Measures for a Funeral (2024) Movie Script
1
Audrey?
Yeah?
You... you...
you were raised like me.
You came out with your
eyes open. You...
You were fully aware.
Your father...
Your father dedicated
his life to his fiddle.
And that's what he left us.
His instrument.
I can't tell you how many times
I imagined dismantling it.
Your dad...
He had an incredible
disappearing act, didn't he?
Just like my own pops.
Yeah, I know mom, I know.
We managed our moment, but it was...
it was tough.
He was on tour.
He was rehearsing.
He was in the studio. He...
He just...
he just wasn't around.
You didn't handle that very well.
You know that some people said that
half of your personality was missing.
Audrey, are you listening?
Yeah.
When I die,
I want you to
to scatter the violin's ashes
with mine.
Audrey,
when I die, I want you to scatter...
I was walking across my hotel room
and I tripped over a
lamp cord and fell.
I was an old woman
and something like this
can be the beginning of the end.
The humerus in my
left shoulder was torn.
I was so afraid that I
might never play again.
After my operation, I sat
up in my hospital bed,
feeling the wrenched
bones and muscles.
A doctor handed me my violin.
My Guarneri del Ges.
I tried to place it under my
chin, but it fell from my fingers.
Gradually, I felt well again.
I reignited the Parlow String Quartet
and I found Cornelius Basilstein,
Stanley Solomon, and my
newest recruit, Andy Benak.
I heard Benak play at
a senior school recital.
I offered him a play straight away.
In his delight, Andy said
that he nearly hit the roof.
I began to teach by hand again.
One exercise consisted of opening
and closing it very, very slowly,
sometimes taking me
10 minutes to do it.
I began doing the exercises underwater
and my hands relieved
of their own weight,
could resume the
remembered positions.
Every day, I tried
something more difficult.
And when I realized enduring
the agony meant real progress,
I naturally didn't mind.
Some nine months
later, in January 1961,
wearing a cobalt blue gown,
I gave a recital.
I played a program that displayed
the infinite beauties of the violin.
The staccatos in Mozart, clear
and definite, yet delicate.
Brahms' Sonata, rich in tone without
muddiness, fine as hair sound.
Respighi, Rontondo's right and long,
sweeping, bowing,
giving power and breath.
It was a concert played as if between
my life and my release to the heavens.
Three months afterward,
I fell when exiting a streetcar
and died in the hospital
from the injuries.
Hi, Inez.
Are you familiar with this article?
The Manuscript of the Concerto
by Johann Halvorsen, Opus 28?
What's the significance of Kathleen's
name being on the cover?
It's her concert copy?
It is her concert copy,
but the concerto was also dedicated
to Kathleen when she was 17.
When a concerto is
dedicated to a musician,
it is implied that they
take it on as a soloist.
What aspect of Kathleen's personality
would have inspired
Halvorsen to write for her?
It was described that Kathleen was
especially technically proficient
and that she attacked difficulty
with a certain gusto.
Audrey...
What happened with your
presentation today?
I was brought to the collection
by a personal coincidence
when I saw it listed in
the archive holdings
and made the connection that Kathleen
was my grandfather's violin teacher.
I'd been stuck for what
to write my thesis on and
this personal connection
tethered me to something.
I worry that if I put her
in an academic paper,
I'm just rearranging things
or burying them deeper.
Is there a recording?
No, it was performed in
the Netherlands in 1909,
but the concerto was
lost for over a century.
One of our archivists
found it in a shoebox
while for sorting through
Kathleen's estate.
After Halvorsen retired as music director
of the National Theatre of Norway,
he had a stagehand burn
many of his manuscripts.
Why did he burn it?
The concerto wasn't well received.
Critics said it was bombastic
and technically difficult.
See here, the phrases of the
violin are constructed like opponents,
that the violin cuts
through like a sword.
It's ruthless.
Kathleen was single-minded
and unsentimental.
She had this enormous
success when she was young,
but she was totally
neglected later in her life.
But still, she continued
to play the violin,
regardless of any
external reinforcement.
People can be very put off by a
lack of sentimentality or frailty.
It's a contradiction
in terms, isn't it?
To dedicate something to
someone and then destroy it.
When you're looking at the objects
left behind by a person
who has died, you can obviously assign
significance to what was kept.
Then there's also the importance
of the objects that are missing,
such as Kathleen's famous
violin, the Guarnerius del Ges,
that was unaccounted
for in her estate.
But in terms of how the deceased wanted
those objects to be seen or used,
you'll find that in your
attraction to a particular object,
you're actually
encountering your own will.
The Guarnerius del Ges
was purchased for Kathleen
by the Norwegian
nobleman, Einar Bjrnsson.
Throughout the daybooks, you can
see "E.B. arriving", "E.B. leaving".
It's funny to see what
may have been a love
affair described in only
arrivals and departures.
On the day of their last meeting, E.B.'s
sailing is underlined with a hard dash.
She never married, you know.
She alleged that marriage and an
artistic career were incompatible.
I read that she'd marry another
musician if he were superior to her
in ability, because then she'd have
to strive to be as good as him.
But if he were worse than her, then
she'd have to take care of his feelings.
In fact, she said that
most women didn't have
the dedication required
to be a great violinist.
Perhaps she meant that
most women are unwilling
to give up on the
possibilities of love.
Her life was occasioned
by these Norwegian men.
Bjrnsson with the del Ges,
Halvorsson with the concerto.
But there was a point where
their support came
with these weighted conditions
and she had to free herself.
Still, she carried the experience
of it with her in her hands.
Audrey, you know I like talking to you,
but I'm your thesis supervisor.
It's irritating you expect me to
keep making allowances for you.
You've presented no tangible
work toward your thesis
and you're coming toward the end of
your degree and your funding.
I can't support you
continuing to accumulate.
I need you to bring your research
into some kind of action.
I know I'm frustrated
with myself too.
Are you?
Kathleen once said, music
begins where love leaves off.
The Titanic was wrecked
on her maiden voyage.
The whole world was shocked and the city
of New York was in a state of mourning.
A benefit concert at the Met
was organized for the survivors.
I played Tchaikovsky's
Serenade Melancholique.
I felt a disparity between my own
happiness and the face of catastrophe.
What happened?
I left him.
I didn't know you two
were close to breaking up.
I don't even know
there were problems.
I don't know what they were, but
I can't feel that they matter now.
When I was explaining it
to him, I suddenly had this feeling
like I was lying and
maybe everything was fine.
Maybe this pull I was feeling
is something I made up.
Such an absurd effort
to change your life.
You follow an impulse and
something of that impulse is lost.
And your mother?
There's still time.
Is that what you're reading?
I folded the corner of a page actually
because it made me think of you.
Do you know the story?
No.
Basically, this young American
woman leaves for Europe
with the sort of imprecise purpose of
gaining knowledge and experience.
And early into her trip she's proposed
to by a man who has a social position,
is intelligent, and is expected
to have a very important career.
Okay, here.
He had conceived the design
of drawing her into the
system in which she rather
individually lived and moved.
A certain instinct, not imperious
but persuasive, told her to resist.
Murmured to her that virtually she
had a system in an orbit of her own.
It told her other things besides.
Things which both contradicted
and confirmed each other.
That a girl might do much worse
than trust herself to such a man.
And that it would be
very interesting to see
something of his system
from his own point of view.
That on the other hand, however,
there was evidently a great deal
of it which she should regard only
as a complication of every hour.
And that even in the whole
there was something
stiff and stupid which
would make it a burden.
Isn't that amazing?
Yeah, it is.
It's that she's interested
in understanding
the boundary between
herself and the world.
And were she to include him, it would
be a completely different organization.
Probably a cumbersome one.
I admire her decisiveness, or the
clarity she seems to get out of it.
I have this feeling like a
decision doesn't really matter.
That it doesn't impact
or change anything.
I thought making a decision
would feel like more.
The spring of 1912 was a time
of special success for me.
I had recently met Thomas Edison,
who had just invented
the cylinder phonograph.
Edison and I met several
times and he asked if
I would be willing to have
my playing recorded.
"Eager and willing." I responded.
"How about April 30th?" he asked.
To have my playing recorded
so that it could be
heard again and again,
made me feel like I'd live forever.
Many people had bought the cylinder
playing machines and Edison
was concerned with keeping them
supplied with new recordings.
I made the most of my
sessions with them, and
their first advertisements
even carried my picture.
There are 6.5 million sound
recordings at the British Library.
My job as a sound archivist
is to try and find
compelling ways to tell the
stories of these recordings
and also to create sensorial
experiences with them,
tapping into the effects that
sound can have over memory.
What is particular to the preserving
of sounds as opposed to objects?
People think of sound as
something that's ephemeral,
as if once it goes out
into the universe,
it is no longer connected
to anything or anyone.
You can see the difficulty of this
when it comes to archiving sound.
We want sound to be kept and
remembered, but we also want it to be
catalogued with metadata, which
describes the context of its creation.
