Composition in Black and White: The Life of Philippa Schuyler

360 Pages·1995·33.522 MB·English

by  Kathryn Talalay

Composition IN
Black AND White
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Composition IN
Black AND White
THE LIFE OF PHILIPPA SCHUYLER
Kathryn Talalay
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York Oxford
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
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Copyright © 1995 by Kathryn Talalay
First published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 1995
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1997
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Libraiy of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Talalay, Kathryn M.
Composition in black and white : the life of Philippa Schuyler /
Kathryn Talalay.
p. cm. Includes index.
ISBN 0-19-509608-8
ISBN 0-19-511393-4 (Pbk.)
1. Schuyler, Philippa. 2. Pianists—United States—Biography.
I. Title.
ML417.S42T35 1995
786.2'092—dc20 [B] 94-49016
1 3 5 79 10 8642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
In Memoriam
With unbounded affection and deep admiration
to an extraordinary man,
whose kindness, creativity, and spirit
were unmatched.
I am blessed to have shared
with him the writing of this book,
and I cherish our times together.
To my father
ANSELM TALALAY
1912-1994
with love forever
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PREFACE
Over a dozen years have passed since I first discovered, by chance, a slim red
file, hidden in a rare book room. The words "Philippa Duke Schuyler" were
embossed on the cover. As I opened the file, a haunting image stared back at
me.
I sat down on the floor and began turning the pages—more photos, news-
paper articles, some music compositions, letters. An increasingly complex tap-
estry began to emerge: One of her parents was white, the other black. A child
prodigy, Philippa had been compared to Mozart. By age eleven she had penned
over two hundred musical works.
Each clipping helped to compose a larger portrait—that of a gifted and
beautiful young woman who spent her life in travel to more than seventy-five
countries, performing for kings and queens, in small African towns and quaint
Dutch villages, at Town Hall in New York and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in
Brussels. Then I came across a final item—a tattered and yellowed article
written in 1966. Under Philippa's veneer, a journalist had discerned "an atmo-
sphere of childlike emotional fragility. . . . 'I'm not sure what I am,'" she
admitted to the reporter.
How had I not heard of Philippa Schuyler? News of her death had made the
front page of the New York Times. The 1939 World's Fair dedicated a day to
her. She was profiled in the New Yorker. Why had such a bright star burned
out? And, most intriguing, where were all those music manuscripts, those
thousands of lost notes?
The red file had been donated to the Indiana University School of Music
Library—where I was a faculty member—by Joseph and Mary Myers, a couple
from North Carolina. I tracked them down and although they knew nothing
regarding the whereabouts of Philippa's music, they invited me to their home, a
rambling, century-old white house in Lexington, to reminisce about an "un-
usual woman."
[viii] PREFACE
The visit was imbued with an air of mystery. Joseph and Mary wanted to
perform a seance in order to get in touch with Philippa's spirit. A colleague who
had traveled with me nervously accepted an offer to sleep under a newly built
"pyramid" in their backyard.
Although the Myers knew Philippa only briefly, their insights were keen and
their generosity to a stranger remarkable. Mary told me that the entire Schuy-
ler family was deceased, but that "a man named Mitchell" might know some-
thing about the Schuyler estate. Excited by the lead, I grabbed my pen to write
down his address: "Somewhere in New York," Joseph said.
I returned to Bloomington determined to find Mr. Mitchell. But the Man-
hattan directory alone lists over 750. Night after night on the university WATS
line, I called number after number. Sensing the enormity of the project, I
turned superstitious and decided to go to the end of the alphabet. "Well, thank
you anyway. Sorry to have bothered you," became my mantra.
Nine months later, at about 11 p.m., having promised myself this would be
my final attempt, I made one last round of calls. A sleepy-voiced woman
answered the phone. Oh yes, she knew the Schuylers, but who was I? Yes, she
had some of Philippa's music in her home, but most of the Schuyler papers had
been donated to the Schomburg Center. The woman at the other end of the
line was Mrs. Carolyn H. Mitchell, executrix of the Schuyler estate. I am
eternally grateful to Carolyn for not hanging up on me at that very late hour.
Over the next few years, with the help of a sabbatical and a Rockefeller grant,
I began to trace the life of an unusual woman. With permission from the
gracious Carolyn Mitchell, I sorted through sixty-odd cartons at the Schom-
burg Center for Research in Black Culture. While wading through letters,
diaries, photographs, and manuscripts sandwiched between ballet slippers and
swimming medals, I began to realize that hidden in the Schuyler memorabilia
lay a life far removed from what I had expected. Music was only a part. Phi-
lippa's place in history, her complex relationship to her biracial provenance, the
"grand experiment" of her parents, George and Josephine, who believed that
the solution to America's race problems lay in miscegenation—all this, and
more, left Philippa searching the world for her place in it.
My own travels would take me across America and Europe, interviewing her
friends, family, and acquaintances. Some erstwhile lovers shunned me, saying
they "never wanted to hear that name ever again." Some on the white side of
the family would not speak to me, but others welcomed a view of their "family
skeletons." A man I met in California told me things he had never repeated to
another living soul. And a woman who braved the threats of her husband to
meet me in secret provided valuable missing pieces to Philippa's enigmatic past.
Soon Philippa became the adopted daughter in our family. My father, in
particular, took an extraordinary interest, and in time he became actively in-
volved in deciphering Philippa's mysteries. We spent days, nights, and months
together, thinking, talking, reconstructing her yearly travels through faded
stamps on her various passports. I wrote, he read, I rewrote, we edited. For
years my parents' house was a mess — papers in every corner, scraps covered
Preface
IX
with ideas my father had written down at midnight scattered on the floor of
their bedroom, my own books, drafts, and thoughts piled high on their capa-
cious dining-room table. When I was living in New York or Bloomington, my
father and I spoke every day. Sometimes he would call me very early in the
morning with an (often crazy) idea: would I mind researching it? In turn, I
would think nothing of calling him from abroad to wake him at two in the
morning after having interviewed a key figure in the Schuyler saga. He was as
interested in her as I was.
During the final stages of this project, my father became quite ill. I am
eternally grateful, however, that he lived long enough to witness the signing of
my contract with Oxford University Press. He died a week later.
Philippa exerted an extraordinary influence on the culture of her times. For
many African Americans growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, she was a role
model. Not only to aspiring musicians, encouraged that a black woman could
be so successful in the white world of classical music, but also to others who
later became doctors and lawyers. Philippa was the first "colored girl" to
achieve national prominence at so young an age. One woman told me she
decided to become a writer after hearing Philippa play: It was easier than
learning all those notes. But it was Philippa who had inspired her on her
journey. This was repeated to me time and again.
What struck me also, time and again, was the ubiquitous refrain from so
many African Americans of her generation: "Of course we knew Philippa
Schuyler. . . . But whatever happened to her?"
Here, then, is her alluring, complex, tragic, sometimes disturbing American
saga—for all those who knew her, and for all those who should know her.
New York K. T.
February 1995