My Home is on the Mountain

Almost all the staff and servants in the homes of rich white Southerners were African-American, and most of these people were descendants of the enslaved people brought to what had been the original plantations. The relationship of African-American staff to their employers was alway complex, and never quite what the white employers thought it was. White people saw their servants as loyal, sometimes even "part of the family" (but not the part that get to sit down at the Thanksiving dinner table). The African-American employees did not share this view.

African-Americans originally came to what is now Tennessee by two routes. First, some among those who were enslaved in the thirteen colonies escaped, slipped over the mountains, and settled with, or among, the indigenous peoples. Second, they were brought in as chattel slaves. (There were indeed a very few Free Blacks, but let us concentrate on the vast majority.) These enslaved people worked every place that profited by expendable, cheap labour: on farms, and in the farm houses as house-slaves, working as loaders and crew on the rivers, dealing with livestock, down in the mines, in road-building, logging, and so on. After the Civil War, this work did not change much, except that now African-Americans had other choices, from teacher and lawyer to newspaper reporter to doctor to pharmacist to factory worker.

Nevertheless, their freedom of action and choice was always grotesquely limited by racism. Knoxville had a large African-American community, with newspapers and active political groups. The city was seen as very tolerant, and yet there were race riots against African-Americans and of course restrictions everywhere.

I am not going to attempt a detailed history here; this can be found in many books and websites and museums. And of course it is not just history. My reference sources can be found in my bibliography. As I write this 2021, Tennessee's capitol still has only now removed a statue to Nathan Bedford Forrest, the vicious, rabid, and racist Confederate officer and founder of the KKK. Not put up in the 1920s or 1930s, but in 1978. And yet a much better monument to everything Forrest stands for already exists: Fort Pillow.

 

Airey begins with In the Gloaming a song witten in the 1877 by a woman composer, with a woman lyricist. It is hard to find an accurate version of the original song, although I myself grew up singing it, because a 1910 recorded version featured a cut-down travesty of the song, presumably to fit the size of disc then available, and that became the known version. Ignore every link Wilipedia offers!! The full original verses (it isn't a long song) carry much more meaning than the crass bathetic 1910 version, which you can find all too easily online. I don't recommend it. This, below, is the only one I have found that gives the entire original song with almost all the original words (a few are changed, but the meaning is not). If you find a version just over two minutes long, it is the yucky cropped version. The reason I am so vehement is that (1) the short versions ruin the meaning of the actual song and (2) that original meaning is core to my novel. Here is a version to give you an idea of what Cecilia hears Airey play:

In the Gloaming, by Annie Fortescue Harrison, lyrics from poem by Meta Orred, sung and played by Boxer John:

(Give his Vimeo video of this a boost by listening to it there.)

Violin solo: In the Gloaming, played by Johann Beavis Berry:

Airey moves to other music. It's hard to find early recordings that feature solo fiddle. I include a few here, as examples of the music Airey would play. They are not good audio quality, as they were taken from the original shellac records. The same quality warnings are for the examples of other popular music I offer here, not played by solo violin, so do your best to imagine how Airey would have transcribed them.

Sail Away Ladies, played by Uncle Bunt Stephens (recorded in Tennessee in 1926):

Bunt Stephens was an eastern Tennessee fiddler and I think he is magnificent. He made two records, that is four songs, after winning a fiddle contest.

Fiddlin' John Carson was a fiddler from Georgia. This recording is pretty scratchy:

Billy in the Low Ground, played by Fiddlin' John Carson (recorded 1924):

Other music played by Airey (all these recordings are scratchy to a degree):

Grey Eagle, played by Uncle Am Stuart (recorded 1924):

Bonaparte's Retreat, played by A. A. Gray (recorded 1924):

Sallie Gooden, played by Eck Robertson (recorded 1922):

Mountain Hornpipe, played by Jehile Kirkhuff (recorded in 1950s):

Kirkhuff was recorded in the 1950s and later. He is an example of the Pennsylvanian fiddle tradition.

Fisher's Hornpipe, played by Henry Reed (1966) [Link takes you to the U.S. Library of Congress website.] Reed, a Virginian fiddler, was 82 when he was recorded; he would have been in his late 30s at the time of my novel.

Airey then moves to other popular music of the time.

Kohala March, played by Franchini and Dettborn (recorded 1920):

An example of the the "Hawaiian music" popular during the 1920s. Try, if you can, to imagine this being played on a fiddle.

A Precious Little Thing Called Love, played by George Olsen and His Music [i.e. his band] (recorded 1929):

I can imagine Airey having fun with this melody.

Sleepy Time Gal, played by Bern Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra (recorded 1926):

Sorry about the sound quality. Yet another recording to test your audio imagination, as you try to hear this played by a single fiddle.

After the Ball, played by the International Novelty Orchestra (recorded 1925):

This starts as an instrumental version, so easier (I hope) to hear it as a single violin.

Bambalina, played by Carl Fenton (recorded 1923):

A dance tune very popular through the 1920s.

Ain't She Sweet, sung by Gene Austin (recorded 1927):

Austin has quite a voice. Today, this song could be seen as just a little creepy, but my grandmother sang it to me and nobody raised an eyebrow at the lyrics. Still, it's a great tune.

It All Depends on You, played by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra (recorded 1927):

Paul Whiteman was a serious star in the 1920s and popularised much African-American music, safely adjusted for his own audience, as well as music like this.

