For The Love of Music

For the Love of Music
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For the Love of Music
Invitations to Listening
MICHAEL STEINBER G
and
LARRY ROTHE
OXFORD
U N I V E R S I T Y PRES S
2006
OXFORD
U N I V E R S I T Y PRES S
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dat a

Steinberg, Michael, 1928 -
For the love of music : invitations t o listening /
Michael Steinberg , Larr y Rothe.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-049-516216-5
ISBN40: 049-5162164
1. Music—Histor y and criticism . 2 . Musi c appreciation.
I. Rothe, Larry . II . Title.
ML160.S84 200 6
780—dc22
2005026128
987654321
Printed i n the Unite d State s of America
on acid-fre e paper
An excerp t fro m thi s book , "Th e Sound s W e Make," appeare d in Symphony
magazine in November 2005.
Grateful acknowledgmen t i s made fo r permissio n t o us e passage s from th e

following:
In "Sibelius and Mahler: What More Could There Be?": From Robert Layton's
translation o f Eri k Tawaststjerna's Sibelius, Volum e II, 1904-191 4 © 1986 .
Reprinted with permission, The Regent s of the Universit y of California.
In "On th e Trail of W. A. Mozart": From A Mozart Pilgrimage: The Travel Diaries

of Vincent & Mary Novell o i n th e Year 1829, edited b y Nerin a Medic i an d
Rosemary Hughes, © 1955 Novello & Co. Ltd. Effort s t o contact the copyright
owners hav e bee n unsuccessful . Should thos e claimin g legitimat e copyright
ownership identify themselves , the author and Oxford University Press will be
pleased to add appropriate acknowledgment in future printings .
In " A Short Lif e o f J. S. Bach": Fro m The Ne w Bach Reader: A Life o f Johann
Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents by Hans T Davi d and Arthur Mendel ,
eds., rev. by Christoph Wolff. Copyright © 1998 by Christoph Wolff. Copyright
© 1966 , 194 5 by WW Norto n & Company, Inc. Copyrigh t © 197 2 by Mrs.
Hans T . David an d Arthu r Mendel . Use d by permission of WW Norto n &
Company, Inc .
In "B . H. Haggin th e Contrarian" : Fro m Music Observed by B. H. Haggin , ©

1964 by B. H. Haggin, Oxford University Press (1964), and fro m The Listener's
Musical Companion, New Edition , b y B. H. Haggin , compile d an d edite d b y
Thomas Hathaway , © th e estat e o f B. H. Haggin , Oxfor d Universit y Press
(1991). Used by permission of Oxford University Press.
From M.S . t o Ayla, Julian, an d Rae
From L.R. t o Karen and To m
And from both of us

to Katherine Cummins
and to Bill Bennett, whose idea it was
Contents
Introduction x i
L BEGINNINGS
How I Fell in Love with Music (MS) 3
Preliminary: The Professor' s Legac y (LR) 1 1
II. CREATOR S
Another Word for Mozart (MS) 1 9
Thinking o f Robert Schumann (MS ) 2 5
The Sacred, the Profane,
and th e Gritt y Affirmations o f Music (LR) 3 3
Franz Schubert, " A Rich Possession" (MS ) 3 9
Encountering Brahm s (LR) 4 7
Schoenberg, Brahms,
and The Grea t Tradition (MS ) 5 7
First-Rate Second-Class Compose r (LR ) 6 3
Sibelius and Mahler :
What More Could There Be? (LR) 6 9
Remembering Rachmaninoff (MS) 7 7
Erich Wolfgang Korngold: A Meditation (LR ) 8 3
Tchaikovsky's Mozart (and Others') (MS ) 9 3
On th e Trai l of W A . Mozart (LR) 9 9
What They Sa w (LR) 10 7
A Shor t Lif e o f J. S. Bach (LR ) 11 7
Stravinsky's Ear-stretching,
Joy-giving Legacy (MS) 12 7
III. THE RECENT SCEN E

A Visit with Lou Harrison (MS ) 1 37
George Perle: Composing a Way of Life (LR ) 14 3
A Quintet for American Musi c (MS) 15 1
x Contents
Three American Composer s

in Pursuit of the White Whale (LR ) 15 9
A Century Se t to Music (MS ) 16 9
IV. MISSIONARIES
Making America Musical : A Salute
to Theodore Thoma s (MS ) 17 9
Sigmund Spaeth, Someon e
You Should Kno w (LR ) 18 7
Isaac Stern—On Music and Lif e (MS ) 19 9
B. H. Haggin the Contraria n (MS ) 20 5
V. AFFAIRS TO REMEMBE R
Loving Memories of Movie Music (LR ) 21 7
Vienna Trilogy : Vignettes
from th e Cit y of Music (LR ) 22 3
Music, True or False (LR ) 23 1
Why We Are Her e (MS ) 23 7
VI. POSTLUDE
The Sound s W e Make (MS ) 24 5
Introduction
With a few exceptions, thes e piece s al l appeared originally (som e in slightly

different an d other s i n ver y different form ) i n th e progra m book of the Sa n
Francisco Symphony, an organization with which we have been affiliate d fo r
many years, L.R. since 1984 , M.S. since 1979 .
Among th e progra m books o f American orchestras , th e Sa n Francisc o
Symphony's is singular in that, eac h month , a section i s devoted t o a feature
article of fairly substantia l length, i n which writer s can tak e on virtuall y any
musical subjec t they wis h t o address . These piece s ar e aime d a t a genera l
audience o f educate d readers , no t a t thos e wit h specificall y musica l
backgrounds. Our inten t is to inform and even t o proselytize , our ai m to be
popular i n th e sens e tha t w e wish everyon e kne w an d love d th e musi c we
know and love. Over the years, we have written many of these pieces ourselves,
enough o f them t o mov e th e Sa n Francisc o Symphony' s Principa l Oboist ,
William Bennett , t o sugges t that w e collect the m int o a book. Bil l is a fin e
artist and also very smart and very funny, a good guy, someone you take seriously,
and we were happy to pursue his flattering suggestion.
We're grateful to the San Francisco Symphony for giving us the opportunity
to write these pieces. The ide a of such a forum was that of Peter Pastreich, the
Symphony's Executive Director fro m 197 9 until 1999 . Peter loves music and
words. He offere d stimulu s through an inspired fusion o f encouragement an d
prodding, friendly motivation , an d periodic nagging. Peter was both good cop
and bad. We have tried to realize his belief that a n audience deserves to know
as much as possible about the music , and deserves that informatio n in a form
that offers readers not simply facts, but respect. In Peter's successor as Executive
Director, Bren t Assink , w e hav e bee n fortunat e t o fin d someon e equall y
committed. At a time when symphony program books are becoming a species
endangered by castration, by what is now with brutal frankness called dumbing
down, we have been particularl y grateful t o work for an orchestra where th e
assumption is that ou r audienc e i s intelligent, inquisitive , an d eithe r imbue d
with a deep love of music or deeply interested in discovering what that kind of
love can mean .
We thank Bren t Assink especiall y for his excitement abou t this collectio n
and the graciousness and readiness with which he granted permission to reissue
material originally written for the SFS. The Sa n Francisco Symphony has also
xii Introduction
been extraordinarily fortunate in its music directors of the past three decades—
Edode Waart (1977-1985), Herber t Blomstedt (1985-95), and Michael Tilso n
Thomas (sinc e 1995) . Eac h o f these men , whil e keenl y awar e that i t i s th e
music itself that mus t finally tell , i s equally aware of how words can hel p a n
audience find a way into th e music. We thank the m for their involvement an d
encouragement no less than for the performances through which they continu e
to explore music's beautiful an d perilous landscapes.
Some of the pieces that follow were written in connection with San Francisco
Symphony performance s or events , an d i n preparin g them fo r this boo k we
have revised and in some cases updated them. S o as not t o tie our words to a
particular time and place, we have usually removed topical references, though
what remains may have been suggested by the occasional nature of these pieces.
For example, the article on the sacred and profane in music, written originally
in connectio n with a 199 7 festival , include s reference s to work s performe d
during tha t festival , bu t thos e reference s ar e no t intende d t o sugges t tha t
concepts such as "sacred" and "profane" can be illustrated only by those works;
just as the piece "Three American Composers in Pursuit of the White Whale"
focuses on a trio (Charles Ives, John Corigliano, and John Adams) whose music
was spotlighted at San Francisco Symphony concerts during November 1991 ,
when tha t articl e appeare d originally. Because thes e piece s wer e written a t
widely scattered times, a few stories and a few observations appear more than
once. When we did not eliminate these very few repetitions, it was not because
of carelessness but because we felt tha t eac h serve d well in its place.
Because o f thei r origin , mos t o f thes e piece s hav e t o d o wit h Wester n
orchestral music . Eve n withi n th e boundarie s o f European an d America n
orchestral works, we are less than broad in th e subject s we address. You will
find a concentration o n music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries .
Our subject, though, is broader than the specifics suggest. The subject is music,
and ho w it nourishe s ou r lives . Unabashedly, our enthusiasm s hav e colore d
our judgment. We have organized these pieces in thematic groups. Authorship
is identified through the initial s a t the en d of each piece .
We have already mentioned a handful of those who helped bring this book
into being . W e want als o t o than k ou r respectiv e wives, Jorja Fleezani s an d
Karen Borst-Rothe, for the toug h love with which they read so many of these
pieces, again and agai n giving new life t o the ol d truth that n o writing is ever
really finished. Throughout our years at the San Francisco Symphony we have
been fortunate—blessed is the better word—to work with Katherine Cummins.
Katherine is the program book's managing editor, but if we left th e descriptio n
at that we would have said nothing abou t her merciless intelligence, no r would
we have hinted at the friendship, affection, an d completeness with which she
has improve d th e qualit y not jus t o f our work , but als o of our lives . Other s
whose support and help we happily acknowledge are Karen Ames, Styra Avins,
Introduction xii i
Kathy Brown, KC Congedo, Rober t Guter, Margo Hackett, Rene e Harcourt ,

Caitlin Hartney, Barbara Heyman, Linda Joy Kattwinkel, Ralph Locke, Garrick
Ohlsson, Thaddeu s Spae , Patrici a Spaeth , Lun a Steiner , Marku s Stenz, Ja n
Swafford, an d James Utz. It has been wonderful to have and enjoy the support
and encouragemen t o f Sheldon Meyer, our editor a t Oxford University Press.
And, also at Oxford University Press, our warm thanks for their help and support
go as well to Joellyn Ausanka, Betsy Dejesu, Norman Hirschy, Patterson Lamb,
and Kim Robinson. Ou r gratitud e goes to all of these, an d we extend apologie s
to any we should have named but haven't. Th e roste r of those who have had a
part i n thi s projec t reminds u s agai n o f how nothin g lik e thi s i s achieved i n
isolation, yet we acknowledge als o that responsibility for shortcomings i n what
follows is ours alone.
Michael Steinberg, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Larry Rothe, Berkeley, California
]une 200 5
L
BEGINNINGS
How I Fell in Love with Music
I fell in love with music in a murky alley when I was eleven. Sometime s I
ask friend s whe n an d wher e an d ho w i t happene d t o them , an d the y
recount childhoo d memorie s of hearing a beautiful cousin play a Chopin
etude, o f being stunne d b y a broadcast of the Saint Matthew Passion, o r sen t
into reveries lying under the family piano while Mother practiced Songs without
Words. M y own fal l was less romantic .
More precisely , I was seduced an d the n proceeded t o fal l i n love . I t was
Fantasia, th e origina l 194 0 version , tha t did me in. I saw it just once, a t th e
Cosmopolitan, a dingy movie house in Cambridge, England, and although thi s
was more than sixty-five year s ago , I remember i t more vividly than most of
the movies I've seen in the last sixty-five weeks. I saw it just once because as a
schoolboy on threepence a week in pocket money—even i n 1940 that bought
hardly anything , an d surel y no t mor e tha n hal f a movi e ticket— I couldn' t
afford t o g o again . Besides , th e guardian s o f Goo d Tast e woul d no t hav e
encouraged, le t alon e subsidized , a return visit . But I also realized I did no t
need t o se e it agai n because th e mos t importan t par t was available fo r free .
Behind th e sweet little fleabag where Fantasia was playing, there was this alley
where I could stan d ever y day after school , stan d undisturbed , an d liste n t o
the soundtrack of Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestr a playin g
Bach, Beethoven, Schubert , an d Stravinsky. On a recent visi t to Cambridge I
was happy to see there i s still a movie theater o n th e sam e site, but i t is now
called th e Arts Theatre and is a lot cleaner .
4 FO R THE LOVE OF MUSIC
I should have been at my desk doing my homework, but these sneak auditions
were one more escapade in my fairly consistently disreputable academic career.
That afternoon music fix became a compulsion for as long as it was available.
At least once at that time, Fantasia even entered my dreams. I saw the erupting
volcanoes Walt Disney had set to the Dance of the Adolescents i n The Rite of
Spring, hear d something like Stravinsky's so bafflingly irregular choom-choom-
choom-choom-choom-choom-choom-choom-choom-CHOOM-choom-m
CHOOM, and woke up to the real-lif e sounds of anti-aircraft fire.
Not tha t Fantasia was my first encounter wit h "classical" music. I had don e
the firs t phas e of my growing up in Breslau in a cultivated, affluent , Germa n
Jewish househol d wit h a Bechstei n gran d an d a goo d radi o (bu t n o recor d
player, no t a n uncommo n lac k fo r the day) . My mother an d olde r brothe r
played the piano, not brilliantly, but well enough to impress me, though I have
no recollection o f any particular item in their repertoires . I took lessons, bu t
they were deadly finger lessons , not ea r and music lessons, and so I was bored
and didn' t practice . Th e radi o was rarely switched on , bu t I recall—I must
have bee n eigh t o r so—m y homeroom teacher , Fra u Garbell, tellin g u s th e
story of Lohengrin, which was to be broadcast that evening. I found it fascinating
and frightening, this business of the glamorous and wronged princess who was
not allowe d to ask her savior and husband his name, and that evening I lay on
the floo r nex t t o th e bi g brown Telefunken and waite d for Lohengrin, inde x
finger extended i n warning, to tell Elsa, "Me sollst du mich befragen!" —"Never
may you ask me!" What Frau Garbell didn't sa y was how long it would take
Wagner to get to the point, how much of tedious King Henry and his tiresome
Herald I would have t o pu t u p with first , an d I never mad e i t t o th e grea t
moment. I eventually caught up with Lohengrin when I was a college freshman.
It was my first visit to the Met, with the aging and rather improvisatory Lauritz
Melchior, Hele n Traubel, Kerstin Thorborg, Herber t Janssen , an d wit h Fritz
Busch conducting hi s first performance in that house.
Going to concerts i n Breslau was out because by the tim e I was old enough
to be taken , publi c events o f that sort were forbidden to Jews. Not knowin g
what I was missing, I was much mor e bothered b y not bein g abl e t o g o ice-
skating or t o th e zo o anymore. So, while ther e wa s a general sens e a t hom e
that musi c was A Goo d Thing , an d a few names an d title s wer e familiar—
Beethoven, Brahms , Furtwangler, Adolf Busch , Eine kleine Nachtmusik, an d
Die Meistersinger prominent amon g the m an d alway s pronounce d wit h
reverence—I ha d nearl y nothing by way of actual musica l sounds t o ti e t o
them. Th e exceptio n wa s The Threepenny Opera, whos e premiere had take n
place not quite two months before I was born. I have been told that "Mack the
Knife" an d Mr . Peachum's son g abou t th e perpetua l insufficiency o f huma n
endeavor, "Der Mensch lebt durch den Kopf, "both sung to m e b y my brother,
were the firs t music I heard, and that "Mack the Knife" was also the firs t song
I learned t o sing myself.
Beginnings 5
At te n I went t o Englan d o n a Kindertransport. Ther e I spent mos t of the

year in boarding school, the rest with the highly literate, politically aware, and
quite unmusical English family that had taken me in. Even so, thepaterfamilias
maintained a surprising totemic reverenc e fo r two symphonies, Beethoven' s
Ninth and Elgar's Second, actuall y suspending his obsessive gardening whe n
they showed up on the radio , which we still called "th e wireless. " Otherwise,
indifference t o music was complete. No, no t quite : I remembermaterfamilias
bristling indignantl y a t a broadcas t o f something fro m Verdi' s Otello, dark
comments being made about "foreigners" and "our English Shakespeare." There
was an upright piano in the house, and on that I played tunes from th eOxford
Book o f Carols an d a score of Th e Mikado. Oddly , I knew a few of the Sulliva n
songs, though with German words, because my mother ha d see n The Mikado
in Breslau around the tur n of the century. I also continued no t t o practice for
a continuing series of unstimulating and unenlightening lessons . When I visited
my old school, the Perse, a few years ago I was happy to see that they now have
varied and flourishing musical activities, but during my time there music only
meant bawling Loch Lomond, Shenandoah, an d Th e Campbells Ar e Coming for
an hou r a week unde r th e tutelag e o f the pompou s Mr. Macfarlane-Grieve,
and thoug h I liked th e song s themselves , tha t hardl y stretched m y musical
experience. A t m y first school s i n Germany , "music " als o mean t classroo m
singing, but at least there one of my teachers was Erich Werner, a real musician
who went on to a distinguished career in musicology.
All of this meant that I had t o find m y way to music on my own. Or, rather,
it found me. Fantasia came to the rescue at the right moment, and after tha t it
was a questio n o f learning ho w t o stil l m y growing hunger. I remember th e
happy distraction, o r so it seeme d a t th e time , o f jazz and othe r nonclassica l
music. Someone at school must have had a record player; at any rate I remember
delighting in Benny Goodman, the n the most idolized musician in the world,
and my excitement ove r Artie Sha w and th e sizzlin g trumpet of Harry James
(also m y disappointment upo n findin g a t th e librar y at twelv e o r s o wha t
unreadable books he wrote when h e calle d himsel f Henry). Jazz or classical:
that was an either/or questio n in those days . You chose u p sides and went for
Beethoven o r Louis Armstrong but no t possibl y for both. Part of my fun with
this musi c was in th e annoyanc e tha t m y pleasure, and fo r that matte r th e
music itself , cause d th e Elders of the People . I had mad e tha t fundamenta l
discovery of childhood an d adolescence—that i f the grownups hate it, it can't
be all bad. To avoid pleasing them to o much, I went a little bit undergroun d
with m y more "serious " musical passions, but i t wa s becoming clea r t o m e
where my heart belonged .
I discovered record stores, which in those day s had tin y listening room s in
which on e coul d tr y thos e imposing , shiny, black, dangerousl y fragile disks .
(When I revisited Cambridge for the firs t tim e more than twenty years later I
6 FO R THE LOVE O F MUSI C
wanted t o go into Miller' s to thank the m fo r what, unwittingly and probably

not happily , they had done for me on my journey toward music, but I am sorry
to say I didn't actuall y do it.) I began by listening t o the piece s I had com e to
know through Fantasia. My favorite at firs t was The Dance of the Hours played
by what on English HMV labels was called th e Boston Promenade Orchestr a
under Arthur Fiedler. Next came Schubert's Ave Maria because I had so loved
that gloriou s Disney hokum when the siniste r trees of Night o n Bald Mountain
magically turned into th e Gothic arche s of a sylvan cathedral. Trying different
recordings of Ave Maria brought the amazing revelation that sung by Elisabeth
Schumann i t sounded differen t fro m th e tarted-u p Stokowski orchestration ,
or that th e violi n versions of Heifetz and Menuhin wer e astonishingly unlik e
even though the notes were the same. Miller's was a treasure trove, and I took
pains to learn th e schedule s of the variou s salespeople so that n o one of them
would se e me to o ofte n an d I would not wea r out m y thinly base d welcome.
Even the Goldberg Variations cam e my way there, but I had not the slightest idea
of what to make of Goldberg, variations, or harpsichord. I did, however, find th e
name Wanda Landowska, whom I assumed to be a man, captivatingly elegant.
After Fantasia's brief stay at the ding y Cosmopolitan was over, Miller's was
virtually my only source of music during the schoo l year , a long desert of no
radio, no records, no concerts, no sympathy. Piano lessons were as limited and
unstimulating as they had bee n i n Breslau. But ther e wer e a few memorable
concert experiences. Once, my mother took me to a Mozart concert conducte d
by Herbert Menges , which brough t me my first encounte r wit h the G-mino r
Symphony and in which I loved most the high horns in the Trio of the Minuet.1
On anothe r occasio n I managed, by virtue of looking pitiful bu t presentable ,
to get someone to take me into th e Guildhall to hear Myra Hess play a couple
of Mozart concertos wit h an orchestra fro m London . An d o n one o f my only
two dizzyingly exciting trip s to London, I was taken t o one o f the lunchtim e
concerts sh e had starte d in the National Gallery, denuded fo r the tim e being
of it s greatest paintings. I t was then that I heard m y first strin g quartet, th e
Zorian, who played Schubert's Death and the Maiden. Hess was in the audience ,
and I watched her, as they say in England, "go behind" t o thank the performers .
That, too, was a good lesson.
What made more of an impact than any of these was a school concert—th e
only one we were ever taken to—at the Guildhall by the London Philharmoni c
conducted by Anatole Fistoulari , a name older record collectors will remember.
I recall three thing s abou t that hour . One i s that fo r most of the othe r kid s it
was not the most thrilling event of their lives thus far. Another wa s that Fistoulari
conducted Weber' s Invitation to the Dance an d explaine d t o u s how th e livel y
waltz is preceded by a tender cell o solo in which we were to imagine a young
I
1 hav e mor e to say about tha t experience in the essa y Another Word fo r Mozart.
Beginnings 7
man askin g a lady for a dance, an d that it is followed by a postlude, also quiet
and wit h sol o cello , whic h depict s hi s escortin g he r bac k t o he r chai r an d
thanking her . Therefore, h e said, we should not applau d when th e waltz ends
because the little scene of the postlude was yet to come. I need hardl y say what
actually happened . Th e thir d thin g wa s that th e progra m ended wit h th e
Hungarian March from Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust, and Fistoulari showed
us the hug e bass drum and ha d th e playe r demonstrate that , amazingly , this
instrument make s its most stunning effec t whe n it is hit as softly as possible.
Sixty-some years later, that still gives me goosebumps. That morning hooke d
me on orchestras, and it was a crucial step onto the road that led me to spending
the happies t years of my professional life working for them .
And ther e was Mr. Hardacre. The Pers e School was one of two in England
that had a separate boarding house for Jewish boys. Its housemaster, Mr. Dagut,
was a cultured and kind gentleman, bu t he was beyond being able to maintai n
order, and the task of keeping things running fell to the assistant housemaster.
For th e las t yea r I wa s a t Hille l Hous e tha t positio n wa s occupie d b y Mr.
Hardacre—Kenneth Hardacre , a young pipe-smoking teache r o f English. I
think this may have been his first job after university . He loved music, and h e
had a small radio, some books about music, and a few miniature scores. Every
now an d again—an d thi s ha d t o b e manage d wit h grea t discretion—whe n
there wa s something o n th e radi o h e though t I shoul d no t miss , he would
invite m e into his tiny, smoke-filled room to listen to a Brahms symphony or a
Mozart piano concerto. H e offered a bit of instruction an d some opinions, an d
he would also press the appropriat e volume of Tovey's Essays in Musical Analysis
into m y hand i n preparatio n fo r our clandestin e listenin g sessions . Th e si x
slender blue volumes had a place of honor o n his overcrowded shelves. In fact,
I could hardly understand a word of Tovey's essays, but I was immensely flattered
by thos e loan s an d love d carryin g those book s around . T o this da y I fin d i t
amazing, sometime s incredible , tha t m y own book s bea r th e sam e Oxfor d
University Press imprint a s Tovey's.
Later, when I was in college , equippe d wit h som e mor e backgroun d an d
more musical vocabulary, I looked fo r Tovey in the librar y and, one a t a time,
acquired his writings. Reading Tovey and having him before me as a never-to-
be-equaled example had, I am sure, everything to do with my landing u p as a
writer o f program notes i n m y fifties. Soone r o r late r I would of course hav e
found Tovey anyway, but because it was Mr. Hardacre who got my unprepared
self there first , I have always mentally thanked hi m for setting my foot on that
path. We corresponded fo r a while after I left th e schoo l an d left England, bu t
eventually we lost touch. I mentioned th e role he had played in my life in th e
introduction t o m y first book , Th e Symphony: A Listener's Guide, and a littl e
later tried to locate him, only to learn that he was a widower completely lost in
an Alzheimer fog.
Radio also made a huge difference whe n I was home for the holidays . Th e
BBC was generous with music, live and recorded, and I discovered—an ominous
sign surely—tha t lik e peopl e i n wartim e gettin g outrageou s pleasure fro m
reading cookbooks ful l o f recipes calling fo r the butte r an d egg s they hardly
believe they will ever see again, I could generate shudders of delight simply by
reading concert listing s in the Radio Times. When I arrived at my next home ,
St. Louis, the radio was on in my brother's apartment—I still remember that it
was Toscanini and the NBC Symphony, with Horszowski playing, of all things,
the Martucci Piano Concerto .
I quickly got to know how and when to find Toscanin i myself (Sunda y late
afternoon), an d als o the Ne w Yor k Philharmonic (Sunda y early afternoon),
the Bosto n Symphon y (Saturda y night), th e Clevelan d Orchestr a (Frida y
night), an d tha t astonishin g worl d opene d u p b y th e Metropolita n Oper a
(Saturday afternoon). I could still reconstruct, stick by stick, the livin g room
of our friends, th e Arndts, where, bug-eyed, I heard Jan Peerce sing Che gelida
manina. "Talor da l mio forziere . . . "—nothing ha d prepare d me fo r being so
swept away by a single phrase of music! Two stations tied to schools—WEW a t
St. Louis University and KFUO a t Concordia Seminary—offere d a n hour or
so o f record s a day ; thes e wer e limited , repetitious , wit h title s an d name s
mispronounced, record sides played in the wrong order (they never seemed to
look whether a set was in manual or automatic sequence), and they ALWAYS
stopped Brahms's Alto Rhapsody during the long silence before the final "Amen"
cadence o n "sein Herz " Tha t infuriate d my mother ever y time, eve n mor e
than Marian Anderson's versio n of German vowels , and sh e always supplied
the missing two notes herself. Still, it added up to indispensable nourishmen t
and pleasure.
All thi s wa s haphazard, determined b y the tast e o f the tim e an d what by
today's standard s were the exceedingl y limite d content s o f record company
catalogues. I am sure that by the tim e I went t o college I had heard only one
symphony each of Mahler an d Bruckner , only the mos t famou s Tchaikovsky
and Dvorak , hardly any chamber musi c or songs, virtually nothing from ou r
century (though someone at KFUO was very fond of Howard Hanson's Lament
for Beowulf). I also remained ignoran t o f everything t o do with music except
how it sounded. I scarcely knew what harmony meant, certainly had no idea of
what counterpoint was, and had only the vaguest sense of the history of music.
By the tim e I was fifteen I had rea d only one book about music, The Orchestra
Speaks, a still absorbing account by Bernard Shore, the BBC Symphony's witty
and literat e principa l violist , o f what i t wa s lik e t o wor k with th e famou s
conductors of the day. Of course that made me want to be a conductor. All in
all, I don't think my long-sustained ignorance did me any harm. No doubt it is
best to learn what is so oddly misnamed "theory" at eleven or twelve, which is
also a good age to learn languages, but i t was all right at sixteen as well. As for
Beginnings 9
history, I enjoyed it more for getting to it when I already had a sense of what
some of the music sounded like, so that it was an entertaining an d often even
illuminating way of reexamining and ordering material to which, in some other
and more important sense, I already had a key.
By no means did I just bliss out t o every musical sound that came my way.
For instance, brought up as I was in a thoroughly Austro-German orthodoxy, I
was absolutely unequipped to deal with Debussy. I couldn't make head o r tail
of him, though t hi m a fraud , an d stil l remember—and her e to o I can plac e
myself exactly in the corner armchai r in the living room at 134 1 McCausland
Avenue i n St . Louis—bein g rattle d int o blin d rag e b y Nuages an d Fete s
(Stokowski's recording). Mahler seemed absurdly incoherent nonsense too , as
did some of the weirder patches in Beethoven's lat e quartets like the scherzo
in Opus 13 1 and the firs t movement of Opus 135 . For that matter I quarreled
for year s with Wagner an d particularl y Brahms.
Occasional encounter s wit h moder n musi c wer e mostl y dismaying . It
bothered m e that Stravinsky's Symphony in C did not sound like my beloved
Rite o f Spring. Afte r a promisin g half-minute waltz a t th e beginnin g I didn' t
know what t o make of the res t of Schoenberg's Pian o Concert o o n a n NB C
Symphony broadcast (Stokowski lost his job for insisting on programming it),
and his Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, whos e premier e was broadcast by the
New Yor k Philharmonic , wa s equall y bafflin g an d th e weirdl y singson g
declamation o f Byron's text was inclined to make me giggle. Even a few years
later, when I should hav e know n better, Schoenberg' s Strin g Quarte t No . 3
was unintelligibl e t o m e whe n I hear d i t a t a Kolisc h Quarte t concer t a t
Princeton, an d s o was Elliott Carter' s Pian o Sonata , whic h I stumbled onto
not knowing what it was, having arrived late at a concert fo r which the program
had been changed .
This list could now serve as the beginning of an inventory of pieces I especially
love. The firs t classical album I ever bought was Debussy's Violin Sonata with
Zino Francescatti and Robert Casadesus, one of the most challenging and joyous
experiences of my musical life has been the opportunit y to perform th e Ode to
Napoleon a number of times as well as the Sprechstimme part s in Gurre-Lieder
and A Survivor from Warsaw, an d Carte r i s for me one o f the mos t exciting of
living composers. Every one of my musical loves began with a strong reaction,
with passion. I can thin k of plenty of examples of love at firs t hearing (als o of
the occasiona l crus h I mistook for love), but I cannot forget tha t sometimes
the firs t powerfu l respons e was one o f rejection.
What hav e I learned? In th e alle y behind th e Cosm o I learned—happily
without realizing I was actually learning something—that I did not need Mickey
Mouse or those bra-clad centaurettes o r even th e beautifu l image s of darting
violin bow s in th e Bac h Toccat a an d Fugu e in D mino r t o mak e th e musi c
enjoyable. I learned tha t music repaid repeated listening. Mos t music anyway.
The Dance of the Hours did not get more interesting (thoug h it continued to
be fun), but th e Bac h an d th e Pastoral Symphon y did, an d Th e Rite of Spring,
whose sound s I had adore d fro m th e beginning , starte d t o reveal intelligibl e
and remembere d shape s and patterns . I learned t o pay attention, because if I
missed somethin g i t was gone, a t least til l the nex t afternoon . I learned tha t
my focus change d fro m detail s to at least something lik e the whole , fro m th e
raisins to the cake. And I learned tha t there was a lot to hear in some of those
pieces and that they did not ceas e to be full of surprises. I could of course not
have articulate d an y of this then.
One Fantasia lesson I wish I had learne d mor e quickly, but her e I was slow
on th e uptake . At som e point i t was revealed t o me that Stokowski, with his
cuts an d splice s an d re-orchestrations , ha d treate d Beethoven , Schubert ,
Musorgsky, and Stravinsky pretty damn willfully, no t t o say brutally. I grew t o
be awfull y sniff y abou t this sor t of thing. I t was years before i t dawned on m e
that Stokowsk i ha d ultimatel y done n o seriou s harm, tha t firs t meetin g th e
Pastoral Symphony or The Rite of Spring i n his versions did not kee p me or need
not kee p anyon e els e fro m eventuall y discoverin g tha t what Beethove n an d
Stravinsky ha d writte n wa s even bette r tha n wha t Stokowski—o r perhap s
Stokowski and the Disney people—thought the y ought to have written. Making
a piece sound unintelligible o r just plain boring is a worse sin.
What else did I eventually learn? To pay heed t o my first reactions but als o
not t o tak e the m to o seriousl y and certainl y no t t o assum e that the y hav e
permanent value . Not to think too much at the beginning an d not to think at
all about what I thought I was maybe supposed to be thinking. T o be patien t
or—better—suspenseful, t o wait and see how the piece or I might change (th e
former i s of course a n illusion) , an d t o remembe r m y fifteen-year-old sel f i n
righteous indignatio n ove r th e Debuss y Nocturnes. That in the en d th e onl y
study o f music is music, that goo d progra m notes an d pre-concer t talk s ar e
helpful ways of showing you the doo r in the wall and of turning on some extra
lights, bu t tha t th e onl y thin g tha t reall y matters i s what happen s privatel y
between you and the music. That, as with any other for m of falling in love, no
one can do it for you and no one can draw you a map. That listening t o music
is not lik e getting a haircut o r a manicure, but tha t it is something fo r you to
do. That music, like any worthwhile partner in love, is demanding, sometime s
exasperatingly, exhaustingl y demanding . That—an d her e I borrow a perfec t
formulation from Karen Armstrong's memoir, The Spiral Staircase —"you have
to give it your full attention, wait patiently upon it, and make an empty space
for it in your mind." That it is a demon that can pursue us as relentlessly as the
Hound o f Heaven. Tha t its capacity to give is as near to infinite as anything in
this world , an d tha t wha t i t offer s u s i s alway s an d inescapabl y i n exac t
proportion to what we ourselves give.
—M.S.
Preliminary: The Professors Legac y
W:
hen my father arrived in the United States from Germany in 1925,
>
he was already almost thirty. He spoke no English and was a veteran

of the Western Front who had fought on the losing side. He moved
in with a distant cousin, Wilhelm Alvin, who lived in Chicago—where, in a red
brick three-story building at th e intersection o f Lincoln, Diversey , and Racin e
avenues, h e ha d founde d th e Lincol n Conservator y o f Music. I n Germany ,
Wilhelm Alvi n had alway s been know n as der Alvin, and in the neighborhoo d
around th e Lincol n Conservator y o f Music, heavily populate d with Germa n
immigrants, you might have expected he would be called the same . (Alvin: My
father alway s use d the Germa n pronunciation , th e accente d A l matching th e
sound of the firs t syllabl e of olive, and th e vi n sounding like veen.) But thi s was
America, and here Alvin was William A. His students and their parents called
him Professor. His friends called him Bill. Or Big Bill. He had girth—the photos
show that—and his bearing suggests power as well. He liked to drink, claimed to
have cure d himself of malaria by a steady intake o f dark rum while serving in
Cuba in the Spanish-American War, and despite Prohibition kne w how to slake
his thirst. His hospitality made him popular, right down to a drinking friendship
with the beat cop. He must also have had a genuine streak of generosity, else he
would not have sponsored my father's emigration.
My father suspected that Alvin's music background was more rudimentary
than the titl e o f Professor suggested . He did not recal l ever hearing him play
12 FO R THE LOVE O F MUSI C
any instrument, though in the obituary Alvin would write for himself, published
in the Abendpost whe n he died in 1931, he claimed to have sounded a trumpet
flourish a s the Star s and Stripe s was raised a t Morr o Castle i n 1898 . A t th e
Lincoln Conservator y of Music, Alvin employe d a cadre of teachers, som e of
them musicians down on their luck; one, at least, was an alcoholic ex-member
of Frederic k Stock' s Chicag o Symphon y Orchestra . B y planting thes e me n
throughout hi s studen t ensemble , Alvi n manage d t o giv e concert s tha t
convinced parent s that their children were learning the basics of a craft, if not
an art. And b y relying on the professional musicians in the group to take th e
lead, Alvi n stoo d o n th e podiu m i n fron t o f a n orchestr a tha t essentiall y
conducted itsel f while h e wave d his arms in a soulful wa y and pretende d t o
cue entrances. Maestro s more famous tha n Alvin hav e sinne d mor e gravely,
and since he was not famous , I think he deserves points for being resourceful .
What I relate here abou t Alvin I know only fro m storie s my father told me ,
thirty years after th e fact. Though m y father remembered Alvin with affectio n
and humor , he mus t have though t thi s od d relative an d hi s Conservatory of
Music a parody of the world in which he himself had grow n up.
That world was one tha t ha d bee n forme d b y nineteenth-century music .
Indeed, m y father wa s born i n th e nineteent h century , in 1897 , i n th e ol d
Kaiserstadt of Goslar, at the foo t of the Har z Mountains. The househol d he
was raise d i n wa s ful l o f music, al l th e time . H e wa s th e thir d younges t of
twelve children, six of each gender, one of those large Victorian families presided
over b y an all-but-absente e father . His father was all-but-absent because h e
was the town' s overworked Musikdirektor, th e one responsible for the music at
municipal functions, and a respected teache r who , with a staff o f lieutenants
he employed, oversaw the musical apprenticeships of adolescent boys who also
lodged wit h th e family . A t an y give n tim e durin g my father's childhood, a
minimum o f twent y student s live d i n th e household . Gosla r wa s als o a
community that supporte d a silver-mining industry, and the miners had thei r
own band, a Bergkapelle, for which the Musikdirektor was responsible. Through
my father I have inherite d an ebon y baton whos e handle end is trimmed in
finely wrought silver and engraved, in gratitude, to Musikdirektor Julius Rothe.
So far as I can determine, my grandfather was the genuine article. Certainly he
was a differen t articl e tha n de r Alvin, o r Bi g Bill, o r whateve r h e migh t b e
called—the Professo r an d founde r of the Lincol n Conservator y of Music.
Music in various forms, som e more legitimate tha n others, was part of my
father's family, but my father was not a musician himself. As the ninth of twelve
children, h e was hardly a novelty at home. The effor t m y grandfather gave to
teaching, civi c responsibilities , an d hi s own studies of the violin , piano , an d
French horn must have diverted his attention fro m the cause-and-effect realities
of huma n reproduction . Perhap s h e wa s simpl y bewildered b y hi s youngest
children, bu t b y the tim e chil d numbe r nine appeared he was tired an d ha d
Beginnings 1 3
pretty much stopped teaching his own offspring. My father had, however, grown
up hearing music and loving it, and by the tim e he was fourteen, when he was
already far from hom e an d a baker's apprentice, he saved his meager earnings
so that now and then he could purchase a standing-room place at the opera in
Braunschweig. From his apprenticeship h e went t o war, and afte r th e wa r he
returned to the Weimar Republic and the deprivations and wrecked economy
of those hard years. When an older brother, Siegfried, declined Alvin's offe r t o
come to America, m y father eagerly took Siegfried's place.
My father' s knowledge o f music's expans e remaine d limited , ye t h e wa s
always concerned tha t I be steered in a "proper" musical direction. During one
of our regular pilgrimages—I must have been nine or ten—to Chicago's Lincol n
Avenue shopping district, where every other store window still boasted a hand-
painted sign proclaiming Hier wird deutsch gesprochen—German Spoken Here—
my father steered me out the door of Kuhn's Delicatessen and, while my mother
shopped fo r Wurst un d Schinken, led m e down th e stree t int o a record store .
There he purchased a single black disc in a brown paper sleeve. It was Mozart's
Overture t o Do n Giovanni, spread over bot h side s of a 7 8 RP M disc . Gray
lettering o n a blu e Columbi a labe l tol d m e tha t th e Roya l Philharmoni c
Orchestra performe d this music under the directio n of Sir Thomas Beecham .
Perhaps m y father though t I should b e impresse d by this, bu t I was not. A
friend o f mine who is a great lover of music maintains tha t we do a disservice
to children by trying to make them like works they cannot possibly understand.
Such a concept, base d on what is "age-appropriate," might not b e true in all
cases, but i t was for me. Don't get me wrong. Even as a kid, I loved music; it
was just that my father never thought my favorites were legitimate, ranging as
they did from "Re d River Valley" to "The Bunn y Hop" t o "Love Me Tender"
and Elme r Bernstein's music for the soundtrac k of The Te n Commandments.
My fathe r did, to his credit, tolerat e thes e musica l tastes. Periodically he
nagged me about not listenin g t o the classica l canon, an d one Christmas h e
even gave me three installments of the fifteen- o r twenty-volume Philharmonic
Library of Classical Music, the sort of record collection tha t used to be sold at
supermarkets, a new volume each week, like the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia
set we had accumulated over half a year's shopping at the neighborhood Jewel
store. Mostly, though, h e le t m e alone, an d when I was sixteen I discovered
classical music on my own.
Nothing, however , ever really happens on one's own , nor did my discovery
of music . I' m sur e a lo t o f pump-priming had gon e on . Leonar d Bernstei n
certainly ha d somethin g t o d o wit h it . I spen t som e snowboun d Sunda y
afternoons i n fron t o f m y parents ' Munt z TV , watching Bernstein' s Youn g
People's Concerts, an d it was Bernstein who, more than any other figure, became
associated in my mind with classical music. If someone as engaging as he could
get excite d abou t it , perhap s i t bor e examination . On e evenin g I caugh t a
14 FO R THE LOVE OP MUSIC
glimpse of a very different kin d of TV program that my father was watching. It

was some cop or detective show , and t o background music that struc k me as
sublime—slow an d stately , deliberately paced an d grandios e with fanfares —
the scen e unfolde d in slow motion a s two thugs, their fist s cleavin g the ai r in
gestures as graceful a s those of ballet, pummeled a man i n a back alley. What
was tha t music ? M y father said he though t i t wa s from Beethoven' s Pastoral
Symphony. Th e nex t weekend , I was at th e recor d bin s a t Pol k Brothers , a
store that sold appliances and furniture but also, for some reason, records, and
the recordin g of the Pastoral Symphony I purchased was Leonard Bernstein's .
Of all the recordings of the Pastoral Symphony I saw for sale that day, Bernstein's
was th e onl y one tha t cam e with a name I recognized. As it turne d out , my
father had been wrong, though not by much. I learned late r that th e music to
which tha t slow-motio n beatin g ha d bee n choreographe d wa s the secon d
movement o f the Beethoven Fifth . The Pastoral ha d it s own merits, though .
And a s far as music went, I was on my way.
That was in 1966 . In the nex t eightee n year s I graduall y broadened my
knowledge o f basic concer t repertory—throug h recordings, an d throug h
concerts. I was lucky to discove r liv e musi c during th e glor y years of Georg
Solti's Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In the early 1970s, gallery seats for Friday
matinees cos t students two dollars, a bargain even by that time' s standards.
In earl y 1984 , I had bee n livin g i n th e Ba y Area fo r a year. I was newly
married and making a scrappy living in the on-again, off-again world of freelance
writing. My wife and I had started coming to San Francisco Symphony concerts
the previous year (she was completing a doctorate at the University of California
and wa s able t o ge t he r hand s o n a student subscriptio n series, made even
more affordable b y splitting the serie s with a friend). M y first encounte r wit h
the Sa n Francisco Symphony was also my first encounter wit h the orchestra' s
program book. In my years of concertgoing, I had learned not t o take program
books seriously. I expected bad writing, incomprehensible with jargon, leeched
of joy and passio n and lif e an d beauty . In othe r words , what was in program
books ha d nothing , nothin g a t all , t o d o with th e music . In ever y way, the
program book I held i n my hands tha t firs t evening a t Davies Symphony Hall
was different. Th e progra m notes wer e written by a man, Michael Steinberg ,
who had the credential tha t seem s basic to every writer of music commentary
but whic h I had neve r foun d before. He wrote with grace and wit and love of
music. Not since my days in front of the TV set, listening to Leonard Bernstein
talk, had I run into anythin g like this .
It was probably in February 1984 that I learned the San Francisco Symphony
was seeking a new editor fo r its program book. Neither m y academic nor my
life credential s enable d m e t o cal l mysel f a musicia n o r a musicologist . But
with degrees in English and American literature , plus seven years of magazine
work behind me , I thought I knew a little about publishing, so I made my case.
It was a whim, inspired by one o f those moment s when you want somethin g
Beginnings 1 5
desperately, believe you are unworthy to have it, but imagine yourself convincin g
those with the powe r of granting the priz e to confer it on you. I won. My job
would be to edit Michael Steinberg. I was terrified.
I have calmed down over the years. Michael and I have continued t o work
together, and out o f our work a friendship has grown. My writing about music
is in many ways a correlative to the growth of this friendship. For it was through
reading Michael an d i n editing an d absorbin g his work that I began to get a
new appreciation for how love of music could be translated into words. I knew
before I met Michael that music had important things to say about life, but h e
helped m e understan d ho w t o conside r thes e things , an d hi s exampl e
emboldened m e to write about them. In a way, my own lack of formal trainin g
makes me proof that th e pleasures of music are open to all, and that th e route
to experiencin g thos e pleasure s begins i n th e gut . Though min e i s only on e
perspective on a subject that ca n tolerat e a n infinit y of perspectives, I have
tried to reach music lovers with no more formal training than my own but who
might, give n suggestion s and roa d signs , discover bigge r thrill s i n listening .
Music speaks to each of us, and while we will not alway s concur on the thrus t
of its messages, we can agree that i t springs from a common well , as natural
and unknowabl e as life.
In all this, I realize now, I am following in a family tradition . I like to think
that I am continuing i n the wake of my grandfather, the august Musikdirektor,
but it' s possibl e tha t I a m mor e aki n spirituall y to Alvi n an d hi s Lincol n
Conservatory of Music. Neither musi c nor musica l matters, however, can b e
neatly compartmentalized, and one may not cance l th e other. It comes down
to this . I love music . To write about it a s though I have anythin g specia l to
share is presumptuous. Music, whether it comes from a hundred-piece orchestra,
the smok y chambers of John Coltrane' s sax , or a steel band i n the subway , is
god and goddess, holy spirit. Music can be broken down into constituent parts
just as the human body can be analyzed chemically, yet, like the body, only the
whole for m say s somethin g abou t divinity . I a m no t music' s servant . I a m
someone who wishes to be worthy of such servitude, and for me it seems tha t
writing abou t musi c is th e onl y wa y to approac h tha t foreve r unattainabl e
goal. For while it is never enough to say that, because the trut h is unknowable
we should no t bothe r pursuin g it, I believe tha t Alvi n i n his unlettered way
was o n t o something . I am confident tha t someon e i s the happie r toda y for
having been led to music by the child of a child who sat on the edge of his seat,
ready with his trombone, a s Alvin gav e the downbea t t o start the American
Patrol March. We use music to shape and reshape our responses to the world,
just as the book s we read and th e film s w e see become part of us. In th e end ,
music—the orchestra , Coltrane, th e stee l band—is what we make of it, an d
what we allow it to make us.
—L.R.
IL
(P*1D IE A HTiOlD Q
Another Word for Mozart
I
n 1991, the year of the Mozart bicentennial, a friend in Germany wrote to
me that even she , who had no contact wit h the world of classical music,
had noticed i t was "Mozarting like mad everywhere." She asked whethe r
Mozart was born or died tw o hundred year s ago, and I liked her own answer
that "i t make s n o differenc e really." O f cours e th e musi c historia n i n m e
wanted t o ge t on hi s high hors e an d tel l he r no t onl y tha t Mozar t died i n
1791, on 5 December, a t 12:5 5 i n th e morning , bu t als o to point ou t tha t if
Mozart had been bom that year, he'd be a contemporary, more or less, of Weber,
Meyerbeer, Marschner, Loewe, Schubert, Donizetti , an d such characters, an d
he would have written a very different sor t of music. Which actually raises an
interesting question . Assuming that he would have been just as gifted, would
we love his music just as much? In other words, to what extent i s his apparently
permanent an d indestructible popularit y tied to the fac t tha t he composed in
that specific style we call Classical?
He was born in 1756 , on 27 January, a day I bet a few ancient Germans still
celebrate silentl y a s th e birthda y o f th e las t Kaiser . I remembe r 1956 , th e
bicentenary o f Mozart's birth, ver y well. We too k notic e o f the anniversar y
with specia l concerts , oper a productions , an d tons o f recordings . A ne w
complete edition of Mozart's music was begun, and there was even a scattering
of new pieces composed in his honor (no t much of moment). I was in the army
that year, stationed i n Stuttgart, and I have a happy and gratefu l memory of a
20 FOR THE LOVE OF MUSIC
concert wit h Car l Schurich t conductin g an d th e wonderfu l Clara Haski l as

piano solois t in the beautifu l baroque theate r a t Ludwigsburg, a visually rich
and acoustically exquisite room of the kind tha t must have been very familiar
to Mozart. Overall, though , 195 6 was nothing like 1991 . I n thirty-fiv e years,
Mozart's popularity had soared. In trying to explain that phenomenon, I slide
into a n attemp t t o answe r anothe r questio n m y friend pu t t o me : What i s it
about Mozart?
He was a child prodigy . That's a species not held i n much regard nowadays,
but Mozart, immensely gifted, and shrewdly "managed" by his ambitious father,
enjoyed a phenomenal caree r for a few years. He did not have a n easy journey
through adolescence int o adulthood, partly because that is never easy, but no t
least because his father, himself a distinguished musician, did his best to imprison
his son in childhood. (Th e "child " was thirty-one whe n th e fathe r died.) For
that matter, when Mozart visited Paris in his twenties, he had cause to complain
that the publi c there treate d hi m as though h e were still seven, hi s age at his
first visit . And equatin g Mozart with innocence, presenting hi m a s a child, a
pre-Freudian child o f course, is an idea that has never quit e gone away .
But Mozar t did become a grownup, impulsive, passionate, sexual , playful ,
moody, affectionate , not alway s clever abou t practica l matter s o r politically
adroit, and, let us not forget, incredibly hard-working. Just once he fell achingly
in love, with the teenage sopran o Aloysia Weber. She was cold and indifferent
to him, and he later married her younger sister Constanze. I t was a contented
and companionabl e union , ful l of sex, but I don't know that he ever got over
Aloysia. It is about the tim e he realized he was getting nowhere wit h her that
a persistent strai n o f melancholy enter s hi s music. At an y rate, marrying the
beloved's sister is probably not the best cure (as Antonin Dvof ak would discover
a century later). Aloysia herself entered a fairly unhappy marriage with Joseph
Lange, an actor and painter who has given us the most sensitive a s well as the
most famous of all Mozart portraits.
At twenty-five , Mozart managed t o get away from Salzburg , which, bu t for
his posthumous glory, would still be as oppressively provincial toda y as it was
in the 1770s . He took the plunge and established himself in Vienna as a freelance
artist. He woul d have preferre d the securit y of a well-paid position a t court ,
but that never cam e along, at least not on an adequate scale. Nonetheless, i n
his firs t fe w years in Vienn a h e onc e agai n enjoye d stunnin g succes s a s a
composer, pianist, an d teacher . Thoug h local , i t was a popularity so dizzying
that it could no t b e sustained. Th e trul y musical public stayed with Mozart,
but som e of his audience consiste d o f people who valued him less as an artis t
than as the currently fashionable sensation, an d they lost interest .
In the second hal f of the 1780 s he experienced a slump. He wrote only two
piano concertos afte r 178 6 and no symphonies after the summer of 1788. That
is indicative, for then composers always wrote in response to demand. In 179 1
Creators 2 1
he foun d a new audienc e wit h The Magic Flute, produced not a t a n elegan t
house i n th e city , but i n a suburba n musical comedy theater . Seve n week s
later, ill , overworked , depressed , convince d a t moment s tha t h e ha d bee n
poisoned, strugglin g to compos e a Requie m fo r whic h h e ha d receive d a
mysteriously anonymous commission during the summer , he too k t o his bed.
He died a fortnight later. People still argue about the caus e of his death, bu t
even if you saw it at the movies or had read it in Pushkin long before that , h e
was not poisoned by his admired colleague Salieri.
That he died young is part of his fascination—"those who m the gods love"
and all that. His early death i s also part of the mechanis m tha t seems to lock
him int o perpetua l childhood. Becaus e i t invite s u s t o fee l superio r t o hi s
contemporaries, we dearly love the story of his funeral in a snowstorm so terrible
that everyone gave up and turned back before the y reached th e cemetery and
his burial in an unmarked pauper's grave (I remember as a child being shown a
picture of the hears e followed onl y by Mozart's little mutt) . When in 1959(! )
Nicolas Slonimsk y looked u p the weathe r report , it turne d ou t tha t th e day
was mild, with just a trace of mist. If Mozart ended i n an unmarke d grave, so
did nearl y al l Viennese wh o die d i n o r soo n afte r th e reig n o f Joseph II, a n
idealist sorely lacking in common sense an d who insisted tha t death an d th e
disposal of bodies be treate d a s a purely practical problem without regard for
human feeling.
A legend that is harder to dispel—and harder since Peter Shaffer an d Milos
Forman—is tha t o f Mozart's name. No t onc e di d h e cal l himsel f Wolfgang
Amadeus. Hi s famil y calle d hi m Wolfgan g an d it s variou s affectionat e
diminutives. The "Amadeus " part appears in the baptismal register and in his
father's firs t account s i n it s Germa n an d Gree k form s a s Gottlie b an d
Theophilus. Mozar t himself liked the French and Italian forms Amade, Amadeo,
and Amade. Once or twice when h e i s fooling around h e sign s as Wolfgangus
Amadeus Mozartus; otherwis e Amadeu s i s a posthumous solemnization o f a
very serious but blessedly unsolemn man .
The musical world in which he grew up and worked revolved around opera.
That was Mozart's strong suit, or let u s say the stronges t suit of an artist who
had nothing but strong suits. Wherever it is that they give out particular musical
gifts, the y don' t d o i t even-handedly . Ther e ar e oper a composer s who ar e
musicians of the firs t order but who lack a sense of theater, of atmosphere and
pace; then there ar e those who have the theatrical gif t in abundance but who
do not writ e first-rate music. Mozart is one o f the ver y few who have it all.
He ha d a n amazin g knack fo r observing his fellow human s an d o f getting
down onto paper just what he saw. His effervescent letters are full of uncannily
vivid descriptions and characterizations of people he met as he traveled about;
that same gift of seeing (in this case in his mind's eye) and expressing (in music
rather than in words) goes into the creation o f his operatic characters. Ofte n
the orchestr a bring s the m t o lif e even befor e the y sing . Mozar t was blessed
with som e ver y good librettos , bu t th e musi c tell s u s fa r mor e abou t th e
individualities o f Susanna an d th e Countess , o f Fiordiligi and Dorabell a an d
Despina, of the thre e wome n in Don Giovanni, than the elegantly and wittily
fashioned texts .
This magical transmutation occurs because Mozart has so much feeling for
the complexity, the ambiguity of human creatures and therefore of the situations
into which they maneuver themselves. He can to perfection express pure grief,
as i n Pamina' s "Ach, ic h fuhl's," o r pur e gidd y joy, as whe n Papagen o an d
Papagena plan their family, but he is most quintessentially and uniquely himself
when smile s and tear s come togethe r a s inconsiderately an d perplexingl y as
they can in real life, when we sense the remembrance of joy even as the Countess
Alma viva laments the fading of her marriage, or in those countless places where
the shado w of a minor chord o r of some strange harmonic coloratio n darken s
the groun d for a moment.
His dark side came as a surprise to me when I was a boy. The firs t Mozart
pieces I remember hearing wer e Eine kleine Nachtmusik and th e Overtur e t o
The Abduction from th e Seraglio. The forme r i s one o f his fe w works with very
little sense of shadow; in the latter, which was my special favorite, the jolliness
of the quick music with the triangle must have been what got to me, for I have
no recollection o f the slower middle section in minor.
When I was twelve or so, I was taken to an all-Mozart concert that included
the grea t G-minor Symphony , No. 40 . I was completely unprepared for that
turbulence. I remember being irresistibly drawn into the piec e but als o being
confused an d even annoye d becaus e it didn't correspon d t o m y exceedingly
sketchy idea o f who Mozart was. A while later, I had a chance to hear Myra
Hess pla y a couple o f the pian o concertos , ever-presen t no w but ver y little
performed sixt y years ago, and while I enjoyed that very much—and I damn
well should have— I als o remember being confused because Mozart couldn't
seem to make up his mind whether h e was writing happy or sad pieces. ( I had
just developed a taste for the Tchaikovsk y Pathetique, partly no doubt because
some grownup had warned me it was considered vulgar.)
But t o ge t bac k t o th e operas . They no t onl y offe r u s a portrai t gallery
unsurpassed in the theate r fo r vividness and insight, but the y also provide us
with a sort of Rosetta Stone for the decodin g of Mozart's instrumental music.
His concertos, strin g quintets and quartets, symphonies—whatever—all turn
out soone r or later to be transposed opera. The ke y to their gestures is in th e
operas, an d th e opera s are th e essentia l sourc e of our understandin g o f his
music.
Why does Mozart get to people so? Which indeed h e does. From my friend
David Cairns, the great Berlioz scholar, I heard the story of the little boy saying
to his mother, "You mean to say Mozart was a man? I thought it was just anothe r
Creators 2 3
word fo r music." In composer s Mozart has inspire d aw e and lov e an d envy .

