according to the rules, leaving
other would-be pianists to attempt to
stretch it." He went on, looking
a trifle sceptical, "Your playing
is amazing. More than any other musician,
you deserve to be playing in the best
concerts. You’re on the right path so
I’ve decided to help you straight away.
Go and see my friend here at his office
at the Ministry as soon as possible.
You won’t regret it."
A
few days later, I took his advice. What
could such high-ups have of importance
to say to an obscure bar pianist just
out of prison and – supreme affront
– without a card stamped by the party
Cultural Department, our benevolent
Father?
The
visiting card of the cultural attaché
led to even more magical happenings.
As soon as I entered the Ministry, I
was treated like a guest of honour.
In the ancient building, a proud, mummified
reminder of the Baroque style, liveried
ushers went silently before me, addressing
me as ‘comrade’ in the third person,
with deferential zeal. One gets used
to it. We first went through a maze
of lofty corridors and splendidly decorated
rooms – ceilings with grimy frescoes
from which hung magnificent crystal
chandeliers whose iridescent light was
reflected by the intricately decorated
doors set in walls inlaid with exotic
wood. The whole place was an immense
piece of marquetry made up of an ingenious
variety of mosaics. It was like visiting
a museum of the Ancien Régime.
Everything had remained in place:
paintings by the great masters and carpets
from the Orient. Its crowning glory
was the office of my new protector,
a huge ceremonial room full of ghosts
of the past. I was shown into this great
hall, redolent of the former greatness
of the aristocracy.
Still
under the antique charm of these reminders
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, I greeted
the group of stern-looking young men,
who seemed to be expecting me, with
a feeble, "Good morning, sirs…I
mean, comrades." They at once made
it clear that ‘comrade’ was a civilian
honour which had to be merited and was
not awarded to any outsider. "Yes,
indeed, Mr Cziffra," said the top
official I had already met, with a charming
smile, "times have changed. We
have asked you to come as a result of
all the letters we’ve been getting about
you for some time now from people from
all levels of society who are regulars
of the nightclubs where you play. I
must say it is the first time I’ve ever
seen public opinion – your public –
expressing its feelings so strongly.
I realized while listening to you the
other evening that your talent could
even transform a mass of people who
had come with the sole object of drinking
into a truly disciplined audience."
Suddenly,
he started groping for his words: "As
you know, no newly installed…regime
is free from errors…I mean…" "That
it so happens I’m the error in question,"
I said gently to encourage him to come
to the point. But he was already continuing,
pretending not to have heard: "What
I mean is we wish to efface the wrongs
done to you by…restoring the rights
and privileges due to your outstanding
talent. That is to say that from now
on we would ask you to drop your present
activities because we’d like you to
have three months in which to prepare
for the first series of recitals and
then concerts, which will be commissioned
by the State through us. You will, of
course, receive a salary. If the first
part of your career goes as we wish,
everything leads us to believe that
the government will one day, encouraged
by your success in democratic countries,
accord you its trust by delegating you
to play…officially…in the great cities
of the West as one of the brightest
jewels in the crown of our nation’s
artistic and musical life, rendered
free and independent by Socialism."
How
gallantly he summed up my life. The
‘everything leads us to believe’ was
simply sublime. And yet hadn’t I been
waiting to hear those very words for
years?
At
last my life of ups and downs, with
every peak plunging me into yet another
blind valley, was over. After countless
hesitations, I was going to be able
to break with the ghetto laws of pleasure
spots whether frequented by rich or
poor, exclusive clubs, dives to which
one is gradually lured by the promise
of a cushy job. Without realizing it,
one sinks so low as to lose any scruples
about being mediocre.
Somehow
or other, throughout this period of
my life, nearly everything I did or
neglected to do, my hesitations as much
as irreparable acts, seemed to be imposed
on me by some inescapable fatality.
My existence was, for reasons beyond
my control, presided over by the patron
saint of beggars rather than Saint Cecilia.
Much time was lost, to be sure, but
I do not feel on looking back that I
wasted any. I prefer to leave my friends
and critics to decide whether some magic
spell was the cause of my tribulations
or whether I had undergone a trial by
fire. Whatever the answer, I felt at
last that life was beginning all over
again, even if my artistic resurrection
was still some way off. The members
of the commission seemed moved to see
me living like a muezzin condemned
to silence behind the bars of a moucharabiel,
my body afire, my mind in hibernation.
