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| Author: | julieanne1811 [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 4:43 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Nina - A Genius? |
I've just thought of this after reading a post on Lines Unlikely ... doesn't it seem odd that if Nina really was a true genius at the piano, it was rather odd to send her to the Chalet School? Shouldn't she have been sent to real music school? How well would the Chalet School have been able to help her and equip her specifically for the life she was aiming for? I mean, I know they went on about her needing general maths and so on, but surely her piano education would have suffered with her not being at a specialist music school? Perhaps her music teachers at the Chalet were keen to have a finger in the pie of being partly resonsible for her expertise, but would they really have been the best teachers for her? And if they were the best, I wonder how they felt about having to teach many more 'normal' school girls the piano .... |
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| Author: | whitequeen [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 4:51 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
That's a good point, and to turn that the other way round, quite a lot of girls are taught by Grizel, who really *isn't* a musical genius and would prefer not to do it. That can't be good for the girls who have a passion, any more than it would be good (or at least enjoyable) for a mistress with a passion to have to teach someone who was really ungifted and only learning because their parents made them. |
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| Author: | Cosimo's Jackal [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 5:30 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
I was actually thinking along the same lines, but I was more wondering what kind of education an equivalently talented UK fifteen year old would ideally get today, if money were no object...? Presumably a specialist school, and would she be assumed to be likely to go on to study music at third level somewhere like the Guildhall or a university with a good music department that does performance studies? Those are ferociously competitive these days, with all kinds of requirements about exam results and secondary instrument proficiency or voice training, as well as your main instrument etc. The more I think of it, the less likely to suit Nina the CS set-up is - EBD focuses almost entirely on Nina having time to practice in the CS timetable, but really, at this early stage in her training, she would be at least as focused on her teaching, and someone focused and highly-strung like Nina would be enormously - and rightly - fussy about how good her teacher was. She would want to learn from the very best possible teacher, not just an ordinary teacher at a girls' boarding school, especially as she's also interested in learning composition, as well as performance... But that's slightly fudged in Genius - we're told Mr Denny will teach her composition, and she'll attend his singing classes with the rest, but in terms of actual piano teaching, the only actual arrangement mentioned is a single hour a week from a piano teacher who commutes to the Platz on the weekends because his wife in in the San...? Does that mean she only has a single hour of actual piano training a week - with a man who's understandably primarily concerned about his sick wife - or are we to assume she also has lessons with the ordinary CS music staff...? |
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| Author: | Finn [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 5:41 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
Cosimo's Jackal wrote: Does that mean she only has a single hour of actual piano training a week - with a man who's understandably primarily concerned about his sick wife - or are we to assume she also has lessons with the ordinary CS music staff...? Miss Denny will have done it - she's a wonder, that woman. She probably taught her Spanish or Russian at the same time! 
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| Author: | Alison H [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 6:06 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
If she was that good, I'd've thought she'd've been better at the sort of set-up we get in some of Noel Streatfeild's books. She does have lessons with the pianist with the sick wife - was he called Ernst von Eberhardt or something like that? - but, although she seems to spend a lot of time practising, she doesn't get that much tuition or supervision. |
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| Author: | Cosimo's Jackal [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 6:26 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
Alison H wrote: She does have lessons with the pianist with the sick wife - was he called Ernst von Eberhardt or something like that? - but, although she seems to spend a lot of time practising, she doesn't get that much tuition or supervision. That's his name - she already knows him because he taught her for a while when she and her father were living in the US, I think. But he seems to only teach her for a single hour a week, ten to eleven on Saturday mornings according to Miss Dene's timetable, when he's on the Platz to visit his wife at the San (he's clearly based somewhere else during the week) which seems like a very skewed weekly ratio of teaching to practising, if Nina has four hours practice a day and only one hour's lesson a week! I tend to also think that the label of School Musical Genius is probably not a helpful one, though probably inevitable in an ordinary school - which is another thing that would be different in a music school where Nina would have other very good pianists in training to measure herself against. Although EBD rather likes her 'geniuses' highly-strung and anomalous, whereas someone like Noel Streatfeild is terribly realistic about the hard grind and ordinariness of acting or being a musician or circus performer, and Antonia Forest shows us that Lawrie's brilliant performance as the Shepherd Boy comes from an immature, rather dim girl who is not only an atheist but had never realised anyone believed in Christianity! |
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| Author: | Mel [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 6:36 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
Would there have been such schools in the 1950s/1960s? I wonder if the thinking might have been not to 'force' young talent as you see in Elfrida Vipont's 'Lark' books and also in Streatfeild's Apple Bough where young Sebastian is made to go on gruelling tours. |
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| Author: | Pado [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 7:19 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
In fairness, my youngest, who studies music but is by no means a genius  , begins university/conservatory this fall. She'll be expected to practice 4-6 hours a day and will have one hour-long lesson each week. (There will, however, be other ensembles and lessons along the way.)
