‘She behaved like a queen and queen of the keyboard was she’

An upcoming concert celebrates the lasting legacy of Olga Craen, pianist extraordinaire. Her students now mentor new talents with the Young Musician of the Year award, instituted by the Olga and Jules Craen Foundation

I was so very struck by your very beautiful sonority, that I would like to hear you again in my favourite works, Faure, Ravel and, of course, Debussy.”  
–Madame de Tinan, step-daughter of Claude Debussy, in a letter to Olga Craen
 
“Madame Olga Craen, laureate of the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Contest, possesses a disciplined technique, suppleness and infinite ease. She is a virtuoso full of assurance, an intelligent and sensitive artist.”
–Le Soir, Brussels, November 1951

She was, quite simply, a phenomenon. That Madame Olga Craen stunned the international music world with her prowess on the piano is indisputable. She and her Belgian husband Jules Craen were the country’s best known music teachers, dominating the Bombay music scene for 50 years. 

Olga Craen playing the piano at a party

To ensure her extraordinary stamp on concert stages from over a century remains indelible, her students banded together in 2013. Celebrating her birth centenary, they formed the Olga and Jules Craen Foundation (OJCF) and instituted the Young Musician of the Year (YMOY) award. The promising candidate—below 25 for instrumentalists, below 27 for vocalists—receives quality training from Indian teachers and visiting musicians, besides the chance to attend master classes and workshops abroad. 

OJCF managing trustee Zinnia Khajotia remembers, “A meeting was organised with Blossom Mendonca, a teacher of considerable standing in the city, Cyrus Guzder, Olga’s favourite pupil, Shireen Isal, founder of Association Sargam in London, Anthony Gomes of Furtados and Parvesh Java, director of the Con Brio piano competition. Brainstorming, we decided to perpetuate the memory of Olga and Jules by nurturing one young musician from any music discipline for a year. The NCPA, Furtados, Mehli Mehta Music Foundation and Sir Ratan Tata Trust aided us.”

The inaugural event took place on February 6, 2013, at the NCPA’s Experimental Theatre. A distinguished panel of adjudicators (examiners on the music boards of Trinity College, the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and the London College of Music Education) chose 18-year-old pianist Tanay Joshi from Ahmedabad as the first YMOY winner. 

At a recital showcasing student performances

Scheduled to perform at the September 29 concert, along with other past winners, to mark the tenth year of the institution of the award, Joshi says, “The OJCF wonderfully encourages budding talent. Providing a prestigious platform to gain recognition, it inspires aspirants to pursue their passion. Winning this catalysed my growth, opening doors to new opportunities, connecting me to musicians in India and the UK where I moved to study full-time.”

The award, with the process of its own integrity, should uphold the highest standards Olga Craen set, feels Cyrus Guzder. “She taught us how to learn, not just play. Her unstated purpose was to inculcate musicianship. She imparted such rigour. Persevering with her, you improved strongly in a short period of time. ‘Have you practised?’ she’d ask. I once replied, ‘Actually, no.’ She promptly set the metronome really slow. I had to play note by note, ratcheting up later. The impact of her influence endures.” 

On a Zoom call from Vienna, where she lives and teaches, pianist Marialena Fernandes, adds, “Unlike Cyrus and like most, I was sent home. Olga goaded us to excel, playing our best for people, not for examinations. Her instruction had morally binding value. She often changed residences, across town. We followed everywhere. I’m not sure I would do that for another teacher. Her energy becoming a part of me, I use Olga’s name in every second sentence with my students.”

With husband Jules Craen, violinist and founder-conductor of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra

Probably Bombay’s most brilliant piano tutor was born Olga Athaide in Goa in 1913. In the tradition of the home state, her mother ensured her toddler prodigy got acquainted with the piano at age three. At six, Olga made a much-applauded public appearance. When the family shifted to Bombay, she studied with the redoubtable Prof Edward Behr. 

Her professional career took off in 1936. French and Belgian concert circles heaped accolades. Broadcasting over the BBC, she participated in Empire programmes. The Times of London raved she “handled the piano with a facility carrying her through the grave difficulties of a Bach organ Prelude and Fugue without a blemish”. 

In the audience for Olga’s 1937 rendition of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto at the Regal Cinema, conducted by Behr, the Belgian violinist and conductor Jules Craen (founder conductor of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra with Mehli Mehta) confessed he was “flabbergasted”. She married him, 26 to his 52 years. 

Marialena Fernandes presenting her mentor with a bouquet at a Taj Crystal Room concert in the 1960s

The legendary couple possessed a particularly deep understanding of French music. A generation groomed by them shares cherished memories. “Privileged to be a student of Jules Craen, in August 1959, I was one of the pall bearers lifting his coffin,” says musician and NCPA physician, Dr Cavas Bilimoria. “Monsieur Craen’s was the Franco-Belgian school method for bow hold, phrasing and fingering of musical passages.”

