The union movement in America would have a profound impact on the music business. Unionization was a divisive issue in the music industry affecting relationships between friends, colleagues, and families…including ours.
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Ever thought of creating a playlist of favorite classical music recordings? I have been doing so over the last few months in conjunction with a new book I am writing and I am learning a lot.
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My Uncle Boris Goldovsky’s favorite opera was Mozart’s Don Giovanni and there was nothing more fun for me than playing first flute in his touring opera orchestra night after night, especially when he was on the podium conducting. I was 25 years old the first time I had occasion to so do.
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In 1959, my uncle Boris Goldovsky finally wrote down a story he had been telling at family gatherings for years. At the time, it would not have been politic to publish it so he issued a very limited edition of only eight copies for family members.
Now for the first time, this wonderful story can be shared more widely.
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For my family, there was a lot to learn about musical careers once they came to reside in the United States. Chief among the lessons to be mastered was the extent to which in America, music was a business.
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My grandmother, Lea Luboshutz, joined the violin faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1928. Her track record as a pedagogue was impressive based on the careers of almost 150 of her students. Much of this success probably was due to her teaching philosophy and her approach.
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For my grandmother, Lea Luboshutz, family was as important as music. But sometimes, her son-in-law, Billy Wolf strained her tolerance for novelty and humor.
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For an amateur musician, my father’s opportunities to play with great musicians were extraordinary thanks to his mother-in-law, Lea Luboshutz. One musician he never collaborated with was Leonard Bernstein…but he came ever so close.
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The story of how my father, a rank amateur, finagled an abbreviated performance with the great violinist, Jascha Heifetz, is one that Lea preferred to forget. Yet, somehow, it got into the press, to her eternal mortification.
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The father of Lea’s children was Onissim Goldovsky. As I learned late in my own life, Onissim never married Lea. Indeed, during their whole time together he was married to someone else. Who was this mystery rival? I was to learn that she too was quite a remarkable woman.
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The phantom of the opera knows all the nooks and crannies he used to inhabit. But what happens to his ability to roam the halls after a major renovation?
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For a long time, I thought my grandmother’s various superstitions were an anomaly. Then the acclaimed Soviet violinist, David Oistrakh, came to town and I realized they shared something more than great violin playing.
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My grandmother was a firm believer that young musicians should have proven talent at an extremely high level before she would recommend them as students for the Curtis Institute of Music. Then she met the granddaughter of her teacher Eugene Ysaÿe and all bets were off.
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I always thought it odd that my grandmother, a famous violinist, loved monkeys. In the various places she lived, there were no native habitats for monkeys and she must have been an adult before she saw a live one. But in her homes, there were always paintings, prints, photographs, toys, carvings, statues — you name it — monkeys everywhere. And it was certainly not an animal I associated with music.
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In The Nightingale’s Sonata, I mention that many of my grandmother’s contemporaries, in the years she lived in Moscow, described her and her sister, Anna, as quite beautiful. Lest that seem like a sexist subject for a blog post, let me say that such comments were quite important to assess given that beautiful women performers of that era who enjoyed successful careers were often accused of using their looks and heir charms to advance themselves professionally.
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When people ask me what my grandmother was like, I usually resort to telling stories about Lea. Not only are many of these stories quite entertaining but they give a sense of my grandmother’s personality — confident, determined, disarmingly charming, with a wonderful sense of humor. One of my favorite stories is how Lea became a U.S. citizen.
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So, you want to write a family memoir and you want to get it published. Okay, more power to you. But be prepared. If your experience is anything like mine, you are in for a long slog and many surprises. Frankly, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I hope you are quite determined, can deal with rejection, and have a thick skin.
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Why did I write The Nightingale’s Sonata? In the opening pages of the book, I give one answer. My mother had entrusted to me a beautiful silver podstakannik or tea-glass holder with an enameled portrait of my two uncles as children. My family had smuggled it out of Russia and eventually my mother passed it on to me along with boxes of family material. She had said, “You must tell the family story.” I promised I would.
But I had another reason for writing the book. . . .
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