My Heart Stood Still, sung by Melville Gideon (recorded 1927):

I chose this version for the snippets of violin included in it.

To close off these examples, I jump back to old-time music, as Airey does to end this part of her show.

Soldier's Joy, played by Luther Strong (recorded 1937):

This old-time reel, played by an elderly man who would have been playing this from the earliest days of the 20^th century, ends this set of examples of the range of music Airey plays for money.

Now Airey changes musical direction and plays somewthing very different: Bach.

Bach: Preludio, from Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, played by Hilary Hahn:

Airey is a very young woman in the story and Hilary Hahn recorded this when she was, too. Quite often violinists have a tiny pause about four seconds in, because the bowing and fingering is difficult, but Hahn simply glides through it (as does Rachel Barton Pine, below, as does Airey).
Rachel Barton Pine has an amazing, beautiful version. I know I shouldn't have favorites, but holy smoke:

Bach: Preludio, from Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, played by Rachel Barton Pine:

Airey then plays the rest of the pieces that make up this suite. I offer two versions of the next piece, the Loure.

Bach: Loure, from Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, played by Hilary Hahn:

I've chosen the musicians here throughout because they play the modern violin, not the baroque version, as the baroque violin had not been revived in Airey's time and would not be until four or five decades later, and I personally have zero problem with Bach played on a modern instrument.
Rachel Barton Pine plays the Loure with touches of French-style decoration, which is absolutely of the time of composing, but Airey would not have known that this was allowed.

Bach: Loure, from Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, played by Rachel Barton Pine:

The Loure is followed by the Gavotte en Rondeau.

Bach: Gavotte en Rondeau, from Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, played by Augustin Hadelich:

I always think this is my favorite bit of the entire suite until...

Bach: Menuetts I and II, from Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, played by Midori Goto:

The minuets are nested, II inside I, and so I think they should be played together rather than split, which adds a pause in recordings where no pause should be. I've chosen Midori Goto's version because I wanted to offer an older virtuoso playing from a lifetime of experience. She, like Barton Pine, adds in a few lovely touches. I absolutely love these two minuets. I would probably die for them.

I can't help slipping that Rachel Barton Pine here. Her Menuets are again beautifully, indeed ravishingly, decorated with little French touches that charm my heart.

Bach: Menuetts I and II, from Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, played by Rachel Barton Pine:

The Bourrée is played faster nowadays than it was in Airey's time. Back then, this would have been a typical approach:

Bach: Bourrée, from Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, played by Henryk Szeryng:

Bach's Third Partita ends with a jig, spelled Gigue, and here it is, played with exemplary clarity:

Bach: Gigue, from Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, played by Julia Fischer:

If you want to know more about this partita, and also want to see how a violinist approaches a score and makes musical decisions on how to play it, Rachel Barton Pine offers a series of YouTube masterclasses. She is playing with a modernised baroque violin and bow. Her talks through each piece are both illuminating and exciting, for you see her thought, respect, pleasure, and delight in the music. Here is her discussion of the Preludio (YouTube), and the rest follow.

You can also buy Barton Pine's complete set of solo violin sonatas and partitas, and why wouldn't you have these in your life? Honestly, played by any leading violinist (but especially Barton Pine), these six suites are music that would sustain you on a desert island for one hundred years and you would still listen with joy and be refreshed in year 100.

There is a reason Cecilia leaps to her feet when Airey begins to play Bach.

 

Shape-note, Fasola (from the first three notes: fa, so, la, which in another, more familiar, system are called do, re, mi) has an old history, and may stretch back to the poor rural Protestant peoples of the Border Country in England and Ulster. Another line of research suggests that it first came to New England and then spread south. It became visible to history with the publication of song-books, the most famous being The Sacred Harp, a commercial publication that became extremely popular, and which gave its name to this style of singing. It had many editions. The publishing company did much to spread the habit of shape-note singing, for the purpose of increasing their own sales, and eventually sent out quartets on circuit, each man respresenting one part of the four-part harmony settings, to promote the singing and their book. This is the origin of modern gospel quartets. There were schools and "Singings", which were gatherings outside church worship to sing these sacred songs.

148 Jefferson (opening line: "Glorious things of Thee are spoken"), sung by the Ireland Sacred Harp Convention:

I haven't included the first part, as each song is usually "sounded" using the names of the notes to get everyone on time and in rhythm, and then they sing the actual words.

I myself visited a small shape-note Singing in London UK, just to experience it, and I can attest that it is thrilling and moving.

268T "Restoration" (YouTube), sung by the Texas Sacred Harp Singers, will give you some sense of what it is like to sing Sacred Harp.

See more links to this music in my Discography.

 

In the tobacco shed, Airey plays the seventh of Telemann's Fantasias for solo violin. My favorite version is by Arthur Grumiaux, but his version is not available for sharing, so here is a nice version played by Tessa Lark (YouTube)

Airey's next pieces are short, the caprices by Rode. She plays 2, 8, 17, 18, 21 and 24. Not many of these are online, so I hope these two give you a taste of Rode's caprices, which I like far more than Paganini's.

Rode: Caprice no. 2, op 22, played by Axel Strauss:

Rode: Caprice no. 8, op 22, played by Steven Staryk:

After playing these Rode caprices, she plays the violin's part of the third movement of Geminiani's C minor sonata. If you can, tune out the piano and just listen to the violin.

Geminiani: Sonata in C minor for violin and continuo, played by Philippe Hirschhorn.

