Rose L. Augustine: A Tribute By Eliot Fisk (May, 2003) To remember Rose Augustine is to remember my own adult life, for I knew her almost exactly 30 years, and she was always a part of my life. Since she has passed away, more and more recollections have floated to the surface, rising through the depths of the well of memory with increasing frequency as the days go by.
I remember countless evenings spent with Rose, first when I was living in New York and for years thereafter when I would return for some one of my many lightning visits to the City. How often did we sit way into the wee hours of the morning talking, laughing, arguing… She never let me off easy; I always had to run the gauntlet set by her sharp wit and profound sense of human foibles and folly. Yet I always knew those were special moments. Even then I was aware that in her presence I was drinking in history. I often felt that if only I had had the wisdom to ask the right questions, she would have revealed to me the profoundest secrets of life. On one of our many evenings together she was thinking back over her life and suddenly said, “You know, you get to a certain age and most of the people who were really important to you aren’t around any more. And you find that in your mind you have more to do with people who are not here than with those that are.” And as I write this about her I certainly feel what she was talking about on that long ago evening. Rose was utterly unique, unforgettable, original and special as few human beings ever are. She brought me together with Andres Segovia, Julian Bream, Eduardo Fernandez, David Starobin, but even that isn’t what I’ll most remember. She gave me my New York debut when no one else would, but even that isn’t what most stays with me. Rather it is the spiritual quality that she had that transcended the physical, that can only be called “soul.” Rose really was bigger than life, and her spirit so strong that it overwhelmed the numerous physical disabilities with which she was afflicted in later years. When finally this past April (my namesake, T. S. Eliot, called it “the cruelest month”) after her funeral service in New York I saw a small casket wheeled on its way into an elevator that would take it to its final resting place, I thought, “Rose isn’t in that casket. That is simply not my friend, Rose. No spirit that big would fit into that little box!” Some basic facts about Rose L. Augustine are easily told: how she taught chemistry in the New York City public schools; how her husband, Albert, a guitar maker, befriended Segovia and began searching for a way to make good sounding strings out of nylon since the silk and gut were all being consumed by the war effort; how Segovia befriended the couple and even occupied a floor of their house in New York City from 1948 – 1961; how after Albert’s death Rose reinvented the Augustine String Company and brought it to international prominence; how she became a great patron of the arts, sponsoring countless young musicians in countless ways, from scholarships, to commissions to debut and repeat recitals and performances around the world; how she reinvented the moribund Guitar Review and turned it into an elegant journal. For all of this she was often honored and feted, made Doctor of Music honoris causa at the Manhattan School of Music, invited to numerous elegant receptions (often with the ulterior motive of unlocking her purse strings). Still she wasn’t taken in by the pomp and, in fact, was once heard to describe some of the company at an elegant New York City fundraiser as “A bunch of bums!” Rose was ever genuine and fearless in speaking her own mind. She could lash into friend and foe alike when the spirit moved her. She was sometimes wrong but never less than brutally and fearlessly honest, qualities increasingly rare in a world where what used to be affectionately called “the music business” has become “the music industry.” What did I love about Rose? Her Independence: For me personally her decision to keep her promise to sponsor my New York debut in 1976 when I had just been kicked out of every major guitar competition in sight, determined my fate. Had she not shown that faith in me, I might have ended up somewhere very much different from where I am today. Her sense of humor: Of course, off the record she told me numerous Segovia stories, tales from the glory years, which often had the two of us laughing our heads off. But Rose could also make me laugh at myself. Having seen me through the misery of a protracted divorce, she recently saw me sharing a great laugh with my second wife: “Enjoy, enjoy… before the divorce!” she cackled. Her love of learning: When Rose found out that my daughter from my first marriage, then 12 years of age, was fascinated by the periodic table of the elements, she scoured the City of New York to find a huge metal rollout, then sent it at God knows what expense all the way to Germany. Her intelligence: Trained in the hard sciences, Rose had a brilliant, quick, yet relentlessly methodical mind. She was fearless in the pursuit of truth and was a member of the New York Philosophical Society or some such organization that pursued the most abstract and difficult realms of modern philosophy. I am talking about the really tough stuff starting with Wittgenstein. Her courage: When already into her eighties Rose was knocked down by a New York City bus. The resulting infection from a leg wound almost ended her life. Ever after she walked with a very noticeable limp with the support of a cane. Her hearing, doubtless a casualty of too many hours in rooms with string making machines, had long been augmented with a couple of fairly noisy hearing aids. Still she negotiated the long and steep flight of stairs that were the only entrance into her elegant New York town house day in and day out, and, undeterred, also traveled by herself every year to the enormous and, to anyone but Rose, intimidating Frankfurter Musik Messe in Frankfurt, Germany. When in 1993 Mtislav Rostropovich, Alicia de Larrocha, Victoria de los Angeles, Lucero Tena, Narcisco Yepes and I participated in a big benefit concert in Madrid for Segovia’s centenary, she came to that too. These European trips back and forth across the Atlantic were made very quickly. Yet I never heard of Rose missing work on account of something so trivial as jetlag! Her generosity: It goes without saying that Rose was generous on a strictly personal level. She invariably insisted on paying the bill when she invited musicians (and very often members of their families as well!) to dinner, no matter how many people may have been sitting around the table. Only once in my experience did someone succeed in paying the bill over her objections. That someone was Julian Bream. Her exquisite taste: Rose’s famous house on West 10th St. was stuffed with beautiful antiques, a museum quality glass collection, and somewhere, I never knew quite where, a very significant collection of guitars of inestimable value. One of these, a magnificent Hauser guitar from the 1930’s, reputed to be the pair to Segovia’s famous instrument, was later lent for some years to Julian Bream. I had the pleasure of playing this instrument on a number of occasions and can testify that, although it would never do for a lot of the more percussive modern repertoire, it was indeed like having a living being in your arms when you played that thing. Hauser had indeed, like Pinocchio’s father, Geppetto, made wood come to life. And, believe me, despite the two hearing aids, Rose knew it; she could really hear the difference in music. (It is by now famous that she claimed not to like the guitar at all, but rather to prefer the piano. But that statement has to be taken with a grain of salt. She didn’t like the guitar unless it was played surpassingly well.) For thirty years Rose Augustine was a great and true friend, a delightful companion and a constant in my turbulent life. Although, to borrow a phrase from her lifelong friend, Andrés Segovia, she has “proceeded me in the transition to eternity,” I feel her presence more powerfully than ever. Her life shines as a beacon of excellence, reminding us to carry on, reminding us too that art is inescapably a moral endeavor where nothing less than our very best will do. There will never be another like her, and I will miss her always. Eliot Fisk Boston May 27, 2003