They did not question me about my past,
with the tacit implication that I had
been a helpless victim. Being the plaything
of destiny and nearly thirty years of
having to teach myself had confirmed
me in my Manichean fatalism. On the
way to the Ministry, I had thought of
the proverb ‘Once bitten twice shy’.
As I left, I remembered the Islamic
saying ‘God can see a black ant on a
black stone’. This was the first time
I had been treated as a persona grata
with a slight chance of finding my niche
in Paradise, aided by my ten fingers.
Even if it was only a seat in the gallery,
it was one of the nicest gifts life
had given me since I left ‘Angel Court’.
In
celebration of my redeployment, I decided
once and for all to give up the ‘flashy’
playing which had got me out of many
a tight spot. The toughest was yet to
come. After sparring for nearly twenty-five
years with every possible type of music,
I had three months to make a fresh start,
which was not long. Naturally, other
such experiences had put me on my guard
and endowed me with a mastery of my
instrument which led quite a few dogmatic
critics to consider it impossible to
see the wood of my interpretations for
the trees. My undertaking was doubly
difficult. Not only did I have to reconvert,
discipline and readapt everything I
had learnt entirely for classical music
– and all in ninety days – but I had
to convince our friends the aesthetes
and other intellectual ‘gurus’, disguised
as knowledgeable critics, for whom respect
for the score was more important than
bringing a work to life, that my interpretations
were valid. Personally, with very few
exceptions, I have never come across
a critic able to do other than condemn
as a means of showing off his piranha-like
erudition – unless the prey is too big
for him, in which case he is quick to
acclaim the victor. These carrion beetles
of the mind, and they are legion, are
easily recognized by their boundless
pride and pathetic intellect.
I
have nothing against criticism as such
– indeed, it is indispensable. Far from
being marginal, it could, and should,
be for the public good, on two conditions:
firstly, there should be only professional
critics, that is to say performing artists
who know what they are talking about,
and secondly, whatever the judgement,
it should be constructive both as regards
the work and the performance.
Ideally,
one would like to see the return of
the buccaneering spirit which, to my
mind, gave the artistic movements of
the Romantic period their impetus. In
those blissful times, accounts of the
first concerts given in Paris by an
unknown young musician by the name of
Frédéric Chopin were not
signed by some dilettante ‘monsieur
Croche’ but by Franz Liszt. When a very
discouraged Ravel was sent back the
manuscript of his First Quartet
heavily cut by a certain Dubois, about
whom the only thing great was his opinion
of himself, Debussy at once despatched
a note: "In the name of the gods
of music and in mine, do not alter a
note!" Such exceptional people,
and many others, did not just withdraw
into a comfortable cocoon and it is
to them that Western music owes much
of its cultural heritage. Above all,
they were potential professionals capable
not only of understanding but, in the
case of musicians, playing or even conducting
the works of their peers. They knew
exactly what they were talking about
and wrote well-informed criticism to
guide public taste. In our troubled
times, I trust that some day in the
not so distant future, artists will
work together to enlighten audiences
saturated with nonsense.
Anyway,
it is well known that each species of
animal has its parasite: the crocodile
never swallows the little bird which
flutters in its half-open jaws; the
fiercest shark tolerates the minute
remora. Any form of artistic creation
has its second-rate conscientious objectors
operating on a part time basis. It is
in the order of things. As Diderot wrote:
"Rhetoric is to eloquence what
theory is to practice or poetics to
poetry."
This
golden rule applies to all types of
artistic expression, just as it does
to any coherent interpretation. The
figures and flowers of rhetoric governing
the particular form, content, style
and syntax of each composer were precisely
what I had to disinter from my memory
after so many years. My fingers had
to be retrained until they adapted automatically
to Chopin’s rubato, which is
not always ideally suited to Schumann.