Just because it isn't visual
doesn't mean that the
circumstances of its creation
can't be made apparent.
How do you go about presenting
the contexts or narratives of sound?
You want to bring the
sound to the surface,
but you also want to uncover a
history of how it was recorded.
Storytelling with sound
archives is about defining
what is happening that
isn't necessarily audible.
For instance, wax cylinders
were of the earliest formats that sound
was recorded on commercially.
And when those were made
available, Europeans could
listen to Indigenous American
music for the first time.
And they said, how
interesting that their songs
are always around three
to four minutes long.
But what they didn't realise
was that the physical length
of the cylinder actually determined
the duration of the recording.
What is the intended
effect on the listener?
Sorry to be so vague,
but there are all kinds.
It depends on the type of
recording you're asking about.
I'm interested in recordings
which have a narrative element
and also ones that bring people into a
space in which they can be transformed.
As an archivist, I want to create
a pure listening experience
where the storytelling isn't just
about the song or the text.
Even though the sounds are
contained within the wax cylinders,
I like to think of them
as boundaryless,
because they can take us into
different times and spaces.
I've prepped a cylinder for you which
has the recording you requested on it.
We can listen to it in the library.
It seems to be quite
empty in there today.
Wax cylinders are literally
cylinders coated with wax, and the
surface is actually inscribed
through the pressure of sound.
It started off as a
mechanical way of recording
sound that didn't
require electricity.
It was acoustic.
And performers would sing, speak, or
play down the horn of the phonograph.
Recording, in essence,
is about reproducing or suggesting
living presence.
There was a farmer who would play
a recording of clucking to his hens,
and they would lay more eggs
because they were so excited
to hear the sound of
their own clucking.
What I love about wax cylinders is that
they can have a lot of surface noise,
and that noise is like a sort of
metaphor of the distance between you
and when the recording was made.
It's such a fragile medium,
prone to dust and mould,
and these blue ambrose can
wear out or shrink easily.
But through all of that, you
can still hear the melody
and the rhythm and feel the
presence of the performer.
It wasn't stored very
well, but I think these
kinds of imperfections
make it all the more unique.
You can hear the
texture of time past and
the wounds inflicted
on the cylinder itself.
Mother and I were fortunate to have
Meldreth during the war years.
Concert tours were becoming
increasingly difficult.
Meldreth's seasons
were long and quiet.
There was no radio.
People were slow to
believe the newspapers.
Mother extended the vegetable
gardens and added chickens.
This not only helped
the living expenses,
but was a highly
patriotic undertaking.
Nothing here?
You don't need that, do you?
You can tuck it away.
No one's going to steal it.
Hi.
You must be Joan.
Nice to meet you.
I am indeed...
I am indeed Joan from
Meldreth Historical Society.
Thank you for agreeing to do this.
That was not a problem.
But let's get inside, shall we?
It's quite cold out.
Watch yourselves as you step in.
I'm not sure about the
state of these floors.
What's the place next door?
Is it part of the same property?
It's a care home that used
to be attached to this one.
It specializes in supporting
elderly people with dementia.
Oh, really?
The reason why the
homestead was so useful at
some point is because
the staff lived here.
But suddenly there was a
decline in the number of
patients and in the population
of Meldreth in general.
So this building became redundant.
So it's completely out of use?
Some say it would be convenient
if the building could be leveled out.
But it's not possible because
it has heritage status.
So it just stands
here rotting, really.
So let's start the tour.
So according to the architecture
of most homes of this kind in
Cambridgeshire, this is where
the living room would have been.
But back then, living rooms
were called parlours.
Before funeral homes existed,
bodies were exhibited in parlours.
Then when people were able to
gather and celebrate the life of the
deceased in a funeral, home
parlours became rooms for the living.
Hence the term living room.
So just have a wander
around, get the feel for it.
So would they have used
the room for any other
purpose or was it strictly
when people died?
No, no, they would have used it as...
I was always buying books.
I typically turn to the best in current
biography, memoirs and travel.
I had only a slight
interest in novels.
The walls had been painted white
to show off my mother's latest
photography efforts.
On the mantle, she arranged some of
the curios I had bought from Norway.
The rugs on the floor were the
result of shrewd buying and
everywhere in the house was
evidence of mother's good taste.
We'll continue to the kitchen.
I'll lead the way.
These look like they would
have been the original cabinets.
Yeah, they would probably have
been there in Kathleen's time.
But as you can see,
there have been a few
last minute modifications
over the years.
And over by these
windows, they likely had a
washing up station that's
since been removed.
Oh, incontinence pads,
size L, nine orders.
I was described as unusual.
A rosettie beauty with
my elongated neck,
broad shoulders, and
masculine features.
They'll be so happy to find them.
This looks very sophisticated.
What was that used for?
Yes, this is how the servants
heard who needed them upstairs.
They'd be down here and that bell
would ring and then a number would
come up and they'd know which
room they have to get into upstairs.
I didn't think about how I
appeared, but every so often
when I felt myself being seen,
it caused me to feel unsettled.
If you'd like to follow me to
the staircase through here.
How many bedrooms are in this house?
Oh, about four, I
think, at last count.
I don't imagine it
changes very often.
No, I don't suppose so.
Entering the solarium, I followed
that procession of characters.
Wife of Bath, Weaves,
Chaucer, Franklin,
Lady Abbas, Friar,
Knight, and Squire.
I stared for a moment and
looked out at the garden.
A long stretch of clean lawn extended
from the back of the house at the end,
of which were fruit and
chestnut trees under which
you could play croquet
and listen to the birds.
My studio was entirely separated from
the main house so that I would not
be disturbed, woe betide anyone or
thing that attempted to approach me.
It is at the beginning that an
artist needs a good instrument.
Einar Bjrnsson spoke to me
of the finest violine
one could acquire,
the Guarnerius del Ges.
I just stared in surprise at
the mention of this rare violin
that was beyond the reach of a poor girl
scarcely past the student stage.
I hadn't overcome my shock
before he'd put into motion
the violin being acquired for me.
At first, I was embarrassed
by the extravagance
and intimidated by the instrument.
It had an enchanted quality
and a large presence
that seemed to mark something
I couldn't return from.
I tried to give it back,
but then I felt more alarmed
by the trickery of my mind that would
have me see this object as a curse.
It was soon after revealed that Einar
spent his father's Nobel Prize money
and his wife's dowry on the violin,
no longer having any money,
returned to his family, and
we no longer saw him.
It was in my studio in
Meldreth during the war,
without an audience, that I approached
the del Ges each day and played.
I made it my purpose not to
be disturbed by its power,
but to approach
it humbly and fearlessly.
In doing so, it became my
partner and a part of myself.
And the violin, the precious
Guarnerius del Ges,
where is it now?
The house did not have electricity,
and all illumination was
accomplished with candles,
because my mother was
afraid of oil lamps.
You can imagine how candelabras added
to the already great charm of the house.
At night, each of us carried our
own up to bed, books that were...
What the fuck are you doing in here?
What do you mean?
You completely disappeared.
I was following Joan and then I
turned around and you were gone.
It was rude.
I'm sorry.
Come on, I told her we'd meet at the pub
to start the walking tour of the town.
So, you managed to
find her. Well done.
Sure did.
So, the tour of Meldreth
really begins here.
This is a pub called the British
Queen that was built in the 1840s.
So, would Kathleen have
possibly eaten here?
Well, no, because it would
have been a beer house.
Would she have had a beer here?
Oh no.
Beer houses were for
the men, the workers.
Right.
Audrey.
Let me show you a few more
sights of the village.
- Thank you so much for your time.
- No, it's a pleasure.
It really is.
Because it's not often I get a
chance to show people who've
come from a long way, which
you have, to our village.
Is this allowed?
You two really don't get out
of the city much, do you?
No, I suppose we don't.
Not many sheep where you come from.
Alright.
Next stop coming up.
This is the River Mill, which has
flowed through here for many years.
It's going quite well at the moment,
but sometimes it stops and
they have a pump to get it going
again, if you know what I mean.
Further up, the river meets a mill where
a family called the Mortlocks lived.
Who were they?
They were a wealthy family who
were, they basically owned Meldreth.
Kathleen would probably
have known them because
they were at the centre
of social networks.
Audrey?
- Do you mind recording the
rest of the walking tour? - Sure.
It's funny, the bridge across the
train tracks connecting the towns.
It's funny how each
town is self-contained.
You can really imagine
it in wartime, people
living these quiet,
circumscribed lives.
And you didn't even
have to finish the tour.
How was the rest of the walk?
It was fine.
All the same.
The food sounds really good.
Fish and chips, steak and
ale pie, bangers and mash.
I'll have the steak and ale pie.
Should I have the mac and
cheese or the fish and chips?
Probably the fish and chips.
I'll have the fish and chips, please.
How did you find the house?
I found it a bit sad to see such
a beautiful place in disrepair.
Did you notice the industrial carpeting
over the original hardwood floors?
There was moss
growing on the ceiling.
It feels like a way
of life is in the past.
