Tribute

05.05.’04
 

I have just been reading yet another glowing obituary of Paul Hamburger, an amazing pianist, accompanist and coach who died on April 11th this year. My tribute to the great man is meagre in comparison except to say I have lost not only a most valued coach but a dear friend from whom I received unstinting encouragement and with whom I shared many a giggle.

I first met Paul at Summer Music International when I studied in his Lieder c lasses. I somewhat shamefacedly asked if he would  coach me and he immediately invited me to spend time in his lovely Somerset home grumbling that it could hardly be called a visit if it was less than five or six days! Food was high on the agenda every time  I visited but so was listening to music and  sharing stories but what a privilege to stand at his piano and experience him breathing new life into songs and arias with insights not only into the music itself but also the composers and their lives. He would say: ‘‘Sing what isn’t there. He only wrote it like that because of the limitations of musical  notation. Sing what it means.’’ I only hope my interpretations do him justice and in some measure reflect what a great teacher he was.

I miss him very much, although I only really knew him later in his life. There will be memories of struggling to get him into the car to take him to keep a doctor’s appointment or shopping at the local store, ringing to ask his advice and receiving lengthy letters with impossibly long lists of repertoire and he isn’t there to tell me how much he enjoys listening to me (although I understand he says that to all his students!!) but what an encourager and enabler he was. Once , when singing ‘Die Forelle’ for him, he put my tempo at the top of the page alongside ‘Elizabeth’ and  ‘Janet’ -  such exalted company. My treasured possession is a video of Paul accompanying me in a concert in his beloved Austria in summer 2002 when I was in reality in exalted company.