She played the piano brilliantly; that above all else. But she was also a tremendous talker, a formidable eater, and her uncle, who did not like piano-playing, was turning her out of the house on Tuesday and sending her back to Rome. She did not wish to return to Rome just because he did not like piano-playing, and she had to practise for six hours every day. Also he did not like the responsibility of a girl on his hands.
We may call her Maria. I met her in the interval of a concert of chamber music in the civilian theatre, where I went with an Italian friend who had known Maria since her childhood. The audience, partly civilian and partly military, gave her a great ovation, and she certainly earned it, playing Scarlatti, Beethoven, and Chopin with fire and brilliance, her immense verve emphasised by her restraint in quiet passages.
In the interval we met her in a narrow corridor, outside her dressing-room. She was short, and – well – fat. She had black hair dressed upwards on the top of her head, swinging earrings, a small, bright, red mouth, startled, thin eyebrows, and in the rare seconds when her face was in repose, a piquant, pouting expression. Her smile showed an even row of good teeth and happy chins. Her hands talked with her, and so did her head, her body, her eyes, and especially her eyebrows. Her range of expression was wide; at one extreme anything good was expressed with a torrent of words, hands pressed together, head tilted upwards and sideways, eyes screwed-up in ecstasy, eyebrows high. At the other end of the scale, anything bad sent the hands forwards and open, head forward, eyes wide and round, eyebrows arched, lips apart, and of course, the torrent of words.
She was fascinating; she was the artist, with all the permissible exaggerations of brilliance; but, unlike most artists, she was completely the legendary type. Above all she had a vivid personality. When I was presented to her she flared into a radiant smile, which switched off as swiftly as it switched on. After congratulations and expressions of admiration she continued the discussion she was carrying on before with the half – dozen people standing round her.
She had come from Rome in a lorry, in immense discomfort and misery like a gipsy, with her piano, to play here at concerts in the theatre; in the YMCA, for ENSA for broadcasting. She liked it here, but the stage was draughty. A cruel, bighting, perishing draught had been teasing her legs all the while she was playing; but for that she did not worry, nor for the idiots who were whispering behind the stage, and she was staying with her uncle and her aunt. Now her uncle was turning her out, onto the pavement. He had a lorry arranged for Tuesday, to take her back to Rome, where she did not wish to go. But her uncle . . . . she was dumb . . . . At that point a meek little Italian officer pushed forward in the sympathetic group and smiled. “Mio zio,” said Maria, and we all shook hands with her uncle, who then stood rather gloomily by while his niece told us about the rest of the concert.
In the second half she again played with exquisite artistry, and she received tremendous applause. Later she came to my friend’s apartment for tea. There were a British dental officer, my friend’s parents, and two or three miscellaneous but voluble Italians. Maria was wonderful. We all heard about the uncle and the turning out. We all talked, and Maria would start one conversation with a friend, wait until the friend was in the midst of a burst of talk, turn to someone else, start a conversation there, switch back in time to pick up the first, and start a third and swerve back in time to take the ball from the second. My friend’s mother talked Russian often, and one of the others favoured German. The dental officer watched Maria, bewitched, and once we spoke English, he and.
Maria, as she talked, popped sausage rolls, thin ones, into her little round mouth with elegance and celerity. One is reserved in these days at civilian houses very difficult circumstances make it necessary. But Maria dealt with six sausage rolls before we started, hypnotised, offering them to her. She-still talked, using hands, head, eyes, and eyebrows, eardrops swinging, on the verge of tears one second, of laughter the next. I wondered, amid the otherwise unanimous condemnation of the wicked uncle if he did not have a case. Maria was indeed a brilliant young lady. She was vivid; she was alive in every tissue. She was a very talented artist. She played the piano superbly. She dressed with brave colour. But she might I thought be difficult to live with; even for the most devoted uncle.
She was not comic. Her proven mastery of music prevented that. Her sparkling animation wedded to her Professional excellence made anything seem rational. And whatever thoughts I had had about her, watching and listening during that meal, whatever sympathy I had had for the poor uncle were all obliterated completely when she took my hand in parting and for two seconds concentrated her smile and her full personality on me. Beyond all doubt she was a true artist.
David Scott Daniell
The Manchester Guardian.
“Her real name is Lya de Barberis.”