Mother and daughter living together,
doing the same thing every day,
taking comfort in the materials
of their immediate surroundings.
Not in a way that's about luxury,
but that's about intimacy and
the knowledge of a place.
I could really imagine her there,
playing the violin every day.
Even more so because she wouldn't have
known when she'd have an audience again.
How's your mother?
She's fine.
I mean, she's not
fine, but it's fine.
Are you mad at me?
I'm not mad at you.
So, you just expect me to be as
interested in all of this as you are.
I've come along with you and
I'm happy to, but it's an effort.
And then you just abandoned
me in the middle of this walking tour
like it's something I would
have elected to do on my own.
You're completely evasive when
it comes to your personal life.
You just broke up with your
boyfriend of five years.
You're completely
lost with your thesis.
Your mother is dying and
you won't address any of it.
You can stay with me if you need to
run away and I'm happy to support you
in any way I can, but
you cannot expect me
to sustain the same
obsessive blindness as you.
I can't be near her.
She makes these outrageous demands and
if I refuse her hurt becomes
even more enormous.
She's terrified of her anger,
but she's also covetous of it.
She doesn't want it
taken away from her.
She wants complete submission.
What sorts of demands does she make?
So many.
But mainly she wants me
to validate her feelings.
Or more than that, she wants
me to feel the same as her.
She wants me to hate who she hates.
Like my father, I was never allowed
to appreciate how talented he was.
When I was a kid, she'd
talk about the career
she would have had
if I hadn't been born.
How by becoming a mother
she sacrificed being a violinist.
But I remember even
when I was young feeling
there was something false about this.
I think the violin made
her really unhappy.
Constantly having to
put herself forward,
being confronted
with her limitations.
When I was born she made
me the reason she quit,
making it a sacrifice,
something noble.
Her pain makes her so helpless.
She seems to think that only
my devotion can alleviate it.
And now she's sick.
It's like she wants to take me with
her and I just need to get away.
Audrey, it's okay.
She can't take you with her.
I think part of me thinks it's fair
to ask for that kind of devotion.
Subjugation is not love, Audrey.
But I understand and
I sympathize with her.
Well...
It certainly makes it more difficult
if even your curiosity
is an affront to her.
It seems to me that your every
thought is weighed against,
is this worth choosing over my mother?
And the answer will
probably always be "no"
and so everything will
always feel meaningless.
That's why it's so important
that people allow each other
the freedom to follow their
desires without guilt.
But I don't know how to express it.
I feel...
Sometimes I feel so close to something,
but when I try to describe it,
I lose it again.
I'm sorry.
Kathleen was a bit of
a myth in my family.
Because of the hold she had over
my grandfather even after she died.
Just by the standard she set,
her dedication without
need for congratulation.
When I first visited
the archive, I had this
feeling of a presence
that was already there.
I could just feel so viscerally that
these objects were from the past.
But also that they were containers
through which the past could be entered.
And then I started to
read about her life.
How she was the first
student to study with
Leopold Auer
at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
How Bjrnsson gifted
her this rare violin.
How Halvorsen wrote this concerto
to demonstrate her particular ability.
And then all the time after that,
that she continued to play.
And I started to feel this
incredible desire to hear her.
Sound persists so
differently than objects do.
It is never tangible, but it can be
repeated in a way that's transportive
and connected to every other
time it's been sounded.
It's like the past itself is present.
Didn't Kathleen keep
her copy of Opus 28?
You said that's the only existing
instruction for the music.
You could stage the concerto.
It would be the first time it was
heard in a hundred years.
You could find a way to hear her.
The worst moment for
a performer are the
first five minutes
before going on stage.
They are terrible.
But once I start playing,
the nervousness goes.
As Auer often said, true inspiration
of Bach or Beethoven
harks back to nature.
Nature of the divine.
Inspiration lies dormant
until we make it grow.
I was coming to the end
of a heavy European tour,
and Auer was in an argument with
my agent to get me back to London.
He wanted me to prepare a program to be
presented at the Queen's Hall Orchestra.
This would mark my departure
from being a child prodigy
into being treated
as a serious artist.
Oslo was the last stop
before returning home.
I was 17 and engaged to play
at Rodrino Halls, which was
adjacent to the National Theatre.
It was told to me afterwards that
the audience from the theatre
crowded into the hall during their
intermission to hear me play.
Within days, I was asked to
play a program of Tchaikovsky
at the National Theatre
and asked to give a private
audience to the King and Queen.
There was the feeling of
the future spilling over.
It was at that fateful concert that
Johann Halvorsen was in attendance.
He began his work on Opus 28
almost immediately.
Einar Bjrnsson was also present.
And suddenly my mother and I
became regular guests at his home.
He took us out for dinner in the theatre
on most nights of the following week.
Johann Halvorsen was the head of
the Norwegian Symphony Orchestra
and conducted me in my eventual
performance at the National Theatre.
He toiled over the concerto
and wrote the cadenzas
with the hope of matching
my particular ability.
He began to send me pages to
learn and respond to,
always emphasizing that if I wanted
anything altered, I should write to him.
Hello?
Yes, this is she.
I'm not...
it isn't possible for me to...
It isn't possible for me to return
to the hospice right away.
You think it could really be so soon?
Thank you for calling.
The music was severe, but mournful.
And technically very challenging.
The joy of preparing the
concerto is hard to describe.
The technical difficulty of it never
discouraged me, but only goaded me on.
The dramatic movements
required unbroken attention,
and I would come away
entirely exhausted.
We'll take it from the
beginning of the 10th bar,
where you begin the cadenza
and start to climb.
Remember to lean deeply into
the inside of the phrasings.
The solo was extremely quick,
riddled with sensitive legatos,
signed with little
crescendos between notes.
It was difficult to dig
into every passage
and still come away with the
feeling of movement.
Okay, we need to feel through
this section a little bit more.
You're rushing through it too much.
You must move with
all of the changes.
At the end of the cadenza, we land,
but it's an unexpected surprise.
If you're rushing with
all of this intensity,
then we're too aware of time passing,
and then we get to the end,
and there's no surprise, no levity.
It becomes boring.
I pushed myself to technical perfection,
because that is where art could begin.
For only by feeling each
note fully can one move into
each emotional moment
in a composition.
"Tusen takk". Thank you for
letting me watch the rehearsal.
It was really wonderful.
Audrey Binnack.
I'm Misha.
Pleased to meet you.
You look tired.
No, I'm fine.
You're not fine?
Have you eaten?
Yes, I have.
I don't believe you.
Come, we're going to have
lunch with Elisa and I.
You don't have to do that.
It's yours?
Thank you.
Let's go.
But there are a lot of women who
have success in playing the violin,
and who are celebrated for it.
Sure, but there's a difference
between how Canadians
talk about Kathleen Parlow
and Glenn Gould, for example.
Well, Glenn Gould was
a business project.
Someone told him to play
Bach in another way.
Someone sold his style.
In my opinion, in comparison
to Kathleen Parlow,
Glenn Gould had someone that cared.
He had a business
partner who said, okay,
let's go into a hall and
they will pay you $500.
Well, exactly.
Kathleen had that when she was
young and prodigious, but she came
out of World War I in her late 20s
and her supports were gone.
Surely that tells us something about
what there was a business for.
Yes, but it's also
a question of luck.
I disagree. Bias makes
luck impossible.
That was really delicious.
Thank you.
Audrey, please.
I invited you here not because you're
a woman, not because you're a guest,
not because I like you, and not
even because I feel sorry for you.
I invited you because I want to.
And one thank you is enough.
Sure, I'm just really grateful.
You're too polite.
Pardon?
You're too polite.
How long have you been
teaching at the conservatory?
Ten years.
Do you like it?
I mean, what else am I to do?
Music is a language which I
speak and teaching is a way
of understanding that language
and making it understood.
It's simple.
Does he make you practice a lot?
He doesn't make me do anything.
Right.
I like to practice.
It's important for me to
stay focused, to evolve.
I only meant that it's a
lot to give your life to.
Music is in my life.
It is a way of life.
You can have any feeling toward it,
but you're committed to it,
just as you're committed to living.
But you can't wake up and say
to yourself, live fully today.
But you can wake up
and say, play the violin.
It must be incredible to
produce a violinist like Elisa.
I don't produce violinists, and
neither does the Conservatory.
All they do, and I
suppose all that I do,
is make space for students
to practice making sounds.
Sounds that will
hopefully impress people
when they're played in the theatre.
And Elisa, she's a unique person.
And at first I didn't take her
talent too seriously because,
you know, everyone is unique.
Everyone has individuality.
Her temperament reminds me...
I don't know if you heard
me say this earlier.
Maybe you did, I don't know. But...
this young person is a wolf.
She knows exactly what she wants.
You see that not only in her life,
but in each phrase she plays.
That must be quite a thing to feel.
I have to go home now.
It's time to practice.
Good to meet you.
Good to meet you.
Bye, Elisa.
Have you had a chance
to read the manuscript
of the concerto that I emailed you?