Most performer s wil l tel l yo u tha t t o pla y an d sin g Mozar t i s th e mos t
monumental challenge in their professional lives. The public has always taken
pleasure in Mozart—or better, in many different Mozarts.
He i s so complete. H e touche s u s everywhere—mind, heart, an d senses .
We deligh t i n th e richnes s an d generosit y o f hi s inventio n (whic h hi s
contemporaries often found overwhelming and disturbing), that inexhaustible
plenty o f melodies, thos e recklessl y rich harmonies , th e amazin g sense o f
instrumental color (m y single most indelible impressio n when I first heard th e
G-minor Symphon y was that o f the hig h horn s i n th e tri o o f the minuet , a
place I especially look forward to every time). Simplicity and complexity come
naturally to him, and in equal measure. He is funny, too , though it makes me
sad that audiences toda y seem not t o be trained t o hear that or to respond to
it. He knows pain, but h e never feel s sorr y for himself, neither does he beg us
to fee l sorr y for him.
And I suppos e that i s th e special Mozar t characteristic, th e exquisit e
balancing ac t between th e passion—the roilin g emotional content—an d th e
unshakably perfect manners . Almost unshakable , I should say. There are two
or thre e place s in Mozart where th e surfac e cracks , where for a moment th e
harmonies and the rhythm reveal him to have been a potential master of excess.
All Mozart-lovers know and cherish thos e places, and cherish the m th e more
because the y ar e so extremely rare. It i s in tha t perfectl y calculate d tensio n
between center an d surface tha t we find th e essenc e of Mozart.
Perhaps—and who , afte r all , ca n d o mor e tha n speculate—th e restrain t
and the nobility of spirit that this restraint implies are at the heart of Mozart's
power over us. When I was first learning music, it was Beethoven, Beethoven ,
Beethoven. He was the ideal artist and our ideal voice. Yes, Schroeder in Peanuts
spoke fo r million s o f us . Pete r Ustino v like d t o tel l th e stor y of a genera l
knowledge test when he was a schoolboy. Having to name the world's greatest
composer he put down "Mozart." He failed. The correct answer was Beethoven.
Then i n th e las t quarte r of the twentiet h centur y we made Beethove n rol l
over to allow room for Mahler, thus adding heterogeneity, unrestrained pathos,
actually uninhibited everything, an d not least, extreme vulnerability. And now
we have added Mozart—yes, always admired, always in the repertory, but never
so fully a s now.
We don't need t o castrate him, to make him into the innocent child he was
not. His songs are songs of experience. Perhaps it does after all make a difference
that he was not born in 1791 , that he lived and worked before Beethoven ha d
made heroics an d the heroic ambitio n part of the common musical language.
It is wonderful at thi s mess y moment i n th e world' s history to fin d someon e
who can speak to us about everything: bathroom humor, a misplaced pin, th e
sadness of lost love, and the awesome and incalculable powers of eros, thanatos,
and forgiveness . As the novelis t Maev e Brenna n sai d abou t th e Andant e of

the Symphon y No. 29 , "It is the voice you can say anything in." Wonderful, too,
that he does all this without heroics, with delicious wit, and with an unruffle d
sense of beauty. It was wry hyperbole, but on e knows just what Rossini had i n
mind whe n h e sai d tha t whil e Beethoven wa s undoubtedl y th e greates t of
composers, Mozart was the onl y one .
—M.S.
Thinking of Robert Schumann
c?
R
obert Schumann? Yes, of course. The name is one of the most reassuring-
ly familia r o n ou r musica l landscape, ye t w e kno w Schuman n th e
composer less than we sometimes assume. How many people reading
these word s have heard , le t alon e performed , Das Paradies und di e Peri afte r
Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh; the opera Genoveva, the music for Byron's Manfred
beyond its stupendous Overture; the Scenes from Goethe's Faust; the Requiem;
the Overture, Scherzo, and Finale for Orchestra; th e Romances for Oboe and
Piano; the Spanisches Liederspiel fo r vocal quartet with piano; the Justinus Kerner
songs; even th e Piano Quartet?
While Schumann ma y in some ways be surprisingly elusive, many of us can
quickly summon up a picture: a handsome, distinctly Germanic face, the good
looks in middle age slightly compromised by a bit too much fat and one of the
more unfortunate hairdos in the history of Western music. And lot s of us must
have cut our pianistic teeth on The Happy Farmer (in England, where I learned
it, Th e Merry Peasant) o r anothe r o f the man y useful an d enjoyabl e gems he
composed for beginners—no on e betwee n Bac h an d Barto k wrote such fin e
keyboard music for teaching. And what an adventure it was, on first decipherin g
that cheery little piece , t o wrestle down that for us right-handers so counter-
intuitive distributio n of playing the tun e in the lef t han d and the accompani -
ment in the right !
Moreover, Schuman n storie s and image s come flooding : the bo y growing
up i n hi s father's bookstore, a n eas y and natura l pianist , bu t imaginin g hi s
grown-up sel f a s a literary man, no t a musician; th e late r an d seriou s piano

lessons wit h th e esteeme d an d fearsom e Friedric h Wieck ; th e amorou s
complications whe n th e professor' s miraculousl y gifted daughte r Clara , jus t
nine the first time Herr Schumann passe d through the Wiecks' fron t door, had
grown into her teens—sh e fallin g in love first , h e being th e inconstan t one ;
Daddy's determination t o put a stop to all that, willing even to take daughter
and boyfriend t o court to do so; the mechanical devic e with which Schuman n
sought to strengthen his fourth finger, but whose effect was to disable the hand
completely; Robert's an d Clara' s marriage on th e da y before he r twenty-firs t
birthday when he was thirty; the union at first ecstatically happy, marked in its
first year s by a deluge o f passionate songs , succeeding th e fantastica l piano
pieces fo r Clar a tha t ha d com e durin g th e year s of courtshi p an d secre t
engagement; the strain of sustaining a marriage with rather too many children
arriving to o frequently ; the angs t fo r Robert , a compose r o f "difficult " ne w
music and not a dependable wage-earner, of sharing a life with an immensely
loved virtuosa—a celebrity—and occasionally being asked backstage whether
he was musical as well; the growing frequency of his bouts of melancholia, a s it
was the n called; his failure a s a conductor (natura l shyness plus myopia plus
too muc h vanit y to wear glasses in public); the brie f happiness o f friendship
with the ver y young Brahms ( a friendship that in its loving and occasionall y
scratchy way would sustain Clara to the end of her days when she had outlived
her husban d b y fort y years) ; Robert' s suicid e attemp t b y jumping into th e
freezing Rhin e one Februar y morning; an d th e las t wretched tw o and a half
years in the asylum at Endenich outsid e Bonn, with Clara not allowe d to visit
him fo r fear he r presenc e woul d excite hi m an d spee d his disintegration. H e
was forty-six when he died. 1
We remembe r a s well that Schuman n wrot e copiousl y about music , and ,
being a practical and energeti c ma n a s well as one o f the grea t dreamers, he
founded an d edite d hi s ow n journal , the Neue Leipziger Zeitschrift fu r Musik
(New Leipzig Musical Times) a s a vigorous alternative to the more conservative
publications around. Sometimes he signed his articles with an initial standin g
for a poeti c no m d e plume—"F " fo r Florestan , representin g Romanti c
exuberance and enthusiasm (only Berlioz could work up such a fever as a critic),
or "E " for Eusebius, the voic e o f his contemplative , pianissimo , introverte d
self.2 Doe s the Florestan/Eusebiu s split, as is sometimes asserted, portend th e
future schizophrenic ? I think not: beside s acknowledging what i s to varying
1
How strange I have found it to be driving or riding around Bonn and see road signs for Endenich, as
though it were just any old suburb.
2
We tend to forget about the occasional appearances of Doctor Raro, who was supposed to represent
the sensibl e compromis e between the F . and E . extremes. W e lose nothing , though; he wa s a dul l
fellow. Schoenber g was right when he observe d that th e middl e road is the onl y one tha t doe s no t
lead to Rome.
Creators 2 7
degrees true in all of us, it is an ingenious literary device that keeps Schuman n
from being locked into single, simple-minded critical positions and allow s for
interesting conversation s betwee n hi s Florestan and Eusebius selves. He an d
like-minded literar y an d musica l friend s an d colleague s als o founde d th e
Davidsbund, o r League of David, the swor n enemies of the Philistines .
I remembe r readin g a s a boy that Schumann' s reputatio n a s a critic was
exaggerated because he had the good luck to open his career by hailing one of
his most extraordinary contemporaries, Frederic Chopin ("Hats off, gentlemen ,
a genius!"), and to close it when he welcomed another, Johannes Brahms ("This
is the chose n one"). Thos e were indeed amazin g and enviabl e opportunitie s
for a writer , but w e als o nee d t o remembe r tha t thos e tw o article s too k
perception, no t jus t luck. You also cannot just dismiss the man y other words
that come between 183 1 an d 1853 . Peopl e have pointed ou t that Schuman n
could get wildly carried awa y as a critic, overstatin g the cas e for Niels Gade ,
for example , o r fo r th e prodigiousl y gifted, tragicall y short-lived Christia n
Ludwig Schuncke. Bu t they were excellent composer s both, an d ar e not ou r
newspapers and professional journals filled with what will surely come to seem
quite wacky encomia, in less vibrant prose, too, and with less love, which is the
element tha t speaks most compellingly in Schumann's writing s about music?
And Schumann' s ow n music ? Each of his works is part of a puzzle which ,
put together , creates a complete picture, but mos t of us overlook some of the
key pieces . Musi c lover s ar e les s likel y t o focu s o n composer s (wit h a few
exceptions—most prominently Mozart, Wagner, Mahler) than to be segregated
as orchestra audiences , oper a buffs, pian o aficionados , lieder lovers, and th e
like. For instance the piano aficionado is likely to have recordings of Schumann's
Concerto, Camaval, Kreisleriana, Davidsbundlertdnze , Scenes from Childhood,
and the C-major Fantasy, maybe even in multiple versions, but perhaps none
of the Violin Concerto o r Dichterliebe (Poet's Love). And Schumann—obviousl y
not uniqu e in this respect—manifests i n highly characteristic fashion in a lot
of genres: symphonies and concertos, chamber music in many colors and flavors ,
piano music, solo and par t songs, and large-scal e vocal works such as operas
and oratorios.
Not onl y is Schumann a composer rather to o narrowl y known t o most of
us—as is of course not less true of Bach, Handel, Haydn, Schubert, Tchaikovsky,
and Dvorak, among others—but he is also one who has been misunderstood
and misrepresented in much of the writing and talking about him. Myth No . 1:
He could not orchestrate, and his orchestral works are basically clumsily scored
piano pieces. I well remember, forty-odd years ago, hearing Leonard Bernstein
demonstrate this to a New York Philharmonic audienc e by deliberately making
the orchestra play with bad balances an d raucous tone. In fact th e orchestra l
works sound very well, though the y need car e from th e conductor . Moreover,
their sonorit y ha s a strongl y persona l flavor : Schuman n i s on e o f thos e
t FOR THE LOVE OF MUSIC
composers you can recognize from a single chord i n a blind tasting . Myth No .
2: He could not handl e larg e forms an d was successful only in miniatures and
character pieces . Th e symphonie s ar e utterl y convincing bi g pieces, risky ,
personal, original , inspired , eve r fres h an d awaitin g our delighte d discover y
and rediscovery . Myth No . 3 : Th e lat e work s are feebl e an d no t wort h ou r
attention. But the late clarinet Fantasiestucke or the music for Byron's Manfred
show no trace of a decrepit mind devoid of inspiration.3
Schumann wrot e a number of what I think of as "good boy" pieces, ones in
which la w and order are of paramount importance an d where one can sens e
Beethoven a s an exceedingly commanding and dauntingly masculine presence
(as we know he could be for Brahms as well). Such pieces can be strong. Th e
popular Piano Quintet, full o f energy and brio, is an example. But compare it
to the Pian o Quartet, n o less vigorous and fiery , no less enjoyable to play, and
you quickly sense that here is an utterance fa r more personal, more special. I
have never left a concert hal l because the Quintet was about to be played and
have often with great pleasure listened t o it at home, th e 192 7 recording with
Ossip Gabrilowitsch and th e Flonzale y Quartet stil l being m y favorite. But I
love more those pieces that show Schumann's quirk y side—sudden and drastic
changes of mood, rhythmic dislocations, events passing by at a startling speed
and vanishing. That is the music that invites us into his innermost self .
We can also distinguish between Schumann's public and his private pieces—
a distinction I believe firs t articulate d by Charles Rosen. 4 In the public pieces
Schumann addresse s (and seeks to wow) an audience ; i n his private ones h e
muses to himself and, t o cite th e vers e by Friedrich Schlegel h e placed at th e
head of his C-major Fantasy, speaks "to him who furtively listens in." The Pian o
Quintet is public, the Piano Quartet is private. The Fantasy's middle movement
is public, between two very private ones. Also on the public side: the symphonies
and concertos (th e Violin Concerto perhaps leaning toward the private), most of
the bi g vocal works such as Das Paradies un d die Peri an d th e oper a Genoveva,
the bi g piano sonatas, and Camaval. Private: Scenes from Goethe's Faust, thei r
large scal e notwithstanding ; th e Requiem for Mignon; virtuall y all th e liede r
(with a son g suc h a s Di e beiden Grenadiere t o remin d u s tha t ther e ca n b e
exceptions); and among the piano works, Davidsbundlertdnze, Kreisleriana, and
Scenes from Childhood.
Yesterday I took a break from writin g this essay and filled par t of that hour
with the magi c of Etsko Tazaki's recording of Davidsbiindlertdnze. I could have
picked Kreisleriana or Scenes from Childhood, eve n the more "public" statements
of Camaval o r th e C-majo r Fantasy, all of them musica l wonders, but—and
3
The lat e John Daverio's 1997 biography Robert Schumann: Herald o f a "New Poetic Age," a landmark
in Schumann criticism, deals firmly with these mindlessly repeated canards.
4
Rosen's highly personal 199 5 survey The Romantic Generation is well worth knowing.
Creators 2 9
this i s a s subjectiv e a s th e musi c itself— Davidsbiindlertdnze i s o f al l o f

Schumann's pian o set s th e on e I a m most i n lov e with , th e on e tha t mos t
surely get s thos e "energie s whic h animat e ou r psychi c life " goin g for m e ( a
phrase I borro w fro m Roge r Sessions) , th e on e wher e th e sou l o f Rober t
Schumann i s enshrined.
Eighteen short pieces, amounting to about a half hour of music—six signed
by Florestan, seven by Eusebius, four by both (including No. 1 , which is based
on a motif by Clara), one unsigned . Ho w arresting the temp o an d characte r
directions are : along with "lively" and "simply " we read Etwas hahnbuchen ( A
bit outrageous), Ungeduldig (Impatient) , Sehr rasch und in sich hinein (Ver y fast
and turne d into itself), Wie aus der Feme (A s though fro m a distance), an d of
course we find that most indispensable and untranslatable of German Romantic
adjectives, Inrdg (Inward) . Over the ninth piece, ardent edging on the desperate,
Schumann writes : "And her e Floresta n stopped , and ther e wa s an agonized
trembling abou t hi s lips. " A s fo r th e "no t fast, " deepl y innig closin g waltz ,
Schumann tell s us that "quite unnecessarily Eusebius added the following, the
while great bliss shone i n his eyes."5
In all its intimacy, here is music of extremes. No composer was more joyfu l
and ebullient, the music swept along on irresistible physical energy. No composer
was ever possessed by such deep sadness. Neither Mahler nor Elgar could follow
him into those dark places; Schubert, yes, his beloved Schubert, whom he was
one of the first to appreciate fully—but only Schubert, no one else. Schuman n
can als o create a sense of music coming from ver y far away, in time as well as
place—and not onl y when he mark s a piece "wie aus der Feme." Hi s rhythms
are all his own. He likes ambiguous, even deceptive beginnings—where is the
downbeat? Beside s th e Davidsbiindlertdnze, th e Fourt h Symphon y an d hi s
greatest orchestra l piece , th e Manfred Overture , offe r prim e examples. Th e
ends o f hi s pian o piece s ar e sometime s strangel y unfinal . Melodie s floa t
independent o f beat . Ho w mysterious , even uncanny , i t i s when i n th e
seventeenth of the Davidsbiindlertdnze w e suddenly find ourselves back in th e
midst o f the hauntin g phrase s of th e second . Ar e w e los t i n time ? Ar e w e
dreaming? Is he? And in tha t last waltz ther e is a mystery, a melodic phrase
that sounds like something in quotation marks—it must have had some special
significance for him an d probabl y Clara a s well—which he will bring back a
year late r i n Kreisleriana, anothe r gloriou s essa y in joyou s an d dar k an d
humorous Romanti c music . (Somethin g no t t o miss : George Balanchine' s
heart-breaking, poignant, profoundl y Schumannesqu e choreographi c settin g
of Davidsbiindlertdnze, o f which you can ge t a New Yor k City Ballet DVD.)
5
Probably not withou t som e pressure from the devote d Clara , eve r bent o n wanting he r husband' s
music to be more "accessible"—fatal quest—Robert prepared a revised edition in which he eliminated
the F. and E. signatures, neutralized the tempo and character indications , made the suggested explicit,
and normalized—sometime s one migh t almost sa y "dumbed down"—some of his more idiosyncratic
musical procedures.
30 FO R THE LOVE O F MUSIC
Then there ar e Schumann's songs , about half of them, tw o hundred or so,

written in the year of his marriage. Again, the range is tremendous. The poets
include German masters such as Chamisso, Eichendorff, Goethe, Heine, Kerner,
Morike, Platen, Riickert, and Schiller, but also Hans Christian Andersen, Burns,
and Byron, all in German translation. The emotional and expressive range in
the liede r is formidable. Some are as straightforward a s folk songs and hymns;
others ar e of extraordinary and compacte d musical richness. Schumann was
quick to learn from Schuber t what the pian o might be and do in such music
and t o exten d thos e discoverie s boldly. In Frauenliebe und -Leben (Woman's
Love and Life) an d Dichterliebe the pian o gets movements of its own, raised to
exalted poetica l heights , especiall y in Dichterliebe. I t wa s there tha t Mahle r
found th e possibilit y for the breath-stoppin g vanishings int o silenc e i n th e
Kindertotenlieder an d Da s Lied vo n der Erde.
I love th e symphonie s and th e concerto s (al l of them), an d I am foreve r
grateful t o Eric h Leinsdorf for introducing m e fort y year s ag o to th e marve l
that is the Scene s from Goethe's Faust. How right he was, too, in pointing ou t
that Schumann's settin g of the sublim e closing lines comes closer to Goethe
than Mahler's more famous one in his Symphony o f a Thousand. Still, the greatest
Schumann, the essential Schumann, the music without which you cannot know
who this man was, this man so gifted and at home in exhilaration, in melancholy,
in mystery, in the uncanny , in the sometime s baffling pla y of time and space,
that music is found in these works for solo piano and his songs. And ther e is a
happy dividend. Hearing the familiar symphonies and concertos will be a richer
experience when you revisit them from the perspective of the piano cycles and
the songs.
If this is territory new to you, begin with Camaval and Dichterliebe. Then, if
they spea k t o you , go o n t o Kreisleriana, th e Davidsbiindlertdnze, an d th e
wonderful feas t o f spook, nostalgia, an d joy , the Eichendorf f Liederkreis, op .
39. By sheer chance, the firs t piece of Schumann's I ever heard (asid e from my
own clattering through The Happy Farmer) wa s Bird as Prophet fro m the rathe r
late Waldszenen i n a haunting recorded performance by Alfred Cortot . Except
for Franz Liszt's gnomic utterances in the last years of his life, is there a stranger
four minutes of music in all of the nineteenth century? I would wish for that to
find a place in your musical treasury as well.
Strangely—as i t no w seem s t o me—amon g th e grea t master s i t was
Schumann that it took me longest to get close to. I enjoyed hearing and playing
him, bu t h e wa s no t on e o f m y indispensables , on e o f m y deser t islan d
companions until late middle age. I don't know for sure what changed. Perhaps
it was just the passag e of years. In part I know it was better understandin g of
his life tha t captured me. Mary Oliver ha s a beautiful, deepl y understanding
poem, Robert Schumann, which end s wit h a vision o f the nineteen-year-ol d
musician on a spring morning, having "just met a girl named Clara," running
Creators 3 1
"up the dark staircase, humming." I am haunted b y what he found a t the to p

of those stair s and b y what became o f that happiness—i n so few years. I am
haunted eve n more by two earlier lines in the poem: "Everywhere in this world
his music/explodes out o f itself, a s he/could not. "
With no other composer—not even Beethoven an d Mahler—is my hearing
and love of the musi c so tied t o my sense of the ma n who invented it . Non e
other make s a statemen t s o urgent , s o person-to-person , s o nake d an d
vulnerable. Ho w clos e hi s greatest , hi s mos t innig musi c come s t o literally
stopping breath and unsettling my heart. How deeply and dangerously human
are th e strangenesse s in hi s music. How amazed , how humbled I am by th e
command tha t allowe d him to translate his own vibrations into music , music
that "explode s out of itself, as he could not." And ho w thankful I am that now
I can say along with Mary Oliver, "Hardly a day passes I don't think of him . . ."
—M.S.
The Sacred ? the Profane?
and the Gritty Affirmations o f Music
t
T he sacre d and th e profane : the concept s hav e bee n wit h u s all our
lives, from ou r earliest days, even before we were able to name them .
Growing up even i n th e mos t politicall y correct environment , wit h
elders committed t o moral relativism, we still formed idea s about should an d
shouldn't, abou t what separated the nic e kid s from th e others . Onl y later , as
our sensibilities were formed with help from th e Bible or Torah or Quran, Joh n
Milton, Herman Melville, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Lincoln , Gandhi , Hitler ,
Stalin, Superman, Darth Vader, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, and an
array o f hands know n onl y t o eac h o f us, and whic h continu e t o shap e ou r
personal clay—only later did we develop and refine notions o f Good and Evil.
Given th e either/o r method s in which mos t of us were raised, it is natural for
us t o thin k abou t Goo d an d Evi l an d thei r counterparts , th e Sacre d an d
Profane—the loft y an d th e raunchy , spirit and gland—a s thoug h the y were
separate entities. But eventually we recognize what a volatile mixture of opposites
we are. Those who can resign themselves to this fact take a step on the path to
wisdom. Those who cannot, joi n the evangelical wing of the Republican Party.
Great art—an d music, especially—will help steer u s toward the firs t o f these
alternatives.
In th e sprin g o f 1997 , whe n th e Sa n Francisc o Symphon y presente d
Celebrations o f the Sacre d an d Profane , a festival that examined "sacred "
and "profane" as expressed in works by Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Berlioz, Alban
Berg, an d Kur t Weill, th e tim e wa s right t o reflec t on what thos e concept s

can mean i n music.
"Sacred" an d "Profane" are intangibles, ye t artists from th e beginning hav e
fashioned representation s o f these gran d ideas , whic h encompas s ou r lives .
The representations—in sounds and words and images—reflect what is at th e
root of us all. Call it soul. Art i s the grave n image of God himself that Jehovah
cautioned u s fro m creating—cautione d us , perhaps becaus e h e understoo d
how images of the unknowable are not just misleading but rob it of its mysterious
grandeur. Yet if we understan d tha t n o suc h imag e ca n b e definitive , i f we
understand tha t suc h attempt s ar e just effort s t o comprehend ourselve s and
where we are headed—for aren't we created in God's image?—the transgression
is a virtue.
And wha t abou t God' s image ? I n th e Ar t Histor y Museu m in Vienna , I
overheard a woman comment o n Brueghel the Elder's Battle between Carnival
and Lent. "It's so dirty," she said, and she was not speaking about the condition
of the canvas . This is what she saw: a scene o f bedlam, solemn processions of
the religiou s winding throug h th e marketplace , aliv e wit h carniva l revelers .
She sa w swarming motion, a s if the frame d scen e wer e a hea p o f compost ,
buzzing and maggoty. She said it best: it's dirty. That is one of its glories. Consider
another painting , th e Hell pane l o f Th e Garden o f Earthly Delights b y
Hieronymous Bosch. "Bosch," say s a commentator whos e name is written in a
notebook since lost in the compost heap of my desk, "showed that the tradition s
and achievement s o f painting whic h ha d been developed t o represent reality
most convincingl y coul d b e turne d around , a s it were , to giv e us an equally
plausible picture of things n o human eye had seen." I n other words , using the
most advanced method s o f his craft, Bosc h takes us to the fa r side of the soul,
a plac e people d b y horrible creatures . Disturbing , repulsive—the y hav e n o
name an d yet are terrifyingly familiar . But fro m wher e do we know them? We
have t o be honest with ourselves if we want th e answer . Great ar t i s honest ,
and honest art alway s has room for dirt and grit.
One o f the ironie s o f the cultura l scene i s that concert musi c is thought of
as the province of the elite, as a super-sanitary adjunct of society's upper stratum,
as the ar t form best suited to those who have little o r no firsthand knowledge
of wha t it s critic s thin k o f as "rea l life. " Tha t notio n keep s th e man y fro m
experiencing th e much . How to dispel it? Not b y the sor t of "crossover" that
brings u s Pavarotti singin g "Stranger s i n th e Night"—that' s no t s o much a
meeting of sacred and profane as it is a convergence o f opportunity and smart
business. Pavarotti's i s a great voice, an d "Stranger s i n th e Night " i s a great
song, but put together, each detracts from the other, and the result is distracting.
Let's face it : th e resul t is ridiculous. But the greates t Western concer t musi c
aims at the bull' s eye, and th e bull' s eye is a representation o f life a s real as it
comes, maybe not in a picture you can recognize—any more than you recognize
Creators 3 5
Bosch's creatures—but of whose truth you're convinced. Create d in sweat and

hard labor—it' s no t b y accident tha t w e speak of a work o f art, an d no t b y
accident tha t we speak of such a work as being born —it spring s from inne r
need an d i s a respons e t o necessity : th e necessit y t o embrac e th e part s of
ourselves that grow from th e earth along with the parts rooted in heaven, th e
need t o see things steadily , as Matthew Arnold said , and t o see them whole .
Let m e spea k i n specific s b y lookin g a t th e composer s represente d i n
Celebrations o f the Sacred and Profane, and their attempts to discern the fin e
line between spiritual calamity and salvation.
Salvation becam e necessar y whe n damnatio n becam e a fac t o f huma n
existence. In words less loaded with theological baggage, we invented th e sacred
to save us from th e profane , or vice versa. We are made of dust and spirit, and
no one knew this better tha n Mozart. Here i s a man who set both the sacred
and th e profan e to music. His scatological canons see m the wor k of a trash-
mouthed teenager, and you can almost feel Mozart revving himself up by talking
dirty—dealing genteel manners an especially low blow by setting his obscenities
to elegan t music , th e kin d tha t anchor s itsel f i n th e memory . Then you
encounter th e Requiem , which h e was still writing on his deathbed, an d you
marvel that the ears that delighted in foul language set to engaging tunes could
embrace the text of the Latin Mass for the dead and set those grand and serious
words into the musical equivalent o f a baroque church: saints ' images haloed
with stars, radiant gold-leafed sunbursts framing pastel frescoes, all resplendent
in white light .
Schubert, like Mozart, was one of those composers whose accomplishmen t
and early death (h e lived to be just thirty-one, while Mozart was a month shy
of thirty-six) make them a source of wonder and speculation (wha t might they
still have accomplished!) . And, lik e Mozart , he wa s a man wh o had a good
sense o f life's underside . H e ha d a n advance d acquaintanc e wit h tobacco ,
alcohol, an d prostitutes , an d th e delight s hi s fles h too k i n thes e pleasure s
contributed t o its corruption. Those offended b y such facts migh t as k where
justice was when such a man was given the insight tha t pulses in every bar of
his Unfinished Symphony , music of vision that penetrates like an auger through
the dimensions o f this world into something beyond.
But t o create great music, composers are not obligate d t o talk dirty, drink
heavily, or die early. Johann Sebastian Bach was among the soberest and hardest
working of men. Force d t o hol d a steady job t o suppor t his larg e family , h e
struggled throughout his career with bureaucrats whose imaginations appeared
to shut down once they had hired him—and this was especially true in his last
post, as Cantor a t Saint Thomas' s Churc h i n Leipzig, where the town counci l
seemed no t t o notice how his genius was actually stoked b y the drudger y of
churning out music for weekly services. Thwarted agai n and again ("No, Herr
Cantor, a n extra soprano is not in our budget." "Herr Cantor , what gave you
T FOR THE OF MUSIC
the idea tha t yo u coul d tak e a two-da y leave withou t approva l fro m thi s
council?"), he still managed t o rise above circumstances and stay focused o n
the sublime . For Bach, the profan e was launch pa d for the sacred.
Closer t o our own time, Alban Berg and Kur t Weill were both methodica l
workers who, lik e Bach , remin d u s that geniu s often blooms out o f diligen t
application. Berg, combing through his experience for material that would make
a fitting memorial to Manon Gropius, who had die d a t eighteen, uncovere d
elements both sacred and profane. This is especially telling, for the enchanting
Manon—"an angel," Berg called her—was the daughter of Alma Mahler. Alma
had bee n married to th e compose r Berg revered abov e al l others, an d Berg
thought of her and Manon a s links to this great figure who had done so much
to father his own artistic consciousness. (Thi s musi c adds another dimensio n
to th e comple x interpla y o f profan e an d sacred , fo r it s characte r i s als o
determined b y those wh o ha d helpe d for m Berg' s human consciousness : h e
makes code d referenc e t o Hann a Fuchs-Robettin , wit h who m h e ha d bee n
carrying on a long-standing extramarital affair, an d to Marie Scheuchl, hi s first
love and mother of his own daughter Albine.) Gusta v Mahler—perhaps more
than anyone, including Charles Ives—managed to fuse in his music the coarsest
elements wit h th e mos t heavenly. ("Th e symphon y must be like th e world,"
Mahler i s reputed t o hav e said . "I t mus t b e all-embracing." ) I n hi s Violi n
Concerto, on e o f the greates t concertos o f the las t hundred years , Berg, like
Mahler, pulled everything together: quotations from a Bach cantata, injection s
of Viennese walt z and Austria n folk song, even elements o f jazz. As for Weill,
his Seven Deadly Sins is in itself a work of mixed media, combining music, theater,
and dance in ironic social commentary, based on a concept, the deadly sins, that
has been with u s since th e Middl e Ages an d tha t provided subject matter t o
many artists of the early Renaissance, among them Hieronymous Bosch.
Bosch's image s brin g u s ful l circle , t o musi c o f Berlioz . His Symphonie
fantastique, th e story of a romantic obsession, ends in a nightmare of a witches'
sabbath tha t unfold s agains t a Boschian landscape . I n th e seque l to al l this,
Lelio, which Berlioz subtitled The Return to Life, th e her o of the Fantastique has
come to terms with a miserable past and comes to some kind of reconciliatio n
with a love life that went wrong.
Episodes of real life are not alway s granted sequels, and mistakes made in a
profane world do not alway s find forgiveness , or resolution, in heaven. Bu t as
much as anything, ar t can sho w us something abou t life's eb b and flow , it ca n
help us understand the formula s of our spiritual chemistry, the DN A print s of
heartbreak and emotional breakthrough. We need thes e formulas, these maps,
because life passes so quickly. Sometimes the place s we have come from seem
so far behind u s we can barely remember them. Music offers us a way of touching
not onl y ou r collectiv e root s bu t ou r persona l past . Liste n t o Schubert' s
UnfinishedSymphony. When did you first hea r thi s music ? Recal l that time.
Creators 3 7
Recall it, and all that has come between that moment and this one, when you
are hearing it again. Consider how your view of the work and your experience
of it have changed. Time and change, those are the given s of life, alon g with
birth and death, which are our personal borders of time and change. Time and
change, beginnings and endings. Those ar e also the borders of music.
Music is an art we experience by hearing it as it is produced by mechanical
means—instruments. Bu t musi c is properly a physical art, a function of th e
body. It arises from song—from the throat and the gut. We translate feelings of
joy an d sadnes s and dejectio n and triump h into song , into music . What we
hear in the concert hall is a translation into sound of another being's heartbeat
and breathing pattern. When Mozart or Schubert, Berg or Berlioz are played,
their sound-pattern s are recreate d an d par t o f thei r physica l presence is
resurrected. This is what we mean when we say that music affirms life . It affirm s
the genuin e physica l thing itself : sacred, profane, ful l o f sunlight an d eart h
(from whic h w e came, t o whic h we will return), and, i n th e mos t real an d
utterly nonreligious sense, everlasting.
—L.R.
Franz Schubert, UA Rich Possession'1
F
F ranz Schubert's first biographer was a Viennese jurist and civil servant
by name of Heinrich Kreissle von Hellborn. In 1861, he published what
he modestly and accurately called a biographical sketch; at the en d of
1864, he came out with his full-length book. It appeared in English in 1869 as
The Life o f Franz Schubert, translated by Arthur Duke Coleridge. Kreissle, who
loved what he had heard of Schubert's music, was motivated to begin his work
by his awareness that those who had known Schubert were growing old, that
their fairl y imminen t departur e from thi s lif e wa s something t o b e reckone d
with, an d that , onc e the y were gone, th e constructio n o f a biography would
become incalculably more difficult. He therefore set about tracking down those
whom h e calle d "th e witnesse s to Schubert' s externa l existence, " a s well as
whatever he was able to pull together by way of scattered documents relevant
to Schubert's life .
It was Kreissle who laid the ground floor for Schubert studies, and everything
that has been achieved in that field since his time rests on what he began. He
was not , however , trained a s a scholar, and criticall y sifting th e materia l h e
collected was not his strength. Speaking and corresponding with the survivors
of the Schuber t circle , Kreissle gathered much that was valuable, vivid, and
often deeply touching. But we also need to remember that he was dealing with
aging me n an d wome n (mostl y men) wh o were reminiscing abou t someon e
who had been dead for more than thirty years. Some of them misremembered
plain an d simple . Som e misremembere d b y design , s o a s t o augmen t an d

glamorize th e part s the y themselve s ha d playe d i n Schubert' s life . Some ,
although they were writing or speaking in the past tense, were—unconsciously—
writing or speaking not about the friend with whom they had talked, made music,
partied, played cards, drunk, smoked, and hiked, but abou t the Franz Schubert
who had meanwhile com e to be ranked as a very important composer.
Something tha t mad e th e situatio n whe n Kreissl e was at wor k peculiar
was tha t s o many Schubert pieces—important , impressiv e ones—had onl y
come into public view posthumously, among them th e great Masses in A-flat
and E-fla t (publishe d 187 5 and 1865 , respectively) , the Unfinished Symphon y
(first playe d in 1865) , th e Strin g Quintet (publishe d 1853) , alon g with many
smaller works. It sometime s seeme d a s though Schuber t wer e still alive an d
composing; indeed, on e French criti c was moved t o remark that he seemed ,
more than thirty years after hi s death, t o be both one o f the mos t prolific as
well as most interesting o f contemporary composers.
One result of all this remembering—and "remembering"—was the formation
during the second hal f of the nineteenth century of a highly sympathisch image
of Schubert . It s essential point s wer e that Schuber t die d ver y young (whic h
always hold s a certain prurien t appeal ) an d tha t durin g his brief lifetime his
genius was recognized only by a small and selec t grou p of discerning friends .
The secondar y feature s o f thi s Schuber t portrai t wer e tha t h e compose d
effortlessly, wit h uncanny eas e and speed, and that he was a dear little man—
"Schwammerl," littl e mushroom , the y calle d him—eve n i f personal hygien e
was not a high priorit y with him and even thoug h h e sometimes drank a few
more glasse s of wine tha n were goo d fo r him . I t al l fit well with th e comf y
Biedermeier spirit of mid-century Austria. It also helped create the impression,
not yet completely erased, that Schubert was something of an amateur, although
an inspire d one . Ther e ar e still thos e wh o see him a s the mos t seductiv e of
charmers but deny him the greatness that would place him on the same level
as Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven .
Obviously, some truth lies curled up inside al l this mythology. Schubert was
born on 31 January 1797, and when he died, at three o'clock in the afternoon on
19 November 1828 , he was about ten weeks shy of turning thirty-two. No othe r
great composer died s o young—not Mozart, not eve n Purcell . The playwright
Franz Grillparzer wrote the famous epitaph for Schubert's monument, erected i n
the Wahring Cemetery in 1830: "Here th e art of music buried a rich possession,
but eve n faire r hopes. " (I n 1888 , bot h Schubert an d Beethoven, hi s neighbo r
just three graves away, were moved to Vienna's Central Cemetery. The Wahring
Cemetery wa s late r deconsecrate d an d i s no w th e Schuber t Park. ) Later ,
Grillparzer was criticized for underrating Schubert's actua l achievement, bu t I
would say two things in his defense. First, given that in 183 0 some of Schubert's
most extraordinary works were still unpublished and unperformed, Grillparzer's
Creators 4 1
perspective i s no t tha t badl y askew . Second , i f w e conside r Schubert' s

achievements i n hi s last year—including th e thre e fina l pian o sonata s alon g
with some remarkable shorter pieces, the String Quintet, the Mass in E flat, th e
F-minor Fantasy for Piano Duet, and the songs later published as Schwanengesang
(Swan Song) —and i f we als o keep i n min d tha t h e wa s only thirty-one , i t is
understandable that one might fantasize abou t a transcendent futur e o f "even
fairer hopes. "
We still tend t o cherish th e pictur e of Schubert a s Neglected Genius . Yes,
his reputation wa s local, an d even i n Vienna , compare d t o Beethove n an d
Rossini, the tw o composers who most captivated tha t city during his lifetime
(Rossini more than Beethoven, t o the latter's fury), Schubert was obscure. But
he was far from invisible , even though it did happen that mail from a German
publisher addressed to "Franz Schubert, Esq., Composer, Vienna" was delivered
to a musician named Josef Schubert. And a certain Franz Schubert in Dresden
was indignan t whe n a "piec e o f hackwork" b y his Viennes e namesak e wa s
mistakenly attributed to him, the "Machwerk" i n question being the setting of
Goethe's Erlkonig.
But Franz Schubert's music—ou r Franz Schubert's—was performed, quit e
often under the auspices of the Society of the Friends of Music, a high-prestige
organization t o whos e directorat e Schuber t wa s elected i n 1826 . Admire d
virtuosi took him up. And Johann Michael Vogl, principal baritone at the Court
Opera (h e was the firs t Pizarro in the fina l version of Beethoven's Fidelia) an d
a mos t compellin g artist , became a powerfu l advocat e fo r his songs . When
Vogl sang Erlkonig at a charity concert i n March 1821 , Schubert's obscurity in
Vienna was over. The fir m of Cappi & Diabelli published Erlkonig a month later:
a hundred copies were sold at a single soiree when its availability was announced,
and another thre e hundre d wer e turned aroun d in little more than a year.
Important publishers became intereste d i n Schubert's music , although, t o
his annoyance an d frustration, the y were inclined to be exceedingly cautious,
willing t o tak e hi s song s an d smal l pian o piece s bu t turnin g dow n larg e
instrumental works such as string quartets and symphonies. Still, for someone
who was not a virtuoso performer and who, through general forgetfulness an d
negligence, tende d t o derail his friends' effort s t o get him publicity and arrange
useful contacts, Schubert managed to be quite a conspicuous figure in Vienna's
musical life. In March 1828, his friends helped arrange the first concert entirel y
of his music. It was a huge success, and when Schubert died, plans were in th e
making for another suc h event. What turned out to be his last year, 1828 , had
shown every promise of being a great and positive turning point i n his career.
Schubert obviousl y ha d th e qualitie s tha t brough t hi m a grou p of
extraordinarily devoted friends, some of them musicians, more of them literary
people and artists. He was not an easy friend, though. He could be fine company,
charming, delightful, and goo d for serious conversation, bu t h e could also be
self-absorbed, peremptory, and rude, and his forgetfulness an d negligence could

be wounding . A s yo u read th e evidenc e collecte d i n Ott o Eric h Deutsch' s
Schubert: A Documentary Biography, a wonderfully engagin g book, and a s you
learn t o decode hi s friends' tactfu l an d protective language , it becomes clear
that Schuber t dran k recklessly (today he would be considered a n alcoholic),
also tha t h e smoke d far too muc h an d smelle d lik e a n ashtray . The up s and
downs o f his productivit y suggest that h e suffere d fro m cyclothymia , severe
and clinical mood swings. In his later years, he tended eac h sprin g to fall int o
severe depression that paralyze d his ability to compose.
Most of all, Schubert distresse d his friends b y the recklessnes s with whic h
he stilled his gigantic sexual appetite. Here again , we are dealing with veiled
language, but wha t emerge s is that Schuber t contracte d syphili s toward th e
end of 1822, that by 1828 the diseas e had entered it s tertiary stage, and that ,
his system catastrophically weakened by alcohol and nicotine , he die d fro m
the effects of that disease, aggravated by some form of typhoid fever. His sufferin g
in the primary stage of syphilis in the winter of 1822-1823, a condition probably
worsened by the then-favored mercury cure, may have been the reason he was
unable to continue wor k on the grea t B-minor Unfinished Symphony .
Not surprisingly , Schubert's musi c is no les s complex tha n th e man , an d
often no less dark. He composed a lot of what we might call social music, light-
hearted songs , vocal ensembles, marches for piano duet, and reams of dances
that must be just like the ones he improvised at parties. (He was always happier
at th e pian o tha n out o n th e danc e floor. ) Mos t of this musi c you will never
hear i n concert , bu t i t i s cherished b y those o f u s who pla y i t fo r our ow n
pleasure, especially the piano music. If you go through a set of Schubert's landler
or waltzes, polonaises, or marches, you will discover that h e was hardly more
capable than Mozart of composing three minute s of music across which some
strange and disturbing shadow does not pass , even if just for a single beat. We
also cannot forge t that, hardly out of his adolescence, Schuber t could capture
the sinister world of Erlkonig, the ballad of the spectral king who seduces a sick
boy out from his father's arms into th e land of death. Nor that even earlier, on
a numinous October da y in 1814 , he had, in Gretchen am Spinnrade, draw n a
picture o f a desperat e youn g woman , an d ha d don e i t wit h a dept h o f
understanding that ough t not t o be within th e reach of a boy of seventeen .
1820, th e yea r of the Mas s in A flat , th e unfinishe d cantat a Lazarus, and
the Quartettsatz i n C minor, is a turning point, Schubert's entry into maturity.
Another such critical moment i s the on e when hi s music loses its innocence
for good . That happens toward the end of 1822. He had turned twenty-five in
January, and it was the year in which his health was ruined and the one whose
labors culminated i n th e tw o movements o f the B-mino r Unfinished, a work
one praises inadequately by declaring that it is the greatest symphony between
Beethoven an d Brahms.
Creators 4 3
"At last I can pour out my whole heart t o someone again, " Schubert wrote
in 182 4 to Leopold Kupelwieser, the mos t serious of his friends, a n artist who
had moved to Rome to prepare himself for a career as a painter of ecclesiastical
subjects: "Yo u are s o good an d s o faithful, yo u ar e sur e to forgiv e m e thing s
that other s will only take very much amiss. To be brief, I feel mysel f to be th e
unhappiest, the most wretched man in the world. Picture a man whose health
will never be sound again and who, out of sheer despair over that, constantl y
does everything he can t o make matters worse instead o f better. Picture, I tell
you, a man whose brightest hopes have com e t o nothing, t o whom love an d
friendship a t bes t offe r nothin g bu t pain , someon e whos e respons e (whos e
creative response, at least) to everything that is beautiful threaten s t o vanish,
and the n as k yourself i f this i s not a wretched, unhapp y man. 'M y peac e is
gone, my heart is heavy. Never, but never, shall I find peace again.' That [lamen t
of Gretchen's] coul d no w be my daily song, because each nigh t whe n I go to
sleep, I hope neve r t o wake again, and eac h mornin g brings yesterday's grief
back to me."
Those who m Kreissl e von Hellbor n calle d th e witnesse s t o Schubert' s
external existenc e notice d tha t when he sat at the piano to accompany Vogl,
even whe n h e himsel f san g hi s song s i n hi s composer' s falsetto , somethin g
transformed hi m beyon d thei r recognition . H e coul d inven t musi c tha t
frightened an d dismaye d them, neve r mor e s o than i n th e death-possesse d
songs o f Winterreise, whic h the y rejecte d even thoug h h e insiste d i t was th e
best thing he had done. In the work of Schubert's last years, we find music that
is madly driving and obsessed, strange and fantastical, deeply melancholic, an d
as violent a s anything i n Beethoven. (Tr y the slo w movement o f his A-major
Piano Sonat a fro m 1828. ) "Wha t I produc e come s abou t throug h m y
understanding o f music and throug h m y pain," Schuber t wrot e in hi s diary ,
"and what is produced by pain alone seems to please the world least." He ha d
warned his friends tha t Winterreise, thos e song s that chronicl e a young man's
despairing journey through a bleak winter landscape, would make them shudder.
Paradoxically, their rejection was a form of understanding and love, because in
rejecting the songs they were rejecting Schubert's knowledge of death, his own
death, the n jus t a year away . Joh n Harbison' s assertio n tha t Schuber t "go t
closer to full metaphysica l revelation than any other composer" is a challeng e
to take seriously.
Schubert's self-awarenes s comprise d a keen sens e of his own worth, of his
artistic goals and possibilities . He gre w up in th e shado w of Beethoven, wh o
himself had overcom e that mos t daunting challenge o f following Haydn an d
Mozart, ye t bi t b y bit h e cam e t o understan d tha t h e wa s qualified to ste p
forward as Beethoven's heir. And contrary to the legend, Schubert could work
hard, lik e Beethoven . Th e work s i n whic h h e declare s himsel f t o b e of
Beethoven's lineage—fro m th e Octet, the A-minor an d Death and the Maiden
44 FO R THE LOVE O P MUSIC
quartets, and the Grand Duo for piano, all of 1824, to the compositions of the
last year—all these involved sketches and erasures, and intense concentration .
Schubert's final musical wish, fulfilled i n his sickroom five days before he died,
was t o hea r Beethoven' s Quarte t i n C-shar p minor , op. 131 . "Th e Kin g of
Harmony had sen t th e Kin g of Song a friendly biddin g to th e crossing, " said
Karl Holz, the firs t violinist in the grou p that went to play for him.
One of Schubert's last musical decisions had been to take some counterpoint
lessons with the renowne d pedagogue Simon Sechter, who would later teac h
Henri Vieuxtemps and Anton Bruckner, two names you'd not ever expect to
find linked . Th e America n schola r Michae l Griffe l ha s suggeste d quit e
persuasively that Schubert hoped, by strengthening his contrapuntal skills, to
acquire the skill s for composing heroic finales in the manne r of Beethoven—
no mor e unfinishe d symphonies ! In th e event , ther e wa s time fo r just on e
lesson, o n 4 November 1828 . A t tha t poin t h e coul d surve y hi s amazing
accomplishments of that yea r an d als o look ahea d a t a future onl y he could
imagine. A t th e sam e tim e h e mus t have see n wit h inescapabl e clarit y th e
likelihood o f an early death.
In 1824 , he had written to Kupelwieser about readying himself to pave the
road toward the "big symphony." He meant a symphony in the manner and on
the scal e of one o f Beethoven's, an d i n the nex t paragrap h he mention s th e
impending premiere of the Beethoven Ninth. Was it to equip himself for furthe r
explorations of the road toward the "grosse Symphonic" tha t he went to Sechter?
A week after that one lesson with Sechter, Schubert took to his bed for the last
time.1 Whe n h e died , h e ha d mad e considerabl e progres s on a D-majo r
Symphony, and what he had achieved there suggests that this work, melancholic
and visionary , would have surpasse d anything h e ha d don e s o far by way of
large instrumental compositions.
And s o we come back to Grillparzer and his "even fairer hopes. " It is futile
to speculate about the future that was cut off on the afternoon of 19 November
1828; at the same time, it is impossible not t o think abou t it. Schubert would
surely not have abandoned writing lieder, and I imagine him beating Schumann
to Heine' s Dichterliebe an d al l those Eichendorf f poems, and settin g Morik e
thirty years before Hugo Wolf. He could have heard Brahms's First Symphony,
unless hi s own symphonies, beginning wit h th e grea t D majo r o f 1829 , ha d
made Brahms even more nervous than he already was about Beethoven. As an
old man, but no t yet eighty, Schubert might have traveled to Bayreuth to see
the firs t Ring .
Schubert ha d i t in him t o become a very great symphonist, and h e migh t
have come to enjoy the standing we now grant to Beethoven. In any case, the
ôhn Harbison has compose d a moving tombeau fo r Schubert, usin g som e o f the materia l Sechter
had give n Schubert to work on. H e call s it November 19, 1828.
Creators 4 5
view of Schubert would be very different for today's symphony audience, whose
sense o f him i s now based o n occasiona l encounter s wit h si x charmers an d
more frequent ones with one-and-a-half mature masterpieces. But Schubert's
greatest chamber music, for instance the G-major String Quartet and the String
Quintet, gives us a very good idea of his symphonic lungs. And o f course, for
us to tak e th e measur e of who Schubert wa s and what he coul d do, the lat e
piano sonatas are essentials, as are the great song cycles. Happily, Schubert has
been fortunate in his recordings, going back to the 1930 s and the performances
of the pian o music by Artur Schnabel an d thos e of songs by, among many fine
artists, Gerhard Hiisch with Hanns Udo Miiller. And if you can play the piano—
you don' t hav e t o b e a virtuoso—mak e th e F-mino r Fantasy , th e A-fla t
Variations, the Divertissement a I'hongroise, an d al l those dance s an d marche s
your own.
Vast amounts of the works that most intensely illuminate who Franz Schubert
was are unknown to most of us. The faire r hopes are fodder for our fantasy, bu t
we do have th e ric h possession—on the page , on recordings, and sometimes
(never often enough) i n concert. That possession is enough to give us joy and
pain, astonishment an d ecstasy, for as long as we have our lives and our hearing.
—M.S.
Encountering Brahms
n a mugg y Augus t evenin g i n 1966 , shortl y afte r m y seventeent h

