Antonietta, page 23
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Stravinsky’s hand holding Katya’s for a kiss after that performance seemed a kind of fulcrum on which the hopes of her life were poised for a moment in balance, thanks to the curative music still echoing in her ears; but from then on, the weight of her illness tilted any hopes she may still have had onto a relentless downward slant. There was no music, no magic of any kind, from then on, that could sweep her up into a tango, a waltz, a ragtime of recovery. Instead she kept fading—but very, very, very slowly—which made the decline all the more painful.
In 1921, while engaged with performances in Paris, Stravinsky met a woman veiled in a mystery as potent as but quite different from Anna Federovskaya’s—different because this person, with all of Anna’s other charms, was far from stupid. Her name was Vera de Bosset Soudeikine; she was the wife of a stage designer who was close to Diaghilev. Stravinsky and she found themselves in perfect harmony with each other, and during the eighteen years still left to Katya, who never lost her place as Igor’s oldest and dearest friend, he and Vera, who had become the dearest and deepest love he had ever known, met surreptitiously, off and on, and kept alive the fires of their passion and mutual respect.
Katya died in 1939, and the year after that Stravinsky, who was in the United States lecturing at Harvard and giving some concerts, married Vera, by then long since divorced from Soudeikine. For the three decades of the rest of his life, Stravinsky, recognized as the greatest composer of his time, was enlivened, amused, protected, and constantly spurred to a headlong gallop by his second wife.
It was she who, when he died, in 1971, decided that it would be fitting for his funeral to be held in Venice, and for his body to be borne over glassy waters in a crape-trimmed gondola to the island of San Michele, to be buried there near the grave of his first sponsor and second-best friend, Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev.
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Federovsky rejoined the Ballets Russes orchestra during its London season in 1920. After a performance in Monte Carlo five years later, during which Federovsky played solos on Antonietta in a revival of Schéhérezade so airily that the dancer Danilova seemed to float off the ground in her leaps for as long as fifteen seconds at a time, Leopold Stokowski, then vacationing in Monaco, approached him and offered to buy him away for the Philadelphia Orchestra; the first seat in his second violin section had just fallen open.
Federovsky, restless and ready to make a change, accepted, and he moved with his family to the United States and sawed away for Stokowski. Antonietta responded churlishly, Federovsky felt, to Stokowski’s orotund orchestral voice—particularly in the overblown arrangements, as wild as flights of hot-air balloons in violent windstorms, that he made of Bach’s magisterial organ music. But later, after Eugene Ormandy, who had started life as a violinist, took over the Philadelphia, Antonietta sang with renewed pleasure in that conductor’s voluptuous renderings of late-Romantic music. Federovsky died in 1955.
Anna Federovskaya, still a beauty at sixty-two, soon married a tympanist seventeen years younger than she, a man who, daily punishing his thumpety drums till every drop of anger was leached out of him, returned to her each evening with a touch as soft as that of a powder puff, and kept on loving her right up to her ninetieth year, when the radiance that he had gently nurtured was finally snuffed out.
After Federovsky’s death, Antonietta was auctioned by Christie’s in New York, for $65,000, to a rich young scientist and amateur violinist named Felice Frank, who, as the son of a concert pianist, had had a certain amount of musical taste drummed into him early. He lived a sybaritic life in Westport, Connecticut, on the fat royalties from a number of patents on medical devices and machines that he had invented—one of them a delicately automated iron lung, which could keep polio and accident and coma victims alive, it seemed, for centuries. He also kept Antonietta’s vital signs going by playing second violin, rather pokishly, in an amateur chamber group that met in Fairfield every Wednesday night.
