May 11, 2013
The Last Time I Saw Madame Chaloff
Written by Donald Rubinstein // December 18, 2010 // Art, Music, Santa Fe // 2 Comments
I wrote these two short pieces about my teacher, Madame Margaret Chaloff, whom I studied with twice a week for nine months, in 1976-77.
Madame Margaret Stedman Chaloff was a piano teacher “who became legendary for her stellar roster of students, which included Leonard Bernstein, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Steve Kuhn, and Herbie Hancock.” Gene Seymour, Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians.
The Last Time I Saw Madame Chaloff
pictures I took in a photo booth the day I heard Madame died.
I recently wrote Kenny Werner. I heard hed both studied with and had written about Madame Margaret Chaloff. I studied with her in 1976-77 and I had a deeply affecting relationship with her. Kenny and I exchanged emails and had some of the same experiences. I too was taught “˜one note and I too had trouble grasping the concepts to which she had me aspire. She nevertheless affected me profoundly and it is possibly because I want to reinvest myself in the pathway of “˜spirit, that I am writing this over thirty years later. There is another personal reason. Until I wrote Kenny, I had hardly spoken to anyone about the few days before her passing in which I saw her twice.
The first time was on a Monday. It was to be my last lesson, and as luck or God would have it, my most deeply affecting. After my lesson, as I walked towards the door, Madame stopped me and asked me to continually lower my voice while I vocalized a sound. My voice took on a life of its own, filling the room with a power and breath beyond anything I had ever experienced. It startled us both. The whole room became my voice and I had no corporal sense beyond its enveloping presence. It is to this day one of a few experiences in which I have felt myself a small, yet integral part of a grand universe. It went beyond any otherworldly out of body experiences while either writing, performing or on drugs. As I left she leaned up to my ear and whispered, intently, “genius.” That whisper has helped support my life and invoking it gives me something to aspire to.
Madame died two days later. It was a Wednesday night if memory serves, though it would technically be Thursday morning, about 2 or 3 am. I went to see her some five hours before that and I have rarely spoken about it. It was partly because I am a private person and partly because I had no one to tell.
I went to see Madame about 9:30 pm the night she died. I had left my house at about 7 pm to teach guitar. On my way I passed an old antique shop. I felt drawn to it and though running late, I parked and went in. I saw a beautifully reproduced painting in an old wood frame. It turned out to be Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music, with angels pouring roses onto her at the piano.
I bought the painting for about $10 and went off to teach. I finished sometime after nine, and having no social skills, I decided to go to Madames apartment to give her the painting. I felt strongly it was for her and was excited to give her this present. I knocked on her door and she greeted me with surprise. Im not sure what she died of, but she was perfectly fine when I saw her. She asked me with her excited, infectious voice, “What are you doing here?” I showed her the painting and she asked if Id ever been in her bedroom. “No!” I replied. She then said, “Go on in.” And so I did. I found the same exact painting, only larger, on the wall above her bed.
We sat in the parlor where she taught, and argued for about 5 minutes over who should have the painting. She wanted me to have it. She insisted it was for me. However, I was unfortunately stubborn (upon meeting Madame for the first time her exact words to me were, “Youre too stubborn, I cant teach you!”). As with many, I came to love her and I think she had a deep feeling for me. She taught me for $5 when I could afford it, or for free. She expressed a significant belief in me as an artist and a concern for me as a 24-year-old malady, though always with loving, compassionate support. I “˜unfortunately prevailed and left the painting and went home. I can still smile at the thought of her sweet annoyance when I would not take the painting.
I have no idea if she spoke to anyone else that night, nor do I know the circumstances of her passing. It seems quite possible that I was the last one to see her alive. I did not know her family, nor many of her other students. I was too shy to ask anyone about circumstance. I never mentioned the painting, though always regretted not taking that parting gift from her. I was devastated by her death. It was many years later before I was to see a copy of that painting again, though that is a story for another time.