o birthday, I go t o n m y bicycle an d pedale d eigh t block s acros s th e
Northwest Sid e o f Chicago t o th e neighborhoo d shoppin g center .
The charcoal clouds of a Midwest summer storm were building. From O'Hare,
just minutes away across the subdivisions and parking lots, beyond an old farm
acreage an d a new hotel strip , the 707 s lifte d of f and thundere d agains t th e
low sky with Wagnerian grandeur. At Walgreen's I sorted through the bargain
record bin—any record bin at Walgreen's was full of bargains. The fluorescent
light abov e bounced bac k at me from th e cellophan e a s I flipped throug h th e
titles. Th e Chipmunks Sing. 10 1 Strings Play th e Soul o f Italy. Florian Zabach
Goes Gypsy. I stopped at an album whose cover bore a crude portrait of Johannes
Brahms. I t wa s a recordin g o f th e Thir d Symphony , with Eric h Leinsdorf
conducting a n orchestr a describe d o n th e fron t o f th e L P jacket a s th e
Philharmonia an d on the back as the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The recording
cost ninety-nine cents . I bought it, hiked home, and , as the rain began, put it
on the turntabl e of the Grundig-Majesti c console stere o in the livin g room of
my parents' house. I have never ascertaine d which ensemble was featured o n
this recording—or, for that matter , whether Leinsdorf was the conductor. But
since tha t evenin g I'v e determine d tha t th e musi c I was hearing was indeed
the Brahms Third. Unti l tha t momen t I had never hear d th e Brahm s Third ,
nor ha d I heard an y Brahms but th e Lullaby , no r wa s I mor e tha n vaguely
aware that Brahm s had written anything but the Lullaby.
I had been listening t o the classics—for me, that meant Beethoven—onl y

for a few months. Now , in thi s symphony , I encountered thing s I had neve r
imagined music capable of expressing—regret, and a yearning for what is past
or for what might have been, which in either case is a longing for the impossible.
As I write now, I realize the incongruities both of scene and situation, how this
deeply seriou s and spiritua l music completed o n th e bank s o f the Rhin e i n
another centur y coul d consol e a love-forsake n teenage r who m n o on e
understood, not God himself, while the Boeings passing overhead pounded on
toward Toled o and Denver , an d i n th e othe r brow n brick bungalows up and
down the stree t th e Chipmunk s san g and th e 10 1 Strings played the Sou l of
Italy an d Floria n Zabac h wen t Gypsy . I t wa s all , I woul d late r realize , as
implausible as Johannes Brahm s himself, who had been born and raised in the
more squalid parts of the squali d port city of Hamburg. Where did that music
come from ? Yo u may as well ask how the worl d was created.
I have been dwelling on memories. I think that is the onl y way to convey
the essence of Brahms—not the musical essence, but what the music implies.
In "The Ar t of Memory," a wonderful essay on the composer in the September
1984 Atlantic, Richard Sennett, an accomplished amateur musician and author
of the novel An Evening of Brahms, recalls that the pianist Rudolf Serkin dubbed
Brahms " a memory artist." But al l artists mold their shape s out o f what the y
have. We create out of our experience. "Bas e your stories on what you know,"
young writers are advised. So why is it an interesting observation to call Brahms
a "memory artist"? For this reason: because of what Brahms chose t o do with
his memories.
Biographical criticism of art i s held i n pretty low esteem in literary circles,
but narrativ e fiction at least offer s th e opportunit y to compare the detail s of
plot wit h wha t i s known abou t it s author' s life , an d it' s ofte n eviden t ho w
closely the ar t an d th e experienc e ar e intertwined—think of Thomas Wolfe ,
or Dickens, o r Philip Caputo, or Jim Harrison, o r Dave Eggers . Music allows
no similar correlation. It may help us appreciate the music's emotional impact
to imagin e tha t Beethove n wa s ragin g agains t hi s deafnes s i n th e Fift h
Symphony, or that in th e Pathetique Tchaikovsky was trying to come t o grip s
with bein g ga y in a homophobi c societ y almos t a centur y befor e th e ter m
"homophobic" wa s coined. Thes e biographical tidbits say nothing about th e
music itself , bu t the y ca n arous e our interest . Brahms' s biography include s
nothing similar, no fate against which to rage or much of anything with which
to come to grips.
He was born on 7 May 1833, the second child of Johann Jakob Brahms, bass
player, violinist, and flutist, and Christiane Nissen . (Johann Jakob was twenty-
four whe n the y wer e married, Christiane forty-one. ) Johanne s bega n pian o
lessons at seven, an d thre e year s later he came unde r th e tutelag e of Eduard
Marxsen, who had studied with Ignaz Seyfried, a pupil of Mozart's (and conductor
Creators 4 9
of th e firs t performanc e o f Beethoven' s Ninth) , an d wit h Car l Mari a vo n

Booklet, a friend o f Beethoven an d Schubert . Thi s is not t o drop names, bu t
rather to suggest that when Brahms came to think of himself as a descendan t
of this great tradition, he was basing that self-assessment on more than a high
opinion o f his abilities.
The story , told by Brahms himself (accordin g to several sources who knew
him), is that, a s a young teenager, Johannes contribute d t o the famil y incom e
by playing in th e bar s of Hamburg's red-light district. The America n schola r
Styra Avins has made the case that this sordid part of the Brahms legend never
happened, whil e other s maintai n th e opposite , a s does Ja n Swaffor d i n hi s
1997 biograph y of th e compose r (Johannes Brahms, published b y Alfred A .
Knopf). Brahms did admit to playing in bars. The controversy seems centered
on how old he was when this happened, and what, if any, psychological damage
he sustained as a result. Both sides have merits and inconsistencies, an d it may
be that the complet e fact s will never come out—if, a t last, they matter.
What seems true is that, beside s any barroom entertaining h e may or may
not hav e done, th e young Brahms also gave lessons and arrange d music, and
under a pseudonym he published light drawing-room pieces, just as a fledging
novelist toda y might ghost-writ e romance fiction . When h e wa s twenty h e
made a brief concert tou r with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Remenyi. At a
stop in Hanover, Brahms met Joseph Joachim, who would become one of the
century's greatest violinists an d with whom Brahms formed a friendship that
lasted—despite an extended silence arising from a serious misunderstanding—
for th e res t o f his life . Throug h Joachim , Brahm s was introduced t o Rober t
Schumann, wh o was so impressed by the young man and his few compositions
for pian o tha t he hailed hi m in the Neue Zeitschrift fu r Musik a s "the on e . . .
chosen to express the most exalted spirit of the time s in an ideal manner, one
who [sprang ] fully arme d from the head of Jove.... [A ] youth at whose cradle
the grace s and heroes of old stood guard." "New Paths," Schumann title d his
article. Perhap s he neve r imagine d tha t praise like that could sto p an artist.
Perhaps he gambled on Johannes Brahm s being equal to the challenge .
Schumann arranged for Brahms's first publications, and the young composer
grew clos e t o th e Schuman n family , even takin g u p residence wit h the m a t
their home in Diisseldorf. But Robert had battled mental illness for years, and
in 1854 , exhauste d by the struggle , he thre w himself into the Rhine . He was
dragged from th e water, still alive. Death would not com e for two more years,
years he spen t i n a n asylum . During this time , Brahm s became confidan t t o
Schumann's wife , Clara . Sh e wa s thirteen years his senior, but Brahm s ha d
learned somethin g abou t age gaps from hi s parents. Clara was also beautiful,
kind, on e o f th e mos t talente d pianist s i n Europe , an d a gifte d (thoug h
neglected) composer . He could not hav e helpe d bu t fal l in love with her. He
did this with a completeness an d a n ardo r characteristic no t onl y of a young
man but of a young Romantic artist. He was devoted t o Clara, but thei r love ,
so far as we have any business knowing about such things, remained platonic .
After 1856 , they became best friends, literally friends t o the death. At twenty-
three, however , Johannes ha d experience d a major disappointment . H e was
powerfully draw n to Clara, but fo r one reason or another coul d not make th e
commitment, or was not allowed to. He was growing as a composer. He labored
at his art regularly and with the concentration o f a Michelangelo. He received
ever greater recognition. At the same time, he claimed he wanted the steadiness
he fel t possible only by becoming the regula r conductor o f an orchestra. An d
though he settled in Vienna in 1869, he longed for his native city's recognition,
but each time the Hamburg Philharmonic was in the market for a music director
he was passed over. (An offer—which he declined—came at last in 1894, when
he was sixty-one and had long since established his reputation as the greatest
living composer of concert musi c in Europe.) He actually took a steady job in
1872, a s artistic director o f Vienna's Academ y o f the Friend s o f Music, bu t
three years later he had had enough, and he quit and grew a beard. In 1876, at
forty-three, h e publishe d hi s Firs t Symphony, which inaugurate d a serie s of
large orchestral works that would indeed prove him heir to the great tradition.
In 1895 , whe n he attende d th e openin g o f Zurich's new Tonhalle, h e saw on
the ceilin g his portrait alongsid e the portrait s of Mozart and Beethoven . In
1896, shortly after Clara' s death, h e was diagnosed with liver cancer. He died
on 3 April 1897 .
By all accounts he was generous and openhearted. When an old friend asked
him to use his influence t o ensure that her daughter receive a scholarship t o
the Berlin Conservatory, he secretly paid the girl's tuition, taking care never to
reveal what kind of "scholarship" this was. He could also be acerbic. A Viennese
wit relate d th e story—apocryphal , but telling—o f ho w Brahms, standing i n
the doorwa y as he prepared to leave a dinner party , turned back to the guests
at th e table . "I f there i s anyone her e who m I have no t offended, " h e said , "I
beg your pardon."
He was an artist who worked and reworked his material until he felt it was
ready to present t o the world. He burned th e sketche s fo r almost everything
he produced. It has been estimated that he wrote some twenty string quartets
before composin g the firs t tw o of the thre e work s he publishe d in the genre .
He kep t clos e guar d over hi s privacy , and lat e i n hi s lif e h e aske d Clar a t o
return the letters he had written to her decades before. When he had them in
hand he destroyed them.
He adore d musi c o f the seventeent h an d eighteent h centurie s an d was
committed t o th e rigo r and disciplin e o f classical form s i n a n ag e when th e
school of Liszt, Wagner, and Berlioz had abandone d them . He wrote a rugged,
concentrated musi c that, even when it seems to be an expanse of spontaneous
melody, i s built o f th e mos t tightl y containe d unit s arrange d i n th e mos t
Creators 5 1
economical o f ways, as in the firs t movement o f the Secon d Symphon y or th e

last movement o f the Fourth .
In outline, thos e ar e the facts , non e of which I knew as I listened, fo r th e
first time , t o m y new recordin g o f the Brahm s Third Symphony . I recall i n
particular the third movement. Never had I heard music so tender—tender in
the sense that a wound is sensitive to touch. This is the commo n ground that
Brahms exposes in his art . His life, barre n of sensationalism—as most of our
lives are—was full o f the kind s of domestic pleasures and disappointment s t o
which we can al l respond. His own world was not particularl y tragic, but a s a
more or less rational, well-balanced individua l who earned a good living, h e
had a clear vision of the large r world's essential sadness and his own essential
loneliness i n it. His experience wa s filled wit h melancholy, an d a s he looke d
back on that experience a s he worked, it colored his art. He wrote about what
he knew. Perhaps Frau Schumann wil l clarify al l this.
Brahms's biographer Karl Geiringer has said that the composer adopted an
increasingly "autumnal" style after th e episode with Clara Schumann—those
years between 185 4 an d 1856 , whe n Brahm s fell i n love with her an d whe n
their relationship was consolidated in their resolution to be "good friends." In
Brahms: His Life an d Work (publishe d originally by Oxford University Press in
1947), Geiringe r speculate s as t o why , after Schumann' s death , Brahm s did
not pursue Clara more aggressively:
Certainly Clara embodied i n every respect Johannes' ideal of womanhood, an d he

knew by experience ho w well suited they were to each othe r i n al l the lesse r and
greater affair s o f life. A s a man, then, h e coul d not hav e wished for a happier fate
than t o be united t o her, and the difference s i n their age s certainly did not dismay
him. If, therefore, Brahms forcibly suppressed all the allurin g dreams of union with
Clara, and was content to remain her true friend for life, it must have been because
the artis t in him dimly felt tha t h e must not definitel y bind himself.
And Richard Sennett has said that, "If the two were not lovers in the physical
sense afte r Schuman n wa s confined t o a n institution, the y acte d a s lovers in
every other. The legac y of this affair was forty years of companionship, jealousy,
and guilt between Clara Schumann an d Brahms. The artistic effect on Brahms
was entirel y unexpected. " Sennet t mark s 185 5 a s th e yea r Brahms's music
"suddenly changed gears. " Geiringer come s t o roughly the sam e conclusion .
In 1856 , h e says , "th e romanti c exuberanc e o f [Brahms's ] firs t creation s
gradually vanishe d fro m hi s compositions. I n hi s lif e an d i n hi s work a new
period had begun."
The theory of Clara's effect on Brahms is tempting, stimulating, and too simple.
Brahms in 1856 was twenty-three, hardly an age at which an artist's style is fixed.
Nor i s the chang e i n Brahms' s style as sudden a s either Geiringe r o r Sennett
52 FO R THE LOVE OF MUSI C
suggest. I f you liste n fo r them , yo u wil l hear hint s o f typicall y "Brahmsian"

melancholy i n the D-major Serenade o f 1857-1858 and the A-major Serenad e
of 1857-1860. But the Pian o Concert o No. 1 of 1859 i s a work that bears few
of th e characteristic s w e associat e wit h th e matur e Brahms . An d even th e
Piano Quintet , written as late as 1864 , exude s mor e Sturm und Drang tha n
regret. The Hor n Trio of 1865 i s a different story . Here we find wha t we hav e
come to expect: haz e hanging ove r a field on an October morning, th e smell of
burning leaves . Brahm s wa s thirty-two whe n h e wrot e tha t music . H e ha d
been through Schumann' s death , throug h th e attraction-repulsio n t o Clara ,
through another simila r episode with a beautiful young girl, Agathe von Siebold,
for who m he even agreed to wear an engagement rin g before breaking off the
affair with the explanation that , as an artist, he needed his freedom. And then,
in 1865, Brahms's mother died. He had loved her deeply. Of course it is possible
to hypothesiz e that , with he r death , h e fel t himsel f mor e a man i n hi s own
right than a son, an d that as a result his music grew more assured, controlled ,
expressive—what followe d almos t immediatel y wa s the Requiem , an d wha t
followed tha t were the symphonies, concertos, strin g quartets, and finally th e
chamber work s for clarinet an d that music which sound s very often as thoug h
it ha d bee n written t o accompan y th e transitio n t o th e othe r side , th e las t
piano pieces . Yet to say that all this began in 1865 , wit h his mother's death , is
as dangerous as saying that 185 6 marke d th e beginning o f a profound chang e
of style . Perhaps w e need marker s suc h a s these t o explai n th e obvious , for
what we are really talking abou t is the simpl e fact tha t Brahms was maturing.
The markers we point out are those of progressive steps. And at each progressive
step, he had seen more of life. As reflective and perceptive a n artist as he was,
he was prepared to incorporate mor e of that experience i n his work.
Certainly, Brahms can lead us to triumphs—the First and Second symphonies
are familiar example s of this—but heartbreak an d longin g ar e never fa r away,
and even in the Second Symphony, the melody that the orchestra embrace s at
the ver y end i s a heroic transformatio n of one o f the mos t poignant passage s
he eve r wrote—whic h we first encountered , i n th e guis e of the movement' s
second subject , as a reminder tha t all exaltation ha s a darker side. To call th e
first appearance o f the theme a memento mori would be an overstatement; bu t
its existence i s one way in which Brahm s tries to give us the complete picture ,
reminds u s of the seriousnes s and clarity of vision we need to cultivate fo r any
active encounter wit h the world. It is one of the things that makes him so great
an artist.
In his biography of Brahms, Jan Swaffor d describe s tw o remarkable scene s
reported b y the composer' s frien d (an d firs t biographer) Ma x Kalbeck. The y
are remarkable becaus e the y offe r glimpse s of Brahms in private , behind th e
facade o f the reserv e he assume d in public. (Th e onl y other time he droppe d
the reserv e wa s in hi s work.) Kalbec k present s thes e vignette s a s images of
Creators 5 3
Brahms possessed by the demo n of artistic creation, but, as Swafford suggests,

they are more than that. I think they confirm what we sense in Brahms's music—
that it speaks of the almos t unbearable paradoxes and poignancies o f life, th e
unfolding and receding in time of our experience, th e simultaneous becoming
and dying, so like music itself. Consider Kalbeck's observations. Neither is dated,
but bot h were made a t Ba d Ischl—the Baden-Bade n of Austria, a s Kalbeck
says, where Brahm s spent nin e summer s between 188 0 an d 1896 . Swaffor d
has suggested that they might be from 189 2 and have occurred in connection
with th e pian o piece s o f Opus 11 6 an d Opu s 117 . Though w e do not kno w
where these scenes fall in the Brahms chronology, my thoughts are stimulated
by Swafford's conjecture . I like to imagine that these moments are from 1893 ,
the summe r of the Opu s 11 8 an d Opu s 11 9 Pian o Pieces—miniature s tha t
range in characte r fro m ghostl y to heroic , an d whic h sa y everything o n th e
subject of Brahms's power to render a sense of the world's ungraspable beauty
into sound. Perhaps it was the musi c of op. 118 , no. 6—the Intermezzo in E-
flat minor—that drove Brahms to the outbursts Kalbeck witnessed. (Kalbeck,
incidentally, has taken his hits for occasional misreporting, but it is difficult t o
imagine him inventing material ; and eve n if he did, these views of Brahms go
to the essence.) Her e is Exhibit A:
An earl y riser and natur e love r just a s he was , I went ou t fo r an earl y walk on a
warm July morning. Suddenl y I saw emerging from th e wood s and runnin g across
the meadow towards me a man whom I took to be a farmer. I feared I had trespassed
and, even as I was anticipating all sorts of unpleasantness, recognized the supposed
farmer a s my friend Brahms. But in what circumstances he found himself, an d how
he looked! Bare-heade d and in shirtsleeves, without vest and collar, he swung his
hat in one hand an d with the other dragge d his stripped-off jacket after hi m in the
grass; he wa s running fast, a s if hunted b y an invisible pursuer. Already from afa r I
heard him panting and groaning . As he neare d m e I saw how the swea t streamed
down over his hot cheeks from the hair hanging in his face. His eyes stared straight
ahead int o emptines s an d glowe d a s thos e o f a predator y beast—he gav e th e
impression of being possessed. Before I recovered fro m m y shock h e ha d sho t past
me, so close that we almost brushed against each other; I grasped immediately that
it would have been awkward to call after him: He smoldered with the fire of creation.
Never will I forget th e alarmin g impression of elemental power that th e glimps e of
this sight left o n me.
Exhibit B: On anothe r da y Kalbeck visited Brahms and heard him at work,

trying out passages at the piano .
On a visit to the Salzburgerstrass e just before noon , I had climbe d th e outer steps
in the garden and was about to enter through the wide-open door, when I saw that
the doo r t o th e musi c room als o stood open . I heard magica l piano playing that
bound me to the threshold. I t sounded as though he were improvising, but I realized,
as I heard th e change s i n certai n frequentl y repeate d passages , that Brahm s was
improving an d honin g a new composition tha t h e ha d alread y worked ou t i n his
head. He repeated the piece several times part by part, then finally played it through
without a break. Th e pleasur e would have bee n complet e an d would have bee n
even greater than th e interest i n the evolutio n o f his work, had th e solo not bee n
transformed into a strange duo. The richer th e shape of the work became, and th e
more passionat e th e performanc e grew, ther e ros e u p i n increasin g intensit y a
disconcerting growling , whimpering, an d groaning , which, a s th e musi c peaked,
degenerated into a loud howl. Had Brahms , acting completely against his nature,
gotten himself a dog? That he would have tolerated the cursed animal in the roo m
struck me as incomprehensible. Afte r about half an hour th e playin g stopped, and
with i t th e howling ; th e pian o benc h wa s pushed back ; an d I stepped int o th e
room. No trace of a dog. Brahms seemed a little embarrassed and wiped the back of
his han d ove r hi s eye s like a chil d wh o i s ashamed—he mus t have bee n cryin g
heavily, for the brigh t drops were still hanging in his beard, and his voice sounde d
soft an d halting . I pretended I had jus t arrived and notice d nothing. Soo n he was
in good spirits again and ready to joke.
How can on e composer' s music suggest so much beyond itself ? What is it

about the sound of a composer's music—the sound that becomes his trademark,
unfolding blossom-lik e fro m a combinatio n o f intervals , chords , an d
harmonies—that gives it its power to make us see? Brahms forces m e to pose
these questions that I cannot answer. Perhaps it is the sheer beauty of Brahms's
sound that is so gripping—the beauty that conjures an ideal world, as lost and
beyond our reach a s Eden. For those lucky enough to have experienced som e
of life's satisfactions, such things as love and friendshi p and al l that goes with
them, th e past holds rich memories, and to such memories and the intimacie s
and collision s tha t create d the m th e ambe r glo w o f Brahms' s musi c i s
consecration. I n that sound, images are captured and suspended. Clara waits
at the table, looking out across a Rhine that has started to catch the sunligh t
just no w breaking throug h gra y clouds. Joseph Joachim tune s hi s violin an d
glances at the freshl y scribbled page that Johannes ha s given him. My mother
puts an arm around a boy—he can be no older than three—and points across
the meadow' s tall grass toward the broo k where, as a child, sh e hunted frog s
with her brothers. As I draw back from thes e thought s an d this last scene, my
eyes suddenl y mee t thos e o f tha t smal l visito r fro m a n earlie r time . I a m
ambushed by the past—th e past of others, and my own.
As surely as it takes me back forty years to an evening at the farthe r edge of
my adolescence, Brahms's music is the music of memory. That is not an aestheti c
statement. Of course all music depends to some extent on memory to make its
Creators 5 5
effect, o n ou r abilit y to assimilate the horizonta l events o f the musi c as they

occur i n time—th e magnificenc e o f th e choral e them e playe d by th e ful l
orchestra at the end of the Brahms First Symphony is the more magnificent for
our recollectio n o f having hear d i t te n minute s earlier , played quietly by th e
trombones, in a different context . Bu t in all that, Brahm s is not unique. What
makes him special, at least for an artist of his era, is his willingness to look back
and sa y that, afte r all , we cannot alway s hav e thing s a s we wish them. Hi s
music of the late 1890 s has more in common with the terribl e things t o come
in the next century than with the manic optimism of fin de siecle Europe. What
would his art have become had he lived long enough, into his eighties, t o see
the Great War, the ultimate severing of present and future fro m past , the pai n
of a world remembering what has been, reenactin g o n a cosmic level our own
personal regrets over an irretrievable past?
Somehow Brahm s understoo d ho w musi c could rende r th e sens e o f th e
past. The sound he creates is a sound always of parting, of that strange sense of
suddenly realizing that the experienc e o f the momen t will never com e again,
let alone the experience of a year ago, or two years, or forty. It is the sound , for
lack of a better word, of mortality. It is a sound that brings us back to ourselves.
—L.R.
Schoenbergj, Brahms ,
and The Great Tradition
In
February 1931, Arnold Schoenberg , the n fifty-six, wrot e two essays on
"National Music. " Neither wa s published until 1950 , th e year before his
death, whe n the y wer e include d i n hi s boo k Style an d Idea. Bot h ar e
characteristically contentious an d characteristically interesting. The second is
also important a s a piece o f intellectual an d artisti c autobiography and self -
evaluation because in it, neither for the first nor for the last time, Schoenber g
seeks t o establis h hi s place i n Th e Grea t Traditio n o f German Music—an d
nothing less than capitals will do.
"Nobody," h e write s i n a passag e in th e secon d essa y uncomfortably
reminiscent o f Hans Sachs's harangue about "die heil'ge deutsche Kunst" —holy
German art—a t th e en d o f Die Meistersinger vo n Numberg, "nobod y ha s ye t
appreciated tha t m y music , produce d o n Germa n soil , withou t foreig n
influences, i s a living example of an ar t abl e most effectively t o oppose Latin
and Sla v hope s o f hegemony an d derive d throug h an d throug h fro m th e
traditions of German music." This, by the way, is a recurrent preoccupation of
Schoenberg's: in the early 1920s, when he had formulated but not yet published
his twelve-not e metho d o f composition, h e le t ou t th e firs t hin t b y tellin g
some o f his student s tha t h e ha d mad e a discover y tha t woul d assur e th e
dominance o f German music for another hundre d years.
Toward the en d o f that essay and i n its most interesting part , Schoenber g
goes on to support his claim for the Germanness of his work by stating proudly
that his teachers "were primarily Bach and Mozart, and secondarily Beethoven,
Brahms, and Wagner.... I also learned much from Schubert and Mahler as well
as from Strauss and Reger." Aside from a few technical points picked up from his
friend an d quartet-partner, the astrologe r Oskar Adler, and his future brother -
in-law, the composer and conductor Alexander von Zemlinsky, Schoenberg was
in fac t self-taught ; tha t i s to say , what h e neede d t o kno w h e learne d fro m
studying the scores of his nine masters—and others.
With Mahler an d Strauss, Schoenberg ha d considerable persona l contact .
Strauss didn't really like what Schoenberg was composing, but he recognized a
real musician in his younger colleague. It was he who gave Schoenberg a copy
of Maeterlinck' s Pelleas e t Melisande, whic h le d t o th e compositio n o f hi s
luxuriant tone poem on that subject. Later he encouraged Schoenberg to send
him the Five Pieces for Orchestra, op. 16 , though he did not in the end conduct
them, explaining that he "feared to offer them to the conservative Berlin public."
As for Reger, who died in 1916, he had nothing good to say about Schoenberg ,
and Schoenberg kne w Reger only through his music.
Of Schoenberg' s fiv e primar y an d secondar y teachers , Brahms , who was
born i n 1833 , wa s the youngest . He an d Johan n Strauss , Jr., whom Brahms
liked and admired so much, were Vienna's most eminent musica l citizens while
Schoenberg wa s growing up there . Schoenber g share d Brahms' s delight i n
Strauss and made loving and delicious chamber arrangements of the Emperor
Waltzes and Rose s from th e South. When Brahms died in 1897, Schoenberg was
twenty-two an d ha d bee n composin g seriousl y for abou t fiv e years . Beyond
being awar e of Brahms as a grand presenc e abou t town , he had shake n the
great man's hand at the Tonkunstlerverein, the Society of Composers, which he
had joined an d a t whose functions Brahms put in an occasional appearance .
The Fourth Symphony, the Double Concerto, th e D-minor Violin Sonata, th e
two Clarine t Sonatas , th e Clarine t Quintet , th e las t pian o pieces , th e Four
Serious Songs, the Chorale-Preludes for organ, all these the aspiring, intensely
experiencing youn g man—who was even shorte r than Brahms himself—ha d
met a s brand-new music . To the exten t h e coul d affor d it , h e wen t t o hea r
them in concert, an d as soon as they were advertised he hurried to Doblinger's
to buy the score s in their handsome cover s from Simroc k in Berlin.
Characteristically mixin g Dichtung an d Wahrheit, inventio n an d truth ,
Schoenberg recounte d ho w hi s famil y subscribe d t o a multi-volum e
encyclopedia; as it was coming out in installments, he waited impatiently for
the projec t to arrive at th e lette r S so that he could lear n how to compose a
sonata. But of course while that encyclopedia was slowly snaking its way through
the alphabet , the growing boy with the big nose and the piercing eyes was not
just twiddling his thumbs while waiting for P, Q, and R to go by. He learned t o
get around on the violin and viola, and eventually the cello as well. He began
to compos e marche s an d polka s an d waltze s an d landle r o f th e kin d tha t
Creators 5 9
inundated Vienn a fro m ever y bandstand, cafe , an d restaurant . Then, a s his

growing skill as a string player allowed him to play chamber music with friends ,
giving him direct access to a whole new world from the venerated Haydn to the
modern and controversial Brahms, he had more and richer models to emulate.
The earlies t piec e b y Schoenber g yo u ar e likel y t o encounte r i s th e
unnumbered String Quartet in D major that he wrote in 1897. In that charming
work you can hear just how much of a Brahmsian the young Schoenberg was.
You ca n als o sens e th e alway s delightfu l presenc e o f Dvorak—second -
generation Brahms, so to speak. At that time musicians were either Brahmsians
or Wagnerians, the gulf being wide and the difference s bitter. (Brahm s himself
could no t b e bothere d wit h thi s sill y war. ) Tha t D-majo r Quarte t wa s
Schoenberg's last unambiguous statement of allegiance to Brahms. Two years
later, in 1899 , he composed Verkldrte Nacht (Transfigured Night), hi s first famou s
work an d hi s firs t masterpiece . Ther e w e hav e entere d anothe r world .
Schoenberg has tasted of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Wagner has become
part of his cosmos, and so has Richard Strauss, who had alread y written all of
his tone poem s except th e Symphonia Domestica and An Alpine Symphony. B y
this time, moreover, the notion that one had to pledge fealty either t o Wagner
or Brahms, forever renouncing the other, had become absurd, and Schoenber g
was one o f the firs t composers to draw happily from both sources.
As h e wrot e i n National Music: " I shut mysel f of f from n o one , an d s o I
could sa y of myself : m y originality comes fro m this : I immediatel y imitate d
everything I saw that wa s good, even when I had not see n it first i n someon e
else's work. And I may say: often enough I saw it firs t i n myself . For if I saw
something I did not leave it at that. I acquired it in order to possess it. I worked
on it and extended it , and it led me to something new. "
Schoenberg's National Music pedigre e is specific abou t his debt s t o Bach ,
Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner , and Brahms. Here i s what he tells us he learne d
from Brahms : "Muc h o f what I ha d unconsciousl y absorbe d fro m Mozart ,
particularly odd barring, and extension an d abbreviation of phrases." Among
the other Mozartian virtues that Brahms confirmed for him are "coordinatio n
of heterogeneous character s t o form a thematic unity . . . . The ar t of forming
subsidiary ideas [and ] th e ar t of introduction an d transition. . . . Plasticity in
molding figures ; no t t o b e stingy , not t o stin t mysel f whe n clarit y demands
more space; to carry every figure through to the end.... Economy, yet richness."
All this has mostly to do with the concep t of infrastructure and not wit h
surface, wit h skeleto n mor e tha n wit h skin , wit h ide a rathe r tha n style .
Schoenberg's music does not necessarily sound much like Brahms. Sometimes,
to be sure , it can . Th e wistfu l slo w movement o f the Violi n Concert o i s an
example, and the poetic opening of the Piano Concerto, hoverin g on the edge
of a waltz, is a descendant o f Brahms's late piano pieces. Maurizio Pollini used
to play a recital program in which he juxtaposed some of those last Intermezzi
with Schoenberg's Three Piano Pieces, op. 11 . That must have opened many
an ear to this relationship .
Pelleas und Melisande o n the othe r han d i s hardly likely to bring Brahms to
mind a t al l except perhap s for the striding , virile, rhythmicall y complicate d
theme tha t represent s Golaud. Wagner an d Strauss are present, so is Mahler
(the passage depicting Melisande's hair falling down the wall of her towe r is a
direct stea l fro m th e Sixt h Symphony) , an d s o is what i s unmistakably th e
entirely new voice of the twenty-eight-year-ol d Arnold Schoenberg .
As the composition s of Faure, Debussy, Schoenberg, an d Sibeliu s show us,
music fo r Maeterlinck's hauntin g pla y ca n g o in man y directions; I cannot ,
however, imagine a Pelleas by Brahms any more than a Brahms Tristan, nor for
that matter a German Requiem by Schoenberg o r Wagner. Schoenberg not only
had th e musica l vocabulary to allow him to get us to feel Pelleas's erotic feve r
as Melisande's hair glides over his face an d hands, t o sense his claustrophobic
terror when h e accompanies Golau d into th e subterranea n vaults, to see the
scene darke n whe n th e servants , summoned by some sixth sense , ente r th e
bedroom when Melisande dies. He had th e desire, the need t o translate such
moments int o music . It wa s one o f the place s where he lived . Schoenberg' s
expressive rang e i s not narrow , but h e i s most himself , and musicall y most
brilliant, i n a world of the possessed , a world in which utteranc e i s rarely less
than recklessly intense, a world of apprehension, angst , mystery, and pain, one
where th e borde r between drea m an d realit y is blurred an d wher e drea m is
more real than reality.
That is not th e worl d of Johannes Brahms . Most of the tim e Brahm s and
Schoenberg, by virtue of their vast difference of temperament, are worlds apart
in expressive intent, worlds apart therefore in the sound surface of their music.
The physica l sound of music and its expressive content, those ar e the thing s
that reac h u s first. The y ar e th e onl y components reall y meant t o reac h us .
The rest— how musi c is made—is o f endless interest , bu t tha t i s shoptalk ,
something for professionals.
On the question of what matters most, Brahms and Schoenberg would have
found commo n ground . In a letter t o the violinis t an d quartet-leader Rudolf
Kolisch, Schoenber g stresse d i n passionat e pros e tha t fo r him th e essentia l
thing was to help people to see what an object is, not how it is made. "My works,"
he wen t on , "ar e twelve-not e compositions, no t twelve-note compositions. " A s
for Brahms, whose fascination with and knowledge of technique wa s second t o
no one's, he was so concerned no t t o have anyone peek into his workshop, as
he put it, that more than any other great composer he took pains to destroy his
drafts, sketches , unfinishe d projects , and al l works tha t di d no t mee t hi s
dauntingly lofty standard s of professionalism.
Schoenberg sai d tha t h e ha d learne d fro m Beethove n "th e ar t o f being
shamelessly lon g or heartlessl y brief." Along wit h Bac h it was Brahms who
Creators 6 1
gave Schoenberg his most penetrating lessons in coherence, an d in that sens e

he is a presence in everything valuable by Schoenberg, fro m th e smalles t (but
never wispy) pian o pieces of Opus 1 9 to the "shamelessl y long" Pelleas. While
neither Brahm s nor Schoenber g wante d hi s listeners to dig for the source s of
what Sibelius called "the profound logic" of music, both wanted their listeners
to fee l it s power. Both kne w tha t composition s ar e good when th e what an d
the how, the idea and the style, are one. Both paid their listeners the compliment
of assumin g intelligence, alertness , a n engage d memory , an ope n hear t an d
mind, an d thu s of giving them lots to do.
In his later years, after he left his and Brahms's Vienna for good, Schoenberg
twice more publicly engaged with Brahms. One o f these engagements was truly
public, namely his virtuosic orchestration of Brahms's G-minor Piano Quartet ,
op. 25. This i s like the unexpecte d gif t o f a fifth Brahm s symphony, and i t has
given delight to thousands of listeners as well as to most orchestral musicians.
(A few string players ar e inclined t o be sniff y abou t it.) Th e orchestratio n i s
analytical a s wel l a s exuberant , jus t a s Schoenberg' s Johan n Straus s
arrangements ar e a t onc e scrutinou s an d affectionate . Brahm s would hav e
understood and liked that .
The other engagement was more specialized—an essay first worked out as a
lecture for the Brahm s centenary i n 1933 , then fully elaborate d in 194 7 and
titled Brahms the Progressive. Even at that late date this was flying in the fac e of
long-received opinion according to which "progressive" meant Liszt and Wagner
while Brahm s stood fo r "classical " an d "conservative. " Th e essay , als o firs t
published i n 195 0 i n Styl e and Idea, i s a brilliant demonstratio n tha t Brahms
was more inventive i n rhythm and bolder in the transformatio n of ideas than
Wagner. T o that exten t Schoenber g sa w Brahms as pointing towar d himself
and therefore regarded him as extraordinarily progressive. Brahms the Progressive
is a statement tha t change d th e cours e of Brahms criticism, an d lik e almost
everything tha t flowe d fro m Schoenberg' s pe n i t i s an intensel y passionat e
document—a declaration of love from so n to father .
I should at last say the obvious, which is that Brahms too would have listed
Bach, Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven a s his masters. I cannot imagin e tha t
he would have liked Schoenberg's music; he had enough trouble with Mahler's.
I am sure, though, that he would have seen that Schoenberg's musi c was good,
however alien its expressive intentions an d its language, and that the composer
of the Haydn Variations, the Fourth Symphony, and the Opus 11 9 Intermezzi
would no t hav e though t himsel f to o superio r or to o gran d t o acknowledg e
Arnold Schoenber g a s his pupil.
—M.S.
First-Rate Second-Class Composer
m
M ore than most music lovers, I suppose, I'm inclined to think of
Johannes Brahm s and Richard Strauss in the same breath. This is
probably because, just as my father was born roughly three month s
before th e deat h o f Brahms, in 1897 , I was born thre e month s befor e th e
death o f Strauss, in 1949 . That is nothing mor e than obscure coincidence ,
but i t makes a convenient plac e to begin talking about Strauss.
For Brahms and Strauss are names tha t belon g togethe r a t the beginning .
Strauss had started his career devoted to Brahms, but by the time he was twenty-
one he had rejected the aestheti c principle s to which tha t paterfamilia s of all
serious artists subscribed. Those principles also happened t o be the intellectua l
coordinates tha t Strauss' s father , Franz , firs t hor n o f th e Munic h Cour t
Orchestra, use d to plot out his life. Conventional wisdom , patterns of archetypal
behavior, and hormones hav e prett y much determined tha t father s and sons
will come to a point where everything, possibly even the daily rising of the sun,
is a potential source of disagreement. My own father and I, following the lea d
not just of Strauss senior and junior, but of Adam and Cain, coul d find no way
around this tragicomic axiom of existence, s o we embraced it.
Upset at what he believed wa s my lowbrow taste in music—Elvis, the Top
Forty, th e origina l soundtrack albums of Exodus an d Ho w th e West Wa s Won,
and stuff tha t makes even me wonder today, like The Music Man—upset b y all
this, my father "encouraged" me in the direction of Beethoven an d Mozart. To
him these were just a little mor e than names. Yet in steering me their way , he
had n o idea o f what h e wa s starting. M y teenag e hormone s wer e read y t o
respond to Beethoven, an d in Beethoven I discovered a new musical obsession.
Soon m y fathe r wa s askin g rhetorica l questions : "Don' t yo u fin d thos e
symphonies a little long? " and "How can you sit through a whole concerto? "
But if my father thought th e Beethove n Sevent h was a lengthy excursion ,
he was hardly prepared when I loaded the phonograph with Der Rosenkavalier,
four LPs ' worth o f an oper a whose spa n crosse s a t leas t fou r tim e zones . By
turns he deride d an d patronized the music . He was especially amused by the
scene immediatel y precedin g th e presentatio n o f th e rose . Th e duenn a
Marianne i s a t th e window , watchin g th e crowd s surroun d th e carriag e of
Octavian, th e emissary come to deliver Baron Ochs's token of betrothal—the
Silver Rose—to Marianne's charge , the seventeen-year-old Sophie . Mariann e
can barel y contain hersel f a s she report s o n th e scen e i n th e street . A t it s
climax she sings "Sie reissen den Schlag auf! E r steigt aus!" (The y fling open th e
doors of the carriage ! He gets out!) Thos e three words—"E r steigt aus!"—are
set t o the thre e risin g tones o f Octavian's theme , a virile, passionate fanfare ,
resplendently scored . It's a great moment. M y father thought i t was silly. "Er
steigt aus!" he would say, with a sarcastic chuckle, as though a phrase so mundane
were unworthy of a place in an opera, and certainly unworthy of such music—
which, tie d a s it was to an admittedl y routine line , I suspect he considered a
little pompou s (wha t he di d no t kno w wa s that, a few times, Straus s was as
excited a s some of his characters, and unwittingly set Hugo von Hofmansthal' s
stage directions t o music). My father was in his early seventies then—to o old,
he would have told you, to acquire an appreciation of a composer who had no t
figured among the operatic demigods he had discovered in his youth—Flotow,
Donizetti, Meyerbeer , early Wagner—when, as a baker's apprentice, he would
patiently sav e hi s pfennigs fo r standing-roo m ticket s a t th e oper a hous e i n
Braunschweig, a small dark city in Northern Germany .
By now you may realize that my father was a music lover—not a sophisticated
one; bu t lovers , like doctors, composers , and bakers , come i n al l varieties of
competence. H e neve r di d learn t o appreciat e Strauss , despite m y efforts t o
bring him over, and almos t to his dying day he would repeat that phrase, "Er
steigt aus!" with a laugh whenever I mentioned Richar d Straus s or his music.
(To his credit , h e di d no t d o tha t whe n a sopran o frien d o f my wife's san g
Strauss's song "Morgen" at our wedding.) H e may not hav e realized it, but h e
was on to something i n his criticism of one o f my favorite composers.
Almost from the beginning, Straus s was attacked for the not alway s peaceful
co-existence i n his music of the sublime and the ridiculous. Barbara Tuchman,
in The Proud Tower, her 196 6 history of pre-World War I Europe, quotes th e
American criti c Lawrenc e Oilman , wh o i n 191 4 attempte d t o su m u p th e
composer's caree r thu s far , when Straus s ha d alread y writte n no t jus t
Creators 6 5
Rosenkavalier but, before that , hi s groundbreaking operas Salome an d Elektra,

and th e ton e poems for which h e is still most admired. While Oilman foun d
Strauss's bes t wor k sublime, h e faulte d th e composer' s capacit y fo r mind -
boggling bad taste and a tendency t o be aggressively "commonplace."
Other writers have no t bee n as kind a s Oilman. Tuchman is one o f them.
She take s specia l pleasur e i n storie s tha t cu t th e compose r dow n t o size ,
especially stories about the Strauss domestic scene, dominated by Frau Strauss—
the soprano Pauline nee de Ahna, famously bitchy but i n Tuchman's accoun t
reduced to a character Madeleine Kah n might have portrayed opposite Gene
Wilder's Strauss in a Mel Brooks comedy. The Straus s household a s depicted
in The Proud Tower shelters a composer who worked in response to a nagging
shrew's harangues, not t o a muse's inspiration. He is more clerk than artist, a
nine-to-five drudg e with a tid y des k an d meticulousl y kept files . Al l thi s
manifests a common attitud e abou t Strauss. Yes, of course his music sounds
glorious, but i s it really art? Shouldn't ar t be born ou t o f sweat rather tha n a
desire t o pu t foo d o n you r family's table ? Tuchman goe s s o far a s t o chid e
Strauss fo r his comfortabl y bourgeois appearance, which i s Brooks Brothers
smug in comparison to the scowling, tortured Beethoven with his gravy-stained
shirts or the sensitive , greasy-locke d Schumann. Afte r all, hasn't ever y artist
you've eve r know n ha d a horribl e concep t o f persona l hygiene , an d aren' t
deafness o r insanity prerequisites to the compositio n of great music? "Er steigt
aus!" Straus s was no les s tidy on th e podium . He conducte d wit h th e mos t
economical an d understate d gestures , which seeme d alway s t o resul t i n
impassioned responses from th e orchestra. He maintained tha t the audienc e
should have the damp palms, not the person holding th e baton .
When Strauss's critics ask how a guy like this can be taken seriously as an
artist, they may be voicing some fascination at a seeming perversity, one best
summarized by George R. Marek in the introduction to his 1967 Richard Strauss:
The Life o f a Non-Hero (publishe d b y Simo n an d Schuster) . "How, " Mare k
asks, shall we "reconcile th e punctilious businessman—and Strauss was a good
businessman—with the compose r of Don Quixote! How are we to explain th e
difference between the dry dignitary, correct in dress and demeanor, and Strauss,
the compose r of the fina l scene o f Salome! Th e ma n who saw the su n rise on
Zarathustra's mountaintop—ho w coul d h e b e conten t wit h three-roo m
domesticity? . . . The ma n who was able to organize the tou r of an orchestra
and was aware of the last penny of expense that such a tour entailed, an d th e
composer of mystic, dream-drenched songs, exquisite in their musical poetry—
how could they have been one and the same?"
The ver y fact tha t Stanley Kubric k appropriated the "Sunrise " fro m Also
sprach Zarathustra for the openin g of 2001: A Space Odyssey wa s confirmation
to some that Strauss's music had foun d it s proper place, introducing a quasi-
philosophical fil m wit h a n overrate d sens e o f its ow n importance . ("Se e i t
stoned," friend s urge d one anothe r i n 1968 , whic h say s a s much a s anythin g
about th e appea l o f thi s movie , whic h wil l alway s be associate d wit h
Zarathustra—by the composer who once in all seriousness described himself as
the Tintoretto of music.)
Strauss's reac h sometime s di d excee d hi s grasp . Often h e i s criticized for
supplying the public with what he thought it wanted rather than forming public
taste wit h th e powe r o f hi s art . H e di d both . Hi s styl e di d no t develo p
significantly afte r Rosenkavalier an d Ariadne auf Naxos —that is , afte r 1912 ,
though in the 194 5 Metamorphosen, a lament over the destruction of the world
as he kne w it, on e sense s th e distancin g device s ar e gone , makin g way for a
new, mor e direc t wa y of communicating. Neithe r Metamorphosen, however ,
nor Rosenkavalier no r Ariadne tells u s much abou t th e Straus s who was once
known a s a grea t radical . Almos t b y definition, h e wa s walkin g dangerou s
ground. As th e compose r who discarded traditiona l pattern s o f compositio n
and stretched th e tone poem as far as even that elastic genre could go, he had
committed himsel f to a treacherous task , to writing music that tells stories—
stories of Don Juan , of Till Eulenspiegel, of a hero's life , o f a man's death an d
the subsequen t transfiguration of his soul. Brahms and his school maintaine d
that suc h a thin g wa s not possible—tha t musi c i s an abstrac t ar t wit h n o
meaning beyond itself. Writing out scenarios to guide his listeners through th e
tales his scores attempted t o depict (thoug h the more he resorted to externa l
programs t o sharpen hi s music's focus, th e mor e h e diffuse d it s effects), an d
resorting t o eve r mor e "realistic " mean s o f portraying his subjects , until h e
found himsel f writing for a wind machin e i n on e o f his last ton e poems, A n
Alpine Symphony, Straus s saw that th e logica l continuatio n o f his life's work
was no t i n orchestra l musi c but i n wha t h e ha d starte d bac k i n 189 4 wit h
Guntram. Opera was where his future lay . In committing t o that direction, h e
acknowledged that there are limits to the stories music can tell without relying
on the human voice fo r help.
Strauss always ran th e risk, as do all public figures, of being misunderstood,
and th e professiona l jealousies provoked by his enormous succes s may hav e
doomed hi s contemporaries ' effort s t o figur e ou t thi s irritatin g ma n whos e
personal an d artisti c persona s were so at odds . At th e tur n o f the twentiet h
century, h e ma y have bee n th e mos t famou s livin g compose r i n th e world ;
certainly he was the most talked-about and probably the most highly paid. As
this acclai m had come rather easily, the question was whether th e Tintoretto
of music had a proper respect fo r his gift . "Th e puzzl e o f Strauss," wrote th e
conductor Frit z Busch, "wh o i n spit e o f his marvelou s talent s i s not reall y
penetrated an d possesse d by them lik e othe r grea t artists , but i n fac t simply
wears the m lik e a suit of clothes whic h ca n b e take n of f at will—this puzzl e
neither I nor anybody else has yet succeeded in solving: his decided inclination
towards material things; and with his complete disinclination t o any sacrifice,
the swor n enemy of social change." "E r steigt aus!"
Creators 6 7
A mor e sympatheti c Straus s biographer , Michae l Kenned y (i n hi s 197 6