Debussy’s piano works must be played
as if the fingers are barely touching
the keys. The same goes for Ravel, except
that the sound must always be crystalline
whereas his moods require a subtle mixture
of both as well as requiring a pinch
of gold dust and a touch of slightly
fin-de-siècle perfume
to add to the charm of a music as refined
as it is volatile. One must know too
that the controlled or feverish energy
of most great Romantic composers has
nothing to do wild the wild pulse underlying
the benign exterior of certain of Liszt’s
works. It is a power which has to be
carefully controlled. There are just
as many traps to avoid and taboos to
respect in Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and
Bartók if one’s playing is not
to run the risk of sounding monotonous
and lacking in substance, relegated
from the rank of the language of the
Gods to that of music therapy, with
its emotional power limited to putting
the audience in a good mood as they
commune in the boredom distilled by
a false idol.
All
these thoughts filled my mind as I left
the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, hurrying
home to ell everyone the great news.
When it came down to it, my wandering
beggar’s existence, during which I had
had to put up with misunderstandings
and jibes as I was chased from pillar
to post, had taught me the basics of
the supremely complex profession of
being an artist: how to maintain one’s
distance and separate mind from feeling.
And how to reason using formal logic
while being capable of reasoning in
a more flexible manner? My new idea
was to superpose the two forms of thought,
according to the principle that harmonious
reasoning is like a straight line decorated
with spirals, rather like the inside
of the barrel of a cannon. Not so long
before, when I had been cleaning the
one on my tank, Schumann’s celebrated
saying had come to mind. After hearing
Liszt’s playing, he defined the ideal
interpreter as being like ‘cannons beneath
a bed of flowers’[This
was in fact said about Chopin's 'Polonaises'].
This was perhaps the most difficult
challenge I had ever had to meet: to
convey through my playing, with so little
time to go, a radical transformation
of myself, becoming once more what I
should never have ceased to be. Pianistically
speaking, I was probably at the height
of my powers but as a human being I
was physically and morally exhausted.
It
was for this reason that despite my
job I had felt like proclaiming to the
people on the board as they speechified
and pontificated on my account, blithely
crossing out any past ‘errors’ to keep
me in their debt for life, the equivalent
of the profession of faith painted by
the demonstrators of May 468 on the
pedestal of Richelieu’s statue in front
of the Sorbonne: "Que la crasse
des masses lasses masse sur vos faces
des potasses!" (‘May the filth
of the weary masses cover your sonofabitch
faces!’). Luckily for my family, being
the type who never finds a retort at
the right moment, I said nothing. At
that time one did not attempt to be
witty in those circles and such truths
were not to be spoken out loud, even
with the ‘-asse’ rhyme.
It
was no use deluding myself or hoping
that time would be on my side. Having
made an appointment with myself in extreme
old age, when minor faults are caricatured
and great virtues become sublime, the
hour of truth could not be delayed any
longer. I was in a tight corner: new
rivals, surprised by my unusual technique,
stared at my hands with a look of concupiscence,
as the priests say. I had to show them
in record time that I could do more
than merely upset the hierarchy of values
in music halls. In trying not to lose
sight of the fact that the aims of music
can and must be more than just a synthesis
of certain skills, I had returned to
the study of ‘this world of sights and
dreams upon which passion feeds’ – as
Michelet so nicely put it. In this domain,
where music has a certain evocative
power, reality is transcended and emits
rays of which the public is aware. In
order to become the master of such power
without which, as far as I am concerned,
the interpreter can be dispensed with,
I had to search within myself for some
indefinable tremor to show I still had
a boy’s sensitivity. Only this, channelled
by solid common sense, would gain me
access to and enable me to transmit
emotions with all the atavistic force
of self-love, a passion of which all
others are but derivatives. The undertaking
was as difficult as the quest for the
Holy Grail. Music is a demanding mistress
and becoming her servant is like taking
orders.
I
had a vague feeling that this first
chance to redeem myself might also be
my last, for Destiny offers the opportunity
to everyone at some time or another,
whether he be an optimist or a pessimist.
All those who try to live life to the
full and who, by force of circumstance,
know what it means to be catapulted
from the crest of a wave to the trough
realize that in order to achieve one’s
ambitions it is better to side with
the optimists, for whom a calamity is
an opportunity, as opposed to the pessimists,
who suffer from its backlash. This sort
of blind assumption is not a solution
but it helps.
