‘‘ About My father ’’
It was
impossible not to love him or care deeply about what he felt. He was a man
completely without guile, and whose every thought and action was genuine.
He and mother were loving parents to Paula and me, and they made us feel
very special. The question of where or how we fit into Dad's staggering
professional schedule never was an issue in our lives, for while we knew
he had a very succesful career, neither its glitter nor its burdens were
allowed to affect our lives. Nor was the music we heard in the fragmented
forms that working musicians are used to hearing it as they rehearse and
play back parts to themselves. When Dad had something finished and on disc,
we would then listen to it in its completed stage. I have often thought
he was afraid to expose us to work patterns which might well have spoiled
our appreciation of the totality of music.
Much is written about my father's firmness on the podium where one could
see him from time to time flare up with impatience. We know he was a perfectionist;
nevertheless, Paula and I are still amused about these stories even as we
hear of them to this day. At home he was always gentle and approachable
when, with my wife, Pat, and our three children, and Paula, with her husband,
Bev, and their two children, we visited my parents in Bournemouth at holidays,
no one in the house was more permissive than Dad as the grandchildren scurried
about and carried on. I remember no less a tolerance for the high spirits
Paula and I possessed as children.
Of course, we miss him and mother. But we have so much to remember them
by. In rehearing his music, so much of the feeling about what was so special
about us as a family comes back lovingly.
Kenneth Mantovani
