78 ❧ chapter four
me particularly on my fi rst visit was the civilized lifestyle. As in many seaport
towns such as Hamburg, Lisbon, or Cape Town, there existed a special con-
sciousness of the outside world and of remote distances, yet the town itself was
negotiable on foot and despite the coming and going of seaborne traffi c, had
its own atmosphere.
The tour led us to Portland, Oregon, and then by way of a concert in Palo
Alto to Colorado Springs, where I had last played in 1936 at the opening of
the Arts Center. From here, Sascha returned to New York, but I needed the
rest of the summer for practicing and for learning new pieces. On the advice
of friends in Denver, I settled high in the mountains in an abandoned mining
town called Georgetown. A long-vacant tailor shop was taken over for my harp-
sichord, and I found living quarters in an extraordinary establishment called
the Hotel de Paris. It had been built in the 1870s by a French political exile
who was evidently anxious to bring to the miners a certain transatlantic ele-
gance of living. The original walnut furnishings, fl owered carpets, and tattered
red damask curtains were still in place, and the halls were hung with a variety
of prints that even included Paris printings of one or two etchings of Goya. The
library of predominantly French books brought me to reading Balzac for the
fi rst time. On weekends, I made increasingly long ascents into the mountains,
and since Georgetown was very nearly at tree line, I had little need of trails
because of the perfect visibility.
Sascha and I began the following season on October 28th at the Coolidge
Festival in Washington. This festival was distinguished by two premieres of
Martha Graham and her company. I will never forget the intensity of Merce
Cunningham’s role as the preacher in Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring.
Like a pillar of fi re, he practically blazed his way across the stage. The other
new work was Hérodiade, with a set and costumes by Noguchi and music by
Hindemith based on Mallarmé’s poem. (I think that I may have had something
to do with suggesting to Mrs. Coolidge part of this unlikely collaboration). I
am not sure that the mixture of Mallarmé, Noguchi, Hindemith, and Martha
Graham ever reached complete amalgamation.
Our fi rst New York performance of the Bach–Mozart cycle took place in
early November at the YMHA.^1 Between rehearsal and performance of the
fi rst concert, Sascha received word that his mother had been gassed in a Nazi
concentration camp. Of this concert, Virgil Thomson wrote one of his snotti-
est reviews. From October to mid-April of that season, we played twenty-eight
concerts between the Atlantic and Pacifi c coasts, and thirty-six concerts in the
following season. In addition, I had my own solo concerts, concerts with other
chamber music combinations, and a great deal of continuo playing in New
York for Bach cantatas and oratorios.
- Young Men’s Hebrew Association, now known as the 92nd Street Y.
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