(By the way, of course Airey knows the entire sonata; she has, however, only played it with her teacher's violin accompaniment.)

Finally, Airey plays all of Bach's Second Sonata for solo violin. There are many performances of this online, including Grumiaux's: so I give you his: Bach: Second Sonata (YouTube). Flawless intonation! However, I can't stop myself from giving you this treat, the final piece from it, right here, because you need this in your life:

Bach: Sonata No. 2 for solo violin BWV 1003: (4) Allegro, played by Arthur Grumeaux:

Cecilia and Airey then listen to Mozart's fourth concerto for violin and orchestra. Below this box I have more information on the phonograph Cecilia has brought to introduce Airey to this and other music. Here, Mozart would have been on about ten shellac records. You don't have to suffer the interruptions Airey endured, for here is the whole concerto played and conducted by David Oistrakh (YouTube)

When Cecilia tries to persuade Airey to accept a career in concert music, and Airey resists, Cecilia challenges her, and Airey plays Paganini's caprice no. 10 as her reply. Paganini is technically more than tough to play, and I am not sure it is worth the effort, but there's no denying that it needs a superlative violinist to pull off his caprices. Have a listen to this blisteringly fast version:

Paganini: Caprice no. 10 in G minor, op. 10, played by Shlomo Mintz.

Airey follows this bravura performance with Veracini's Largo. Again, this is normally played with a keyboard accompanying it, which Airey has never done, playing only the violin part, so do your best to hear a violin by itself here:

Veracini: Largo, played by David Nadien.

Once Cecilia is successful in her persuasions, the two women play and replay Beethoven's sonata for violin and piano in C minor, opus 30, no. 2. I've chosen this version, although it is played a little slower than the version Airey heard, as music tended to be played faster in the early 20th century, because in this video Anne-Sophie Mutter is clearly the star performer, rather than the pianist, which is just how Airey would like it. Beethoven: Sonata for piano and violin op. 30, no 2 played by Anne-Sophie Mutter (YouTube).

 

In the early 20th century, a group of interests converged, people we would now call environmentalists who wanted to preserve an ecological area of outstanding beauty from the depradations of loggers, whose standard operating mode was a ruthless clear cutting, those desiring a national park in the east (all those already established were in the west), and local interests both in North Carolina and Tennessee, who saw the benefits in a tourist industry to a region that had few other sources of wealth.

The local interests kicked things off in the mid-1920s. Unlike in the west, the proposed boundaries of the new park contained farms and other lands owned by logging companies, all of whom would have to be bought out. This entailed much work persuading the states of Tennessee and North Carolina to find funds, and much pressure on the federal government to do the same. The activists preferred to buy interests out than to force eminent domain, but from the writings of those I have read, very little thought was given to those who had settled the area for several generations and who had emotional bonds to the land, and that thought was mostly dismissive. The collected memories of those farmers bought out or removed show that the blow was a heavy one. The Cherokee who lived in the area were, of course, well used to the United States deciding that their land and homes were more urgently needed by other people.

The process of buying up land in the area of the proposed park took many years. Logging companies, such as the Little River Lumber Company, were paid very handsomely, and were even permitted to keep up some logging into the late 1940s. Eventually they removed their railroads and settlements, having done themselves proud. Farmers' profits varied, and there was no consistency, some getting a very good price per acre, some not. A few farmers, mostly elderly, were allowed to lease their own land for the length of their lives.

The park having been authorised by the U.S. Congress in 1926, it was finally dedicated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940, although a park Superintendent was appointed in January 1931, based in Maryville who, with two rangers appointed later, enforced the park rules both on visitors and the people who had always been living there. By 1940, the farming communities had been cleared off, the remaining logging industry was winding down, and the park began its boom.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park became, and remains, the most popular, most visited park in the USA. Where there were villages and communities, the modern buildings were destroyed and only a mythological landscape of log cabins and emptiness was preserved. The picture of the past life in the coves and valleys of the Great Smoky Mountains, most typified by Cades Cove, that beautiful falsehood, has obliterated the actual lives of those, indigenous and incomers, who lived in and loved these mountains before it was given to the hikers, campers, and car tourists.

Sadly for the park, adjacent mining and other polluting industries nearby, plant disease, and climate change, have wrought havoc. This unique biosphere is seeing one species after another giving up. I visited the park twice, and was startled by the mist of death that seems to permeate so much of this astonishingly lovely and majestic mountain area.

 

The pieces Dr Neihoff and Mrs Vernelle play in the first half of the concert are: Albeniz's Malaguena: listen to a slowish version by Michel Schwalbé (YouTube); Paganini's La Campanella, and since it is by Paganini, it's full of tricky bits — watch a chirpy version by Clara-Jumi Kang (YouTube) (you can see the playing close up); the Rondo from Mozart's Serenade No. 7 (K. 250), called the Haffner, and here played limpidly by Itzak Perlman (YouTube); Faure's Sicilienne, beautifully played by Alban Beikircher (YouTube); and Rachmaninov's Dance Hongroise here excitingly played (if none too clearly recorded) by Ahmed Pyshtiyev (YouTube), which certainly serves as an impressive end to part one of the recital.

