Tuba every day
Anyway, despite this rather carefree and somewhat free and easy existence and despite often coming home late (Well of course! The sirens! I mean the air-raid sirens!) I still didn’t forget to practise the tuba hard. Every day I sacrificed several hours to long notes, crescendo and diminuendo, exercises transposed from the Arban trumpet tutor and orchestral excerpts, which requires that I say — today, 45 years too late — a sincere thank you to my neighbours, who never protested although this practice had only the most remote connection with what is generally described as music! Longinotti came to my house and I went to his; he criticised, suggested, advised and even had a blow, much to the dismay of his wife Lucy, who would take refuge in the adjoining kitchen amid the din of the pots and pans hanging along one wall, which started to jump for joy when we reached certain critical frequencies.
Ansermet hears me
Although this practice was intensive, it did not make me confident of being up to the standard of a good symphony orchestra tuba player. Who better to tell me that than my boss, Ernest Ansermet himself?
So he very kindly arranged a meeting with me at his house, where I arrived with — in addition to my tuba — the most important orchestral passages (Bydlo, Petrushka, Fantastic Symphony, Faust Overture) as well as a transcription of a Bach cello suite. Anxious not to miss anything I erred on the side of safety by economising on dynamics, which my boss did not omit to point out to me, although with a good humour I did not know he had. And then he launched into one of his inimitable speeches.
What can I say, Gros? When you have tooth-ache, you pull the tooth! The OSR tuba chair will be yours in no time. But with the whole of France occupied it’s difficult for me to send L. [the wine-bibber] home just like that. All the French players in the orchestra would have it in for me.
This was when I had to remind him of the purpose of my visit, namely: approval or disapproval of this new direction in my life, not an attempt to steal anyone’s job.
Edouard Gros
The road to Berne
I went home feeling reassured, proud, happy and a bit above myself. Very shortly after that decisive interview I learned that the Berne Symphony Orchestra was advertising the bass tuba job. As soon as I had applied and got my invitation, I went to Berne, to the conservatoire where the conductors Luc Balmer and Walter Kägi had me play, by way of sight-reading, the very same old passages which you know by heart anyway. With my retreat to Geneva safe I could allow myself the luxury (rare in such circumstances) of playing without nerves — and I won.
For the first time in my life I was to have an annual contract with paid holiday and — get this — salary guaranteed in the event of military service. There was also a retirement fund (embryonic, it is true) whereas the very mention of such a thing in Geneva would have been unthinkable. And my father, the double-bass player? Remember, the man who wanted his son to be a civil servant, taken care of for life? How happy he was going to be! You can forgive his being so keen on security if you remember that in his day life for restaurant, hotel, cinema and even symphony orchestra musicians was not a bowl of cherries. The words “holidays”, “paid leave” and “sickness” were not in their vocabulary. That’s why Dad could only count on one day, one single day of paid leave a year — Christmas Day! But — to justify this generosity and to prevent this free time from being ill used the orchestra in question was asked to give a concert for the patients of the Lausanne canton hospital on Christmas Day! Charity to order and, at the same time, excellent publicity for the generous employers. It was quite a system and that’s why Dad really did work 365 days a year.
I nearly forgot to mention that my wife’s family was going to be just as reassured as my musician father! These good people had been most upset when their daughter married a mountebank; our day-to-day existence was beyond their comprehension.
And that, finally, is how my career — uncertain, sometimes so difficult, but so often exciting — ended, which also means the end of this story since you now know, dear readers, as you were promised, “How and why I became a musician”.
I was to have the pleasure of playing with the most prestigious conductors and soloists. Weingartner, Furtwängler, Karajan, Cortot, Casals, Isaac Stern, Menuhin, Pierre Fournier — they are all there in my fond memories. During my 32 years in Berne deputy work often took me to Geneva, of course, but also to Zurich and to Basle, where dear old Mr. Backhaus had died. All that helped to make life a little more comfortable and the international music festival in Lucerne enabled me to meet and socialise with the best musicians in our little country. As for now, every day I give thanks to my father, who had the good sense to buy a bit of vineyard in 1914 right beside the most beautiful lake in the world. That’s where I live in peace and quiet with the roses and vegetables which my dog enjoys helping me to grow. An old E♭ bass planted at the edge of the garden makes the passers-by say, “Look, a flowering trombone!”