Read Online Out of Tune by Margaret Helfgott - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Margaret Helfgott
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time, and went to work in Melbourne— though there was
of course a huge difference between my spending a few weeks in Melbourne, under the watchful eye of my grandparents, and the
idea of David, who was two years younger than me and considerably less mature—he still could not even tie his own shoelaces—spending
years alone on the other side of the world.
Although his attitude was troublesome, once he had got over the disappointment of the America trip that never was, David’s
musical skills continued to improve. I was amazed at the sensitive way in which he could now interpret some of the works he
mastered. For example, he played Prelude No. 8 by Bach (from the first book of Preludes and Fugues) very tenderly; this slow,
quiet, and introspective piece required him to demonstrate a range of skills quite different from those required to play the
more lively and virtuoso pieces by Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and Balakirev, which David usually performed.
In October 1961, David achieved a remarkable result for a fourteen-year-old. He scored 184 out of 200 as he successfully passed
the exam for his certificate of Associate in Music, and he was awarded the special annual prize by the Australian Music Examinations
Board.
We continued going to concerto competitions and the papers eagerly followed David’s musical successes. Many articles about
David were accompanied by a photograph of him wearing a jacket and bow tie, looking serious and confident behind his thick-rimmed
spectacles and half smile.
By now his reputation had been established well beyond Perth. Under the headline “Professor: Helfgott is ‘Great Pianist,”
an article in a Melbourne newspaper began: “Professor Sidney Harrison said yesterday that young Perth pianist David Helfgott
was among the best and most talented artists he had seen in twenty-five years as an adjudicator. The world-famous music authority
said ‘David, at fourteen, was far, far the youngest competitor in the [ABC Concerto] competition. All the judges agreed he
has an extraordinary talent… Harrison, professor of music at the Guildhall School of Music in London said David’s rendition
of Mozart’s concerto was faultless. ‘When I return to England in July I shall certainly mention David Helfgott as a great
young Australian pianist,’ he added.”
“An enormous talent,” declared the Dutch conductor Willem van Otterloo in an article about David that appeared in 1962. Another
critic wrote about “the magic in the brilliant fingers of David Helfgott.”
I still have newspaper clippings about David’s performances of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto in Perth on June 16, 1964
and in Melbourne on July 4, 1964. The critic Sally Trethowan wrote of the Perth performance: “Under his talented hands this
work exploded in a display of aural pyrotechnics that brought long and enthusiastic applause from the large audience.”
Another critic, Adrian Rawlins, said: “Helfgott played the Rachmaninoff Concerto with great sensitivity and insight.”
(Scott Hicks, in what he has referred to in interviews as the “ten-year odyssey” it took to research and make
Shine
, could surely have found out—if not from David or a library, then by speaking to my mother, Leslie, or me—that David had
mastered Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto at least five years before the 1969 London performance that, Hicks alleges, caused
David to collapse on stage and led to a major breakdown.)
Year after year—and in marked contrast to the reviews David has recently been receiving—music critics were almost unanimous
in their praise of David’s performances. In May 1965, for example,
The Sunday Times
(Perth) ran an article under the headline “Born to a Piano.” “Helfgott dazzles” was the heading of a piece by Barbara Yates
Rothwell in another paper.
But, as David received more and more praise, his head swelled even larger. His arrogance continued to
of course a huge difference between my spending a few weeks in Melbourne, under the watchful eye of my grandparents, and the
idea of David, who was two years younger than me and considerably less mature—he still could not even tie his own shoelaces—spending
years alone on the other side of the world.
Although his attitude was troublesome, once he had got over the disappointment of the America trip that never was, David’s
musical skills continued to improve. I was amazed at the sensitive way in which he could now interpret some of the works he
mastered. For example, he played Prelude No. 8 by Bach (from the first book of Preludes and Fugues) very tenderly; this slow,
quiet, and introspective piece required him to demonstrate a range of skills quite different from those required to play the
more lively and virtuoso pieces by Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and Balakirev, which David usually performed.
In October 1961, David achieved a remarkable result for a fourteen-year-old. He scored 184 out of 200 as he successfully passed
the exam for his certificate of Associate in Music, and he was awarded the special annual prize by the Australian Music Examinations
Board.
We continued going to concerto competitions and the papers eagerly followed David’s musical successes. Many articles about
David were accompanied by a photograph of him wearing a jacket and bow tie, looking serious and confident behind his thick-rimmed
spectacles and half smile.
By now his reputation had been established well beyond Perth. Under the headline “Professor: Helfgott is ‘Great Pianist,”
an article in a Melbourne newspaper began: “Professor Sidney Harrison said yesterday that young Perth pianist David Helfgott
was among the best and most talented artists he had seen in twenty-five years as an adjudicator. The world-famous music authority
said ‘David, at fourteen, was far, far the youngest competitor in the [ABC Concerto] competition. All the judges agreed he
has an extraordinary talent… Harrison, professor of music at the Guildhall School of Music in London said David’s rendition
of Mozart’s concerto was faultless. ‘When I return to England in July I shall certainly mention David Helfgott as a great
young Australian pianist,’ he added.”
“An enormous talent,” declared the Dutch conductor Willem van Otterloo in an article about David that appeared in 1962. Another
critic wrote about “the magic in the brilliant fingers of David Helfgott.”
I still have newspaper clippings about David’s performances of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto in Perth on June 16, 1964
and in Melbourne on July 4, 1964. The critic Sally Trethowan wrote of the Perth performance: “Under his talented hands this
work exploded in a display of aural pyrotechnics that brought long and enthusiastic applause from the large audience.”
Another critic, Adrian Rawlins, said: “Helfgott played the Rachmaninoff Concerto with great sensitivity and insight.”
(Scott Hicks, in what he has referred to in interviews as the “ten-year odyssey” it took to research and make
Shine
, could surely have found out—if not from David or a library, then by speaking to my mother, Leslie, or me—that David had
mastered Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto at least five years before the 1969 London performance that, Hicks alleges, caused
David to collapse on stage and led to a major breakdown.)
Year after year—and in marked contrast to the reviews David has recently been receiving—music critics were almost unanimous
in their praise of David’s performances. In May 1965, for example,
The Sunday Times
(Perth) ran an article under the headline “Born to a Piano.” “Helfgott dazzles” was the heading of a piece by Barbara Yates
Rothwell in another paper.
But, as David received more and more praise, his head swelled even larger. His arrogance continued to
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