The donation of a Steinway grand, prompted this month’s 1 st concert and I was the invited VIP soloist …but when i n rehearsal, the music that came out of a tired orchestra hardly sounded like Beethoven, I wondered whether I was really in Germany! In desperation, although tempted to giving up, I had long discussions with the friendly conductor and in the end, Music won!

Most of you may not be aware that I spent three years studying in Paris in the late 60s. So when Intrada chose the Salle Cortot for my recital of a Franco-Brazilian program to solidify the release of our “Alma Brasileira” CD (last month) it felt strangely coincidental: it was there that Tagliaferro, my teacher, presented her yearly master classes entitled “Les couleurs dans l’harmonie”, attracting young pianists from all over the world. Among her many devotees was Bernard Gavoty, famous musicologist who never missed any occasion to be inspired by Magda, she of the flame-red-hair! As an impressionable teenager I spent many of those marvellous evenings soaking up every nuance of her imaginative attitude to music. It was also in this same venue that I competed through the earlier rounds of the 8 th M.T. International Piano Competition and at 18 years of age, went on to win my 1 st Grand Prix.

So it was with great emotion that I re-entered that cosy stage of my youth. An audience more reduced than one wished for took me by surprise and the first group of pieces by Guarnieri was somehow delivered in an atypically cool manner. But it wasn’t long before I found myself in my luminous Debussy and with Vianna’s passionate pieces, got to the end of the 1 st half. A gorgeous instrument and great acoustics are just what I need to commune totally with the music I perform; that interval never seemed to end! Then came my ‘old friend’ Fernandez’ Suite Brasileira # 2, partly responsible for my win at the Van Cliburn, followed by some kaleidoscopic Ravel. On my 1 st ever Parisian 14 Juillet, this the Year of Brazil in France, I had seen the Tour Eiffel light up in the Brazilian colours of golden-yellow and green, un unforgettable vision, and ending this recital with Villa-Lobos’ boisterous ‘Festa no sertão’ became ‘Festa em Paris’: I like to imagine him chuckling at my cheeky liberty!

The lady who interviewed me at her very popular radio-show, revealed how when very young, she had come across my LPs of the complete Piano and Orchestra works by Mendelssohn, playing them so often that she just about wore them down! French music lovers tell me of great emotions when listening to my pianism and find quite strange that my career hasn’t embraced their country…But I feel that day will come!

Well, all the hype I had lived through recently, caused a slight mistiming of the preparations for a new Rachmaninov-Brahms program and the day of the 1 st recital arrived rather too quickly for my taste. ‘Face the music’ I did but mainly due to guts; after all, unless unable to walk to the piano SOS Ortiz would never cancel! At least, Brahms’ F minor Sonata came to my rescue and I very much enjoyed playing in The Stables, new venue, since I’d been!

During some free days, I attended the première of a Concerto for piano and strings by Arturo Cuellar, a recently acquired friend -- the 2 nd movement in slow-samba is especially nice. Afterwards, we went for lobster with champagne…and then salsa: composer, wine-connaisseur and art-collector, this Colombian is also a very good dancer! The next evening my husband and I had scheduled a rare social dinner at home to celebrate the launch of yet another company to his belt, over which a guest hearing that I was going to play in Haarlem, mentioned the wonderful exhibit of 90 of Michelangelo’s sketches brought together by the local Teylers Museum! Travelling on the day of a performance, doesn’t leave much spare-time or so I thought, until Neil, the promoter of the concert series, promptly managed to organise a private visit, the venue in question being literally next to the Concert Hall. The young and enthusiastic curator’s instructions were not to miss the virtual display of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And magical indeed it was: chosen details of the master’s genius are picked, drawn out from their spot for closer inspection, then ‘flown’ back and superimposed into place! Rather inspired by the lucky break, my recital was filled with unusual joy! I also had the surprise visit of Elizabeth, a Dutch friend with whom I had lived in NY, in the 70s, and this time, our trip was down memory-lane!

I then taught a couple of enjoyable lessons, then I went with my husband to our haven in the Gironde where we spent some gorgeous days (the weather is rather fabulous at this time of the year); all there was left for me to do this month, was to dive head-first into Villa-Lobos’ score of the Choros # 11: a work filled with hundreds – and I mean, hundreds -- of ideas, as yet unscrambled by me. About time too: the 3 performances scheduled in the wonderful Sala São Paulo, were approaching rather quickly!