Snakes and Ladders by Dirk Bogarde

Author:Dirk Bogarde
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-10-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Back in the Lana Turner Suite with its squashed porridge carpet, Forwood steadily played through the entire foot-high pile of records required for the film, while I sprawled, numb with misery and full of Hennessy and self-pity, half in and half out of one of the porridge tweed armchairs, staring hopelessly at the splintered woodwork of the unmended lintel. After an hour and a half of sonorous organs, crashing cymbals and a run-amok piano, I slid into a heap on the floor and begged most earnestly to be carried to the next flight for London.

Forwood carefully replaced “Fantasy on Verdi’s Rigoletto” in its crackly new orange paper sleeve, and took my empty glass; and bottle.

“Come on. Stop whining. They’ve made a compromise … you only have to play from the back. And it’s a dummy keyboard, not a real piano …”

“Oh God help me … but I still have to play the exact keys … it’s got to be musically accurate.”

“No one has ever done it before, of course, you know.”

“Done what?”

“Played eighty-five minutes of piano music without a double.”

“Oh shit! Who’ll know? Who’ll even care?”

“You will.”

“I can’t do it! I have no co-ordination; you heard what Aller said. He should know, he’s been teaching the piano for years and years …”

Forwood blew some dust off the plastic rubber tree.

“Seems a bit undignified finally coming all this way to a place which you have avoided for so long and letting it beat you; a kind of Dunkirk retreat; without valour.”

* * *

Victor Aller and I worked together in a dank brown soundproofed room with a picture of Myrna Loy on one wall and a view of Naples on another for twelve to fourteen hours a day. Every day, with Sunday afternoons off for rest. By the time we got to Vienna, one month later, I played my part of Liebestraum No. 3 before “all the Crowned Heads of Europe” including half the Court and many hangers on, in the ballroom at Schönbrunn Palace. With the camera on my hands. It had not, as Aller had predicted, taken a thousand years after all, and although it was a slow piece we had made a start, and with his patience and devotion, Forwood’s unending encouragement and Capucine’s constant loving support (she was never to miss a single performance all through the weary seven months of work), plus ten to twelve hours work at the keyboard daily, including all day on Sundays latterly, I lost three stone in weight but managed to get through all the pieces selected for me to play, ending up eventually with the major chunk of No. I in E Flat with entire orchestra in the Cuvillies Theatre, Munich, accurately enough and with some degree of Lisztian panache; it brought the house to its feet voluntarily, and the orchestra applauded beaming brightly. Aller turned his back and burst into tears. I had no retreat without valour; and although I frequently choked to death on the dialogue, I almost

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.