The Halvorsen.
Now, he was an excellent conductor,
but he wasn't a great composer.
I don't think that's true exactly.
And the piece is unique
because it's written for the violin,
and Halvorsen was a violinist
and composed on the violin.
He really explored the
possibilities of the instrument.
He was a romantic and a neurotic.
He recycled many of the same themes
and didn't seem to ever be able to
articulate what he was getting at.
Is it your ambition to get
this concerto performed?
Yes, it is.
And it's the Toronto Symphony
that you want to have performing?
Yes.
It's never been performed
in Canada before.
I've written to them, but they
haven't gotten back to me yet.
It might take you about
four years to get a no.
But sure, you can keep trying.
What if I told you it might sound
much better somewhere else?
A bottle of Aquavit and two glasses.
You'll need to get the concerto
transcribed if it's to be performed,
and for it to be cross-referenced
with any source material
to determine the most final version.
It's not just the violin solo, it's the
full orchestral score and parts.
And there's correspondence
between Kathleen and
Halvorsen concerning how
it should be interpreted.
You'll need to engage
a music publisher
that would organize
and fund the concerto.
It's a matter of
engaging an orchestra
that would program the
concerto as part of their season
and cover all of the costs of the
space, the rehearsals, the musicians.
And therefore, Audrey,
what becomes your job
is to convince people of the historic
and the artistic value of the work.
And of course, it is possible that
the composer was right to burn it.
He was self-taught and
very afraid of being judged
as a composer and therefore
sensitive to criticism.
And criticisms were that
the themes were half-baked,
that it was dense and
overly complicated,
that as a composer he was tangential
and his ideas were incomplete.
It doesn't have to be a
masterpiece in order
to justify the need for
it to be performed.
There's value in a minor work, too.
It's possible that it's
intentionally fragmentary.
A lack of precision can
be a conscious strategy to
prevent easy resolution or domination.
Something that isn't
whole or irrefutable
can emote a sense of
effort and grasping.
And it's an oversimplification what you
said before about him being a romantic.
Sure, he didn't make
intellectual music, but he was in
conversation with folkloric
music, not just reinforcing it.
You need to look harder at
what the experiments are.
But we can only infer so
much from reading it.
We won't know what it is
until it's been performed.
We need to hear it!
Well, what you'll need most
essentially is a soloist that is daring.
The concerto is very virtuosic,
thick with 16th notes,
arpeggios and allegro crescendos.
You'll need a violinist
with a certain mania
that takes a certain Lee
in attacking challenges.
Someone perverse.
I thought you hadn't read it.
I glimpsed at it.
Why are you always
carrying that violin around?
You said you aren't a musician.
What is it for?
It was my grandfather's.
He gave it to my father when he retired
and my mother was very hurt by that.
She felt he wasn't
supportive of her career
and she discouraged
me from pursuing one.
Let me take a look at the violin.
I won't harm it, I promise.
It appears you have
something of value here.
Audrey, I believe that what you have
here is a Viotti Guarnerius del Ges.
This instrument is
almost 300 years old.
But how?
Its maker, Guarneri,
was a sort of Picasso.
His violins were made with
reckless energy, a certain violence.
The wood is crude, there
are little slashes here.
Even the design on the scroll is
asymmetrical, like a Cubist painting.
These instruments
proudly wear their history
in the blemishes he lets
sit on their surfaces.
Guarneri died when he was in his 40s.
He was a little bit of a drunk,
but he lived fully.
A compelling life
compared to Stradivari,
who lived very conservatively and
died on a workbench in his 90s.
He made these astonishingly elegant,
perfectly constructed instruments.
But still, they never matched the way
Guarneri could make two
vibrating plates amid a sound.
No, but how did I come to have it?
When a musician passes away, sometimes
they leave their instrument
to a prized pupil.
Is it very possible
that your grandfather
inherited this instrument
from Kathleen Parlow.
I had no idea.
Are you sure about that?
I felt compelled to carry it.
I can't quite explain it to myself.
Thank you for lunch,
and for the drink.
I have to go.
You yourself were called by many critics
the greatest woman violinist of the day.
Did this bother you?
I didn't like that.
I didn't go out to play as a woman.
I went out to play
the violin, period.
Well, some of the criticisms
would say that you had the
mastery and fire of the instrument
that was almost masculine.
That also I didn't like.
Miss Parlow, looking back over a career
that's 50 or 60 years, well, actually,
actually more than 60 years, in your
seventh decade now, have you any regrets?
I mean, you must have given
up many things to have spent
the hours just in sheer
practice and then traveling.
But I didn't seem to mind.
It just seemed to be
the thing I had to do.
It never occurred to me,
no matter how hard things were.
Money and everything else.
We weren't good business people.
Although I earned a
lot, but we never...
Managers always managed
to get most of it away.
And people said, well, why
don't you learn what they do?
But they always went out in
a different direction, you see.
We find out what they
did once to teach you,
and then that could never
happen to you again.
But there were other ways.
They had a way a day.
It's a pity, then, that there
should be some sort of Canada
Council grant for honored
artists who are now in retirement.
It'd be very nice.
- Let's plug for that idea.
- All right.
I think that's better than
medals, don't you think?
- Better than medals.
- Oh, yes.
- Very much better.
- Yes.
One of the things you must have
given up is marriage, domesticity.
- Do you regret that?
- No, I don't think so.
Now, I've seen some of my friends.
I think I've been very lucky.
Well, was there no one that
you had a special interest in?
Yes, but I thought I'd
have to give up the violin.
So, you see, that's it. Violin.
And today, do you still
practice as much?
Well, I don't practice quite as
much, but I do practice every day.
It's amazing that with the violin,
needing the digital
facility is still with you.
Oh, well.
When I haven't got
that, I shall stop.
And your instrument,
Miss Parlow, what is it?
That's the Viotti Guarnerius del Ges.
It's a very, very valuable
and famous instrument.
Something to the order of,
what, $60,000 to $70,000?
It should be, yes.
- That's it.
- How old is it?
Do you have another, a second string?
Yes, I have a new Jerry,
which is good, too.
Why do violinists
carry two with them?
Well, if you see something
might go wrong,
they're very sensitive
to the weather.
Just as it's been in hospital
two days, too, with change.
They don't like change of weather.
Italy or California, the
places they thrive in.
Why do you think we haven't
got great violinists today?
I really couldn't tell you.
Everybody has a new
idea what's wrong with it.
Rock and roll, one of them,
and television, another,
and records, another.
I don't know.
These giants of yesteryear,
how do you rank them
in the great names we
know as violinists today?
That's a rather difficult question,
because nothing in my mind can be like
Ysae in Kreisler and
Auer in his heyday.
He didn't play well in the end.
He was too nervous.
But I heard him in his own home
when there's still the old fire.
Kathleen?
Mother?
Leave!
Leave!
Leave!
Leave!
Are you tired Kathleen?
Do you ever resist practicing?
Doesn't an action lose
meaning if it becomes a habit?
Do you think you missed anything
by giving your life to the violin?
There's nothing that I couldn't
experience through the violin.
It allowed me to feel the world and
the boundaries of myself fully.
My mother died.
I'm sorry.
One time a family friend told me that
I have the same arms as my mother.
And I had the strangest understanding
that what he really meant was,
though I didn't then, there was
something about my arms that told him
that I'd have the same
arms as my mother one day.
Some months ago I was walking,
and I suddenly felt,
in my posture and the way
I was holding my arms,
that they were the
same as my mother's.
And a shock of fear ran through me.
I don't know how to
describe it other than
inevitability being the feeling of
being pulled back and swallowed.
We both show a lot of
emotion in our arms.
They're so available, but they're the
first thing that shows our shyness,
or a feeling of rejection.
I hated seeing that I'm as easily
hurt and readable as she is.
Violin requires relaxation
of the arms and wrists.
Maybe it's her arms
that gave her away.
Do we belong to other people?
What responsibility do we have
to the people that love us?
There was a time when
love gave me my life.
And I was moved by me.
She wanted me to fully realize
myself and impress others.
Our love was expressed by
our dedication to my playing.
But there's a moment
when the circumstances of life
make things impossible.
And if you don't accept them,
the good will turns with it,
and the love gets ruined.
But if you accept the reality,
The love preserved and you can
carry it throughout your life.
But how do you know what's your
will and what's somebody else's?
You might find that while
you take one course,
the other continues
existing somewhere.
Just as possible futures exist
that will never come to pass.
I think the only question becomes
"How can you not feel lost?"
Sometimes I see a path ahead of me.
But then I lose the feeling and I don't
know how to call myself back to it.
Would you learn the violin
solo for opus 28 again?
Not only while she stood on the concert
platform, but in her daily life,
the claim of music was supreme.
The photographs taken for her
debut show a slender girl,
nearly six feet tall and
of rather unusual beauty.
The heavy braided hair brushed simply
from her forehead and lifted
off her shoulders.
The velvet dress, sheared and
gathered from a high lace yoke,
gave her the appearance of a figure
in a renaissance painting.