After an intermission where Cecilia is frustrated in her goal of Dr Neihoff's help, the recital continues. The pieces are (again all links are to YouTube): Schubert's Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major, a longish piece chosen because their audience now can't sneak out, here played by Szymon Goldberg. The climax of the recital is Vitali's Chaconne, another long-ish piece, here played by the legendary Nathan Milstein:

Vitali: Chaconne in G minor, played by Nathan Milstein:

The recital closes with Wieniawski's Étude Caprice Op.18, No.4, played in fiery style by James Ehnes.

 

Settlements were an exercise in social welfare, either reaching out to the slums or to "backward" rural communities. The people involved wanted to help lift people out of destitution and the debility of ignorance by assisting with education, health, and sometimes religious exhortation. Begun either by Christians seeking to express their faith in practical ways, or by Progressives, the settlements would often be a building or meeting house, where a programme of outreach was run, consisting of good works, finding or creating employment, establishing schools for children or adults or both, and (if religious in origin) preaching and Bible study. All very worthy, and indeed in the slums of English and American cities (Hull House in Chicago being the most famous example), they had their successes.

However, and you knew there would be a "however", these settlements were usually run by the better off (who had the liberty to do so) to save the poor as much from themselves as from their disadvantages. Class assumptions, class privilege, prejudice, and all that goes with these, saw poor families hectored, chivvied, talked down to, and forced to fit whatever fantasies the people in charge had of them. In the case of the poor families in the Appalachias and Great Smoky Mountains, this meant being taken as living fossils of pioneers, as if they had been trapped in a time warp.

Mountain people were taught the "ancient" crafts the organisers fancied their "Elizabethan" pioneer forefathers had originally brought over to the New World and that their shiftless descendants has somehow forgotten, and should resume, as it would better fit their "spirit" or "primitive dignity" or other fustian. I cite two books that show the impact of these settlements in Appalachian communities. Settlements in the mountains often assumed that mountain people were dissipated, ignorant and, above all, lazy, that is, the stereotype of the hillbilly. I could not help but rage at the quote from one mountain woman forced to do Settlement-approved work: "I get up as early as I can and work as hard as I can" — yes, this is one of the lazy hillfolks, who earned a pittance from her weaving, sold by the settlement. When the mountaineers rebelled against being exploited by the people who came to "help" them, they were called ungrateful. You can hear my teeth grinding from there.

 

The first piece of music Airey has prepared for this audition is the Presto from Bach's Sonata No. 1 for solo violin. There are two versions by Hilary Hahn available, one from 2009, and this from 2018: Bach: Presto, Sonata No. 1 (youTube). A good choice to demonstrate skill, interpretation, intonation, control, everything a first-rank violinist should have. She then plays as much of the slow movement from Tchaikovsky's violin concerto as a solo violin can play. Luckily, it is mostly one connected piece, except for a bit where the orchestra plays. In the full piece, the orchestra finishes off the movement. Airey heard it for the first time on one of the sets of records Cecilia brought for her, played by by Fritz Kreisler, and here is the exact recording, which was slightly rewritten to give it an ending that works for this stand-alone arrangement for violin and piano.

Tchaikovsky: Canzonetta (abridged), from Violin Concerto in D Major. Played by Fritz Kreisler in 1924:

However, Airey would have ended the violin part properly, simply hanging on its last note, given that she would have seen it (thanks to Cecilia) in the sheet music of the concerto. If you can ignore the entire orchestra, Airey's version would have sounded something like Itzhak Perlman's (YouTube). (I should just mention that I had Airey choose the Tchaikovsky because she wanted to show that she could learn a new piece quickly, and so chose something new to her, and newer in time than anything she grew up playing. Tchaikovsky's violin concerto is by far my least favourite. I repeatedly say so in my Violin Discography.)

I don't name them, but Airey is using her teacher's violin, one made by Alexandre Delanoy [1900] (Mr Broeggen traded down to this from a Justin Derazey (1880), as he traded down his talent throughout his life). Dr Neihoff plays a violin made by Santo Serafin [1699-c1758], which he originally thought was an Amati. Airey's bow (inherited from Mr Broeggen) is by Joseph Vigneron (Broeggen traded down to this from a Jean-Joseph Martin [1880]), Dr Neihoff's bow is by Charles Nicolas Bazin, after Lupot.

Airey mentions her preference for a minimal vibrato. You might be interested to watch this fun but informative video by TwoSet Violin on the changing violin styles in the last 60 years (YouTube). They cover vibrato, gut and steel strings, historically-informed playing, and more (but it's painful to hear that 1962 is "olden tymes").

Dr Neihoff asks Airey to play the Adagio from the same Sonata No. 1 by Bach. Hear it played by Augustin Handelin (YouTube). Mr Vernelle is, meanwhile, putting together his wife's clavichord, which was an old keyboard instrument predating the piano and reproduced in the 19th and 20th centuries for players interested in older styles of instrument in the same way harpsichords were and are reproduced. Mrs Vernelle finds it a useful travelling piano for just this sort of occasion, i.e. when she has been asked to travel somewhere to audition some aspiring musician. (Click on the image of the clavichord to hear a clavichord being played. To my ears, half-way between a harpsichord and a classical guitar.) The piece of music Dr Neihoff teaches Airey is Josef Suk's Appassionato. I prefer Suk's violinist son's version.

Suk: Appassionato, from Four Pieces op. 17, no. 2. Played by Josef Suk (Jr):

You might also want to listen to this performance of it by Augustin Hamelich (YouTube) as it is very close, though a little slower and a little sweeter.

