An Echo from the Past

One day a message appeared on my screen. It came from someone I had never met or known and asked about my translation of articles by Verdina Shlonsky.

As I read the message the memory of the composer, Verdina Shlonsky, and her articles about French composers she had known in Paris, came flooding back. I recalled her as a kind, elderly lady who lived in a small apartment on the top floor of an old Tel Aviv building with virtually no furniture other than a piano and a couch. I remember that she told me that she had originally written the articles in French and that her brother, Abraham Shlonsky, had translated them into Hebrew. She had hoped in this way to have them published in the Hebrew press, enabling her to earn a few pennies. I don’t remember encountering any particular difficulties when translating the articles into English, even though Abraham Shlonsky is known for his extensive knowledge of Hebrew.

It must have been in the 1980s, in the pre-computer age, when my work as a translator involved sitting down at my little Olivetti typewriter on my kitchen table and which had to be cleared away when it came time to make lunch for my children. I inserted carbon paper between the pages I was typing in order to obtain copies, but unfortunately I no longer have them in my possession.

The message came from Irit Youngerman, who is the editor of Min-Ad Israel Studies in Musicology and who came across my original typescripts in the archive of the Institute, and asked me to write about my recollections of Verdina Shlonsky.

In those pre-computer days I presume that Verdina was not happy with having the translated material sent by post and wanted me to deliver it to her in person. I must have agreed to this despite the inconvenience involved, and perhaps used the opportunity to visit my aunt who also lived in Tel Aviv.

At the time, I had never heard of most of the French composers that Verdina wrote about, but today many of those names are quite familiar to music-lovers everywhere.

What I can remember of Verdina is that she was obviously short of cash, and while at first she was able to pay me for my services, after a certain point her funds ran out and she begged me to take one of her paintings instead. I evidently felt unable to refuse, and chose the picture that heads this article from among several that were in her sketchpad. She kindly inscribed it for me, signing her name and writing ‘to dear Dorothea, November 1980.’ I had the picture framed and it now hangs in my study near my desk so that I can see it and remember Verdina as I work.

Very occasionally the music programme on Israel radio plays music composed by Verdina Shlonsky, and it gives me great pleasure to hear it and to know that she is not completely forgotten.