biography of the composer in Dent's Maste r Musicians series), gives us a more
balanced insigh t int o th e composer' s legendar y preoccupatio n wit h money .
Strauss, he says, "saw no reason why a composer should not be well remunerated
for hi s work and persistently championed hi s colleagues' rights in this respect
as wel l a s hi s own. " Beginnin g i n 1898 , h e wage d a successfu l seven-yea r
campaign to reform German copyrigh t laws.
He was generous with the influence he wielded, and he became the champio n
of Elgar, Sibelius, Mahler, and other contemporaries . Muc h has been made of
his ties to the Nazis before and during the Second World War, but his presidency
of the Reichsmusikkammer had been conferred upon him by Goebbels in 1933
without hi s knowledge. As for his being "th e swor n enemy of social change, "
Strauss simply wanted nothing to do with politics. Yet if he was apolitical, h e
arrived at a firsthand understanding of Nazi tyranny. Stefan Zweig, his librettist
for th e oper a Di e schweigsame Frau, wa s Jewish , an d whe n th e wor k was
scheduled fo r its firs t performance , in Dresden , Straus s learned tha t Zweig's
name had been omitted fro m th e posters. He demanded tha t it be restored. It
was. But , a s Kennedy tell s us , "Hitle r an d Goebbels , wh o ha d promise d t o
attend th e premiere , stayed away, an d afte r fou r performance s the oper a was
banned throughou t Germany. At the same time Strauss was ordered to resign
his presidency of the Reichsmusikkammer on the grounds of ill-health. Straus s
then wrote an obsequious letter t o Hitler, but he was now desperate to protect
not himself but his daughter-in-law Alice, who was Jewish, and her children. "
The image of Strauss the Nazi sympathizer continues i n popular mythology,
and even so fine a writer as Roger Kahn, in his 1993 baseball history The Era,
refers t o "Richar d Strauss , who wa s still alive [i n 1947 ] an d bus y explainin g
why he had not been—to put thi s charitably—mor e passionately anti-Nazi."
True, a disturbing photo from those years shows Strauss enthusiastically shaking
hands wit h Dr. Goebbels, wh o displays his swastika armband prominently for
the camera . But is it really so remarkable that an eighty-year-old man migh t
conclude tha t protecting hi s grandchildren wa s more important tha n takin g
on the Fiihrer? Someone els e in Strauss's position might have acted differently ,
and the entire question of his moral responsibilities during this time is complex.
He was not the hero we might wish him to be, but others in other time s hav e
also fallen short on heroics. Whether the politically naive Strauss comprehended
what the Nazis really were is anyone's guess. A nation is slow to acknowledg e
any sens e o f its ow n culpability . The mor e outrageou s th e transgression s of
political leadership , th e les s read y are th e governe d t o cal l thei r leader s t o
account, fo r just a s we ar e incline d t o den y tha t a frien d o r famil y membe r
might be guilty of theft or murder, we refuse to believe that great incompetenc e
and wrongdoing can exist at such high level s of the state . Wouldn't someon e
have exposed such criminal leadership by now? Since no one has, all must be
in order. The Germans discovered that such thinking can lead to disaster. While
it would do every nation well to heed Germany's example, perhaps Strauss was
just like so many of us, waiting for someone else to set things right. In any case,
to hav e bee n mor e publicl y anti-Naz i would hav e bee n dangerou s t o thos e
Strauss loved . I t woul d als o hav e bee n ou t o f character. Al l w e can sa y for
certain o n this subject is that Richard Straus s himself was no Nazi.
Facts and sympathies aside, the basic dilemma about Strauss remains. "How
reconcile th e punctilious businessman... with the composer of Don Quixote?"
And why , at this point, do some writers still feel it necessary to belittle Strauss
while other s fee l a n equa l need t o com e t o his defense? Straus s himself was
pretty secure in his reputation. " I may not be a first-class composer, " he once
said, "but I am a first-rate second-clas s composer. " Part of the reaso n fo r our
discomfort with him comes back to that phrase my father took such pleasure
in throwing at me whenever I mentioned Strauss . "Er steigt aus!" That phrase,
and th e musi c to which i t i s set, sum s up Richard Strauss , who brough t th e
commonplace an d the wondrous together i n the most surprising—though not
always the most appropriate—ways. Today, it is difficult t o grasp just why Strauss
was considere d s o ultramodern at the outset of the twentiet h century . He lef t
no artisti c heirs , an d i t seem s t o u s now tha t hi s musi c represent s no t th e
beginning o f a new era but the culmination an d conclusion o f an old one. Th e
era fro m whic h i t emerge d ende d abruptl y with Worl d Wa r I . The opulen t
textures of his music belong more to the nineteenth century than to any other,
yet that opulence was always a part of his work, right up to his death. I t is that
opulence i n Straus s that we treasure, althoug h som e listener s wil l equate i t
with vulgarity , an d sometime s the y wil l b e right . Th e bi g gesture s an d
encompassing sound s of his music represent a Weltanschauung whose validity
was calle d int o question b y the Grea t War , and i n th e pas t few years I hav e
wondered whether m y father's resistance to Strauss's beauties was solidified by
his memories of trenches i n th e Ardennes , fo r his youth was conditioned b y
that, too , not onl y by what went o n in the opera house in Braunschweig.
Yet today, as cities burn and the innocent die in the crossfire, Strauss's music
seems more and more necessary and utterl y valid. Beethoven an d Bach hel p
us envision a perfect world in ethical terms . Strauss's music is not abou t ethic s
and morality. It is not even abou t heroes, prophets , pranksters, or death an d
transfiguration. It is about beauty itself, first-rate beauty: pleasure, which is its
own reward.
—L.R.
Sibelius and Mahler:
What More Could There Be?
M;P
usicology doesn't ofte n lend itsel f to th e "wha t if " questions tha t
haunt history and our personal chronicles. It's compelling to imagine
what the world would look like today if JFK had canceled hi s trip to
Dallas, and we all have our own stories of roads taken or avoided, for better or
worse. Music's intrigues are confined to the music, but not always . So here is a
question that can have a s much or as little t o do with music as you choose t o
make of it: When is a composer's work complete? Take, for example, Gustav
Mahler and Jean Sibelius. What if Sibelius, who lived until 1957—hi s ninety-
first year—ha d continue d t o compos e afte r th e lat e 1920s ? What if Mahler,
who died just before he turned fifty-one, i n 1911 , had lived as long as Sibelius
and had continued working with his customary energy? What would twentieth-
century music have become? How different woul d our concerts sound?
They wer e contemporaries . Mahler , bor n i n 1860 , wa s onl y fiv e year s
Sibelius's senior. Mahler completed his First Symphony in 1888 an d his last in
1910—nine symphonie s i n twenty-tw o years. Sibelius complete d hi s Firs t
Symphony in 1899 and his last in 1924—seven symphonies in twenty-five years.
You could do the math and calculate that if each of them had continued working
at approximately the same pace—had Mahler been given the time and Sibelius
the inclination—the y migh t hav e lef t u s anothe r twenty-od d symphonie s
between them .
Such speculation might be more suited to the late hours of a cocktail party.
For in an eerie way, the body of work each composer left u s seems complete, as
though nothing more was left to be said. It is difficult t o imagine Sibelius going
beyond the Seventh Symphony and Tapiola, difficul t t o imagine Mahler goin g
beyond the Ninth Symphony or what we know of his Tenth, whic h he did not
live t o complete . An d i f this seem s a tautology—i f i t seem s I' m sayin g that
their work defines these composers because their work is all we know of them—
think of others abou t whom we can't sa y the same : Mozart, for instance, o r
Schubert, o r Schumann, wh o were all reaching strid e but wh o don't see m to
have tappe d thei r reservoir s fully . As k yourself : Wha t mor e coul d w e hav e
expected fro m Sibeliu s and Mahler?
Perhaps thi s i s just a failure o f my imagination, o r perhaps they were such
powerful individualist s tha t onl y the y coul d sugges t anything beyon d wha t
they ha d alread y done. Conceivin g o f what the y migh t stil l hav e writte n is
difficult becaus e eac h evoke s a soun d worl d uniquel y his . Earl y Sibeliu s i s
unmistakably Sibelius, for all the influenc e of Tchaikovsky, and a s different a s
the expansive Second Symphony of 1902 sounds from the concentrated, densel y
packed Seventh of 1924- And Mahler , even in his Symphony No. 1 , appears to
have sprung from nowhere with that strange and wonderful concoction of folk
song and epic , ditty and declamation , tha t is a hallmark of his style. Yet even
though thes e tw o were completely their ow n men, working in an era that saw
composers searching for a language that would take them out of the nineteenth
century int o th e twentieth—beyon d Lisz t an d Brahm s an d Wagner—the y
shared a common passion: to capture in their music a sense of what it means to
be alive. How they pursued this tell s us a lot abou t music, and abou t why we
listen.
In lat e Octobe r 1907 , Mahle r wa s i n Helsink i fo r a guest-conductin g
engagement. Base d i n Vienna , h e wa s on e o f Europe' s mos t prominen t
conductors—he was known in those day s as a conductor wh o also composed,
though h e alread y had si x symphonies an d a n as-yet-unperforme d sevent h
symphony to his credit. Sibeliu s was a composer who also conducted, an d h e
was hoping t o carry his music beyond hi s native Finland . Althoug h onl y fiv e
years separated them , Mahle r wa s a colleague fa r more senio r tha n that age
span suggests, someone whos e work on th e podiu m and of f had alread y won
him internationa l stature . I n th e cours e o f Mahler's Helsink i trip , th e tw o
sought eac h othe r ou t an d engage d i n a now-legendary dialogue . Sibelius' s
biographer Erik Tawaststjerna offer s th e composer' s recollections o f his talks
with Mahler (i n Volume II of Sibelius, translated by Robert Layton and published
by th e Universit y o f Californi a Pres s i n 1986 ; thi s i s th e sourc e o f al l th e
quotations pertaining to Sibelius in this article). Writing twenty-five years later,
Sibelius remembere d " a number o f walks together, wher e we discussed all of
music's problems in deadly earnest. Whe n our conversation touche d o n th e
symphony, I said that I admired its style and severity of form, and the profound
logic that created a n inner connection between al l the motives. This was my
Creators 7 1
experience i n th e cours e of my creative work . Mahler's opinion wa s just th e

opposite. 'No!' he said, 'The symphony must be like the world. It must be all-
embracing.'"
Sibelius had bee n strugglin g toward his position. Just a month earlier , his
Symphony No. 3 had premiered . In it s tautness, it s clean lines , an d it s lea n
textures—its "profoun d logic"—i t departe d radicall y fro m th e Secon d
Symphony, which wa s one o f those richl y colored works , painted o n a broad
canvas, tha t helpe d mak e Sibelius a national figure . Fo r Sibelius, that statu s
was a double-edged sword. Finland was chafing under Tsarist domination. Th e
country needed heroes. Even a composer could assume the role, especially one
who gave the people works like Finlandia, the Legends from th e nationa l epi c
the Kalevala, and a symphony such as the Second , inspire d now and agai n by
folk son g and conjurin g visions of northern forests . Bu t Sibelius hated bein g
described as a nationalist. He had higher aspirations, and when he outlined his
symphonic aestheti c t o Mahler , he wa s talking abou t a way to realiz e thos e
aspirations. His new Third Symphon y was an example of the Sibelian aestheti c
at work . A s Tawaststjern a says, th e Thir d Symphon y wa s a fora y i n a n
international direction, in which the composer moves from the overtly "Finnish"
toward th e universal . Yet the Thir d als o showed tha t h e "wa s totally out of
step with th e times"—time s tha t sa w orchestral musi c expanding i n size, i n
works such as Richard Strauss's tone poem s and Mahler's symphonies. While
Sibelius saw "profound logic" as a means to his ends, Mahler, at least initially,
took the opposite path.
Mahler sai d th e symphon y had t o b e "all-embracing, " an d h e live d tha t
conviction. Conside r th e wa y he operate d righ t fro m th e start , i n hi s First
Symphony. There h e reference s a fe w melodies fro m hi s ow n songs , quotes
"Frere Jacques" an d score s it fo r a n ensembl e tha t suggest s a Klezmer band,
works u p a lather wit h an Austrian countr y dance, an d end s with a finale of
continually changin g character , fro m violenc e t o tenderness , culminatin g i n
crashing cymbals and blasting brass as the eigh t hor n player s are directed t o
stand wit h th e bell s of their instrument s raised , pouring out th e sound . You
can't fail to get the point. Some listeners still think of Mahler more as a collector
of found objects, who gathered bits and pieces from lif e an d expected the m t o
reflect life. He never worked in that simplistic a way, yet Mahler can't often be
accused of subtlety, especially not in the earl y symphonies. Mahler's subtlety
grew ove r th e years , grew awesom e a t th e end , bu t h e alway s remaine d a
composer of large gestures. And fro m th e start , his control o f vast orchestral
forces an d vas t spans of musical time integrates thos e gesture s in a way that
saves the m fro m bein g histrionic . H e goe s to th e edg e of what's acceptable ,
always risking overstatement bu t neve r quit e crossing the lin e tha t separates
artistic genius fro m artisti c blunder. That great daring continues t o dra w us
into his music.
Unlike Sibelius, Mahler was no national hero, and he once described himself
as homeless three time s over, as a Bohemian among Austrians, as an Austrian
among Germans, an d a s a Jew everywhere. But i f Mahler i s the outsider , it is
Sibelius whose sound has served so rarely as a model to others (though a composer
as recent, and as different-sounding, a s John Adams has acknowledged his debt
to Sibelia n artisti c strategies) . I n fact , th e on e compose r whos e soun d
occasionally recalls that of Sibelius is New Zealand's Douglas Lilburn, author
of engagin g musi c that ha s no t ye t mad e i t int o th e worl d arena . Mahler' s
influence, on the other hand, was felt for many years into the twentieth century
in the work of his closest spiritual compatriot, Dmitri Shostakovich, who learned
from Mahle r th e tacti c of fusing th e quirky march with the stirring hymn, th e
ridiculous and the sublime, and who not only enjoys an international reputatio n
but i s a her o t o Russians . Sibeliu s an d Mahle r lef t legacie s tha t wen t i n
unexpected directions .
Yet if Sibelius and Mahle r seem dissimilar at first , thei r methods tende d t o
converge a s they continue d t o pursu e their commo n goal . Mahler believe d
that a symphony "must be like the world," while Sibelius called composition "a
quest in the infinit e recesses of the soul. " Any attemp t to identify difference s
that might make one the greater composer is to quibble—to relegate the eagerly
encompassing Mahler to one corner of the ring and the calmly probing Sibelius
to another . Th e poin t i s that each of them approache d hi s art a s something
that, i n som e sense , wa s all-embracing. Mahle r work s toward tha t en d i n a
more obviou s wa y than Sibelius, bu t Sibelius' s musi c ca n als o hav e tha t
encompassing appeal. As Tawaststjerna points out, the Danish composer Carl
Nielsen, anothe r "nationalist " whos e ar t goe s beyond nationa l boundaries ,
described the Sibelius Second Symphon y in exactly those words: all-embracing.
What motivates an artist to embrace all, or to explore depths, and in either
case to keep on working, even if your listeners don't grasp what you're about?—
and bot h Mahler an d Sibeliu s encountere d puzzled , hostil e audiences . On e
answer is obvious: the sens e tha t th e Muse' s offer o f inspiration i s good for a
limited tim e only, that if you fail t o Act No w or don't Respon d by Midnight,
the dea l migh t b e off . How Sibeliu s an d Mahle r responde d t o thi s sens e of
encroaching tim e say s somethin g abou t th e wa y they prime d themselves .
Sibelius, plagued by self-doubt, wa s always o n th e lookou t fo r disasters that
might cut his time short. He imagined he had hearing problems. He feared h e
had diabetes ( a fancied ailment that led him to a doctor who remarked on his
"fine physical condition an d outstanding hypochondria"). He smoked too much.
He drank way too much and tortured himself for his weakness. ("I am now in
my prime," he wrote in 1907, "and on the threshold of big things, but the years
could easil y melt awa y with nothing to sho w for them, unles s I am taken i n
hand—above all , by me. This drinking—not that I don't enjoy it—ha s gon e
too far." ) A t last , in 1908 , h e encountered th e rea l thing. H e was diagnosed
Creators 7 3
with a throat tumo r and underwent surgery . The growt h was benign, bu t th e
thought of what could have happened was terrifying enough to keep him away
from cigars and alcohol for the next seven years. It was a time during which, as
Tawaststjerna says, he "redoubled his activity" in the fac e of an early death. I t
was i n thi s perio d tha t Sibeliu s create d on e o f the grea t symphonies o f th e
twentieth century , or any century, his Fourth.
This bleak , probin g music, say s Tawaststjerna , "with it s soundings o f th e
innermost spiritual condition, i s one of the most remarkable musical documents
of the Freudia n era." He continues :
Sibelius portrays his inner landscape with a discretion bor n of discipline or, to pu t
it anothe r way , with th e objectivit y of the greates t artists. . . . Indeed, thoug h i t
may be a "psychological symphony," it is far from bein g a purely autobiographical
document, a record o f his inner life , fo r once th e symphon y was in th e proces s of
gestation, i t became his life . Thi s interactio n make s th e Fourt h particularly
fascinating: the symphon y itself and his inner lif e reflec t each other. Here we have
a tense yet ultimately harmonious balance between ar t an d life .
Much the same might be said of another work being composed a t this time :
the Ninth Symphon y of Mahler, again written in the shado w of death.
Mahler's Ninth has often been called a "farewell" symphony, but, as Michael
Steinberg has written in his commentary on the work, it is not th e produc t of
a man preparin g to leave th e world . Nevertheless, a s Mahler gre w older, he
was force d t o confron t mortalit y i n th e mos t immediat e terms . H e wa s
acquainted wit h death. Seve n o f his thirteen sibling s died in infancy, and his
favorite brother died at thirteen. Non e o f this, however, prepared him for the
death of his daughter Maria in 1907, when she was not yet five. That catastrophe
was followed several days later by another, when Mahler himself was diagnosed
with a heart conditio n tha t force d hi m t o scal e bac k th e physica l activities
such as hiking and swimming that gave him such pleasure. The grandiose Eighth
Symphony, that all-embracing hymn to the Creator Spiritus, had been completed
in th e summe r tha t Mari a died , a fe w months befor e Mahle r declare d hi s
symphonic credo t o Sibelius in their Helsink i talks . In Das Lied vo n der Erde,
commenced shortl y thereafter, a new atmospher e fill s Mahler' s music , more
reflective, a little bewildered by life, sometimes defiant, ultimately accepting.
It is an atmosphere that come s to fuller fruitio n i n the Ninth Symphony, and
that continue s i n the Tenth .
The Mahler Ninth, and what we know of the Tenth—the composer completed
only the firs t movement, almost finished the third, and sketched ou t the rest—
offer music of almost incomprehensible poignancy . These ar e works that moved
Arnold Schoenberg to comment, rather melodramatically, on the subject of Ninth
Symphonies i n general: "It seems that th e Ninth is a limit. He who wants to go
beyond it must die. It seems as if something might be imparted to us in the Tent h

which we ought not yet to know, for we are not ye t ready."
Mahler share d a superstition about Ninth Symphonies, but h e seemed t o
have n o misgiving s about completin g hi s Ninth. Onc e again , intuitin g th e
Muse's offer and perhaps fearing its withdrawal, he went from the Ninth straight
into the Tenth. And in the Tenth he continues an d adds to what he had started
in the preceding work. For the Ninth concludes with an adagio, which is how
the Tenth begins. (Virtuall y no precedent exists for such an opening. Althoug h
some Hayd n symphonie s d o indee d begi n wit h slowl y pace d movement s of
more than usual gravity, such as nos. 22 and 49, these are exceptions so rare as
to make Mahler essentially alone in starting a symphony the way he begins his
Tenth, an d the Tenth's opening is of a different expressiv e world than anything
in Haydn. ) Perhap s I'm readin g to o muc h int o this , bu t I choose t o believ e
that Mahler' s od d decisio n t o ope n a symphony with a slow movement was
prompted b y his nee d t o kee p explorin g th e expressiv e possibilities h e ha d
created i n the Ninth. Those possibilitie s developed fro m a great leap forwar d
he made in architectural mastery and in the wisdom with which he propelled
his music; they developed fro m wha t seems a new understanding of dramatic
transition, i n which th e movemen t fro m even t t o event i s as seamless as the
movement o f life, self-containe d within term s more abstract than any he ha d
ever conceived. In terms of today's New Age thinkers, we might say that Mahler
gives us a sense of The Journey. As I said, almost no symphony until then had
opened with an adagio, but at least two—Tchaikovsky's Pathetique and Mahler's
own Ninth—had close d wit h adagios . In suc h a context, th e Adagi o o f the
Mahler Tent h sound s more like a concluding movement . (Mahler' s sketche s
also show the Tent h endin g in a long adagio.)
Mahler an d Sibelius , lik e s o many other artists , were driven b y fear tha t
they would not live to complete all they set out to do. Let us, though, assume
for a moment that Mahler did indeed finish what he had intended t o complete.
It's not a question we will ever be able to answer; yet his Ninth Symphony, and
the Adagio from the Tenth, have their counterparts in works with which Sibelius
effectively ende d hi s composing career, the Sevent h Symphon y and the ton e
poem Tapiola. Thes e are works in which Sibelius realized his symphonic ideal.
He mastered—a s did Mahler, in his own way—the art of transition withi n a
new concision of form, at the same time creating a sound world entirely abstract
and self-referentia l even while it suggests nature's vastness and huge interio r
spaces. I don't mea n to suggest that Sibeliu s is engaging in musical landscape
painting. His music moves—as does Mahler's—with an inevitability and forc e
equaled onl y i n th e worl d o f forests , gatherin g thunderclouds , oceans , an d
upward-thrusting peaks. When he finished Tapiola,, in 1926, Sibelius had thirty-
one year s lef t t o live . Scholar s hav e speculate d o n wh y h e simpl y stoppe d
composing. He was at work on an eighth symphony as late as 1943, but befor e
Creators 7 5
the 1940 s were over, he ha d burned hi s sketches fo r that work, along with a
bundle of other music . He had said what he had t o say.
They had little in common, Mahler and Sibelius, and they were different i n
their approache s to their art . Yet they realized every artist's goal: they attaine d
ultimate control of their craft, using it to render a complete sense of life as though
no ar t wer e involved i n th e rendering . Th e sens e o f life the y communicat e
reaffirms why we continue t o turn to the greatest music. For the greatest music
is a world unto itself , a world that shows us the ideal , a world of honesty, a
world fre e o f pettiness. It i s that place we envision i n contemplation , whe n
time pauses, when the sun drops below or rises above the horizon, igniting th e
clouds, and we can think of nothing but gratitude for whatever has allowed us
a moment at the center of things.
So what more would Mahler an d Sibelius have given us, had Mahle r lived
to be ninety-one, or had Sibelius continued to compose? Those are questions
for th e lat e hour s of a cocktail party , t o be posed and the n forgotten. In th e
time allotte d o r i n th e tim e the y chos e t o use , eac h o f them, i n differen t
proportions, used all-embracing strategies and profoun d logi c to search. The y
were searching for an ideal world, and when the search was over, they had arrived.
—L.R.
Remembering Rachmaninoff c?
A
doorbell ring s i n Hollywood . Answering , th e owner , fiv e foo t one ,
has to tilt his head bac k to look into the fac e of his unexpected an d
tall, tall visitor. A "six-and-a-half-foo t scowl" is how Stravinsky des-
cribed Rachmaninoff. But on this spring evening, Rachmaninoff is not scowling.
He has come t o present a n immense jar of honey t o his fellow-expatriate an d
fellow-composer. What a shame that Vera Stravinsky is not o n hand with her
camera t o captur e thi s moment . (An d b y th e way , there ar e picture s o f
Rachmaninoff smilin g most winningly.)
The dat e of this scene is 1942. If I were making a movie about Rachmaninoff
or Stravinsky , I would cheat an d sa y this wa s their firs t meetin g i n umptee n
years, but i t wasn't quite. I don't kno w ho w much tim e ha d elapse d betwee n
their las t encounter i n Europe and their firs t i n California, which preceded thi s
one by some days. In an y case, as a result of the upheaval s in Europe they ha d
both landed i n Hollywood, Stravinsky in 1940 , Rachmaninoff two years later.
Greater Lo s Angeles an d Hollywood in particular had become th e magne t
not just for expatriate actors, but for musicians, writers, and intellectuals, som e
of them amon g the most brilliant i n their generation . Th e climat e was kinder
than any they had eve r known, th e heatin g bill s were low, and besides, ther e
was always the hope of work in the studios. Many of these new Californians a t
once split into cliques and cabals, not speaking to but ever ready to badmouth
each other, feeding and watering all the aesthetic an d political differences tha t
had separated them in Europe.1 Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky were on opposite

sides o f th e fenc e tha t separate d th e modernist s fro m th e anti-modernists .
Rachmaninoff regarde d The Firebird an d Petrushka as works of genius but ha d
no us e fo r Stravinsky' s late r compositions ; Stravinsk y ha d n o interes t i n
Rachmaninoff's musi c at any time.
But Rachmaninof f wa s no t a pett y o r a jealou s man . Thinkin g abou t
Stravinsky, he sa w a Russian, an honorabl e (i f wrong-headed) musician , an d
above all, a father whose children, lik e his own, were caught in occupied France .
He telephone d hi s biographer, Sergei Bertensson, an d said : "As I know ho w
much Igor Fyodorovich has always disliked my compositions. . . and he must
know my attitude t o modern music , I'm not sur e whether I could invit e hi m
and his wife to my house—which I'd love to do—because I don't know how he
would receive my invitation. Woul d you be so kind as to send out a feeler?"
Vera Stravinsky's response was positive an d led to cordial dinners a t both
houses. One ca n imagin e th e atmosphere , th e passag e back an d forth across
the tabl e o f the statel y an d sonorou s patronymics—Serge i Vasilyevich, Igor
Fyodorovich, Natali a Alexandrovna , Ver a Arturovna. A t th e firs t o f thes e
dinners, Stravinsk y mentioned hi s fondness for honey; hence Rachmaninoff's
surprise visit a few days later. Bertensson, who was also one of the dinner guests,
writes that "beside s comparin g notes o n thei r familie s in France, the y had a
very lively discussion of musical matters—but not a word about composition .
They talke d abou t managers, concert bureaus , agents, ASCAP, royalties. "
Common groun d on which the y di d not touch—an d i t is understandabl e
why not—was what it felt like to be composers who seemed t o have lost thei r
hold o n thei r audience . Stravinsky , the n fa r fro m bein g th e adore d an d
prosperous media figure h e became in his old age, was resented b y the publi c
and battered i n the press because he had moved on from th e style of his great
pre-war dance scores , The Firebird, Petrushka, an d Th e Rite of Spring.
As fo r Rachmaninoff , sinc e th e en d o f World Wa r I an d excep t fo r th e
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in 1934, his compositions had been rejected
by those wh o yearned fo r more of the lushnes s o f the Pian o Concert o No . 2
and th e Secon d Symphony . Whe n audience s coughe d restlessl y during his
Variations on a Theme of Corelli, which he wrote in 1931 , he would leave out
the next variation; on one tour he was able to play the entire se t just once. Of
his Symphony No. 3, whose final version came out in 1938, he said that he did
not nee d al l the finger s o f one hand t o count it s admirers, who were himself,
the violinis t an d composer Adolf Busch, and the conducto r Si r Henry Wood .
Moreover, Rachmaninoff was in a double bind. As an almost exact contemporary
1
There is a large and entertaining literature on this period in Hollywood. Try Otto Friedrich's City of
Nets o r Anthon y Heilbut' s Exiled i n Paradise, an d fo r a vie w fro m th e inside , Salk a Viertel' s Th e
Kindness o f Strangers o r Thomas Mann's The Story o f a Novel.
Creators 7 9
of Schoenberg and a slightly older colleague of Bartok, Stravinsky, Webern, and

Berg, he had come to think of himself as an absurd and useless anachronism.
Rachmaninoff's conservatis m as a composer is a prime fact about him, an d
it is central to his reputation. The public loves him, and in recent years its love
has become more embracing of at least some of his later music: the Symphoni c
Dances, fo r example, have become a repertory piece and a major hit . O n th e
other hand , th e academ y an d mos t professiona l criticism think s littl e o f
Rachmaninoff. In Me of All People, a book of conversations with Martin Mayer,
Alfred Brendel speaks of "a Bermuda triangle between Puccini, Rachmaninoff,
and Lehar, in which primary , genuine, nobl e emotion s [are ] in dire danger of
being sucked away." I don't recall hearing on e word about him in an y music
course when I was a student, and I did no better in the music history classes I
myself taught later. I loved to listen to his music, but it was the love that dared
not speak its name, and I kept it private. A bit of unsystematic inquiry suggests
that, overall , the situation in schools hasn't change d much .
Rachmaninoff is one of many composers we know too narrowly. Once, when
I gave a talk on Rachmaninoff, I titled it "Beyond Full Moon and Empty Arms "
and began by playing Frank Sinatra's 194 5 recording of the son g Buddy Kaye
and Ted Mossman concocted fro m th e las t movement o f the Pian o Concert o
No. 2. It is a great tune in a style Rachmaninoff had learned from Tchaikovsky,
and it is the kind of generous, heart-on-sleeve music that first comes to mind
when you hear Rachmaninoff's name .
Coming up with such tunes is a rare gift, but Rachmaninoff could also invent
more subtle melodies that don't stick to the ear quite so immediately. One that
stuns me every time begins the slow movement of the Symphony No. 2. Violins
lead of f with a yearning phrase. Then the clarine t unwind s a long threa d of
melody, a quiet musing on just a few notes. The violins continue it , turning the
heat up, until the y come back to the yearnin g phrase from th e beginning. By
this time, nearly four minutes have gone by, four minutes of continuous melody
in which Rachmaninoff never repeats himself. How often do you find something
like that?
In par t i t i s th e quie t o f thi s passag e tha t i s s o moving . Often , th e
Rachmaninoff w e thin k o f is th e splash y last page s of his concerto s o r th e
Second Symphony . He can pull that sort of thing off to a fare-thee-well, but he
also knows the beauty of restraint. You hear that in his songs. His range in that
world i s remarkable, and bein g restricte d t o on e voic e an d tw o hands o n a
keyboard stimulates his invention. The pian o i s a fully participatin g partner,
now leader and inciter, now unobtrusive but firm and essential lender of support,
and in the most exquisite moments—and always supposing the right pianist—
the magica l second singin g voice. Th e grea t Russian bass Fyodor Chaliapin ,
who gave many recitals with Rachmaninoff, said that it was never a matter of
"I am singing" but alway s of "we are singing. "
In hi s later years , Rachmaninoff cam e mor e an d mor e t o lik e lea n musi c

with sharp outlines. Th e Rhapsod y on a Theme of Paganini has its irresistible
Variation 18—"Thi s one is for my agent," he said of that expansive tune—but
most o f that work is crisp and spare . It i s witty, too. A n especiall y charmin g
touch in its opening pages , cadaverous as Paganini himself, is the image of one
of th e world' s great pianists playin g just a few notes—sixteen measures of a
Rachmaninoff concert o tha t anyone can play!
And liste n t o a much earlie r piece, th e E-mino r Prelude, op. 32, no. 4 , of
1910, in which the most diverse ideas interrupt each other an d are intercut i n
a dazzlin g sequenc e o f deliciou s unpredictabilitie s an d productiv e
discontinuities. Her e i s music that seems to look ahea d t o th e Stravinsk y of
the Symphonies o f Wind Instruments.
What will amaze someone brough t u p on Rachmaninoff' s concerto s an d
symphonies, hi s Prelude s an d Etudes-Tableaux, an d th e songs , i s th e firs t
encounter wit h th e All-Night Vigil. This is more tha n an hou r o f music for a
cappella chorus , intended fo r a night-long service in Russian Orthodox churche s
on th e ev e o f hol y days . The worl d o f secula r yearning , melancholia , an d
virtuosity is far away. This rapt masterpiece was Rachmaninoff's own favorite
among his compositions. On e o f its alleluias finds it s way into the Symphoni c
Dances, an d he asked to be buried to the sound of its fifth hymn , "Now lettest
thou th y servant depart in peace. "
It is only by fortunate chance that we have thes e composition s at all. The
premiere of the Symphon y No. 1 was a disaster, the performanc e terrible, th e
reception brutal . Rachmaninoff , jus t abou t t o tur n twenty-four , ran fro m
the hal l an d soo n destroye d th e score . Afte r hi s death , someon e i n Russia
found firs t a two-piano reductio n an d late r th e orchestra l part s that he ha d
not staye d t o collec t o n tha t terribl e evenin g i n 1897 . Th e symphon y was
reconstructed, an d t o man y who no w know it , i t is the mos t powerfu l o f his
three. The catastrophe of that premiere left Rachmaninoff convinced he could
not compos e again, and only a course of psychotherapy and hypnosis with a n
exceptionally understandin g docto r release d hi m t o emerg e wit h th e Pian o
Concerto No . 2. 2
Rachmaninoff the composer was only one of three Rachmaninoffs . He was
one of the great pianists in history and, by all accounts, hardly less remarkable
as a conductor. H e di d a lot o f conducting i n his early years, opera as well as
concert, an d was highly regarded enough to have been asked to take over both
the Bosto n and Cincinnati symphonies. But in fact he rarely conducted afte r
leaving Russia for good in 1918 , when, sacrificing time he would have liked to
use for composing, he became virtually a full-time pianist to support his family.
2
Dian e Ackerman ha s written a touchin g poem about Rachmaninoff' s encounte r with Dr. Dahl,
Rachmaninoff's Psychiatrist (i n Origami Bridges, HarperCollins , 2003).
Creators 8 1
The concentration , clarity , nobility o f style, and beaut y of sound o f the fe w

recordings h e mad e a s a conductor , al l wit h hi s favorit e orchestra , th e
Philadelphia (th e grea t Philadelphi a o f the Stokowsk i an d earl y Ormand y
years)—The Isle of th e Dead, the Vocalise, the Symphony No. 3—make believable
every superlative one reads about his work on the podium.
On th e other hand , Rachmaninof f the pianist is well documented. All the
recordings he made for Victor, including those of his conducting, ar e available,
plus transfer s o f some pian o rolls . The y includ e hi s fou r concerto s an d th e
Paganini Rhapsody, sonatas by Beethoven, Schubert , and Grieg with his friend
Fritz Kreisler, and a large sampling of solo works. Unfortunately, he was allowed
to recor d onl y tw o o f th e bi g piece s i n hi s sol o repertory , Chopin's Funeral
March Sonat a an d Schumann' s Ca.ma.val. The dozen s of little piece s includ e
many transcriptions by himself, his cousin and teacher Alexander Siloti , Liszt,
Rubinstein, Tausig, and others. And, in Mount Rushmore-sized majesty , ther e
is even a Star-Spangled Banner, with which he would have begun every recital
during the war years.
Rachmaninoff th e transcribe r mad e dazzlin g solo pian o version s o f
movements from Bach' s E-major Partita for Unaccompanied Violi n (o f which
Bach himsel f ha d mad e a singularl y bold versio n fo r sol o orga n wit h ful l
orchestra), Schubert' s Wohin?, th e Scherz o fro m Mendelssohn' s Midsummer
Night's Dream music, The Flight o f the Bumblebee, and wonderfull y inventive ,
larger-than-life ones of Kreisler's Liebesfreud an d Liebesleid—all of them startling
us with harmonies that were not in the vocabularies of their original composers.
Yet these excursions never fail to highlight something salient and characteristic
in the pieces. They have all the special charm of hybrids, but they never betray
the origina l composition. Eve n when hi s conscious ai m was only to provide
himself wit h spectacula r o r charmin g encor e pieces , Rachmaninof f alway s
thought a s a composer.
Much of what makes Rachmaninoff so extraordinary a pianist is that there ,
too, his perceptions and choices ar e those of a composer. He sometimes takes
bold liberties with the text—by our standards, not by those of his day, when he
was thought a rather severe interpreter. For instance, h e invents a completely
new distribution of louds, softs, an d crescendo s fo r Chopin's Funera l March,
and i t make s s o much sens e an d i s so convincing tha t som e pianist s today
really wish they dare d emulat e him . O n bot h recordings of Chopin's Minute
Waltz he pulls up to a stop on the B-flats at the tops of the melodic curves. The
gesture is extreme, but the B-flati s th e top of the phrase, and so, even thoug h
he exaggerates , h e i s no t jus t arbitraril y messing around , bu t drawin g our
attention to one of the "facts " of the piece .
Rachmaninoff i s among thos e performer s wh o alway s giv e you th e sens e
that, preparin g to sound the firs t note , they know exactly when an d how the
last is to arrive—and that the closing event is already implicit in the first . Th e
characteristics o f concentration, clarity , nobility of style, and beauty of sound

that I pointe d t o a s hallmarks o f his conductin g ar e equall y presen t i n hi s
piano playing. He had an encompassing technique whe n it came to power and
marksmanship. That he could play what he himself wrote attests to that. His
rhythm was phenomenal. Th e littl e sequenc e o f chords with which th e pian o
responds to the orchestra' s proposa l of a new theme i n the firs t movement of
his Third Piano Concerto has , as he plays it, an incredible panther-spring . No
other pianis t has come close , not even Horowitz , whose performance of that
concerto Rachmaninof f thought bette r tha n his own.3
His playin g of the transcription s I mentioned earlie r i s electrifying in it s
energy and the sharpness of its outlines. But I find myself returning most often
to th e performance s of the quietes t pieces , Liszt' s transcription o f Schubert's
Serenade, Siloti' s o f the Saint-Saen s Swan (somethin g ever y cellist need s t o
hear), and Sgambati' s of the Dance of the Blessed Spirits fro m Gluck' s Orpheus.
Rachmaninoff casts a spell. The playin g is amazing as a lesson in how to make
a percussion instrument sing, how to make us forget that there ar e hammers in
this machine. Chaliapin' s "w e are singing" comes to mind again . The melodie s
move fro m beginnin g t o end with a n uncann y tensil e strength , an d the y are
supported b y accompaniments exquisitel y responsive t o each fluctuation i n
the harmony. Always expressive, he is never sentimental o r affected, no t in his
own music, not in anyone else's. So many pianists use Rachmaninoff's concertos
as showcase s fo r vulgarity, but whe n h e himsel f playe d them the y wer e on e
more surface tha t reflected his own nobility of mind an d spirit.
The musical world has changed s o much that it is startling to realize it is not
much more than sixty years since 28 March 1943 , when Rachmaninoff died of
a rapidl y progressing melanoma. Whe n h e went , th e worl d los t a man an d
musician o f uncommon huma n an d artisti c integrity, sincerity, an d decency .
"My poor hands," h e said on one of his last days. Perhaps he would no longe r
be surprised—just happy—that he was not swept away by history after all , and
that, thank s t o what thos e hand s did , whether the y held a pencil o r touche d
keys of ivory and ebony , he i s still a presence amon g us , vivid, exciting, an d
commanding ou r love.
—M.S.
3
Acknowledging the brilliance of Horowitz's first two recordings of this work, particularly the first
(1930, with Albert Coates and the Londo n Symphony), I am still not convince d by Rachmaninoff's
generous evaluation. Nobility was not in Horowitz's expressive vocabulary. One piece, though, where
Rachmaninoff is, to my ear, bested by another pianist is his arrangement of Mendelssohn's Midsummer
Night's Dream Scherzo. The champio n here is Benno Moiseiwitsch, who m Rachmaninoff regarde d
both as an esteeme d colleague and a good friend .
Erich Wolfgang Korngold: A Meditation
n a gray Vienna mornin g in 1954 , Erich Wolfgang Korngold sits in
o- a hote l room , tryin g to figur e ou t wha t wen t wrong . He i s fifty -

seven—too old to be a Wunderkind, as he said when he left Warner
Brothers. Twenty-five years ago a newspaper survey of Viennese music lovers
named hi m on e o f the tw o greatest living Austrian composers , along with
Arnold Schoenberg . Las t nigh t h e attende d th e worl d premier e o f hi s
Symphony in F-sharp. He had worked on it for five years, and to hear its first
performance here , i n th e cit y tha t ha d nurture d an d adore d him , shoul d
have bee n th e crownin g momen t o f hi s career . No w h e i s writing t o th e
Austrian Radi o network , requestin g tha t th e tap e recordin g o f th e per -
formance b e suppressed— a reques t that will be ignored . H e ha d expecte d
better an d ha d though t h e ha d a right to . But fiv e year s ago , when h e ha d
returned to Vienna for the first time since before the war, he had been through
the sam e thing. Th e Staatsope r premiere of his opera Die Kathrin had fille d
him wit h hig h hopes , bu t Di e Kathrin wa s withdraw n afte r onl y si x
performances, performance s as poorl y attende d a s th e rehearsal s wer e
unfriendly. "Unfriendly " was a gentleman's word, and he was a gentleman in
everything but his music, which was the work of a man whose honesty would
allow him t o say nothing bu t wha t he believed, for better o r worse. He ha d
learned his manners, along with his art, in another era . Maybe that was part
of the problem.
He knew what the other par t of the problem was. It was called Hollywood .
Flashback. Th e screenin g room . Eric h Wolfgan g Korngold sit s a t th e piano .
The reel begins to roll. Erroll Flynn and his crew of British pirates have broke n
the chains tha t held the m prisone r in the hold o f a Spanish galley . They tak e
the deck . The y clim b the riggings . They wres t control. The y strik e for the
shores of Dover. "Once more, please," says the composer. He has watched thi s
Sea Hawk footage eight times already, and he scribbles a few more notes. Agai n
Flynn an d th e sailor s break thei r chains . Now , as they lea p t o th e deck , th e
piano explodes , an d whe n th e musi c reache s th e edg e o f frenzy , anothe r
inspiration flashe s throug h Korngold's inner ear. He hears a male chorus pick
up the melody and carry it beyond the boundary of excitement. T o him, that is
what movie s are all about. To him, the y ar e operas—hadn't he once told hi s
orchestrator an d his fellow film composer Hugo Friedhofer that Tosca was the
greatest movie score ever written?
He had loved th e movies, though i t took Warners some doing to convince
him t o write fo r them. Mayb e his detractors shoul d kno w that . Bu t he ha d
always had detractor s in one form or another. A s we watch him now, we have
the advantag e of knowing what he cannot know. That within thre e year s he
will be dead, that his life will end in Hollywood when he is only sixty—hardly
an advance d ag e even b y 1957' s standard s o f life expectanc y fo r prosperous
males in nonhazardous occupations , an d that though th e caus e of death wil l
officially b e hear t failur e i t i s almos t certai n tha t heartbrea k ha s bee n a
contributing factor . We know that few will take special notice of his passing,
and that fewer will understand ho w really hazardous his occupation ha s been.
We know that German-language critics, from whom a good word would have
brought special pleasure and who seem convinced tha t his reputation had long
since started to rust, will nonetheless g o the extra distance t o try to corrode his
memory. I n a n obituar y published i n Musica i n Februar y 1958 , Kar l Robert
Brachtel will say that "it was a much-discussed question, whether hi s father's
position opene d th e way for the young Erich Wolfgang or not. . . . Today one
encounters Korngold' s nam e primaril y as th e arrange r o f classi c Viennes e
operettas . . . or a s composer fo r various American films . . . . The bul k of
Korngold's output lies qualitatively and quantitatively in his youth. His voice
was hardly original—the premature heralds of his supposed importance place d
him next t o Richard Straus s and Pfitzner. . . . He did not stand nex t t o them ,
but i n their shadow. " We know that for every moviegoer who had writte n i n
1942 t o as k hi m i f his score fo r Kings Ro w would ever b e recorded , million s
more, though the y had been seduced by his music into embracing the worlds
of Captain Blood, Th e Adventures of Robin Hood, Th e Se a Wolf, an d Deception,
knew his name only as a sonorous mouthful of syllables.
The thir d and fourt h of those syllable s were significant . Eric h Wolfgang,
born in the spring of 1897 in the old Austro-Hungarian empire, owed his middle
Creators 8 5
name to his father's love of Mozart. His father was Julius Korngold, Vienna's
most revered an d mos t feare d musi c critic sinc e Eduar d Hanslick, who m h e
had succeede d a t th e Neue Freie Presse.
Like Mozart, Erich Wolfgang was a prodigy. He was also a musical dramatist
from th e start , improvising themes a t the pian o for imaginary scenes that his
father described . Eric h wa s a regula r boy, said Julius , except whe n h e wa s
composing or playing the piano. At thos e times , he seemed to enter a trance .
In hours presumably less trancelike he studied some counterpoint wit h Robert
Fuchs, who ha d bee n a friend o f Brahms's, and a t te n h e playe d an excerp t
from his cantata Gold to Gustav Mahler, who called him a genius and arranged
for Erich' s studie s wit h Alexande r vo n Zemlinsky , himself a compose r of
gorgeous late-Romantic scores. (That Zemlinsky was also Arnold Schoenberg' s
teacher—and future brother-in-law—says something about the size of fin-de-
siecle Vienna's music world.)
Everything came easily. In 190 9 Korngold's op. 1 , a piano trio dedicated t o
"my dear Papa," was given its world premiere by Arnold Rose , Bruno Walter,
and Friedric h Buxbaum . What ar e musician s suc h a s these doin g wit h th e
music of a twelve-year-old? We can be certain that dear Papa's influence never
hurt, but we also know that the muse who visited Korngold during those creative
trances was no pre-teen spirit. In 1910 he emerged from a trance to find himself
in the middle of the Vienna music scene. His ballet-pantomime, The Snowman,
orchestrated b y Zemlinsky, had bee n give n a command performanc e at th e
Court Oper a fo r the Empero r Franz Joseph. The succes s was complete, an d
the wor k made its way throughout Austri a an d Germany , onto the stage s of
forty opera houses, where audiences talke d of this young composer as though
he were a young god. In 1972 the German writer Jodok Freyenfels, in the Neue
Zeitschrift fu r Musik, looke d bac k on thos e day s an d recalle d tal k of anothe r
kind in Vienna's coffeehouse s an d salons: rumor that Zemlinsky had not only
orchestrated The Snowman but that he had composed it and been paid for this
project by the father. "Thus th e thirteen-year-ol d Erich Wolfgang, on the day
of his firs t success , was already the victi m o f backbiting an d env y that arose
from extra-artisti c motives. And thi s fat e wa s to pursu e him throughou t hi s
life, again and again." The world of the arts, like that of academe, seems inclined
to interpret rapid success as evidence of inferior talent, to mask jealousy behind
a commitment t o "standards. " Freyenfels has a name fo r this tendenc y a s it
applied to Erich Wolfgang. He calls it The Korngol d Case.
The Wunderkin d coul d no t escap e a les s malignan t for m o f natura l
resentment, either . What , afte r all , give s an y thirteen-year-ol d th e righ t t o
enjoy glor y when thos e thre e an d fou r time s his age are sitting around in th e
obscurity of Vienna coffeehouses, debatin g the authenticity of a child's music?
Certainly this child's music—full of big melodies and easy to hum or whistle—
sounded as though it had been written by someone older, someone who looked
back t o th e previou s century. Contemporaries suc h a s Berg and Schoenber g

were heade d i n ver y different directions . The y though t littl e o f Korngold's
work—and that , sai d the coffeehouses , wa s why Papa Julius thought littl e of
theirs. Artists who embraced Erich Wolfgang were accused of using the son to
curry favor with the father.
But thoug h h e wa s assailed by various contingents whos e attack s sprang
from envy, or skepticism, or artistic differences, Korngol d throughout the teen s
and int o th e 1920 s became on e o f Europe's most cherishe d composers , his
music championed b y such artists as Arthur Nikisc h an d Feli x Weingartner,
Carl Flesch an d Artur Schnabel. In Berlin, at a performance of the Korngold
Sinfonietta, Richar d Straus s sat nex t t o th e seventeen-year-ol d composer ,
declaring himsel f "protecto r o f his young colleague." I n 191 6 Brun o Walter
introduced Korngold's first operas, a pair of one-act drama s called The Ring of
Poly crates and Violanta. In 1920 , Korngold enjoyed what would prove to be th e
greatest success of his life when, on 4 December, the oper a Die tote Stadt (The
Dead City) wa s give n it s worl d premier e simultaneousl y in Hambur g an d
Cologne. Within a year the work was presented on eighty different stage s and
made its way to th e Met , th e firs t Germa n oper a to be presented ther e afte r
the Grea t War, with Maria Jeritza singing the femal e lead .
Memories. Korngold smiles as he looks out at the Vienna morning , the city
coming to life. He is not consoled by the recollection o f cheering audiences. In
retrospect, casual encounters seem so loaded, aimed at the target of the future .
There was the day he began working with director Max Reinhardt, rescripting
and reorchestrating Strauss operettas. Some thought h e was in it only for the
money, but Di e tote Stadt ha d bee n a toug h ac t t o follow . An d whil e h e was
working o n th e Straus s he wa s writing what h e though t o f a s his operati c
masterpiece, Das Wunder der Heliane. Heliane's music is slow-cooked and densely
flavored, and there is plenty of it, maybe a little too much, for under its weight
the plot's ingredients are in constant dange r of separating. Though the opera
contains muc h to please the ear, it disappointed more than it pleased when it
appeared i n 1927 , an d amon g th e unhapp y wer e thos e i n th e marketin g
department of the Austrian tobacco monopoly, who, expecting a hit, had just
introduced a high-end cigarett e called "Heliane."
This morning, the memory of Max Reinhardt i s haunting. It was because of
Reinhardt tha t Korngold first cam e t o Hollywood . That was in 1934 , whe n
Reinhardt shot a film version of his Hollywood Bowl production of A Midsummer
Night's Dream and invite d hi s old collaborato r t o supervis e the music . Th e
following year Korngold was back in California, working on a now-forgotten
Paramount musical , Give Us This Night. H e remember s whe n Warner s
approached him. Would he contribute a n original score for Captain Blood ? H e
would not . Bu t Korngol d wa s a name, an d Warner s wante d hi s prestige .
Someone—he can't recall who—persuaded hi m to attend a screening o f the
Creators 8 7
film, an d tha t wa s really all it took . H e foun d th e movi e absorbing , an d i t