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| Author: | Elder in Ontario [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 7:58 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
I don't know for sure about schools which specialised in musical training in the 50s and 60s, although I *think* that Dartington Hall School did and possibly Cheethams? - think that was the name- in Manchester, though that may have been more for singing. Of course, there were also choir schools in many cathedral cities, where the boys were trained to sing in church choirs as well as carrying on with their general eduation. However, I *do* know that the Arts Educational Trust Schools had two branches, one in London and one out at Tring, where teenagers with theatrical talent could get stage training along with their ordinary school work - I think they went up to 'A' level. Not sure if those were co-ed or not. However, on the whole, however talented a pupil was in music or in drama, (and believe me, I was at school with several who went on to study music or acting after leaving school - Dame Judi Dench was a few years ahead of me!!) the main emphasis at least to 'O' level at that period was on a good general education, plus the opportunity for extra practice periods for music, or taking part in school dramas. As far as I recall, no-one had more than a 40 minute piano or other instrument lesson a week. I think that Chalet School authorities were extremely generous with the extra allowances they made for Nina, both for extra practice times, and for only continuing with lessons which would be really useful to her, even though she herself would have preferred to have more practice time. Certainly having an actual lesson only once a week would have been the norm, and she knew she was lucky in being able to learn with Ernst von Eberhardt. Sorry, didn't mean to write an essay!!! |
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| Author: | emma t [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 8:09 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
I suppose that because she had not spent too much time in normal school (if you can call the Chalet School normal!) her cousin probably thought she needed a bit more sympathy than a music school could offer, and that she might have been too young to join a music college, thought you do have a good point! |
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| Author: | julieanne1811 [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 8:32 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
Gay practises for two hours a day (although she says her music-master would make her do six hours a day if he could) and she's not a genius. It's just that Nina is presented as this Genius and yet has the same teachers as anyone else. Perhaps that's why she was a bit highly-strung? She was right to think that 'they don't understand'! |
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| Author: | Alison H [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 8:51 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
Elder in Ontario wrote: and possibly Cheethams? - think that was the name- in Manchester Chetham's, after Sir Humphrey Chetham who founded the hospital/orphanage in which the school was originally set up . AFAIK it didn't become a specialist music school until the late '60s, but I'd think that somewhere like that - presumably there must have been places which existed as specialist music schools in the '50s - would have suited Nina much better than the CS. I understand the idea of wanting to give her a rounded education and not push her too much (what would have happened had she not made it as a professional pianist?), but she only seemed to be interested in music anyway.
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| Author: | Miss Di [ Mon Aug 16, 2010 12:25 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
My sister (also not a genius) attended Sydney Conservatorium High School. They had to have a minimum of two instruments so maybe Nina wouldn't have gotten in 
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| Author: | RoseCloke [ Mon Aug 16, 2010 10:20 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
Alison H wrote: I understand the idea of wanting to give her a rounded education and not push her too much (what would have happened had she not made it as a professional pianist?), but she only seemed to be interested in music anyway. Isn't there a heavy suggestion early in the book that her general education has been neglected in favour of music? It doesn't (IIRC) seem to impact on her form placing but before she arrives at the CS it seems to be a major concern of her uncle's. Guy Rutherford also cites Margia Stevens as one of his reasons for sending Nina to the CS, presumably because she turned out okay so Nina would too, which seems a little presumptuous! I like the idea that the CS thought about what she would do on plane journeys and how she would manage her finances but she does seem to lack other-than-solitary music practise. She's in the orchestra but the orchestra only seems to form before concerts or plays and there's never any mention of other music groups. At my very-bog-standard school, where none of us were genii (although one went to a conservatoire), we had at least thirty minutes a week tuition and mandatory attendance in at least one music group. If you were unlucky enough to play a wind or brass instrument then you could count on orchestra and wind group/jazz band. (Our music teacher was worse than Grizel so it was an unholy nightmare! We lost count of the girls she made cry  ) It seems that Nina, although her instrument is the piano, received a very one-dimensional musical education. As others have said, she would surely have been expected to have an understanding of at least one other instrument, as well as experience playing with a variety of ensembles.
