Word: perpignan
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...night of St. Jean's Eve, June 23, is the occasion in France of fireworks, bonfires and merrymaking. In bustling Perpignan, a city of 70,000 near the Spanish border, the holiday was celebrated as usual last year. But not everyone was amused. Jean Amiel, 37, who taught English at the local lycée, rushed to quiet his five-year-old daughter when she awoke crying, after youngsters had slipped firecrackers through the letter slot in Amiel's door and they exploded in the hall. He went to the open window, glimpsed five boys and two girls...
...bullet from Amiel's revolver struck one of his pupils, Alain Rolland, 16, in the back of the head and killed him. Standing trial in Perpignan's sunlit Palais de Justice, Amiel was asked why he did not fire into the air. "It goes without saying," he answered, "that I regret not having fired in the air." Teacher Amiel refused to make excuses, would not plead overwork at the end of the term, nervous strain in trying to pay for his new house, harassment by the students. He said sternly: "A teacher can never have sufficient provocation...
...there to be no end to our tragedies!" cried Mme. Amiel. The news of Rolland's suicide was kept from Prisoner Jean Amiel, himself despondent as he served his prison term. Eager to get away from Perpignan, Amiel wrote a letter to Dr. Albert Schweitzer at his African clinic, offering his services when he was released from jail. At week's end, there was a faint ray of hope for at least one of the grief-ridden families of Perpignan: Dr. Schweitzer replied that he would be glad to welcome Jean Amiel as an assistant...
Casds Festival at Perpignan, Vol. I (Perpignan Festival Orchestra conducted by Pablo Casals; Columbia, 4 LPs). The great cellist is heard here as a Mozart conductor (he plays a Haydn cello Adagio on a personally inscribed fifth disk for purchasers of the complete album), shows that it is still possible to make such old veterans as Eine kleine Nachtmusik sound daisy-fresh. The orchestra is the fervent group that gathered around the Master in 1951; soloists include Violinist Erica Morini, Oboist Marcel Tabuteau...
Most of those who flocked to Perpignan thought little of the discomfort. Said Soprano Jennie Tourel, who gave stirring performances of Mozart and Bach arias: "Casals literally radiates music. He just makes you sing." Said Pianist Rudolf Serkin, whose Beethoven and Bach sonatas with Casals were festival high points: "Without looking at him you feel all his intentions. We understand each other like an old happily married couple...