The Old Pianoforte

Last week I was invited to play at an event in a school for the Elimination of Violence against Women Day. Students aged 11 to 14 performed pieces of music and short dramatic pieces highlighting the issue which moved from examples of violence towards a focus on what women can achieve when given the space and freedom to follow their dreams.

At the centre of this debate was a beautiful old pianoforte, donated to the school by the family of the owner, Ernestina Giordana. She was born in 1895 in Castroreale, but was orphaned in her teenage years and was raised by two aunts. They saw her musical potential and sent her to the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome to complete her studies. After graduation she came down with the virulent Spanish Influenza and returned to Sicily to recover, where she met her husband. They had ten children but Ernesta continued to give piano lessons in the town and all those who studied piano at the time passed through Ernestina’s hands... 

Everyone commented on how wonderful those aunts were for sending her to music school, and that is true. But I thought, she must have had a good husband who just let her get on with it and also shared or supported the domestic work.

As Anne Enright, Booker prizewinner, said recently in a radio interview: “I look at young women today, my students who wonder how they’re going to manage writing around family and work, and I think to myself: you need to get someone in your life who isn’t jealous of your creative life. There is a dynamic I have observed where men in particular are not hugely pleased about their wives going off and having this elaborate other life or going out and being successful in the world. You need a Big man who is able to manage all those emotions and possessions and dispossessions and let you just get on with it without interference.”

Caitlin Moran, feminist writer and journalist writes in her bestselling memoir “More than a Woman” that of all her friends and acquaintances, the women who are happiest and most successful are, without exception, those who have a partner who does at least 50% of the housework and childcare.

The thing is, when you fall in love and you don’t have children, you can’t tell if your beloved is going to turn out to be a Big Man or Very Small Man…

I have a story about a pianoforte too. The pianist in question had been living for a long time without her instrument but when, in 2014, she discovered she was pregnant with her second child, she declared: “This will be the last year without a piano in the house.” She wanted her daughter to hear the piano while growing in the womb.

Her husband accompanied her to the music shop where she tried out some pianos. A pianist friend joined them to help her reach her decision. It is no small decision, choosing an instrument: there has to be a connection, a resonance in your soul, otherwise it will be left unplayed. Meanwhile the husband urged her to hurry up about it, he had work to be doing. The pianist friend said nothing but would remember his total lack of interest in his wife’s passion.

Years later, when they separated, the husband would try to take the piano from her by declaring falsely that he had paid for it. He even produced the receipt in court. The pianist had had her earnings paid directly into his account as she did not have one at the time.  The husband paid for it by cheque and put it through the account of the restaurant he owned and was then able to claim tax back on this which he kept. And on the rare occasions the pianist was able to perform in concerts he grumbled about having to stay in and put the children to bed. He could have brought the children to the concerts and sat in the front row and applauded her efforts. There’s nothing she would have loved more. But he didn’t.

Being a mother is difficult enough, in times when a woman must balance work and childcare, especially if domestic work is not shared equally. Being a mother who is an artist is perhaps even more difficult as she has to find time for her creativity. And society, never mind the husband or partner, does not always understand. Paradigms run deep. And it is time to change that. The story of the old pianoforte gives me hope.