While Cecilia is sitting outside with Mrs Neihoff, and then being distracted with Poly and Jabez, she hears Airey playing Paganini's 16th Caprice (here played by Claudio Accardo (YouTube)), as well as his 13th, 5th and 6th. She also hears, but I do not name, several études by Kreutzer. There are none to be found online, so I offer them here:

Kreutzer: étude no. 2, to teach détaché. Played by Steven Staryk.

Kreutzer: étude no. 8, to hone portato. Played by Steven Staryk.

Kreutzer: étude no. 13, which focuses on bowing. Played by Cihat Aşkin.

Kreutzer: étude no. 37, which trains off-the-beat phrasing. Played by Cihat Aşkin.

After Cecilia has to leave her guests to attend to Poly and Jabez, she hears Airey playing Sarasate's Capricho Vasco, also known as the Caprice Basque (played by Antal Zalai (YouTube) with piano accompaniment; block that out).

When Airey challenges everyone to listen to her, she plays Vitali's Chaconne, the piece played, although she doesn't know it, by Dr Neihoff and Mrs Vernelle at their recital in Charleville some time before, when Cecilia was in the audience. The Chaconne is written for keyboard accompaniment, but I did find one—only one—example of the violin part played solo, and I hope it gives an idea of what the people in the farmhouse heard that day:

Vitali: Chaconne in G minor, played by Stepan Grystsay:

It is this that turns the tide for Airey.

 

Kitchen ranges were cast iron, the more expensive having nickel-plating on handles and on the fancy cast decorations. These stoves served many functions, as a stove-top, with usually four or six burners, cast-iron discs that lifted off if you wanted to put your pan directly on the flame. The oven below would be big by the standards of the day, small by ours. Some large ranges would have one large oven and one or two smaller ones, some meant for bread baking, some for keeping things warm, all depending on their proximity to the fire. The fire chamber or fire box, for wood or coal, would have openings to let in air and dampeners to lower the flames, to allow you to adjust the fire to your needs or to keep the coals alive overnight.

Most stoves had a water reservoir, lined with porcelain, that provided hot water via a tap. Fancier stoves would have an upper cabinet for keeping things warm, such as plates, that took advantage of the heat going up the chimney pipe.

These stoves were the engines of the kitchen, with hot washing water (for clothes, dishes, and people), food preparation areas, different levels of heat for cooking, places to hang wet towels or clothing in the winter, while giving general warmth and having a lot of shining nickel or polished cast-iron curlicues to show off and to indicate that the housewife had been respected enough by her husband to be given such an impressive monster.

In Mrs. Grigg's case, her first husband installed a new cook stove when they moved into the house as a newly-married couple, and hers signaled a definite level of wealth at the time. It would have been much like the image here, that is, not very fancy at all. By 1931, it was very old-fashioned indeed, but nobody in Fittes Cove would have had an electric one. The more up-to-date might have ranges with enameled doors and no curlicues.

My grandparents had a cottage on a lake in lower Quebec (the Eastern Townships) and they had a big range dating from the 1890s. It was used for general heat and as a fireplace, when its front doors were open, for the cheer of the flames, but we'd often cook on the top if the tiny propane oven in the kitchen annexe was over-full. I have good memories of stoking the fire-box with kindling in the mornings.

 

The lumber industry up to more enlightened times (which will start any year now) practised clear-cutting, which more or less shaved the forests off whatever mountain slope or valley they were in. Before the industry moved in, local loggers or farmers would fell trees one by one and drag them out behind a horse team. Industrial loggers did this occasionally with a rare tree (say, a maple with a distinctive pattern; those who have read Gene Stratton Porter's book Freckles [1904] will know about this), but usually they set up camps of workers, which could be small villages, laid railroad lines, and moved up steam engines to power wire lines, something like cable cars, to pull logs along the ground or across canyons to where they could be loaded on their own trains, or trucks, or both. The harvested logs would be shipped to a local saw-mill, usually owned by the logging company. Cost of transport dictated that these saw-mills be close by.

Clear-cutting left more or less a desert behind. Fire is part of the natural cycle and many plants take advantage of it to germinate, but clear-cutting devastates them all. In addition, the wildlife is driven off, crushed underfoot, or shot to be part of the loggers' diet.

The destruction of the forests of the Great Smoky Mountains, mostly by the Little River Lumber Company, my model for Sankgallon Gap Timber Company, (read more about the Little River Lumber Company) correctly appalled the local naturalists, and was one of the reasons they kick-started a campaign to establish a national park here. The forests you can see today in the park are almost completely second-growth. Forests can come back from clear-cutting, if given time and protection, although they are not the same. The Great Smoky Mountains survived (or did until the recent die-offs due to invasive pests and nearby pollution), but other great forests of the world, the Amazon being one of them, will only survive if humankind dies off or comes to its senses.

This interesting short article, worth reading, has more photographs of logging in the Great Smokies. Please also see the section on "Farming, Forestry, Timber Trade" in my bibliography.

 

As well as dozens of scales, Airey plays a number of studies and études, including:

Schradieck: exercise from Section 3, no. 12. Played by Steven Staryk.

Ševčík: Variation no.s 21-24, op. 2, part 2. Played by Steven Staryk.

Dont: Caprice no. 2, op. 25. Played by Steven Staryk.

Steven Staryk, a Canadian violinist, was and is shockingly under-known. I am truly grateful, as you can see, for the disc he produced of a number of études and teaching caprices. Read more about Steven Staryk.

