The great Hungarian violinist Jelly d\u2019Ar\u00e1nyi (pronounced \u2018Yelly\u2019; 1893-1966) has long been remembered for the new works she inspired, especially Ravel<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s rhapsodic Tzigane; she also premiered both of Bart\u00f3k<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s violin sonatas. She was the youngest of three remarkably gifted musical sisters from Budapest, the great-nieces of the violinist and composer Joseph Joachim.<\/p> Several years before World War I, the young d\u2019Ar\u00e1nyis \u2013 Adila, Hortense and Jelly \u2013 left Hungary with their mother to settle in Britain, where their talent and the revered name of their great uncle propelled them into both fine musical company and high society. Here composers who wrote for Jelly included Ralph Vaughan Williams<\/a><\/strong>, Gustav Holst<\/a><\/strong>, Ethel Smyth<\/a><\/strong> and the Australian Frederick Septimus Kelly, who was killed at the Battle of the Somme. Jelly had hoped to marry him.<\/p> One night in 1933, weeks after the Nazis took power in Germany, d\u2019Ar\u00e1nyi was staying with friends after a concert in Hastings. These friends enjoyed playing the \u2018glass game\u2019 \u2013 essentially a ouija board. The alphabet is arrayed on a table; participants each place one finger on a glass, which then slides from letter to letter, supposedly channelling messages from the spirit world. <\/p> A \u2018message\u2019 apparently arrived declaring that Adila \u2013 a stupendous violinist, formerly a pupil of Joachim \u2013 was at that very moment playing beautifully. Jelly d\u2019Ar\u00e1nyi, who never married, lived with Adila and her husband Alexander Fachiri. She thought her sister\u2019s concert had been earlier. It turned out the glass was right. <\/p> Soon afterwards, d\u2019Ar\u00e1nyi and her secretary, Anna Robertson, tried the glass again, in private \u2013 only to find it bringing them a remarkable request. A composer wanted d\u2019Ar\u00e1nyi to find and perform a work of his that had not been played for many years. His name? Robert Schumann.<\/p> Now Adila Fachiri comes further into the spotlight. She had another talent besides music. She was exceptionally good at receiving and interpreting \u2018glass game\u2019 communications; so much so that her friend the Swedish Minister in London, Baron Erik Palmstierna, who was deeply involved in so-called \u2018psychical research\u2019, wrote three books based on messages that she had channelled. The first, Horizons of Immortality<\/em>, suggests that it was only after the 1933 Schumann \u2018message\u2019 incident that Fachiri\u2019s gift came to light.\u00a0<\/p> It probably all went back further. The contact point with Palmstierna appears to be the poet WB Yeats\u2019s wife, \u2018George\u2019, who was a close friend of d\u2019Ar\u00e1nyi\u2019s and had become friendly with the Baron as early as 1924. Besides, some salons that they frequented in the 1910s and \u201920s (such as Eva Fowler\u2019s) evinced a fascination with esoteric matters like the ouija board and \u2018table-turning\u2019, alongside music, poetry, philosophy and literature; spiritualism flourished after the First World War wrought such a legacy of destruction and grief.\u00a0<\/p> D\u2019Ar\u00e1nyi\u2019s initial enquiries revealed that a Schumann Violin Concerto was indeed noted in various books \u2013 it was written for Joachim in 1853. At first, letters to German archives produced no results. Now a further problem emerged: an embargo had been placed on the work, stipulating that it must not be played until 100 years after Schumann\u2019s death in 1856. Stalemate resulted. Pleas to Joachim\u2019s family seemed little help, while Eugenie Schumann (1851-1938), youngest daughter of Robert and Clara<\/a><\/strong>, insisted her mother had made it clear that the Violin Concerto was affected by their father\u2019s last illness, and had instructed that it should never be played again.\u00a0<\/p> D\u2019Ar\u00e1nyi asked the music publishers B\u00a0Schott und S\u00f6hne from Mainz for help, on the basis that they might publish the work. Joachim\u2019s son Johannes, who had deposited the manuscript in the library, had first met Willy Strecker, the head of Schott\u2019s, when as Germans in Britain they were both incarcerated in an internment camp during World War I. This old association seems to have led Johannes to grant Schott\u2019s the necessary permission.<\/p>Enter the ouija board<\/h2>
A world of music, poetry, philosophy, literature… and \u2018table-turning\u2019<\/h2>
![\"Violinist](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/07\/Screenshot-2024-07-03-at-09.21.35.png\")
The tale of the 100-year embargo<\/h2>