In the sixties, Frank heard about a brilliant but poor young violinist at the Juilliard, named Gaspard Montvieux, who had been drafted as a replacement at first fiddle for the distinguished Sugar Hill Quartet. It happened that all three of the others in that ensemble had magnificent instruments—a Stradivari second violin, an Andrea Guarneri viola, and a Grancino cello. To balance the foursome, Frank generously lent Antonietta to the young recruit and bought himself a Guarneri del Gesù to replace it. In time, he became not only the patron but also the lover of Montvieux, and one day in 1969 both men were instantly killed when a college student who was taking two trips, one to Boston and the other on acid, and who seemed to think he was flying an airplane, swooped over the median divider of the Merritt Parkway and hit Frank’s BMW head-on at seventy-five miles an hour. All three bodies were carted off by ambulance to a hospital—DOA. The super-totaled BMW, which had been thrown six feet into the air and had rolled over three times, was illegally trucked away, with the connivance of a state policeman, by a scrap-steel dealer from the Naugatuck Valley; Antonietta was locked in the trunk. The dealer also took what was left of the assassin’s Toyota pickup.
Neither Frank nor Montvieux had relatives on the East Coast, so it was several days before anyone realized that the Strad was missing. The booking agent for the Sugar Hill Quartet took up the chase and finally ran down the state cop who had taken the payola from the scrap-steel man to let him steal both wrecks, and he arrived at the huge automotive graveyard off Route 7 when the BMW was eighth in line, with only a couple of hours to wait before being compacted in the place’s huge hydraulic auto press. The agent watched as the trunk was cut open, just in time, with a blowtorch.
The ancient violin case was split open. Antonietta’s back and belly were both broken, and the neck was twisted grotesquely to one side. The agent wept at the sight, and the mechanic, with his blowtorch still flaming, said with feeling, “Holy shit.” It looked as if that wooden carcass would never make music again.
To complicate matters, Felice Frank had never taken the trouble to draw up a will. The agent, basing his claim on the fact that recordings of the Sugar Hill Quartet had listed the Antonietta Strad as its first violin, got a court order to have the injured Antonietta remanded to the Wurlitzer musical-instrument house, in New York, pending eventual determination of ownership and for assessment of the damage and supervision of repairs, if they should be deemed worth making.
Mrs. Wurlitzer showed the wounded violin to the shop’s resident luthier, Fernando Sacconi, and asked him if there was any possibility of restoring it.
Sacconi examined the wreckage for only a minute or two. Then he said in his soft-spoken way, “Do you remember the Red Diamond Stradivarius? It was what year?—about twenty years ago. The violin belonged to Sascha Jacobsen, concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. So he was caught on a beach road in a violent wind storm, his car stalled, he got out in water up to his waist, holding the violin over his head. He was pulled toward the sea. Some people on a nearby bank rescued him, but the violin was washed out into the waves. A lawyer taking a walk on the beach the next day found a fiddle case half buried in sand. His wife told the director of the Philharmonic about it—so it was the Red Diamond. Jacobsen took it to Hans Weisshaar—you know about him, Mrs. Wurlitzer. Look, it was like this: both the top and the back were warped, the two pieces of the back had come apart, the purfling had come unglued and had swollen out of the channel, the ribs were twisted, the blocks and linings inside were all unattached, part of the neck was missing—waterlogged, slimy, sand all over everything. Oh, and the label that Stradivarius put in with his own hands in 1732 was torn into three pieces! All right. Hans took a month drying it out slowly with the help of a humidifier. He built molds to correct the warping. Etcetera, etcetera. Anyway, he took nine months working on it—and when he had finished, it sounded better than it had before. Truly. Look, Mrs. Wurlitzer, if Weisshaar could do that, I can do this.”
And he did. It took him seven months. Montvieux’s colleagues on the quartet, summoned to hear the restored Antonietta played, attested that its tone was absolutely as full and deep and sweet as it had been before the accident.
On the way home, the violinist said to the cellist, “It didn’t sound quite as…I don’t know…sexy? Is that what I mean?…as I remembered.”
The cellist said, “Maybe not. I couldn’t figure out what I was hearing that was new, till it hit me. I was thinking, My God, what that violin’s worth now, after what it’s been through. I began to hear the sound of money. I thought, Man, that’s the ringing sound of a cash register. I see scores for it—what’s it called?—Antonietta?—from now on with dollar signs on the staffs instead of clef signs. Either of you catch what I mean?”
