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Liszt lived, and be his student. Another student of Magdi, Can Karatay is perhaps the person who
knows the most about Magdi’s background as a pianist. He became her student in 1965 when he was
going to high school and kept his close contact with her for forty two years until her death. They had
even resumed their lessons for the last two years of her life. For him she was a “goddess”. It was in
their house with Sabahattin Bey that he met many important literary figures and artists.
Unfortunately after the 1971 cout d’etat, some of these people were arrested for forming an illegal
communist organisation. Although they were acquitted later, Magdi and Sabahattin Bey were in jail
for about four months. It was there that she developed “Reynaud”. 23 This was the end of her career
as a pianist as her fingers were suffering from the disease. The loss of Sabahattin Bey at the
beginning of 1973 was another blow. Her life became more secluded. She had more private students.
She would open her house every year on January 13, in memory of Sabahattin Eyüboğlu. There
would be people who were coming to the Monday meetings in the fifties and the sixties, members of
Eyüboğlu family, her nephew Ueli, her frindes, and her students.
It was a privilege for her students to get acquainted to Magdi’s and Sabahattin Bey’s friends. Ueli
had once said to me that whoever got to know Magdi was so much under her spell, that they would
never forget her. What about her career as a pianist? Can Karatay recounts having asked her once
about not becoming known as a pianist. Her reply was that one needed an impresario for that and
money for the impresario. Neither existed then. She was known in a very small circle of minorities in
Turkey and was also known in Switzerland since she played contemporary Swiss composers. Moser
(1882‐1978), Fernande Peyrot (1888‐1978), Honegger (1892‐1955), Moeschinger (1897‐1985), Mieg
(1906‐1990), Staempfli (1908‐2002), Hirsbrunner (1931‐2010), Kelterborn (1931‐) are those names
whose works she has played. I have contacted Rudolf Kelterborn to find out if they knew each other,
but to my disappointment he did not know Magdi. He was curious about which pieces she played but
all I could tell him was the dates of two recordings; the first one being on September 27, 1960 for the
Istanbul radio and the next on February 6, 1961 for Radio III in Paris. But perhaps this was part of the
mystery encompassing her unknown existence as a pianist. Another friend who cannot forget Magdi
is Uğurtan Aksel, a harpist. Had she heard Magdi play? No! She had met her at the well known
Monday evening gatherings. Yet, Magdi had told her that if it were not for Cemal Reşit Rey 24 , she
would have a place as a pianist in Turkey. His opinion was influential in the fifties. When I inquired
about this piece of information, a professor at the state conservatory affirmed it, saying that she had
heard it, too. Had they heard that Magdi Rufer had decided to move to Turkey after spending two
summers here where she had to go to friends’ houses to practice the piano?
There is an anecdote Nazan İpşiroğlu has told. When she had first heard about Magdi, a student of
Lazare Lévy, someone she also admired, Magdi and Sabahattin were thinking about getting married.
But what was to become of her career. Her not being able to practice the piano while she was in
Istanbul was a problem. We know from Sabahattin Bey’s letters that she was practicing the piano for
eight hours in Paris. So Nazan Hanım suggested that Magdi practice at her piano when she came.
Magdi was so excited when she came to them for the first time. The minute she saw the Steinway,
she sat down to play Grieg’s piano concerto with its rumbling passages. 25
Another period she was away from her piano was when she was in prison in 1971. She was in the
women’s ward with Tilda Kemal, 26 Azra Erhat, 27 some young girls, mostly political. Tilda was busying
herself with translating Ortadirek (The Wind from the Plain), Azra Erhat had decided to write her
memories as letters to her niece Gülleyla. Magdi did not have her piano to practice. She got ill and
was taken to hospital. When she returned, busying herself with a beautiful white female cat lifted
her spirits a little. They were joking about the cat bringing her fiancé in. This got them into trouble
when she wrote about the cat in a letter to her mother about her hiding the fiancé in the gym. At
night, the officials came in with the letter, a few words underlined. Azra Erhat who knew German
sorted the matter out. There is another amusing anecdote from the same ward. One of their ward
friends, a girl with a good education, once says, “Who is this Sabahattin Eyüboğlu anyway?”
Apparently, he was busying himself in the men’s ward making windmills, an activity he kept doing all
his life.
He would send them to the women’s ward. So Magdi, replied, “A toy maker!” 28