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| Author: | Alison H [ Mon Aug 16, 2010 10:26 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
She ends up conducting the orchestra in one of the books, when Mr Denny's ill. Being of a rather uncultured nature  , my knowledge of the workings of orchestras is largely based on the doubtless totally accurate and realistic works of Jilly Cooper, but I assume that being a genius at the piano wouldn't necessarily mean you'd be able to conduct an orchestra and that therefore Nina must've been getting some sort of other musical tuition, but it's all pretty vague  .
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| Author: | RoseCloke [ Mon Aug 16, 2010 10:53 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
Alison H wrote: She ends up conducting the orchestra in one of the books, when Mr Denny's ill. Being of a rather uncultured nature , my knowledge of the workings of orchestras is largely based on the doubtless totally accurate and realistic works of Jilly Cooper, but I assume that being a genius at the piano wouldn't necessarily mean you'd be able to conduct an orchestra and that therefore Nina must've been getting some sort of other musical tuition, but it's all pretty vague .One of the most miserable forty five minute sections of my life occurred when the music teacher appointed a sixth form violinist to conductor (I think to gain experience for her A level/future uni course) thus promoting me to first violin She managed well with sections we'd already practised - even when you're concentrating on your music you can hear when others go wrong/what they should be doing - but when trying to teach us a new piece came completely unstuck and the music teacher stepped in from the sidelines to hurl vitriol at me and the oboist who had the heaviest parts. It was a definite Herr Laubach moment. From what I can remember the conductor's music looks completely different from regular sheet music. IIRC EBD mentions that they were familiar with the pieces beforehand so she should have held it together reasonably well and her theory lessons with Mr Denny should have prepared her for reading conductor's music. Even if she didn't understand the sheets she could maybe have imitated him from memory. Keeping her head enough to play that music when the fire is going on (am I remembering correctly?) is something that's a bit out of the ordinary. |
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| Author: | hilarita [ Mon Aug 16, 2010 7:53 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
I seem to recall that she's also doing music theory (and possibly also the conducting training?) with Mr Denny, and obviously the class singing lessons (which appear and disappear mysteriously from the books depending on plot!). So there's probably some more 'hidden' training going on that we don't see. But, as has been remarked above, the school does seem quite short of music groups - there's a choir mentioned from time to time, and the orchestra, but no smaller groups. Even my small independent school had a 'chamber choir', and my bigger public school had school choir, orchestra, chamber group, as well as house versions of the same, a clarinet choir... So where's the Chalet School chamber group? Or are they all too busy playing tennis, making stuff for the Sale..? |
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| Author: | Cosimo's Jackal [ Mon Aug 16, 2010 8:23 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
hilarita wrote: But, as has been remarked above, the school does seem quite short of music groups - there's a choir mentioned from time to time, and the orchestra, but no smaller groups. Even my small independent school had a 'chamber choir', and my bigger public school had school choir, orchestra, chamber group, as well as house versions of the same, a clarinet choir... So where's the Chalet School chamber group? Or are they all too busy playing tennis, making stuff for the Sale..? The CS has a slightly odd attitude to clubs etc - the Hobbies Club appears to be the only 'official' club that rates a mention, and there's no indication the school orchestra or choir actually exist outside the run-up to and performances of various entertainments (there are certainly never any regular weekly practices we hear about, as you'd expect in a book about an intensely musical girl arriving at the CS) despite the presence of some very committed music staff like Mr Denny. And to be honest, Hobbies doesn't even need to be a club for any reason I can see - it's just people getting on with their knitting/fretwork/carving etc! I always find it quite strange when there's a spot of bad weather and someone says they'd better 'ask Miss Annersley whether they can call a session of the Hobbies Club' in the afternoon! Plus there's the fact that in Genius at least - and in some other books - there are also handcrafts lessons, which makes having a Hobbies Club seem rather like overkill, when there don't seem to be any other outlets? I can never quite decide why EBD doesn't invent a few other clubs or societies to just be in the background of the action - is it because, despite all the talk of free time and lack of supervision, she's suspicious of them, even if it was something as 'respectable' as a chamber group or a chess or nature study club...? |
