Olga Rudge & Ezra Pound: "What Thou Lovest Well..."

111 Rare and Unforgettable Concerts
no great casino, the rich carry elsewhere their strenuous lives.’’ Pound
envisioned this provincial town as a ‘‘laboratory, specializing in works not
being done in the heavily moneyed centers.’’ In the Great Depression,
many wealthy patrons had withdrawn their support of performing artists,
and Pound recognized that ‘‘the problem of Rapallo is the problem of
raising money.’’ In 1932, he organized the Amici del Tigullio, a local
group taking its name from the Gulf surrounding it. The Stagione Musicale
did not begin in earnest until a year later. Ezra himself wrote and
distributed broadsides and posters, persuaded the editor of the Rapallo
newspaper, Il Mare, to donate advertising space, and dropped in at hotels
to hand out flyers about the recreational advantages of the Riviera di
Levante. As an additional lure to tourists, he persuaded the railroads to
o√er a 20 percent reduction in round-trip excursion fares.
Father Desmond Chute, the resident Anglican priest, recalled: ‘‘Fanned
by his [Pound’s] unflagging enthusiasm, rare and unforgettable little concerts
sprang up, according to the frequency and incidence of musicians. . . .
The season started under the sign of Mozart, all of whose sonatas were
played at least once. One remembers blocks of music.’’ In Ezra’s words,
‘‘the Mozart fiddle sonatas are possibly the kernel of his whole musical
thought. The only way to get a clear concept of Mozart’s form is to hear
the series all together.’’
The first concert of the announced Mozart Week took place June 26,
1933, at the Teatro Reale, the local cinema, under the patronage of the
Marchesa Solferina Spinola, the Comte de Robilant, Mrs. Ephra Townley,
and other prominent members of the expatriate colonies. Olga was joined
by a cellist from the nearby town of Chiavari, Marco Ottone, and the parttime
conductor of the municipal orchestra, violinist Luigi Sansoni. Pound
touted the performance in Il Mare, the local newspaper: ‘‘The American
violinist Olga Rudge showed her mastery of technique with great richness
of tone. . . . Judging by last night’s audience, music has come to stay in
Rapallo.’’ ‘‘My only interest in getting these programs together is to get
some work for Olga,’’ he wrote Tibor Serly.
At the end of the first concert, after the applause and taking her bows,
Olga retired to the little room backstage with a large basket of red roses,
the gift of Mercedes de Codina, a friend of the Duncans who lived in a