 

Handel's Sonata in G major, HWV 358 for violin and continuo (here a cello and a harpsichord; just tune them out) played by Grygöry Pauk (YouTube). Rachel Barton Pine's version is faster, brighter and crisper, but she hasn't put it on YouTube.

Airey follows with Schubert's zippy "The Bee" (here with the inevitable piano):

Schubert: L'Abeille, from 12 Bagatelles, op. 13. Played by Alfredo Campoli:

She then plays the first movement of one of Leclair's violin sonatas, here in a lovely version (with piano):

Leclair: First Movement, from Sonata Op. 9, No. 3 in D Major. Played by Angèle Dubeau:

Albéniz: Malagueña from España, Op. 165, singingly played by Itzhak Perlman (YouTube). Airey learned this from one of Cecilia's records.

Chopin: Nocturne no. 2 in C sharp minor, here by Soojin Han (YouTube). Again, Airey heard this first on one of Cecilia's records. I myself think Chopin is daft on a violin, unless he composed for it, but who can blame violinists for wanting to play his music?

Bach: Adagio from Sonata No. 3 in C major, not often played as a solitary piece. Performed by Hilary Hahn (YouTube). [If you want to hear another master explaining this movement in detail, watch Rachel Barton Pine (YouTube).]

 

Alone in Mr Broeggen's cabin, Airey buries herself in scales and exercises, because she has not done her daily practice and even the Trump of Doom will not prevent the, She plays a study that matches her furious mood.

Wienwiawski: Étude-caprice Op. 10, No. 1 "Le sautillé". Played by Steven Staryk.

She tries to calm herself with Fiorillo: caprice no. 3 op. 3, here again played by Steven Staryk:

Cooling, but still tumultuous, she plays Wieniawski: étude-caprice Op 10, no. 7 (YouTube) and similar études, such as Fiorillo étude no. 14, op. 3 (YouTube).

She is playing Fiorillo's étude no. 28, op. 3 as Cecilia approaches, and finishes it as she comes in. Steven Staryk plays:

Airey describes being taught by Mr Broeggen. To see how a good violinist would teach a piece to a student, see this perhaps exhaustive video by Roy Sonne, teaching Mazas' étude no. 3 (YouTube), although Mr Broeggen had no metronome and finally no sheet music. Airey learned by ear and memory alone.

Mr Broeggen died just before she turned thirteen. I quote Henry Roth (p. 330): "A glimpse into the past reminds us that such artists as Kreisler, Huberman, Elman, Szigeti, Thibaud, Wieniawski and Paganini (among many others) had no formal violin training after the age of 12 or 13." Roth felt that this left the young musicians time to explore and create their own personal styles. Nowadays, with young musicians forced through the restrictive tubes of tutors, special music education courses, and competitions (I see these last as truly distorting and blighting to burgeoning talent), it's a wonder that any violinist can achieve a personal voice. Many don't.

 

The first music played is without Airey. The orchestra, led by Dr Neihoff, its concertmaster, and conducted by Jurevič, Airey's current teacher, plays a short concerto by Handel. I am fortunate in having a recording of this from 1936, when it was played with a fairly different approach to that used now:

Handel: Concerto Grosso no. 5, op. 6, played by the Boyd Neel Orchestra.

Airey comes onto the stage and plays a violin concerto not often performed in the early 20th century, but she has a reason, in the second movement, for playing it:

Tartini: Concerto for violin and strings, no. 2, op. 6, D196, played exquisitely by Piero Toso (soloist) and I Solisti Veneti. I'd even say he matches Airey—high praise.

Airey then plays Mozart's violin concerto no. 4 K218, which she first heard in the tobacco shed on Cecilia's records. Henry Roth (p. 91) speaks of Szigeti playing this concerto and says his "...is one of the finest interpretations of a work that is quite difficult to communicate to an audience." Airey is able to communicate as well or (IMHO) better than Szigeti. I offer my favourite version of this concerto, played by Rachel Barton Pine:
Mozart: Violin concerto no. 4:  1. Allegro
Mozart: Violin concerto no. 4:  2 Andante cantabile
Mozart: Violin concerto no. 4:  3 Rondeau (all YouTube).
Barton Pine composes and plays her own cadenzas, that is, the solo part where the violinist takes the music heard so far and plays around with it, exploring it, trying new things with various riffs, as if tasting it and finding its full flavour. This is what violinists of Mozart's time would have done, and I am glad to see the practice taken up again. If virtuosos simply play standard composed cadenzas, we never hear their thoughts. Airey plays the standard cadenzas here, written by J. Joachim and F. David; she is still a student.

After the intermission, Airey and the orchestra return to the stage. She plays Beethoven's Romance No. 2, op. 50 for violin and orchestra. I really like Renaud Capuçon's performance and it is on YouTube, but sadly as a private video. Fortunately, I also love this one:
Beethoven: Romance no. 2 played by Julia Fischer (YouTube)

Schubert's Concert Piece (Konzertstück) in D major, D345, follows. It starts almost primly, the violin very sedate, and then the violin decides to step up the pace.
Schubert: Konzertstück played by Pinchas Zuckerman (YouTube).

Cecilia wonders, when she hears the Romance by Dvořák, op. 11 coming from Airey's violin, what it could mean. My favourite performance is that of Itzhak Perlman, with Daniel Barenboim conducting. I love Dvořák, but he does need a firm hand.
Dvořák: Romance played by Perlman (YouTube).