Olga’s spirit lives on. Three of her students who went on to become eminent teachers are on the OJCF committee—Roshan Chowna, Marialena Fernandes and Blossom Mendonca. “As an 11-year-old, I got a lot of confidence from Olga,” says Mendonca. “‘You play like a girl. Command the piano like a man,’ she insisted. ‘Show masculinity and femininity, powerful and delicate.’ When I was excited to win a music competition, without congratulating me, she said, ‘Naturally, whose pupil are you.’ But she had a warm, caring side. I’ve seen tears streak her cheeks when her dog was in pain. The gin she sipped during my class hour got her nicely mellow, even fun. Exuding diva aura, she behaved like a queen and queen of the keyboard was she. Her students have excelled locally and internationally. Our dear NCPA chairman among them.”

Khushroo Suntook, NCPA Chairman, says, “I am where I am because of Olga’s strict adherence to not succumbing to musical indiscipline. She was unforgiving about inaccurate pianism. Her homework on theory has stood us in good stead.” 

Besides a sound theoretical knowledge backing pieces that flowed into their performances, a few students retain Olga’s guiding notes on Harmony and Ornaments. Strict enough to intimidate some, she neither minced her words nor sugar-coated them. She could be outspoken, on the verge of rudeness. Imperious, impatient, hers was tough love. Flinging books at pupils or knocking their knuckles with a pencil, she would shout, “Imagine teaching imbeciles like you.” As if mirroring the mistress’ disdain, Olga’s large white cat glared from the piano top, poised to jump onto an errant pupil’s lap. 

Eccentric, exasperating and all, Olga stays widely admired by loyalists. Khajotia says, “I’m grateful she taught six-year-old me from scratch, to build a firm and proper base. Technique and hand position were ingrained till they became second nature. Urging us to ‘coax the notes’, she tolerated no affectations of the body, none of that swaying and drooping over the keyboard trance-like!”

Oculist Zarir Baliwalla says, “Olga was certainly in the genius category. A hard taskmaster, she emphasised playing from the soul and always pushed us to ‘make the piano sing’. Friendly with my parents, she was fond of entertaining in style.” 

In the book, Becoming Farah: A Life in Bombay, 1943 to 1986, Farah Rustom, teaching piano in America, describes: “The first six months I played only Czerny’s ‘The Art of Finger Dexterity’, preparing a new exercise each week, with the metronome ticking and Olga screaming, ‘Lift your spaghetti fingers. Attack!’”

When debilitating nerve damage struck the gifted fingers of her left hand, Olga gave up performing and dedicatedly taught, fully committed to her students. It was with remarkable fortitude that she bore multiple subsequent hardships. Forced to keep shunting between half a dozen rented apartments, she bravely fought the cancer she succumbed to on June 26, 1986.

In the Tata Theatre next Sunday evening, audiences can look forward to YMOYs performing on the piano, harp, flute, violin and guitar, and vocals by a rare counter tenor. Choral pieces will be performed by The Living Voices Mumbai choir led by Mendonca. Marialena Fernandes accompanies some of the musicians as also little dancers from the Divine Nrityalaya, before a rousing finale.

Three YMOY winners on stage are pupils of Olga’s pupils—Meagan and Apurva taught by Blossom Mendonca, and this year’s awardee, Neil Sajnani, by Ernavaz Bharucha. Pianist and harpist Meagan Alphonso, the 2014 winner, says, “The OJCF sent me to Acadamie d’ete de Nice in France for piano. I witnessed harpists receive one-on-one lessons on an instrument inaccessible in India. Returning, I self-taught and did lessons with visiting harpists and started the Harp School. The harp studio showcases pedal and lever harps, and Harp India provides young harpists instruments for pan India recitals.”

On the heels of Joshi in 2013 and Alphonso in 2014, winners have been flautist and saxophonist Shirish Malhotra (2015), pianist Apurva Devarajan (2016), counter tenor Subin Sebastian (2017), guitarist Kabir Dabholkar (2018), pianist Anuvrat Choudhary and violinist Samyuktha Rajagopal (2019), guitarist Udit Gupta (2020), pianist Fateen Ahmed (2023) and pianist Neil Sajnani (2024). 

Rajagopal says, “I’m extremely honoured to be awarded with Anuvrat Choudhary. It allowed me to attend the summer master class at the International Menuhin Music Academy, Switzerland, with great musicians. Three years after, I went to London for my Masters of Music degree at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Without the OJCF, these dreams would be too far for me to touch.”

Committee member and Olga’s student Shireen Isal, who has created a film in tribute to the Craens’ contribution, says, “Olga can justifiably look down with pride on her innumerable students spread across the globe. As teachers, performers or playing in their homes, they carry on her legacy as one of Bombay’s finest piano teachers.”

Author-publisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay. You can reach her at [email protected]/www.meher marfatia.com

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