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Madame Chaloff and The Gift of Flowers
I was on my way to my lesson with Madame Margaret Chaloff. It was 1976. I was 24 years old and had been studying piano with her, twice a week for a few months. I suddenly realized it was her birthday, stopped at a flower stand and picked out a small bouquet for a couple of bucks. It was all I could afford. They looked slightly crumpled, though I was thrilled to bring her a gift. Beaming, with flowers in hand, I knocked on her door. Upon its opening my mouth went agape. Inside her apartment were more flowers than I had ever seen in one place. They were everywhere. There were huge bouquets of assorted grandeur from admirers all over the world. I shyly presented mine, to which she beamed her approval and immediately put them in a vase.
When I came back the following week Madame greeted me with an unusually big smile. She pointed to my flowers, which were still alive along with a few others. When I came back a few days later yet, she greeted me at the door with a hug. She pulled me into the living room to show me the flowers I gave her, alive, well, and the “˜last ones standing. I will never forget what she said peering with her beautiful blues eyes into mine. She told me to always remember, “flowers last as long as the love with which theyre given.”
I have never forgotten. I have found her understanding to be true and always a world beyond what I could imagine (though I did not always know that at the time). It was Madame who gave me an unbreakable belief in my imagination. I had previously lived by it”“ worked by it”“ but never again would I doubt it. She showed me a world beyond; a world to aspire to, a world to trust.
©Donald Rubinstein, Santa Fe, August 2009
Written by Donald Rubinstein // December 18, 2010 // Art, Music, Santa Fe // 2 Comments
2 Comments
I’ve just read both pieces, and they brought tears to my eyes. You’ve been blessed, though you already know that. I’m presently writing an article on Madame Chaloff and have interviewed a number of her students–all of whom speak about her with the same warm and nearly mystical enthusiasm.
Do you–or does anyone out there happen to have a photo of her–surprisingly hard to come by!
Thanks for your words about her.
I too was a student of Madame Chaloff. Or, rather, I tried to be, but failed at it. Our philosophies were way too much at odds for us to be compatible. She was some kind of Christian/fudamentalist/spiritualist/mystic; I was – and remain – a radical, skeptical, Marxist pagan. She tried to imbue me with her philosophy; I tried to explain my objections to it. Both of us failed, completely. Her comment to you that “You’re too stubborn, I can’t teach you” would have been perfectly apropos for me, as I did stubbornly question and resist her attempts at indoctrination. She evidently regarded me as some wayward soul who needed to be shown the true, shining path. Then she would hand me off to one of her own students, to learn jazz piano. Curiously enough, I do happen to remember her exact first words upon meeting me: “So that’s what you look like!”
But though our outlooks were radically opposed, I still liked her, in spite of it all. As you say, she was warm, generous, kind, a real trip to be with. She did not provide a heck of a lot of piano instruction; mostly, she just talked to me – or AT me – about various and sundry matters: people, situations, cultural attitudes. Most of it I scarcely remember. But I do recall that she was REALLY down on homosexuality, regarding it as some kind of repulsive monstrosity. (I’m not gay, never was). Upon further questioning, I learned that she was also kind of down on heterosexuality as well (though not as vehemently). I pointed out to her that she too had engaged in that practice. Well, she had “atoned”, or “made up for” that, she informed me. Curious, I prodded a little further – how would humanity propagate itself if we all were to renounce sexual intercourse? Well, she asserted, I might find it very hard to believe – but, she insisted, one of her own students had yielded a virgin birth! I thought to myself, this woman, as nice as she may be, is just too far gone. This alleged virgin birth had been somehow predicted, or anticipated, in some fashion, by her colleague Dr. Avram David, her acolyte and next door neighbor.
Which brings me to a related incident. I think it was at our very first meeting (this all took place during the summer and fall of 1975) that it became apparent that we just did not see eye to eye on a great many issues. I had mentioned to her that I was reading a book about music that I was very enthusiastic about, that I thought was a real revelation. It was “Sound and Symbol, Music and the External World”, by Victor Zuckerkandl. She called in Dr. David from next door, I think to kind of size me up and put me in my proper place. I likewise told him about this book that I thought was terrific. Did I have an advanced degree in musicology, he inquired? No. Was I a professional musician? No. Well, then, he proclaimed, though my enthusiasm was commendable, I couldn’t possibly understand, or get anything out of this book. What a stuck up, pompous, asshole, I thought. Here is this guy who knows next to nothing about me and my abilities, and doesn’t even know the book I am talking about, yet he is so positive that I cannot possibly understand it. In retrospect, maybe I should have commended him for his audacious, daring confidence concerning a matter that he had no knowledge about. Instead, I got mightily pissed off, and shouted “Either he leaves or I leave!”. Madame Chaloff somehow pacified the situation and he left.