inspired his first great original film score . Yet home remained Vienna, an d his
artistic home remaine d th e opera house and concert hall . He agreed to score
other film s a s they were offered, i f they happened t o appeal to him— Anthony
Adverse was one, and The Prince and the Pauper—but he continued to refuse a
long-term contract. Then , in 1937 , he began to grasp that his days in Europe
were numbered. H e wa s a Jew. Hitler ha d forbidde n the stagin g of his latest
opera, Die Kathrin, and Austri a an d German y were drawing ever closer , two
countries on the verge of becoming one. What choice had he but to move his
family? The logica l place to go was where work was waiting. He bought a house
in Hollywood. Even Papa had a room in it. Then he settled i n with Warners.
On his terms.
No majo r compose r ha d eve r ha d a n extende d contrac t wit h a studio .
Warners, so eager for Korngold's services, let him dictat e condition s tha t no
other fil m compose r had eve r enjoyed . Korngold was required t o scor e only
three picture s every two years. He coul d decline any project offered him . To
get a n idea o f just ho w goo d a deal thi s was , consider th e fac t tha t "i n hi s
twelve years with Warners"—this is according to William Darby and Jack Du
Bois in their 199 0 study American Film Music (McFarlan d & Co.)—"Korngold
worked on twenty films, fou r of which were essentially arranging assignments,
and sixteen o f which wer e largely original compositions. In that same period
Max Steiner, who worked under more typical studio pressures, was the principal
composer on more than one hundred films. "
Most film music ends up the product of committee approval. Not Korngold's.
"In none of my assignments have I ever 'played ' my music first t o either th e
[studio] music-chief, the director or the producer. And the studio heads never
make the acquaintanc e o f my music until the day of the sneak preview." That
was what he said in 1940 , in Music an d Dance in California.
And wha t music he wrote. To him, a film scrip t was a libretto. Th e mai n
title music, accompanying the opening credits, was an overture. A love scene
was a duet. Listen to some of those main title sequences, and from their strongly
defined themes you will draw an immediate impression of the nature and mood
of the dramas they introduce—the sweeping minor chords and broken phrases
of Of Human Bondage heral d it s protagonist's debasing struggle, the crashin g
dissonance o f The Se a Wolf warn s us about the sadisti c Captain Wolf Larsen,
the nobl e fanfare s o f Kings Row announce a tale in which lov e an d goo d are
triumphant. This is music aimed for the heart , gran d and tender , generous of
spirit and inexhaustibl e i n its wealth of melody—inviting, open, friendly . H e
had learne d t o writ e thi s wa y in Vienna, an d th e richnes s o f that traditio n
glowed in every passage he scored. Taken as a whole, Korngold's film music is
a good example of what R. S. Hoffmann, his first biographer, identified as th e
composer's "optimism."
Besides, films wer e exciting. An d h e was proud of what he contribute d t o

them. "When, in the projection room, or through the operator's little window,"
he wrote, "I am watching th e pictur e unroll, when I am sitting a t th e pian o
improvising or inventing theme s an d tunes , whe n I am facing the orchestr a
conducting m y music, I have the feeling that I am giving my own and my best:
symphonically dramati c musi c whic h fit s th e picture , it s actio n an d it s
psychology, and which, nevertheless, will be able to hold its own in the concer t
hall.. . . Never have I differentiated betwee n my music for the films an d tha t
for th e opera s and concer t pieces . Just as I do for the operati c stage, I try to
invent fo r the motio n pictur e dramatically melodious music with symphonic
development an d variation of the themes. "
Korngold score d a movi e a s thoug h i t wer e a musica l drama , assignin g
individual theme s t o character s an d puttin g thos e theme s throug h th e
permutations that woul d reflect and advance plot . You have only to listen t o
his score for Kings Row to get some idea of how his music worked. Every principal
theme i s introduced withi n th e firs t te n minute s of the film . Durin g the tw o
hours tha t follow , th e music' s eb b an d flow , acceleration s an d sudde n
disintegrations, wil l ad d a thir d dimensio n t o th e performances , and whe n
Betty Fiel d trie s t o seduc e Rober t Cummings , Korngol d i s helpin g the m
convince u s that the y really are Cassie Tower and Parris Mitchell.
Instead of stunting his growth as a composer, films gave him the opportunity
to develop along the line s h e had s o clearly marked out fo r himself in a work
such as Die tote Stadt, full of memorable melodies in the manne r o f a Viennese
Puccini, tau t drama, and lus h orchestral sound. "It says much for Korngold's
imaginative powers," says Christopher Palme r in Th e Composer i n Hollywood
(published by Marion Boyars in 1990) , "that althoug h h e grew up steeped i n
the traditions of an era already moribund at the time his own musical personality
was developing, the conventions h e inherited ofte n seem in his hands not th e
empty mocker y of a decayin g impuls e but th e nobl e expressio n o f one stil l
living.... The combination o f a certain spiritual naivete with the most fantastic
flights of melodic, harmoni c and orchestra l imaginatio n equippe d Korngold
superbly for the medium of the fil m score." Korngold might have been amused
by tha t referenc e to his "spiritual naivete." Ye t this morning , i n Vienna, i t is
exactly his naivete tha t h e is lamenting.
Was it naivete tha t mad e him think he coul d hav e i t both ways , tha t hi s
music could star both i n Hollywood and th e concer t hall ? By 1946 Korngold
was beginning t o feel as though he had to choose between the tw o worlds. He
felt h e wa s at th e en d o f the roa d in Hollywood . Some sai d tha t hi s recen t
scores were not u p to the standards he had set himself in his earlier days. (He
agreed: "When I first cam e here, I couldn't understan d th e dialogue—no w I
can.") Ma x Steine r tol d hi m h e though t hi s ow n musi c was getting bette r
while Korngold' s was i n decline . ("Maxie , m y dear, you're absolutely right.
Creators 8 9
And I'll tell you why—it's because I've been stealing from you and you've been
stealing from me.") When he finished work on the 194 6 Of Human Bondage, a
film he did not much like, he decided t o have a look at the original, produced
a decade earlier. One day on the lot he spotted Bette Davis, who had starred in
the first version. He told her he enjoyed the film, but that he thought ten years
had date d certai n scenes , which no w seemed a little ridiculous . "Of course,"
he added, "this new film is ten year s ahead o f its time. It's ridiculous already."
For those who did not understan d his growing disenchantment, h e made it as
clear as possible: "A film composer's immortality stretches all the way from th e
recording stage to the dubbing room."
The wa r was over. His fathe r was dead. " I feel I have t o mak e a decisio n
now if I don't want to be a Hollywood composer for the res t of my life." It was
time to reassess things—time, perhaps, to go home. He scored one more film ,
the 194 7 Escape M e Never, whose main title theme is a long-breathed, soaring
Viennese melod y that tells us how much his native city was on his mind—and
which, a year later, he use d in hi s song "Sonett fu r Wien." The n he calle d i t
quits. He "onc e again gathered hi s powers," says Jodok Freyenfels, "with th e
intention of ending his life work as meaningfully and a s fruitfully a s possible."
He wa s happy writing concert musi c again , an d please d tha t hi s Violi n
Concerto, whic h h e ha d finishe d eve n befor e leavin g Warners , wa s giving
audiences much pleasure. By 1949 it was time to pursue the future by returning
to his past. It was time to take his music back to Vienna .
Yet the Vienna h e had lef t more than ten years before was itself a tote Stadt.
One thin g tha t remained fro m th e past, however, was The Korngol d Case. In
1950, Die Kathrin was sacrificed on its altar. Freyenfels sums up the attitud e of
Viennese critics: "If Korngold's opera fails, we can with good conscience rejec t
the man y piece s h e ha s submitte d fo r th e purpos e of redeemin g himsel f
artistically." He could not hav e it both ways.
Korngold pushe d ahead—courageousl y o r naively. He wa s determined t o
reenter Viennes e musica l life. I n 195 4 h e arrive d in Vienna lik e a n excite d
child, carryin g his Symphony in F-shar p with him. H e di d not kno w he was
entering a personal twilight, where appearance s and sometime s even friend s
are deceiving. Wa s he awar e of a conversation suppose d to have take n plac e
some years before betwee n Ott o Klemperer—th e sam e Klemperer who ha d
led th e Cologn e premier e of Die tote Stadt i n 1920—an d Heinrich Kralik of
Austrian Radio ? Kralik asked Klemperer, who was no stranger to the Unite d
States an d who had eve n spen t tim e in Los Angeles a s music director of the
Philharmonic, wha t Korngol d wa s u p t o i n America . "He' s doin g well, "
Klemperer said. "He's composin g for Warner Brothers." Kralik thought i t was
a shame that such a talent should be spent on film music. "Oh, well," Klemperer
replied, "Eric h Wolfgang has alway s compose d fo r Warner Brothers . He jus t
didn't realize it."
At it s premiere , th e Symphon y wa s a disaster , victi m o f unintereste d

performers and insufficient rehearsa l time. And so , says Freyenfels, "Korngold
was finished off like a film compose r from Hollywood. "
Possibly no one who heard tha t firs t performanc e of the Symphon y caught
a poignant reference that the composer had inserted into the final movement .
There, a theme fro m King s Ro w suddenly appears—tender musi c associated
with Parris Mitchell's grandmother , a frail an d dignifie d woman who trie s t o
maintain th e values of the Old World in which she grew up. In the film, as she
nears death, a friend speak s this passag e while th e "Grandmother " theme —
the on e tha t show s up in th e Symphony—i s playe d softly unde r th e words:
"When she passes, how much passes with her. A whole way of life—a wa y of
gentleness, an d honor, an d dignity. These things ar e going, . . . and they may
never com e back to this world."
For Korngold, who found himself so out of step with a world that had moved
in a different directio n fro m th e on e h e had taken , thes e word s could be a n
epitaph. He smiles once more. There is no self-pity here. Wasn't it a calculated
irony, and a calculated risk, to include a film them e i n a concert wor k for the
serious Viennese? He was honest with himself, and he was honest about himself
with his audience .
Now, as he sits in his room, the price of honesty must seem steep. He knows
he is out of fashion. We look ahead and see that he will become almost as good
as forgotten, though ther e i s always a small contingent tha t refuse s t o forge t
him, an d fo r whom Hugo Friedhofer , who ha d orchestrate d mos t of his fil m
scores, speaks : " I kno w ther e i s a tendenc y i n som e quarter s t o b e rathe r
derogatory about his music but I don't thin k that anybod y with any spark of
feeling ca n liste n t o Korngold and no t agree that her e wa s a man who knew
exactly what he wanted t o say and said it beautifully. "
And w e look ahead farthe r still—to 1972 , when RCA takes a gamble and
releases two Korngold albums, a collection o f film music with Charles Gerhardt
conducting the National Philharmonic, an d the Symphony, with Rudolf Kempe
and th e Munic h Philharmonic . Bot h recording s are produced by Korngold's
son George , an d bot h captur e brillian t performance s in soun d tha t a t las t
communicates th e breadth and depth tha t neve r cam e through th e speakers
while Anthony Adverse or The Sea Hawk flickered on late-night TV. The public
hears the real sound of Korngold, and his music begins to come back from th e
dead. Today, "Korngold" may not be the household nam e it was in the earlier
years of the twentiet h century , yet i t is possible to hea r mor e of his music—
both the film music and the concert works and operas—than it has been sinc e
the late 1940s .
"Only wha t is bad get s totally discarded," Christopher Palme r says i n Th e
Composer in Hollywood. "What is good may go out of fashion in its more superficial
Creators 9 1
aspects, but the principle, the essence, the core of quality—star quality—remains
as a vital regenerative force. " Korngold's music, it is clear at last, will be with us
for a long time. His spirit need no longer brood in a strange room in an unfriendly
city. In the large r world of music, The Korngol d Case is closed.
—L.R.
Tchaikovsky's Mozart (an d Others' )
The reaso n pictures slumber for generations is

that ther e i s no one t o see them with the experienc e
that awake s them.
—Elias Canetti , Th e Torch i n My Ea r
1
^^ rivin g on Route 10 1 south of San Francisco, I picked u p on my car
11 radio something b y Mozart that I could no t a t firs t identify . Befor e
t**' long , a couple of strange bass notes mad e me suspicious, and then I
realized I was making a mistake that I had made before: this was not Mozart at
all, but th e Mozartian pastiche in the masquerade scene of Tchaikovsky's The
Queen of Spades. I though t ho w delighte d Tchaikovsk y would have bee n a t
taking someon e i n a t hi s ow n hallo i n maschera, so t o speak , an d I trie d t o
imagine the joy he must have had writing this substantial patch of "eighteenth-
century music."
Artists fin d man y kind s o f joy i n thei r work . Writing th e Pathetique, a
consummate and original masterpiece, must have given Tchaikovsky the kind
most easily understood by the outsider . Another, mor e special, is that whic h
comes fro m usin g all one's ar t i n a n ac t o f homage t o a great an d belove d
colleague, livin g o r dead . Writin g Eugene Onegin an d Th e Queen of Spades,
Tchaikovsky felt particular emotion because it was a form of communing with
Pushkin. I t was with a n even mor e intense devotion that , i n the summe r of
1887, h e mad e Mozartiana, delicatel y crafted , ap t orchestration s o f th e
following: tw o of Mozart's most idiosyncratic piano pieces (th e Gigue , K.574,
and the Minuet, K.355); the more centrist Variations on a Theme by Gluck, a
composer for whom Tchaikovsky "felt sympathy... in spite of his meager creative
gift"; and , by an interesting Romantic detour, Liszt's organ transcription of the
Ave verum corpus. (I n 1893 , th e last year of his life, Tchaikovsky turned part of
Mozart's C-mino r Pian o Fantas y int o a voca l quartet! ) Bu t ho w stil l mor e
delicious it must have been for him, in the Queen of Spades masquerade , actually
to slip into Mozart's clothes!
For Tchaikovsky adored Mozart. To his patroness, Madame Nadezhda vo n
Meek, whos e tast e i n music—excep t insofa r a s it le d he r t o suppor t hi m
generously for thirteen years—drove him to despair, he wrote in 1878: "I don't
just like Mozart, I idolize him." Don Giovanni, he tells her, is for him "the mos t
beautiful opera ever written" and Donna Anna "the most superb and wonderful
human portrai t eve r achieve d i n music . . .. I am so much i n love wit h th e
music of Don Giovanni that even as I write to you I could shed tears of agitation
and emotion. " Wheneve r h e ha s hear d Ferdinan d Laub' s quarte t pla y th e
Adagio o f the G-minor Quintet , he has had "t o hide i n the farthes t corner of
the room so that others migh t not see how deeply this music affects me . . .. I
could go on to eternity holding forth upon this sunny genius, for whom I cherish
a cult." He concludes: "I f I could do anything t o make you change you r mind,
that would make me very happy. If ever you tell me that you have been touched
by the Adagio o f the G-mino r Quinte t I shall rejoice."
In this letter Tchaikovsk y suggests an explanation fo r this "exclusiv e love "
of his. "The musi c of Don Giovanni was the first that stirred me profoundly.... It
is thanks t o Mozart that I have devoted m y life t o music. He gave the firs t jog
to my musical powers; he made me love music above all things in this world."
Perhaps becaus e i t sound s a littl e to o homespu n fo r th e ton e o f thei r
correspondence, h e does not tel l her that this came about because the Tchai-
kovsky famil y owne d a n orchestrion , a mechanica l orga n tha t imitate d
orchestral sounds and for which one acquired "records" in the form of perforated
discs or pinned cylinders. This particular orchestrion had in its repertory excerpts
from Do n Giovanni as well as fro m opera s of Rossini, Bellini , an d Donizetti .
Later, when h e was twelve, Tchaikovsky's Aunt Ekaterina too k hi m throug h
all of Don Giovanni at the piano .
But i n a lette r t o Madam e vo n Mee k writte n tw o week s afte r hi s first ,
expansive outpouring about Mozart, Tchaikovsky suggests a more interestin g
reason fo r his love , obviousl y in respons e t o he r reaction : "Yo u say that my
worship of [Mozart] is quite contrary to my musical nature. But perhaps it is just
because—being a child o f my time—I feel broken an d spirituall y out o f joint,
that I find consolation an d rest in the music of Mozart, music in which he gives
expression to that joy in life that was part of his sane and wholesome temperament,
not yet undermined b y reflection. It seems to me that an artist's creative power
is something quit e apart from hi s sympathy with this or that great master."
To this last sentence one might add an aside: interpreters of Tchaikovsky do
well to remember Tchaikovsky's love of Mozart, just as Berlioz conductors should
not forget Berlioz's adoration of Gluck (which Tchaikovsky cites as an instanc e
Creators 9 5
of "glaring inconsistency"). What music a composer knew, admired, and loved

is always a good question for a performer t o ask.
On late r occasions , Tchaikovsk y returns t o thi s them e o f innocence, for
example, i n Jul y 1880 , whe n h e write s to Madam e vo n Meek : "Mozar t is a
genius whose childlike innocence , gentlenes s o f spirit, and virgina l modesty
are scarcely of this earth. H e was devoid of self-satisfaction an d boastfulness:
He seems hardly to have been conscious of the greatnes s of his genius." An d
again three months later, when he has begun to study The Magic Flute (t o him
a wedding of a "senseles s an d idiotic " subjec t to "captivatin g music") : "You
would not believe, dear friend, what wonderful feelings come over me when I
surrender t o [Mozart's ] music. It i s something altogethe r differen t fro m th e
stressful delight s awakene d in me by Beethoven, Schumann , o r Chopin. . . .
My contemporarie s ha d th e spiri t o f modern musi c instille d i n the m fro m
childhood, comin g t o kno w Mozar t only in late r year s . . . but happily , fate
decreed tha t I should grow up in an unmusical household, s o that as a child I
was not fe d the poisonou s foo d o f post-Beethoven music. . . . Do you know
that when I play Mozart I feel brighter and younger, almost like a young man
again?" He had jus t turned forty .
Under th e spel l o f Carmen, h e suggest s t o hi s brothe r Modes t tha t
Mendelssohn, Chopin , Schumann, an d Glinka were "the last Mohicans of the
Golden Ag e o f Music" (an d tha t Bizet, in hi s innocent pursuit of le joli, has
captured some of their spirit ) until it occurs to him that "in their music , too,
you can see a move away from th e grea t and beautiful to the 'tasty.' "
Tchaikovsky is offering no t musi c criticism nor even declarations of love—
not tha t thes e tw o categorie s hav e t o b e mutuall y exclusive—as muc h a s
nostalgia. For one thing, in common with most nineteenth-century musician s
(except for the occasional antiquarian like Brahms), Tchaikovsky did not really
know ver y muc h Mozart ; whe n yo u trac k dow n th e reference s i n th e
correspondence an d the diaries, you find hi m returning over and again to the
same few works—above all Don Giovanni, for which h e shared a passion with
most Romantic artists , the Jupiter Symphony , The Magic Flute (bu t rejecting,
as we saw earlier, the raison d'etre for the music), and parts of the Requiem . His
offbeat choice s i n Mozartiana ar e a s surprising as they ar e delightful. And i n
spite o f his enthusiasti c commendatio n o f th e strin g quartet s i n a lette r t o
Madame vo n Meek , h e write s elsewhere tha t h e find s th e on e i n D mino r
"rather watery."
Tchaikovsky also does not dra w any musical conclusions fro m hi s study of
Mozart, neither in the shaping of his operas nor in the facture of his orchestral
works. Haydn an d Beethove n an d Schuber t al l learned fro m Mozart , and so
did Brahm s an d Strauss , Schoenber g an d Stravinsky , bu t Tchaikovsky' s
adoration of him—except in special situations like Mozartiana an d The Queen
of Spades —found it s place outside his composing life.
What fascinates Tchaikovsky is not s o much Mozart's music as the idea of

Mozart, the idea of na'ive, spontaneous, "sunny" genius, of "childlike innocence
. . . not yet undermined by reflection," of "virginal modesty," the idea of a lost
Golden Age . Tchaikovsky' s Mozart is a pre-Freudia n child , hi s earl y deat h
undeniably a compelling part of the whole Mozart phenomenon; Tchaikovsky's
worship of this child i s a game of make-believe.
The make-believ e image of Mozart-the-Child persists. Mozart-the-Plaster-
Cast, a s we see him on th e wrappers of Mozart-Kugeln, is with us yet. All thi s
has a musical correlative i n a certain approac h t o performanc e that I hav e
heard musicians refer t o as the Mozart-Never-Had-an-Erection style.
Against thes e things, we might, as the critic Patrick J. Smith has suggested,
set suc h revisionist manifesto s as Peter Shaffer' s Amadeus, which ha s show n
admirable power to enrag e a s well as, less usefully , t o provok e blank denial :
"He just can't have talke d that way or crawled around on th e floo r lik e that."
Like the German novelist and playwright Wolfgang Hildesheimer, who published
a stimulating Mozart biography in 1977 , Shaffer show s how the unit y of man
and artis t is complicated: Mozar t did not behav e th e wa y the Adagi o o f th e
Serenade in B-flat, K.361, sounds, an uncomfortable idea for those who would
prefer a more simply arranged world in which wonderfu l music is written by
wholly wonderful people.
Hildesheimer looks with sympathy and insight at the problem of a pampered
and exploite d chil d prodig y who need s t o gro w u p an d becom e a man .
Particularly, he questions the reliabilit y of Mozart's letters, especially those to
his father, th e mos t important an d th e mos t problematic person in his life, as
guides to what was going on in his life an d mind .
The prodigious child seemed, to those who encountered him , not just to be
making magic, but t o be a magical personage himself. He was more than your
ordinary extraordinary kid. Once he was grown and wrapped in a physically
unprepossessing package, that sense of numen was available only to those who
could hear it in his music. In that respect the Viennese, when they had tired of
him a s a "sensation" an d wer e ready for the nex t marvel , failed him . Bu t h e
always provoked reactions out of the ordinary—sober Haydn saying to Leopold
Mozart, " I tel l yo u before God an d a s a n hones t ma n tha t you r so n i s th e
greatest composer I know, personally or by reputation"; Beethove n sayin g to
his pupil Ries at a rehearsal of the C-mino r Concerto , "Ah , we shall never be
able to do anything like that"; Rossini putting it in his own wry way, "Beethove n
of course is the greatest of composers, but Mozar t is the only one"; and , to step
outside the fraternit y fo r a moment, Kierkegaar d in Either/Or, "I have you to
thank that I shall not die without having loved. "
For th e Viennese , h e becam e to o complicated . "To o man y notes, " sai d
Emperor Joseph II about The Abduction from th e Seraglio. For the Romantics ,
for who m he had alread y been embraced by "the patho s of time," he was near
Creators 9 7
to divin e becaus e of his simplicity, his "childlike innocence. " They canonize d
him, a process begun with the changin g o f his name fro m Amad e to the more
solemn Amadeus. As for their relationshi p t o his music, they tended t o value
works like Don Giovanni and the D-minor Concerto tha t most nearly approached
their own sensibility or those that embodied their ideal of simplicity, the Coronation
Concerto, fo r example, and eve n a forgery lik e the notoriou s "Twelft h Mass,"
pieces rathe r blan d fo r curren t taste . O f th e tw o misunderstandings , w e
sympathize more readily with the Emperor's. And Artur Schnabel was precisely
on target when he said of Mozart's piano sonatas that they were "too easy for
children an d to o difficult fo r artists."
"To be great is to be misunderstood," said Emerson. There is more wit and,
for tha t matter, more truth in Rilke's remark that "fame, afte r all , is nothing
but th e sum of all the misunderstandings that gather abou t a name." Writers
celebrating the Mozart tercentenary in 2056 will no doubt find late-twentieth-
century views of Mozart as expressed in performance and criticism as blinkered
as those of our predecessors seem to us. Surely, in the realm of performance we
shall be charge d wit h want o f humor and—wh o knows?—o f innocence : we
know the humor is there but ar e inhibited abou t bringing it out. We do have
some feeling for his emotional range , for the thi n line between laughte r an d
tears, for his dissonances an d hi s rhythmic odditie s (thos e five-ba r phrase s I
never hear d abou t a t school) , fo r th e colo r o f his sound . W e have hear d a
wider rang e o f his musi c than an y generation sinc e hi s own , w e have som e
sense o f historical contex t fo r him. W e know tha t h e to o worke d hard an d
sometimes had troubl e making pieces come out right .
I want to see him without even a trace of halo, to love him, but not to adore
him or idolize him, t o come to him—as to all great music—with the ears , the
goodwill, the attentiveness, th e heart, and, I hope, with the human experienc e
to awaken him.
—M.S.
On the Trail of W. A. Mozart
V
incent Novello called Mozart "the Shakespeare of music." No phrase
so grand or telling exists to describe Novello himself, and thoug h t o
call him the Leonard o of musicians might suggest the breadth of in-
terest and experienc e h e brought to his profession, h e would have dismissed
that labe l a s grandios e o r stupid . At an y rate , composer s need peopl e lik e
Novello. He was an organist, a choirmaster, a conductor, an editor, a publisher.
He dedicate d himsel f t o preservin g and spreadin g the wor d about music he
cared for . He ha d goo d tast e an d even bette r judgment , and th e musi c h e
championed gre w healthy an d strong, into long and distinguished life .
Novello's own life was distinguished—and long. He was born in London i n
1781, te n year s before Mozart' s death an d abou t a month before Cornwalli s
surrendered a t Yorktown, and h e die d i n Nice i n 1861 , abou t thre e month s
after the fal l of Fort Sumter. The son of an Italian immigrant who set up shop
as a baker, h e wa s a ma n o f character, on e wh o believe d i n art' s powe r t o
improve the huma n race , and during his time he applie d steady purpose and
clear though t t o th e conscientiou s servic e o f music, with result s like these :
editions of Handel's an d Haydn's oratorios; four-hand arrangements of excerpts
from operas by Mozart and Spohr; the publication of five volumes of the sacred
music of Henry Purcell, including fou r anthem s an d an Evening Service tha t
Novello had copied by hand in one day from unpublishe d manuscripts at York
Minster, manuscripts that a year later were destroyed by fire; th e editin g an d
publication of The Fitzwilliam Music, a five-volume collection o f seventeenth -

century Italian church music; the presentation with his choir of the Masses of
Mozart and Haydn; and, perhaps his greatest achievement, th e publication (at
his expense) o f inexpensive edition s o f Mozart's and Haydn' s choral works in
vocal score, with pian o o r organ accompaniment s h e ha d arrange d himself,
and wit h separat e voca l an d orchestra l parts . This musi c ha d neve r bee n
available i n suc h for m i n England , an d whe n th e Novell o edition s mad e i t
available, choral societies began to be founded throughout the country.
Novello's children , too , continue d i n th e traditio n thei r fathe r ha d
established. Daughte r Clar a becam e a fame d sopran o an d san g i n th e firs t
performance of Rossini's Stabat Mater. Son Alfred founded what would become
the music-publishin g house of Novello & Co., which would go on to publish
such composers as Elgar and Hoist. Musician, advocate, and patriarch, Vincent
Novello somehow also found th e tim e to become a knowledgeable admirer of
poetry, painting, an d architecture , an d h e was a lively conversationalist wh o
was part of a circle that included Leig h Hunt, Charles an d Mary Lamb, Keats,
Shelley, and, later, Mendelssohn. Th e inexhaustible Novello found many ways
to serve the ar t he loved so completely, and he understoo d better tha n most
the hollownes s of any attempt to serve by only standing and waiting.
And so in 1829, when Novello learned that the widowed sister of his revered
Mozart was lying on a sickbed in Salzburg—blind, seriously ill, and seriously in
need o f money—his instinc t wa s not t o wrin g his hands , bu t t o act . H e
approached fello w musician s to raise a fund fo r this woman who, in th e day s
when she had been known by her nickname, Nannerl, had presented concert s
across Europ e with he r brothe r Wolfgang , two little prodigie s on th e road .
Now, at the age of seventy-eight, she was called Frau Hofrath Maria Anna von
Berchtold z u Sonnenburg, a nam e tha t implie d wealt h bu t di d nothin g t o
guarantee it. To help Frau Sonnenburg, Novello collected mone y from fiftee n
subscribers. His own contribution, £10 , an d an equal sum from J. A. Stumpf f
(who ha d bee n a friend o f Beethoven's), wer e th e larges t amount s i n th e
total, which cam e to £63—not so insignificant a sum: The Britis h pound in
the earl y nineteenth centur y wa s probably worth abou t fiftee n t o twent y
current U.S. dollars.
Funds in hand, Vincent Novello understood that he also had an opportunity
by th e collar . H e had , i n effect , a perfec t pretex t t o cal l o n thos e wh o ha d
actually been on Sacred Ground , i n the presenc e o f the Grea t Man . Mozart
had bee n dead fo r almost forty years . If any impressions were to be gathere d
from thos e wh o had know n him , th e tim e t o gather the m wa s now. Novello
had question s t o ask, and his anticipation o f the answer s must have been as
pulse-quickening as love. Vincent an d his wife, Mar y Sabilla Novello, set ou t
to deliver their gift to Frau Sonnenburg personally. Their departure from Londo n
was probably on 24 June 1829. They would stop in Vienna, o f course, as would
Creators 10 1
anyone with even a passing interest i n music, and they would stop in Paris, to
see t o thei r eleven-year-ol d Clara' s installatio n i n Alexandr e Choron' s
Institution Royale de Musique Religieuse, where she would learn to shade and
color th e lovel y soprano voice tha t wa s to entrance Rossini . But their majo r
destination wa s never in question. It was Salzburg, a place that fo r them hel d
the evocativ e powe r of a Lourdes or a Fatima. It was the ai r of Salzburg that
had first filled the Great Man's lungs; and, when he was old enough to have his
first encounter wit h a keyboard, it was the ai r of Salzburg that ha d resounde d
with the firs t notes thos e small fingers had struck. In Salzburg they would find
Madame Sonnenburg, an d ther e the y would find anothe r Presenc e a s well—
the composer' s widow, Constanze. Fo r a wealth of intimate detail , she would
be as good as going to the source. Through Calais , through Antwerp, throug h
Cologne, throug h Mannheim, th e day s of travel began early and ended late .
How do we know all this? The Novello s kept diaries, extensive account s of
their travels. Yet their chronicle o f this visit to Salzburg, a visit planned in part
as a way of glimpsing a genius through eyes that had seen him, was all but lost.
Only i n 194 4 were the Novellos ' diarie s discovered. In 1955 , editor s Nerin a
Medici an d Rosemar y Hughes publishe d the m a s A Mozar t Pilgrimage (i n a
volume that appeare d under the Novello imprint). In this way, the Novellos'
work was preserved, and t o thes e four—th e traveler s and thei r editors—w e
owe shadings and details that ad d dimension t o our portrait of Mozart.
The Novellos departed from Munich on 13 July, at six o'clock in the morning.
Eighteen hours later, at midnight, Vincent mad e this cheery entry in his diary:
"After one of the most delightful rides I ever enjoyed through one of the fines t
days I ever saw, concluding wit h a bright Moonlight Night , we arrived at th e
object of our Pilgrimage—Salzburg the Birthplac e of Mozart."
What happened nex t seeme d a t firs t anticlimactic . Vincent's nerve s were
not th e kind to create obstacles where he saw none. He decided simply to pay
a visit to Madame Sonnenburg. Earl y the nex t morning , h e was strolling th e
narrow streets that led to her house. He was disappointed when he arrived, for
the lady was too ill to receive him. With this revision of his morning itinerary,
he returned t o his hotel t o share the ba d news with Mary. What he di d no t
know wa s that, even a s he wa s grumbling about th e foile d plans , Madam e
Sonnenburg wa s sending a message to Mozart's widow, telling he r abou t th e
visitors. When Vincent answere d the knock at the door, he was handed a note
from Constanze. Would the Novellos care to visit her that afternoon? You can
imagine wha t followed—coat-dusting , boot-brushing , tie-knotting : a scen e
pungent wit h th e scen t o f Crabtree & Evelyn. At tw o o'clock a servant girl
arrived t o conduct the m t o her mistress' s door. There, waitin g for them i n a
room on the firs t floor , was Constanze. With her was her youngest son, Franz
Xaver Wolfgang—called simpl y Wolfgang—who had been abou t five month s
old when his father died, and who by coincidence happene d t o be in Salzburg
for a visit . Constanz e wa s sixty-six now, an d a widow two time s over—he r

second husband , th e Danis h diploma t Georg Nikolaus von Nissen, ha d die d
three year s before. The youn g Wolfgang was thirty-eight.
"I fel t durin g th e whol e intervie w a s i f hi s spiri t wer e wit h us, " writes
Mary, an d ther e i s no mistakin g to whom the "his " i n tha t sentence refers .
"When I first entere d I was so overcome with various emotions tha t I could
do nothin g bu t wee p an d embrac e her . Sh e seeme d als o affecte d an d sai d
repeatedly in French 'o h quelle bonheur pou r moi, de voir les enthousiaste s
pour mo n Mozart.' " I t wa s in French , thei r commo n language , tha t thei r
conversations continued .
Vincent an d Mar y wanted t o fil l i n the outlines . What was he like? What
were his work habits? They queried Constanze with reverence—not the most
useful attitud e for an interviewer t o assume, as Larry King or Geraldo Rivera
will tell you. But to the question s they asked, the Novellos received answers.
They recorded these dutifully. They wrote down everything, all in the spirit of
those wh o refus e t o wash the hand s tha t hav e touche d th e star . And whe n
Vincent note s tha t Mozar t was "particularly fond offish, especiall y trout," we
have a hint of what will show up on the Novellos' dinner tabl e that firs t nigh t
back in England.
"QUESTION. Whic h wer e th e greates t favorite s with hi m o f hi s own
compositions?"
"V [incent] N [ovello]. She said he was fond of 'Don Giovanni,' 'Figaro' and
perhaps most of all 'Idomeneo,' a s he had some delightful associations with the
time and circumstances under which it was composed.
"There were three of his Sinfonias which he liked nearly equally and preferred
to al l the others . Sh e coul d no t tel l m e i n what keys , but a s well as I could
make out they were the ones in G minor, that in E flat, and the 'Jupiter' in C."
[Corresponding to the keys, in the order in which Novello lists them, these are
the fina l three symphonies , nos. 40, 39, and 41.]
"QUESTION. Whether he was in the habit of playing and singing much,...
or whether h e generally played extempore whe n alone . . . ?"
" V.N. He did not pla y much in private, but would occasionally extemporise
when he was sitting alone with her. . .. [H e did not] lik e playing to strangers
[in private], excep t h e kne w the m t o b e good judges, whe n h e woul d exer t
himself to the utmos t for their gratification. " . . .
"QUESTION. In composing , whether h e sat a t th e instrumen t an d trie d
over different passage s as they occurred to him, or whether he deferred writing
down any piece until he had completely constructed and finished it in his own
mind, and then scored i t at once?" .. .
"V.N. H e seldo m wen t t o th e Instrumen t whe n h e composed . . . . I n
composing, he would get up and walk about the Roo m quite abstracted fro m
everything that was going on about him. He would then come and sit down by
Creators 10 3
her, tell her to give him his inkstand an d paper .. . then [he ] went on writing
by her side while she talked to him, without the conversatio n a t all impeding
his occupation." . . .
"QUESTION. Whether his general disposition was lively and playful—o r
melancholy—whether he could draw, or paint well—or possessed any particular
talent fo r any other ar t or pursuit than his own science." . . .
"M [ary] N [ovello]. She told us that h e drew a little an d was fond of all the
arts, that h e had indee d a talent fo r all the arts—tha t he was always in good
humor, rarely melancholy . . ., indeed h e was an angel she exclaimed, an d is
one now—there was no affectation abou t this, but said quite simply."
The Novello s learned tha t th e bes t likeness of Mozart was, in his widow's
opinion, th e unfinishe d portrai t by his brother-in-law, Josef Lange ; tha t h e
"frequently sat up composing until 2 and rose at 4, an exertion which assisted
to destroy him"; that "hi s death was at last sudden." Mary relates Constanze's
account: " . . . But a few moments before h e had spoke n so gaily, and in a few
moments after he was dead—she could not believe it, but threw herself on the
bed and sought to catch th e fever o f which he died, but it was not t o be."
They were satisfied with what they were learning, pleased with the rarefie d
air of the Salzburg shrine. Constanze took to this gentle couple who had traveled
so far to render a kindness, an d afte r th e fe w days they spent together sh e was
ready to bestow upon them certain relics: a lock of the composer's hair, part of
a lette r addresse d t o Mozar t by his father , an d " a small portion o f the littl e
Hairbrush with which he arranged his Hair every Morning...." She also parted
with something more substantial than commonplace objects rendered magical
by th e rol e the y ha d playe d in Mozart' s life: sh e presente d Vincen t wit h a
manuscript, that o f "Al desio" (K.577) , an aria composed for the 178 9 Vienna
revival of Figaro, a more brilliant substitute for Deh vieni, non tardar.
The Novello s were pleased, too, i n their eventua l meetin g with Madame
Sonnenburg. Nanner l received the m graciously. She lay there on her sickbed,
Vincent seate d to one side of her and Mary to the other, each of them holdin g
one of her hands as they chatted. I n her room stood "the Instrument on which
she had ofte n played Duetts with her Brother. . . . You may be sure," Vincent
tells us, "that I touched th e keys . . . with great interest." Thre e months late r
Nannerl woul d be dead. In her memory, Vincent woul d direct a performance
of her brother' s Requie m in London's Portugues e Embassy Chapel, wher e h e
had served as organist for twenty-five years. But here in the present, Mozart's
sister was as touched as Constanze had been by the Novellos' graciousness and
generosity. She gav e Vincent a portrait of Mozart, a token o f her estee m for
this virtual stranger who loved her brother's work.
Novello noted th e tenderness an d affection with which the composer's son
Wolfgang treate d hi s Aunt Nannerl , an d h e wa s impressed with th e youn g
Mozart's manne r an d bearing . Bu t it i s also in relatio n t o hi m tha t Vincen t
records th e onl y melanchol y passage s in hi s journa l of pilgrimage : "H e i s

(unfortunately, I think) a Professor of Music"—meaning a musician—"and seems
to be impressed with th e idea , tha t everything he ca n possibl y do will be so
greatly inferio r t o wha t wa s accomplishe d b y th e wonderfu l genius o f hi s
illustrious father, that he feels disinclined t o write much, or to publish what he
produces." An d again : "[He ] say s s o muc h i s expecte d o f hi m fro m th e
circumstance of his name that it has become a burthen to him." The comparison
was inevitable , an d thoug h tha t vilifie d lesse r master, Antonio Salieri—who
was in fact one of the young Mozart's teachers—predicted that he would have
a career "not inferio r to that of his celebrated father, " Wolfgang was haunted
by a past he had never been part of. The catalogue of his works is small, and he
spent most of his fifty-three year s as a teacher an d a sometime concert pianist .
(His brother Kar l Thomas too k a wiser route and chose no t t o compete with
his father's memory. He becam e a civil servan t i n th e Austria n kingdo m of
Lombardo-Venetia and lived to seventy-four. )
Interviews and social hours with Mozart's wife, sister, son: in what they had
set out to accomplish, the Novellos had been spectacularly successful. Granted ,
hero worshi p and th e Romanti c spirit—whic h by 182 9 permeated th e ai r of
Europe—had blurred their sight and kept them from probing the complexities
of thei r idol . In Vienna, Mozart' s friend th e Abb e Stadle r hinte d t o Vincent
about a more huma n Grea t Man , on e wh o "woul d not tak e pain s i n giving
lessons to any Ladies but thos e h e was in love with," one who "did not sho w
the great genius in his conversation." Bu t these were suggestions that Novello
chose no t t o pursue . Instead , h e woul d creat e hi s ow n evidenc e fo r
characteristics he wanted his Mozart to possess, as when he maintaine d tha t
Mozart could not have written the kind of music he did "If he had not been an
enthusiastic admirer of nature." Who know s what Mozart, so cosmopolitan in
his upbringing and sophisticate d i n his musical artifice, woul d have mad e of
that? Bu t a belief in nature's inspirationa l power— a belie f in th e untutore d
genius—all thi s wa s part o f the Romanti c Zeitgeist. Conside r Vincen t a s h e
contemplates the cathedral at Strasbourg: "I should much like to hear a funeral
service performe d in thi s nobl e churc h at midnight. " He had the Romanti c
imagination in full force. How could he help but see what he wanted to see in
"the Shakespear e of music"?
None o f this matters when we glimpse Vincent and Mary strolling down a
path in Salzburg, Constanze between them, her arms entwined i n theirs. It is a
touching portrait , an d a reminde r tha t ar t i s made b y humans, no t gods .
Whatever the shortcomings under which the Novellos labored as they pursued
their ideal—and who doesn't work under similar shortcomings, in any era?—
whatever thei r shortcomings , th e Novello s wer e to o wis e t o tr y t o answe r
questions abou t the interpla y of art an d life . Their s wa s a tangible pleasure:
they had been a hit with the people who mattered to them. Constanze, speaking
Creators 10 5
to them one last time, assured them that their visit to Salzburg "had been one
of the mos t gratifying compliments that ha d been paid for several years, both
to hersel f an d t o th e memor y of 'her Mozart.' " An d speakin g to he r diary ,
Constanze gav e th e Novello s thei r privat e plac e i n he r memories . "Ver y
attractive man," she wrote of Vincent; and of Mary, "altogether charming wife."
And o f both: "goo d people. " Goo d people , an d servant s o f music. We owe
Vincent Novell o thank s fo r man y things , no t th e leas t o f whic h i s hi s
documentation, incomplet e thoug h it may be, o f moments in a great artist's
life, a documentation that helps us follow, a s he did, the trai l of W. A. Mozart.
—L.R.
What They Saw
W
hen Michae l Tilso n Thoma s an d th e Sa n Francisc o Symphony
announced a June 2003 festival built on the theme of Wagner, Weill,
and the Weimar Republic, I did not get it. What path could there be
from Wagne r t o th e composer s who worked in Germany between th e en d of
World Wa r I an d th e powe r grab that pu t Hitle r i n charg e o f a natio n to o
willing to nurse its grudges? The answe r came from a source I could not hav e
imagined: my father.
My father was born in a small German city in 1897 , when th e optimis m of
one centur y was slowly being displaced by the pessimis m of a new century. I
suppose Germans , a t leas t Germa n politician s an d militar y men, wer e stil l
optimistic enough. Scarcely thirty years had passed since Prussia had crushe d
France into submission and gathered the German states into a nation. Feelin g
for th e Vaterland wa s strong—the Vaterland, an d th e grea t German destiny as
enshrined i n th e heroi c myth s tha t Richar d Wagne r ha d launche d int o th e
world with music of unprecedented an d unparalleled power. All this glory had
a darker side. For as the nineteenth century ended, Field Marshall Alfred von
Schlieffen sa t brooding ove r hi s plan t o achiev e anothe r quic k victory over
France, this one a decisive blow to be engineered by sweeping through Belgium,
encircling Paris , and destroyin g the Frenc h arm y within forty-tw o days . The
great military historian Joh n Keegan , looking bac k i n 199 9 i n hi s book The
First World Wa r (Knopf) , describe d th e schem e tha t Schlieffe n eventually
produced—a blueprint for the firs t week s of World War I—as, arguably, "th e
most important official document of the last hundred years, for what it caused
to ensue on the field of battle, the hopes it inspired, the hopes it dashed, were
to have consequences tha t persist to this day." Schlieffen was already starting
to formulate his plan in 1897, essentially writing the death certificate for many
who were just being born an d many yet to be born and who would not b e as
lucky as my father was—lucky to come back from th e trenche s o f France. Al l
this i s simply one mor e reason tha t Germany in th e wak e of the Grea t War
became a byword for disillusionment an d cynicism , an d als o for a carpe diem
hunger for life an d good times. Weimar Germany—the realities it came from ,
the dream s on which i t foundered, and the nightmare i n which i t ended—is
an object lesson in the toll s of war, greed, and desperation , but i t also proves
what great art can be born when great artists confront such things .
Growing u p i n a househol d heade d b y a bandleader-and-music-teacher
father, my own father was surrounded by a fair number of second-rate marches
and waltzes but als o by Beethoven an d Weber and Flotow and Meyerbeer. He
gravitated especially to opera, and in that genre, Wagner ruled. By the tim e I
was born, my father had not hear d an y opera in years, yet certain works seem
to hav e anchore d themselve s i n his memory and imagination . On e wa s The
Flying Dutchman—which he never referred to by its English title, but alway s as
Derfliegende Hollander. "Der fliegende Hollander!" h e would cry out a t moments
when th e recollectio n o f the musi c leaped ou t o f hiding an d int o hi s mind .
"Matrosen Chor!"—meaning the Sailors' Chorus, that great outpouring of sound
and fur y towar d the opera' s conclusion. The n he woul d begin whistlin g th e
music with which that chorus ends, complete with grace notes: "Nachschldge!"
It wa s an od d musica l education tha t I had, odde r tha n his own. Bu t years
later, when I first hear d th e Sailors ' Chorus performed, I understood why this
music had made such an impression on my father.
The Flying Dutchman seems part of the cultural consciousness of every music-
loving German of his long-past generation. H e heard th e work only once. He
had purchase d a standing-room ticke t a t th e oper a house i n Braunschweig,
where he was serving his apprenticeship. This must have been around 1912 .
He would have been fifteen, an d Dutchman would not yet have been a century
old—the work had been premiered sixty-nine years earlier and had receive d
its final revision s only some forty year s previously. The oper a kept my father
and his friend, a fellow apprentice , out lat e that night, afte r thei r boss—wh o
was als o their landlord—ha d locked th e doors . As they made their way back
through narro w streets flanked by gingerbread facades lik e thos e silhouette d
against the moonlit sky in Murnau's Nosferatu, the y were preparing their excuse.
But when the light inside came on and the door opened, the Lehrmeister cut to
the chase. If these two had been to see The Flying Dutchman, could they please
tell hi m th e stor y of the opera ? The y obliged . Satisfie d that his charges ha d
Creators 10 9
been occupie d wit h innocen t pleasures , der Chef le t the m i n withou t hi s

customary verbal or physical abuse.
Think of it. Thi s musi c is so potent tha t it coul d sin k into th e min d o f a
fifteen-year-old an d exer t its power for the remainin g seventy-six years of his
life. It has taken its hold o n others, too . If Weber's Der Freischutz marke d th e
coming o f Romanticism t o th e oper a house, Th e Flying Dutchman marked a
whole new way of uniting music and drama. In Dutchman, Wagner dispensed
with set piece s an d voca l pyrotechnics fo r their ow n sake. The pla y was th e
thing, an d the music was the thin g tha t carried the play .
The pla y wa s also a goo d story , a stor y t o whic h anyon e wit h a shre d of
Romantic sensibilit y could relate, a story of ghosts, damnation, an d love that
has th e powe r to redeem . I n 1843 , whe n Dutchman was premiered, peopl e
believed in these things—not the ghosts, perhaps, but love and its redemptive
possibilities. People still believed in those things in 1912, although by then the
modern worl d ha d begu n t o mak e it s incursions . Th e Prussia n chancello r
Bismarck ha d picke d a fight wit h Austria in 186 6 an d wit h France i n 1871 .
The othe r Germa n states , lookin g t o Prussi a for guidanc e an d protection ,
aligned themselves with that power, and the German nation was born. Germany:
Before Bismarck , it had been an idea. Now it was a country. Not surprisingly ,
that great Teutonic saga, Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, was introduced in
this perio d o f burgeoning Germa n nationalism—th e entir e cycl e wa s firs t
produced in August 1876, and those who experienced what Wagner had created
in those fou r opera s might hav e been forgiven fo r believing tha t there really
was something mystical and divinely inspired in German art. Not only Germans
embraced such grandiose notions i n the nineteent h century. Americans saw
Manifest Destiny—a term first used by journalist John L. O'Sullivan i n 1845—
when the y looke d westward , and it was in 1869 , righ t aroun d the tim e tha t
Bismarck was laying his plans to consolidate the German states, that the Unio n
Pacific and Central Pacific railroads met at Promontory Point, Utah, and the last
spike was driven into the tracks that spanned the North American continent.
In any talk of destinies, whether national or personal, there is an element of
the mystical , of what psychologists call "magical thinking"—grandiosity, th e
poetic an d th e irrational . Th e Romanti c manifest o place s hig h valu e o n
intuition, th e spiritual , the dar k power of the unconsciou s that will lead us to
enlightened bliss . (See Dutchman: Why, but for her Romantic soul, would Senta
be so drawn to the mysterious doomed sea captain rather than to Erik, who is
dependable, straightforward , an d mad e of mortal flesh?)
In the late r years of the nineteenth century, and as the new century began
to take shape, Romanticism assumed new forms. Freud began his explorations
of the mind , an d in painting such as Kokoschka's and music such as Mahler's
and Schoenberg' s th e tendenc y towar d th e mystical , th e individua l
consciousness, an d th e irrationa l begin s t o inclin e s o fa r fro m "realistic "
moorings that the ties to the concrete worl d threaten t o sever. Sometimes we
think of the period immediately after World War I as the great age of Modernism
in art an d music, and it was, but th e Modernis t spiri t was born muc h earlier .
Schoenberg's Herzgewdchse, a wild post-Wagneria n lea p int o th e unknown ,
was premiered in 1928 , but it had been composed in 1911 .
How doe s suc h Romanticism , o r ultra-Romanticism , fin d it s plac e i n a n
increasingly bourgeoi s world , where taste s ar e dominate d b y a n expandin g
middle class ? Here th e idea s of national destin y and Romantic ideal s becom e
confused. A s Pete r Ga y write s in hi s stud y Weimar Culture: The Outsider a s
Insider (publishe d i n 196 8 b y Harpe r & Row , an d als o th e sourc e o f my
subsequent references in this essay to Gay's work), "In August 1914 the Western
world had experienced a war psychosis: the war seemed a release from boredom,
an invitation t o heroism, a remedy for decadence. Bu t it was in Germany that
this psychosis reached height s o f absurdity. The overaged, the adolescent , th e
unfit, volunteere d wit h pure joy, and went t o death fille d wit h their mission .
The wa r offered"—an d her e Ga y quote s Thoma s Mann—'"purification ,
liberation, an d enormous hope'; it 'set the hearts of poets aflame' with a sense
of relie f tha t ' a peacefu l worl d had collapsed, ' a world of which 'on e was so
tired, so dreadfully tired.' "
That a cataclysm on the scale of World War I should have happened, whe n
it happened, ma y strike us as incomprehensible today . Tracing the events that
led t o th e outbrea k o f hostilities i s fairly simpl e (se e John Keegan' s The First
World Wa r for a chilling exposition) , but on e wants to find cause s other tha n
treaties, alliances , an d bruised honor fo r a conflict that took millions o f lives
and whose repercussions were so profound. Destiny, Romanticism—all thos e
great abstractions that are transformed by Wagner's music into pulsing, gleaming
resonance tha t bypasses reason an d goe s straight fo r the gut : they coul d stil l
enflame youn g men (an d old ) fe d u p wit h th e commonplace . Shortl y afte r
August 1914 , a few years after h e sa w The Flying Dutchman in Braunschweig,
my fathe r attempte d t o enlis t i n th e Kaiser' s army . H e ha d ha d i t wit h hi s
baker's apprenticeship an d saw military service as the wa y to a better life—a s
the way , at an y rate, t o a more adventurou s life . H e wa s only seventeen bu t
lied about his age and was inducted, onl y to be discharged when somehow th e
truth came out. Of course, he was back in the recruitment offic e soo n after his
next birthday . This would have been in March 1915 . H e saw plenty of actio n
in France , thoug h i t was probably not th e kin d o f adventure he' d bargaine d
for. To the end of his long life, he had occasional nighttime episode s that began
with low moans an d crescendoed i n horrible screams . He never remembere d
what al l the noise ha d been about the nex t morning , an d in those day s I had
never hear d th e term "post-traumatic stress disorder."
When th e wa r ended , h e wa s released alon g wit h s o many other s int o a
broken society. The Kaiser had been forced to abdicate. Worker unrest in various
Creators 11 1
cities seemed based on the Bolshevik model that had toppled Tsar Nicholas II.
In Weimar, city of Bach and Goethe and Schiller an d Liszt, a new government
was formed, the first constitutional republi c in Germany's short history. It was
a government plague d with problems from th e beginning . I t satisfie d neithe r
left nor right, suffered takeove r attempts by the Spartacists—communists bent
on establishing a Soviet-style government—and had to rely on the remnant s
of the defeated German army to maintain order. And al l that happened before
May 1919 , when the term s of the Versailles Treaty were announced, wrestin g
Alsace an d Lorraine from German y and returning those territorie s to France,
wresting away parts of the nation's eastern provinces, demanding that Germany
admit full responsibility for starting the war, and imposing punishing reparations
payments. Within a year a right-wing splinter group attempted to take contro l
of the governmen t i n Berlin, and soon after, i n the industria l Ruhr District, a
Red Army formed and was brutally suppressed. Perhaps the nadir came when,
in 1923 , afte r German y defaulte d o n it s reparation s payment , Frenc h an d
Belgian troops invaded the Ruhr. German workers there responded with passive
resistance and went on strike. But the shutdown of factories was not an actio n
that aided a faltering economy.
The formul a for demoralization was so clear you could almost call it elegant:
disillusionment ove r th e war , disenchantment wit h thos e wh o ha d le d th e
country into that conflict, an d no w rage at thos e wh o had (i t was believed)
betrayed th e natio n by accepting th e term s of Versailles. Not tha t Germany
had been in a position to negotiate at Versailles. When its delegates arrived in
Paris i n lat e Apri l 1919 , the y wer e met wit h contemp t an d presente d wit h
peace terms that were fails accomplis. It was around this time, in 1920, that the
Austrian novelist Joseph Roth published the first of the newspaper columns in
which h e share d hi s sa d an d cynica l observation s o f contemporary Berlin ,
columns recently translate d by Michael Hofman n and collected i n a volume
titled What I Sa w (publishe d b y W W Norto n & Compan y i n 2003) .
"Sometimes, in a fit of incurable melancholy," Roth reported, "I go into one of
the standard Berlin nightclubs, not to cheer myself u p , . .. but to take malicious
pleasure at the phenomenon o f so much industrialized merriment." It was into
a world like this that Berg's operas Wozzeck an d Lulu were introduced, dramas
whose heroe s an d heroine s wer e not ghost s like th e Dutchma n o r gods like
Wotan but soldier s and sluts. The nove l All Quiet on the Western Front, whic h
appeared in 1929 , is as succinct an d powerful a s any statement of how dreams
of glory died in the trenches .
With the strikes in the Ruhr District, a major part of the country's economy
came to a standstill. The treasur y suffered, but reparations had to be paid and
striking workers looked after . Th e governmen t responde d b y printing mor e
money, about the worst solution imaginable to an economic quagmire. Foreign
investors, worried about Germany's financial condition, withdrew. The quagmire
turned into a crisis of hyperinflation, with prices rising faster than money could
be printed. My father told stories of handing over 3 million marks for a cigarette—
cigarettes could be bought by the piece—and about how he was paid daily because
the currency was so unstable. "By October 1923, " Peter Gay writes, "not millions,
or billions, bu t trillion s o f marks were needed t o buy a loaf of bread or mail a
letter." That November, Adolf Hitler's right-wing National Socialists staged their
abortive attemp t i n Munich t o seize control o f the government . Bu t Nazis—
Romantics intoxicated wit h that old sense of German destiny and willing to be
vicious in its pursuit—were still thought o f as a fringe group , filled wit h what
my mother (wh o grew up in the Weimar years, though she left fo r America i n
192 7, at seventeen) alway s called der deutsche Fimmel: Germans' crazy obsession
with being German.
Peter Gay has described the Weima r Republic as representing the ideal s of
rationalism i n oppositio n t o th e Romantic-Wagneria n glorificatio n o f th e
irrational. In that Weimar-rational spirit, a new chancellor, Gustav Stresemann,
helped Germany shake hyperinflation. He negotiated a deal whereby American
gold would back a new currency. He als o worked with American banke r and
vice-president-to-be (in the Coolidge administration) Charles Dawes to devise
a mor e realisti c schedul e o f reparatio n payments— a pla n tha t include d
withdrawal of Allied troop s from th e Ruh r an d tha t would bring Dawes th e
Nobel Peace Prize. The Dawes Plan went into effect in September 1924- Foreign
investors returned, and the economy began to stabilize.
My father had decided not t o wait for this. Determined t o find a better life ,
he booked passage for the Unite d State s in 1925 . One o f his last images of his
homeland cam e i n Hamburg , the nigh t befor e h e wa s to boar d th e shi p for
New York. He had been intrigued by a marquee outside a nightclub, promising
that th e sho w inside woul d give patrons a look a t Hamburg be i Nacht, wie es
weint und lacht—Hamburg a t Night: It s Tears and It s Laughter—a come-o n
based on Hamburg's reputation for illicit pleasures. My father bought a ticket
and took his place at a bar table in a room full of smoke and other adventurers.
An entir e wal l was draped wit h heav y fabric , an d a s th e light s dimme d a
tuxedoed waiter with slicked-back hair gathere d a fold o f curtain at on e en d
and dre w it back t o the other . Th e curtai n had covere d a large window, and
beyond that window now was the city, or at least part of it: buildings and docks
silhouetted agains t a darkening sky. That was it. Hamburg at Night. This kind
of show seemed t o sum up a society of promises only partially kept, in whic h
the partie s to contracts had radically different understanding s of the term s to
which they had agreed. In a world like this, you had to be your own person. My
father understoo d that message, and he got out.
Some migh t thin k he lef t a little to o soon. Fo r the year s that followe d i n
Germany were the one s tha t people remembe r a s a sort of artistic paradise.
They were the years of Marlene Dietrich an d Emil Jannings, of Kurt Weill and
Creators 11 3
Lotte Leny a an d Bertol t Brecht (The Threepenny Opera opene d i n 1928) , of