The second violinist said, “Funny idea. Is that what they’ve meant all these years when they talked about a rich tone?”
The courts ruled that the violin belonged to Frank’s only living relative, a sister from Monterey, whom he had loathed. She had no intention of paying for the repairs, and when she was told that the violin would certainly sell for a price in six figures, she snapped her fingers and said, “Fire away! Sell the goddamn thing.”
Antonietta was bought by an English newspaper magnate for $175,000. He earned points as a benefactor of the arts by making it available for use by young soloists with the Royal Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony, the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the English Chamber Orchestra, and the orchestra of the Covent Garden Ballet Company.
Act Five
1989
1. Panoramic helicopter shot, from the west, of Makoniky Head on a bright summer midday. Its steep, sandy bluffs give it an ochre face. Vineyard Sound is a rippling blue. A few fluffy good-weather clouds drift overhead.
MUSIC OVER: First movement of Arnold Schoenberg’s violin concerto.*1 The viewer may wonder why such forbidding music has been chosen to complement such a ravishingly serene day. The answer, which may eventually make sense to those who watch the program: it was chosen as the theme for the episode because it is, in heart and mind, mathematical music.
TITLE & CREDITS blossom against the view of the promontory, which, as the lens slowly zooms in, soon fills the entire TV screen. At top center, on the crest of the bluffs, shining in the sunlight, stands what is generally agreed to be the most sensational house on the island, the famous “Hat Hut”—much larger than the name suggests—designed by Eero Saarinen, that daring craftsman of oddities, who, for example, gave TWA an eagle for a terminal, and in this case thought Makoniky Head needed a hat.
As the house grows larger and larger on the screen, the MUSIC swells in a crescendo. Could a music of numbers be hinting that this bizarre structure is a countinghouse?
The last credit—the name of the director—fades with the eye of the camera still closing in. Now a tiny figure—the figurative king, coming down from his countinghouse?—is seen descending the stairway that zigzags down the tall cliff from the house. The focus keeps moving in, until the man on the steps is seen, life-size, trotting down in exuberant haste.
This person appears to be about fifty years old, and the viewer immediately gets the impression that, as the presumptive owner of that magnificent house, he must have some inner magnetism or grasping power that is totally invisible out where his skin shows. He doesn’t look at all royal—certainly doesn’t look like a major player in leveraged buy-outs or a super-winner from insider trades. He does not seem self-assured; he is not smoking a cigar. He has a small blah figure and a skim-milk face. It is hard to tell at first glance what sort of man he really is, because his eyes, behind mirroring sunglasses, are hidden from the viewer. His mouth might be considered sensitive. He is wearing a wide-brimmed palm-leaf hat from the West Indies, which he may have bought because it has roughly the same shape as the mass of the house on the heights. He has on bathing trunks, in sizzling orange-and-pink checks, with legs that droop down almost to his knees, and he is shod in black soft-leather space shoes. He has a towel over his shoulder striped in shades of green and mauve which clash violently with the colors of his swimsuit.
MUSIC gradually fades into sudsy sound of the smallish waves seen breaking on the Lambert’s Cove beach….
2. As the man walks along the beach, he scans (camera taking his POV) the groups of bathers, some of whom, glistening with tanning oils, are frying themselves under the August greenhouse sun, while others, pale and prudent, huddle with hopes of long life under brightly colored beach umbrellas. The man raises his hand in a casual salute to a few select friends, who wave back eagerly, obviously wishing he would stop and talk with them.
A couple, in the shade of an umbrella, comes slowly into view. The woman, perhaps fifty, wears a white terry-cloth bathrobe and a wide-brimmed garden-party hat, which is tied under her chin with a purple Givenchy scarf. She shows through this feminine disguise a distinctly executive mien, confirmed by the set of her prognathous jaw. Her eyes, though, have a happy, dreamy look, perhaps because the man beside her is exactly the tycoon who, the viewer would have thought, should be the owner of that house on the heights. He is massive rather than fat, and either he is totally bald or someone shaves his head for him; he would appear to be something of a brute were it not for his sparkling, gentle-looking eyes, which paradoxically make him look all the more forceful: there may be a useful brain within the brawn.