Audrey?
Yeah?
You... you...
you were raised like me.
You came out with your
eyes open. You...
You were fully aware.
Your father...
Your father dedicated
his life to his fiddle.
And that's what he left us.
His instrument.
I can't tell you how many times
I imagined dismantling it.
Your dad...
He had an incredible
disappearing act, didn't he?
Just like my own pops.
Yeah, I know mom, I know.
We managed our moment, but it was...
it was tough.
He was on tour.
He was rehearsing.
He was in the studio. He...
He just...
he just wasn't around.
You didn't handle that very well.
You know that some people said that
half of your personality was missing.
Audrey, are you listening?
Yeah.
When I die,
I want you to
to scatter the violin's ashes
with mine.
Audrey,
when I die, I want you to scatter...
I was walking across my hotel room
and I tripped over a
lamp cord and fell.
I was an old woman
and something like this
can be the beginning of the end.
The humerus in my
left shoulder was torn.
I was so afraid that I
might never play again.
After my operation, I sat
up in my hospital bed,
feeling the wrenched
bones and muscles.
A doctor handed me my violin.
My Guarneri del Ges.
I tried to place it under my
chin, but it fell from my fingers.
Gradually, I felt well again.
I reignited the Parlow String Quartet
and I found Cornelius Basilstein,
Stanley Solomon, and my
newest recruit, Andy Benak.
I heard Benak play at
a senior school recital.
I offered him a play straight away.
In his delight, Andy said
that he nearly hit the roof.
I began to teach by hand again.
One exercise consisted of opening
and closing it very, very slowly,
sometimes taking me
10 minutes to do it.
I began doing the exercises underwater
and my hands relieved
of their own weight,
could resume the
remembered positions.
Every day, I tried
something more difficult.
And when I realized enduring
the agony meant real progress,
I naturally didn't mind.
Some nine months
later, in January 1961,
wearing a cobalt blue gown,
I gave a recital.
I played a program that displayed
the infinite beauties of the violin.
The staccatos in Mozart, clear
and definite, yet delicate.
Brahms' Sonata, rich in tone without
muddiness, fine as hair sound.
Respighi, Rontondo's right and long,
sweeping, bowing,
giving power and breath.
It was a concert played as if between
my life and my release to the heavens.
Three months afterward,
I fell when exiting a streetcar
and died in the hospital
from the injuries.
Hi, Inez.
Are you familiar with this article?
The Manuscript of the Concerto
by Johann Halvorsen, Opus 28?
What's the significance of Kathleen's
name being on the cover?
It's her concert copy?
It is her concert copy,
but the concerto was also dedicated
to Kathleen when she was 17.
When a concerto is
dedicated to a musician,
it is implied that they
take it on as a soloist.
What aspect of Kathleen's personality
would have inspired
Halvorsen to write for her?
It was described that Kathleen was
especially technically proficient
and that she attacked difficulty
with a certain gusto.
Audrey...
What happened with your
presentation today?
I was brought to the collection
by a personal coincidence
when I saw it listed in
the archive holdings
and made the connection that Kathleen
was my grandfather's violin teacher.
I'd been stuck for what
to write my thesis on and
this personal connection
tethered me to something.
I worry that if I put her
in an academic paper,
I'm just rearranging things
or burying them deeper.
Is there a recording?
No, it was performed in
the Netherlands in 1909,
but the concerto was
lost for over a century.
One of our archivists
found it in a shoebox
while for sorting through
Kathleen's estate.
After Halvorsen retired as music director
of the National Theatre of Norway,
he had a stagehand burn
many of his manuscripts.
Why did he burn it?
The concerto wasn't well received.
Critics said it was bombastic
and technically difficult.
See here, the phrases of the
violin are constructed like opponents,
that the violin cuts
through like a sword.
It's ruthless.
Kathleen was single-minded
and unsentimental.
She had this enormous
success when she was young,
but she was totally
neglected later in her life.
But still, she continued
to play the violin,
regardless of any
external reinforcement.
People can be very put off by a
lack of sentimentality or frailty.
It's a contradiction
in terms, isn't it?
To dedicate something to
someone and then destroy it.
When you're looking at the objects
left behind by a person
who has died, you can obviously assign
significance to what was kept.
Then there's also the importance
of the objects that are missing,
such as Kathleen's famous
violin, the Guarnerius del Ges,
that was unaccounted
for in her estate.
But in terms of how the deceased wanted
those objects to be seen or used,
you'll find that in your
attraction to a particular object,
you're actually
encountering your own will.
The Guarnerius del Ges
was purchased for Kathleen
by the Norwegian
nobleman, Einar Bjrnsson.
Throughout the daybooks, you can
see "E.B. arriving", "E.B. leaving".
It's funny to see what
may have been a love
affair described in only
arrivals and departures.
On the day of their last meeting, E.B.'s
sailing is underlined with a hard dash.
She never married, you know.
She alleged that marriage and an
artistic career were incompatible.
I read that she'd marry another
musician if he were superior to her
in ability, because then she'd have
to strive to be as good as him.
But if he were worse than her, then
she'd have to take care of his feelings.
In fact, she said that
most women didn't have
the dedication required
to be a great violinist.
Perhaps she meant that
most women are unwilling
to give up on the
possibilities of love.
Her life was occasioned
by these Norwegian men.
Bjrnsson with the del Ges,
Halvorsson with the concerto.
But there was a point where
their support came
with these weighted conditions
and she had to free herself.
Still, she carried the experience
of it with her in her hands.
Audrey, you know I like talking to you,
but I'm your thesis supervisor.
It's irritating you expect me to
keep making allowances for you.
You've presented no tangible
work toward your thesis
and you're coming toward the end of
your degree and your funding.
I can't support you
continuing to accumulate.
I need you to bring your research
into some kind of action.
I know I'm frustrated
with myself too.
Are you?
Kathleen once said, music
begins where love leaves off.
The Titanic was wrecked
on her maiden voyage.
The whole world was shocked and the city
of New York was in a state of mourning.
A benefit concert at the Met
was organized for the survivors.
I played Tchaikovsky's
Serenade Melancholique.
I felt a disparity between my own
happiness and the face of catastrophe.
What happened?
I left him.
I didn't know you two
were close to breaking up.
I don't even know
there were problems.
I don't know what they were, but
I can't feel that they matter now.
When I was explaining it
to him, I suddenly had this feeling
like I was lying and
maybe everything was fine.
Maybe this pull I was feeling
is something I made up.
Such an absurd effort
to change your life.
You follow an impulse and
something of that impulse is lost.
And your mother?
There's still time.
Is that what you're reading?
I folded the corner of a page actually
because it made me think of you.
Do you know the story?
No.
Basically, this young American
woman leaves for Europe
with the sort of imprecise purpose of
gaining knowledge and experience.
And early into her trip she's proposed
to by a man who has a social position,
is intelligent, and is expected
to have a very important career.
Okay, here.
He had conceived the design
of drawing her into the
system in which she rather
individually lived and moved.
A certain instinct, not imperious
but persuasive, told her to resist.
Murmured to her that virtually she
had a system in an orbit of her own.
It told her other things besides.
Things which both contradicted
and confirmed each other.
That a girl might do much worse
than trust herself to such a man.
And that it would be
very interesting to see
something of his system
from his own point of view.
That on the other hand, however,
there was evidently a great deal
of it which she should regard only
as a complication of every hour.
And that even in the whole
there was something
stiff and stupid which
would make it a burden.
Isn't that amazing?
Yeah, it is.
It's that she's interested
in understanding
the boundary between
herself and the world.
And were she to include him, it would
be a completely different organization.
Probably a cumbersome one.
I admire her decisiveness, or the
clarity she seems to get out of it.
I have this feeling like a
decision doesn't really matter.
That it doesn't impact
or change anything.
I thought making a decision
would feel like more.
The spring of 1912 was a time
of special success for me.
I had recently met Thomas Edison,
who had just invented
the cylinder phonograph.
Edison and I met several
times and he asked if
I would be willing to have
my playing recorded.
"Eager and willing." I responded.
"How about April 30th?" he asked.
To have my playing recorded
so that it could be
heard again and again,
made me feel like I'd live forever.
Many people had bought the cylinder
playing machines and Edison
was concerned with keeping them
supplied with new recordings.
I made the most of my
sessions with them, and
their first advertisements
even carried my picture.
There are 6.5 million sound
recordings at the British Library.
My job as a sound archivist
is to try and find
compelling ways to tell the
stories of these recordings
and also to create sensorial
experiences with them,
tapping into the effects that
sound can have over memory.
What is particular to the preserving
of sounds as opposed to objects?
People think of sound as
something that's ephemeral,
as if once it goes out
into the universe,
it is no longer connected
to anything or anyone.
You can see the difficulty of this
when it comes to archiving sound.
We want sound to be kept and
remembered, but we also want it to be
catalogued with metadata, which
describes the context of its creation.
Just because it isn't visual
doesn't mean that the
circumstances of its creation
can't be made apparent.