Finally the main event arrives, the Violin Concerto no. 1 in A minor, Op.28, by Karl Goldmark. I realised that Airey would play this at her début rather than the Brahms concerto, my initial choice, when I realised that her first teacher, Kees Broeggen, himself débuted with it on his own first concert in the 1880s, and because the second slow movement, to me, captured so much of Airey's emotion, and finally because the first and third movements are showcases for the violin: they are insanely difficult to play well (or even to play badly). The third movement in particular is an enormous challenge: seconds and thirds (that is playing two or three strings together—not easy) coming relentlessly and in spiccato throughout. I personally don't like the sound, as I find it harsh and strident. If one thinks of this as 20th century dissonant music rather than 19th century romantic music, it works. As I note over and over in my Violin Discography, I have not found a single recording that sees the full score played as written by Goldmark. I admit there are a few longeurs, but some of the liberties taken have been absolutely shocking. Of all of the cropped versions, however, I think this, played by Hilary Hahn, captures in some sense what Goldmark thought he was giving to the world. It is a bit slow for me, more sadness than fury (which some other performers give), but very beautifully played, and with respect:
Goldmark: Violin Concerto no. 1 played by Hilary Hahn (YouTube).

In my head, I hear Airey's playing as very much more magisterial, which of course it would be, but with delicacy and deep feeling, and hers is a very different performance. If you want to hear what many people consider the definitive version, listen to: Goldmark: Violin Concerto no. 1 played by Nathan Milstein (YouTube).

This is the end of the concert, and Airey leaves the stage. But the audience will not let her go, and their applause summons her back. She has, over the past year, been learning all the well-known violin pieces she did not learn as a girl, for her teacher, Jurevič, warned her that she would need them tonight, so she is able to keep pulling out one after another of the great, famous show-stopping encores. First, however, as a salute to the previous year, she plays Tchaikovsky's Meditation from Souvenir d'un Lieu Cher ("Memory of a dear place") op. 42, here played by Isaac Stern. Airey's version is even more tender and intense.
Tchaikovsky: Meditation played by Isaac Stern (YouTube)

Then the fireworks start!

Encores

Airey kicks off with Wieniawski's Scherzo-Tarantelle, which is hard to find with orchestra and someone other than a nine-year-old student trying to win a prize, but this will do nicely:

Wieniawski: Scherzo-Tarantelle, op. 16. Played by Patrice Fontanarosa.

Airey follows that with Saint-Saëns: Introduction and Rondo Capriccio, op. 28, here played by Ruggiero Ricci. Don't get comfy during the slow beginning; things start hotting up.

I wanted to offer a version of Manuel de Falla's Danse Espagnole, from La Vita Breve played with violin and orchestra, but there were no YouTube versions I thought fit to link to. I was excited about one, then saw that the violinist had an electric violin, so that was a no. Therefore I offer Genette Neveu, with piano accompaniment, recorded in the late 1940s before her untimely death. This is a wonderful performance. Imagine Airey on stage with an orchestra behind her.

Falla: Danse Espagnole. Played by Genette Neveu.

From one part of Spain to another: Sarasate's Caprice Basque (or "Capricho Vasco"), for which I offer two versions, one with violin and orchestra:
Sarasate: Caprice Basque played by Ivan Pochelin (YouTube)
This is a perfectly good performance, but I think the following (with violin and piano) is incisive and exciting, and thus is closer to Airey's style, which really has her audience electrified:
Sarasate: Caprice Basque played by Leonid Kogan (YouTube)

Moving from Spain to Hungary, Airey plays:
Brahms: Hungarian Dance no. 5 rather showily played by Maxim Vengerov (YouTube).
Airey would have stuck to the tempo. Still, Vengerov's is a bravura performance.

Airey finishes with Tchaikovsky's Waltz Scherzo, played here by Victor Tretiakov.

When Airey has played the last of the encores she intends to play, she pauses and raises her violin again. Jurevič, immediately senses what is coming and hushes the orchestra. Airey plays the Préludio from Bach's Partita no. 3. Above (in Chapter One), I have offered a link both to Hilary Hahn's and Rachel Barton Pine's stunning performances of this. They are both young women; here is another, by an older woman:
Bach: Preludio from Partita no. 3 played by Midori Goto (YouTube)

 

Cecilia does not actively listen to the music Jurevič and Airey are playing. The music serves as background to her thoughts.

Alard: Duo no. 3, op. 27. Played by Alexandr Bulov and Ilya Gringolts.

Bartók: Six Romanian Dances played by David Oistrakh (YouTube). Jurevič and Airey take turns, Airey playing dance 2, 4 and 6 (at 1.1 6min, 3:06 min, and 5:19 min). I think each of her pieces reflects her rising inner turmoil very well.

They then play several of Wieniawski's étude-caprices. To respect "fair use", I offer only one here, but they also play 1b and 2b.

Wieniawski: Étude-Caprice no. 4. Played by Ilya Gringolts and Alexandr Bulov.

They move to a piece that might sound baroque, but the composer was only 43 when he died in 1916; Jurevič would have known him personally: Max Reger: No. 2 from Drei Duos played by two uncredited violinists (YouTube).

Telemann: Sonata for two violins no. 3. Played via some strange magic by Angèle Dubeau and Angèle Dubeau.

Sarasate: Navarra Op. 33 played by Paul Huang and Danbi Um (YouTube). A fun performance!