cabaret and experiments in cinema and music and theater. In this rejuvenated
economy, Berlin and Munich were the foca l points of a kind of anything-goes
cornucopia o f sensual and sexual liberation, ou t t o seize the day . In Octobe r
1925 th e Locarn o Treat y ha d bee n signe d betwee n France , Grea t Britain ,
Belgium, Italy, and Germany. The next year Germany had entered th e League
of Nations . I t wa s back i n th e internationa l community . Jew s lik e Victo r
Klemperer, wh o i n hi s two-volum e diary I Will Bear Witnes s document s th e
maddening humiliation s h e an d hi s wife wer e subjected to by the Nazis , still
identified themselve s during the Weimar years first as Germans, and they were
proud of their service to the fatherland in the Great War. It was about as open
a society as Germany had seen, and it seemed as though the wretched mistake
that had been World War I could be righted if one could only have fun, make
love, drin k fanc y cocktails , hea r th e lates t music, see the lates t theater , an d
read the latest books.
"The nam e 'Weimar Republic,'" write s Michael Hofmann in his introduction
to Roth's What I Saw, "has a whiff o f fragility, o f scandal, of doom about it. I t
denotes a tiny period of German history, the years from 191 8 to 1933; an interval
of tremulou s republican government , betwee n monarch y an d dictatorship ,
between one catastrophic war and th e approac h of another; bu t mos t of all a
period that was fast and febrile and fun, and... became practically synonymous
with th e Jaz z Age o r th e Roarin g Twenties." Composers suc h a s Ernst Toc h
and Paul Hindemith trie d to incorporate popular song and jazz into their concer t
music. And i n fact the music of those years reflects the society: To think of the
Weimar years is to think of music that is bitter, ironic, determinedly "modern,"
frequently sad , often funny, an d perhaps even touched b y nihilism.
But th e Weima r years wer e ove r almos t befor e the y began , an d musica l
exploration, alway s suc h a potent forc e i n th e country , came t o a halt. Th e
Nazis banne d composer s such a s Toch an d Schoenber g no t simpl y becaus e
they wer e Jewish but becaus e thei r musi c was somehow "degenerate"—an d
you didn' t hav e t o b e Jewis h t o ear n tha t label , onl y quick-witte d an d
questioning, an d a perceived subversive ; it was applied eve n t o Hindemith ,
"pure" German though he was. After th e war, German composers had catch -
up work to do, rediscovering their voice s and learning abou t techniques an d
styles with which the y had had little contact fo r more than a decade.
The Nazis : Where did they come from, an d how did the Weimar Republic
finally die, that strange experiment in popular government followin g the rule
of an emperor and leading to the terror of a dictator? By 1930, the whole world
was feelin g th e effec t o f th e Wal l Stree t cras h o f 1929 . Th e Unite d State s
demanded tha t Germany begin repaying the loans that the U.S. governmen t
had made . Germa n companie s wen t bankrupt . Unemployment , whic h ha d
doubled between 192 8 and 1929 , more than doubled again between 192 9 and
1930, t o 3 million . B y January 1932 , mor e tha n 6 millio n German s wer e

unemployed. The Nazi Party that had seemed so lunatic throughout the 1920 s
and had almost gone bankrupt itself in 1928 now seemed to offer some hope of
a better world, playing on thos e ol d feelings of Romantic destiny , and o n th e
hurt feeling s of Versailles. It i s often sai d tha t Wagne r contribute d t o Nazi
ideology. True, he was anti-Semitic an d seemingly proud of it, putting some of
his ugliest thoughts on the subject into an essay called "Das judentum in Musik."
Yet Wagner's anti-Semitis m i s confined t o hi s prose, which even a t it s most
benign has a lot less appeal than his music. That music—that glorious music—
does not in itself legitimize anti-Semitism, but to the extent that it romanticizes
and glamorize s nationalism, thos e incline d t o xenophobia coul d embrac e it .
Outsiders beware. Group identity can be dangerous when the group you identify
with is any subset of the huma n race. Certainly Hitler wa s cynical enough t o
use anything at his disposal to get what he wanted. Wagner's music was one of
those things.
Another wa s the Treaty of Versailles. Recently, historian Margaret MacMillan
in Pari s 191 9 ha s reexamine d th e conventiona l wisdo m that th e Treat y led
ultimately to World War II. She reminds us of how right-wing nationalists suc h
as the Nazis kept a sense of German grievances fresh but proposes that "Hitle r
did no t wag e war because o f the Treat y of Versailles, although h e foun d it s
existence a godsend for his propaganda." This still does not dismiss the question
of whethe r th e Versaille s Treaty helped spar k anothe r war . The framer s o f
Versailles could not have foreseen the Wall Street crash, but had they displayed
more imaginatio n an d exercise d mor e tact , the y migh t hav e stole n som e of
Hitler's ammunition . Bu t Hitler mad e his ammunition on th e spot and as he
chose. H e engineere d hi s appointmen t a s Chancellor i n January 1933. Two
months later, the Reichstag—the German Parliament building in Berlin—was
destroyed by fire. Presumably the blaz e had bee n se t by a Dutch communist ,
but i t has been speculate d that a Nazi cadre was responsible. For now Hitle r
had wha t h e wanted: th e specte r o f national catastrophe , a country on th e
verge of communist takeover. He declared a national emergency and suspended
civil liberties . Wit h that , fo r all purposes, he becam e dictator . Th e Weima r
Republic was dead.
The world was about to enter a very bad phase. Joseph Roth had moved to
Paris as soon as Hitler came to power. (Kurt Weill had moved to Paris, too, and
his Seven Deadly Sins was composed an d premiere d there.) Writin g fro m th e
French capita l in 1933 , Rot h spok e of Nazi book-burnings, pointing ou t tha t
the Weimar Republic's last president, Hindenburg, once "openly admitted tha t
he ha d never read a book i n his life." Rot h bemoan s thi s anti-intellectua l ben t
but believes it has long been present—its roots are in that sens e of destiny, in
Wagnerian Romanticism , i n de r deutsche Fimmel —and h e find s everyon e
responsible. "I t wa s thi s icon"—Hindenburg—"tha t th e workers , Socia l
Creators 11 5
Democrats, journalists, artists, and Jews worshipped during the war, and that
the German people (workers , Jews, journalists, artists, Social Democrats, an d
the rest of them) then re-elected president. Is a people that elects as its president
an icon that has never read a book all that far away from burning books itself?"
From Wagner t o the Weimar Republic, Romanticism t o Modernism, is not
so long a trip. As a parable of where Romanti c illusio n ca n lead , thi s spa n of
years an d th e musi c it produce d offer s muc h fo r reflection. Th e conclusion s
you could draw would be unbearably depressing if the music , from Wagner t o
Weimar, wer e no t s o compelling . "I t wa s th e cultura l tas k o f th e Weima r
Republic," writes Peter Gay, "to restore the broken ties " of its people "both to
the usable past and to the congenial foreig n environment. "
Nations ma y try to identify part s of the pas t as usable or not; but what of a
personal past? What parts of that are usable? The one s tha t continue t o give
us pleasure , like a suddenly remembered choru s fro m Th e Flying Dutchman!
Or th e one s tha t continu e t o haun t ou r dreams ? A persona l pas t alway s
intersects wit h history , jus t a s th e composer s o f th e Weima r year s restored
Germans' sens e o f cultural ties t o the world , looking t o a great heritage tha t
went bac k t o Wagne r an d further . Th e spiri t the y communicate d foun d a n
audience i n the world beyond Germany , an audience perhap s more receptiv e
than in Germany itself. That spirit, forged i n the awfu l battle s tha t opened a
new century, expressed a people's hopes and a nation's characte r n o less than
did Wagner , i f mor e realistically . Th e greates t o f th e Weima r composer s
championed a n honesty fo r which thei r ow n country was not full y prepared .
Other battles would have t o ready that ground.
—L.R.
A Shor t Life of J* S. Bach
In the two hundred years since [Bach's ] death each rising

generation ha s seen him differently; hi s creations hav e
been analyzed and criticized, performed and deformed,
used and abused ; books an d pamphlets, paintings an d
plaster bust s hav e mad e hi m a commo n househol d
article; in short he ha s finally been transforme d into a
statue. It seems to me that having this statue constantly
before our eyes has impaired our view of the true stature
of Bach, both o f the ma n an d o f his work.
—Paul Hindemit h
T
he voice is Paul Hindemith's, the occasion the city of Hamburg's Bach
commemoration o f 1950, and the tone woven through the words like
a ground bass is one that tells us to beware. But the statue Hindemith
speaks o f doesn't ben d o r mov e t o music , hewn a s it i s from a psychologica l
granite o r marble—ou r conception s an d preconception s o f Bach. Wh o wa s
Johann Sebastia n Bach ? "This genius, " say s Alber t Schweitzer , "wa s not a n
individual but a collective soul." In other words, a statue. Bach the man remains
a puzzle—both because we know so little o f his personal life an d becaus e we
feel entitled t o know more. The correspondence h e left behind i s mostly official
business—recommendations for students or organ builders, requests for work,
hagglings ove r salary . I t i s as difficult t o dra w a sense o f the ma n fro m suc h
documents a s it would be to piece togethe r a life from th e scraps of paper that
litter your desk, or mine. Absent fro m Bach's writing is any mention o f his own
inner workings—ho w he must have felt , fo r example, after th e deat h of Maria
Barbara, t o whom h e ha d bee n married for twelve years and who had born e
their si x children. Absen t i s any mention o f how he reacte d t o th e coming s

and going s o f friends , o r th e seasons , o r nigh t an d day . To appreciate ho w
private—or perhaps simply undemonstrative—Bach must have been, we need
only compar e th e note s an d letter s h e lef t behin d wit h th e kind s o f letters
Mozart wrote , b y turn s playful , intimate , an d grousing , or wit h tha t grea t
document of spiritual torment and angst, Beethoven's Heiligenstadt Testament .
It i s the differenc e betwee n eras , between way s of perceiving th e worl d and
how you fit into it , but als o simply a reflection of one man's natural reserve.
Our idea s o f The Artis t hav e bee n conditione d largel y by figures suc h as
Beethoven, romanti c culture heroes who fashion their work from th e detail s of
their lives, who invite us to share in the spectacle of their loves and frustrations .
Our deman d fo r th e biographica l facts o r fictions surrounding, say, Berlioz or
Tchaikovsky isn't so different fro m the demand satisfied by the National Enquirer
and its siblings. We expect to be on familiar terms with our artists, and we expect
our artist s to be celebrities. Bac h would have been surprise d to learn tha t his
audience was interested in the "story" of his life. And he would have been appalled.
For he was a worker—a pro: a musician and composer, with lower-case "m" and
"c." Art may have been his vocation, but it was also his livelihood. To say that he
wrote to eat may be a grossly simple way of saying why he composed, but it is not
a gros s distortion. Throughou t hi s life h e hel d si x respectable and responsibl e
positions—now as organist, now as court composer, now as city music director—
in places scattered across east-central Germany, a small parcel of territory where
he was born and within whose boundaries he remained, though he was willing to
move t o where th e wor k was. From what w e can deduce , h e coul d writ e by
inspiration or on demand. One o f the miracles is that th e qualit y of his music is
as consistently high as the quantit y is great.
Still the questio n is unavoidable, because we are, after all , creatures of our
own time: What was Bach like? And the question becomes more nagging when
we look at that portrait of 1746 by Elias Gottlieb Haussmann (th e eighteenth -
century equivalent of a photograph sent with the announcement o f an executive
promotion). Here i s the master—wigge d an d well-fed , bu t with a look in his
eyes and a pursing of the lips so suggestive and so undefinable that he becomes
more enigmatic than ever. In his right hand he holds a slip of paper bearing the
six-part cano n (BW V 1076) , hi s membershi p submissio n t o th e Societ y of
Musical Sciences . Her e i s a pictur e tha t encompasse s th e tw o Bachs—th e
"Bach" that is an edifice of musical literature and th e "Bach " who is one of us.
Schweitzer may maintain tha t Bac h is "a collective soul, " but t o lose sight of
Bach th e ma n i s t o d o ourselve s a disservice , allowin g ourselve s t o b e
overwhelmed by Bach, the music. To the extent tha t he can speak, we must let
him. Hearin g Bach' s voic e becam e suddenl y easie r i n 1945 , whe n Han s T
David an d Arthur Mende l publishe d The Bach Reader, a collection o f letters
and papers from th e composer's life. The documentar y biography that follow s
is culled fro m Th e Ne w Bach Reader, a 199 8 revisio n b y Christop h Wolf f o f
Creators 11 9
David and Mendel's work. I have added commentary (in italics) in an attempt
to create a narrative. In this story, the voic e is Bach's, joined by the voice s of
people who knew him.
From the church records of Eisenach, where Johann Sebastian Bach was born on 21
March 1685, the entry of a baptism:
Monday, March 23, 1685 . To Mr. Johann Ambrosiu s Baach, Town Musician
. . . , a son, gfodfathers] Sebastia n Nagel, Town Musician at Gotha, and Johann
Georg Koch, Ducal Forester of this place. Name: Joh. Sebastian .
Bach's mother died in 1694; after his father's death the following year, Johann
Sebastian joined the household of his brother, Johann Christoph, who gave him musical
instruction. B y 1 703 J. S. was organist at the New Church in Amstadt. It was here,
on 4 August 1705, that his sharp tongue led him into the first of many disagreements
with lesser talents. Th e source of conflict wa s a student musician a t the church, J. H.
Geyersbach. David and Mendel offer a reconstruction from Church records.
[On Augus t 5 , 1705, ] Johan n Sebastia n Bac h . . . appeare d [befor e th e

Consistory] an d stated that, a s he walked home yesterday, fairly late at night ,
. . . six students wer e sitting o n th e "Langenstein " (Lon g Stone), an d as he
passed th e tow n hall , th e studen t Geyersbac h went afte r hi m wit h a stick ,
calling him to account: Why had he [Bach ] made abusive remarks about him?
He [Bach ] answere d tha t h e ha d mad e n o abusiv e remarks about him, an d
that no one coul d prove it, for he had gon e his way very quietly. Geyersbach
retorted that while he [Bach ] might not have maligned him, he had maligned
his bassoon at some time, and whoever insulted his belongings insulted him as
well; he had carried on like a dirty dog's etc., etc. And he [Geyersbach ] had at
once struck out at him. Since he had not been prepared for this, he had been
about to draw his dagger, but Geyersbach had fallen into his arms, and the two
of them tumble d abou t unti l th e res t of the student s . . . had rushe d toward
them an d separated them... . He had said to Geyersbach, to his face, that he
would straighten this out tomorrow, and it would not be becoming to him and
his honor t o duel with him [Geyersbach] .
As i t turned out, Geyersbach's attack wa s not unprovoked, an d on 1 9 August, the

Consistory reprimanded Bach.
He migh t very well have refrained from callin g Geyersbach a Zippel Fagotist [ a
"nanny-goat bassoonist"]; such gibes lead in the end to unpleasantness of this
kind, especially since he had a reputation for not getting along with the students
and of claiming that he was engaged only for simple chorale music, and not for
concerted pieces , which was wrong, for he must help out in all music making.
Ille: H e would not refuse , i f only there wer e a Director musices.

Nos: Men must live among imperfecta; h e must get along with the students,
and they must not mak e one another's live s miserable.
In 1707 Bach became organist at Muhlhausen, in the Church of Saint Blasius. He

decided to leave after only a year. When he approached the patrons, parishioners,
and Church council to request his dismissal, he mentioned in passing some of the
conditions and goals he considered professionally important.
[H]owever simple my manner o f living, I can live but poorly , considering th e

house rent an d other mos t necessary expenses.
Now, Go d has brought it t o pass that a n unexpecte d chang e shoul d offe r
itself t o me , in which I see the possibilit y of a more adequat e livin g an d th e
achievement o f m y goa l o f a well-regulate d church musi c without furthe r
vexation, since I have received the gracious admission of His Serene Highnes s
of Saxe-Weimar into hi s Court Capelle an d Chamber Music.
Accordingly, I hav e fel t I mus t brin g m y intention i n thi s matter , wit h
obedient respect , to the notice o f my Most Gracious Patrons, and at the same
time beg them to content themselves for the time being with the modest services
I have rendered t o the Church an d to furnish me at the earliest moment with
a gracious dismissal.
Bach was court musician at Weimar for nine years. When he left, his parting with
his employer, the Duke Wilhelm Ernst, was anything but gracious. For Bach had
received an offer to become Capellmeister at the court of Cothen, and he wanted
desperately to break his ties with the Duke. We do not know what Bach did or said to
evoke Wilhelm Ernst's extraordinary response, but we may speculate from this entry
in the reports of the Secretary of the Weimar court:
On Novembe r 6 , 1717 , th e quonda m concertmaste r an d organis t Bach was

confined t o the Count y Judge's place of detention fo r too stubbornly forcing
the issu e of his dismissal and finall y on December 2 was freed fro m arres t with
notice o f his unfavorable discharge.
Bach spent six years at Cothen, the first few of which, as David and Mendel wrote
in their original edition of Th e Bac h Reader, "must have been the happiest i n [his]
life." Prince Leopold loved music an d wa s a friend. Fo r him, Bach composed th e
Brandenburg Concertos. Th e Prince, however, married a woman wh o ha d little
feeling for music, and this apparently caused his highness's own interest to wane.
Again Bach looked elsewhere for work. What he found was the position in which he
would spend the rest of his life—Cantor of Saint Thomas's Church and School in
Leipzig, a post that brought with it the position of City Music Director, a higher
Creators 12 1
salary, an d free schooling for hi s children. Christoph Wolff points ou t (i n th e Ne w

Grove Bach Family) that the Leipzig position "was one of the most notable positions
in German musical life," for it had been "associated with a wealth of tradition since
the sixteenth century." It was, in short, the kind of position that a man of forty-
eight—a ripe age in 1 723—would see as the consolidation of a career. Whatever
Bach's high expectations may have been, he soon found he had become a member of
a bureaucracy, and he ran into constant disagreements with the City Council, made
up of men more concerned with protocol and propriety than with the demands and
urgencies of art. Consider this excerpt from the Council proceedings of 3 April 1724,
regarding a performance o f th e Saint John Passion.
Mr. Johann Sebastia n Bach , Canto r o f St. Thomas' s School , wa s notified of

the decisio n previousl y made by the Honore d an d Learned Council tha t th e
Passion Music for Good Frida y should b e give n alternatel y i n St. Nicholas' s
and St. Thomas's. But since the title of [the libretto to] the music sent around
this year revealed that it was to take place again in St. Thomas's, and since th e
Superintendent o f St. Nicholas's ha d requested of the Honore d an d Learned
Council tha t thi s time the above-mentioned Passion music should be given in
St. Nicholas's, therefore , the Canto r shoul d for his part act accordingly.
Hie: He would comply with the same, but pointed ou t that th e booklet was
already printed, tha t ther e wa s no room available, and tha t th e harpsichor d
needed som e repair, all of which, however , could be attended t o at little cost ;
but h e requested a t any rate tha t a little additiona l roo m be provided in th e
choir loft , s o that h e coul d place th e person s needed fo r the music , and tha t
the harpsichord be repaired.
Senatus: The Cantor should , at the expense of the Honored an d Most Wise
Council, hav e a n announcemen t printe d statin g tha t th e musi c was to tak e
place this time in St. Nicholas's, have the necessary arrangements in the choir
loft made , with the ai d of the sexton , an d have th e harpsichor d repaired.
Six years later th e Leipzig Council admonished Bach for neglecting hi s teaching
duties. In the minutes of 2 August 1730:
[I] t should be remembered tha t whe n th e Canto r cam e hither h e received a

dispensation concerning th e teaching ; . . . [but the Cantor] di d not conduc t
himself as he should (withou t the foreknowledg e of the burgomaste r in offic e
[he] sent a choir student to the country; went away without obtaining leave),
for whic h h e mus t b e reproache d an d admonished ; a t presen t i t mus t b e
considered whether the [thir d and fourth] classe s should not be provided with
a different person ; Magister Kriegel was said to be a good man, and a decision
would have to be made about it.
Court Councilor Lange: Everything was true that had been mentioned agains t
the Cantor, an d h e coul d be admonished an d th e plac e fille d wit h Magiste r
Kriegel.
Court Councilor Steger: Not onl y did the Cantor d o nothing, bu t he was not
even willin g to give an explanatio n o f that fact ; h e did not hol d th e singin g
class, and there were other complaints in addition; a change would be necessary,
a break would have to come some time, and he would acquiesce in the making
of other arrangements .
Diocesan Councilor Born: Adhered t o the abov e votes.
Dr. Holzel: Likewise.
Commissioner Dr. Falckner: Likewise.
Commissioner Kregel: Likewise.
Syndic Job: Likewise , since th e Canto r wa s incorrigible.
Commissioner Sieber: Likewise.
Commissioner Winckler: Likewise.
Commissioner Hohmann: Likewise.
I [the clerk]:—Likewise.
Hereupon it was resolved to restrict the Cantor's [incidental ] income .
Bach became so frustrated at Leipzig that he decided to seek another position, as he

disclosed in a letter dated 28 October 1 730 and addressed to Georg Erdmann, a
childhood companion, now the "Imperial Russian Resident Agent in Danzig":
Most Honored Sir ,

Your Honor wil l have th e goodnes s t o excuse an ol d and faithfu l servan t for
taking th e libert y of disturbing you with th e presen t letter . It must be nearly
four years since Your Honor favore d me with a kind answer to the letter I sent
you; I remember that a t tha t tim e you graciously asked me to give you some
news o f what ha d happene d t o me , an d I humbl y tak e thi s opportunit y of
providing you with the same. You know the course of my life from my youth up
until th e chang e i n m y fortunes that too k m e t o Cothe n a s Capellmeister .
There I had a gracious Prince, wh o both love d an d kne w music , and i n his
service I intended t o spend th e res t of my life. It must happen, however , tha t
the sai d Serenissimus should marry a Princess of Berenburg, and that the n th e
impression should arise that the musical interests of the said Prince had become
somewhat lukewarm, especially as the ne w Princess seemed t o be unmusical;
and i t pleased God tha t I should be called hithe r t o be Director Musices an d
Cantor a t St. Thomas's School . Thoug h a t first, indeed, i t did not see m at all
proper t o m e t o chang e m y positio n o f Capellmeiste r fo r tha t o f Cantor .
Wherefore, then, I postponed my decision for a quarter of a year; but thi s post
Creators 12 3
was described to me in such favorable terms that finall y (particularl y since my

sons seemed inclined towar d [university] studies) I cast my lot, in the name of
the Lord , and mad e th e journe y to Leipzig , took m y examination, an d the n
made th e chang e o f position. Here , b y God's will , I a m stil l i n service . Bu t
since (1 ) I find tha t th e pos t is by no means so lucrative as it was described to
me; (2) I have failed to obtain many of the fees pertaining to the office; (3 ) the
place is very expensive; and (4 ) the authoritie s are odd and little interested i n
music, so that I must live amid almost continual vexation, envy, and persecution;
accordingly I shall be forced, wit h God's help , t o seek my fortune elsewhere.
Should You r Hono r kno w o r fin d a suitable post in you r cit y for an ol d an d
faithful servant , I be g yo u mos t humbl y t o pu t i n a mos t graciou s word of
recommendation for me—I shall not fai l to do my best to give satisfaction and
justify your most gracious intercession i n my behalf. My present post amounts
to about 700 thaler, and when ther e ar e rather more funerals tha n usual, the
fees rise in proportion; but when a healthy wind blows, they fall accordingly, as
for example last year, when I lost fees that would ordinarily come in from funeral s
to an amount of more than 100 thaler. In Thuringia I could get along better on
400 thale r tha n here wit h twic e tha t many , because o f the excessivel y hig h
cost of living. . . .
I shall almost transgress the bounds of courtesy if I burden Your Honor an y
further, an d I therefore hasten t o close, remaining with most devoted respect
my whole life lon g
Your Honor's mos t obedient an d devoted servan t
Joh. Sebast. Bach
Erdmann never came through. By 1739, the feud between Bach and the Council
appears to have become institutionalized. Both parties accept the fact that their
personalities will never mesh. In the Leipzig Council Archives, 17 March 1 739:
Upon a Noble an d Mos t Wise Council' s orde r I have gon e t o Mr. Bach her e
and have pointed out to the same that the music he intends t o perform on the
coming Good Frida y is to be omitted unti l regular permission for the sam e is
received. Whereupo n h e answered : it ha d alway s been don e so ; he di d no t
care, for he got nothing ou t o f it anyway, and it was only a burden; he would
notify the Superintendent tha t it had been forbidden him; if an objection were
made on account of the text, [h e remarked that] it had already been performe d
several times. This I have accordingly wished to communicate to a Noble and
Most Wise Council .
Andreas Gottlieb Bienengraber
Clerk
With my own hand
Thus the Bach who could close a letter with the assurance that he was his Honor's
"devoted servant" could also speak plainly, and his bluntness was not reserved just
for the Leipzig Council. In a note of 2 November 1748, Bach thanked cousin Johann
Elias for a cask of wine, several quarts of his kinsman's best —and then asked that
no more gifts like this be sent.
Although m y honored Cousi n kindly offers t o oblige with more of the liqueur,
I must decline hi s offer o n accoun t o f the excessiv e expenses here. Fo r since
the carriage charges cost 16 groschen, the delivery man 2 groschen, the customs
inspector 2 groschen, th e inlan d dut y 5 groschen, 3 pfennig, and the genera l
duty 3 groschen, m y honored Cousi n ca n judg e for himself tha t eac h quar t
cost me almost 5 groschen, which for a present is really too expensive .
If Bach could be crotchety, it was not because he was one of those geniuses whose
accomplishments go unnoticed in their lifetimes. He was a major figure in the German
musical world, as attested in this report, from a Berlin newspaper of 11 May 1747,
of th e genesis of th e Musica l Offering .
One hear s from Potsda m that las t Sunday [ 7 May] the famou s Capellmeiste r
from Leipzig , Mr. Bach, arrive d with th e intentio n t o hav e th e pleasur e of
hearing th e excellent Roya l music at that place . In the evening, a t about the
time when the regular chamber music in the Royal apartments usually begins,
His Majest y wa s informed that Capellmeiste r Bac h ha d arrive d a t Potsda m
and was waiting . .. to listen t o the music. His August Self immediately gave
orders that Bach be admitted, and went, at his entrance, t o the so-called Forte
and Piano, condescending als o to play, in His Most August Person and without
any preparation, a theme—for the Capellmeister Bach, which he should execute
in a fugue. This was done so happily by the aforementioned Capellmeister tha t
not onl y was His Majesty please d to show his satisfaction thereat, bu t als o all
those present were seized with astonishment. Mr . Bach has found the subject
propounded to him so exceedingly beautiful tha t h e intends t o set it down on
paper as a regular fugue and have it engraved on copper. On Monday, the famous
man let himself be heard on the organ in the Church of the Holy Spirit at Potsdam
and earned general acclaim from th e audience attendin g in great number.
But this was late in Bach's career. In March 1750 the English eye specialist John
Taylor attempted to restore the composer's failing sight by an operation. It helped
only partially, and Taylor repeated the surgery in April. This, too, was unsuccessful,
and it left Bach so weakened that his health declined steadily. He died after a stroke
on 28 July 1750. On 3 August th e Spenersche Zeitung of Berlin carried this report:
Last Tuesday, that is, the 28th instant, the famous musician Mr. Joh. Seb. Bach,
Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Court Composer, Capellmeister of the Princely
Creators 12 5
Court o f Saxe-Weissenfels an d o f Anhalt-Cothen, Director Chori Musici an d

Cantor of St. Thomas here, [died ] in the 66th year of his age, from the unhappy
consequences o f the very unsuccessful eye operation by a well-known English
oculist. The los s of this uncommonl y able man i s greatly mourned by all true
connoisseurs of music.
An uncommonl y able man greatly mourned. Let the closing voice once again
be Hindemith's. I n Bach, Hindemith says, "we see a man who, in spite of a life
spent i n peti t bourgeoi s doings an d surroundings , has built u p a completely
independent worl d of artistic creation.... Any musician, even the most gifted,
takes a place second t o Bach's at the start."
—L.R.
Stravinsky's Ear^stretching?
Joy^givitig Legacy
T
he firs t tim e I heard Stravinsky' s name wa s when I was eleven o r
twelve and sa w Fantasia, th e original , good 194 0 version. ( I say more
about that i n "How I Fell in Love with Music," beginning on page 3.)
I had no context, no awareness of what else he had composed or what it sounded
like, and of course no idea that what Stokowski served up in that fil m was far
removed from The Rite of Spring a s Stravinsky had written it. I was both excite d
and puzzle d by this music, which was so unlike an y I had eve r heard before. I
spoke about it to my mother, who, like a lot of intellectual an d artisti c types,
disapproved o f Fantasia withou t havin g see n it , but sh e did recall tha t som e
time in the 1920 s Furtwangler and the Berli n Philharmonic ha d brought th e
Firebird Suit e t o Breslau, where my parents lived, an d ho w adventurous tha t
had mad e the m feel . M y own first encounte r wit h Stravinsky's music in th e
dingy Cosmopolitan Theater i n Cambridge, England, was the start of a lifelong
love affair .
By a pleasing chance, jus t as I was about to start on th e firs t version of this
piece a few years ago, an ol d opera program fell ou t o f a score. It was from a
performance in Rome of Boulevard Solitude, a reworking of the Manon Lescaut
story by the the n very young Hans Werne r Henze. Th e dat e on th e program
was 7 April 1954 , forty-five year s to the da y before its surprise reappearance. I
was the n i n Ital y on a Fulbright fellowship , far more intereste d i n th e ne w
music of Luigi Dallapiccola, Brun o Maderna, Luigi Nono, Goffred o Petrassi ,
and Giacinto Scelsi than in that of Bartolino da Padova, the fourteenth-century

Kieinmeister (sehr klein) about whom I was supposed t o b e writin g a doctora l
dissertation.
For some reaso n Boulevard Solitude scandalize d th e first-nigh t audience ,
but a s we learned, firs t throug h rumor s that circulate d i n th e hous e durin g
the evening, the n in more detail in the next morning's papers, the real scandal
had occurre d i n th e lobby : Igor Stravinsky, in tow n fo r a concert wit h th e
Rome Radio Orchestra, ha d been refused admission . The Rome Opera had a
strict rule that any man sitting in the orchestra or in a box had to wear black
tie, and Stravinsky had shown up in a plain dark suit. Reporting this silly event,
the musi c critic of one of the Roma n newspapers asked: "For Petrushka, might
the Maestro not hav e been forgiven the dinner jacket , or the black tie for the
Symphony o f Psalms? "
Indeed. An d recallin g tha t writer' s questio n now , I g o to Rober t Craft' s
Stravinsky: Chronicle o f a Friendship an d rerea d th e accoun t o f hi s an d Ver a
Stravinsky's visit to th e composer' s grave on th e funera l isle of San Michel e
just off Venice, thre e week s after hi s death i n April 1971 . "And again, " writes
Craft, "w e follow the path to the Orthodox section , wher e lilacs and oleande r
are in bloom, and it is full springtim e except for the ma n who created a spring
of his own that of all mortally begotten version s will give Nature its longest ru n
for everlastin g joy. . .. It is impossible to believe tha t the man whose immortal
celebration o f the resurrection of nature, and all his other continuation s o f the
highest humanizin g art of man, lies beneath that mound of earth."
Thirty-four year s have passe d sinc e tha t deat h an d tha t funeral— a ful l
generation—and for students, even for the younger members of our orchestras,
Igor Stravinsk y i s alread y a remot e classic , almos t a s remote an d almos t a s
classic as Brahms (wh o died only thirty-one years before I was born). What a
feeling of emptiness Stravinsky's death left ! He was nearly eighty-nine, an d it
was no secret tha t he was exceedingly frail , tha t he had not compose d sinc e
1966, the year he completed th e Requiem Canticles and The Owl and the Pussy-
cat, and that he had conducted for the last time (the Pulcinella Suite in Toronto
in May 1967). On tha t occasion Craf t noted i n his diary "the specia l warmth
of the audience , whos e applause had distinctly said , 'This is the las t time we
see Igor Stravinsky.'"
But still , wha t a jolt it was, the new s o f his death, a death abou t which I
learned i n such a strange way. Wearing my Boston Globe music critic hat, I was
accompanying a European tour of the Boston Symphony. At one point I jumped
ship for a few days to visit a friend wh o was a singer at the Diisseldor f Opera .
While I was waiting for a performance of Eugene Onegin to begin, a n opera in
which Fyodor Stravinsky, the composer' s father, had bee n a famous Gremin ,
my neighbor turne d t o me and asked, "Where do you suppose Stravinsky will
be buried?" It seemed a strange opening gambi t for a conversation, an d onl y
Creators 12 9
gradually did the reaso n for the questio n become clea r t o me. It was 6 April
1971, an d Stravinsk y had die d i n Ne w Yor k tha t day . I stil l remembe r th e
surreal experience o f sitting in that theater , the sound s of Tchaikovsky filling
the room , bu t thos e o f Petrushka, Th e Rite o f Spring, Th e Soldier's Tale, Th e
Wedding, Persephone, Oedipus Rex, Apollo, the tw o symphonies from th e 1940s ,
the Mass , Orpheus, Agon , Threni, and I don't kno w what els e playin g in my
head as a counterpoint both/wnebre and happy. It filled me with such happiness
that thi s wonderful music existed, that I had been allowe d to hear it and even
sing some of it, that I had even been granted the extra magic of here and there,
most ofte n o n th e podium , once a t JF K airport, once fo r a handshake a t a
reception in Rome, seeing the tiny man who had invented thes e amazing sounds,
who indeed like d t o thin k o f himself as an invento r rathe r tha n a composer,
who had create d worlds, who had change d th e fac e of music.
And I wondered, now what? Again I turn to Robert Craft's diar y in which
he quotes some of the messages that arrive d after Stravinsky's death: '"This is
the firs t tim e sinc e Guillaum e de Machaut that th e worl d is without a great
composer.' Claudio Arrau cables fro m London : 'No w he joins the immortals
where i n an y case he ha s alread y been fo r fifty years. ' Bu t perhap s the mos t
nearly perfect o f them all , from Lucian o Berio, simply says, 'Adieu pere Igor et
merd.'" It is tempting to bristle at the message about Machaut. Some wonderful
composers were left alive in April 1971, but every one of them, even Messiaen,
would have acknowledged that Stravinsk y was in another league .
I loved typin g that sentenc e tha t ha d both th e Requiem Canticles an d The
Owl and the Pussy-cat in it, the on e a hieratic ac t of mourning for a woman he
did not kno w and at the same time a memorial for friends who died during its
composition—Edgard Varese , Alberto Giacometti , an d Evely n Waugh—the
other, on e o f countles s message s o f love , musica l an d otherwise , t o Vera
Stravinsky, who had come into his life in 192 1 and whom he married in 1940 ,
a year after the death of his first wife. The pairin g of the Mass for the Dead an d
Edward Lear might seem incongruous, but each composition—or invention—
is completely characteristic, personal , authentic, an d in each th e whole artist
is involved, an d th e whol e man . An d ho w beautifully thos e tw o works, the
canticle an d the little song for soprano and piano, begin to give us some idea of
Stravinsky's range.
Both ar e a long way from Th e Firebird an d Petrushka, even fro m Th e Rite of
Spring. Fe w composers traveled so far in a lifetime. There was a fan who tol d
Stravinsky how muc h she love d Th e Firebird, Petrushka, an d even Th e Rite of
Spring, the n wailed, "But why did you stop?" To which Stravinsky replied, "Why
did you stop?" That admirer of the earl y ballets was not alone . I n my teens—
this mus t hav e bee n i n readin g I di d o n m y own; i n colleg e I don' t thin k
Stravinsky was even mentioned i n Music 101—I was instructed that Stravinsky
had indeed "stopped " after Th e Rite of Spring i n 1913 , that he had ru n dr y and
taken refug e i n mannerism and masquerade.
In recent years I had thought that with so much post-Rite Stravinsky having
become central repertoire this canard had died, but it seems there is still some
life in tha t toug h old duck . Browsin g in a bookstore , I too k a loo k at The
Picasso Papers by Rosalind Krauss, one of our most provocative art critics. Like
Stravinsky, Picasso has been accused of having no center, o f being like one of
those dressmakers ' wire forms , decorate d b y one costum e an d disguis e afte r
another, an d muc h o f Krauss's book appeare d to be accusatoria l in just tha t
spirit. I wondered whether I would find Stravinsk y in The Picasso Papers, an d
sure enough, ther e h e was , described a s writing in his so-called neoclassica l
works, a label that would account fo r a large number of important works from
Pulcinella i n 192 0 t o Th e Rake's Progress i n 1951 , "borrowe d musi c o f th e
pastiche," whic h Kraus s goes on to characterize as "fake modernism, which is
nothing but a betrayal of real modernist procedures. " She actuall y bases he r
severe judgmen t not o n he r ow n listening t o Stravinsky' s music but o n th e
strictures o f Theodo r Wiesengrun d Adorno , a passionatel y polemica l
Stravinsky-hater—and Schoenber g booster—a t a time, on e tha t now seems
remote indeed , whe n thos e tw o composer s wer e perceived , b y themselve s
among others, a s representing irreconcilable opposites .
Of course we find pastich e i n Stravinsky. Pulcinella is a delightful example,
one in which he changed th e rules about the relationship to another composer' s
works. It is a reworking of eighteenth-century pieces all believed a t the tim e to
be by Pergolesi, undertaken a s an exuberant declaration o f "how I would have
proceeded i f I ha d com e u p wit h thes e themes. " Stravinsky , moreover, was
absolutely right when he observed that Pulcinella was Pergolesi's best piece. In
1928, for a dance score, The Fairy's Kiss, Stravinsky enjoyed himself with similar
reinventions o f mostly obscure Tchaikovsky, a composer he loved deeply. Still
later h e adde d ne w strand s o f counterpoint t o Bach' s las t orga n work , th e
Canonic Variations on Von Himmel hoch ("with the Master's permission," says
the scor e in German), an d fashioned exquisit e pulcinellization s o f madrigals
and sacre d pieces by that sixteenth-century maverick, Carlo Gesualdo . An d
let u s not forge t tha t brilliant one-minut e firework , th e Greeting Prelude fo r
the eightiet h birthda y o f Pierr e Monteux , wh o ha d conducte d th e firs t
performances ofPetrushka an d The Rite of Spring. That spirited salute is a bouquet
of canons o n guess what tune .
Stravinsky always found th e absorptio n of preexisting material stimulating.
It als o got him into troubl e fro m tim e t o time . No t onl y had h e erroneously
assumed that Happy Birthday wa s a folk son g in th e publi c domain, bu t year s
earlier he had, under the same mistaken assumption, put into Petrushka a song
he had hear d a barrel-organ play outside his window. When, in 1944 , he led
the Bosto n Symphon y i n hi s new orchestration an d harmonizatio n o f "Th e
Star-Spangled Banner, " h e foun d himsel f in violation o f a Massachusetts law
forbidding "tampering with national property." He was arrested, and his Boston
Creators 13 1
Police Department mu g shot is surely one of the oddest among the thousand s
of images of this extraordinarily photogenic man .
The stranges t cas e o f Stravinsky's tampering with nationa l property , as it
turns out, is The Rite of Spring, a work that left as huge and indelible a mark on
twentieth-century music as the Beethoven Nint h and Tristan ha d o n tha t of
the nineteent h century. The Rite o f Spring—and isn' t i t remarkable how that
phrase and variants of it have entered th e English language?—stands as a symbol
of musical modernism an d it s rhythms can stil l jolt you. It is also full o f tunes:
there is plenty to hum and whistle as you leave the hall . Stravinsk y declared
that, while what the bassoon plays at the beginning o f the work is a folk song,
all the other melodies were his own. Not so. Most of them come from published
collections o f fol k music , includin g one s assemble d b y hi s teache r Rimsky -
Korsakov. It was the musicologist Richard Taruskin who blew Stravinsky's cover,
and hi s researche s culminate d i n a doubl e tome , Stravinsky an d th e Russian
Traditions, that is one of the most exciting books on music to have come out in
the las t half-century , an d fo r reason s tha t g o fa r beyon d th e issu e o f th e
composer's prevarications.
Through muc h of his life, in countless interviews, but more weightily in his
ghost-written Chronicles of M y life an d th e famous , also ghost-written, Harvard
lectures titled The Poetics of Music, Stravinsky followed a strong urge to explain,
justify, an d ever more to invent and reinvent himself . One think s o f Wagner, a
composer wit h a n eve n greate r penchan t fo r explanation , justification ,
invention, and reinvention, an d one, moreover, who did it without ghostwriters.
Stravinsky on Stravinsky can be as unreliable a s Wagner on Wagner.
Whatever Stravinsk y did and whatever h e pretended i n his long life a s an
inventor an d explorer, it allowed him to turn out masterpiece after masterpiec e
in incredible profusio n an d with incredible confidenc e an d joy. To have been
his contemporar y wa s a joyou s privilege . M y awarenes s o f hi m a s a livin g
composer who was still writing began with my first radi o hearing o f the 194 0
Symphony in C, a n experienc e a s puzzling in its way as The Rite had bee n in
Fantasia becaus e t o m y inexperienced ea r th e Symphon y seeme d t o soun d
nothing like The Rite.
My first actual sight of Stravinsky was at Carnegie Hall during my freshman
year a t Princeton . I t wa s Januar y 1946 , an d th e occasio n wa s th e firs t
performance o f th e Symphon y i n Thre e Movements , wit h Stravinsk y
conducting th e New York Philharmonic, fo r whom he had written it. The new
1945 version of the Firebird Suite was on th e progra m and, I believe, Scene s de
Ballet. Th e las t tim e I saw him wa s in th e summe r of 196 2 a t on e o f thos e
Lewisohn Stadiu m concert s tha t were for so many years such a precious an d
beloved source of summer refreshment for New Yorkers. That concert followe d
what was by then a familiar pattern : Rober t Craft le d most of the progra m (it
included Th e Rite o f Spring), an d the n Stravinsky came ou t t o conclud e th e
evening, mos t often and on that occasion with the 191 9 Firebird Suite (which ,
he said, he had conducted well over a thousand times, but that another thousan d
would not suffic e t o erase the memory of the terro r the firs t had caused him).
In those sixteen and a half years Stravinsky's standing had changed entirely .
I still remember how excited I was in 194 6 at the though t of seeing him in th e
flesh—I coul d hardl y have been more fevered with anticipatio n ha d i t been
Beethoven o r Brahms—an d ho w shocke d I wa s t o observ e tha t th e
Philharmonic's subscriptio n audience didn't seem to give much of a damn and
that th e applaus e for the ne w symphon y was pretty perfunctory. It wa s n o
better, or maybe even worse, at a Carnegie Hall concert by the Boston Symphony
a few years later when he conducted wha t in my years of working at program-
planning for symphony orchestras I used to call a suicide program, one without
a guarantee d hit . I believe the n we had th e Concert o i n D fo r Strings, th e
Piano Concert o (th e solois t wa s Stravinsky' s son Soulima , an d i f you eve r
wanted t o see genetics a t work .. .), and the new ballet score Orpheus.
In the 1940 s Stravinsky was at the nadir of his reputation. The legend of his
having long ago run dry had taken hold. Then, very late in the game he became
transmuted into Grand Old Man. The publicatio n in 195 7 of his first book of
conversations with Robert Craft ha d something t o do with that, an d so did a
few television documentaries. One exception to the astounding lack of interest
in Stravinsky in the 1940 s and 1950s , or even respect for him, was the balle t
audience. They—we, I should say—always loved him, and when he appeared
in the pit at the mosque that had so bizarrely become the New York City Center
to conduct th e fina l numbe r a t one of the Ne w York City Ballet's Stravinsky
evenings, there was an instant sense of festivity, and the cheering was loud and
long. Anothe r happ y memory : attendin g rehearsal s fo r tha t wonderfu l
company's firs t productio n o f Agon, with choreography of course by George
Balanchine. Leo n Barzin , th e company' s musi c director , conducted , bu t
Stravinsky was a watchful and swift-movin g presence i n th e auditorium . At
one point h e wanted a more emphatic portamento from th e viola s and, with a
wicked smile , h e leane d ove r th e edg e o f the orchestr a pi t an d said , "Lik e
Ormandy."
What was Stravinsky like as a conductor? He certainly understood how the
pieces wen t (h e rarel y conducted musi c othe r tha n hi s own) . H e di d no t
underline what did not need underlinin g an d even when he took interpretive
risks—I recall an unforgettable Symphony o f Psalms at Saint Thomas's Churc h
in New Yor k with a finale vastly slower than what th e scor e indicates—the
result never came across as eccentric, self-indulgent , or, in that very dangerous
page o f the Psalms , sentimental . Hi s best performance s had a n exhilaratin g
toughness an d ruggedness . Famously , he fusse d a lo t abou t wantin g n o
"interpretation," jus t get the note s an d th e rhythm s right. If, however, you go
to th e piece s h e recorde d mor e tha n once , an d th e Symphon y i n Thre e
Creators 13 3
Movements is a good example, you quickly hear tha t h e wa s anything othe r

than an unyielding, unchanging, mechanical conducto r of his own music.
Like Schoenberg and Copland, Stravinsky had one of the twentieth century's
great composer faces. He was imperturbably elegant when he walked onto the
stage, and even in his last years, when he used a cane an d had become tinie r
than ever, he was a courtly host to his audience. When he turned to face the
orchestra he hunched over , sank his head int o th e scor e as though the note s
even of Firebird were startling news to him, and conducte d wit h symmetrical
motions of both arms. No question, his technique was limited, and he knew it.
There is a rehearsal tape where at a transition with a difficult mete r change h e
coolly tells the orchestra , "I'm sorry, I cannot hel p you here." With no othe r
conductor was it so hard t o figure ou t ho w what you heard was somehow th e
result of the awkward and constricted performance you saw. Still, especially in
his later years, his presence could impart magic to an occasion. There was that
special crash of applause when h e appeare d in th e door , and thos e evening s
were events.
Robert Shaw liked to remind u s that creatio n did not sto p after th e Sixt h
Day and that th e powe r to create is one of the great gifts granted us as human
beings. Igo r Stravinsky's immense, light-shedding , ear-stretching , joy-giving
legacy was perhaps the most potent evidenc e i n the sa d twentieth centur y of
the human creative gift .
—M.S.
III.
THE RECENT SCENE
A Visit with Lou Harrison
hat's an awfully damn East Coast thin g t o say!" That scornful remark
T was addressed to me by the compose r and writer Charles Shere . I no