Again,
like the sea surging into cavities,
music, my Promised Land, came to my
rescue on life’s swell, full of reefs
and breakers on which I had been putting
my life at stake. This lucky combination
of circumstances would permit me to
chance my all, for I was to set about
achieving my childhood dream with a
man’s experience, awakening in my audience
an intense receptiveness and physical
and mental exaltation which we call,
for want of a better term, emotion.
Certainly, I must have been naïve
to attempt in three months to climb
even a few of the rungs of a Jacob’s
ladder of such dimensions. But those
were the rules of the game. From the
mass of problems already evoked, I had
ninety days in which to extract the
essence, that is to say an alchemist’s
instinct and knowledge, which alone
can miraculously transform a coded message
into a living language. To do this I
needed clear, precise information.
Far
from helping me in my task, the ambiguity
of some of my guides perturbed me considerably.
Bach probably considered the meaning
of his works so evident that he left
no indications of nuance or even tempo.
Chopin was far more painstaking: his
least intention is made clear in his
manuscripts, though he still told his
pupils and admirers, including at least
one supreme virtuoso, that the essence
of emotion is to be found ‘behind the
notes’. Stravinsky, another master of
strong emotions, who put an end to Impressionism
with The Rite of Spring, said
not so long ago that music by definition
cannot and should not express anything.
I had to rid myself of these contradictory
opinions and restore to each of these
giants his own particular aesthetics.
According to the experts, the only monument
built by human hand visible from the
moon is the Great Wall of China. The
comparison may seem exaggerated, nevertheless
after two months of non-stop work my
aims were of the same order as they
had been in the past. I will not go
any further into those days and nights
of constant practice. Even Dante, the
great expert on Hell, forgot to sing
of the souls of doubting interpreters
languishing in the Purgatory of a Witches’
Sabbath, longing to hear beautiful music
again. Incertitude leads to a lack of
self-confidence, as I know all too well.
I tried to rid myself of the disease
but the more I struggled to put my ideas
in order, the less sure of myself I
became. My fingers were activated by
the spirits of Nostradamus and Pythagorus,
but if clairvoyance and logic do not
work together harmoniously, how can
the subconscious select and co-ordinate
the various creative stages? Deprived
of this artistic seismograph, my conceptions
and interpretations were afflicted by
doubt, and nothing is sadder than an
artist seeking to do too much or too
little. To conclude, during this short
period I discovered I was unable to
follow the sacrosanct rules of harmonious
interpretation until I sometimes wondered
whether my hands might not be better
employed punching railway tickets. I
had doubts about the limpidity of my
feelings as much as about my manner
of communicating them.
How
I envied my peers who, under highly
qualified teachers, had acquired such
assurance! They were way ahead of me
but then hadn’t I had an exceptionally
early training in improvisation? Indeed,
I had quite simply come up against an
obstacle which may bring out the talents
in some whereas others come to grief
on it: stage fright. A priori
it is absurd: what is there to fear
from an audience which has taken the
trouble to come along and has paid good
money to be enraptured? It is certain
that for an artist with something to
say, unveiling every tremor of his sensitivity
to what he may hope will be a large
audience is both a blessing and an agonizing
situation. That is unless he is swept
along, not to say transfigured, by the
power of his vision, glowing with passion
until he embodies it. Stage fright is
a sign of self-doubt and of technical
or spiritual deficiencies. It has nothing
to do with the nervous tension caused
by a sense of responsibility and a desire
not to disappoint. For artists in the
grip of this age-old fear, the simple
act of going onstage is an undoubted
feat of courage. Therein lies the paradox
of the interpreter’s role as well as
his fragility. Any attempt, however
brief, to suspend time for an expectant
audience is in itself a challenge. If
he is paralysed by stage fright, how
can he convey all the light and shade
of his soul? At this stage, devotion
is not enough. Besides a rock-solid
technique, the artist must surpass himself
to obtain the extra concentration needed
to inspire connoisseurs and uneducated
alike, and this is something few players
can do. All this is a form of suffering.
In the world of music, the means of
moving others at will are virtually
unlimited.
It
is one thing to be in possession of
an affidavit from the Muses and quite
another to be their poet. It has always
been my desire to belong to the chosen
few more concerned by the brightness
of the flame they bear than by the astonishment
it provokes. Am I on the right track?
Only the future will tell. There is
nothing of the dreamer about me. In
every society, the status quo
of a musician is akin to a politician’s.
