Simply Madeleine: The Memoir of a Post–World War Ii French Pianist

Simply madeleine:

THE MEMOIR OF A POST WORLD WAR II

FRENCH PIANIST

Madeleine Forte

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© 2011 Madeleine Forte. All rights reserved.

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First published by AuthorHouse 08/13/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3384-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3383-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3385-7 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011911512

Printed in the United States of America

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To my dear Madeleine:

Only one time did you and I meet face to face. But your French vivacity and energy and the Chopin and Ravel tapes you left behind made me feel that I had been in the presence of a very special person. While reading your manuscript for Simply Madeleine some ten years later, I realized that there were untold individuals from all corners of the world who were affected by you in exactly the same way.

When you sent me the first pages of your memoirs and asked for an opinion, I was as candid as I would have been critiquing a student paper. Instead of being hurt, you thanked me profusely. From then on, we shared one new installment after the other. I reminded you often that my advice was not coming from an expert or ghost writer. You rewrote, we reread, I suggested, you reorganized yet; you were never discouraged and always carried on.

Eventually, our exchange was far more than just striving for a publishable work. I got to know that little girl growing up in Algiers , her mother, father, brother, grandmother and that wonderful Aunt Sonia. Madeleine lead me to Paris , to Vichy , to Italy , to Poland , to Brazil and I met the circle or her friends that grew and with it her reputation. Everywhere famous artists crossed her life. I am not a musician but just reading many of those names such as Cortot, Kempff or the indomitable Maria Callas brought back memories of my own childhood in Switzerland . They inspired the young artist and her performances and admired her repertoire, especially that of the great French composers. Your private life took many turns but your musicianship always seemed to have been on even keel. That you became a professor of music was bound to crown your life. Now, you could share your many memorable encounters and amusing stories and you could pass on your professional knowledge, show your energy and your love for young people. They found a mentor with the highest expectations and greatest humanity.

Madeleine, your courage to re-live your rich life in your memoirs and to share it with those who love you, deserves our sincere gratitude.

Congratulations and best wishes,

Regula A. Meier, Professor Emeritus

Old Dominion University

Both an intimate self-portrait and a panoramic view of musical life in the postwar period, with charming vignettes of many famous musicians. Honest, beautifully written, deeply felt, and a pleasure to read.

Joseph N. Straus

Distinguished Professor

Graduate Center, City University of New York

Simply madeleine, a loving memoir by concert pianist Madeleine Forte, takes the reader to a number of different worlds: her family home with her colorful extended family; French Algeria during the Second World War, where the American military presence was among her earliest memories; the studios of Wilhelm Kempff, Alfred Cortot, and György Cziffra…Paris, Warsaw, Rio de Janeiro. This Pianist’s Progress introduces us to an endless parade of larger-than-life characters with whom she studied music, and life, and for whom she feels affection and gratitude. The warmest of cozy afternoon reads!

Prof. Jonathan D. Bellman

Area Head—Academic Studies in Music

School of Music, CPVA

University of Northern Colorado

Madeleine Forte’s personal and musical journey begins in the small French village of Orléansville, just before the Second World War, and it ultimately brings her to New England—to Connecticut, and to marriage to Allen Forte, one of the most influential music theorists of the twentieth century. Along the way, her musical career takes her to Paris, Poland, Brazil and other countries in South America, New York, and Boise(Idaho). Her experience of the musical world of her time brings her into contact with many of the most influential artists of the century—Alfred Cortot, Wilhelm Kempff, Rosina Lhevinne, Olivier Messiaen, Milton Babbitt, and many more. Her life cuts a slice though this musical world that is both improbable and entertaining, both memorable and moving. A good read, start to finish.

Patrick McCreless

Professor of Music

Yale University

Acknowledgement

My gratitude to my family and friends for their words of wisdom and encouragement.

To Allen.To Yann Franck, Olen, Olivier Guillaume,

and Elodie Marie.

Madeleine Forte

Résumé

Franco-American pianist Madeleine Forte has won prizes in international competitions (Viotti, Italy; Maria Canals, Spain; Guanabara, Brazil). As a girl she studied with Alfred Cortot and Wilhelm Kempff. She holds an Artist Diploma from the École Normale de Musique, Paris, and the Frédéric Chopin Academy in Warsaw. She holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Science degrees from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Rosina Lhévinne and Martin Canin. She also earned the Ph.D degree from New York University, with her dissertation on the music of Olivier Messiaen. Her book, Olivier Messiaen: the Musical Mediator, was published in 1996 by Fairleigh Dickinson Press. She has performed extensively in Europe as a recitalist and as a soloist with orchestras in Africa, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, the United States, Canada, China, Japan, and South Korea. In her teaching career she has given lectures and masterclasses at colleges and universities in Europe, North America, China, Japan, and South Korea. She is a Yamaha Performing and Recording Artist. Her most recent recordings (on the Roméo Records and Connoisseur Society labels) are devoted to the music of Ravel, Chopin, Debussy, Messiaen, Barber, Bartók, Liszt, and Beethoven. Forte is a member of the American Liszt Society and of Mu Phi Epsilon. She is the recipient of the Idaho Governor’s award for excellence in the arts. Madeleine Forte is a Fellow of Silliman College, Yale University. She tours with her husband, Allen Forte, Battell Professor emeritus of the Theory of Music, Yale University, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Prologue

