ALICE HERZ-SOMMER: THE LADY IN NUMBER 6, 3 YEARS ON

Photo sourced through http://nickreedent.com/photos/

Have you ever met a person whose life story seemed too big to conceive, whose presence seemed divine, almost holy, like a piece of history that accidentally found itself in your bare hands for a little while?

Her name was Alice, and she was my piece of history on a Wednesday afternoon in the winter of 2010. She was meant to be merely a University project, part of my ‘Interview Skills’ module, aimed to make me a better journalist. I never got to be a journalist, but I will not forget my teacher, who foolishly yet truly believed I could be one, constantly encouraging me to push my own limits and reach out farther.

My moment with Alice

I saw her one night on the Russell Howard’s Good News show, and immediately knew I had to meet her. I had no clue as to how to contact her, and so I did what every good journalism student does: research. I must have spent about a week Googling and Facebooking and Twittering until I finally got her phone number from a previous interviewer. And when I called, I shivered. And when she told me to ‘come tomorrow, two o’clock’ and put down the phone, I cried like a little girl.

I went up to North London and had my amateur interview with a professional pianist. She had just had her 107^th birthday, and her flat was filled with colourful flowers. She was warm, sharp, human, but mostly – happy. I asked her about her life, and she asked me about mine. I promised I would visit.

Alice and me in 2010

It has been nearly 3 years now, and I haven’t been back. I know, it sounds all too much like Mitch Albom’s confession in Tuesdays with Morrie, right before he realises his life isn’t really going the way he thought it was, and decides to spend less time working and more time with the people he cares about. Well, that might be relevant, but allow me to make a conscious decision to postpone dealing with this urgent matter for later.

I was recently emailed by a certain Dave N, notifying me of the upcoming documentary The Lady in Number 6, which has apparently qualified to receive a nomination for the Academy Awards. ‘As part of our appreciation for Alice as a person and as a sense of inspiration,’ he wrote, ‘the producers have started the "Alice Challenge." The goal is to give Alice 1,000,000 birthday wishes for her 110th birthday, and send an amazing message to a wonderful individual.”

I know I’m no saint, and re-posting about my experience would probably not clear my conscience or make me feel like a better person. But I at least owe this to you, whoever you may be, to share that bit of exciting news, hoping to take on the Russell Howard role rather than Mitch Albom’s, and inspire you to your own encounter with a piece of history, who, well, might make you cry like a little girl too.

Photo sourced through http://nickreedent.com/photos/

LIKE A COMPLETE UNKNOWN: Bob Dylan at the FEIS Festival 2011

Lost: one musical legend, cult condition, last seen with magical abilities to sweep millions off their feet with his old enchanting songs.

No, that’s not the guy who was performing at the FEIS festival last Saturday in Finsbury Park. The guy I’m talking about is known for his poetic lyrics, and not his defected speech problem. The guy I was looking for is famous for bringing out a rebellious-yet-pacifistic atmosphere among his devoted audience, whereas this guy was just bringing out the rebellious part out of the annoyed audience.

Expectations. My comrades & I, proudly presenting our backstage passes before the show

I didn’t presume to understand the relation between the Jewish-American singer/songwriter and this Irish music festival, otherwise filled with patriotic acts such as the meritorious Cranberries and the Irish answer to Johnny Cash, Christy Moore. I did not even expect much from the 70-year-old poet who was never known for his mighty vocal abilities.

I did, however, expect to be filled with nostalgic euphoria, the kind you get whenever an old, loved musician tries to perform a classic you grew up on without doing it justice (because, let’s face it, it ALWAYS sounds better when played in your home stereo / iPod), but despite that still manages to deliver his grace to the forgiving audience. 

There was no forgiveness amid the audience on that rainy, muddy Saturday. The over-fatigued artist started his set trying to cover his frog-like voice by adopting a Tom Waits style, when performing classics like “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”. The only reason we actually recognised the song was due to the high-alertness of the guy standing in front of us, commenting to his irritated friends, “You know that song, ‘It’s all over now baby blue’? This is it!”

The rest of the set list followed with either unfamiliar tracks or classics that you never had a shot recognising anyway. And so none of us got that nostalgic rush we were hoping to get. But we were still building on the encore to save the evening.

An indifferent audience

To my surprise, once Dylan was off the stage, the encore didn’t take long to happen – perhaps a sign of an impatient audience not to be tangled with. 

It started with the much-needed classic Like a Rolling Stone. And for three minutes there, everyone was chanting to it as if begging for a last chance of that festival atmosphere we were all lacking so desperately.

Needless to say, after that song was finished, my partners and I were having difficulties recognising the last two, All Along the Watchtower and Blowin’ in the Wind, due to the tired mumbling of the lyrics and the completely altered familiar tunes we were waiting for.