If some of them have not sold their
souls it is because nobody wanted to
buy them. I should like to have followed
the path of enlightenment in a different
manner. Alas, my whole life up until
that moment had been placed under the
sign of ‘If you want peace, prepare
for war.’
In
1954, I was no longer the brilliant
pupil. I slaved away fanatically at
my upright. My daily task consisted
of searching, finding, rejecting, starting
again from zero – not to speak of catching
up with my colleagues – which meant
recovering a lot of ground. Only much
later did I have the idea of scraping
together enough money to see if it was
possible to follow in the footsteps
of Liszt, Abbé Liszt, scolded
and mitred by the gods, so aggressively
and deplorably mauled by later generations
of prize fighters set on breaking records
rather than seeking true understanding.
According to the rulers of the great
country which so wanted to protect mine,
five-year plans and healthiness were
the key to success. There was still
so far to go.
My
sudden disappearance from the night
life of the city was much talked about.
A number of distinguished philistines
were waiting foe me in their artistic
circles, assuring me of their ‘assiduous
benevolence’, inwardly removing the
last three syllables from the adjective.
It was only now that I realized how
great my shortcomings were.
I
decided to get advice on how to prevent
all the assiduous practice sounding
too obvious – to no avail. The teachers
I saw did not really understand my questions.
As for me, I failed to understand the
cultural jargon they used as a form
of miracle tonic, smacking more of Romantic
languor than practical advice. Our conversations
took on epic proportions: when I came
away, my mind was as confused as a marshalling
yard. Here’s an example:
Q:
How should one go about finding a definite
message in X’s works?
A:
By analysing his contradictions on a
structural level.
Q:
I see. But how do I actually achieve
this?
A:
Find yourself a niche.
Q:
Of course. And how about conveying it
to the audience?
A:
Obvious. You just have to structure
your emotions. Anyone can see that for
himself.
There
have always been music teachers who
enjoy chatting in this way. Nowadays,
every advocate of the leisure civilisation,
from plumber to computer engineer, manipulates
this sort of language with ease and
I still cannot understand it. True aristocrats
have become a rarity. The local upper-crust
proliferates and divides art up among
itself. Laughter is said to be the domination
of a feeling of revolt. I was so bold
as to laugh in the austere faces of
my advisers and cast aside the loneliness
felt by the long-distance runner, his
head full of tunes. I went back to working
on my own and read widely. Since I had
not followed the primrose path, I was
by turns showered with flattery and
reviled. I remain convinced that as
regards art, the difference between
the noble and the villain is neither
a question of ethnics or even ethics.
So how was one to attain the heights?
Because
I looked tough and spoke my mind, my
talent –third-rate according to some
– was gone through with a toothcomb
by the custodians of truth until it
really did seem as if it was lacking
in substance. And to think I had nearly
been born in France, the eternal crossroads
of the arts, where even the cannons
are a source of wit. Wasn’t it Louis
XIV who had had engraved on his: ‘The
final argument of kings’?
I
had decided to work on my hands. I began
by moderating, refining and perfecting
the essential relationship in my playing
between intuition and technique: a long,
deliberate disordering of all the senses
– the two-edged weapon the Parnassians
wisely put aside, while Rimbaud used
it for Le Bateau Ivre [The
Drunken Boat]. For musicians,
such work is as reckless as defusing
a bomb, for in tampering with what may
be called my desire to communicate I
risked devitalizing and even destroying
the relationship between cause and effect
which subjects power, discovery, rhythm
and dazzling colours to inspiration.
This prevented me confusing the repression
of anything subversive with unbridled,
destructive energy. The discovery led
me from the well-worn paths whilst opening
up new horizons.
It
wasn’t until then that I realized just
how much of an outsider I was. If I
wasn’t to miss the boat, I would have
to work on my own from now on. Going
to a teacher would have been hypocritical.
I knew my technique inside out. At the
heart of the matter lay the problem
of integrating my own particular sensibility
and technical mastery. Doubtless any
teacher or famous player would have
been delighted to meet a kindred spirit,
like the ‘master’ who knows his teaching
will live on in the spiritual son he
had given up looking for. Despite the
faithfulness of my imitation, I would
never have had the heart to tell him
that it was more a desire for accuracy
than conviction which permitted me to
fit into the mould of his thought and
so become his alter ego, rather
like a mirror of which the silvering
is worn so that it reconstitutes an
images rather than reflects it.