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| Author: | Loryat [ Wed Aug 18, 2010 1:53 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
I can see Nina going to the CS because her family aren't, at that time, fully engaged with the idea of Nina becoming a musician. They porbably wouldn't fancy the idea of sending her to a school that was strictly devoted to music (did these schools even exist in the fifties?) and see the CS as a compromise between Nina's wishes and theirs. It also makes sense to give a girl with such a fixation as Nina an ordinary school experience for a while, since she's rarely mixed with people her own age. When it comes to Nina's music lessons, my youngest brother is at a music school that's attached to a state school and he only gets two one hour lessons a week - one in each of his instruments. But there are also music group commitments, theory lessons and music appreciation. So it sounds pretty much like Nina's timetable. That said, he is a bit younger than her and not a genius either! I assume that the CS has an orchestra, it's just not mentioned much in the books. Same with a choir. |
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| Author: | Miriam [ Wed Aug 18, 2010 8:56 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
Yes, for Nina I would se the CS as her social education, while maintaining her musical standards. All her life until her father dies, she has had him as her almost exclusive companion, with very limited interaction with other people, and certainly no school experience. She has never been exposed to any other views, consider other peoples priorities, or had any dealings with people who don't consider music the most important thing in life. When she starts on her career, and if she ever wants to have any kind of social life, she will have to deal with all these things. On the other hand, music will always be her priority, and will be the guiding force in all her human interactions. I think that Sir Guy comes to understand this to some extent - he realizes that the school that his daughters go to will be unsuitable for Nina, however good a school it is. The CS is a good compromise for her at this stage. she learns to live and deal with people, and recognize that people matter as much as music - which probably helps her career quite a lot. At the same time she is provided with ample practice time, and excellent teaching - maybe more limited than in a specialist school, but enough to maintain and challenge her standards. Being at the CS helps her to become a much more balanced person than we see at the beginning of the book. Having said that, she is only at the CS for two or three years. She leaves when she is sixteen or seventeen, to go and study music (in Florence?). If she really was that talanted, to spend her whole school life at the CS might not have been the best chioce, but for a few years it served her excellently. |
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| Author: | julieanne1811 [ Wed Aug 18, 2010 9:33 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
Miriam wrote: At the same time she is provided with ample practice time, and excellent teaching - maybe more limited than in a specialist school, but enough to maintain and challenge her standards. But, you see, that's my question ... would the music teaching be 'excellent' in terms of teaching a musical genius? It was 'excellent' for the normal, everyday girl, but I wonder how it was, really, for Nina ... |
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| Author: | Len [ Wed Aug 18, 2010 9:44 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
Tristram Denny was said to be a pretty decent composer, wasn't he, as well as singer and conductor? So all in all (thanks for the enlightening comments of those who know about real music studies) the CS seems to me to have been a pretty good option for Nina. |
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| Author: | c8bt [ Wed Aug 18, 2010 10:50 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
julieanne1811 wrote: Miriam wrote: At the same time she is provided with ample practice time, and excellent teaching - maybe more limited than in a specialist school, but enough to maintain and challenge her standards. But, you see, that's my question ... would the music teaching be 'excellent' in terms of teaching a musical genius? It was 'excellent' for the normal, everyday girl, but I wonder how it was, really, for Nina ... I suspect that's why there is the point made that she has already spent some time learning with the tutor she gets at the CS - and how lucky she feels to be able to work with him again ie he was felt to be a suitable teacher by her father. Plus it emphasises how she is different from the other girls, because they don't need an extra teacher from outside the school. |
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| Author: | Loryat [ Thu Aug 19, 2010 3:42 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
julieanne1811 wrote: But, you see, that's my question ... would the music teaching be 'excellent' in terms of teaching a musical genius? It was 'excellent' for the normal, everyday girl, but I wonder how it was, really, for Nina ... She gets a man who comes up specially to give lesons. Nina admires him, so he must be all right. |