What could have been a glorious evening, was carelessly blown in the wind. And rain.

The view from up stage...

Where has all the music gone?

You better keep up, or you’ll end up like me. I used to be a professional music enthusiast, the go-to girl when it came to music news. But the digital age overpowered music as I knew it faster than Paris Hilton’s singing career, and left me hanging behind this new tech-revolving world.

Long gone are the days of the mysterious singer/songwriter knocking on the doors of record companies and recording studios with his guitar. Today’s new striving artists barely need to leave their bedrooms, assuming those are accessorised with a computer, broadband and an affordable mixing and editing program, instruments optional.

I was triggered by Tomer Run’s story, a friend of mine who gained exposure to a new American series, Bar Karma, from the comfort of his humble home in North London. In a matter of days he set up a track with a 1960s sound, using the help of some friends and a lot of technology, and enrolled on an online competition. He was announced a finalist the next day.

“I'm starting to do more of that now,” he enthusiastically announced. “I'm getting loads of work opportunities through music-jobs.co.uk”. The website indabamusic.com, which arranged the competition of composing a soundtrack to Bar Karma, is a great way to pitch as well, he told me. “It offers fantastic opportunities like remixing John Legend and The Roots.”

The home recording techniques are no secret to any musician: with the right programs you could easily record, edit and mix your own material. “The last time I recorded was with my iphone,” said Omri Ran, long time musician owning his own mini recording studio at home. “That was amusing, I was surprised by its quality! It’s nothing professional  and won’t sound as good as something recorded on your computer, but it’s a nice option.” And when it comes down to publicising, well, the options are growing fast.

We all remember Myspace, the ultimate platform for any beginner artist seeking to share his music with a worldwide audience. “The tide really turned with The Arctic Monkeys, who were the first band to be signed to a major label on the strength of their Myspace following, which opened the doors and ears of the people with the power,” Jon Jefford told me, the guitar player for DeepSeaGreen, a London garage rock band. “Music has shifted and the days of the 60s and 70s are almost gone. People don’t go out to listen to unsigned bands unless they are hyped up in a music magazine, so the only way to reach them is through online means.”

The funny thing is, Myspace is not the hottest thing anymore. That too evaporated quickly, as Gil Zausmer, an acknowledged musician and sound designer revealed. “It completely died out. People  aren’t online anymore and it all seems like one big cacophony of monologues instead of networking.”

While Myspace is ‘yesterday’s news’, it did leave its mark on the evolving industry. Websites like reverbnation.com allow you to get your music into online stores such as iTunes and Amazon.

Whether this is a positive change to music publishing or not is debatable. “Getting songs online is essential, but there are so many acts out there it just gets lost,” Zausmer explained. “There isn’t enough focus for a decent period of time – it’s all too instant. With main firms or channels 15 years ago, propagating music to segmented assemblies, you'd have certain groups listening to certain genres at a certain time, with not as many options as we have today, therefore a 'buzz' or a trend could exist. But what you have now is just a mess, defragmentation of those assemblies and main channels, causing inflation in music conveyance. So no trends, no scenes, no buzz – just mainstream regurgitated crap.”

We could choose to look at it as a new age to music industry, for better or worse. I choose to see it as a new genre of music: artists like Jackson and his Computer Band and The Arctic Monkeys, setting up a milestone in home recording and self publishing, created a fresh sound to modern music. Music is swiftly catching up with technology, and we better hurry up as well.

ALICE HERZ-SOMMER, THE PHILOSOPHER OF MUSIC

Born 1903, concert pianist and holocaust survivor Alice Herz-Sommer has never lost her passion for music. In fact, she owes her life to it. She now lives in north London, with her Steinway piano.

“Art is difficult. When you know something a 100 per cent, your satisfaction is happiness. It happens very often that I’m not a 100 per cent, but it’s a good thing – I work more and more!”

Walking up to Alice’s door, I prepared myself for going back in time. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, two World Wars, Israel and London are a lot to take in one lifetime. But this remarkable woman has done it all, with beaming grace.

Alice Herz-Sommer has seen the worst life has to offer, having survived the holocaust and owing it to the talent she’s been blessed with. She was a world famous pianist, recognised amongst musicians like Gustav Mahler (“difficult character”), Antonín Dvořák, Josef Suk, and Vítězslav Novák, some of whom used to visit her childhood home in Prague, alongside intellectuals like Franz Kafka. “I played especially Czech music, and they were thankful for what I did. Everywhere in the world they played Czech music. People loved it.”

On November 26^th, Alice celebrated her 107^th birthday. I brought her flowers, which seemed to be assimilated in the multitude of bouquets filling her flat, surrounding her old Steinway piano. “It’s an excellent piano, but it doesn’t matter! I played on very bad pianos,” she said, tapping her fingers on the table. “It’s nice to play a good instrument, but the main thing is what you know. It takes hard work – and you must love it!”

