From Buchenwald to Carnegie Hall

Enter Sol Hurok

EXiring my first years in Frankfurt I practiced in a small room of our apartment, first on an upright piano and then on a five foot, seven inch Shiedmayer grand piano that Mr. Gembicki lent me. The Shiedmayer was not a bad piano, but it wasn't great. However, things changed in 1948 when I acquired one of the finest old grand pianos in the world—a Steinway C, a salon grand, which at seven feet, five inches issix inches longer than today's standard, the Steinway B. I had begun thinking I ought to purchase my own piano after a conversation with Mr. Carmel Offie, a State Department political adviser to the American authorities in Germany. He was also the right-hand man of William C. Bullitt, the first U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union during the Roosevelt administration. Judge Louis E. Leventhal, a Philadelphia judge who had the post in Frankfurt as the American government's political adviser on Jewish affairs, had introduced me to Mr. Offie. One dayhe asked me to do him a favor. Since he would soon be going back to the States, where pianos were 154 Ente sol Hunol Enter Sol Huro/c 155 much more expensive than in Germany, would I be willing to put an ad in the papers and see if I could find a good piano for him? He'd pay for it, of course, and then have the piano shipped back to Washington. I said Pd be only too happy to help. Unfortunately, I couldn't locate anything decent before it came time for him to return to the United States. But I began thinking that if Mr. Offie found pianos expensive in America, how would I be able to afford a piano when I went there? By that time, my brothers and I had pretty much decided we would go to America sooner or later. So I put ads in the newspapers to find a piano for myself. One of the first responses I got was an older woman who telephoned to say she had a piano I might be interested in, but it was outside the city at her son's house. When I went there, I saw the name Hoehn on the door. "Pardon me," I said to the man who answered the door, "are you by chance the son of Professor Alfred Hoehn?" "Yes, I am." "Alfred Hoehn, the great pianist and teacher?" "That's right." "Years ago, when your father returned from Warsaw, do you remember him telling you about a little boy who might be coming to live with you and study piano?" "Yes, I vaguelyrecall something about that." "Well, I am that little boy." He showed me the piano, but unfortunately it wasn't very good, so I had to refuse it. It would have been wonderful to have inherited Alfred Hoehn's piano, but it was not to be. In fact, for the most part the pianos I was seeing were junk. Then I received an intriguing message from a doctor. "I have a beautiful Steinway grand, seven feet, five inches long, model C. If you want a good piano, this is it." So I went to the doctor's elegant apartment near the main railroad station in Frankfurt am Main. The maid answered the door and asked me to wait in the salon. 156 After the Storm "The doctor will see you in a minute," she said, "He's getting dressed," I went into the salon and feasted my eyes on a beautiful Steinway, maybe eighty years old, with the round piano legs of that period. When I opened it up and looked at the hammers, I could see that the felts did not have a scratch on them. The piano had hardly been used! The moment I began to play it, I knew I had found a great instrument. As I was playing, the doctor entered the salon. "Mr. Filar, I'm asking a lot for it, but you'll pay every penny." "How do you know my name?" I asked. "I've heard you many times on the radio and in concert." "I see. And how much do you want for the piano?" "Six thousand new marks." This was 1948, and six thousand new marks wasn't chicken feed. The old mark, with Hitler's picture on it, which we were now using as toilet...