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| Author: | Cosimo's Jackal [ Thu Aug 19, 2010 6:58 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
I agree that the visiting teacher is clearly well up to Nina's (no doubt exacting) standards - in that he was originally chosen as suitable by her father. It does seem a somewhat makeshift arrangement, though - he just happens to be on the Platz at weekends to visit his wife at the San. One wonders what happens if she recovers and leaves, or dies...? But more than that, I was thinking about the CS accepting Nina as a pupil in the knowledge that she needed a higher level of piano teaching than the CS music staff could give her - the scenario (unusually talented girl arrives at 'ordinary' school) reminded me of the final (I think) MT book where Amanda the sports star and Olympic hopeful arrives at MT and finds its games arrangements inadequate, compared to her old school which specialised in sport. It's a different situation, obviously, but I wondered whether the CS would have accepted Nina and then tried to find her a suitable teacher, or whether they only accepted her because they knew of a suitable teacher who could give her lessons when visiting the Platz...? It always seems to me very EBD (in a quite endearing way!) that she never breathes a hint that the CS might feel a bit sheepish at their own relatively ordinary musical offerings as seen by a musical 'genius'. I mean, I can imagine in real life that it might be quite awakward for an 'ordinary' music mistress like Miss Lawrence to have a fifteen year old who far surpasses her musically in every way at the school - it's not the same for Plato, teaching her theory etc - and I tend to think it's a pity that Grizel has left before Nina arrives, because that might have created interesting fireworks!
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| Author: | Alison H [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 7:41 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
I suppose really it was up to a girl's parents or guardians, rather than the school, to make sure that she had the appropriate teachers for anything that went a long way over and above normal school level. Nina's uncle, whilst we're told that he doesn't really know that much about music, chooses the CS rather than sending Nina to his daughters' school because he thinks it'll cater better for her musical needs, which suggests that he'd discussed the issue with Hilda before making the decision. It's very convenient that Sir Guy and Nina just happen to end up sharing a carriage on a train with girls from a school which has an expert violinist living close to it, but such is life in books .One of the girls - Ailsa Thompson? - feels demoralised because she practises hard and yet she feels that her own playing looks very poor next to Nina's, but it would definitely've been interesting to see Miss Lawrence feeling awkward because Nina was better than her. & there must have been plenty of times when mistresses who weren't Old Girls struggled to find the right words in foreign languages and felt embarrassed because the girls spoke those languages better than they did. That's one of the reasons I think New Mistress is one of the best Swiss books: we do actually see a mistress feeling a bit nervy and unsure of herself rather than the staff being all-perfect. |
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| Author: | julieanne1811 [ Fri Aug 20, 2010 10:02 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Nina - A Genius? |
Alison H wrote: Nina's uncle, whilst we're told that he doesn't really know that much about music, chooses the CS rather than sending Nina to his daughters' school because he thinks it'll cater better for her musical needs, which suggests that he'd discussed the issue with Hilda before making the decision. It's very convenient that Sir Guy and Nina just happen to end up sharing a carriage on a train with girls from a school which has an expert violinist living close to it, but such is life in books It's interesting that the school is chosen for her by someone who owns himself as knowing very little about music ... I would have thought that Nina herself might have had ideas about where she should go, but she never mentions any music schools by name. It's made me think. She should have gone to The School by the River ... and on an aside ... there we have a similar situation, where Jennifer is travelling to the music school by train with her cousin Daisy, and they meet Tamara, who is also at the school. Tamara suggests that Daisy join the music school too - a theme of trains, music schools and changes in direction for some, perhaps? But the oddest thing in River is that Daisy doesn't enjoy more esoteric music at all, doesn't do her practice properly and when asked by Tamara if she sings, she says 'I don't know. I never learnt.' Asked to sing, she does, and based on that, Tamara says that she thinks the school will take her, since she's better than the best mezzo the school has!!!!! And Daisy, who has never hankered after music school instantly decides that that's where she wants to be ... Curious ... |
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