longer remembe r what terribl e thin g I had sai d that elicite d Shere' s
words. I do remember tha t h e spok e the m a t Tanglewoo d i n th e summe r of
1974 at a workshop on music criticism and that it came as a shock to me that
there coul d be an "East Coast thin g t o say" or, by obvious inference, a "West
Coast thing. " I was the Bosto n Globe' s music critic then , and we on th e East
Coast though t o f our "thing" as central an d normative, an d of everything else
as eccentric an d peripheral .
To Michael Tilson Thomas, musi c director of the San Francisco Symphony
since 1995 , one of the mos t significant things abou t that orchestra is that it is
in San Francisco , "o n th e Pacifi c and facin g Asia, [an d thus ] geographicall y
and sociologicall y th e righ t plac e t o be for the twenty-firs t century. " On e o f
MTT's initia l plan s fo r th e Sa n Francisc o Symphon y wa s t o celebrat e th e
orchestra's Pacificness, so to speak. That is one reason for special attention paid
to Lou Harrison, a figure so lively and forward-looking that the word "senior" sat
oddly upon him, although, a t almost eighty, he can be said to have earned it .
Lou Harrison is very much a West Coast phenomenon. T o visit him, as I did
in the summer of 1995, at the house in Aptos where he lived with his partner,
the instrument-builde r Willia m Colvig , wa s firs t o f al l t o b e reminde d wh y
some people love t o live in California. (Bil l Colvig died i n 2000 at th e ag e of
82; Harrison, busy to the last, died in February 2003 while on the road.) In his
directions t o the house , Harrison told me to look for "a jazzy-looking roof"—
and it does indeed presen t a striking ballet of planes and angles—an d for the
tallest chimney in sight. The house is on what he called th e thir d story above
sea level, with just the sort of spectacular view of the Pacific that this suggests,
but Lou immediately added that the way the world is going it might well be the
second story before long. When I visited in August, he and Bill Colvig had not
yet seen Waterworld, th e Kevi n Costner fil m abou t a future plague d with th e
effects o f global warming, but i t was definitely on the agenda .
I want to return to that scene in 1995. Like his music, Lou seems so much a
part of the present . Befor e w e settle i n th e lus h garden to talk , Lou and Bill
offer a quick tou r o f the house , wher e th e beautiful , th e practical , an d th e
enchantingly kitsch y cohabit harmoniousl y and happily. Just to the lef t of the
main entranc e i s the subtl y lit gamela n room—it s officia l nam e i s the Ive s
Room—its ampl e floo r are a covere d wit h bronze , iron , wood , an d bambo o
instruments, all built by Bill. A group of students and practitioners of all ages,
most associated with the University of California at Santa Cruz, and including
Lou himself, meets there regularly to study and practice. But this is California
at its best, an open world, and so the gamelan shares space with a clavichord,
several reed organs, and a beautifully carved, brown 1871 Steinway grand piano
that was the favorite West Coast instrumen t o f the Australian composer and
pianist Perc y Grainge r (1882-1961) , a forward-lookin g figure whos e
disinclination to believe tha t wonderful music happened onl y in Europe and
was produced only by white men made him highly simpatico to Lou. One o f the
most conspicuous objects in the room , and surely the mos t startling, is a life-
size cutout of Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard. It is not tha t Lou and Bill are
Trekkies; rather, the acto r has been assigned this central position in honor of
his rol e i n th e ne w Pau l Rudnick/Christophe r Ashle y movi e Jeffrey, whic h
focuses o n gay relationships in the shadow of AIDS.
In th e garden , Lo u shows me a fin e growt h of English roses , these bein g
raised not onl y for their look s but t o ensure a supply of rose hips for rose-hip
tea and jam. Off in the background is a cutout of a comfortably 1940s-lookin g
automobile by the sculptor Mark Bulwinkle. Lou points to the open-mouthe d
figure in the back seat: "That's me, telling Bill how to drive." He laughs, as he
does often . Hi s face , white-bearded , i s open an d serious , th e eye s almos t
alarmingly scrutinous, but when he is amused and goes into his laugh mode, it
happens withou t warnin g or modulation , th e ja w drops like tha t o f an old -
fashioned nutcracker, and the whole structure is realigned in a smile of totally
enveloping warmth.
I as k Lo u abou t th e Eas t Coast/Wes t Coas t Atlantic/Pacifi c thing . Hi s
immediate response is that one of the salient difference s i s the interest on th e
part of West Coast composer s in new instruments an d new tunings—new t o
The Recent Scene 13 9
traditional European-base d music, that is : "None o f us can resis t making or

incorporating ne w instruments. " Jus t th e thre e piece s tha t appea r on Sa n
Francisco Symphony programs this season include ranch triangles, sleighbells,
big bells made from large, gassed-out oxygen tanks that are struck with baseball
bats, sweet bell tree, th e deep , bossed gong of the Javanese gamelan, spoons,
tackpiano, iron pipes, brake drums, elephant bells , and tongued teponaztl i (a
Mexican slit drum); the Varied Trio played on the orchestra' s chamber music
series last season called for tuned rice bowls and bakers' pans. Among his allies
in this kind o f exploring of colors and textures , Lou mentions Henr y Cowell ,
one o f the grea t California pioneers i n the firs t hal f of the twentiet h centur y
and one of own his chief mentors, Janice Giteck, Morgan Powell, and of course
Harry Partch , on e o f the boldes t o f all the explorers , inventor o f many new
instruments (amon g them seventy-two-strin g kitharas, boos, cloud-chamber
bowls, and blow-boys), and th e proponen t o f a forty-three-note scale .
Lou Harrison was born in Portland, Oregon, i n 1917 , but h e was raised in
San Francisco, where his family move d when he was nine. His father was the
second Harrison in whom his mother had a romantic interest, and his business
was "automobile s an d stuff, " an d h e wa s for a time th e proprieto r of one o f
those gran d palace s o n Va n Ness Avenu e i n Sa n Francisco . H e wa s not a
musician himself, but he got great pleasure from music, his favorite performe r
being th e banj o virtuos o Eddi e Peabody . Lou' s mothe r ha d "on e o f thos e
romantic Victoria n inheritances, " whic h cam e i n handy o n thos e occasion s
when he r husban d wandere d int o financiall y uncertain waters , such a s th e
establishment o f a factory fo r the productio n of Chinese jugs. She was a good
pianist and her sister Lounette was a fine violinist. The so n and heir, for some
reason expected to be a daughter, was to have been named for Aunt Lounette,
"but when the y discovered I had ornaments the y cut of f the 'nette.'"
In San Francisco, Lou studied Gregorian chant at Mission Dolores, went to
dancing clas s where h e an d hi s brother dutifull y learne d t o maneuve r thei r
way through waltzes, schottisches, an d polkas, and listened with curiosity and
delight to whatever music came out of the Chinese and Japanese communities.
It was a varied die t tha t le d naturally to a life i n which, alon g with being a
prolific composer, Lou has at different time s been a florist, record clerk, poet,
dancer ("whe n I was in shap e acceptable") , musi c an d danc e critic , musi c
copyist, and playwright. Versatility and flexibility have always been among his
outstanding attributes, and now there seem to be no barriers of geography and
history that stand between Lou Harrison and the world's music.
In 1934 , Lo u became a student o f Henry Cowell , which wa s probably the
single most critical decision of his musical life, and although the formal teacher-
pupil relationship went on for only one year, the deep friendship endured until
Cowell's death in 1965. He remembers with special gratitude a course on what
later cam e t o be calle d "worl d music" that Cowel l taugh t fo r the extensio n
division o f the Universit y of California a t Sa n Francisco . (Havin g falle n o n

hard time s in 1940 , Cowell worked for a time as secretary to Percy Grainger,
and i t wa s throug h th e goo d office s o f Cowell's wido w tha t th e Grainge r
Steinway came to its present home in the gamelan room at Aptos.)
At Cowell's suggestion, Lou went to Los Angeles t o work with Schoenberg .
It is hard t o imagine two composers more different tha n Arnold Schoenber g
and Lou Harrison, but Schoenber g was not the rigi d sort of a musician he is
often mad e ou t t o be—h e had , fo r example , invite d Cowel l t o pla y fo r his
composition class in Berlin in the 1920s—an d the relationship, thoug h brief ,
was thoroughly cordial. Lou remembers Schoenberg fondly: "He was very open
and he tookôw seriously." The class was set up as a kind of Platonic symposium,
"though we didn't drink. Schoenberg constantly moved me, and all his students,
in the direction of simplicity—bring out only the salient; and when he dismissed
me, he urged me above all to study Mozart." Lou notes extraordinary similarities
between what he was taught about orchestration b y Schoenberg an d later by
Virgil Thomson, anothe r pair of composers who could hardly be more different.
Among hi s fello w students , Lo u particularl y remembers th e teenag e Dik a
Newlin, who went on to write one of the first important books in English about
Schoenberg, and the photographer Harold Halma, "author of the famous picture
of Truman Capote e n odalisque."
After Lo s Angeles, Cowell, as Lou puts it, "spread me around." He got him
jobs, the firs t of them as accompanist for Tina Flade's modern dance classes at
Mills College; durin g this associatio n h e becam e exper t in Labanotation for
dance. It was also during this period that he had his first contact wit h the San
Francisco Symphony : Pierr e Monteu x conducte d hi s Prelud e t o Th e Trojan
Women o f Euripides (from incidental musi c written for a production at Mills),
not o n a subscriptio n concert , bu t o n on e o f the popula r Standar d Hou r
broadcasts. "He als o encouraged what became m y Elegiac Symphony" (begu n
in 1941 , completed i n 1975) . Monteux regrette d not feelin g able to do more
for th e gifte d an d original young composer: "If this were P a r i s . . ." he sighed.
In the 1940s , Lou Harrison had his East Coast period. Again through Cowell,
he had met Virgil Thomson, tha t fascinating amalgam of Kansas City and th e
7th Arrondissement , wh o ha d move d bac k t o Americ a afte r man y years in
Europe t o become th e Herald-Tribune's musi c critic. No t onl y did Thomso n
himself, on his best nights, spark true glory years in the history of music criticism
in America, bu t h e engage d younger writers who also added t o th e luste r of
the Tribune's art s pages. Lou wa s on e o f these , a s were Paul Bowles, Elliott
Carter, Edwi n Denby , Arthu r Berger , B. H. Haggin , Joh n Cage , Willia m
Flanagan, an d Pegg y Glanville-Hicks. At th e sam e time, Lo u contributed t o
that invaluable journal Modem Music, served as editor for New Music Editions,
and conducted. I t was he who, in 1947 , led the firs t complete performance of
a symphony by Charles Ives—No. 3, a work then thirty-eight years old. It was
at that memorable concert i n the tiny Carnegie Recital Hall (no w Weill Hall)
that I firs t lai d eye s on Lo u Harrison; th e nex t tim e wa s in Rom e i n 195 4

when, a t a n in part dauntingly severe new-music festival, th e twenty-seven -
year-old Leontyn e Pric e san g his enchanting Rapunzel. Th e Ive s connection
continued: Lo u became one of the musicians involved in preparing Ives's often
chaotic manuscripts for publication and performance, and himself became one
of the heir s of the Ive s estate, somethin g tha t allowed him to do much quie t
good in the music world. It also made possible the establishment of the gamelan
in hi s house, an d henc e th e namin g o f the roo m where i t i s housed fo r th e
great American composer.
Another vitally essential mentor—along with Cowell, John Cage (to whom
he was also bound i n close friendship) , Thomson, an d th e Korea n musician
Lee Hye-Ku—has been his own Javanese gamelan teacher, Pak Chokro. Lo u
says of him: "There's nothing you could hope to surprise him with. Like Henry
Cowell, he's all for mixing it up and having a good time." That double encomium
says it all.
When I visited Lou Harrison in August, it was in the middle of the amazing
Cabrillo Festival , on e devote d primaril y to twentieth-centur y musi c an d
commanding a n audienc e o f unsurpasse d loyalty and enthusiasm . Cabrillo ,
too, is one of Lou's gifts to the music world. He founded the festival at Cabrillo
College in Aptos in 1963 together with the bassoonist, conductor, and scholar
Robert Hughe s an d Te d Teows of the Cabrill o Colleg e faculty . A t Cabrillo ,
Lou Harrison is royalty. The applaus e was immense when h e an d Bil l Colvig
walked onto the stage of the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium to be the narrators
for a performance of Lou's dance scor e Th e Marriage a t th e Eiffel Tower, an d
when th e tw o sat in th e audience , ther e wa s an unceasin g strea m of visitors
and friends wh o came to greet them .
Lou Harrison loved it when people cared about his music, and he made no
bones about that. At the same time, he noted ruefull y that the beautiful house
at the top of Aptos had virtually become a business office where the telephon e
answering machine an d the fax were constantly engaged. He and Bill harbored
plans fo r th e purchas e o f a rea l hideaway . One o f hi s curren t project s was
taking weekly classes in American Sign Language. That was something he had
gotten int o becaus e o f a dea r frien d wh o wa s profoundl y deaf, bu t Lo u
commented tha t on e o f th e thing s h e mos t treasure d abou t thi s cours e of
learning was that it guaranteed him five hours of silence eac h week.
Invitations t o concerts , schools , conferences , an d symposi a came i n
constantly, an d s o did requests for new compositions. At th e hea d o f the lis t
was one from th e choreographer and dancer Mark Morris. Lou remarked that
he ha d recentl y bough t a set o f CDs o f the Beethove n strin g quartets . H e
shook his head, laughed the Lou Harrison laugh, and said, "Maybe I'll actually
have tim e to listen t o one or two before I die." Buson i said that only he who
looks ahead i s truly happy. I saw that in action a t the hillto p in Aptos.
—M.S.
George Perle:
Composing a Way of Life
ad yo u been th e kin d o f clairvoyant who utter s pronouncement s
H over childre n a s they trad e th e wom b for daylight, you could no t

have predicte d tha t th e chil d bor n i n Bayonne , Ne w Jersey, o n 6
May 1915 , an d named George Perle, would grow up making music: making it
in the most literal way, by putting notes down on paper, but als o by discerning
its inner grammar, the structural principles it demanded since th e breakdown
of th e tona l languag e tha t Wester n composer s had spoke n fo r the las t tw o
hundred years . The dee p currents of the music , the soul-piercin g insights of
the discoveries—the y hav e bee n th e adventur e o f a lifetim e for this so n of
Russian immigrants, a man whose father was a housepainter and whose mother
was a housewife; a man who could not, but for the kind of brain that makes its
own destiny, be doing what he is doing today.
George Perle' s adventur e began in Chicago, wher e the famil y had move d
shortly after Georg e was born. From the earl y gauze of memory he recalls th e
first soun d i n his ears, Yiddish; short winter afternoon s when h e would wait
with his mother in the front yard for the mail, for news from Russia—where an
influenza epidemi c and political turmoil made relatives more uncertain tha n
ever of what the next day would hold. From abroad, too, came a newly arrived
older cousin, Esther, who was to live with th e famil y an d fo r whom George's
father had saved enough to buy a piano. One day, when George was six, Esther
played th e F-mino r Etude from Chopin' s Trois Nouvelles Etudes. It i s the firs t
piece of music he recalls hearing, and almost seventy years later, he wrote that
the experience "was so intense, s o startling, as to induce a traumatic change of
consciousness." H e also knew—immediately—that he wanted to compose.
It is Octobe r 1990 , shortl y afte r publicatio n of Perle' s fourt h book , The
Listening Composer, and soon after he had begun the second season of his three-
year appointmen t a s the Sa n Francisc o Symphony' s composer-in-residence .
He i s sitting no w in hi s studio on th e elevent h floo r o f Opera Plaz a in Sa n
Francisco, three blocks north of Davies Symphony Hall. He and his wife, pianist
Shirley Rhoads , hav e jus t move d her e fro m acros s town—thei r full-tim e
residence i s in New Yor k City, where Perl e has been based for thirty years—
and thi s roo m i s still waiting fo r a pian o an d a fe w more chairs . A des k is
covered with sheets of music—he is orchestrating his Sinfonietta II, due for its
world premier e b y the Sa n Francisc o Symphon y in February . A Macintos h
computer, the grea t eliminator o f drudgery that he use s for tasks as various as
writing books and summoning complete array s of chord relationships , drone s
an incantation to technology , it s screen glowin g ocean-gray. A potte d whit e
anthurium is in the corne r nex t t o the balcony doors, overlooking Van Ness
Avenue an d a cityscape formed b y the Ban k of America building , a recently
opened Marriot t hotel that has appalled local architecture critics , an d othe r
symbols with which corporate America has defined the urba n skyline. George
Perle is a long way from tha t day in 192 1 when th e Chopin entered hi s mind,
but th e memor y is as vivid as the soun d of his own music.
"Nobody tol d m e wha t compositio n was . I jus t kne w tha t tha t wa s my
connection with music, not sitting there playin g the piano." He has the voice
of a tough guy, rough-grained, and the accen t i s equal parts Chicago an d New
York. The deliver y is unhesitating, th e words we 11-chosen. "I didn't know where
this musi c came from . Ye t when I heard tha t firs t piec e I identified with th e
source of the music , and not wit h my cousin's playing."
The "sourc e of that music" was the person who conceived i t and translated
the conception to the page. "I didn't know what that meant. I realized it only
little by little." And without any help from Esther, who never understood what
her youn g pupil was about, and whos e teaching day s ended becaus e of what
George's father learned when he sat in on a lesson: that his son's mistakes were
answered by a wooden ruler cracking across his knuckles. "She fel t that all the
music worth knowing had alread y been written. I was stupefied b y my lack of
communication wit h her."
And frustrated . Bu t childhood ca n be a frustrating proposition in any case,
and h e als o remember s mor e typica l aspirations—day s whe n h e imagine d
himself sliding down the fire-pole and clinging to Hook and Ladder No. 1 as it
leaned int o a turn. Always, though, h e knew that any dream but composin g
was boun d t o remai n fantasy . An d the n on e day—h e think s h e wa s about
seven—he scribbled a few bars he wanted t o present a s a gift t o a teacher a t
school. H e showed his mother wha t he had written. She had no idea what it
was, but her response, he believes, made all the difference, an d has ever since.
It was simply this: "George , that's wonderful! "
"I could go to my mother. She had complet e faith in whatever I wanted t o
do. She ha d thi s ide a tha t th e mos t importan t thin g i n th e worl d was your
inner life . I can't remember once when she asked me how much money I made.
Isn't tha t extraordinary ? (It wa s alway s m y father's firs t question! ) I didn' t
realize until much later—when I ran into peopl e who didn't kno w what the y
wanted t o do, or who were scared of it or something—what a special piece of
luck I'd had i n having a mother lik e this, an d the exten t t o which tha t early
experience conditione d al l the res t of my life, right up to this moment. "
He is talking about self-confidence, somethin g h e has had mor e than one
occasion t o fal l back on. Becaus e for most of his life , Georg e Perl e has bee n
trying to do something that only one other composer in the twentieth century—
Arnold Schoenberg—tried to do: lay down a system of composition that would
bring a common language back to music. If this is your aspiration, you are bound
to run into two kinds of people among your colleagues, those who will hail you as
a master, and thos e wh o will brand you as conceited (a t best) o r a lunatic (a t
worst). George Perle has been called everything between those extremes.
In 1937 , Perle first saw the score of Alban Berg's Lyric Suite. He picked it up
himself. No one would have encouraged him to look at this music, for interest
in the wor k of Schoenberg, Berg , and Webern was in eclipse. The encounte r
with the Lyric Suite had tw o consequences. On e i s easy to describe. It led him
to studies of Berg's music, studies of such completeness and depth that h e has
become recognized as the world's leading authority on the composer. The other
consequence i s more complicated. Th e Lyric Suite led Perle into th e wor k of
the Secon d Viennes e School , an d the n almos t immediatel y int o a n
understanding tha t Schoenberg' s theorie s o f atonality required modification.
That modification has been the Polar Star of Perle's professional life, influencing
everything he does , a goal that h e ha s approache d graduall y at times , more
quickly at others. He has given his formulated concepts a name that sounds at
first like a contradiction i n terms but which in fact holds the key to his search
for unit y an d comprehensiveness , hi s attemp t t o reshap e th e strand s o f a
fragmented ar t int o th e stron g and comel y whole i t once was : "Twelve-tone
Tonality." This i s a still-evolving system of compositional rules and guideline s
Perle has deduced over the years: by writing music, certainly, but also by analyzing
the work of Schoenberg, Berg , Webern, Bartok, Stravinsky, Scriabin, Debussy:
all in an attempt to give composers today the kinds of tools available to the great
tonal composers—Bach , Mozart , Haydn, Beethoven , Schubert , Brahms—a n
attempt t o embrac e th e histor y of the ar t i n a n all-encompassin g way and t o
compose a music that does not break with, but rather continues the great tradition
of Western music that grew out of the Renaissance. By 1941, Perle had begun to
organize his ideas about twelve-tone tonality: The System, he calls it.
"In the tona l system, you have very basic structural principles. You can say
about two different piece s that they'r e in the same key. You can as k if a note is
a leadin g tone , a passing tone, a structural tone. Thes e ar e th e thing s tha t
define tonality. But already in the nineteenth century, we encounter details —
in Chopin, i n Liszt, for example—that call the structural basis of tonality int o
question. And no t t o recognize that we have a twelve-tone scale is to pretend
that th e histor y of music since Schuber t neve r happened . Bu t I think music
should be able to do what it has always done. I think i t should be coherent. I
think it should have cadences an d phrases. A lot of contemporary music is like
finger-painting—an impressionistic thing that makes no serious sense to me. I
think people have forgotten what music is supposed to do.
"For me, the tona l languag e is something miraculous . It has structure and
coherence. I t is a language. I felt from the beginning tha t it was of unbelievable
interest that you could take a chord and follow it with another chord , and that
there wa s a wa y to d o thi s an d mak e a progression—the y weren' t jus t tw o
chords nex t t o eac h other . Yo u could mak e choice s i n goin g fro m th e firs t
chord t o the second. Eac h one said something different—don't as k me what.
But I knew that going from a C-major chor d to an A-minor chord was not th e
same thing a s going from a C-major chord t o an F-major chord . And anybody
can hear this! You don't need to be a musician. I don't want simply to eliminate
all this an d g o around finger-painting . I think I have a language—deducible
from everythin g that ha s happened i n music."
Though Schoenber g i s one o f Perle's heroes (" I think h e wa s a very great
man"), Perle believes Schoenberg's work was unfinished. "He was looking for a
language. And h e mad e a step towar d it i n th e twelve-ton e system . But h e
didn't g o far enough. Whe n th e interna l combustio n engin e wa s invented ,
they stuck it in a carriage. And i t took a while before the y figured ou t tha t i t
needed a different suspensio n system, different wheels , that i t didn't hav e t o
look like a buggy. Schoenberg's twelve-ton e system was like that . H e too k a
terribly bold step. But his system had to be modified again. And somebod y had
to come in from th e outside to do it."
Perle is speaking from experience. Hi s own system of twelve-tone tonalit y
underwent what he calls an "explosive" development when a former student ,
Paul Lansky, approached it from th e outside and posed questions whose effec t
was to help Perle complete various puzzles whose solutions had eluded him for
years. Perle' s ne w understandin g o f his ow n syste m led t o hi s secon d book ,
Twelve-tone Tonality. I t also led to his understanding other music in a new way.
He now perceived connections betwee n Bartok and Schoenberg—connections
"infinitely mor e important tha n the stylistic features tha t separate d them"—
and his own work, and he arrived at a broad conception o f twelve-tone music
that wen t wel l beyon d Schoenberg' s system , even encompassin g Debussy,
Scriabin, an d Stravinsky , going back t o development s a s early as some tha t
appear in Rimsky-Korsakov's Cocf d'or Suite. "The System" today is very different
from wha t i t wa s in 1941 - "An d whe n i t get s alon g furthe r i t ma y look very
different fro m th e way it looks now. It is just the beginnin g o f a language. But
for me, it provides a total structure with which I can think." This language, he
believes, i s also what make s his musi c accessible t o a n audienc e o f musical
sophisticates and novices alike .
"I don't thin k directl y about an audience when I'm composing. I hear what
I'm doing and decide whether what I'm writing is effective an d exciting. But I
decide for myself. I think it has always been like this. When Beethoven started
his Fifth Symphony da-da-da-DA, nobody had ever done that before. It had a
certain impac t on him . H e wa s his own audience . Everyon e else eventuall y
becomes the audience .
"There's thi s mystiqu e tha t there' s a n elit e o f specialist s fo r who m
contemporary music is written. I don't writ e up or down to anybody. I'm just
doing what composers have always done. Some people have written about me
as though I were a composer of inaccessible music." No doubt they were jumping
to conclusions , extrapolatin g fro m th e difficult y o f Perle' s firs t book , Serial
Composition and Atonality—those subject s cannot b e written about in an easy
way—that an explicator of such stuff must himself write a tuneless, uncrackable
code. "Bu t m y experience ha s bee n tha t peopl e who listen t o m y music are
amazed by how accessible they find it. "
When Perle's String Quartet No . 8 , Windows o f Order, had it s premiere in
New Yor k i n 1989 , a criti c fo r one o f that city' s majo r papers , a ma n wh o
loathes twelve-ton e music , raved abou t the ne w piece—despite the fact , h e
suggested, that it had been written according to some sort of system. "Why didn't
he consider the possibility that the music makes sense because of what I'm doing?
Which is the case . I have a language that permit s progression, and cadences ,
and keys. I can think i n a systematic way about music. That's wha t you can do
when you have a language—as with Mozart, Brahms, Palestrina, Schubert .
"I can do what a tonal composer can do. I can look at what I have and say,
'I ca n d o thi s agai n i n anothe r mode . I ca n d o somethin g t o eac h o f thes e
intervals that will transform it in an ordered way, and then I can transpose it so
that I'l l be in anothe r ke y as well as in anothe r mode . And i f I go through so
many progressions, I'll get back t o where I was at th e beginning.' " He grow s
increasingly impassioned. "Now, that is not any different fro m what Beethoven
did whe n h e composed , o r Mozart, or Chopin. They ha d a system. Havin g a
system doesn't mean you're composing according to some abstract formula. It
means just the opposite. I can go to my music and tell you what the connection
is between the chord that ends one movement and the chord that ends another.
And Beethove n coul d hav e tol d yo u th e sam e abou t hi s music. Any tona l
composer coul d hav e tol d you . Composers toda y have forgotten abou t thos e
things. Th e composer s at th e beginnin g o f the twentiet h century—Debuss y
and Stravinsky and Scriabin, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, even Hindemith:
They knew what music was supposed t o b e like. An d the y too k thes e thing s
seriously, and they came up with answers."
His own search for answers has often led him to reassess earlier works as he
looks back on them from ever-new vantage points of further development . H e
has withdrawn much music that no longer satisfies him . "But a composer can
make mistakes about such things." When pianist Michael Boriskin asked him
for some of his music for a recording of American piano works he was planning—
it turne d int o a n all-Perl e collection—Perl e cam e acros s two pieces h e ha d
withdrawn, the Suit e in C (o f 1970) and th e Fantasy-Variation s (of 1971). "I
didn't understan d the m an y more. Well, Michae l learne d the m an d they'r e
wonderful. The development that had happened in my work had been so great
that I didn't even kno w how to analyz e the differenc e betwee n thos e piece s
and what I was currently doing. I learned tha t that didn't tak e anything awa y
from thei r integrity. "
Another piano work, the Pantomime, Interlude, an d Fugue, which h e wrote
in 1937 , had it s premiere forty year s after i t was composed. This early piece,
which reveals Perle's kinship with those who put a premium on wit, composers
like Haydn and Prokofiev, was introduced t o the world by—and thanks to the
persuasive powers of—Shirley Rhoads , his wife sinc e 198 1 and a close frien d
since 1946 . Herself a fine and perceptive musician, she is one of the few people
whose judgment and criticism s he trust s completely, and sh e is also the onl y
one allowed to hear works in progress.
Perle admits that his belief in The Syste m has to some extent isolate d him,
though it may be an exaggeration to call someone an outsider after he has won
the Pulitzer Prize, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and a MacArthur Foundatio n
"genius award, " and wh o ha s ha d hi s musi c playe d an d recorde d b y majo r
orchestras, chambe r ensembles , an d soloists . H e write s goo d music , an d
audiences genuinely like his work. One nee d onl y listen to a piece such as the
Sinfonietta I to hear that this was not written in the antiseptic environment of
the academy . It i s unafraid t o laugh , or make jokes. (Footnote : W e owe th e
Sinfonietta I to Shirley, whose horror at learning that her husband had throw n
out wha t she called "tha t beautiful stuf f yo u started the othe r day " made him
retrieve the discarded pages and continue work on the piece.) The Sinfonietta I
is the rea l thing. I t ought to be. Music is more than George Perle's job. It is a
love and a passion, a sweetly caring mistress who has recompensed his attentions
by granting him what seems to be the secre t of endless youth. To see George
Perle at seventy-five, and to hear him speak, is to feel yourself in the presenc e
of a man half his age. He talks about music old and new with equal enthusiasm.
He revere s Berg of course, but als o Stravinsky. "Beethoven I never liste n t o
when I' m composing—it' s to o intimidating. " H e laughs . "Yo u listen t o
Beethoven i f you want to stop writing music.
"Haydn i s a composer's composer. He take s suc h pleasur e in what music

can do, and the fun you can have in the way you modulate, in having a couple
of extr a bars where yo u don't expect them , i n fals e recapitulations . H e jus t
enjoys doin g thes e things . It's no t a questio n o f an y message . It's a wa y of
taking pleasure in being alive. "
Being alive, afte r all , is what composin g is all about, th e idea s welling up
from a source as mysterious as creation. Georg e Perle keeps odd hours , rising
at four in the morning to begin work, catching up on rest with naps throughout
the day . The genesi s of his musical ideas is a secret even from himself , though
he recall s what sparke d some of them. H e wen t t o slee p on e nigh t i n 198 1
after reading about the imposition of martial law in Poland. He awoke thinking
first o f the Solidarit y movement, the n made a mental lea p t o Chopin, the n
heard the first phrase of what would become the second of his Six New Etudes.
He leape d ou t o f bed, went t o th e piano , an d wrot e six bars of music. Later
that morning he continued an d reached th e end of the first page. Then he got
stuck. Fo r fiv e year s h e staye d stuc k wit h thi s piec e whil e h e bega n an d
completed others. One day , as suddenly as the Etude had come into being, th e
block to its continuation vanished , an d it was finished.
Perle i s a constant worker . In th e month s jus t afte r ou r conversation , h e
completed th e Sinfoniett a I I an d th e Firs t Piano Concert o withi n week s of
each other. He was planning other music—a second piano concerto, a n overture
for larg e orchestra for Carnegie Hall' s centennia l season, a symphony for th e
New Yor k Philharmonic . H e wa s revising books an d writin g articles. I n th e
forefront o f his mind wa s The System . It i s in th e forefron t o f his mind now.
The System: that attempt to put the entire realm of music on a firm theoretica l
and structural basis, to do for composers what one o f his literary idols, Henry
James, did for writers when, a s Leon Edel says, he "pu t the hous e of fiction in
order." If Perle has not achieved out-and-out popularity—and he would be the
first t o tell you that he is not tryin g to win a popularity contest—one reason is
that he disdains simple answers and easy solutions. There again, he is like James—
who was also somewhat of an outsider in his time, though those who knew better
also recognized the staggering importance of his work to those who write fiction.
And, lik e James, Perle believes in himself, through and through .
"I never asked myself how many other peopl e were doing what I was doing.
I jus t mad e m y own judgment, and I never questione d it . Eve n i f it mean t
people weren't interested in my music. I never thought about that. Of course I
felt bad about the fact that I wasn't getting performances and that other people
were more successful than I was. But I did what I was supposed to do. And I'v e
often thought : Mayb e it all has been because, after on e of my cousin Esther's
piano lessons, I went t o my mother an d she made me feel that, i f I wanted t o
write music, that was just fine. I think it must have just settled with me at that
point. And it's been there eve r since. "
—L.R.
A Quintet for American Music
w*rilngaprogamnote nWilamSchuman'sViolnCocertofr
riting a program note on William Schuman's Violin Concerto for
some concert s i n Novembe r 1992 , I had , fo r th e firs t time , t o
include th e dat e of his death, 1 5 February 1992. That brought to
mind other recent losses—Virgil Thomson, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland ,
John Cage. They wer e all more than just composers. All were possessed by a
lust, throug h som e form o f teaching, t o chang e th e fac e o f American music ,
and the y all left a mark. And the y were, all five—this is dangerous because so
hard to define—so essentially American .
Thomson, bor n in 1896, was the oldest and the first to go (on 30 September
1989). He spent long and crucial years in Europe, which mad e him a curious
mixture o f worldly Parisian an d Kansa s City organist . I a m sur e it annoye d
him, a s it woul d any composer, that h e wa s better know n a s a writer about
music than as someone who invented music . He certainly thought o f himself
as a composer first.
He was confident with and about words: "I like my book better than yours,"
he wrot e to Copland , comparin g his own Th e State o f Music wit h Copland' s
What to Listen for in Music. He was our best critic, no contest ; in literary skill
he was up there with Berlioz and Shaw. For him, clarity was the key to impact,
and impact was everything. When he taught criticism classes, he never deal t
with musical questions, concentrating instea d on good habits of precision and
proper usage . None wh o survive d his classes ha s eve r writte n "prestigious "
again (unles s of course the subjec t was juggling or legerdemain).
When I started out a t Princeton a s a college freshman, one of my first act s

was to subscribe to the New York Herald-Tribune, whos e music critic Thomso n
had bee n sinc e 1940 . (H e staye d unti l 1954- ) Ho w I knew t o d o tha t I n o
longer remember for certain, but it probably came about because B. H. Haggin,
then the critic of Th e Nation and someone I read hungrily, had said good things
about him. At th e stil l missed and lamented Trib Thomso n wa s a desperately
needed antidot e t o the pompous and often tin-eared Olin Downes at the Times.
Thomson was vivid in praise, deft in blame. He could hit home with a sudden
dart o f colloquialism—"The Martin u Symphon y i s a beaut"—o r se t Ernes t
Ansermet befor e ou r eye s i n metapho r a t onc e charmin g an d exact : "I n
appearance a simple professor, touche d u p perhaps toward both Agamemno n
and th e Kin g of Clubs, h e i s at onc e a sage, a captain, an d a prince. Wit h
wisdom, firmness, and grace he rules his domain." Bu t the revie w of a Heifetz
recital was headed "Silk-Underwea r Music, " and he described ho w a concer t
by the duo-pianist s Luboshutz and Nemenoff included th e "masquerad e . . .
[representing] a world-famous two-piano team being nice about modern music
. . . false note s bein g throw n in to show that the piece probabl y wasn't worth
learning completely. "
Did h e mak e sense ? Not always . He spu n theorie s tha t wer e to o loosel y
rooted in the soil of real life. He rode hobbyhorses to exhaustion—for example,
about French music and French performance style. He was not shy about using
his power at the Herald-Tribune t o the advantag e of his situation as composer.
He was a notorious sleeper at concerts. Samuel Barber, present at a conversation
between Thomso n an d Eugene Ormandy, wrote that "the amoun t o f musical
politics shamelessl y exchanged betwee n thes e tw o made on e trembl e fo r th e
American musica l world." Most of the time , we gladly put u p with al l that for
the sake of the best of his perception and wit, and Thomson's writings—collected
reviews, published correspondence, hi s autobiography—will long yield pleasure.
In person, he was a teller of treasurable tales, often1 followed by the carefull y
enunciated admonition : "O f course, if you use this I shall sue you for One Hun
Dred Thou Sand DOLLARS. " Hi s voic e wa s lik e th e bes t butter , bu t wit h
something gritt y and dangerou s ground into it. Speaking of butter, I think of
Virgil often because it was he who taught m e that when scramblin g eggs you
should put half your quota of salt into the mixture before cooking an d half on
top just before eating: th e distinctio n betwee n sal t inside an d outsid e is real
and worth preserving.
And Virgil Thomson th e composer? Looking at the six-column work list in
Grove, I am appalled at my ignorance. Som e strong impressions remain. If the
critic and musical politician was Thomson th e Parisian, the composer was mostly
Thomson fro m Kansas City, Missouri. His prescription for how to be an America n
'I had written "not infrequently " but immediately heard Virgil's admonishing voice.
composer wa s straightforward: be a n America n an d writ e whatever kin d of

music you like.
His own music was open, simple. Hymns had forme d his language. Perhaps
it wa s na'ive , perhaps not. Th e Seine a t Night an d Wheat Fields a t Noon ar e
evocative pictures. The Stabat mater on a text by his friend Ma x Jacob, taken
to a concentration cam p as a homosexual and a Jew, is a sweet tombeau. Above
all, his two Gertrude Stein operas, Four Saints in Three Acts and Th e Mother of
Us Al l (whos e heroine i s Susan B. Anthony), are , for me, with those o f John
Adams, the most enjoyable American operas—and among the most touching,
the mos t amusing, the mos t personal of any. There, too , a s in the bes t of his
prose, he taught us clarity.
Bernstein die d o n 1 4 October 1990 . A t seventy-two , though ravage d by

cigarettes an d Scotch , h e wa s young. Composer, conductor , pianist , writer ,
teacher, endlessly inquisitive, energetic, bold, reckless, impulsive, he could have
made a full-time caree r just out o f being a mensch .
It happene d tha t I arrived in Americ a a s a boy of fifteen jus t tw o weeks
after Bernstei n ha d mad e hi s sensationa l Ne w Yor k Philharmoni c debut ,
substituting for Bruno Walter without rehearsal on a coast-to-coast broadcast.
Very hung over, too, he later confessed. Because of that success, he was given
an extra assignment, to conduct the "Star-Spangled Banner" and Bloch's Three
Jewish Poems a s a prelude t o th e Mahle r Second , t o b e conducte d b y Artur
Rodzinski, the Philharmonic's musi c director. I was taken to that concert by a
relative who knew Bernstein a bit. Aunt Annie also led me backstage afterward,
and so he was not onl y the firs t conductor I heard in my new country but also
the firs t Famou s Person I ever met. I remember his run t o the Carnegi e Hal l
podium, a s though h e wanted t o star t conducting befor e h e even go t there ,
and I remembe r a s wel l hi s whirling , punching , singin g a s h e conducted .
Afterward ther e wa s thi s shor t an d pencil-thi n ma n wit h bi g ears, chain -
smoking, hugging everyone within reach . Me in my new suit he checked out ,
asked somethin g abou t piano lessons , encouraged m e to keep listening. "W e
need you, " he said, "we need you. " I left, a fan.
The las t tim e I saw him was backstage a t Davie s Symphon y Hall i n Sa n
Francisco after he had conducted a transcendent Mahle r Ninth with the Israel
Philharmonic, stil l chain-smoking , stil l someho w engulfing . (Rathe r
indiscriminate French-kissing now supplemented the hugs.) The years between
had brought affectionate encounters, especially while my son Adam was dating
one of his daughters—"We're machetaynes now," he exclaimed when he spotted
me on the grounds at Tanglewood—and also rough ones, when I expressed my
dislike for his Kaddish Symphon y and hi s Norton lecture s at Harvard . Then,
the firs t tim e h e encountere d m e a s the Bosto n Symphony' s progra m note
writer rather than a reviewer, he said: "You have alway s been such a bitch to
me, but no w it turns out you love music."
He gre w to be a larger-than-life phenomeno n i n every way. Someone wh o

had grown up with him told me that as boys they had once talked about what
they wante d ou t o f life. Hi s frien d sai d " I want t o fuc k ever y woman in th e
world." Bernstein replied : "I want everybody in the worl d to love me." Years
later, the friend observed: "I get further an d further awa y but Lennie gets closer
and closer. "
He was the ultimat e example of a musician baffled b y the challenge o f being
more tha n jus t a composer, and h e couldn' t hel p spreadin g his energies int o
conducting, playing the piano, writing about music, doing television and radio,
sounding off on politics any more than Niagara can help doin g what it does.
His tumultuous energy was a force not t o be contained. An d mos t of what he
got into he did brilliantly much, perhaps even most , of the time . Because all
his other desire s and talents were tugging at him, he did not always—perhap s
not even often—compos e a t a leve l commensurat e wit h hi s gift . H e kne w
that. I t paine d him , jus t a s it paine d hi m t o b e though t o f not a s a "real "
composer but a s a conductor wh o composed, and even thoug h he knowingly
invited adoratio n o n th e podium . It comforte d him slightly that his beloved
Mahler ha d fel t similarl y misunderstood. Hi s prodigalit y frustrated him ; h e
never seeme d a man at peace.
He made an incredible difference . H e loved music and felt its balm and its
pain deeply. More than anyone I have known, he had the gift for communicating
his love. (Like a politician, he could also misrepresent things just amazingly, as
I mention i n my essay on Schumann.) Hi s Young People's Concerts change d
lives. His best conducting could create an almost disconcerting sens e of being
in the composer' s presence. I think especially of Haydn, Beethoven, Mahler .
That I often wanted to quarrel with the details made no difference .
As for Bernstein's own music, perhaps, with his own commanding presence
gone, we might become freer t o attend t o it and explore it. And th e composer
who gav e us the Jeremiah Symphony , the Masqu e in Th e Ag e o f Anxiety, th e
Serenade, th e delight s of "America" and "Somewhere " i n West Side Story, an d
Songfest wil l be worth getting to know better.
Copland die d not man y days after Bernstein , on 2 December 1990 . He was
ninety, ha d stoppe d composing at seventy , and, a sad victim o f Alzheimer's,
had hardly been seen in public since he turned eighty. The pianist Paul Jacobs
told m e abou t visitin g Copland , the n in hi s early seventies, an d firs t seein g
him through the window, seated at the piano, just staring.
There i s a soun d tha t haunt s me . When Coplan d recorde d Appalachian
Spring, Columbi a issued a rehearsal record along with the finishe d product. It
is the usua l thing, i n more or less equal parts illuminating, amusing , routine.
At on e point Copland' s voic e float s acros s the musi c in remembrance: "Miss
Graham is dancing."
Less spectacular and sexy as a personality than his old friend Bernstein , h e
was n o les s versatile . H e compose d fo r Carnegi e Hal l an d Hollywood ,
conducted, playe d the piano , wrote about music with blessedly demystifyin g
clarity, taught, did television shows , encouraged th e young . He defined what
we have agree d to recognize as a distinctively "open" American soun d (eve n
though it first appears in Roger Sessions's First Symphony). More than anyone,
he symbolized the possibility of being a serious composer in his country and his
century. He wa s a composer first, an d everythin g else was subordinate to his
primary calling. He enjoye d acclaim, but fo r him it was not th e staf f o f life.
He was quick, responsive, unfussed, generous. When I was the Boston Globe's
music critic, I wanted to surprise Walter Piston, who lived just outside Boston,
with a bouquet of greetings in th e Sunda y paper on hi s eightieth birthday . I
asked several composers for a brief paragraph. Most eventually came through,
though no t withou t a lot o f preliminary grandstanding abou t how busy the y
were. Copland's response , handwritten, cam e by return mail.
He was, likewise, always and indefatigably generous to younger and sometimes
struggling colleagues. Schuman and Bernstein were two of them. When I lived
in New York thirty and more years ago, I went to many concerts where music
by young and unknown composers was played. These were evenings in dismal
venues, wit h neve r a n audienc e whos e number s wen t int o thre e figures .
Sometimes the concerts were rewarding, sometimes not. Often, just before th e
lights went down, Copland, with that unforgettably sculpted head, exuberan t
stride, and a smile composed in equal parts of benevolence an d mischief, would
walk in. One o f those times , Milton Babbitt , another grea t man loyal to th e
young, looked u p and said: "Aaron has really kept the faith. "
Virgil Thomson's book, American Music since 1910, includes a photo of five
composers in Thomson's livin g room. The host , seated, is commanding, self -
pleased, wearing just a touch of smile. Behind hi m stands Samuel Barber, eyes
cast down . Copland , leanin g o n th e piano , observe s him coolly . Gian Carl o
Menotti looks up at Barber, his longtime lover. And of f to one side—he might
be in a different picture , even in a different room—sit s William Schuman .
He looks rather as though, like that character in Moliere, he is wondering—
but about himself—"What th e devil is he doing in that galley?" Like Thomson,
Copland, an d Menotti, Schuma n was endlessly and usefull y busy attending t o
matters othe r tha n composition—teaching , publishing , administering ,
adjudicating, power brokering. Had you found yourself sitting beside him on a
plane, you would at once have "fixed " him a s a prosperous businessman. His
knowledgeable talk about baseball and politics would not have disabused you.
Like most American composers, Schuman got into college teaching because
he had to make a living. The vigorou s Sarah Lawrence professor was a natural
candidate t o be the new president at Juilliard; there hi s aim was quiet and at
least reasonably courteous revolution. H e change d th e teachin g o f theory in
ways tha t mad e waves all over th e country . He wen t afte r tha t ever-elusive
goal o f lightening th e trade-schoo l atmospher e an d turnin g conservator y
students into Complete Musicians . He decided th e schoo l neede d a resident
string quartet to represent professionalism to the students and Juilliard to the
world, and, not so incidentally, t o bring twentieth-century music, particularly
twentieth-century American music , to the head table .
Schuman turne d th e Juilliard presidency into a major powe r base. He saw
the possibility, for the good of the art s and for the good of those who would get
a cu t o f th e pie , o f bindin g Juilliard , th e Ne w Yor k Philharmonic , th e
Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, the New York City Opera, and
other organizations into an alliance which, one hoped, would not be too uneasy.
He was a man with a sense of possibilities and a sense of realities. Inevitably, he
became th e firs t rule r of the empir e created by the ne w alliance, th e Lincol n
Center for the Performing Arts. To borrow a phrase from the philosopher Ernst
Bloch, he love d powe r and th e tool s of power. He understoo d th e tool s too .
His power was different fro m th e powe r of Thomson (loca l and laser-sharp) ,
Bernstein (engulfin g eras), and Copland (al l in the magi c of his music), but i t
was real power and, for many years, immense.
All that time, Schuman compose d some of our best music, music of hard-
edged, deeply felt Romanticism. It can be muscle-bound and loudmouth, but
the best of it is tender, rich, fiercely athletic, funny, imposingly rhetorical, always
forthright. Barber told him how much he envied his ability to write and control
that giganti c crescend o i n th e Thir d Symphony . Hi s stuf f coul d b e wildly
optimistic, and he enjoyed that mood, but his emotional range also encompassed
the marvelous Symphony No. 6, which is, with the Sessions Seventh, th e darkest
American on e we have.
He wa s scrupulous about congratulatin g colleague s o n thei r ne w works,
pleasing them because his comments were so attentive an d specific. (No other
composer wrote letters on such creamy paper.) And, not to be taken for granted
in his world, Bill Schuman coul d laug h about himself. He love d th e stor y of
the woman in Macon, Georgia , who told him how much she had enjoyed his
Violin Concerto "eve n though it was atonal." With characteristic and exquisite
courtesy he pointed ou t tha t none of his music was atonal, tha t it was always
centered o n a key. His new admirer set him straight. "Mr. Schuman," sh e said,
"in Macon your music is atonal."
The las t time I saw him was in Carnegie Hal l when Ed o de Waart was to
conduct Schuman' s Symphon y for Strings wit h th e Minnesot a Orchestra . I
was on the orchestra's staff then and was asked to sit with Schuman, look afte r
him, se e that h e go t backstage a t th e end , an d s o on. Beethoven' s Secon d
Piano Concerto was on the program as well. Schuman looked over the program,
nodded, turne d t o me, and said: "I think I'll take a bow after th e Beethoven .
I'll get a bigger hand."
John Cage, who died on 1 2 August 1992, is the odd man out here. Sadness
shot throug h me in a way that, I admit, surprised me when I saw the new s of
his death. I was with my sons, rock musicians both, when the news came, and
I was struck by the intensit y with which the y were affected .
Cage presente d th e parado x of an important musicia n who really did no t
write interestin g music . His work and his words called int o questio n nearl y
everything Thomson , Bernstein , Copland , an d Schuma n stoo d fo r (thoug h
among the many accomplishments of his seventy-nine energy-charged years was
the co-authorship of a book on Thomson—praised by its subject for the car e of
its analyses and the accurac y of its work-list). He had ver y little t o do with th e
world of symphony orchestras, and the little was unhappy more often than not.
His most famous piec e is one that contains, i n the conventiona l sense , n o
music at all. 4'33" consists of that amount of silence. Or "silence." David Tudor
sat at a piano. That was it. Our shuffling s an d coughs and whispers were th e
piece, they and the noises inside our heads as we searched for sense. There was
a phenomena l virtuos o doing what—i n som e sense—an y o f us coul d hav e
done. "I n som e sense " i s importan t becaus e i t woul d no t b e i n th e leas t
interesting t o have a nonpianist no t playin g a piano. Cage waked us right up.
What are we doing here? What ar e our expectations? What do we or are we
expected t o bring? 4'33" was self-destroying. Once an audience knew what was
coming—or not coming—it was no longer a viable piece. That was typical Cage—
in the ag e of the infinitel y reproducible art work (to borrow Walter Benjamin's
phrase) to offer something that defied repetition. Not surprisingly , his questions
got drowned in cheap mockery, dismissal, and ultimately "business as usual."
Cage's impact was in the questions he asked or caused others to ask. Silence
is a book worth knowing. As charmingly anarchic as a Warner Brothers cartoon,
he wa s a brillian t ma n whos e min d ha d bee n forme d b y such inventor s a s
Schoenberg, Rober t Rauschenberg, Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns, and Merce
Cunningham a s well as by his profound knowledge of the writing s of Thoreau
and Joyce. He was an expert mycologist, a superb cook, a skilled worker in wood
and metal.
He wa s a real American authority-defyin g rebel , but i n his celebration of
the Bicentennial , Renga with Apartment House 1776, wit h it s Protestant ,
Sephardic, Native American, an d African American voices, he was completely
the old-fashioned, idealistic American .
Once, i n Buffalo , I hear d Cag e giv e a lectur e i n whic h Davi d Tudo r
manipulated the sound electronically, distorting and chasing it through speakers
that lined th e four walls, so that one could not understand a word. Inevitably,
someone aske d him why, since presumabl y he ha d somethin g interestin g t o

say, he had made it impossible for us to hear it. Cage's smile, then and always ,
was beatific: "It is to prepare you for your daily life."
In Boston at the New England Conservatory, Cage and I did a pre-concert
conversation precedin g the Frida y matinee o f his sweetly poetic Renga with
Apartment House. Before movin g on t o Symphon y Hall fo r the concert , w e
stood talkin g o n Huntingto n Avenue . I forge t why , but I remarke d o n
something on the othe r sid e of the street. At th e ver y moment Cage looked
up t o follo w m y pointing finger , a Bekins truck thundered by , blocking th e
view. He laughe d alou d with delight . I t was , once agai n an d perfectly , th e
World According t o Cage.
He taugh t u s t o hea r an d t o see . Tha t muc h h e ha d i n commo n wit h
Thomson, Copland, Bernstein, Schuman. To hear their music and to read their
writing is to know these men best, and to meet any one of them that way is to
be brought fac e t o fac e wit h more than the wor k of a single individual. For
each pointed in the direction of something larger—music itself, and then life.
—M.S.
Three American Composer s
in Pursuit of the White Whale
W
hen w e want t o fin d ou t i f a fil m o r boo k tha t ha s caugh t ou r
interest i s worth seeing o r reading , on e o f ou r firs t question s is
"What is it about?" We don't ask that of music we've never heard.
We've been taugh t that music is abstract, and t o ask what it means is as na'ive
as trying to figure out the point of a white-on-white canvas. But three important
works tha t spa n the twentiet h centur y and tha t tak e us into th e twenty-firs t
point in directions beyond the music itself—each is "about" something. Perhaps
we could focus on other works as well, yet these deal with monumental issues
that in their own ways touch us all. Charles Ives's Fourth Symphony is a quest
for nothing less than the meaning of life. John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1 is
a tribute to those who have died of AIDS. John Adams's On the Transmigration
of Souls is a response to the terroris t attacks of 11 September 2001. Perhaps it's
coincidental, bu t eac h of these works is by an American .
It's not tha t American musi c has a monopoly on public utterance. In fact ,
the best example of music that makes political statements, still maintaining its
artistic integrity, is that o f Dmitri Shostakovich; an d th e Austria n dramatist
Franz Grillparze r once tol d Beethove n tha t i f th e Imperia l censors coul d
understand music the way they understood words, Beethoven would be in jail.
Still, w e like t o believ e i t i s typically American t o le t one' s voic e b e heard .
Think of writers such as Melville and Whitman, Stephe n Crane responding to
the Civi l Wa r an d Joh n Steinbec k t o th e pligh t o f migrant farmers , abou t
composers like Roy Harris and Aaron Copland, who wrote major works spawned
by the Grea t Depression and World War II.
Admittedly, th e greates t artist s everywher e have shouldere d th e tas k of
helping whol e societie s mak e sense o f the thing s tha t shap e destiny. "Socia l
responsibility" i s a prett y dreary way of describin g wha t stoke s th e forg e o f
creation, but you get the idea. Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin
Luther King, Jr., wanted to change th e world; artists want to change th e way
we see it. They to o are reformers. What does all this have to do with Charle s
Ives, John Corigliano , an d Joh n Adams , an d ho w ca n w e say that the y ar e
particularly American i n their musical outlook?
The composer and critic Virgil Thomson said that the definition of American
music was simple: It was music written by Americans. That's a good line, but it
tells u s nothing. Concer t musi c has a national character—thoug h thi s doe s
not necessarily mean it incorporates folk songs or popular tunes. Ives, Corigliano,
and Adams help define a peculiarly American abundance . Their music—and
the wor k of each o f them sound s ver y different fro m tha t o f the others—i s
vastly different fro m the music of, say, the American composers Samuel Barber
or Charles Wuorinen. Barber' s Adagio for Strings could—almost—have been
written i n th e nineteent h century ; Wuorine n come s fro m th e post-tona l
tradition tha t trace s its genesis t o Schoenberg, wh o in turn maintained tha t
his development of the twelve-tone system expanded and extended the tradition
of Beethove n an d Brahms . Yet audiences a t larg e have neve r responde d t o
Schoenberg th e wa y they respon d t o Beethove n an d Brahms , nor d o the y
respond t o Wuorinen th e wa y they respond t o Ives, Corigliano, an d Adams,
composers who write in a traditio n tha t grow s fro m a fundamental tenet of
this country : the traditio n o f the meltin g pot , of diversity, E pluribus unum—
one out of many: the elemental force symbolized most profoundly in Melville's
White Whale. Born of this society, their work has a strength multiplied by the
many strands of its heritage.
Every one o f us is the produc t of a heritage—we are al l literally "eclectic "
and th e source s o f our huma n educatio n ar e many . As surel y as th e thre e
composers we're viewing here, Barber and Wuorinen have strong and individual
voices. But rightly or wrongly, we tend t o lump Barber with the Romantics and
Wuorinen with the serialists. Neither Ives , Corigliano, nor Adams are open to
such classification.
Ives in fac t mad e eclecticism hi s trademark, juxtaposing the sublim e and
the ridiculous, the serious and the comic. An amateu r marching band plays at
full blast outside the church where the choir raises its voice in a stately hymn.
Talking about his technique, h e once wrote : "This may not b e a nice wa y to
write music, but it' s one way!—and who knows the onl y real nice way? "
John Corigliano object s to the descriptio n of his music as eclectic, thoug h
he incorporate s variou s style s an d strategie s int o hi s work , an d whe n h e
characterizes hi s music , it' s clea r h e i s describin g a n eclecti c approach .

