The Sisters D' Aranyi

Routledge Revivals The Sisters d' Aranyi First published in 1969, The Sisters d' Aranyi traces the careers, personalities and musical development of Jelly d’ Aranyi and Adila Fachiri, outstanding violinists in Britain and Hungarian great nieces of Josef Joachim, with insight and a wealth of anecdote and description. The book contains fresh lights on figures such as Joachim himself, Elgar, Ravel and Vaughan Williams, Casals, Suggia, and Myra Hess, Aldous Huxley, Einstein and Schweitzer, Balfour, Asquith and Neville Chamberlain. There are illuminating comments on music from Bach to the present day, and also a chapter on the mysterious affair of the Imprisoned Schumann Violin Concerto, and how it was found and liberated. These two consummate musicians were, however, part of a movement towards greater sincerity in music- a tendency not yet sufficiently recorded by musicologists. To set them in their time, this biography contains a most readable history of music in Britain with some original observations on the nature of music itself in performance. This book is an essential read for students of music, music history, literature, performance studies, for violin players and also for general music lovers. The Sisters d' Aranyi by Joseph Macleod First published in 1969 By George Allen and Unwin Ltd. This edition first published in 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1969 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact. A Library of Congress record exists under LCCN: 79480569 ISBN 13: 978-1-032-13326-3 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-1-003-22868-4 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978-1-032-13327-0 (pbk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003228684 The Sisters <TAranyi JOSEPH MACLEOD London GEORGE ALLEN AND UNW IN LTD R U S K IN H OUSE · M USEUM STREET F IR S T P U B L IS H E D I N I 9 6 9 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private studyy research3 criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act3 1956 no portion may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. © George Allen and Unwin L t d 1969 To Alice M. F. Dukes of Rugby in gratitude and to Adrienne and Adila Jane Camilloni in hope PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN in II112 point Plantin Type BY W ILLMER BROTHERS LIMITED BIRKENHEAD Foreword BY THE RT. HON. SIR EDWARD BOYLE, BART., M .P. I feel pleased and honoured that I should have been invited to contribute a short introduction to Joseph Macleod’s most sympathetic and percep- tive study of The Sisters d’A ranyi, which I have read with the greatest interest. My father shared chambers in the Temple with Alexander Fachiri, and this was the foundation of a close friendship between our respective families. Both my parents were music lovers. My father had an unusual gift for playing by ear, and my mother was a good amateur ’cellist who had been trained by Georg WiUe in Dresden immediately before the 1914 war; one of the proudest and happiest moments in her life occurred when Adila Fachiri invited her to play at the same desk as Alexander, in the small string orchestra which accompanied her and Jelly d’Aranyi at the Haslemere Festival. Incidentally Alexander’s own abilities as a performer, and even more his musicianship, should not be underrated. My mother much admired him as a chamber-music player, and always said she had never heard anyone do greater justice to the Second Cello part in Schu- bert’s great String Quintet (especially the adagio). But the close intimacy between our families was based principally, not just on admiration for Jelly and Adila as performers, but on a deep affection for them as persons—an affection which extended to Alexander and also to Adila’s daughter, Adrienne (now Signora Fachiri-Camilloni), who remains today as she has always been, a particularly valued friend and close contemporary both of my sister and myself. I shall always remember Adila—exuberant, uninhibited, not always discreet—as one of the warmest personalities and loyalest friends I have ever known. Jelly’s personality, as Mr Macleod’s pages bring out so well, was something rather more rare. I shall not attempt to emulate his description, but readers of this book will be able to sense the atmosphere, which Jelly always radiated, of goodness, ethereal charm, and also wit; I particularly like Mr Macleod’s story of her remark to Einstein, after playing quintet with him: “Your time was relative only once or twice.” One was always struck, not only by the mutual devotion of the two sisters, but also by how much they were able to give to one another. Jelly could always count on Adila for technical help and advice; Adila would have been the first to admit how much she owed to Jelly’s qualities of character. Each was absolutely devoid of any spirit of jealousy, or even emulation where the other was concerned. I can recall listening to a broadcast of a performance in Holland by Jelly of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and Adila’s concern that we would not be tuned in properly before the slow movement “which Jelly plays so divinely” ; she added “It is my own least good Concerto”. Mr Macleod has rightly devoted some space to their performance of the Bach Concerto for Two V Foreword Violins, with which they became so intimately associated. I agree with all that he writes, though I think it is the slow movement that lives on in my own memory the most vividly. Mr Macleod brings out the size of their repertory, especially Jelly’s— in this one respect they were very different from their great-uncle Joachim. Some of their items would strike a contemporary audience as old-fashioned though I believe there are a number of present-day critics who would be glad occasionally to hear Spohr’s Duos which Tovey so much admired. But we are also reminded of Jelly’s enterprise in learning and introducing a number of contemporary works— like Ravel’s Tzigane, and the two Sonatas for Piano and Violin by Bartók which still sound among the most difficult works of this great composer. Incidentally, remembering Jelly’s performance of the Second Sonata, and having recently heard the recording of it by Bartbk and Szigeti, I would endorse Mr Calvocorvessi’s judgment, quoted by Mr Macleod, that Jelly’s was the more tense. There is an amusing description of Jelly’s relations with Elgar— she could never ‘take’ his Violin Concerto (neither, despite her admiration for the youthful Menuhin’s performance, could my mother). One Concerto in which Jelly specially excelled, not mentioned by Mr Macleod, was the Saint-Saëns in B Minor— not even Ysaye can have played the opening theme more effectively. I once asked Jelly why Tovey, in his musical writings, seemed to evince such a disproportionate hostility to Saint- Saëns’ music; she said she thought it was a reaction against the praise of those in Tovey’s circle who took Saint-Saëns too seriously, especially Speyer. Mr Macleod deals factually and tactfully with the curious story of the ‘rediscovery’ of the Schumann Violin Concerto. Actually, it was in my home that Adila first came downstairs and an- nounced “Schumann has come to us”. It did not prove a fortunate visitation—though, as a music lover, I cannot regret the disinterring of this Concerto if only for the sake of the opening bars of the slow movement. There is a tinge of sadness surrounding the final chapters of this book, and Mr Macleod writes sympathetically about the “strange fading-out” of Jelly as a front-rank artist from about the time of the start of the 1939 war. As Mr Macleod’s earlier chapters show, uncertain health may have had something to do with this. Undoubtedly Alexander’s prolonged illness and death early in 1939 caused a great strain for the whole family, and perhaps for Jelly most of all. And my mother always held the view— she once plucked up courage to say this to Adila, who did not contradict her — that Jelly was never quite the same player after she abandoned her Bergonzi instrument for the ‘Strad’ to which her friends contributed; somehow the new instrument never seemed entirely to suit her, and she would privately admit she was nervous of it. It has to be remembered, also, that Jelly did not have a single violin lesson after she was fourteen years old; her relative lack of formal training, by present-day standards, probably made it harder for her to fight back technically. And there were, in addition, personal factors, like the tragic rupture with Myra Hess, with whom Jelly had previously formed such a successful partnership. VI Foreword But if Jelly was in her hey-day as a performer during the period between the wars, the same is not true of Adila who gave some of her most memor- able recitals after 1945, especially the 1951 recital, fully described by Mr Macleod, at which she played the entire sequence of Brahms— Joachim Hungarian Dances.

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