From Buchenwald to Carnegie Hall

Prelude

New Year's Day 1952. Marian Filar waits backstage in Carnegie Hall's green room before playing a concert with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. For the previous three days, he has performed with them in Philadelphia, but this concert in New York is different. Inviting Filar to play the Chopin F Minor Second Concerto , Ormandy said, "This will be the first time in the history of the Philadelphia Orchestra that wehave introduced a soloist in New York. Normally, a person has to play himself to pieces givingrecitals in New York before we invite him to play with us. We don't introduce people." Filar feels immensely grateful and on the verge of a great breakthrough . He has been in the United States for less than twoyears, and he is about to make his Carnegie Hall debut. The importance of the occasion makes that special feeling backstage before a performance —part nervousness, part euphoria—all the more intense. He feels that sense of eagerness and anticipation, but he also wonxi inelude xii Prelude ders if everything will go all right. Will he be in control but still able to surrender himself to that higher, stronger force? The sounds of the audience and the orchestra tuning up are screened out, making the green room eerily silent. He feels buoyed, knowing that out there a group of people is waiting expectantly for him. He can't see or hear them, but he can feel their energy. He wants his playing to transport the audience into that other worldof exquisitely beautiful music, into the soul of the composer. He is the medium. He is the artist. He is the performer.All these people have come to see and hear him. His pulse beats firmly. His fingers are chilly, his cheeks warm. The agony of waiting is getting to him—if he doesn't get out on the stage soon, he thinks he will burst. "Five minutes, Mr. Filar." He looks in the mirror. Every hair in place. Tie straight. Shirt immaculate. Cuffs where they should be. He adjusts the lapel of his tailcoat—not that he needs to, but it is something to do. He makes sure all the buttons are fastened, his shoes tied. Yes,everything is in place. All is as it should be. He takes one last look at the face staring back at him. What a long and painful journey it has been. Who would have thought when he arrived on the refugee troop ship, knowing barely a word of English, that in less than two yearshe would be waiting backstage to play in Carnegie Hall?Eight yearsearlier, ashe stood at attention in his striped black and white uniform in a Nazi concentration camp, listening to a harangue about how he was soon to be killed for being a Jew, who would have imagined that he would ever play again, especially after a guard sliced open his finger and severed the nerve? Who would have thought that the child prodigy who played with the Warsaw Philharmonic when he was twelve and won competition after competition would survive the hell of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Nazi camps?Or that he would carry painful memories buried so deep that forty more years would have to pass before he could even try to put words to them? "You're on, Mr. Filar." Prelude xiii The sudden rush of adrenaline. The short walk backstage to the wings, to the curtain, and out into the brilliant lights shining on the stage. The burst of applause that greets him ashe walks purposefully across the polished floor to the gleaming black Steinway concert grand. The scent of perfume and aftershave from hundreds of men and women, the sparkle of jewelry in the dimness, the glow of faces whose features he cannot make out, the reassurance that his brothers are somewhere out there in the crowd. The bow to Maestro Ormandy, the adjusting of the black padded piano bench, the lifting of the hands, the nod from the conductor. Music. This page intentionally left blank ...