FLORA LOMBARD
Hello, Spenser! Come talk with us. But take those miserable glasses off, darling, so we can see what bad things you’re thinking.
3. Close view of Spenser; he has stopped walking. A girl in a mini-bikini drifts down toward the water beyond him. The woman’s command has made Spenser blush, but he leaves his glasses on. He turns and comes up the beach toward the umbrella.
SPENSER
Hi, Flora! Imagine seeing you out here with the natives.
He hesitates and looks at the man.
FLORA
Darling, this is Spink Farley. He’s up for the week.
SPENSER
I heard, I heard. [He turns to Farley.] Look, this is some coincidence. I was talking about you just this morning. I was asking Andy Willsworth up for the weekend—you know, he’s the President and CEO of Consolidated Broadcasting—and he said, God, he’d heard you were up here visiting Flora, and he’s dying to meet you. You two guys really ought to know each other. Flora, you’ll have to come over on Friday night.
FLORA
Friday, Friday. I think it’s copacetic. I’ll buzz you, darling. How nice!
Spenser walks on along the beach.
4. Flora and Farley watch him walk off.
FARLEY
Who in the hell is that little hummingbird?
FLORA
I’m sorry, I didn’t really introduce him, did I? He’s Spenser Ham. You mustn’t be put off by that getup, darling. I guess he’s color-blind. He’s a pussycat. He’s so sweet and so kind. His wife died two years ago, and he carries on so bravely—his upper lip isn’t even stiff. He gives just the best parties on the island. You’ll meet everybody on Friday.
FARLEY
But who is he? What does he do?
FLORA
I guess he buys and sells companies. You know. That sort of thing. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about him.
FARLEY
I’ve heard about this Willsworth who he says wants to meet me. He’s one of the new guys—very double-knit—hipped on beating the Japs, you know, on that new high-definition technology, or whatever it’s called, for the tube. From all I hear, a terrible meatball.
FLORA
Never mind, Spinky. Never mind. It’ll be a lovely party.
CUT TO:
5. Spenser Ham on the terrace (the brim) of the house on the bluffs, a short while later, speaking into a walk-around phone. Beyond him is a shimmering sweep of one of the most beautiful moneyscapes in the world: the verdant prime real estate of West Tisbury, Chilmark, Menemsha, and Gay Head on the left, then a wide reach of the blue tablecloth of the Sound studded with many triangular stand-up white napkins of yacht sails, and, on the right, the outer Elizabeths—Pasque, Nashawena, and Cuttyhunk—steaming like dream islands in Victory.
SPENSER
Mr. Willsworth? Hello. My name is Spenser Ham….Yes, that’s right, on the Conover takeover….Yes, I was a player on that one, too….I realize we haven’t met, and you may think this is forward of me, but something’s come up. I have a house up here on Martha’s Vineyard, you may have seen it in Vanity fair a couple months ago….That’s right, odd shape, no question. The point is, is that I was on the beach just now, and I ran into Spink Farley, I’m sure you know who he is. We had a long talk, and I can’t remember how, but your name came up, and Farley said, God, was he dying to meet you, and this may have been presumptuous of me, but I offered to ask you up here for a visit while he’s here. You two guys ought to know each other. The mutual advantages—well, I don’t need to get obvious. Look, I know this is short notice, but Friday night I’ve got some other people coming you may know or want to know—there’ll be at least two network anchors, Millson and Kerry, and of course we have a whole mafia of writers, and then Flora Lombard, the designer, you must know her….You have opera tickets? Couldn’t you change them?…Sure….Island Air has direct…A Lear? Fantastic….Okay, check with your lady and let me know. Name’s Jenny, right? I saw her picture in…You’ve heard Farley’s an asshole? Not in my book, Mr. Willsworth….Well, yes, there’s that—that’s a definite plus, I thought you’d cotton to that….All right, then, I’ll hope for the best….
