Dissolving Music In Mind Chapter 10

I have read articles describing my life that give the impression that every day is devoted to endless work, practicing, performing, conducting, composing. But I am afraid I cannot claim to be a model of hard work. It is true that I do my share of work, and my cello is a demanding tyrant, but I also get my share of relaxation, sports, and leisure. Since childhood, I have played with more than just instruments! My happiest moments are spent playing tennis, riding, swimming, climbing, and, most recently, playing dominoes. Although busy with the Xavier Orchestra and touring, I still find time for things that allow me to express myself more easily. In fact, I can enjoy such recreation because I live near San Salvador, where I have my beloved beach and my own tennis court.

Tennis was really my favorite sport at the time. I played a lot of tennis during the years I lived in Paris, and we had annual competitions between musicians, including Eugene Ysaÿe, Cortot, Thibaud, and others. My doubles partner was an organist named Kelly, who played like a professional, and I was very fast on the court, so we always won the doubles championship. When I went to England, I often went to Ridgehurst, where Lord Speyer's country estate was located. He was a British financier who was also known for his patronage of music and had helped to establish the Classical Concert Society. 

He was nearly seventy years old when we met, a very kind old man who had been friends with Joseph Joachim, Brahms, and other great musical figures. Speyer loved tennis and had an excellent court at Ridgehurst, and when I went there I always brought my tennis racket and cello with me. In his memoirs, he said that one day in the early 1900s I arrived at his estate, wearing a white flannel suit, and when I saw him, I said, "Let's play six games of tennis first, and then two Brahms S3xtets."

There were many great tennis players who came to San Salvador, but I think the best was a Catalan girl named Subalina. She was only about fifteen years old at the time, but she was a great player! She was the best female player I had ever seen and went on to win many championships. Interestingly, I saw her again not long ago at a festival in Israel, 40 years after we played tennis together in San Salvador. She married an Israeli citizen and lived in Tel Aviv.
 
Tennis remained my passion all these years. I followed the tournaments closely and knew three generations of champions, starting with the great Frenchman, Paul Porotra, known as the "Leaping Basque." One of the last matches I played was against my godson, Pablo Eisenberg, who came to visit me in Prades with his parents in 1947. He was the junior champion and I was 71 years old.

When I lived abroad, I always longed to go back to San Salvador for the summer. When I moved back to Catalonia, the house in San Salvador really became my home. Although I still spend several weeks a year on tour and a lot of time with the orchestra in Barcelona, I not only spend the summer in San Salvador, but also go there whenever I can. It's so happy there, to be with my mother, my brother Luiz and his family, and the beauty of the ocean is right on the doorstep!

As a child I loved riding horses, and now I have my own horse, Florian. He is a magnificent Andalusian Arabian, tall and black, with a great gait. In the early mornings I would ride him along the beach, to the music of the wind and the waves crashing on the shore. We were great companions. The distance from the house to the stable was nearly two hundred meters, but in the morning he could hear me as soon as I stepped out of the house and neighed with excitement. I had him from the time he was a pony, and he lived until he was twenty-four years old.

The other animals on the farm have always been a source of joy to me, including the geese, ducks, cows, donkeys, and pigeons. They all have different personalities. I especially like a little donkey. He is so gentle, friendly, and smart. Those who say donkeys are stupid just don't understand him. I often bring this donkey into the house to say good morning to my nephews and nieces. I think he enjoys this ritual as much as the children do!

I also have canaries, eight of them, in cages hanging in the hallway leading to the little music room that houses my father's piano. They greet me every morning when I get up and start the day by playing Bach on my father's piano. They begin to sing as soon as they hear me coming up the stairs, and they join in the chorus when I play. Sometimes I feel as if I am accompanying them.

Alas, my memories of my animal friends in San Salvador are not all happy. I had a German shepherd named Foley who was always with me. He slept outside, but he knew my schedule to the minute. He would wait for me on the doorstep every morning when I left the house to go riding. Then a terrible thing happened. One morning I opened the door and found Foley lying dead in a pool of blood, all the way to the front door. Someone had tried to force the door open during the night, and Foley had apparently tried to guard that door, so he was stabbed and badly wounded by the thief's knife. He crawled from the front door all the way back to the front door and waited for me there until he died. That's how loyal my friends are.