How do you go about presenting
the contexts or narratives of sound?
You want to bring the
sound to the surface,
but you also want to uncover a
history of how it was recorded.
Storytelling with sound
archives is about defining
what is happening that
isn't necessarily audible.
For instance, wax cylinders
were of the earliest formats that sound
was recorded on commercially.
And when those were made
available, Europeans could
listen to Indigenous American
music for the first time.
And they said, how
interesting that their songs
are always around three
to four minutes long.
But what they didn't realise
was that the physical length
of the cylinder actually determined
the duration of the recording.
What is the intended
effect on the listener?
Sorry to be so vague,
but there are all kinds.
It depends on the type of
recording you're asking about.
I'm interested in recordings
which have a narrative element
and also ones that bring people into a
space in which they can be transformed.
As an archivist, I want to create
a pure listening experience
where the storytelling isn't just
about the song or the text.
Even though the sounds are
contained within the wax cylinders,
I like to think of them
as boundaryless,
because they can take us into
different times and spaces.
I've prepped a cylinder for you which
has the recording you requested on it.
We can listen to it in the library.
It seems to be quite
empty in there today.
Wax cylinders are literally
cylinders coated with wax, and the
surface is actually inscribed
through the pressure of sound.
It started off as a
mechanical way of recording
sound that didn't
require electricity.
It was acoustic.
And performers would sing, speak, or
play down the horn of the phonograph.
Recording, in essence,
is about reproducing or suggesting
living presence.
There was a farmer who would play
a recording of clucking to his hens,
and they would lay more eggs
because they were so excited
to hear the sound of
their own clucking.
What I love about wax cylinders is that
they can have a lot of surface noise,
and that noise is like a sort of
metaphor of the distance between you
and when the recording was made.
It's such a fragile medium,
prone to dust and mould,
and these blue ambrose can
wear out or shrink easily.
But through all of that, you
can still hear the melody
and the rhythm and feel the
presence of the performer.
It wasn't stored very
well, but I think these
kinds of imperfections
make it all the more unique.
You can hear the
texture of time past and
the wounds inflicted
on the cylinder itself.
Mother and I were fortunate to have
Meldreth during the war years.
Concert tours were becoming
increasingly difficult.
Meldreth's seasons
were long and quiet.
There was no radio.
People were slow to
believe the newspapers.
Mother extended the vegetable
gardens and added chickens.
This not only helped
the living expenses,
but was a highly
patriotic undertaking.
Nothing here?
You don't need that, do you?
You can tuck it away.
No one's going to steal it.
Hi.
You must be Joan.
Nice to meet you.
I am indeed...
I am indeed Joan from
Meldreth Historical Society.
Thank you for agreeing to do this.
That was not a problem.
But let's get inside, shall we?
It's quite cold out.
Watch yourselves as you step in.
I'm not sure about the
state of these floors.
What's the place next door?
Is it part of the same property?
It's a care home that used
to be attached to this one.
It specializes in supporting
elderly people with dementia.
Oh, really?
The reason why the
homestead was so useful at
some point is because
the staff lived here.
But suddenly there was a
decline in the number of
patients and in the population
of Meldreth in general.
So this building became redundant.
So it's completely out of use?
Some say it would be convenient
if the building could be leveled out.
But it's not possible because
it has heritage status.
So it just stands
here rotting, really.
So let's start the tour.
So according to the architecture
of most homes of this kind in
Cambridgeshire, this is where
the living room would have been.
But back then, living rooms
were called parlours.
Before funeral homes existed,
bodies were exhibited in parlours.
Then when people were able to
gather and celebrate the life of the
deceased in a funeral, home
parlours became rooms for the living.
Hence the term living room.
So just have a wander
around, get the feel for it.
So would they have used
the room for any other
purpose or was it strictly
when people died?
No, no, they would have used it as...
I was always buying books.
I typically turn to the best in current
biography, memoirs and travel.
I had only a slight
interest in novels.
The walls had been painted white
to show off my mother's latest
photography efforts.
On the mantle, she arranged some of
the curios I had bought from Norway.
The rugs on the floor were the
result of shrewd buying and
everywhere in the house was
evidence of mother's good taste.
We'll continue to the kitchen.
I'll lead the way.
These look like they would
have been the original cabinets.
Yeah, they would probably have
been there in Kathleen's time.
But as you can see,
there have been a few
last minute modifications
over the years.
And over by these
windows, they likely had a
washing up station that's
since been removed.
Oh, incontinence pads,
size L, nine orders.
I was described as unusual.
A rosettie beauty with
my elongated neck,
broad shoulders, and
masculine features.
They'll be so happy to find them.
This looks very sophisticated.
What was that used for?
Yes, this is how the servants
heard who needed them upstairs.
They'd be down here and that bell
would ring and then a number would
come up and they'd know which
room they have to get into upstairs.
I didn't think about how I
appeared, but every so often
when I felt myself being seen,
it caused me to feel unsettled.
If you'd like to follow me to
the staircase through here.
How many bedrooms are in this house?
Oh, about four, I
think, at last count.
I don't imagine it
changes very often.
No, I don't suppose so.
Entering the solarium, I followed
that procession of characters.
Wife of Bath, Weaves,
Chaucer, Franklin,
Lady Abbas, Friar,
Knight, and Squire.
I stared for a moment and
looked out at the garden.
A long stretch of clean lawn extended
from the back of the house at the end,
of which were fruit and
chestnut trees under which
you could play croquet
and listen to the birds.
My studio was entirely separated from
the main house so that I would not
be disturbed, woe betide anyone or
thing that attempted to approach me.
It is at the beginning that an
artist needs a good instrument.
Einar Bjrnsson spoke to me
of the finest violine
one could acquire,
the Guarnerius del Ges.
I just stared in surprise at
the mention of this rare violin
that was beyond the reach of a poor girl
scarcely past the student stage.
I hadn't overcome my shock
before he'd put into motion
the violin being acquired for me.
At first, I was embarrassed
by the extravagance
and intimidated by the instrument.
It had an enchanted quality
and a large presence
that seemed to mark something
I couldn't return from.
I tried to give it back,
but then I felt more alarmed
by the trickery of my mind that would
have me see this object as a curse.
It was soon after revealed that Einar
spent his father's Nobel Prize money
and his wife's dowry on the violin,
no longer having any money,
returned to his family, and
we no longer saw him.
It was in my studio in
Meldreth during the war,
without an audience, that I approached
the del Ges each day and played.
I made it my purpose not to
be disturbed by its power,
but to approach
it humbly and fearlessly.
In doing so, it became my
partner and a part of myself.
And the violin, the precious
Guarnerius del Ges,
where is it now?
The house did not have electricity,
and all illumination was
accomplished with candles,
because my mother was
afraid of oil lamps.
You can imagine how candelabras added
to the already great charm of the house.
At night, each of us carried our
own up to bed, books that were...
What the fuck are you doing in here?
What do you mean?
You completely disappeared.
I was following Joan and then I
turned around and you were gone.
It was rude.
I'm sorry.
Come on, I told her we'd meet at the pub
to start the walking tour of the town.
So, you managed to
find her. Well done.
Sure did.
So, the tour of Meldreth
really begins here.
This is a pub called the British
Queen that was built in the 1840s.
So, would Kathleen have
possibly eaten here?
Well, no, because it would
have been a beer house.
Would she have had a beer here?
Oh no.
Beer houses were for
the men, the workers.
Right.
Audrey.
Let me show you a few more
sights of the village.
- Thank you so much for your time.
- No, it's a pleasure.
It really is.
Because it's not often I get a
chance to show people who've
come from a long way, which
you have, to our village.
Is this allowed?
You two really don't get out
of the city much, do you?
No, I suppose we don't.
Not many sheep where you come from.
Alright.
Next stop coming up.
This is the River Mill, which has
flowed through here for many years.
It's going quite well at the moment,
but sometimes it stops and
they have a pump to get it going
again, if you know what I mean.
Further up, the river meets a mill where
a family called the Mortlocks lived.
Who were they?
They were a wealthy family who
were, they basically owned Meldreth.
Kathleen would probably
have known them because
they were at the centre
of social networks.
Audrey?
- Do you mind recording the
rest of the walking tour? - Sure.
It's funny, the bridge across the
train tracks connecting the towns.
It's funny how each
town is self-contained.
You can really imagine
it in wartime, people
living these quiet,
circumscribed lives.
And you didn't even
have to finish the tour.
How was the rest of the walk?
It was fine.
All the same.
The food sounds really good.
Fish and chips, steak and
ale pie, bangers and mash.
I'll have the steak and ale pie.
Should I have the mac and
cheese or the fish and chips?
Probably the fish and chips.
I'll have the fish and chips, please.
How did you find the house?
I found it a bit sad to see such
a beautiful place in disrepair.
Did you notice the industrial carpeting
over the original hardwood floors?
There was moss
growing on the ceiling.
It feels like a way
of life is in the past.
Mother and daughter living together,
doing the same thing every day,
taking comfort in the materials
of their immediate surroundings.
Not in a way that's about luxury,
but that's about intimacy and
the knowledge of a place.
I could really imagine her there,
playing the violin every day.
Even more so because she wouldn't have
known when she'd have an audience again.
How's your mother?
She's fine.
I mean, she's not
fine, but it's fine.
Are you mad at me?
I'm not mad at you.
So, you just expect me to be as
interested in all of this as you are.
I've come along with you and
I'm happy to, but it's an effort.
And then you just abandoned
me in the middle of this walking tour
like it's something I would
have elected to do on my own.
You're completely evasive when
it comes to your personal life.
You just broke up with your
boyfriend of five years.
You're completely
lost with your thesis.
Your mother is dying and
you won't address any of it.
You can stay with me if you need to
run away and I'm happy to support you
in any way I can, but
you cannot expect me
to sustain the same
obsessive blindness as you.
I can't be near her.
She makes these outrageous demands and
if I refuse her hurt becomes
even more enormous.
She's terrified of her anger,
but she's also covetous of it.
She doesn't want it
taken away from her.
She wants complete submission.
What sorts of demands does she make?
So many.
But mainly she wants me
to validate her feelings.
Or more than that, she wants
me to feel the same as her.
She wants me to hate who she hates.
Like my father, I was never allowed
to appreciate how talented he was.
When I was a kid, she'd
talk about the career
she would have had
if I hadn't been born.
How by becoming a mother
she sacrificed being a violinist.
But I remember even
when I was young feeling
there was something false about this.
I think the violin made
her really unhappy.
Constantly having to
put herself forward,
being confronted
with her limitations.
When I was born she made
me the reason she quit,
making it a sacrifice,
something noble.
Her pain makes her so helpless.
She seems to think that only
my devotion can alleviate it.
And now she's sick.
It's like she wants to take me with
her and I just need to get away.
Audrey, it's okay.
She can't take you with her.
I think part of me thinks it's fair
to ask for that kind of devotion.
Subjugation is not love, Audrey.
But I understand and
I sympathize with her.
Well...
It certainly makes it more difficult
if even your curiosity
is an affront to her.
It seems to me that your every
thought is weighed against,
is this worth choosing over my mother?
And the answer will
probably always be "no"
and so everything will
always feel meaningless.
That's why it's so important
that people allow each other
the freedom to follow their
desires without guilt.
But I don't know how to express it.
I feel...
Sometimes I feel so close to something,
but when I try to describe it,
I lose it again.
I'm sorry.
Kathleen was a bit of
a myth in my family.
Because of the hold she had over
my grandfather even after she died.
Just by the standard she set,
her dedication without
need for congratulation.
When I first visited
the archive, I had this
feeling of a presence
that was already there.
I could just feel so viscerally that
these objects were from the past.
But also that they were containers
through which the past could be entered.
And then I started to
read about her life.
How she was the first
student to study with
Leopold Auer
at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
How Bjrnsson gifted
her this rare violin.
How Halvorsen wrote this concerto
to demonstrate her particular ability.
And then all the time after that,
that she continued to play.
And I started to feel this
incredible desire to hear her.
Sound persists so
differently than objects do.
It is never tangible, but it can be
repeated in a way that's transportive
and connected to every other
time it's been sounded.
It's like the past itself is present.
Didn't Kathleen keep
her copy of Opus 28?
You said that's the only existing
instruction for the music.
You could stage the concerto.
It would be the first time it was
heard in a hundred years.
You could find a way to hear her.
The worst moment for
a performer are the
first five minutes
before going on stage.
They are terrible.
But once I start playing,
the nervousness goes.
As Auer often said, true inspiration
of Bach or Beethoven
harks back to nature.
Nature of the divine.
Inspiration lies dormant
until we make it grow.
I was coming to the end
of a heavy European tour,
and Auer was in an argument with
my agent to get me back to London.
He wanted me to prepare a program to be
presented at the Queen's Hall Orchestra.
This would mark my departure
from being a child prodigy
into being treated
as a serious artist.
Oslo was the last stop
before returning home.
I was 17 and engaged to play
at Rodrino Halls, which was
adjacent to the National Theatre.
It was told to me afterwards that
the audience from the theatre
crowded into the hall during their
intermission to hear me play.
Within days, I was asked to
play a program of Tchaikovsky
at the National Theatre
and asked to give a private
audience to the King and Queen.
There was the feeling of
the future spilling over.
It was at that fateful concert that
Johann Halvorsen was in attendance.
He began his work on Opus 28
almost immediately.
Einar Bjrnsson was also present.
And suddenly my mother and I
became regular guests at his home.
He took us out for dinner in the theatre
on most nights of the following week.
Johann Halvorsen was the head of
the Norwegian Symphony Orchestra
and conducted me in my eventual
performance at the National Theatre.
He toiled over the concerto
and wrote the cadenzas
with the hope of matching
my particular ability.
He began to send me pages to
learn and respond to,
always emphasizing that if I wanted
anything altered, I should write to him.
Hello?
Yes, this is she.
I'm not...
it isn't possible for me to...
It isn't possible for me to return
to the hospice right away.
You think it could really be so soon?
Thank you for calling.
The music was severe, but mournful.
And technically very challenging.
The joy of preparing the
concerto is hard to describe.
The technical difficulty of it never
discouraged me, but only goaded me on.
The dramatic movements
required unbroken attention,
and I would come away
entirely exhausted.
We'll take it from the
beginning of the 10th bar,
where you begin the cadenza
and start to climb.
Remember to lean deeply into
the inside of the phrasings.
The solo was extremely quick,
riddled with sensitive legatos,
signed with little
crescendos between notes.
It was difficult to dig
into every passage
and still come away with the
feeling of movement.
Okay, we need to feel through
this section a little bit more.
You're rushing through it too much.
You must move with
all of the changes.
At the end of the cadenza, we land,
but it's an unexpected surprise.
If you're rushing with
all of this intensity,
then we're too aware of time passing,
and then we get to the end,
and there's no surprise, no levity.
It becomes boring.
I pushed myself to technical perfection,
because that is where art could begin.
For only by feeling each
note fully can one move into
each emotional moment
in a composition.
"Tusen takk". Thank you for
letting me watch the rehearsal.
It was really wonderful.
Audrey Binnack.
I'm Misha.
Pleased to meet you.
You look tired.
No, I'm fine.
You're not fine?
Have you eaten?
Yes, I have.
I don't believe you.
Come, we're going to have
lunch with Elisa and I.
You don't have to do that.
It's yours?
Thank you.
Let's go.
But there are a lot of women who
have success in playing the violin,
and who are celebrated for it.
Sure, but there's a difference
between how Canadians
talk about Kathleen Parlow
and Glenn Gould, for example.
Well, Glenn Gould was
a business project.
Someone told him to play
Bach in another way.
Someone sold his style.
In my opinion, in comparison
to Kathleen Parlow,
Glenn Gould had someone that cared.
He had a business
partner who said, okay,
let's go into a hall and
they will pay you $500.
Well, exactly.
Kathleen had that when she was
young and prodigious, but she came
out of World War I in her late 20s
and her supports were gone.
Surely that tells us something about
what there was a business for.
Yes, but it's also
a question of luck.
I disagree. Bias makes
luck impossible.
That was really delicious.
Thank you.
Audrey, please.
I invited you here not because you're
a woman, not because you're a guest,
not because I like you, and not
even because I feel sorry for you.
I invited you because I want to.
And one thank you is enough.
Sure, I'm just really grateful.
You're too polite.
Pardon?
You're too polite.
How long have you been
teaching at the conservatory?
Ten years.
Do you like it?
I mean, what else am I to do?
Music is a language which I
speak and teaching is a way
of understanding that language
and making it understood.
It's simple.
Does he make you practice a lot?
He doesn't make me do anything.
Right.
I like to practice.
It's important for me to
stay focused, to evolve.
I only meant that it's a
lot to give your life to.
Music is in my life.
It is a way of life.
You can have any feeling toward it,
but you're committed to it,
just as you're committed to living.
But you can't wake up and say
to yourself, live fully today.
But you can wake up
and say, play the violin.
It must be incredible to
produce a violinist like Elisa.
I don't produce violinists, and
neither does the Conservatory.
All they do, and I
suppose all that I do,
is make space for students
to practice making sounds.
Sounds that will
hopefully impress people
when they're played in the theatre.
And Elisa, she's a unique person.
And at first I didn't take her
talent too seriously because,
you know, everyone is unique.
Everyone has individuality.
Her temperament reminds me...
I don't know if you heard
me say this earlier.
Maybe you did, I don't know. But...
this young person is a wolf.
She knows exactly what she wants.
You see that not only in her life,
but in each phrase she plays.
That must be quite a thing to feel.
I have to go home now.
It's time to practice.
Good to meet you.
Good to meet you.
Bye, Elisa.
Have you had a chance
to read the manuscript
of the concerto that I emailed you?
The Halvorsen.
