Saturday, November 3, 2007

Anita Mercier Tells The Life of a Cellist

Forthcoming from Ashgate Press

Guilhermina Suggia: The Life of a Cellist
by Anita Mercier

Born in 1885 in Porto, Portugal, to a middle-class musical family, Guilhermina Suggia began playing cello at the age of five. A child prodigy, she was already a seasoned performer when she won a scholarship to study with Julius Klengel in Leipzig at the age of sixteen. Suggia lived in Paris with fellow cellist Pablo Casals for several years before World War I; it was a professional and personal partnership that was as stormy as it was unconventional. When they separated, Suggia moved to London, where she built a spectacularly successful solo career. Suggia’s virtuosity and musicianship, along with the magnificent style and stage presence famously captured in Augustus John’s portrait, made her one of the most sought-after concert artists of her day. In 1927 she married Dr. José Casimiro Carteado Mena and settled down to a comfortable life divided between Portugal and England.

Throughout the 1930s, Suggia remained one of the most respected musicians in Europe. She partnered on stage with many famous instrumentalists and conductors and completed numerous BBC broadcasts. The war years kept her at home in Portugal, where she focused on teaching, but she returned to England directly after the war and resumed performing. When Suggia died in 1950, her will provided for the establishment of several scholarship funds for young cellists, including England's prestigious Suggia Gift.

Mercier's study of Suggia's letters and other writings reveal an intelligent, warm and generous character, an artist who was enormously dedicated, knowledgeable and self-disciplined. Suggia was one of the first women to make a career of playing the cello at a time when prejudice against women who played this traditionally 'masculine' instrument was still strong. A role model for many other musicians, she was herself a fearless pioneer.

Guilhermina Suggia: The Life of a Cellist will be published by Ashgate Publishing in 2008.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Poetry in Translation


The Juilliard Orchestra performance at Avery Fisher Hall on November 7 features Symphony No. 0 by Alfred Schnittke. Poems by Joseph Brodsky and Starets Siluan as well as the notes from the Dresden Philharmonic are translated by faculty member Harold Slamovitz for the Lincoln Center Playbill.


The Juilliard Percussion Ensemble recently performed Kaija Saariaho’s Trois Rivières. Harold’s translation of poetry by Li Po for the piece (see below) also appeared in the October issue of Lincoln Center’s Playbill.

Moonlit Night on the River

Softly the breeze rises on the river,
Sadly the trees shiver near the lake.

I go up to the prow in the calm, beautiful night.

The mats are spread out and the boat springs lightly forward.

The moon follows the fleeing of the dark mountains,

The water flows with the blue sky,

As deeply, upside down, as the celestial sky.

Nothing is visible, only the blended shadow of tree and cloud.

The road of return is long, long;

The immensity of the river is sad, sad.

I am alone, the orchid flowers disappear,

The song of the fisherman recalls my sadness.

The steep detour hides the shore behind,

The pale sand shows a reef in front.

I think of you, Lord, my sight no longer reaches you,

And my vision, lost in the distance muses on my regret.




Also known as Li Po, Li Bai is one of the most celebrated poets of the golden age of Chinese poetry. He lived in the first half of the 8th century, during the T’ang Dynasty.