Misses Murray’s school and delivered me a half-size cello, packed in a hard black case lined with red velvet. In the music room I lifted it out – even this fractional size was as big as I was – and fitted myself against its back, its body, smelled rosewood and spruce, touched horsehair on the bow. I shaped the curve of my arm to its body, ran my fingers down the thick strings and heard them hiss and screech – just lightly – under their breath. With my right arm, I reached the strings and plucked the thickest, heard its resonance, its low growl. I turned my back on the piano, picked up the bow and measured its weight and heft in my hand, and started the long process of learning to play my first true love, the cello.
I became completely absorbed in learning the cello, then and in the years that followed, throughout the remainder of my schooling with the Misses Murray, to their horror and despite their protestations to my uncle that the violoncello was not appropriate for a young lady, that its tone was too deep, too manly, that the posture one had to adopt to play it was – well, unladylike. But Uncle Valentine’s winning ways overcame their protestations. The not inconsiderable matter of providing me with a teacher was also dealt with by my uncle, who engaged a music tutor, Mr Coulson from the boys school in the city, to travel up to the Hills to give me a weekly lesson. Mr Coulson taught me the rudiments I needed to play; showed me how to hold the cello as if, he said, it was a standing child leaning backwards, trusting,into my lap; taught me how to bow, taught me pizzicato , vibrato . While Miss Murray the younger had guided me ably in my early years learning the piano, her greatest contribution to my cello-playing was to leave me alone. As soon as I completed my schoolwork for the day, I sought out the music room, frowning and growling at anyone else who thought they might colonise my space. Beyond my weekly lessons, I developed my technique by listening, with my ears and my whole body, to the sounds I made, by changing and reflecting and responding to the music I played.
I remained a solitary child, happiest in my own company. I did my work well enough in the classroom, but I didn’t care for the games and silliness of the other girls, who teased me, for my way of speaking – formal, grown-up, foreign-sounding – as much as for my obsession with music. It was Uncle Valentine, not the girls my own age, whose company I cherished. He continued his visits, and we continued our outings. There would be gaps and unexplained absences when I would not see him for months at a time – fingers in pies, and so on, my dear, he would tell me on his return – but then, unannounced, there he’d be, swooping up the hill in his big black motor car, sweeping into the music room, to drive me away for the day, to the beach or, increasingly, straight to his house by the sea, to settle in the big soft chairs in the front room and to listen to recordings on his gramophone. We would only leave the Misses Murray’s after I had performed for him though, something I loved, a piece I had kept safe in the forefront of my brain knowing it was a piece for Uncle Valentine, that he would love itsintricacy, its gaiety, its depth or its modernity.
As well as music, my uncle’s house was filled with the many modern conveniences that his comfortable income allowed. In contrast to the ancient, dark austerity of the Misses Murray’s, all blacked wood stoves, Coolgardie safes and draughty fireplaces, Uncle Valentine’s kitchen gleamed with the newest electric appliances, the stove and refrigerator kept humming and full by his housekeeper, Mrs Anderson. Well-thumbed issues of the magazines he loved – The Wireless World, The Electrical Experimenter, joined later by Science and Invention – fed his enthusiasm and curiosity for all things new, and prompted many of his purchases. He was an amateur, a buyer of others’ inventions, neither
I became completely absorbed in learning the cello, then and in the years that followed, throughout the remainder of my schooling with the Misses Murray, to their horror and despite their protestations to my uncle that the violoncello was not appropriate for a young lady, that its tone was too deep, too manly, that the posture one had to adopt to play it was – well, unladylike. But Uncle Valentine’s winning ways overcame their protestations. The not inconsiderable matter of providing me with a teacher was also dealt with by my uncle, who engaged a music tutor, Mr Coulson from the boys school in the city, to travel up to the Hills to give me a weekly lesson. Mr Coulson taught me the rudiments I needed to play; showed me how to hold the cello as if, he said, it was a standing child leaning backwards, trusting,into my lap; taught me how to bow, taught me pizzicato , vibrato . While Miss Murray the younger had guided me ably in my early years learning the piano, her greatest contribution to my cello-playing was to leave me alone. As soon as I completed my schoolwork for the day, I sought out the music room, frowning and growling at anyone else who thought they might colonise my space. Beyond my weekly lessons, I developed my technique by listening, with my ears and my whole body, to the sounds I made, by changing and reflecting and responding to the music I played.
I remained a solitary child, happiest in my own company. I did my work well enough in the classroom, but I didn’t care for the games and silliness of the other girls, who teased me, for my way of speaking – formal, grown-up, foreign-sounding – as much as for my obsession with music. It was Uncle Valentine, not the girls my own age, whose company I cherished. He continued his visits, and we continued our outings. There would be gaps and unexplained absences when I would not see him for months at a time – fingers in pies, and so on, my dear, he would tell me on his return – but then, unannounced, there he’d be, swooping up the hill in his big black motor car, sweeping into the music room, to drive me away for the day, to the beach or, increasingly, straight to his house by the sea, to settle in the big soft chairs in the front room and to listen to recordings on his gramophone. We would only leave the Misses Murray’s after I had performed for him though, something I loved, a piece I had kept safe in the forefront of my brain knowing it was a piece for Uncle Valentine, that he would love itsintricacy, its gaiety, its depth or its modernity.
As well as music, my uncle’s house was filled with the many modern conveniences that his comfortable income allowed. In contrast to the ancient, dark austerity of the Misses Murray’s, all blacked wood stoves, Coolgardie safes and draughty fireplaces, Uncle Valentine’s kitchen gleamed with the newest electric appliances, the stove and refrigerator kept humming and full by his housekeeper, Mrs Anderson. Well-thumbed issues of the magazines he loved – The Wireless World, The Electrical Experimenter, joined later by Science and Invention – fed his enthusiasm and curiosity for all things new, and prompted many of his purchases. He was an amateur, a buyer of others’ inventions, neither
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