Now, he was an excellent conductor,
but he wasn't a great composer.
I don't think that's true exactly.
And the piece is unique
because it's written for the violin,
and Halvorsen was a violinist
and composed on the violin.
He really explored the
possibilities of the instrument.
He was a romantic and a neurotic.
He recycled many of the same themes
and didn't seem to ever be able to
articulate what he was getting at.
Is it your ambition to get
this concerto performed?
Yes, it is.
And it's the Toronto Symphony
that you want to have performing?
Yes.
It's never been performed
in Canada before.
I've written to them, but they
haven't gotten back to me yet.
It might take you about
four years to get a no.
But sure, you can keep trying.
What if I told you it might sound
much better somewhere else?
A bottle of Aquavit and two glasses.
You'll need to get the concerto
transcribed if it's to be performed,
and for it to be cross-referenced
with any source material
to determine the most final version.
It's not just the violin solo, it's the
full orchestral score and parts.
And there's correspondence
between Kathleen and
Halvorsen concerning how
it should be interpreted.
You'll need to engage
a music publisher
that would organize
and fund the concerto.
It's a matter of
engaging an orchestra
that would program the
concerto as part of their season
and cover all of the costs of the
space, the rehearsals, the musicians.
And therefore, Audrey,
what becomes your job
is to convince people of the historic
and the artistic value of the work.
And of course, it is possible that
the composer was right to burn it.
He was self-taught and
very afraid of being judged
as a composer and therefore
sensitive to criticism.
And criticisms were that
the themes were half-baked,
that it was dense and
overly complicated,
that as a composer he was tangential
and his ideas were incomplete.
It doesn't have to be a
masterpiece in order
to justify the need for
it to be performed.
There's value in a minor work, too.
It's possible that it's
intentionally fragmentary.
A lack of precision can
be a conscious strategy to
prevent easy resolution or domination.
Something that isn't
whole or irrefutable
can emote a sense of
effort and grasping.
And it's an oversimplification what you
said before about him being a romantic.
Sure, he didn't make
intellectual music, but he was in
conversation with folkloric
music, not just reinforcing it.
You need to look harder at
what the experiments are.
But we can only infer so
much from reading it.
We won't know what it is
until it's been performed.
We need to hear it!
Well, what you'll need most
essentially is a soloist that is daring.
The concerto is very virtuosic,
thick with 16th notes,
arpeggios and allegro crescendos.
You'll need a violinist
with a certain mania
that takes a certain Lee
in attacking challenges.
Someone perverse.
I thought you hadn't read it.
I glimpsed at it.
Why are you always
carrying that violin around?
You said you aren't a musician.
What is it for?
It was my grandfather's.
He gave it to my father when he retired
and my mother was very hurt by that.
She felt he wasn't
supportive of her career
and she discouraged
me from pursuing one.
Let me take a look at the violin.
I won't harm it, I promise.
It appears you have
something of value here.
Audrey, I believe that what you have
here is a Viotti Guarnerius del Ges.
This instrument is
almost 300 years old.
But how?
Its maker, Guarneri,
was a sort of Picasso.
His violins were made with
reckless energy, a certain violence.
The wood is crude, there
are little slashes here.
Even the design on the scroll is
asymmetrical, like a Cubist painting.
These instruments
proudly wear their history
in the blemishes he lets
sit on their surfaces.
Guarneri died when he was in his 40s.
He was a little bit of a drunk,
but he lived fully.
A compelling life
compared to Stradivari,
who lived very conservatively and
died on a workbench in his 90s.
He made these astonishingly elegant,
perfectly constructed instruments.
But still, they never matched the way
Guarneri could make two
vibrating plates amid a sound.
No, but how did I come to have it?
When a musician passes away, sometimes
they leave their instrument
to a prized pupil.
Is it very possible
that your grandfather
inherited this instrument
from Kathleen Parlow.
I had no idea.
Are you sure about that?
I felt compelled to carry it.
I can't quite explain it to myself.
Thank you for lunch,
and for the drink.
I have to go.
You yourself were called by many critics
the greatest woman violinist of the day.
Did this bother you?
I didn't like that.
I didn't go out to play as a woman.
I went out to play
the violin, period.
Well, some of the criticisms
would say that you had the
mastery and fire of the instrument
that was almost masculine.
That also I didn't like.
Miss Parlow, looking back over a career
that's 50 or 60 years, well, actually,
actually more than 60 years, in your
seventh decade now, have you any regrets?
I mean, you must have given
up many things to have spent
the hours just in sheer
practice and then traveling.
But I didn't seem to mind.
It just seemed to be
the thing I had to do.
It never occurred to me,
no matter how hard things were.
Money and everything else.
We weren't good business people.
Although I earned a
lot, but we never...
Managers always managed
to get most of it away.
And people said, well, why
don't you learn what they do?
But they always went out in
a different direction, you see.
We find out what they
did once to teach you,
and then that could never
happen to you again.
But there were other ways.
They had a way a day.
It's a pity, then, that there
should be some sort of Canada
Council grant for honored
artists who are now in retirement.
It'd be very nice.
- Let's plug for that idea.
- All right.
I think that's better than
medals, don't you think?
- Better than medals.
- Oh, yes.
- Very much better.
- Yes.
One of the things you must have
given up is marriage, domesticity.
- Do you regret that?
- No, I don't think so.
Now, I've seen some of my friends.
I think I've been very lucky.
Well, was there no one that
you had a special interest in?
Yes, but I thought I'd
have to give up the violin.
So, you see, that's it. Violin.
And today, do you still
practice as much?
Well, I don't practice quite as
much, but I do practice every day.
It's amazing that with the violin,
needing the digital
facility is still with you.
Oh, well.
When I haven't got
that, I shall stop.
And your instrument,
Miss Parlow, what is it?
That's the Viotti Guarnerius del Ges.
It's a very, very valuable
and famous instrument.
Something to the order of,
what, $60,000 to $70,000?
It should be, yes.
- That's it.
- How old is it?
Do you have another, a second string?
Yes, I have a new Jerry,
which is good, too.
Why do violinists
carry two with them?
Well, if you see something
might go wrong,
they're very sensitive
to the weather.
Just as it's been in hospital
two days, too, with change.
They don't like change of weather.
Italy or California, the
places they thrive in.
Why do you think we haven't
got great violinists today?
I really couldn't tell you.
Everybody has a new
idea what's wrong with it.
Rock and roll, one of them,
and television, another,
and records, another.
I don't know.
These giants of yesteryear,
how do you rank them
in the great names we
know as violinists today?
That's a rather difficult question,
because nothing in my mind can be like
Ysae in Kreisler and
Auer in his heyday.
He didn't play well in the end.
He was too nervous.
But I heard him in his own home
when there's still the old fire.
Kathleen?
Mother?
Leave!
Leave!
Leave!
Leave!
Are you tired Kathleen?
Do you ever resist practicing?
Doesn't an action lose
meaning if it becomes a habit?
Do you think you missed anything
by giving your life to the violin?
There's nothing that I couldn't
experience through the violin.
It allowed me to feel the world and
the boundaries of myself fully.
My mother died.
I'm sorry.
One time a family friend told me that
I have the same arms as my mother.
And I had the strangest understanding
that what he really meant was,
though I didn't then, there was
something about my arms that told him
that I'd have the same
arms as my mother one day.
Some months ago I was walking,
and I suddenly felt,
in my posture and the way
I was holding my arms,
that they were the
same as my mother's.
And a shock of fear ran through me.
I don't know how to
describe it other than
inevitability being the feeling of
being pulled back and swallowed.
We both show a lot of
emotion in our arms.
They're so available, but they're the
first thing that shows our shyness,
or a feeling of rejection.
I hated seeing that I'm as easily
hurt and readable as she is.
Violin requires relaxation
of the arms and wrists.
Maybe it's her arms
that gave her away.
Do we belong to other people?
What responsibility do we have
to the people that love us?
There was a time when
love gave me my life.
And I was moved by me.
She wanted me to fully realize
myself and impress others.
Our love was expressed by
our dedication to my playing.
But there's a moment
when the circumstances of life
make things impossible.
And if you don't accept them,
the good will turns with it,
and the love gets ruined.
But if you accept the reality,
The love preserved and you can
carry it throughout your life.
But how do you know what's your
will and what's somebody else's?
You might find that while
you take one course,
the other continues
existing somewhere.
Just as possible futures exist
that will never come to pass.
I think the only question becomes
"How can you not feel lost?"
Sometimes I see a path ahead of me.
But then I lose the feeling and I don't
know how to call myself back to it.
Would you learn the violin
solo for opus 28 again?
Not only while she stood on the concert
platform, but in her daily life,
the claim of music was supreme.
The photographs taken for her
debut show a slender girl,
nearly six feet tall and
of rather unusual beauty.
The heavy braided hair brushed simply
from her forehead and lifted
off her shoulders.
The velvet dress, sheared and
gathered from a high lace yoke,
gave her the appearance of a figure
in a renaissance painting.