She started playing when she was five. "My eldest sister was an excellent pianist. She was teaching me until my 16th birthday. Then I studied with a pupil of Franz Liszt."

Most of Alice’s family were musicians. “We didn’t speak about anything else,” she recalled. “Every evening we went to a concert with my mother. I heard the greatest pianists.”

At 14 she already had students, and she gave the money to her mother. “They came to learn because I encouraged them. I was never nervous.” She never stopped teaching, even after coming to London at 84. “I didn’t know the language and it was a little bit difficult,” she confided in me. “I taught my grandchildren the piano. I love children, they discover the world!” she declared so passionately.

In 1943, Alice was sent with her husband and 6-year-old son to Theresienstadt (Terezín) concentration camp, a “show-camp” made for visitors from the Red Cross, simulating a rich cultural life amongst the inmates. “We had to work all day. I only played when I had a concert. Music is so wonderful, it brings you into another world. You are not anymore here.”

I asked her whether she was told what to play. “No, I decided. I was already world famous. They knew I was a musician. I loved playing Les 24 Études by Chopin: it’s like Hamlet to Shakespeare. Extraordinary. There were no notes, no books. We had to know everything by heart. And we didn’t eat.”

How did she have the energy to play, I wondered. “This I ask myself. The boy asked, ‘Why have we nothing to eat?’ What could you say? Not yet six, He asked, ‘What are Jews?’ What can you tell? How?“

Her husband, who played the violin, was sent to Auschwitz in 1944. He died of typhus shortly before the end of the war. When Israel was founded, Alice moved to Jerusalem with her son. “I had one room where the piano was, and a quiet little room where my son and I were sleeping,” she told me.

“I was never interested in operas, not like orchestras. I played the whole world. For me, playing in Israel was beautiful. I played a lot of Paul Ben-Haim and Haim Alexander.” She recalled an experience with her “pessimistic sister” while playing in Israel: “One minute before I had to go on stage, she asked me ‘Do you know how it starts?’ The worst thing she could have asked!” she said with a big laugh.

I asked her whether she plays anything other than piano. She shook her head, explaining, “You can’t do two things well. Do one thing, not necessarily music, then it’s perfect. Even when you sleep, you’re thinking of it, dreaming of it.”

Alice came to London at age 84, following her son, Raphael Sommer, a famous cellist, pianist and conductor. She takes pride in teaching him the piano. “He only wanted to work with me.” In 2001 Raphael died in Israel during a tour. “He used to come every day to eat,” she reminisced, “and he was still sitting afterwards and we spoke for hours. Wonderful relationship. He learned from me, I learned from him.”

Alice and myself, shortly after her 107th birthday

I asked her whether there’s anything she finds emotionally charged to play or listen to. She shook her head, remaining indifferent to my question. “Do you know that in Israel they refuse playing Wagner?” I insisted. “I can’t understand it,”  she said. “My best friends live in Germany. Never hated, will never hate. They did what Hitler said. Hitler was a mad man.” Hesitantly, I mentioned Reinhard Heydrich. “What do you think of him?” I asked. “Nothing,” she laughed. “He played the violin, he was a human being!”

Alice plays three hours every day: “It’s the most beautiful thing I have.” Her favourite pieces are Chopin’s Études and Schumann’s Fantasia in C Major, which are also the ones she finds the most difficult to play. But she starts with Bach – “the philosopher of music”. She works hours to learn it by heart. “Bach is the hardest thing. Extremely complicated. I write it down sometimes, out of memory.”

Suddenly she takes my hands, declaring “You have beautiful hands!” I thanked her, blushing. “Could you tell if someone has ‘hands for piano’?” I asked. “Maybe,” she examined mine, “it’s always better to have bigger hands.” She showed me that her two index fingers bend in. “It started when I was in Prague. It hurts sometimes, but I still play!” she laughed.

“Tell me,” she asked me, “what are genes? My family was all musical. My grandchildren are musical. It goes from one generation to another. What are genes?“ she wondered. “Music runs in your genes?” I asked. “Yes! This is a miracle!” she said, shining. “It makes you proud?” I smiled at her. “Thankful as well,” she added.

“The ears are bad, the eyes are bad. In spite of all, life is beautiful: spring, nature, your flowers – so big and beautiful,” she declared, smiling. Growing up in Israel, I’ve met many survivors and heard their stories. But this lady is not like any other. Nothing could have really prepared me for this unique, unforgettable experience, of meeting such an optimistic soul. “Art is difficult. Not only art, everything is difficult. When you know something a 100 per cent, your satisfaction is happiness. It happens very often that I’m not a 100 per cent, but it’s a good thing – I work more and more and more!”