AUGUST 19, 2024 – My main objective in taking the boat for a spin was to see if I could get the darned thing off the lift. I’d already experienced difficulty in this regard before our trip to Portugal two weeks ago, and the lake level has dropped another inch or two since. In the event, I had to “power off” and would have to “power on” at the end of the cruise (use engine power to slide the boat off and back onto the lift bunks). Once free of the lift, however, I decided to take full advantage of the finest lake conditions of the entire summer. I phoned my sister Elsa at the Björnholm cabin to see if she was interested in joining me for a brief nautical outing.
“Sure,” she said, “once I finish up some prep for something I’m making for dinner; shouldn’t take more than a minute.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up at your dock.” With that I pointed the bow out to sea and opened up the throttle to give the engine a chance to find its stride after a two-week hiatus. I then circled back to the Björnholm dock for my favorite part of boating: the landing. Thanks to perfectly calm waters, I navigated to the bullseye with no need for correction, let alone a do-over. Soon Elsa emerged from the trail leading down from the cabin, and away we steamed.
Despite ideal conditions, few boats dotted the waterscape. We’d largely have the sea to ourselves. I headed east around the bend and into a slight breeze. This fresh breath of air over the water broke the mirrorlike calm that had prevailed back at port, but the wind was neither uncomfortable in temperature nor unsettling in chop, since the fetch at that point from shore was minimal.
We settled into a relaxing cruise and easy conversation, first about the perfect cabin weather, then about the recent sojourn in Portugal. This led to a discussion about language and who on hand at the recent festivities in Cortiços spoke what language (French, Portuguese, English, Korean). This, in turn prompted Elsa to mention that Paul Makanowitzky, her teacher at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia where she studied the violin with other greats of her generation, was fluent in multiple languages. “Imagine,” she said. “He was born in Stockholm of Russian parents, moved to Paris when he was four, and came to America when he was 17. The amazing thing, is that when he spoke English he had absolutely no accent.”
For the rest of our extended voyage in a wide arc across the lake and back, my sister poured out her inexhaustible enthusiasm for the centerpiece of her life since she was old enough to walk and talk and . . . hold a fiddle to her chin. For me it was a fascinating glimpse into a rarefied world.
Makanowitzky was a child prodigy, and when his parents moved the family to Paris in 1924, he was introduced to Ivan Galamian, who at just 22 had already established himself as a renowned violin pedagogue. Born in Iran in 1903 of Armenian parents who moved to Moscow, Galamian wound up on the bad side of the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution. The next year, he was jailed by the Bad Guys but soon released when the manager of the Bolshoi Theater argued that the upstart was an indispensable member of the opera orchestra. (He subsequently emigrated to Paris, then in 1937 to the United States, the year his student Makanowitzky would make his New York performance debut.)
Galamian also taught at Curtis, and Elsa studied with him, as well, and was a member of the group of elite violinists who gathered each summer at Galamian’s Meadowmount School of Music in upstate New York. She eventually became his teaching assistant before launching her performance career.
On the pontoon, Elsa then backtracked (or fast forwarded) to a rare recording she’d just discovered online, of Makanowitzky performing the Brahms. “Oh, how I wish I’d known about that at the time I was studying the Brahms with Makanowitzky!” she said. “His version is a perfect rendition of the concerto. He stays completely true to the score. He leaves his ego out of it.”
I was struck by her comment about ego. I realized that part of what made Elsa herself such an extraordinary violinist was her ability to “leave her ego out of it.” She always played “true to the score,” as well, and displayed the rarest command of technique, which was the key to her extraordinary artistic expression. It was no surprise that when the maestro Pinchas Zukerman—yet another Galamian protegé—became music director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (the only full-time chamber orchestra in the country), he recruited Elsa (from the Pittsburgh Symphony under André Previn).
Notice that I used the past tense. Sadly, a shoulder condition ended Elsa’s career before she was ready to retire. She never complains and stoically hides what must be excruciating sadness over her loss. Whatever regret she harbors, it’s well subordinated to the joy she still derives from listening to great performances of great music.
I was quite fascinated by her rarely expressed reflections (to me, anyway) about her experiences studying with the four greats of her conservatory days—Hungarian-born Robert Gerle; Makanowitzky, Galamian, and another Galamian protegé, Jamie Laredo. “And imagine,” said Elsa. “Gerle, Makanowitzky and Laredo—all three—had Strads! I got to hear all three of them play on Strads!”
To encourage Elsa’s reminiscing, I’d navigated an extended course before heading back to port. As she disembarked and I pushed away for the short ride back to the landing for the good ship Northern Comfort, Elsa said she’d send me the link to Makanowitzky’s performance of the Brahms.
Alone on the boat, I reflected on the connection between Elsa’s remarkable career and Grindstone Lake: we find ourselves so closely tied to the place because of our Grandpa Nilsson. It was he who bought the family property and built the old cabin of Björnholm with proceeds of the buyout of his interest in the music school that he—a violinist—had established years before with an accordion player. Moreover, Grandpa was our first violin teacher, and one of my great joys in life is knowing that he lived long enough to see—hear—three of his four grandchildren pursue careers playing the violin; to know they had dedicated their lives to becoming top-flight, world class violinists. With Elsa’s reflections fresh in mind, as I landed the pontoon on the lift along the shoreline Grandpa had acquired 85 years ago, I felt a burst of joyous gratitude for Grandpa’s legacy—lake and violin, melody and harmony, inextricably intertwined—and a deep sense of awe and appreciation for all that my sisters have done with Grandpa’s precious gift of music, cultivated intensely by our parents.
After putting the boat up, I walked back to the Red Cabin, and for the first time in all too long, I pulled out my own fiddle and played—a few scales and a movement of a Bach partita. If I failed to leverage Grandpa’s gift even to a fraction of my sisters’ accomplishments, I thank the Muses that I learned to embrace the gift in my own way, namely enjoying the great beauty of music and nature. I can’t imagine my life without Grandpa’s legacy—or without my sisters making it soar.
Soon I heard the ping of Elsa’s text—and link. It wasn’t the Brahms but rather, a recording of Machanowitzky playing a Schumann sonata. It was exquisite. The Brahms followed, and eventually, a series of cheesy classical pieces wholly unrelated to Makanowitzky. Among the “favorite classics,” as they were packaged I eventually noticed, was the Moonlight Sonata. The familiar first movement was one of three simple piano pieces I managed to learn—with a rather narrow definition assigned to “learn.”
When the piece with a lunar reference ended, I decided to have a look at . . . the . . . Oh no! The moon was already full, I realized—sooner than I’d assumed when Elsa had asked about it during the pontoon ride. Moreover, the lake was awash in moonlight, meaning I’d missed the moonrise. How ironic, I thought, that I’d missed what for me is the equivalent of a major saint’s day in church—the full moonrise over the lake! And why? Premiere: I’d been diverted by a rare interaction with . . . the violin. Deuxième: I’d been listening to the Moonlight Sonata.
Nevertheless, as if late for Paul Makanowitzky’s performance of the Brahms at Carnegie Hall, I quietly slipped into the chair at the end of the dock, forced myself to breathe through my nostrils, then smiled and lost all sense of ego by watching the lunar light pour down from celestial heights and fill the lake with magical beauty. Earth and heaven were one, and in that combination I experienced moments of perfect cosmic peace. Faintly, ever so faintly, the strains of violin playing drifted over the water. I could swear it was Grandpa speaking to me.
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