What
is music? By definition it is the art
of combining sounds in accordance with
certain rules. One advantage of this
axiom is that beyond its platitude lies
a basic truth. It omits the invisible
cause which leads to sacrifice, adoration
and the need for a sixth sense, the
subconscious, which transmits inspiration.
If religion is absent, any philosophy
of music becomes arid atheism close
to nihilism. The millennium has already
arrived for those artists who know the
way; only those who have gone astray
think the world is adrift. The paradox
is that fundamentally there is no such
thing as subject matter or objective
facts in music, which is why musicians
are tightrope walkers daydreaming in
a sleeping world.
They
have a special place in society. Why?
Because even if they live in the heart
of a community in which there is a place
for everything, they are supposed to
possess some form of esoteric intuition,
the only thing on this earth which has
no fixed market value. This faculty
is the inalienable sceptre of every
great artist. The heart of an instrumentalist
– not he who has been called but he
who has been chosen – must beat in time
to the composer’s and the listener’s.
To eliminate any gratuitous effects,
or even coasting on automatic pilot,
any musician tries to make use of the
power of mind over matter.
The
miracle is like a magnificent hi-fi
system which performs only on a human
scale. The composer is the source, the
audience a highly sensitive speaker
membrane and the artist amplifies the
whole magnetic field. Music draws its
substance and powers of communication
from all these before fusing into unending
sound whose radiance ennobles and reveals
the hidden meaning of every note. When
all is said and done, as regards music,
the desire to be Caesar or nothing is
far less dangerous than might be thought.
The choice of euphony as a source of
pleasure or emotion ensures that any
artist is bound to become one or the
other. The hardest thing is trying not
to make the wrong choice: if you please
but fail to move you will end up at
‘The Danaids’ Barrel’ and, for my part,
I had no wish to return there.
By
dint of analysis, I rediscovered my
childhood instincts. I had understood
early on that transforming musical speech
into the language of emotion and initiation
was an important step.
The
fateful day of my first State Command
Performance was approaching and I still
could not get used to the idea that
from then on I would be a fully fledged
professional. My newly-won freedom still
seemed like a dream and what use was
I going to make of it? I was torn between
the dreadful desire and incertitude
of a paralytic who has been told, "Arise
and walk." And of course, just
when I most needed all my aesthetic
sense, I realized that these ill-exploited
gifts were being reabsorbed and were
gradually disintegrating. Did that mean
the death sentence for my budding career?
This obsessive self-awareness left me
no respite. Obviously, I went on working
away and put all I could into making
my fingers as nimble as possible – and
there was no lack of enthusiasm.
In
despair, I went for long country walks,
comparing the elegant shapes of the
fauna and flora all round me with the
coarse, dull manner in which I attempted
to interpret them at the piano. I tried
to console myself, wondering whether
any artist could really imitate such
harmony and perfection. Delicacy of
feeling is a gift of nature and not
something acquired through skill. It
was then that I became fully aware of
the tremendous importance of what was
at stake and of what honour demanded
of me. Going beyond the conventions
of musical expression is not in itself
a crime. It is even one of the great
privileges of art to be able to transform
ugliness into beauty. Yet a sense of
style is necessary to achieve it, and
not just any style but one which, as
I fully realized, was the result of
a particular sensitivity to language.
Though it cannot be acquired, it can
be developed. It was this that I dreamed
of down by the river as having the beauty
and rhythm of a poem in a language precise
enough to go straight to the heart like
a stiletto. The only way to attain this,
unfortunately, is by endless toil. Flaubert
knew all about that. Much later, I had
the opportunity of asking Malraux the
great question, "How would you
define Art?" Without hesitation,
he replied, "The means by which
form becomes style."
This
came as a revelation. I was only half
convinced by his definition, splendid
though it was. He was quite right –
and so was I. Style is something one
senses and it must show no signs of
having been studied. For him as much
as for me it was a Golden Rule which,
once known, makes everything else plain
sailing. However, the only blessing
I had at that time was an excessive,
incoherent, over-decorative style which
was a reflection of my own character.
