Poor fellow with the cello

Press, 20 March 1982, Page 15

Poor fellow with the cello

By

JULIAN LLOYD WEBBER,

who begins a New Zealand concert tour next month.

“Look out, he's got a machine-gun” is pretty common. “Bet you can't get that under your chin” a little rarer and “Give us a tune, then” the most hackneyed of all.

Those three shining examples of wit and originality have followed me and. my cello for as long as I can remember. They’re always accompanied by that gleeful look of self-satisfaction which comes to those who think they have just thought of something clever to say which nobody else have ever thought of before. It was quite easy to muster a smile for the first few hundred times, but several thousand times later the smile has become more of a nervous twitch.

Just what is it like touring with a cello? Difficult? Yes. Exhausting? Certainly. Humourous? Often. Tragic? Occasionally, when wonderful old instruments are smashed beyond repair. One of the first experiences of the travel problem happened after a concert I gave during my student days at the Royal College of Music. I had been presented — for reasons best known to the organisers — with two large but dead pheasants which I placed on

the back seat of my car along with the cello. On the journey home I was stopped by the police. “Are you aware, Sir, that one of your rear lights is failing to function, which is an offence under ...?”. “No. It must have just gone — it was working when I set out." “And what. Sir, are you carrying in the back?” he asked, peering through my window on to the seat. “Two pheasants and a cello,” I replied confidently. "May I remind you,” continued the policeman in considerably sterner tones, “that it is also an offence to obstruct a police officer in the course of his duty. I will ask you once again, what are you carrying in the back?” At which point I got out of the car and let the crestfallen officer discover the ugly truth for himself.

But travelling by road or rail with a cello is easy — the real problems begin when going by plane. Oid hands at this tell me that in the good old days, 25 years

or so ago, airlines were pleased to welcome a cellist on board their flights. Sadly, it’s all so different now in an age where air travel is commonplace. Basically the problem is this: the airlines demand payment of an additional full passenger fare if a cellist wants to take his instrument into the cabin. It doesn’t matter how empty the plane is — the cello must go into the hold, regardless of its value (top instruments can nowadays be worth a startling $150,000) and the fact that it can be safely strapped on to a seat. The airlines will accept no responsibility for the instrument being smashed to pieces for the obvious reason that this is very likely. A few years back my cello was damaged on a British Airways flight to Dublin. Despite my prior phone-call to their head office to explain I would be travelling with a valuable instrument, I discovered that no-one connected with the flight knew anything about it. At the check-in desk I prepared

myself for the all too familiar battle.

“Could I keep my cello with me? I know there are empty seats.” “Not without payment of a full fare,” came the inevitable response. “But surely it could at. least go half fare," I pleaded. "After all, it doesn't eat or smoke and is much quieter than other passengers, at least while it’s in its case.” It was no good. Even the request that I could see the cello loaded safely into the hold away from other luggage fell on deaf ears. “We must have our rules,” droned the official. “If we let you bring on your cello, every passenger will want to:” Musing quietly on the likelihood of 200 cello concertos in Dublin on the same evening, I decided that I wasn’t getting anywhere and stupidly gave in — a mistake never to be repeated. I opened my case at the other end to find that the cello’s ebony fingerboard had completely broken off, only narrowly escaping breaking the cello to pieces.

Looking back, some of my many arguments with airline officials seem almost farcical, but at the time, invariably under the watchful gaze of all the other passengers, they can be acutely embarrassing. I'll never forget my arrival, late and breathless, for a flight to London from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. “You can’t bring that thing on here," said the stewardess, “or the next passenger will want to bring on a grand piano.” “But I protested, ‘a grand piano doesn’t quite fit on a seat like the cello.' “Oh yes it does — you can get one now which folds up!” Then there was the Bulgarian metal detector incident. This time the customs official in Sofia insisted on running his device up and down the strings, whereupon it screeched with disapproval. It took an immense amount of effort to convince him that my cello was not a hidden arsenal. I was then mystified that no fewer than five empty taxis sped off as soon as I tried to hire them. I assumed it was my Western appearance, until my interpreter assured me that, being on a state salary, taxi drivers don’t need the trade and can’t be bothered with bulky objects.

By now readers may well be asking if it would not be a lot easier to buy the cello a seat on each flight. Quite apart from the fact/that I’ve had my 1791 Guadagnini cello for barely a year and that in the thousands of miles it has travelled since. I must have saved myself several thousand pounds in air fares. The astonishing truth is that even a paid-for seat will not guarantee the instrument a place inside the cabin. A few years back the great Russian cellist Rostropovich was travelling to Dublin and booked two firstclass seats — one for himself, one for his cello. Cunning, the airlines will not accept a booking stating simply Cello — it has to be Miss or Ms Cello. When Rostropovich’s flight turned out to be full “Ms Cello” had to make way for a passenger. But perhaps the most frustrating incident happened when I was flying to Heathrow from New York. I decided to admit defeat and buy a seat .for the cello. Imagine my soaring blood pressure after paying but an extra $250 or so when the stewardess eyed my cello and declared: “Say, surely you didn’t buy a seat for that? We would have let you bring it on for free."