Having Evaded the Gestapo in Occupied Paris, Violinist Devy Erlih Defied Convention to Champion Contemporary French Music
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Having evaded the Gestapo in occupied Paris, violinist Devy Erlih defied convention to champion contemporary French music. On the eve of his 80th birthday, he tells JESSICA DUCHEN his extraordinary story ‘UN MAUVAIS CA RACT ÈRE’ o few of his recordings have made it to CD The Gestapo came looking for‘the little Jew that Devy Erlih remains an elusive presence among who played the violin’. They knew all about me the violin greats of the last 60 years. Yet this éminence grise of the instrument was associated with some of the finest composers of the mid-20th century, and gave numerous world no problem,” and our friend said, “Give the prisoners fell victim to disease and premieres, often of works written especially me your address and I’ll write to you.” To starvation, he recounts. ‘They began to for him. His role in contemporary music my father’s amazement, he soon received a die. The Germans wanted to maintain in postwar France is as significant as his letter containing the date of the concert.’ an image of order and they didn’t want wartime experience was extraordinary: ‘Le petit Devy’ learnt the Mendelssohn this story to be spread around, so they as a Jewish child prodigy in Paris, his tale Concerto, gave the concert, then went began to send home the people who of survival ranges from the hair-raising to straight back to the café orchestra. seemed likely to die, so that they would the miraculous. But the seeds of an idea had been not be held responsible. They sent a Erlih was born in Paris on 5 November planted and a few months later his commissioner to assess the sick prisoners, 1928. His Romanian-Jewish parents were father took him to visit one of the Paris and the man next to my father told him he immigrants from what is now Moldova. Conservatoire’s leading violin professors, should go and see this fellow. My father His father was a folk musician, playing the Jules Boucherit – among whose pupils tried to refuse because he weighed too cimbalom and the pan pipes. Before he were Ginette Neveu, Henri Temianka and much – 38 kilos – but his friend insisted.’ was ten, Erlih was the star attraction in his Michèle Auclair. ‘He said that he would The commissioner drew down Erlih father’s café orchestra, performing nightly gladly take me, but that I would have to senior’s lower eyelids and asked him in a brasserie. stop the café music and concentrate on whether they looked bloodshot in the ‘My parents spoke both Romanian and violin studies,’ says Erlih. ‘My father said, morning. ‘He didn’t know what to say; Russian,’ says Erlih, ‘but I never spoke “Well, maybe one day,” and we went he knew that “yes” or “no” could be either language because my parents always home.’ By the outbreak of war, however, the difference between life and death. wanted me not to be a foreigner, not to the brasserie had closed down and the He made a choice and said, “Yes”.’ have all the problems that they were family was unemployed, so father and Soon Erlih’s father was on his way home. having. So I only spoke French.’ His father son went back to Boucherit. ‘That was In hiding, and hence unable to work, had no formal musical training, and at first, when everything began.’ the Erlihs found it impossible to support neither did Devy. ‘My father just played After the German invasion, the Erlih their young son and sought a better way because in those surroundings, that was family was in grave danger. Erlih’s father of providing for him. Through Boucherit, what people did. I performed with him for was arrested and taken to the notorious they met one Mr Ferretti, an Italian who years, and I loved it – it was full of fun. detention and deportation centre at Drancy. was a long-time resident in Paris. He took My father taught me, and only by ear.’ ‘He was saved by a sort of miracle,’ Erlih Devy in. ‘He treated me like his own son,’ That, he adds, was an advantage: ‘It was declares. Living in desperate conditions, Erlih says, ‘and he had a fantastic library a wonderful beginning, not to start with solfège – how can a child be stimulated by a horrid burden like that? It’s known that a child speaks his mother tongue after about three years of age – therefore he can speak music in the same way. It’s easy.’ One day, a music-loving philanthropist missed a train and wandered into the brasserie where the Erlih family orchestra was in full flow. ‘This gentleman saw the poster outside billing me as “Le petit Devy” and came in to listen,’ says Erlih. H I ‘Afterwards he spoke to my father and L R E Y said, “You know, your son is gifted and V E D you should make something of him. Y S E T I could have him participate in a concert R U O C because I am the head of a music S O T O society – could he play the Mendelssohn H P L L Concerto?” My father was certain that A this offer was a fake, so he said, “Oh yes, A teenage Devy Erlih (fourth from left) with American soldiers after the liberation of Paris in 1944 www.thestrad.com NOVEMBER 2008 THE STRAD 77 Long-Thibaud Competition – the last French violinist to do so. Ironically, Erlih had encountered Jacques Thibaud himself several times. ‘He was like a brother to Boucherit and whenever he came round, Boucherit would say, “Listen to this little boy.” Each time, Thibaud just patted me on the shoulder and said “Very good, very good, now continue, mon petit ,” and these Erlih in the 1970s: despite success early in his career, none of the violinist’s first recordings are now available were his lessons! I was lucky enough to hear him in what proved to be one of his last concerts – he played the Brahms Concerto, rather surprisingly – and Boucherit said:‘In my class we do not play savage I was very struck by the spiritual music: go away!’ He literally threw me out of his quality of his playing then.’ A more profound impression came class for wanting to play Bartók from George Enescu, with whom Erlih gave a recital including the Romanian composer’s Second Sonata. ‘He played the piano like a god,’ Erlih recalls. ‘He had a quality similar to Charles Munch and in which I could continue my schooling. This enabled him to give his first recital, Leonard Bernstein, two musicians who Every Sunday his friends would come where again an accident of fate intervened. only had to step in front of an orchestra round and I would play to them. I didn’t ‘The critic Antoine Goléa, who was and the musicians would at once want to know their names. It was only later that Romanian and had formerly been a violin play. I couldn’t always understand what I discovered one of them was de Gaulle’s student of Enescu, turned up by mistake. he said, but he could bring you to do private secretary, another was one of his He was supposed to attend the Salle Pleyel something musical just by his presence ministers, and a third was the papal nuncio and I was at the Salle Gaveau; he went and his music making. This was a who later became Pope John XXIII!’ But to the wrong hall. But seeing that a tremendous inspiration.’ after a while, Erlih went to visit his father, young violinist was making a debut, he How did Erlih become interested in who instructed him to leave Paris at once. decided to stay.’ Goléa’s review lauded contemporary music? ‘Ah,’ Erlih twinkles. Boucherit took Erlih out of the city to the youngster to the skies; the critic also ‘That was because I had what we call his country house, where the boy stayed recommended him to a conductor in France un mauvais caractère ! I was with the caretaker. ‘The very next Sunday friend, Henri Tomasi, who gave Erlih extremely contrary and I was terrible to the Gestapo came to Ferretti’s home, the opportunity to play the Brahms Boucherit.’ Boucherit, he adds, had the looking for “the little Jew who played the Concerto with his orchestra. reputation of being a dictator. ‘It was that violin”. They knew all about me.’ Then These events helped to launch particular generation. In those days, the Ferretti produced a personal coup. ‘He his career, and in 1955 he won the father figure was a dictator. You did what told them: “You are wrong!” and pulled a card out of his wallet.’ On it was the name of a pizza restaurant in Italy, an appointment time, and the signature ‘Benito Mussolini’. The card, as Ferretti intended, intimidated the officials into thinking Ferretti had friends in high places, and was on their side. In fact, the situation was somewhat different: ‘Ferretti and Mussolini had been students together and were totally opposed politically – they used to meet for arguments in cafés regularly,’ Erlih explains. ‘So when Mussolini took power, Ferretti knew that it was time to leave Italy as fast as possible.’ After the war, Erlih resumed his official studies at once, entering Boucherit’s class in the Paris Conservatoire and soon earning the sought-after Premier Prix. A young Devy Erlih on a visit to Shinichi Suzuki’s violin classes in Matsumoto, Japan, in the early 1950s 78 THE STRAD NOVEMBER 2008 www.thestrad.com he demanded, without questioning.