Unheard Of: Memoirs of a Canadian Composer

6. Paris

6 Paris C ompared with other European cities, Paris in 1950 showed few outward signs of having survived a war. But if you looked, the walls around the main open spaces displayed plaques marking where nineteen- and twenty-year-olds had died in the street fighting just before the Liberation in August 1944, and if you listened, residents would recount stories of life under “les Boches.” In Eugène Ionesco’s play La Leçon, a murderer dons a mourning armband for his victim; in the 1950 premiere production it carried a swastika. Inflation caused hardship for those on fixed incomes such as pensions. There was a brisk black-market traffic in Lucky Strike cigarettes and nylons. The previous Canadian Amateur Hockey Association award winner, Harry Somers, and his wife Kay, were living in Montparnasse. They met our boat train and took us to a hotel on the boulevard Raspail where they had booked us a room. Then we all went for a late-afternoon walk through central Paris—down to the Seine, across the Île de la Cité, along the Quai du Louvre, through the Tuileries to the Place de la Concorde with its magnificent view up the Champs-Élysées, the monuments and public buildings by this time (early evening) floodlit. Back on the Left Bank we took supper at La Coupole, overwhelmed by this stunning introduction to the city.1 Harry and Kay were in fact preparing to return to Canada, so we saw them only a few times more in the following couple of weeks. They introduced us to their circle, one of whom, the US pianist Eugene Gash, became a close friend during our stay. In correspondence with the Canada Foundation I learned that Nadia Boulanger had accepted me as a composition student. Within a few days of arrival, I presented myself at the fabled studio-apartment, 36 rue Ballu, 97 98 • studies where she received her students. From the corridor waiting area I could hear her commanding baritone voice as she concluded a lesson. She emerged, greeted me warmly, and immediately donned a coat and strode out the door, explaining that she had an errand to run and we could talk along the way. I kept pace with her as the two of us traversed many blocks to what my memory tells me was the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré (it was certainly a good hike, to a street of fashionable shops, but maybe not quite that far). She shot questions over her shoulder: Had I found a place to stay? I was married? Was my wife musical also? She stopped at a jewellery store and asked to see some silver christening mugs, picked one, paid for it, wrote out a card, addressed it, and handed the package to me. Would I be so kind as to deliver it, since it was not far from my hotel? We agreed on a time for my first lesson, and she was gone. The address indicated on the gift package was just off the rue du Bac. I went there, found the number, and pushed the button for the appropriate floor. The elevator was one of those where you land right in the apartment , to be met by a servant. It turned out to be the residence of the Prince of Monaco, just then a new father. Mademoiselle, among other affiliations , was honorary music director to the royal family in Monte Carlo (some years later she played the organ at the wedding of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace). She had heard of a couple of possible living quarters and suggested I inquire about (as I gathered from her rapid talking) “48 rue Jacob and 66 Monsieur le Prince” (or whatever the numbers were). At a later meeting, with a group of other students, I reported to her that the space at 48 rue Jacob was taken and that when I asked at 66 rue Jacob for Monsieur le Prince there was no one there by that name. Everyone enjoyed this hilarious faux pas: my knowledge of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter didn’t as yet include the rue Monsieur-le-Prince. My first lesson was both an assessment and a procedural discussion. I showed her The Great Lakes Suite as my most ambitious attempt so far at an ensemble work. I must have shown her also the new cummings songs, because I recall she pointed out the (unconscious) quotation of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony in...