Another time she decided to read my palm and find out about my past lives. Somehow (I forget the specifics) she passed her reading along to another one of her students/devotees, Rick St. Clair, who, I gather, produced the actual interpretation of the reading: I had once been in a position of considerable authority, “a king or a judge”, she said. But I had been somehow betrayed, and that had turned me into a miserable, embittered person. Well, I feel no sense of having once had much power or respect, in this or any other life. But she was dead right about my feeling a sense of betrayal, in lesser circumstances, from people that I trusted, a scenario that has repeated itself many times over.
Here’s one example of how I challenged her: “We don’t play with our hands; we play with our breath”, she often stated. Then, one time when I was trying to do something at the piano, and doing it wrong, she got exasperated and excalaimed, “Move your wrist up and down – like a hinge!” I objected that this mechanical analogy was contrary to the notion of playing with one’s breath. Another time, she leaned on the far end of the piano as I played in my ungraceful fashion. She could feel vibrations from my “bad” hand movements coming up through the piano. Well, a piano is a physical device, I pointed out, so it is hardly surprising that it should transmit waves when a force is applied to it. Unless it could be somehow ascertained, via some sophisticated, subtle measuring device, that my waves were different in some crucial aspect from hers, or from someone else who played “correctly”. But she would have none of this: “Robert Rotstein, you are the most NEGATIVE person I’ve ever met!” Well, I thought to my myself, at least I’ve reached the superlative level in SOME dimension, even if it has to be a negative one.
She also told me that, a few years prior, she had had some kind of stroke, and was rushed to a hospital. Her heart stopped beating for 45 minutes, she said, but she had an amazng recovery. She had been on the brink of being “over there”, on the “other side”, but she still made it back. I was later informed by a knowledgeable physician that this was quite impossible; after more than ten or fifteen minutes of no blood circulation, one would be quite dead. Either she was a truly transformed uber-frau, existing on another plane; or she was naïve and full of hogwash.
But I liked her. And I believe she liked me. Our sessions lasted two or three hours at a time. Mostly talk, with some occasional instruction and playing tossed in. Once, after a very long session, I was getting so hungry, my stomach was bothering me, I asked her if I could have a little bite to eat. A little crust of bread would suffice. Well, she sprung into action and quickly prepared a fruit salad. She had sliced a lemon in two a placed it, upside down, in the fruit dish, for a little extra zest, I guess. I had never had fruit salad this way; I thought the lemon was a peach. I tried to cut it with my spoon, over and over; couldn’t do it. “You’re going to eat the lemon!” I exclaimed, “Wow! I was about to say, this is the toughest peach I’ve ever encountered!”. “Well, Robert Rotstein, you’re the toughest peach I’ve ever encountered!”. That must have been the biggest laugh I ever had at her apartment.
But eventually, whatever level of rapport we had couldn’t be sustained. After one unpleasant session, I didn’t go back the following week. But she called me and expressed surprise. And some indignation, too, I thought. I was embarrassed and touched. So I did go back the following week. But it was a losing battle. She might have been a force of nature, but I was an unmoveable object. So I quit. About two years later, I was in the market for a second-hand piano, and thought she might know of someone who wanted to sell one. She nearly fell off the floor when I announced myself on the phone, after such a long absence. I think she was pleased that I chose to get in touch once again. She did know of someone who was selling an old upright. It turned out to be Rick St. Clair, the guy who “interpreted” my palm-reading. I did finally purchase his piano.
I was with Madame Chaloff for about four or five months. Once, when I was there, Leonard Bernstein called her on the phone. Another time, one of her students called from Europe to announce that she had just won some piano competition.
She never asked me for a dollar for all her time.