Alas, poor Rönisch!

2000 words memoir

I have a clear memory of the place where we first met. It was a small room in a communal apartment. There lived an esteemed composer Olivers Shtelmanis. Highly praised by fellow musicians and respected in bohemian circles, he was unknown to a wider audience. Even though I belonged to the latter category, mainly because of my age of eight, I knew him. He was my grandfather.

The only window in the room offered a dull view over the courtyard surrounded by blocks of flats. The daylight illuminated the austere interior of a compact space which served my grandpa as a study, a parlour, and a bedroom. His chamber was stuffy from the cigarette smoke and smell of mouldy paper. Furniture was buried under the scattered music notes.

In all the chaos, created by its master, stood Rönisch piano centre stage.

A few years later Soviet Union collapsed, and Latvia regained its independence. After rising from its ashes, the country called on its sons to return home. A native Latvian, Olivers gladly accepted the invitation from the motherland, which he had been forced to leave by Soviets in 1949. Separated from his mother and elder sister, he spent many years together with his father in exile in Siberia. Eventually, Olivers’ talent for music allowed them to settle down in a bigger city of Sverdlovsk, where he studied in the…