Reflections of an American Harpsichordist Unpublished Memoirs, Essays, and Lectures of Ralph Kirkpatrick

30 ❧ chapter one
with Capri in the distance, I could pick ripe fi gs, and when we descended to
swim we found the company of a varied group of derelict German painters
and Neapolitan aristocracy. The American invasion of subsequent years had
not yet begun; in fact, there was as yet only one small hotel in town. I have
never returned.
In the seasons of 1947 to 1949, I was living a double life such as never
before or since. On the one hand, it involved me with much concert-giving
and, on the other hand, it obliged me to spend every available moment try-
ing to make headway toward completion of the Scarlatti book. My New York
apartment was a shambles, for I dared not put anything away, lest the effort
of pulling it out again might serve as a deterrent to continuing work. Papers,
fi les, and instruments were everywhere, and since in those days I still smoked
and had grown to associate the manipulation of a pipe or cigarette holder
with the act of writing, the atmosphere was reminiscent of early morning in
an unventilated barroom.
When I returned to Europe during the next two years, the Scarlatti book
increasingly gained the upper hand over concert giving. In 1949, I was still
playing in London before settling in Rome for the summer’s work, but in the
Bach anniversary year of 1950, I cancelled all concerts in Europe in order to
work on Scarlatti. The summer of 1950 was the happiest of these I spent in
Rome and by far the most productive. Most of the text of the Scarlatti book
was either rewritten or completed at this time. But in the hours not reserved
for writing and revising there were other pleasures. For the last time in my life
I was in suffi ciently good form to mount the Janiculum by bicycle. In the morn-
ings I rose at dawn and sat at my worktable until noon, thereafter going for a
bicycle ride or taking a sunbath on the roof of the villa before lunch. After the
afternoon siesta I never attempted serious writing, only revision and planning.
In the evenings I often descended into Rome for dinner in one or another of
the squares that made Rome resemble a series of operatic drawing rooms, all
this before its fi nal decline and fall to burial under the accumulated tin-ware of
an automotive age.
It became necessary to fi nd a way of putting space between the cigarettes
that had become the accompaniments to writing. I tried peppermints but
found that I could only stand three or four in a morning. A friend who perhaps
was not wholly unfamiliar with Freudian doctrines jestingly suggested that I try
a teething ring. Accordingly, a pink and pale-blue teething ring was procured
on which I chewed secretly and mercilessly throughout the summer. If some-
one unexpectedly entered the room, I tucked it under a piece of paper.
It is hard for anyone returning to Rome now to believe that, as late as 1950,
one could still reach full countryside with dirt roads and haystacks in four or
fi ve minutes by bicycle from the Piazza S. Pietro, or that a pleasant day’s outing
could be made by bicycle to Fiumicino, now the site of one of the ghastliest
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