5 - Studying with Weingartner: Vienna

Summary

Presenting myself at the State Academy next morning, I was startled to discover that the Registrar had heard nothing from Weingartner about my arrival. I asked anyway to register my name and complete any necessary formalities. To my amazement, I was told that I would have to undergo an entrance examination on musical theory and keyboard skills in two weeks’ time. In vain I explained about my diploma with distinction, my experience conducting Beethoven and Brahms with the Conservatoire Orchestra, and conducting my own Symphonic Variations with the Warsaw Philharmonic. The Registrar did not seem particularly impressed. He said that about a hundred applicants would be competing for very few places, and that no exceptions could be made.

Suddenly I felt alarmed, imagining failure, an ignominious return to Poland, my grant cancelled, my future in ruins. I pulled myself together, put my name down for the exam, and, while walking back to my hotel, started to plan how to prepare myself. I would find a room where I could live and practise, and would take daily lessons in German so that I would be more fluent in answering questions. I plunged into action at once, finding a beautiful room with a piano in a large flat in central Vienna, the home of a prosperous shopkeeper. The attractive daughter of the house, plump, blonde and blue-eyed, seemed only too willing to give me some lessons in German and perhaps something more, to judge from her provocative manner – though at that time I was so obsessed with my work for the impending exam that I was living a monk-like existence.

On examination day I found myself in a crowded room, my heart thumping furiously. I watched a Japanese student, his face greenish grey-white, walk trembling into the examination room. My turn was next. Standing by the door, I tried to hear as much as possible of the procedure.

First the jury asked him to play the piano. I heard him attack Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C major. After ten to fifteen seconds, he came to a stop. He tried to carry on from where he had stumbled, but could not, so he began again, breaking down at exactly the same place as before. Two more disastrous attempts were followed by a long silence.