Madeleine and Father

To the unique one who reads me:

Finally I will talk of the ones I love… of a universal art that… would at last resuscitate individuals in their flesh and their duration. That is what my compatriot Albert Camus wrote before his untimely death at age forty-six. He was born right before World War I and raised in Algeria in a very poor family; he was fatherless, with a mother almost deaf and mute. I was born right before World War II, also in Algeria. Unlike Camus, however, my family was neither rich nor poor. How amazing it is that some of my experiences as a little girl are so similar to his! I am not a writer, but a pianist and a woman. I only wish to pay homage to the people who formed me: my loving relatives, the Americans who saved my country, my neighbors in my lovely hometown of Orléansville whose best is past and gone, my faithful dogs, my teachers, and all the friendly people I met in the world. The nasty ones also taught me a lesson.

Chapter I

MY CHILDHOOD IN ORLÉANSVILLE 1938-1954

Operation Torch, November 1942: the Americans had landed in French Algeria, North Africa. I was a serious four-year old little girl, very quiet, and I played the piano. I absorbed everything, I listened, I was interested. It was an exciting time! All those tall men in uniform, healthy and tanned, with large shoulders, and cropped hair, their eyes shiny and their smiles wide with beautiful white teeth. They had loud laughs that seemed to chase storms; they were lovely and tender with great charm. They called me baby—I was very small—and took me in their arms. When they held me against their chests, I loved their toughness, strength, and confidence. I felt transported far from my mother’s little ribbons that I hated. Here was the real world where nothing wrong could ever happen.

My father José worked as a lawyer where he received le tiers colonial—which means the French government was paying a third extra to French citizens willing to work in Africa. During the war, as a lieutenant in the Reserve French Army, he was assigned to guard a camp of Italian prisoners in a town called Relizane. For me it was a great time: the Americans were with us, and I was their mascot. Jimmy and Sergeant Kirk gave me my first puppy, Speed, who had been parachuted into the country inside Jimmy’s Ike’s jacket. My mother Rolande told me that she had seen the Americans give white bread with strawberry jam to the puppy, and that she had signaled to them that her baby also would like a taste of white bread and jam. After that, I was their baby, and I vividly remember the rides on Jimmy’s huge motorcycle: I was enthroned on the gasoline tank, in front of my big friend, with my brother sitting behind. The Americans used to throw candies at the kids from their helicopters, and everybody had a great time.

My mother used to place little bottles of wine inside the bread destined for the Italian prisoners. Because her father was Italian, she tried to ameliorate the fate of those poor guys who did not know why they had to fight. My mother used to say, Italiani brava gente, a la guerra non vale niente. I am not sure she was correct, but that is what she said. For a long time we had a painting of the Virgin Mary made specially by one of the prisoners for my mother; I also had a gift from the prisoners, a pink wooden bed and brown bureau for my dolls, which I cherished. I had my own metal bowl and stood in line at meals. The atmosphere was very relaxed. Once I followed my father into a large room where lots of socks were hanging from the beds: the soldiers were at rest and my father visited his men. What I recall is the strong smell of their socks!

After the Relizane period, my father was not home anymore. He was fighting abroad. I know that he fought in the Italian campaign, probably around September 1943. French families had to give their extra room to Americans, and I think that we got an officer in my brother’s bedroom. My mother gave him permission to invite his comrades. It was a big party, with food and too many drinks. My mother was not happy at all. I still can see her angry eyes through the little paper basket that the men had placed on her head for a new hat. The following morning, she received many apologies and promises to behave. While searching for Sergeant Kirk, I recently found on the internet the log of American soldiers. They wrote in January 1943: We made good progress and passed through very fertile country with mile after mile of vineyards on either side of the road. We passed through Relizane, Subernaum, Orléansville… In all these towns, as we passed through, the children would stop their play, run to the curb and cheer. It was really an enthusiastic greeting which we received in all these small places—the V for Victory sign was exchanged freely. If such a feeling is in Africa, where the full pressure of the Nazi yoke has been felt, what, we wondered, would the greeting be like when the Allied Armies finally reached the defenses of Europe and delivered France from her ravager.[1]How moving to think that I might have been one of those cheering children! Jimmy, Sergeant Kirk, where are you? It is of you I am thinking today while starting my personal journey all over again. I am making my own movie, and I am renewed. As I look back, my heroes, your strength is still with me.

I recall my American friends around my bed. I had gotten the measles, just what my deceased sister had suffered (the doctor had made a mistake and had given her a shot for whooping cough that killed her.) My mother was frantic. My bedroom had been entirely covered with red paper—to help cure the spots from the measles, as was the superstition then. My American friends were praying for me, calling me dear little girl. I recovered and I played my little piano pieces for them as a thank you. I had started piano with my aunt Sonia who had come to live with my family after her mother’s death, one and a half years earlier. She said that I was very moved by her singing, so she started me on the piano at age three and a half, and helped me progress with great love and skill. She was everything for me—grandmother, friend, fantastic storyteller, and of course my best and only piano teacher for many years. I never went to preschool, since she was teaching me how to read and write and dance and draw.

Before the American liberation, under the Vichy regime, there were some difficult times: