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Dan Mizrahy
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After graduating from the Conservatoire, she started to teach canto at the same school where I worked, the People’s Arts School. She worked there from 1959 until the year of her retirement, 1999. She was interested in the art of singing, had a beautiful soprano voice, and proved to be an extremely good teacher, with remarkable achievements in this field.
On Tuesday, 24th September 1964 I got married to Elena Cecilia Mizrahy [nee Dimitriu].
As time went by, I began to receive invitations from various philharmonics; they weren’t as frequent as they had been before I was banned, at the end of 1958, but they did help me reenter the circuit. In 1961 I was invited to Targu Mures, a city where I always played for a full house; in 1962 I went to Arad, Oradea, Sibiu, Oradea again, Focsani, and Targu Mures again. My repertoire consisted of five different concerts that I used in different combinations. Other philharmonics came: Ploiesti, Craiova, Iasi, Galati, Cluj etc.
For many years, my professional activity was split in two: a pianist in the morning and a teacher in the evening. In my 50 years of teaching I always scheduled my classes in the afternoon, so that I could study the piano in the morning. I thoroughly adhered to this schedule most of the time. My return to stages of Bucharest took place rather late, after 7 years of absence. It so happened that I had two concerts just eight days apart: one at the Athenaeum, with the cinema symphonic orchestra conducted by Paul Popescu, the other one at the Radio Hall, with the symphonic orchestra conducted by Mircea Cristescu. Getting to the ‘Enesco’ Philharmonic was more difficult. I only had my ‘debut’ with this orchestra in the summer of 1970.
At the beginning of the 1963-1964 academic year I was appointed the head of the Instruments Department of the People’s Arts School in Bucharest. I held that position for 20 years. At the time of my appointment the department only counted a few people. In the 1970s, their number had increased to 37 professionals who taught no less than 17 different subjects.
In the spring of 1964 the ‘Electrecord’ Company invited me to record ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ and George Gershwin’s Concerto in F, accompanied by the cinema symphonic orchestra conducted by Paul Popescu. It was a professional challenge and a totally unexpected proposition. Of course, I accepted on the spot. Although, judged individually, most of the instrumentalists were top quality, the recording of the rhapsody was a professional test of great difficulty. First of all, it was about the style. Symphonic jazz was totally new to them. The piano was extremely old and worn out and it occasionally made us surprises. The nails that fixed the chords sometimes gave in during the recording. The first one to notice this was our excellent sound master named Fredi Negrescu. My cooperation with him was impeccable, both during the recording, and during the processing, when I sat next to him in his booth and we decided on the final version of the LP together. As years went by, the ‘Gershwin’ record became a success. For many years in a row, about 30 I believe, it was reedited and it sold like hot cakes every time.
One month after the record was launched – an event that was mentioned in the press and on the radio – the cinema symphonic orchestra, conducted by Paul Popescu, organized a ‘smashing concert’ at the Athenaeum. The program comprised two composers: Stravinsky and Gershwin. The former was represented by the ‘Symphony in Three Movements’ and ‘The Firebird’, and the latter – by ‘An American in Paris’ and ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, with me playing the piano. Seven years and a half had passed since my last performance on the stage of the Athenaeum. On entering the stage I actually got standing ovations; that night I felt that Gershwin was not the only one whom the audience loved… ‘The Ostracized,’ ‘The Banned,’ ‘The Unwanted’ of the authorities of the time was rewarded with generous and warm applause by the Bucharest audience, who wanted to show that the seven to eight years of my absence had not gone unnoticed.
For many years, my professional activity was split in two: a pianist in the morning and a teacher in the evening. In my 50 years of teaching I always scheduled my classes in the afternoon, so that I could study the piano in the morning. I thoroughly adhered to this schedule most of the time. My return to stages of Bucharest took place rather late, after 7 years of absence. It so happened that I had two concerts just eight days apart: one at the Athenaeum, with the cinema symphonic orchestra conducted by Paul Popescu, the other one at the Radio Hall, with the symphonic orchestra conducted by Mircea Cristescu. Getting to the ‘Enesco’ Philharmonic was more difficult. I only had my ‘debut’ with this orchestra in the summer of 1970.
At the beginning of the 1963-1964 academic year I was appointed the head of the Instruments Department of the People’s Arts School in Bucharest. I held that position for 20 years. At the time of my appointment the department only counted a few people. In the 1970s, their number had increased to 37 professionals who taught no less than 17 different subjects.
In the spring of 1964 the ‘Electrecord’ Company invited me to record ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ and George Gershwin’s Concerto in F, accompanied by the cinema symphonic orchestra conducted by Paul Popescu. It was a professional challenge and a totally unexpected proposition. Of course, I accepted on the spot. Although, judged individually, most of the instrumentalists were top quality, the recording of the rhapsody was a professional test of great difficulty. First of all, it was about the style. Symphonic jazz was totally new to them. The piano was extremely old and worn out and it occasionally made us surprises. The nails that fixed the chords sometimes gave in during the recording. The first one to notice this was our excellent sound master named Fredi Negrescu. My cooperation with him was impeccable, both during the recording, and during the processing, when I sat next to him in his booth and we decided on the final version of the LP together. As years went by, the ‘Gershwin’ record became a success. For many years in a row, about 30 I believe, it was reedited and it sold like hot cakes every time.
One month after the record was launched – an event that was mentioned in the press and on the radio – the cinema symphonic orchestra, conducted by Paul Popescu, organized a ‘smashing concert’ at the Athenaeum. The program comprised two composers: Stravinsky and Gershwin. The former was represented by the ‘Symphony in Three Movements’ and ‘The Firebird’, and the latter – by ‘An American in Paris’ and ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, with me playing the piano. Seven years and a half had passed since my last performance on the stage of the Athenaeum. On entering the stage I actually got standing ovations; that night I felt that Gershwin was not the only one whom the audience loved… ‘The Ostracized,’ ‘The Banned,’ ‘The Unwanted’ of the authorities of the time was rewarded with generous and warm applause by the Bucharest audience, who wanted to show that the seven to eight years of my absence had not gone unnoticed.
The most painful memory from those days is the arrival of the new lodgers, who had been sent by the SGL [the housing authority]: a family of three – father, mother, and daughter – the S family. They were assigned the upper floor – my room, Mira’s room, which had become my parents’ bedroom, the hallway – and were granted access to the bathroom, to my grandmother’s former room, to the kitchen, and to the basement. We got to keep the bedroom, the study and the service room, which we obtained after lengthy negotiations. Of course, the front door was used as an entrance, so everyone passed through our living room. Here’s a sample of conversation with the S. family: ‘Mister Dan! You and your wife take 14 showers every week; Mrs. Adela, our cleaning woman, takes one. This gives us a total of 15. Now, the three of us only shower once a week, on Saturday. This gives us a total of 3. Which means that we should pay 5 times less than you pay for the water!’
It was always said that the ‘regulation’ of the housing space was generated by the increase of the cities’ population. But this increase was not the result of a natural growth. The main cause of the population boom in the major cities was the migration of the peasants, determined by two factors: the confiscation of their lands and the massive industrialization process. In a society led by the ‘working class,’ which was privileged through laws and decrees, the normal relationships between people changed, and everything was turned upside down: the values hierarchy, mentalities, politeness, respect, conceptions – civilization in one word.
It was always said that the ‘regulation’ of the housing space was generated by the increase of the cities’ population. But this increase was not the result of a natural growth. The main cause of the population boom in the major cities was the migration of the peasants, determined by two factors: the confiscation of their lands and the massive industrialization process. In a society led by the ‘working class,’ which was privileged through laws and decrees, the normal relationships between people changed, and everything was turned upside down: the values hierarchy, mentalities, politeness, respect, conceptions – civilization in one word.
At the beginning of March I was in the house of composer Mircea Chiriac when I got a call informing me that the emigration approval had arrived for my parents and my sister with all her family: husband, daughter and mother-in-law. I interrupted the rehearsal, apologized, mounted my scooter and went home. I read the documents. They all bore the mention ‘urgent.’ Difficult moments and days followed. My parents were the ones who were leaving now, planning to spend the last years of their lives in peace. In the evening before the departure they both came to my bedroom. Without saying one word, the three of us let our tears burst. We sobbed for a long time.
So I had been rehabilitated as a teacher, but I was still forbidden to play as a soloist. The first one who was willing to take the bull by the horns was conductor Henry Selbing, manager and prime conductor of the State Philharmonic in Sibiu at the time. He called me and, at my request, sent me a written invitation informing me I was scheduled to play Bach’s Concerto in F minor and Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ as a soloist of his philharmonic on Wednesday, 22nd February 1961 at 8pm. This invitation was an act of great courage. At the end of 1958 the Ministry of Culture had sent a memo with the list of ‘banned’ conductors and soloists to all the philharmonics, and it was still valid.
Armed with the written invitation I went to the Music Department of the Ministry of Culture. The newly appointed manager was Comrade Mauriciu Vescan, whose ‘maiden name’ was Wechsler. An accordionist by trade and a major union activist at the beginning of the communist era, he had climbed the political hierarchy to become a manager in a ministry. He held me the ‘standard’ speech about ‘war and peace,’ ‘capitalism and socialism,’ ‘patriotism and cosmopolitanism,’ and many other slogans used and proliferated by the Party activists of the time. After I let him recite his ‘poem,’ I replied, within the limits of decency and politeness. My position was slightly different from the one I had had during previous audiences. I had been ‘rehabilitated,’ and by the ‘Party’ itself too. I told him that, since the application for emigration was not a crime, there was no reason for him to address me as a felon. Besides, more than one year before, I had withdrawn my application and I had resumed my teaching career. The fact that the philharmonics began to invite me as a soloist again proved that my activity in this field was valued and even necessary to the fulfillment of the concert quotas. He continued to groan and mumble. Eventually, he muttered something like ‘Well, let them have you then. But I, for one, would never invite you!
Armed with the written invitation I went to the Music Department of the Ministry of Culture. The newly appointed manager was Comrade Mauriciu Vescan, whose ‘maiden name’ was Wechsler. An accordionist by trade and a major union activist at the beginning of the communist era, he had climbed the political hierarchy to become a manager in a ministry. He held me the ‘standard’ speech about ‘war and peace,’ ‘capitalism and socialism,’ ‘patriotism and cosmopolitanism,’ and many other slogans used and proliferated by the Party activists of the time. After I let him recite his ‘poem,’ I replied, within the limits of decency and politeness. My position was slightly different from the one I had had during previous audiences. I had been ‘rehabilitated,’ and by the ‘Party’ itself too. I told him that, since the application for emigration was not a crime, there was no reason for him to address me as a felon. Besides, more than one year before, I had withdrawn my application and I had resumed my teaching career. The fact that the philharmonics began to invite me as a soloist again proved that my activity in this field was valued and even necessary to the fulfillment of the concert quotas. He continued to groan and mumble. Eventually, he muttered something like ‘Well, let them have you then. But I, for one, would never invite you!
On 1st November 1960 I got transferred to the People’s Arts School. The opportunity had come for me to return to teaching! The salary criteria for corepetitors and teachers were the same – they included education, seniority and teaching degrees. I agreed with Principal Benea to start working in the afternoon of 1st November. But as the end of November drew near, the clerks couldn’t register me on the payroll because my ‘appointment’ hadn’t arrived yet. The holidays were close. The principal asked me to stop coming to school until my appointment arrived. So I became unemployed again. I had become a ‘case.’ The members of my profession knew what I was going through. Some of them, especially my former colleagues from the Operetta Theater, felt sorry for me. Others just passed me by indifferently.
On 21st January 1961, towards noon, while I had a corepetition session with one of the Operetta Theater’s soloists at her place, I got a phone call at home. They wanted me to contact the school’s deputy principal as soon as possible. I called her and suddenly my legs felt numb. ‘Hello, how are you, Comrade Mizrahy? We’re looking for you and can’t find you. Your students are waiting for you to come to school. Your appointment has arrived…’ I lingered on that chair for a few moments, unable to utter one sound.
On 21st January 1961, towards noon, while I had a corepetition session with one of the Operetta Theater’s soloists at her place, I got a phone call at home. They wanted me to contact the school’s deputy principal as soon as possible. I called her and suddenly my legs felt numb. ‘Hello, how are you, Comrade Mizrahy? We’re looking for you and can’t find you. Your students are waiting for you to come to school. Your appointment has arrived…’ I lingered on that chair for a few moments, unable to utter one sound.
I was put in charge of preparing Gherase Dendrino’s operetta ‘Lisistrata.’ Days of real artistic fulfillment followed. First of all, I liked the music. The tunes were beautiful and many of them later became hits; they were well harmonized, with modern, catchy rhythms. The cast was mostly composed of first-class soloists. I can’t forget the working sessions with Ion Dacian, ‘the prince of operetta.’ [Editor’s note: Ion Dacian (1911-1981): one of the best known Romanian tenors; he performed Romanian and international operetta.] He came to my booth with an English punctuality and sat next to me as a ‘disciple.’ With an embarrassing politeness, he addressed me as ‘maestro.’ Noticing I didn’t feel comfortable when I had to make comments on his performance, he asked me not to spare him at all; he told me that he deeply respected my professionalism. So I had to comply. More than 40 years have passed since then. The Operetta Theater, located on the Dambovita River’s bank, in the building which sheltered the Romanian Opera during the war and the ‘Regina Maria’ Theater before that, was demolished. Many artists of that period are no longer among us. They departed and took their memories with them. Still, a miracle happened! In 2001 the former Operetta State Theater, which had become the ‘Ion Dacian’ Operetta Theater and was temporarily located in one of the halls of the National Theater, was renamed the ‘Ion Dacian’ National Operetta Theater. On that occasion, I became an honorary member of this prestigious institution.
At the beginning of December 1959 I was told – I can’t remember by whom – that baritone Barbu Dumitrescu, manager of the Operetta State Theater at that time, wanted to see me. I rushed to him. We knew each other – we had taught in the same music school. He received me at once and told me – in few words – that he wanted to help me. He offered me a position as a 3rd class rehearse pianist starting 1st January 1960. Out of respect, Barbu Dumitrescu assigned me to the vocal soloists’ section. 3rd class rehearse pianist was a position that didn’t require higher education and didn’t involve public appearances as the one who accompanies. The first condition – education-related – affected my salary, which was much lower than the one of the ‘master corepetitors,’ while the second was actually a benefit. The fact that I remained ‘banned’ and could not be featured on any poster – not even on concert programs, as you will soon see – kept me away from the chores that the operetta soloists had to endure: they were forced to attend various political celebrations – 1st May, 23rd August, 30th December, 8th March – to give public recitals for local culture halls, union events, factories and such, not to mention the tours and the radio and television appearances.
My wife, Aurelia Sorescu, lived her tragedy and humiliation without seeing any chance to get to do something even remotely related to her profession. Various acquaintances of hers – some of them placed in pretty high places – started suggesting to her to give up the idea of leaving the country. To file for ‘cancellation.’ This term was becoming popular – it was the term that could give us the right to live again. Of course, she asked for my opinion. I couldn’t say no. I wouldn’t have had any arguments. She had reached the limits of her physical and psychological strength. The question was whether I should abandon the emigration plans too – making common cause with her, just like she had done back in fall – or wait and see what would happen to her before I make a decision. We both agreed on the latter. She was moved from place to place, until they found her a position at the ‘L. S. Bulandra’ Theater, the former Municipal Theater. Encouraged by the results of her ‘cancellation,’ I was naive enough to think that the same thing would happen to me too. But I was wrong. My first dream had been to teach again. The answer was trenchant: ‘There’s no room for him in education anymore. He can go play in pubs!’ I couldn’t be a soloist either. With or without that cancellation, my name could no longer be printed on any poster. I had no way out. And I couldn’t access the higher hierarchy. Petru Groza was dead and Gheorghiu-Dej was the new head of the state. It was obvious that I couldn’t go to him. The man had ‘rehabilitated’ me, and I had applied for emigration in return…
So I had to start all over again! In those wretched times, not having an employment meant that you were a tramp, which was a legal offence. Theoretically speaking, any man who was fit to work but who wasn’t employed could be seized in the street and sent to whatever workplace the authorities wanted. We heard a rumor about a cooperative association, ‘Munca si arta’ [‘Work and Art’], specialized in tailoring, which was about to found an orchestra! We all rushed in to catch a position there. I went to their address and I learnt that the rumor was true. They were indeed forming an orchestra, and it looked rather strange: ‘classical’ instrumentalists together with instrumentalists specialized in light music. Many strings, few winds. A band like Mantovani, which was a famous band at the time, larded with wind instrumentalists. I was told the pianist’s position had already been given to Miani Negreanu and that the only one available for me was ‘2nd accordionist.’ I remember the violinists Lucian Savin, Rhea Silvia Starck, and Mircea Negrescu – they had all been leaders of the symphonic orchestra of the Romanian Radio Company; I remember Mendi Rodan, the ‘aces’ of light music – Alphredo Thomas and Joe Reininger, conductor Edgar Cosma, who was now a corepetitor, and, finally, composers Fritz Wanek and Arminiu Cassvan, who now copied notes. Prestigious names covered the violas and cellos department. The ‘scope’ of this ensemble was to work with the ‘Electrecord’ Recording Company. Composer Richard Bartzer was appointed to be our conductor. He was very polite – too polite, I would say. He was actually embarrassed because he got to conduct so many musical personalities whose tragedy he knew. He was also a true professional and was very demanding. The material profits from the recording sessions were practically nil. Our ‘fee’ was 3 lei per minute of recording, which meant that a ‘long’ piece got us 15-20 lei per person… But the important thing is that we all had cooperative member certificates and we had regained a certain social status.
On 3rd November 1958 my family – my parents, my wife, my sister, my brother-in-law, my niece, and I – filed a request for passports in order to emigrate to Israel. Two weeks later, my wife was sacked from the theater; on 27th November, in the morning, the principal of the intermediate music school called me and informed me – with an embarrassed voice – to prepare my teacher card and hand it to the cleaning woman who was on her way to my place. She was bringing a memo informing me that my contract had been terminated, based on an article that labeled me in such a way that no one would ever hire me again. Some managers limited themselves to a simple notification, like in my case; others called people to their office like in Reli’s case; and there were institutions, like the Romanian Opera, where they put on full-scale union and party meetings in which the applicants were ‘exposed’ as traitors and enemies of the people and were hooted out of the hall – this was the case of the couple Robina, a ballerina, and Sergiu Comissiona, a conductor. Other colleagues told me that the ones who were fired from the Radio hadn’t had an easy time either. Our situation was very serious. We became outcasts. Some of our former colleagues, the cautious or fearful ones, avoided being seen in our company, because one ‘didn’t look good’ if seen with the outcasts.
After my retirement I continued to teach piano with the same thoroughness and enthusiasm for an extra 15 years. So my three professions – composing, playing and teaching – coexisted for more than three decades. Yes, I admit it today: there was room for more…
My nationality is Jewish. I was raised knowing this and, even if I hadn’t known, I would have found out along the way. As far as I’m concerned, I was taught not to be ashamed of my ethnic origin, but not to brag about it either – just take it for what it is. I happened to be born in Bucharest and to bear the name Mizrahy. This stands for ‘eastern’ in Hebrew. My parents were born in Bucharest too; I, my parents, and my parents’ parents spoke Romanian. I was taught to think in Romanian, to feel in Romanian, and to play like a Romanian. This is probably why – or this is partly why – over the years, I found it difficult to understand the reason why I was ostracized or, in the ‘happier cases,’ only marginalized – more or less overtly – on the sole grounds of my ethnic origin.
Romania
Regardless of my daily agenda for the past 25 years, I always attended the Purim festivities, first as a pianist, then as a composer. My name was – without exception – in all the programs; I wrote songs for soloists, for the children’s choir or for the big choir, which were accompanied by myself or by a band with my orchestration. Except for the ‘Purim’ song –music and lyrics by H. Malineanu – that became the closing tune for all the yearly celebrations, all the other songs were performed once, then forgotten. Among those who signed these ‘one time only’ songs were composers Misu Iancu, Elly Roman, H. Malineanu, Richard Stein, Edmond Deda, Alexandru Mandy, Aurel Giroveanu, Vasile Timis, Laurentiu Profeta, Dumitru Bughici.
When I turned 75 [in 2001] the Romanian Composers’ and Musicologists’ Union and the ‘Enesco’ Museum organized a celebration for me in the auditorium of the Cantacuzino Palace. Important personalities of the musical institutions were present. The Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company was represented by its CEO, Andrei Dimitriu; Cristian Mandeal and Nicolae Licaret came on behalf of the Philharmonic. There were many other personalities of music, composers, singers, and teachers. The entire management of the Federation of the Jewish Communities in Romania, led by Academy member Nicolae Cajal, also attended. Speeches congratulating me and rendering me homage were held by: Dumitru Capoianu, who was also the host of the program, musicologist Octavian Lazar Cosma, vice-president of the Composers’ Union, composer Anton Suteu, secretary of the Composers’ Union, pianist Ilinca Dumitrescu, custodian of the ‘Enesco’ Museum, soprano Eugenia Moldoveanu, composer Laurentiu Profeta, musicologists Luminita Vartolomei, my former student from the People’s Arts School, and Elena Zottoviceanu, and, in the end, by pianist Lory Walfisch, who had crossed the ocean for the occasion. She also read a message from Sergiu Comissiona. Dan Iordachescu, Florin Diaconescu, Liana Podlovski, Camelia Pavlenco, and Geanina Munteanu sang some of my creations. I accompanied them on the piano. They also played recordings of my songs performed by my wife, Cecilia Mizrahy, by Corina Chiriac, Doina Badea, Valentin Teodorian, and by the ‘Voces Primaverae’ choir. I felt happy and excited when I left.
The ‘Haim and Sara Ianculovici’ Foundation in Haifa awarded me the diploma and title of ‘Laureate emeritus’ for the year 2000 and invited me to come to the bestowment ceremony in April. I found out along the way that this foundation had been created a few years earlier by a couple of Romanian-born Jews who had settled in Israel in 1950. In the last decade of the 20th century they became a sort of Maecenas [patron of arts], supporting young Israeli artists and awarding personalities of science and art from Israel and Romania. I learnt that among the 1999 laureates was Academy member Nicolae Cajal [17]. In 2000 they also awarded literary critic Zigu Ornea [Ornea, Zigu (1930-2001): Romanian literary historian, editor, editor-in-chief, then manager of the Minerva and Hasefer publishing houses] and philosopher Henry Wald [Wald, Henry (1920-2002): Romanian philosopher of Jewish origin; he wrote studies on epistemology, logics, and semantics.]. The concerts I held on 28th and 29th June 2000 in Jerusalem had, of course, a special meaning for me. 59 years after I had first set foot in the ‘Holy City,’ I returned as a soloist of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, having my friend, Sergiu Comissiona, at the conductor’s rostrum. Another important factor, emotion-related, was my family. Six of my first-degree cousins were still alive at that time, scattered throughout the Israeli cities. They all came, together with more distant relatives who lived in Jerusalem or in other places. Dina – my niece – took a lot of photographs in the concert hall and in my booth, capturing the moments of that evening.
In November, at the request of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company, I started to record the nine piano pieces that I had played in first public performance. During the recording sessions I also learnt the tenth (‘Jassbo Brown’), which I had received in the meantime, thus securing the Radio archive with everything George Gershwin had written for piano and orchestra, as well as for solo piano. Three years later these recordings were included on a double CD edited by ‘Electrecord’ with the support of the Radio Company. One of my dreams came true: I recorded all the works composed for piano by George Gershwin.
1998 wasn’t a relaxed year at all. Soon after we came back, tenor Florin Diaconescu held a recital of arias from operas in the foyer of the National Opera. He included a few lieder in his program – three by Valentin Teodorian and three by me. His wish was that I accompany all these lieder. A few months later I resumed the role of ‘accompanying author’ at the launch of my volume of songs and romances at the ‘Muzica’ store. This volume was a personal thing, as well as a professional ambition. In the years that had passed since I had written my ‘Batranul tei’ I had composed 34 other romances. On 27th June 1998 the launch of the album ‘Eu te iubesc, romanta’ [‘I love you, romance’] took place.
In 1998 was the Gershwin centenary: 100 years since his birth. The Radio Broadcasting Company made me a very nice and honoring invitation. They offered me their concert hall in November, letting me organize a ‘Gershwin evening.’ The poster of the concert read: ‘Gershwin Centenary – Dan Mizrahy and his guests.’ The names of the guests followed. The announcer was Florian Lungu. ‘Mosu’ [‘the old man’], as this refined and profound specialist in jazz likes to be called, and I had a fruitful dialogue on stage. Sitting at a table in a corner of the stage, with a microphone in front of him, he participated in my entire program. Our dialogue included biographical data about Gershwin, the presentation of the program, going to musicological analysis at times, and humor. The audience was warm, receptive, participating, and they welcomed the spontaneous jokes with applause. I played nine pieces in first public performance.
In 1998 was the Gershwin centenary: 100 years since his birth. The Radio Broadcasting Company made me a very nice and honoring invitation. They offered me their concert hall in November, letting me organize a ‘Gershwin evening.’ The poster of the concert read: ‘Gershwin Centenary – Dan Mizrahy and his guests.’ The names of the guests followed. The announcer was Florian Lungu. ‘Mosu’ [‘the old man’], as this refined and profound specialist in jazz likes to be called, and I had a fruitful dialogue on stage. Sitting at a table in a corner of the stage, with a microphone in front of him, he participated in my entire program. Our dialogue included biographical data about Gershwin, the presentation of the program, going to musicological analysis at times, and humor. The audience was warm, receptive, participating, and they welcomed the spontaneous jokes with applause. I played nine pieces in first public performance.
At the crossroads of 1997 and 1998 I went on a tour organized by Lory Walfisch to the US. It included five lecture-concerts on George Gershwin in five colleges and universities in five states, and two recitals in Washington DC, at the State Department and at the World Bank.
In 1991, 45 years after my ‘debut’ as a collaborator of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company, when the decision to end my soloist’s career had already been made, I requested a scheduling of the ‘Integral of the pieces for piano and orchestra’ by George Gershwin. In an unprecedented gesture, the Television asked me to introduce the pieces in the program myself. They came to my place with all their equipment and filmed me in various corners of my study – for each introduction they used a different setting. They told me the whole concert would be broadcast on television. At my suggestion, in order to prevent the audience from getting bored during the breaks between the four pieces, they installed two monitors in the hall, so that the audience could watch the TV program. Moreover, during the intermission, they broadcast an interview that Yvona Cristescu, the show’s editor, had done with me at the Radio in the break of the general rehearsal. They also ran short fragments from that rehearsal. So, for two hours and a half, there was an ‘all-Mizrahy show’ on radio as well as on TV.
For several years the opinion that ‘nothing has changed’ could often be heard. It was fueled by people who weren’t necessarily ill willed, but whose horizons were rather limited. In my opinion, they were wrong. In the first year after the [Romanian] Revolution [of 1989] [16] there was a joke. What were the Romanians before the revolution? Penguins standing in the cold and applauding. What about after the revolution? Dalmatians: the more black spots they had, the louder they barked… If I am not mistaken, this is the only political joke that I heard after the revolution. Once the winter vacation was over schools were opened again and we began our classes. People returned to their daily routine. The pictures of the ‘genius of the Carpathians’ were taken down from the walls; the word ‘comrade’ disappeared from the vocabulary, together with other terms that we were happy to get rid of: ‘activist,’ ‘sectorist’ [police officer in charge of law enforcement and population registration in a certain district], ‘the collective work,’ ‘on duty’…
The year 1989 didn’t seem to be any different from the previous. It was on 20th December, when Ceausescu – who had just returned from Iran – appeared on TV, surrounded by the vice-presidents of the State Council, with the tricolor in the background, and announced the proclamation of the state of emergency in Timisoara that we realized we were living truly historic days. We watched a part of the rally that took place the following day – a Thursday. At 12:30pm, after the first interruption of the broadcast, we had to go to a warehouse of the Jewish Community on Negustori Street to buy the kosher meat ration that the Community sold to us once a month. While we were crossing Republicii Avenue at the crossroads with Armeneasca Street, we heard a powerful explosion. We later found out that it had been produced by the petard that had caused the rally in Palatului Square to fall apart. The news was confusing. We didn’t know anything about the events in front of the Intercontinental Hotel and in Universitatii Square and Romana Square. On Friday morning an unscheduled television broadcast announced the proclamation of the state of emergency in Bucharest and throughout the entire country. They ran patriotic songs and folk dances. We turned the TV off. Towards noon our friend Geta Coman called us and told us to turn the TV on. We complied and it was then that we learnt that the impossible had become reality. A saying had been running for a few months: every Romanian keeps a bottle of champagne in the fridge. No one explained it, but everyone knew what it meant. However, the euphoric moments at noon were followed by the shots in Palatului Square, today’s Revolutiei Square in the afternoon, then by the sporadic shots that could be heard all night, even in the vicinity of our house. News began to arrive about people killed on the street like actor Horia Caciulescu, for instance; helicopters that didn’t belong to the army began to rotate at low altitude; we got contradicting news about the capture of the Ceausescu couple; there was shooting at the Television Company and at the Defense Ministry. In other words, life was far from being back to normal. Teams of armed volunteers wearing tricolor badges were patrolling the streets not knowing what and whom they were after. I remember the television speakers and other employees, who came on air and apologized, asserted their position, blamed the others, and exculpated themselves: actors, composers, military, people who wanted to ‘step in front’.
As for the daily life in those years, the knife was beginning to reach the bone. Everything became a problem – from the daily necessities to comfort. In order to pay the external debt the regime had decided to impose drastic internal savings. These ‘savings’ involved driving the local population to starvation and restrictions in power, thermal energy and fuel consumption. There were times when, in order to buy a loaf of bread, you had to show your ID card to prove you lived in Bucharest, lest the peasants should buy bread to feed their animals, God forbid! The butcher’s stores sold pig hoofs, bones and chicken tacamuri. The ‘tacamuri’ were claws, wings, and heads of slaughtered poultry. In order to purchase a 1-kilogram pack of meat you had to stand in line the night before, hoping a truck would come in the morning and they would ‘bring’ meat. Whenever a store sold meat, a queue formed out of the blue and the verb ‘to sell’ was replaced by the verb ‘to give.’ ‘What are they giving here?’ – ‘They’re giving meat.’ I remember a joke from that period. An American passes by such an interminable queue and asks in surprise: ‘What is going on here?’ – ‘They’re giving meat,’ the reply comes. And the American goes: ‘Oh, in that case, I think I’d rather buy it.’ Here’s another one, more ‘subtle.’ A man standing in a queue to buy meat is cursing violently: ‘Damn him! To hell with him and his entire kin! May he rot in hell!’ Two civilians seize him, take him to the police station, and hand him to the lieutenant who’s on duty. ‘Who are you cursing?’ he asks him. ‘Hitler… He is the one who brought us to this pitiful state, isn’t he?’ Shocked, the lieutenant releases him at once. The man reaches the door, then turns to the lieutenant and asks him: ‘Excuse me, Sir, but who exactly did you think I was cursing?’ The bottom line: people started to have guts. As for the sense of humor, they had never lost it.
In the Bucharest cinemas an American film was a very rare thing. When they did run such a film, it was only to show the racism in the US or the ‘fight for peace’ or the poverty in some God-forsaken places in the desert or the mountains. However, Bucharest was full of videotapes brought by various people from abroad. It wasn’t illegal, but it wasn’t done in broad daylight either. Without this circuit being clandestine, it had a certain touch of discretion. In the latter half of the 1980s the Bulgarian television became the ‘new fashion’ in Bucharest. People, us included, would install special antennas, persistently trying to catch an American or European show or film or a concert. The Bulgarians also had a second channel, specialized in culture. This is where I watched – among other things – Verdi’s ‘Requiem’ sung by Mirela Freni and her husband, Nicolae Ghiaurov, as well as ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ performed by Alexis Weissenberg, my former fellow-student from Jerusalem, whom I hadn’t heard of for over 40 years. The Bulgarian television had become so popular, that certain apartment houses posted its weekly program at the entrance. The inhabitants of Timisoara caught the Yugoslav and Hungarian TV stations; in Iasi they caught the television from Chisinau; Oradea caught the Budapest television and so on and so forth.
In the Bucharest cinemas an American film was a very rare thing. When they did run such a film, it was only to show the racism in the US or the ‘fight for peace’ or the poverty in some God-forsaken places in the desert or the mountains. However, Bucharest was full of videotapes brought by various people from abroad. It wasn’t illegal, but it wasn’t done in broad daylight either. Without this circuit being clandestine, it had a certain touch of discretion. In the latter half of the 1980s the Bulgarian television became the ‘new fashion’ in Bucharest. People, us included, would install special antennas, persistently trying to catch an American or European show or film or a concert. The Bulgarians also had a second channel, specialized in culture. This is where I watched – among other things – Verdi’s ‘Requiem’ sung by Mirela Freni and her husband, Nicolae Ghiaurov, as well as ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ performed by Alexis Weissenberg, my former fellow-student from Jerusalem, whom I hadn’t heard of for over 40 years. The Bulgarian television had become so popular, that certain apartment houses posted its weekly program at the entrance. The inhabitants of Timisoara caught the Yugoslav and Hungarian TV stations; in Iasi they caught the television from Chisinau; Oradea caught the Budapest television and so on and so forth.
In 1987 the Composers’ Union sent me to Berlin – East Berlin, of course – with my younger colleague, composer Calin Ioachimescu. I was shocked by the abundance that I found in the ‘red’ Berlin and I tried to compare it to the poverty that waited for me back home. I knew the cause of this incomparable abundance enjoyed by the citizens of East Germany: the Russians were trying to compete with the money pumped by the Americans in West Germany. I was amazed by the variety of sausages from the groceries, as well as by the large array of beers. In Bucharest, whenever they ‘brought’ beer in some alimentara [grocery] – a thing that only happened every now and then – a huge queue would form in the street and the people of the neighborhood would rush home to get ‘returnable bottles.’ The cinema near the hotel ran the film ‘Out of Africa’ starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. The last performance began at 10pm. In Bucharest, the cinemas closed at 9pm. By night, streets were lit as if it were day; in Bucharest we had dim light bulbs on every other pole… Moreover, I remember the flight back, which took place after night had fallen, in perfect visibility. After we flew over East Germany, a part of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, we knew we had reached Romania when we couldn’t see any city lights…
1985 and 1986 were extremely rich in concerts. I look over the concert agenda – 18 symphonic concerts: Iasi, Arad, Satu Mare, Sighetu Marmatiei, Targu Mures, Sibiu, Timisoara, Cluj Napoca, Craiova. What strikes is the frequency of the concerts held in the same city in the same year – three times in Arad, Timisoara, and Oradea, twice in Craiova. If I were to add the educational concerts, which – in most of the cases – preceded the ‘real’ concert and had a relatively large audience, the total number of concerts would double. Looking over the programs, I find ‘The Integral’ six times. For the rest – with few exceptions – I played at least two of Gershwin’s pieces. For the State Philharmonics – which had switched to self-financing – any concert that could bring about profit was a business opportunity not to be missed. ‘Gershwin Festival’ or ‘The Gershwin Integral’ secured a full house. The public, who had been deprived of attractive TV shows – although the entire Banat and a part of Western Transylvania were tuned in to the Yugoslav and Hungarian TV stations – craved for American music, and Gershwin was and still is a prominent representative of this music.