Back
home, I desperately took up the combat
again. I was making progress: in my
interpretations as they were then, about
one third of the emotions were aesthetically
plausible. The other two thirds were
nebulous and over-refined. I had to
face the truth: my vice was there before
me, glaringly evident. I had too little
time to rid myself of it while attending
to what was most urgent. I hollowed
it out like an elder twig, as children
do to make blowpipes, decorating it
with the motifs and mouldings of the
nouveaux riches. No-one was less
taken in than I was.
In
renouncing my intensive search for natural
harmony, I abandoned substance and shadow.
There was no doubt that ten years of
being under sentence of death, interspersed
with unhoped-for reprieves, had covered
my discernment with a thick cataract
putting the subtleties of harmony quite
beyond my grasp.
* * * * * * * * * *
The
first concerts after my release from
prison were so dull as to verge on the
incompetent. It was paradoxical that
they should be so mediocre: my technique
was equal to that of all my colleagues
put together, but this considerable
advantage only multiplied the drawbacks.
Whereas some players distilled boredom
for want of self-assurance and imagination,
I sinned in the opposite direction.
Shored up as I was by excessive technical
facility, I poured out boredom by the
bucketful. Try as I might, my interpretations
lacked clarity, restraint and concision.
Fortunately,
the transcriptions and paraphrases I
played as encores at the end of each
recital compensated for the rest and
shook my audiences out of their apathy.
These intense moments were like the
ecstasy of love. My defective aesthetic
sense, capable of feigning an emotion
but not of dissimulating it, vibrated
in unison with my feelings and set the
keyboard ablaze, leaving everyone flabbergasted
by such incandescence. One critic went
so far as to say that this was the mastery
not of a pianist but of the pianist
of one’s dreams. The gift I took for
granted seemed as strange to my colleagues
as an illuminated version of the Koran
suspended in mid-air and helped me to
forget that certain boors still found
my excellent grapes too sour.
I
still think with gratitude of the continuing,
spontaneous devotion of my audiences
at that time. They knew all about me
and my dreadful past, to the extent
that I felt the warmth of their support
even on stage. The halls where I played
were full to the rafters and my concerts
ended in triumph. Yet every time I returned
to my dressing room I felt demoralized
when I thought of all the flaws and
all the ground I still had to cover
to catch up, more certain than ever
that no artist worthy of the name mistakes
a vision of the truth for revelation.
The support of thousands of people was
like an immense movement of sympathy.
Their confidence was like a loan which
helped me in my battle with myself,
a battle of which I was still unworthy
of the trophies. The ovations and near-consecrations
gradually restored some of my self-confidence,
though I never forgot the Ancient Roman
custom of having a slave repeat to an
acclaimed conqueror: "Remember
you’re only a man!"
Onstage,
temerity was second nature to me, as
with so many shy people, and being with
a crowd was beneficial in that it redoubled
my enthusiasm for practice. I observed
myself with quiet confidence, paying
attention to detail until it became
an obsession. What exactly was needed
to turn my keyboard, smooth as an Alpine
lake, into a dazzling mirror which could
ignite a religion which was beyond the
bounds of mere theology or theosophy:
discipline, a law, a yoke, an enduring
promise? Nothing less than perseverance
and the certitude faith brings. The
assurance of being right is a prodigious
source of strength to which others incline.
With time, both muscles and desire lose
their strength: only faith in the future
is eternal and unchanging, for it is
the key to equilibrium and the actions
controlled by it. All depends on faith,
even one’s conception, whether sectarian
or eclectic, of the mysterious, occult
forces of the universe. For me it is
fundamental to art, for constant pleasure
only undermines our happiness. This
unique power is as fragile as a baby’s
skull and only ossifies, except in the
case of outstanding people, very gradually.
Its power in the field of music is infinite
and alone can smooth out the turbulence
caused by uncertain or imperfect aesthetic
feelings. In my own music making, it
was a form of existentialism leading
in an exaggerated manner to what I believed
to be a well-conceived anti-conformism
which drew attention to my intentions
and deformed them, making my style seem
diffuse, slack and listless.
Without
faith, any form of creation seems incomplete
and rootless for it has no guarantee
in the reasons of the heart which are
unknown to reason [An
allusion to the celebrated 'pensée
of Pascal. "Le cœur a ses
raisons que la raison ne connait piont"].
It is the umbilical cord linking the
musician to music and the bell-ringer
to his church, the key to the pouring
forth of his dreams in daily life, transforming
him into the privileged receptacle of
eternal life, if only for an instant.
Luckily, a few atoms of this vital force
still remained deep down inside me to
re-awaken my consciousness, which had
been set on making me forget the sacred
nature of my mission. The interpreter’s
role in society is like a keeper’s,
watching over people’s emotions to prevent
them from being worn away by a soul-destroying
everyday existence.
I
was at last getting to the heart of
the matter. My virtuosity no longer
prevented people seeing the wood for
the trees. It was indispensable to a
new awareness of the timeless rules
governing music.
Since
my official reconversion I had been
slaving away eight to ten, hours a day
but it was only the first step towards
my salvation. I was asked to give other
concerts and then made some recordings,
now that it was possible to attain a
high technical standard. Yet strange
to say most of them were never issued
in Hungary.
* * * * * * * * * *
It
was 1956. There was some question in
high places of sending me to the USSR
shortly and, at the end of the year,
they might even let me go to Paris.
There were so many ‘ifs’ that it was
most unlikely and, as far as I was concerned,
I had become resigned to the situation
long ago. Before that, I had to undergo
my trial by fire, figuratively speaking.
As
part of the festivities celebrating
the anniversary of the Great October
Revolution (which workers and intellectuals
had been forced to celebrate for the
past eleven years) a highly talented
colleague of mine was asked to learn
by heart Bartók’s Second Piano
Concerto, considered unplayable
at the time. Although he had six months
to learn it in, he dropped out three
months before the day of reckoning,
fearing a memory lapse. In desperation,
a great Chinese pianist (in those happy
times our two countries were on friendly
terms) was appealed to. He was reputed
to have learnt all Mao’s thoughts in
a fortnight, not to speak of understanding
them. After six weeks he too turned
the proposition down. And that was how
the astounding piece fell to me – even
today it remains one of the most complex
contemporary piano works. I did not
accept gladly, but I was given to understand
that engagements in Moscow, London and,
above all, Paris depended to a great
extent on my performance.
I
got down to the task and it almost drove
me mad. But I also realized that if
I managed to play this impossibly difficult
work within the imposed time limit I
would have convinced myself I was truly
ready for an international career.
The
great day arrived and the concert was
a triumph of some portent. The audience
was a cross section of a people weary
of the excesses of a regime whose victorious
army had, after eleven years, still
not returned home. Despite its stupefying
complexity, the music is perfectly structured
and this enabled me to surpass myself
so that it seemed like molten lead to
the audience. Some two thousand people,
normally so disciplined, rushed from
the hall singing the National Anthem
and ripping down anything bearing emblems
other than the national flag as they
ran along the nearby streets and avenues.
There was an uprising and the government
(responsible for an even worse police
state than the one it had copied) fled
to a new refuge. The frontier half opened.
While people rushed into the breach
in their tens of thousands, the revolt
was rapidly put down and a new regime
did its best to gloss it over as a mere
passing error.[By way
of homage to the thousands killed by
the Soviet forces, Cziffra never played
the Bartók concerto again.]
Time
was running out: the breaches in the
demarcation line were being closed.
This time I chose exile of my own accord.
I was quite ready to assume my status
as a free man and artist.
Some
ten days after our flight I was giving
my first recital in the Austrian capital
and was applauded by audience and critics
alike for a masterly performance. It
came as a surprise when we arrived in
Vienna to discover that I was far from
unknown to musicians and music lovers.
The reason was simple enough: we lived
not far from the Conservatory where
I went each day to put the final touches
to a programme which was more or less
improvised. To my great surprise, on
going past the glittering window displays
of the richly-stocked record shops –
the effect was the same when I first
strolled along the Champs-Elysées
– I saw those records of mine which
I had thought sunk without trace on
display.
Soon
after the first concert in Vienna, I
gave a recital in Paris. In comparison
with my experience up till then, life
in my second fatherland, France, was
to be like a bath of holy water.
My
story should end here if I had not gone
on the warpath, or rather on a pilgrimage,
to save a chapel and transform it into
a temple of the arts.
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