Jean-Marie Leclair: Sonata for two violins in E minor No. 5 Op. 3 played by Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman (YouTube).

Airey then plays by herself with the pianist (one of the Kehr Alumni who has been roped in to serve): Brahms: the Scherzo from the F-A-E Sonata, here played by Maxim Vengerov (YouTube). Airey's first Brahms for the public, but not the last.

Jurevič can see that Airey wants to escape, so he says that it is time for her adorers to let her get a breath of air, and she does. To stop anyone following her, he plays for the crowd a little longer: Manuel de Falla: Asturiana played by Nathan Milstein (YouTube), originally a song in Falla's Siete canciones populares españolas and Gabriel Fauré: Les Berceaux, no. 1, op. 23 played here by Arthur Grumiaux (YouTube), his choices suggesting his thoughts about what Airey might be going through.

 

Airey Fitch is Ara Fitsch. While I was writing this story, I felt haunted by a persistent sense that Airey had a different name than that which had come to me, or rather, a feeling that Cecilia (and I) were not clearly hearing her name, which was true: Cecilia doesn't, not until all clouds of ignorance, wrong-doing, and suffering are lifted, expiated, and expunged and she is able to hear. Realising that Airey's forebears came from Switzerland to the United States, as many Swiss people did after the flood and ebb of Napoleon and his wars, also made me realise that others from the Old Country would have followed their first brave friend and neighbour across the ocean to settle on the western slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains, and so all her neighbours have Swiss surnames, some anglicised.

When Cecilia glances at the programme during the intermission of Airey's concert in Montreal, she is so transfixed by Airey's name that she reads no further. Allow me to indulge myself by quoting the programme note here, to show that it really, really is Fitsch:

Miss Fitsch first studied under the late Kees Broeggen, leader of the Haverstatten Quartet and concertmaster of the Melita Symphony Orchestra. She then studied under the direction of Dr. Barukh Neihoff, music director of the Kehr Institute, former concertmaster of the Bremerstadt Kammerorchester, and currently holding the same position with the Kehr Chamber Orchestra. Miss Fitsch was recently accepted as a pupil by Marus Jurevič, under whose auspices she makes her Canadian début. Miss Fitsch has selected to play the Goldmark Violin Concerto in A minor, Opus 28, as a tribute to Kees Broeggen, who himself débuted with this concerto in Amsterdam in 1881.

Airey's name, "Ara" means "altar" and comes from an old Scottish name that would have come down her mother's family, "Ara Pacis" or "Altar of Peace". Luckily the "Pacis" was lost a few generations earlier. Her father was Gebhard Fitsch, her mother Bertha Lorimer. Their first born, a son, was called Friedrich, after Gebhard's father, "Fried" for short, which Cecilia mistakes for "Freed." Meretilda ("Meret" for short, although Cecilia hears "Merit"), was Gerhard's grandmother's name. The next daughter, Ara, was named after Bertha's mother, and the second son was given his mother's maiden name, which is Scottish (her family were latecomers). "Lorimer" means "spur-maker" and in many ways he spurs Airey on. Pola Negri, as is explained in Chapter Four, was named after the movie star, and Jabez was given that name because it means a third son, born of pain, "trouble, sorrow", for he was born while his father was dying and his mother facing absolute poverty.

The canton in Switzerland from which the pioneer Fitches came is called "Appenzell" and this was given as the name of the mountain. Over time, as the incomers lost their fluency in German, saw it shift to "Applesell". The town of Heresy is named after the town of Herisau in this canton. Hinterhouse is the English version of "Hinterhaus", actually the name of two very small settlements, not more than crossroads, high up in the Alps. See one of them on Google maps, and you will understand how congenial the Great Smoky Mountains would have been to the early Swiss immigrants. The made-up county in which I have set Fittes Cove I gave the name of Halden, from Halden, which is near the small city of St Gall. And that city, variously called St Gall, Saint Gallen, or Sankt Gallen, is the city of the canton of St Gallen, which surrounds Appenzell (and between which, through history, there was no love lost). The city sits just above Lake Constance and stands at the exit of the route down from the high Alpine areas. Its name was given to the gap that the first Fitches used when they crossed the mountain in 1822 and entered into what became Fittes Cove (and which was given the name "Sankt Gallen Gap", eventually becoming "Sankgallon Gap"). The first Fitsches bought an entire land parcel from the original gainer of the the land grant. Fittes Cove is roughly, somewhat, sort of, in the area of and at the elevation of Elkmont (which is not a cove). Elkmont is now within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Other Swiss names include "Susy-lassie", the Fitsch family's cow, a much earlier cow having been called "Zuverlässig", that is "Reliable" and the name transmuted as it was given to succeeding cows. She is a milking shorthorn, almost pure roan, with white on face and front, a breed familiar in Switzerland. The surnames of the people living in Fittes (= Fitsch) Cove are all Swiss, some in their original spellings, such as Keller, Dettwiler, and Huber, and some slightly anglicised, such as Martin for Marten, Jacklin for Jecklin, Labhard for Labhardt, Stockly for Stockli, and so on. The English surname "Fitch" that people assume is the Fitsch family name means "javelin," a type of spear.

The characters not on the mountain have no Swiss connection. I will mention, because it was such an amazing coincidence, that Port Souch, the pastor, has a surname that means "stump" as in tree-stump. I did not know this when I chose the name, but how apt. "Cecilia" is the modern form of an ancient Roman female name, of the class of wealthy senators, naturally.