I know some people don't like animals, but I think that's because they don't really understand them, or rather, because they haven't really seen them. To me, their amazing diversity, beautiful shapes and fascinating habits, from the smallest to the largest, are unique manifestations of the wonders of nature. Their spirituality fascinates me. In them, I see the desire to communicate and the capacity for true love. If animals don't trust humans and are afraid of humans, it's because humans treat them with arrogance and rudeness.

In the late 1920s I made a major renovation of the house in San Salvador. As I was spending more time there and as I had more friends staying with me, such as Horzowski, Eisenberg, and Sir Donald Tovey, I needed more space. Moreover, although the house was comfortable, it lacked certain facilities, for example, there was not enough space for my books and the memorabilia I had accumulated over the years. I added several rooms, one of which was a large music room that could accommodate hundreds of people for concerts. 

Next to it I built a room called the "Nostalgia Room", where I hung many photographs of my parents, Count Oliver, several of my teachers and close friends, and I also kept a few precious mementos here, such as a window stone from the room where Beethoven was born, which I had received as a gift when I was in Vienna. Another room I brought intact from the house of an 18th-century Catalan nobleman named Count Guer. To me, this room embodies Catalan culture. It is a charming living room with paintings on the wall panels depicting fables and pastoral scenes, and the ceiling has luxurious decorations and an elegant crystal chandelier. In front of the house I built a walkable seawall with sweeping views of the sea, and in the grounds surrounding the house I added gardens, terraces, and ponds shaded by cypress trees that framed several marble statues I had commissioned.

One of my favorite statues is Apollo. When I first told the famous Catalan sculptor José Colera that I wanted him to make me an Apollo, he didn't even believe I was serious. "An Apollo?" he said with a smile. "For modern sculptors, that's outdated."

"No, don't laugh," I said to him. "As I understand Apollo, he is more than just an ancient god. In my opinion, he embodies the noblest qualities of human beings. You are a talented sculptor. You can carve a statue of Apollo for me."

He shrugged. "Well, Master...if that's what you want..." He was not very enthusiastic.

After a while I went to Colera's studio again to see how the statue was progressing. He had made two models. "These are good models for a muscular young man," I told him, "but they are not Apollo." He was obviously skeptical. The next time I visited him I brought a book on mythology. I read him a few chapters about Apollo, and from the way he listened I could see that he was beginning to be interested.

"You see," I said, "Apollo is not outdated. He is many things in one. Not only is he the god of music and poetry, playing the lyre to the delight of the other gods, he is also the god of medicine, and the ancients understood the close relationship between music and medicine, the healing properties of both. You might think of Apollo as an athlete, because he is the patron of sports, but he is more than that! He deified the human form. He is an archer, but his arrows are not used for fighting, but for warding off demons. He brings harmony to the heavens and the earth. And think of his concern for the most ordinary people, for sailors, travelers, immigrants, as the patron of people on the road, he protects them, gives them gentle winds, safe harbors, and new homes..."
 
Korella sat quietly for several minutes, then said, "Okay, I'll try again."

He tried. He worked hard and finally created the statue of Apollo I desired. It still stands in my garden in San Salvador. Despite the sorrow and upheaval over the years, the ideal it represents has not changed.

Recently, for the first time, mankind has stepped out of the earth and headed for the stars. The spacecraft was named "Apollo". How appropriate! He is the patron saint of wanderers and the symbol of mankind!

In 1931, my dear mother died at the age of seventy-seven. I was not in San Salvador at the time, but on tour in Switzerland. Oddly enough, I was also in Switzerland when my father died twenty-five years earlier. Just as I had a premonition of my father's death, something extraordinary happened this time too.

I have a good friend in Florence named Alberto Pasilli. He is a well-known Italian businessman and a great patron of music, and we have known each other for many years. On the day I received the telegram informing me of my mother's death, Pasilli arrived in Geneva, where I was performing. He said he had come from Florence because he felt that I was in some crisis and needed him. He certainly didn't know that my mother had died, but the impulse to come to see me was so strong that he put aside his business and came to Geneva to be with me...

I've talked about how much my mother meant to me, and how, even though I knew she would die one day, I couldn't imagine the world without her. I mourn her to this day. She is buried next to my father in the cemetery near the church in Bendrell.