In June 1985, the Composers’ Union sent me on a seven-day visit to Moscow and Leningrad with light music composer Dan Beizadea and musicologist Ianca Staicovici – such cultural exchanges were common at the time. It was a very interesting experience and a present I hadn’t even dreamt of. The visit was excellently organized and we had the best conditions, except for the train trips from Moscow to Leningrad and back; we traveled by night in a so-called berth. We spent four days in Moscow and three in Leningrad and we saw interesting places, met Russian composers, and visited museums – including the Hermitage in Leningrad and the ‘Pushkin’ Museum in Moscow – while attending a concert, an opera or a ballet every night.
At the end of December 1982 the Great National Assembly ‘voted’ in favor of a law compelling all the artistic institutions to finance themselves. It was horrible. It involved theaters, operas, philharmonics and… people’s arts schools! For the 22 years that I had spent in that school I had been the only piano teacher. In the 1981-1982 academic year a young composer had showed up in our school; thanks to a powerful connection – which remained unknown to me – he had been appointed piano teacher. But as the piano classes diminished, there was only one full-time piano teacher position left; the workload had to be divided between the two of us, and we got part-time jobs. One week later, on 30th December, when we went to school to pick up our salary, Cici was handed an envelope containing the… termination of her contract. We returned home horrified. New Year’s Eve was the next day…
I am getting to the year 1983. It was a sad year. Once the vacation was over, I went to school on my regular day and to my regular class. For the first time in 19 years, I was going alone. Another situation that was hard to bear was the new distribution of the students in the timetable that had been reduced to half. The ‘leading comrades’ found a quick solution: they increased the teaching quota from 18 hours to 26 hours a week; therefore, half a quota was 13 hours. They also invented the 45-minute class and made the teacher give up the break between two consecutive classes. This way, they considered the problem solved. Of course, it wasn’t so. Having 45-minute classes around the clock was an inadmissible thing. Interrupting a student in the middle of a sonata by Beethoven because the time had expired would have been a sacrilege. So I worked the same days, the same hours, with the same students, but I only got half of the salary. Towards the end of March I got a phone call from the principal of the ‘Dinu Lipatti’ High School whose ‘founding member ’ I had been 34 years ago and where I had been kicked out in November 1958; pianist Lavinia Coman offered me a part-time job as a rehearse pianist at the strings department. I gratefully accepted her offer. On 1st April 1983 I was employed as a part-time corepetitor at the ‘Dinu Lipatti’ Music High School. When the 1983-1984 academic year started, they gave me back my full-time job at the People’s Arts School.
I am getting to the year 1983. It was a sad year. Once the vacation was over, I went to school on my regular day and to my regular class. For the first time in 19 years, I was going alone. Another situation that was hard to bear was the new distribution of the students in the timetable that had been reduced to half. The ‘leading comrades’ found a quick solution: they increased the teaching quota from 18 hours to 26 hours a week; therefore, half a quota was 13 hours. They also invented the 45-minute class and made the teacher give up the break between two consecutive classes. This way, they considered the problem solved. Of course, it wasn’t so. Having 45-minute classes around the clock was an inadmissible thing. Interrupting a student in the middle of a sonata by Beethoven because the time had expired would have been a sacrilege. So I worked the same days, the same hours, with the same students, but I only got half of the salary. Towards the end of March I got a phone call from the principal of the ‘Dinu Lipatti’ High School whose ‘founding member ’ I had been 34 years ago and where I had been kicked out in November 1958; pianist Lavinia Coman offered me a part-time job as a rehearse pianist at the strings department. I gratefully accepted her offer. On 1st April 1983 I was employed as a part-time corepetitor at the ‘Dinu Lipatti’ Music High School. When the 1983-1984 academic year started, they gave me back my full-time job at the People’s Arts School.
The year 1980 brought another major event in my professional life. Seven years after I had applied for admission to the Composers’ Union, a clerk called to inform me that my application had been approved and to invite me to pass the admission exam on 13th October at 9am. It wasn’t a simple formality, but a real examination. It consisted of three tests: composing the music for a tune – vocal and piano – based on a poem of my choice from a volume by Ion Brad; orchestrating this composition for a band of my choice; a harmony exam where I had to harmonize a given bass and a given soprano with four voices. For those who are not familiar with these terms, it was about two separate tests involving composing a song on four voices built on a given theme that could not be altered. On the day of 13th October 1980 I officially switched from ‘amateur’ to ‘professional’ composer.