96 ❧ chapter six
recovered from my initial shock I got on the phone and saw to it that the num-
ber of rehearsals was increased to twenty. They turned out to be none too many,
for indeed it was not until the fi rst performance that we ever played the piece
straight through. From looking at the poorly aligned manuscript score it was
impossible to form any idea of the sound as a whole or of the relationship of the
parts in terms of the give-and-take of ordinary ensemble playing. What was intel-
ligible but terrifying was the rhythmic structure. All note values and metronome
markings were meticulously indicated in relation to a basic pulse and it was clear
that absolute accuracy was expected, down to the smallest rhythmic subdivisions.
Someone who saw the score lying on my desk remarked, not without justifi ca-
tion, that this kind of music was better suited to mechanical recording on tape
than to being confi ded to the fallibilities of the human organism.
I spent most of my waking hours in the next weeks counting unfamiliar
rhythms and checking them with the metronome. In bed in the early morn-
ings, because I felt safer lying on my back, I would beat fi ves and sevens, and
count nines, elevens, and thirteens against them. The mere negotiation of the
notes was scarcely less a problem, since I had never yet encountered a compa-
rable style in twentieth-century harpsichord music.
At the time my house still consisted only of a living room with appendages,
and any extra harpsichord that came back from a tour could be housed only
on the fl oor without its stand so that the resident harpsichord could be placed
on top of it and my own seat raised to a corresponding height with the help
of a couple of wine cases. Since it was my habit in summers to wear little or
no clothing, one can imagine the astonishment of unannounced visitors as,
already puzzled by the jangle of seeming cacophony issuing from the harpsi-
chord, they came upon my naked struggles, high up near the ceiling, with the
cadenza of the Carter concerto.
The fi rst meeting of composer, conductor, and soloists took place on the
Monday preceding the performance. In the hope that we might be able to do
some coordinating of the piano and the harpsichord, I had invited Charles
Rosen to stay in the guesthouse next door for the weekend, but the nature of
our respective parts made it almost impossible. We could not play from the full
score because of its illegibility and because of its page turns. Our separate parts
had been noted by some kind of a musical typewriter with totally illogical spac-
ings and were only slightly more legible than the score. Furthermore, there
were long stretches of rests that we could not be expected to count while sit-
ting there by ourselves in the absence of a conductor or accompanying instru-
ments. So with Charles, who is exceedingly cultivated in many domains and
verbally one of the most articulate musicians I have ever known, I discussed
during the weekend all manner of subjects other than the Carter concerto
(when I say “discussed” I mean that I listened to Charles, whose idea of a dis-
cussion is a monologue).
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rick simeone
(Rick Simeone)
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