Nevertheless, a s he tol d Allan Kozinn in a 199 1 Gramophone interview , "th e
problem wit h eclecticis m i s that i t come s wit h a responsibility , which i s t o
make the combinatio n o f styles and technique s see m inevitable. Ho w do you
make them seem inevitable? Through structure and architecture. I truly believe
that i n an y o f my pieces, I ca n sho w you why an y world that I inhabit i s a
necessary part of the work."
John Adams, a s Richard Stayto n wrote in th e Lo s Angeles Times Magazine
in 1991 , ha s refuse d t o remai n consistent . Thi s "frustrate s critics , wh o
alternately define Adams as neo-Romantic, neo-Expressionist , postmodernist
or antimodernist." When Adams first began to be noticed, i n the early 1980s,
he wa s indee d classified—a s a minimalist—an d hi s nam e wa s include d i n
conversations abou t Terry Riley, Steve Reich , an d Philip Glass. But while his
early wor k is characterized b y repetitiv e melodi c cell s an d slowl y changin g
harmonies, anyon e who has heard Harmonielehre (1985) , the opera s Nixon in
China (1987 ) an d Th e Death of Klinghoffer (1991) , th e symphon y (Adam s
doesn't us e that word) Naive and Sentimental Music (1999) , or the multimedia
oratorio E l Nino (2000 ) know s tha t Adam s ha s develope d i n a way that is
anything bu t minimal . H e ca n spi n out lon g an d impassione d melodie s an d
make an orchestra shine with rich and brilliant sound, or pummel the ear with
densely interlocked textures . "What I think is the mos t wonderful aspect of
American culture," he has said, "is that we are a culture with very few dividing
lines. I grew up in a household wher e Benny Goodman an d Mozart were not
separated."
If their willingness to confront the White Whale of their heritag e is a sure
sign that thes e composer s produce uniquely American work , another sig n is
their nee d t o write music that, a s Daniel Barenboi m said before conductin g
the world premiere of Corigliano's Symphony No. 1 in 1990, "is not disassociated
from ou r societ y but reflect s ou r everyda y life an d th e problem s we fac e a s
human beings. " O f cours e th e bes t music—fro m Bac h t o Beethove n t o
Stravinsky and Carter—alway s speaks in some way to "the problem s we face
as human beings, " eve n i f you can't sa y specifically what Beethoven' s Opu s
131 String Quartet o r Carter's Variations for Orchestra ar e "about." But Ives,
Corigliano, and Adams, in publicly stating the "subject matter" of their music,
follow i n th e traditio n o f the grea t American novelist-poet-compose r socia l
commentators.
This needs elaboration. As Tchaikovsky said, Beethoven's Fift h Symphony
has a program, whether Beethoven owned up to it or not. Some program music,
like Berlioz's Symphonic fantasticfue o r Richard Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel's Merr y
Pranks, has an external program, and it describes a literal scenario. Other music
has an internal program . Apparently abstract, it can only be re-created with
the listener' s activ e participation . Lik e a drama in th e theater , it s actio n i s

initiated, rises to a climax, and subsides. But what about the actors? The secret
of dramas such as the Beethoven Fift h or the Brahms First—or the Ives Fourth,
the Coriglian o First , the Adams Transmigration—is tha t we , the listeners, are
the actors . By responding t o th e music' s urgings and followin g i t a s we wait
expectantly for vacuums to be filled and energie s to be dispersed, we engage
ourselves with the music, simultaneously assigning and discerning its meaning.
In his Symphony No. 1 , John Corigliano has written a work that stands as a
monument t o thos e wh o have die d o f AIDS. Woul d we know that simpl y by
listening? Th e answe r ha s t o b e no , thoug h aske d t o characteriz e th e firs t
movement afte r even a casual listening, you would probably describe the state
of mind se t forth here a s "enraged." Fai r enough. Ou r experienc e lead s us to
associate loud music in the mino r mod e with anger. In fac t thi s movemen t is
subtitled "O f Rage and Remembrance. " Bu t what are we to make of it whe n
the lou d musi c subsides and a n offstag e pian o introduce s a n Albeniz tango?
The effec t o f this—it i s a very Ivesian move—is eerie, an d whe n th e violin s
softly begi n t o sketc h th e outlin e o f th e tang o melody , th e effec t i s sad,
overwhelmingly sad . Coriglian o ha s sai d tha t wha t h e wante d t o evok e "is
what it feels like to lose someone you care about to a terminal illness, whether
it be cancer o r AIDS o r whatever—the injustice of it, the rage. And the n you
have these nostalgic remembrances of the person. "
The composer' s inspiration for the symphony came one day in 1988, when
he saw the AIDS Memoria l Quilt in Washington, D.C.—tha t gigantic fabri c
in which the names of almost 10,000 people who had died of AIDS were woven.
(By 2005 the number of names in the Quilt was almost 83,000—representing,
according to The NAMES Project Foundation, approximatel y 17.5 percent of
all AIDS death s in the United State s alone.) "I t was one of the most powerfu l
and movin g huma n statement s I hav e eve r seen . I t mad e m e wan t t o
memorialize i n musi c those friend s tha t I have lost—t o touc h concertgoer s
the same way that I was touched." Coriglian o nonetheles s maintain s tha t he
wants "the huma n part of it to be part of the subtext, but I don't want it to be
the onl y thing wit h which peopl e identify thi s piece . I wanted thi s t o be an
abstract work , because I think tha t abstrac t musi c can touc h th e deepes t
and mos t basic emotions." I t invite s u s to become actor s in the drama . Yet
what ar e our lines?
There are no lines a s such. As Corigliano suggests , to tie music to specifi c
scenes or ideas is to rob it of its evocative powers. In liner notes for a recording
of his Symphony No. 2 of 2000, Corigliano is determinedly anti-programmatic,
beyond stating a subject of the work : "chosen loss, " the los s of parting. Yet to
experience thi s symphony is to be convinced tha t some underlying scenario is
present, so suggestive is the music, so deeply serious, searching, dark, lamenting,
anguished, compassionate: a beautiful nightmar e that , ultimately , we have t o
accept on its own terms without attempting to dramatize (or melodramatize)

the conten t an d s o diminish it . Goo d music , like goo d poetry , never mean s
whatever th e listene r (o r the reader ) wants it t o mean ; i t communicates it s
points in an odd and almos t paradoxical way, by allowing us enough room to
bring our own experience an d intelligenc e t o it a s we receive it s sounds an d
structures, and through some not-yet-understood but undeniabl y real process
our minds interpret the physical and sensual impact that registers in our bodies.
Music not tie d to a specific program becomes music for all who hear it, not just
for th e on e who conceived it . Gustav Mahler, who offered detaile d programs
for hi s first thre e symphonies and then withdrew them, understoo d this when
he said that no music is worth anything if it needs a program to be understood.
Yet Mahler, like Corigliano , kne w tha t even musi c with no specifi c program
has points to make. It has points to make because it is about something—and
though the firs t movement of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony may not b e about
Napoleon, neithe r is it, as Toscanini said, simply about Allegro con brio.
Back to Corigliano. Th e "program " of his Symphony No. 1 does not over -
shadow it. The second movement is, technically, a scherzo; programmatically, it
is a craze d tarantella tha t i s a memoria l t o a frien d drive n insan e b y AIDS
dementia. Yo u can appreciat e th e sombe r slo w movemen t a s a lon g an d
mournful threnody ; i t isn' t necessar y t o kno w tha t i t i s built o n a them e
Corigliano an d a cellis t friend , no w dead , improvise d almos t thirt y years
before—a them e Coriglian o recalle d only through his accidental discover y of
a tape recording they had mad e in 1962 . Technically, th e fourt h movement ,
the epilogue , recapitulate s th e work' s various themes ; programmatically , it
weaves together the themes—the names—of Corigliano's lost friends in a quilt-
like texture.
By contrast, a s Elliott Carte r ha s said , "Ives's musi c is, for the mos t part,
very programmatic." You might expect program s in th e musi c of a man wh o
wrote pieces with titles like The Unanswered Question and Central Park i n the
Dark. But how do you discern the meaning of a piece called Symphony No. 4?
This work, says the conductor James Sinclair, "is the quintessential collectio n
of all of Ives's inventions, al l of the chances h e was willing to take . .. all of the
desire . .. to reach people in a deeper way": to invite listener s in, to act.
Ives himself described "th e aestheti c progra m of the wor k [as ] that of the
searching questions of 'What?' and 'Why? ' which the spirit of man asks of life.
This is particularly the sense of the Prelude. The three succeeding movements
are the diverse answers in which existence replies. "
We know we are in larger-than-musical territory from th e outset, when in a
hush th e choru s sing s a hymn: "Watchman , tel l u s of the nigh t / What th e
signs of promise are." In purely musical terms, this introduction establishe s a
mood shattered b y what comes next, somethin g Ive s called "no t a scherzo in
an accepte d sens e o f th e word , but rathe r a comedy. " Thi s i s th e kin d o f
everything-including-the-kitchen-sink musi c that gaine d Ive s notoriety . H e

quotes dozens of tunes—"Camptown Races," "Turke y in th e Straw, " "Jesus,
Lover o f My Soul," "Columbia , th e Ge m o f the Ocean"—al l played in wild
cacophony punctuated by odd pianissimos that have the effect almost of silence.
The progra m here, say s Ives, is similar to th e stor y of Hawthorne's "Celestia l
Railroad," in which a train line to the Celestial City of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress
has rendere d obsolet e th e roughnes s of spiritual quest, though som e faithfu l
pilgrims still choose t o walk the dangerou s path, t o th e grea t amusement of
the train's passengers.
Ives's thir d movemen t i s a sumptuou s fugu e o n tw o hymns , and , i n
programmatic terms, "an expression of the reactio n o f life into formalism an d
ritualism." In the concluding movement, built on the hymn "Nearer, My God,
to Thee," program and pure music are inseparable. Over and over we hear th e
tune. In the mind's ear, the listener—the actor—hears the words: "Nearer, My
God, t o Thee." They becom e anguished , strained , an d a t one point yo u will
swear that you hear the word "Nearer" repeated, over and over. In this spiritual
pilgrimage, the art and the emotion ar e one. You don't have to be a practicing
Christian t o b e move d b y th e Saint Matthew Passion o r Beethoven' s Miss a
solemnis, and you need no t believe in an afterlife t o be moved by Ives's vision.
Entering th e hear t o f his audienc e i s also fundamental t o John Adams' s
artistic agenda. "My music is emotionally committed," Adams says. He describes
Harmonielehre, for example, as being "about revelation and healing. Music is a
means o f getting mysel f an d m y listener i n touc h wit h ou r deepes t selves. "
Adams is a master of drama in music, a man who in the oper a Nixon in China
made somethin g almos t mystical from a brief sequence o f repeated tone s t o
underscore the lyricism of Chou En-lai's great visionary aria on the future an d
life's potential ; an d who filled Nixon's response with short quick phrases and
pounding rhythms , capturing th e kin d o f tension an d inne r discomfor t the
thirty-seventh president exuded. Already in Nixon we heard intimations o f a
languorous, almost impressionistic sound that even Adams's detractors admitted
came t o blossom in hi s next opera , The Death of Klinghoffer, whic h ha s a s its
subject the 198 5 murder of an elderly Jewish invalid by the Palestinian hijackers
of the cruis e ship Achille Lauro, and which i s a plea for human understandin g
among all sides in a Middle East whose people have been poisoned by hatred.
Poisoned environments—natural as well as spiritual and political—concern
Adams, and someone who uses the evenin g new s as subject matter for his art
is clearly intent on making a statement beyond that art's boundaries. El Dorado
is purel y orchestral. Th e titl e doesn' t refe r t o th e automobile , th e Cadilla c
Eldorado, though that might come to mind as a symbol of a uniquely American
brand of conspicuous consumption. Adams's subject is gridlock, the emotiona l
gridlock that has become identified with the United States of the Reagan years,
though th e titl e E l Dorado als o conjures an imag e of the real m of gold that
Coronado and his conquistadors sought, and it's easy to imagine the Berkeley-
based Adams writing a lament for the peaceful inhabitants o f an Ur-Californi a
ravaged by those European intruders. In El Dorado, Adams says he is "exorcising
my feelings about our maniacal concerns fo r material gains in the '80s. But the
first movemen t i s the mos t terrifying, mos t violent musi c I've done yet"—h e
said thi s i n 1991—"an d I' m sur e it was my own response to th e [First ] Gulf
War, whic h als o needed t o come out." Always, though, th e responses he talks
about are couched in purely musical terms (as when he refers to "those crashing
E minor chords" that open Harmonielehre). In El Dorado, as at the conclusio n
ofHarmonielehre, Adam s also taps into his minimalist heritage, playing different
musical cells against each other i n a crest of sound that creates a sense almost
of levitation, a genuine physica l high. Eight years after E l Dorado came Naive
and Sentimental Music. Her e Adam s fuse s th e ideal s o f minimalis m an d
Romanticism, an d hi s understanding of how those style s can intersec t yields
music o f huge, pulsatin g energy. Adams call s thi s wor k self-referential, an d
though it includes no specific quotations from his earlier music, it can strike a
listener a s his Heldenleben.
Michael Steinber g ha s written tha t "Adam s . . . believes i n his harmoni c
style as a human necessity and is willing to risk taking the controversial position
that ou r respons e t o tona l harmon y i s no t s o muc h cultura l a s genetic .
'Something tremendously powerful was lost when composers moved away from
tonal harmony and regular pulses [Adams s a y s ] . . .. Among othe r thing s th e
audience was lost.'"
In listening t o Adams, the audienc e has won. Because for an entire legio n
of concertgoers, he has reaffirmed th e continuin g vitalit y of concert music .
Besides writing music of enormous appeal , Adams alway s treat s music as
something men and women need t o help them make it through the world as it
is today. His is a music, as I said, often based on the headlines, an d he has been
criticized for that—and for his interpretation of the news. Nixon and Klinghoffer
show us how much music can say about the way modern history has unfolded.
Adams continues o n this path in his 2005 opera Doctor Atomic, whose subject
is J. Robert Oppenheimer an d the Manhattan Project . But it was in 2002 that
Adams too k o n wha t ma y have bee n th e mos t dauntin g o f the project s in
which he responds to contemporary life.
In El Nino, the multimedia "Nativity oratorio" introduced late in 2000 and
created in conjunction with director Peter Sellars, Adams invented a hopeful
piece suggestin g the possibilitie s of human lov e an d potential , somethin g t o
herald the fres h slate of a new millennium. With On the Transmigration of Souls,
Adams produced something genuinel y of the twenty-firs t century, something
tied t o th e century' s first epocha l event , th e destructio n o f the Worl d Trade
Center o n 1 1 September 2001 . Fiv e month s afte r th e terroris t attacks , th e
New York Philharmonic announce d tha t it had commissioned Adams to write
music commemorating that day. The week before th e Philharmonic reveale d

the commissione d composer' s identity, Justin Davidson, writin g for the Web
site Andante.com, expresse d his reservations about music to memorialize such
horrific events. "Th e odds , it seems to me, are low that the music will be up to
the occasion—tha t a composer, asked t o interpre t i n tone s a calamity mere
months afte r it has happened, will have the clarity and the inner urge to write
just th e piec e w e need." Wha t h e dreade d most , h e continued , wa s "th e
possibility that the composer will resort to Shostakovichian scene-setting. "
What was "the piec e w e need"? For Adams, livin g acros s the countr y i n
California an d feeling frustrated b y his inability to offer somethin g immediat e
to the relief efforts in New York, the commission was first of all "an opportunity,"
as he tol d Kerr y Frumkin in a radio interview afte r th e firs t performanc e of
Transmigration o n 1 9 September 2002 , "to us e my abilities—what I have t o
give—in a way that could contribute." Th e commission was for a choral work.
Adams foun d hi s text s i n unexpecte d places : i n snatche s o f phone call s t o
loved one s fro m thos e caugh t i n th e plane s an d building s tha t day ; in th e
recitation o f victims' names; in "Portraits of Grief," those eloquent tribute s to
the victim s tha t ra n dail y in th e Ne w York Times fo r almost a year after th e
events. Incorporatin g sources from th e externa l world: it is a move worthy of
Ives. Adams i n fac t wen t o n afte r Transmigration t o compos e a piece whos e
title, M y Father Knew Charles Ives, pays tribute to hi s great forebear. An d fo r
musical guidance in Transmigration, Adams looked to Ives and The Unanswered
Question. "This whole event," h e told Frumkin, "and th e loss of all these lives
so suddenly was—and is—an unanswered question." In Transmigration Adams
embeds references to the Ives work—hear the muted strings under the repeated
utterance o f the beautifu l an d ghostl y words, "I see water and buildings. " "I
think of [The Unanswered Question] a s a kind of guardian angel for the piece, "
Adams says. "It's there, hoverin g about it."
Nor did Adams attempt any onomatopoeia in this music, which is essentially
quiet an d contemplative . "I f pressed, " th e compose r tol d a Ne w Yor k
Philharmonic interviewer , "I'd probabl y call the piec e a memory space. It's a
place where you can go and be alone wit h your thoughts an d emotions. Th e
link to a particular historical event—in this case to 9/11—is there if you want
to contemplate it . But I hope tha t the piece will summon human experienc e
that goes beyond thi s particula r event." The story—th e program—is part of
the music, but there's more. Perhaps it was that more that a longtime concertgoer
meant when , immediatel y after th e firs t performance , he tol d a n interviewer
for the New York radio station WQXR-FM that this music was the most moving
thing he had ever heard in a concert hall .
Adams had set out to write a work, as he has suggested, for those left behind.
In O n th e Transmigration o f Souls h e sough t to capture something o f the cal m
majesty one feels on entering a great cathedral. "When you walk into Chartres
Cathedral, fo r example , yo u experienc e a n immediat e sens e o f somethin g

otherworldly. You feel you are in the presence of many souls, generations upo n
generations o f them, an d yo u sense thei r collecte d energy . . . . " Wa s he
attempting t o hea l wounds ? I n answerin g this , Adam s spok e bot h o f art's
limitations an d of music's power:
It's not m y intention t o attempt "healing" i n this piece. Th e even t wil l alway s be
there in memory, and the live s of those who suffered wil l forever remain burdened
by the violence and the pain. Time might make the emotions and the grief gradually
less acute , but nothing , leas t of all a work of art, is going to hea l a wound o f this
sort. Instead , th e bes t I ca n hop e fo r i s t o creat e somethin g tha t ha s bot h th e
serenity and the kin d o f gravitas that thos e old cathedrals possess.
We modern peopl e have learned all too well how to keep our emotions i n check ,
and we know how to mask them with humor or irony. Music has a singular capacity
to unloc k thos e control s an d brin g u s fac e t o fac e wit h ou r raw , uncensored ,
unattenuated feelings. This is why during times when we are grieving or in need of
being in touch with the core of our beings we seek out those pieces that speak to us
with that sens e of gravitas and serenity.
Gravitas and serenity are but two of the pathways through which John Adams
has led listeners to the place where they become actors in music that satisfie s
deep needs : th e nee d t o liv e drama s of life an d death , goo d an d evil , love ,
hatred, injustice, salvation: th e need fo r beauty.
All good composers want to lead their listeners to that place. And the work
of Schoenberg, Carter , Sessions, Wuorinen—music that is not a s easy to ente r
as that of Ives, Corigliano, an d Adams—is not abou t to vanish. Thei r music
satisfies simila r needs, admittedl y in differen t way s an d sometimes , but no t
necessarily, for different listeners . Art ma y serve political purposes, but ar t is
not a political system. And unlik e politicians, composers, though their mean s
may vary, are all after th e sam e thing .
What is so thrillingly American abou t Ives, Corigliano, an d Adams—this
trio whos e wor k remind s u s constantly tha t the y hav e sighte d th e Whit e
Whale—may finally be found not so much in the characteristics of their music
as i n th e fac t tha t i t ha s thrive d i n nativ e soi l alongsid e th e ver y differen t
music composed throughout mos t of the las t century, adding more panels t o
the tapestry and giving us—in the best sense of American capitalism—an ever
broader rang e of choices. Here , i n thi s countr y that i s such a cornucopia of
cultures an d style s an d ideals— E pluribus unum —is a richnes s o f musical
experience tha t encompasses and confirms both diversity and heritage .
—L.R.
A Century Set to Music
T
he idea first came to me a few years ago when I was coaching a student
group in Shostakovich's harrowin g String Quartet No . 8, the ide a of
summoning on e o f the twentiet h century' s eloquen t artist s t o bea r
witness about what that—mostl y dreadful—time wa s like. I imagined mysel f
in som e futur e century , seekin g knowledg e an d understandin g o f what th e
poet Murie l Rukeyser once called "th e firs t centur y o f world wars." Art ca n
impart such knowledge. Picasso' s Guernica will send devastatin g news to our
descendants. Thoma s Mann' s Doktor Faustus has its story to tell, and so do the
writings of Franz Kafka, Alber t Camus , an d Heinrich Boll. Music can speak,
too. I made a list, not of the twentieth century's most important or most beautiful
pieces, not even of my favorite pieces, though I do feel close to most of them.
I was after something else . I was looking for composers to bear witness. My list
is completely personal. It is also ever in flux, some of its items perhaps claiming
longevity, while other s ar e subject to shifting currents an d moods . I first pu t
the lis t together on e weekend i n August 1999 , looked a t it again in Octobe r
2002, and once more in May 2005. I n August 1998 , i t would not hav e bee n
the same , an d wer e I t o ventur e anothe r g o at i t i n Augus t 2006 , i t would
almost surely be different again .
1909: Gusta v Mahler: Dos Lied von der Erde

(The Son g o f the Earth)
The poem s tha t Mahle r chos e fo r this grea t "song-symphony " encompas s a
range of feelings from nihilis m t o deep, heart-unsettling delight in the earth' s
manifold beauties. The glimme r of hope in the last lines is engulfed by some of
the most heartbreaking music ever written. Mahler believed i n the propheti c
power of artists, and Das Lied von der Erde is a hymn in advance to the twentiet h
century as one o f unquenchable Weltschmerz.
1909: Arnol d Schoenberg : Fiv e Pieces for Orchestra

In a masterwork that helpe d chang e th e fac e o f music, the compose r of this
century's mos t fiercel y intens e music enshrines th e nightmar e aspec t of our
time as well as its yearning for what we try to believe was a sweeter past.
1911: Edward Elgar: Symphony No . 2

The wa r that was still three year s away would sweep away much of the world
Elgar cherished . Thi s glorious , impassione d symphony , suffuse d wit h
melancholy, is another prophec y in music, one that told the London audience ,
which hated th e piece—they heard and understood better tha n they knew—
that the glory years of late Victorian and Edwardian England were not forever .
1913: Igo r Stravinsky: Le Sucre du Printemps (Th e Rit e of Spring)

This exuberantly inventive explosion of energy and color is music's most famous
monument o f modernism. It , too , change d th e fac e o f music, and n o singl e
composition has been so much imitated. At Stravinsky's funeral in April 1971,
Robert Craf t reflecte d tha t i t wa s "ful l springtim e excep t fo r th e ma n wh o
created a sprin g of his ow n tha t o f al l mortally begotten version s wil l give
Nature its longest run fo r everlasting joy." Music to hear with a smile!
1913: Claud e Debussy : Jeux (Games )

If Schoenber g an d Stravinsk y were th e father s of musical modernism, the n
Mahler an d Debuss y were it s forefathers . Non e o f thei r score s point s mor e
provocatively into the future than Debussy's music for the ballet Jeux, introduced
just a week after Le Sacre. The musi c is exploring, allusive, erotically charged.
1911-1914 (?) : Charles Ives: Three Places in New Englan d

Ives represents the comin g of age of American music , its emancipation fro m
European models . Ou r grea t pionee r o f modernism was , all his life , los t i n
nostalgia for a pre-Civil War America not yet transmuted from a rural society
to an urban one. Her e h e yokes opposites—the thoroughly "modern" collag e
in th e secon d o f th e thre e places , Putnam' s Camp , and , especiall y i n hi s

evocation of the Housatonic a t Stockbridge, a longing for an idealized, rapidly
disappearing pas t a s wel l a s hi s ow n vanishe d youth . Suc h a parado x is
characteristic o f twentieth-century Zeitgeist.
1915: Charle s Ives : From Hanover Square North, a t th e End of a

Tragic Day, th e Voice o f the People Agai n Rose
(From Orchestral Se t No. 2 )
The Tragi c Day was 7 May 1915, the da y the Britis h liner Lusitania was sunk
by a German submarin e off the coas t of Ireland. O f 1,95 9 person s on board,
1,198 perished. This wa s one o f the firs t i n a series of events tha t eventuall y
led t o th e entr y o f the Unite d State s int o th e war . In thi s astoundin g an d
visionary piece, Ives depicts his experience o f waiting for the "El " to take him
home fro m hi s office, wit h the crowd on the platfor m singing the hymn In the
Sweet Bye and Bye, which a nearby organ grinder had begun to play. Strangers
are pulled together i n grief: it is like a rehearsal for 9/11.
1915: Alba n Berg: Three Pieces for Orchestra

A powerfully imagined triptych by Schoenberg's phenomenall y gifted student ,
looking back longingly at a world that n o longer seems viable and at the same
time descrying the disintegration t o come.
1916: Car l Nielsen: Symphony No. 4 , The Inextinguishable

When I began to think about this list, it was the dark pieces that came rushing
to mind. But then I remembered Nielsen's celebration of "the elemental will to
life," which to him was an "inextinguishable" principle . Victory is not easy, but
the fina l arrival is truly glorioso, to use one of the Danis h composer' s favorite
adjectives.
1922: Alba n Berg: Woêck

An oper a that depict s defeat, perhap s the opera that depict s defeat. It i s the
defeat o f a commo n soldier , no t b y a n enem y i n war , but b y th e pla y o f
callousness, betrayal, and his own innocence, all that projected through some
of the mos t compellingly imaginative music ever invented fo r the theater .
1923: Bela Bartok: The Miraculous Mandarin

Bartok wrote his most brilliant an d fantastical score for a ballet with a seamy
subject. The character s on stage are a gang of robbers and killers, the woman
they use as bait to draw their victims, and a Chinese gentleman who for all his
wounds will not di e until he has achieved sexua l release. It is the creepiest of
twists on th e thanatos-ero s connection. At what was supposed to be its firs t

performances Th e Miraculous Mandarin wa s banished fro m th e stag e o f th e
Cologne Oper a b y th e Mayor , none othe r tha n Konra d Adenauer . Her e
modernism and supposed immorality collide head-on wit h The State .
1924: Jea n Sibelius: Symphony No. 7

Sibelius is an artist whose life work is of a piece, and his seven symphonies are
the backbone o f that life work. The crunc h o f instruments convergin g in th e
last bar s of the intensel y compacte d Sevent h Symphon y unmistakabl y says
The End . With more than thirty years of life lef t t o him , Sibeliu s wrote just
one mor e major work , the miraculou s tone poe m Tapiola, bu t th e writin g of
symphonies was over. What was the despair that made Sibelius declare that it
was enough, tha t th e tim e for the symphony , that glorious survivor from th e
nineteenth century, was over? Was it private or was it the world he observed
about him?
1934: Paul Hindemith: Mathis der Maler Symphony

This is music taken from an opera. Matthias Griinewald was a sixteenth-century
painter caught in the political and religious conflicts of the Thirt y Years' War.
In hi s opera Mathis de r Maler (Mathis th e Painter) Hindemit h asks : Should a n
artist engage i n th e struggl e or attend t o hi s art ? Ca n "non-engaged " art be
justified? Goo d questions for a German in the earl y Hitler years.
1934, 1943 , 1947 : Ralp h Vaughan Williams: Symphonies 4- 6

Nourished by his love of English folk song and Tudor church music , Vaughan
Williams remind s u s in hi s Fifth Symphony that horro r ca n b e transcende d
and death swallowed up in victory. This work is the central panel of a symphonic
triptych. The fierc e Fourt h Symphony ventures further int o modernis m than
anything else Vaughan Williams wrote; the Sixth, begun during World War II
and complete d tw o year s after it s conclusion , end s i n bleakness . Vaugha n
Williams rejecte d topical interpretations o f these tw o works, the Fourt h as a
commentary o n Europ e i n turmoil , th e Sixt h a s a pictur e o f post-atomic
devastation. Bu t whatever RV W had o r did not hav e i n mind, whateve r h e
perhaps had in mind but chos e t o conceal (excep t in the musi c itself), thos e
two symphonies are dark, and the quiet beacon of the Fifth is the more moving
by contrast.
1940: Olivie r Messiaen: Quartet for th e End o f Time

The stor y is wonderful: a young French composer in a German military prison
composes a huge and inspired piece for himself and three other musicians whom
he meets there, and on a winter day in 1941 they play it for an audience of five
thousand. What actually happened, while wonderful, i s slightly less wonderful
than that. Some of the Quartet had been composed before Messiaen ever got
near Stalag VIII-A, and Messiaen, who rivaled Ronald Reagan when it came
to believing his own legend, exaggerated the siz e of the audienc e by a factor of
twenty o r so . Bu t wha t matter s i s th e music , an d thi s meditatio n o n Th e
Revelation of Saint John is one of the miracles in the history of chamber music—
fiery, colorful , an d i n it s slow movements seren e beyon d anythin g sinc e th e
last quartets of Beethoven. I t is a lesson in how to rise above circumstances.
1941: Michael Tippett : A Child of Our Time

This is a great humanist's far-seeing respons e to th e pogrom s in Germany in
November 1938. Tippett was not interested in producing the musical equivalent
of a documentary; rather, for him, this was an occasion for a searching look at
the human condition. Incorporating influences as diverse as Handel's Messiah,
African America n spirituals , and Jungia n imagery, h e compose d a powerfu l
oratorio for soloists, chorus, and orchestra.
1943: Dmitr i Shostakovich : Symphony No . 8

Unlike Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich ha d n o compunction abou t writing
topical music and admitting it; after all, the Soviet society in which he worked
defined that as an artist's obligation. The Eighth Symphony mirrors a Russia in
the mids t of World War II—intensely emotional, heroic , elegiac , an d wit h a
quiet finale that is music of timidly awakening life.
1945: Benjami n Britten : Peter Grimes

A worthy successor to Wozzeck, wit h whose composer Britten alway s wished
he could have studied. Here the setting is English and the situation civilian. It
is a picture of how a "nice" community locked in self-righteousness can destroy
a human being, helpless in the fac e o f hatred of "otherness."
1947: Arnol d Schoenberg : A Survivor from Warsa w

No on e wa s better verse d in th e languag e of nightmare, n o on e coul d hav e
more vividl y told th e stor y o f a grou p of Jews bein g shippe d t o on e o f th e
extermination camps—and compressed it into a six-minute drama for speaker,
chorus, and orchestra. Survivor comes with the brutally realistic trappings of a
documentary, but the flo w of time in the narrative is entirely unreal, a blurring
that adds to the sense of nightmare.
174 FO R THE LOVE OP MUSI C
I960: Krzysztof Penderecki :

Threnody fo r th e Victim s o f Hiroshima
As pictorial as a tone poem, this documents one of the most horrifying moments
in world history. Using only a string orchestra, but a s strings had neve r bee n
used before, Penderecki als o works in utmost brevity. Terror. Screams.
1960: Dmitr i Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8

Composed "i n memory of the victim s of fascism an d war," this quartet, full of
self-quotations a s the compose r seem s t o reliv e experience s h e has , t o hi s
amazement, survived , bring s u s musi c tha t i s no w brutall y drivin g an d
frighteningly oppressive, now quiet and deeply inward. It is the most poignant
music of mourning I know, not eas y to confront for players or for listeners.
1962: Benjami n Britten: War Requiem

A powerful union of the Catholic Requiem Mass with writings by Wilfred Owen ,
the most eloquent o f the English war poets. And, I admit, a work that excep t
in a few of the Owen songs, has meant more to many others than it does to me.
1970: Roge r Sessions: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd

In thi s requie m for Martin Luther King , Jr., and Rober t F. Kennedy, Sessions
responds sensitively and with immense musical power to the Biblica l majest y
and musical fluidity of Whitman's poem , a requiem for Abraham Lincoln. Lilacs
reaches beyond its immediate occasion to become a lament for a world knotted
in tragedy, and it is also one of the century' s great love letters to Nature.
1970: Georg e Crumb: Ancient Voices o f Children

A death-haunted piece, daughter of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, for me the most
evocative of Crumb's many settings of the poetr y of Federico Garcia Lorca. It
was written for the extraordinary mezzo-soprano Jan de Gaetani, with a chamber
ensemble tha t includes , alon g wit h conventiona l instruments , to y piano ,
mandolin, musica l saw, and Tibeta n praye r stones. Crumb , whose voice was
one of the freshes t o n the scene in the thir d quarter of the last century, writes
that th e essenc e o f the poetr y "is concerned wit h th e mos t primar y things :
death, love , the smell of the earth , th e sounds of the wind and the sea. " Th e
music, or poetry-in-music, lets us experience i t all.
1985: John Adams: Harmonielehre

Adams too k hi s titl e (whic h on e coul d translat e a s What Is Known about
Harmony) fro m th e grea t treatis e o n harmon y an d compositio n b y on e o f
Modernism's Founding Fathers, Arnold Schoenberg. This vibrant work, though,

is a major monument of the counter-revolution. Like Schoenberg, Adams means
more by harmony than the stud y of chords. Hi s Harmonielehre i s a hymn t o
personal an d huma n harmony , an d i t end s i n a n upsurg e of hard-earne d
optimism. Very American it is, too. Hearing it in the almost immediate aftermath
of 9/11, as I had th e privileg e of doing, in a marvelous performance by Markus
Stenz and the Minnesota Orchestra , was one of the truly uplifting moments of
a musical lifetime.
1987: John Tavener: The Protecting Veil

Serenity an d stillness : Th e Protecting Veil, a series of meditations fo r cello an d
orchestra, is more steadily consonant tha n anything by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven,
or Brahms, but Tavene r ha s foun d a way of making those harmonie s fresh , a s
though new-minted . Hi s music does not invalidat e th e musi c of, say, Babbitt
and Carter, but it presents an alternative tha t is alive and imbued with spirit.
—M.S.
IV
MISSIONARIES
Making America Musical:
A Salute to Theodore Thomas
B
ach's Two-Violin Concerto, Brahms' s Hungarian Dances an d Academic
Festival Overture, the Hexameron by Liszt et al. and Liszt's orchestration
of Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, Mozart's Symphony No. 34, the Saint -
Saens Organ Symphony, the Sibelius Second, Th e Blue Danube, Till Eulenspiegel
and Ei n Heldenleben, Tchaikovsky' s Rome o an d Juliet, th e Prelud e t o Di e
Meistersinger: ever y one of those pieces was introduced in America by Theodor e
Thomas, a name you have seen often if you look at the performance histories
you sometimes find in symphony orchestras' program notes. A complete list of
Thomas's America n premiere s woul d includ e an d b e les s tha n one-tent h
exhausted by Beethoven's Great Fugue; Berlioz's Damnation of Faust, Harold i n
Italy, and Romeo and Juliet; Brahms's Second Symphon y and Haydn Variations;
the Bruckne r Seventh; The Sorcerer's Apprentice; Grieg' s music for Ibsen's Peer
Gynt; Handel' s Royal Fireworks Music ; Schubert's Unfinished Symphony ; th e
Nutcracker Suite; and th e Prelude and Love-Death fro m Tristan. And thi s list
does not even include al l the famous pieces .
Nor, remarkable though i t is, does this catalogue by itself certify Theodor e
Thomas's greatness , althoug h i t i s symboli c o f what mad e hi m th e mos t
important performe r in th e histor y of concert musi c in America. A centur y
after hi s death, th e consequence s o f his life work are everywhere about us, in
the prestig e an d ubiquit y o f symphon y orchestra s i n ou r country ; i n th e
assumption that concert musi c is A Good Thing and an essential ite m on th e
cultural consumer-goods shopping list; in the concept o f the Music Director,

someone wit h power to hir e an d fir e an d t o determin e repertor y and larger
artistic policies; in the establishment of subscription sales, pops programs, and
children's concerts; even in the matter of having the bow-strokes in each string
section in an orchestra coordinated so as to go up and down together.
Theodore Christian Friedrich Thomas, the dedicated and prodigiously hard-
working musicia n who lef t u s thi s legacy , was born o n 1 1 October 183 5 a t
Esens i n Eas t Friesland b y th e Nort h Sea . Al l hi s life , h e remaine d deeply
German i n outlook . T o some bu t hardl y a n extrem e extent , hi s musical
predilections would always reflect that , bu t i n that matter he hardly differe d
from th e mos t celebrate d Germa n an d Austria n conductor s o f th e lat e
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, men such as von Billow, Richter, Steinbach,
Nikisch, Weingartner, Walter, Furtwangler, Knappertsbusch, Bohm, Sawallisch,
Masur, an d Thielemann . I t di d no t kee p Thomas , though , fro m bein g a
responsible supporter of American composers, among them Chadwick, Foote,
Loeffler, MacDowell , Paine, an d Parker.
His father, a town musician in Esens, emigrated to New York with his large
family i n 1845 . Th e nine-year-ol d Theodor e wa s already an accomplishe d
violinist, and he helped support the family by playing in theaters and for dancing
masters. H e had , b y the way , no violi n lessons , learnin g t o ge t aroun d th e
instrument by imitating his father. I n fact , excep t for a few piano an d corne t
lessons and, much later, a little instruction in counterpoint, he had no forma l
training in music at all, nor did he attend schoo l of any kind afte r comin g to
America a s a boy. In 1848 , fathe r an d so n joine d th e Nav y as bandsmen,
becoming, respectively , firs t an d secon d hor n aboar d th e Pennsylvania,
stationed at Portsmouth, Virginia. "Damn bad" was the son's later assessment
of his own playing.
A yea r later, Thomas, no w fourteen, made himself independent. H e ha d
some posters printed announcing a concert by "Master T.T." and headed south.
He woul d get permissio n to us e a hotel dining room , then g o around tow n
tacking up his posters. "When the time for the concert arrived , I would stand
at the door of the hall and take the money until I concluded that my audience
was about gathered, after which I would go to the front of the hall, unpack my
violin, an d begi n th e concert! " H e wa s driven ou t o f one Mississipp i town
because the authorities believed the fiddle to be the devil's instrument. When
he stepped on his violin while camping in the woods, he repaired and re-glued
the instrument at the nearest carpenter's shop and played a concert o n it the
next day. This resourceful boy is father to the conductor, manager, impresario,
tour director , an d fund-raise r wh o woul d soon begi n t o chang e America' s
musical life.
At fifteen , Theodor e Thoma s foun d himsel f back in New York. He mean t
to g o t o Europ e t o stud y but wa s snagge d instea d b y a n appointmen t a s
concertmaster a t a newl y established Germa n theater . H e playe d in man y
Missionaries 18 1
orchestras, in New York and on tour. His diet included a lot of opera, and what
he hear d fro m th e grea t singers he worke d with—among the m Jenn y Lind,
Henriette Sontag, Giulia Grisi, Giovanni Mario, Raffaele Mirate , and Adelin a
Patti—gave him a lifelong ideal for phrasing and tone. In 1854 , he was elected
a membe r of the Ne w Yor k Philharmonic , the n just beginning t o becom e a
respectable professiona l orchestra. Wit h th e pianis t Willia m Mason , h e
organized a serie s o f chambe r musi c concerts i n Ne w York , settin g a ne w
standard in America for the performanc e of that repertory. Thomas's lust for
expanding American horizon s is in evidenc e early . On thei r debu t program,
on 2 7 November 185 5 a t Dodsworth' s Hall, he , Mason , and th e cellis t Car l
Bergmann (late r conducto r o f th e Ne w Yor k Philharmonic ) gav e th e firs t
performance anywher e of Brahms's B-major Trio , op. 8!
His positio n a s concertmaste r o f th e Ullman n Oper a brough t hi m
opportunities t o lea d th e orchestra , an d h e becam e America' s firs t rea l
conductor—that is, an interpretive artist rather than just a time-beater. About
1860, Thomas realize d that his apprenticeship was over and he began to see
the direction his life must take. In her Memoirs of Theodore Thomas, his widow,
Rose Fay Thomas, quotes him in words of characteristic simplicity: "In 186 2 I
concluded t o devot e m y energies t o th e cultivatio n o f th e publi c tast e for
instrumental music. Our chambe r concerts had created a spasmodic interest,
our programme s were reprinted as models of their kind , even in Europe, and
our performances had reached a high standard. As a concert violinist, I was at
this time popular, and played much. But what this country needed mos t of all
to make it musical was a good orchestra, and plenty of concerts within reac h
of th e people . The [Ne w York] Philharmoni c Society , with a body of about
sixty player s an d fiv e yearl y subscriptio n concerts, wa s th e onl y organized
orchestra which represented orchestral literature in this large country."
It was obvious to Thoma s tha t what th e Ne w Yor k Philharmoni c offere d
was insufficien t i n both quantit y an d quality . It wasn' t goo d enough an d i t
didn't reach enough people. Thomas got New York's best players together and
began to give concerts of his own. The firs t of them, at Irving Hall on 1 3 May
1862, included the American premiere of Wagner's Flying Dutchman Overture.
Theodore Thoma s was on his way. Over the course of the next ten years he
became conductor o f the Brookly n Philharmonic, retainin g tha t post almost
continuously until 1891 . He established his "Symphonic Soirees" on a regular
basis, giving New York programs comparable to the best that might be heard in
London, Paris, Vienna, or anywhere. He established a series of lighter summer
concerts, leading 1,227 of them in eight years, most of them in the brand new
Central Park. But the most important thing happened in 1869. That was when
he took his orchestra of fifty-four o n tour for the firs t time. Having given New
York a first-class orchestral culture, he was ready to extend his missionary work
to the res t of the country . One ca n say it simply: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago,
Cincinnati, Cleveland , Detroit , Indianapolis , Philadelphia , Pittsburgh ,
Rochester, San Francisco, Washington, an d a dozen other cities have flourishing

symphony orchestras today because they were tour stops for Theodore Thomas ,
over and over , and becaus e he lef t a tast e for the soun d of Beethoven and
Wagner, Mozart and Schumann, Berlio z and Brahms.
Thomas sketched this itinerary for that first tour: New York—New Haven—
Hartford—Providence—Boston—Worcester—Springfield, Massachusetts —
Albany—Schenectady—Utica—Syracuse—Rochester—Buffalo—Cleveland
—Toledo—Detroit—Chicago—St. Louis—Indianapolis—Louisville —
Cincinnati—Dayton—Springfield, Ohio—Columbus—Pittsbur g (the n stil l
without its h)—Washington—Baltimore—Philadelphia—New York. It followed
the railway ; moreover, unlik e someon e plannin g a n orchestr a tou r today ,
Thomas di d not have to worry about the schedules of local orchestras: except
in St. Louis, where one had been founded in 1860 , there weren' t any.
The Theodor e Thoma s Orchestra , a s it wa s called, di d no t hi t al l thos e
cities th e firs t tim e around , but tha t list, with occasional expansion s t o such
places as Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Omaha, pretty well defines
what came to be known as the Thomas Highway . He and his players traveled
this Highwa y on a n averag e of three time s a year from 186 9 unti l 1891 . On e
year Thoma s toure d th e South , anothe r too k hi m throug h New England t o
Montreal. In 188 3 and 188 5 he crossed the continent, once covering a whole
series of Canadian citie s an d towns , the othe r tim e returning through Texas.
In June 1883 , h e conducted a notable se t of seven concerts i n San Francisco,
twenty-eight years before there wa s a San Francisc o Symphony , including a
Wagner nigh t wit h thre e singer s i n selection s fro m Lohengrin, Tannhduser,
Walkure, an d Gotterddmmerung, an d a Beethoven nigh t with the Consecration
of th e House Overture, the Fift h Symphony, the variations from the Septet, th e
first movemen t o f the Pian o Concert o No . 3 , and voca l pieces, endin g wit h
the "Hallelujah! " Choru s fro m Christ on the Mount of Olives.
The poin t of Thomas's tour s was summed up in an 186 9 article in Dwight's
Journal of Music, the n the equa l of any musical periodical in the world. This is
what Dwight's said of the Thomas Orchestra's firs t concerts in Boston: "Boston
has not hear d such performances before.. . . We rejoice in the coming of this
orchestra. It is just the kin d o f thing we, for years, have longed fo r in view of
our own progress here.... We thank Mr. Thomas for setting palpably before us
a higher idea l of orchestral execution. W e shall demand better o f our own in
the future . The y cannot witness this example without a newly kindled desire ,
followed b y an effor t t o do likewise."
That was what i t was all about. A goo d teache r work s toward the poin t
when he or she becomes unnecessary. In the same sense, the goal of the Thoma s
Orchestra tour s was t o becom e unnecessar y a s American citie s establishe d
their own orchestras and concert series , though in some cities the dauntin g
excellence o f th e visitor s inhibited loca l enterpris e fo r a fe w years. Boston,
founding its Symphony Orchestra i n 1881 , was the firs t city fully t o rise to th e
Missionaries 18 3
Thomas Orchestra's challenge, an d for all the satisfaction this gave Thomas, it
was bitte r fo r him t o los e hi s best tou r cit y an d th e on e tha t offere d hi m a
singularly cultivated and prepared audience. Later he twice turned down offer s
to become the Boston Symphony's conductor. He finally disbanded the Thomas
Orchestra i n 1888 , nine years after he had been named conductor of the New
York Philharmonic. Th e missionar y task of traveling on behalf o f symphonic
music wa s assume d afte r th e tur n o f th e centur y b y th e newl y founde d
Minneapolis Symphony (now Minnesota Orchestra), which by the midpoint of
the twentieth centur y had played more than three thousan d concert s i n over
four hundred communities , most of which had n o orchestras of their own.
Besides takin g hi s orchestra o n tour , Theodore Thoma s di d man y othe r
things, not al l of them successful . H e was Musical Director of the Centennial
Exposition in Philadelphia i n 1876, and as America's No. 1 Wagnerian offered
a commissio n t o der Meister. Th e cos t wa s enormous , th e reward—th e
undistinguished Centennial March—small. Thomas' s involvemen t wit h th e
Centennial Exhibition was a fiscal disaster as well. Those crowd s simply could
not be persuaded to go to symphony concerts. Thoma s foun d himsel f in debt
to the point that th e Philadelphia Sherif f seized and sold at auction his library
of score s an d orchestra l parts , plus books, percussio n instruments, podium ,
desk, and inkstand. Fortunately a friend i n New York, Dr. Franz Zinzer, heard of
the disaster in time to come to the rescue by buying the lot, renting it to Thomas
for $10 0 a year, and afte r tw o years making it over to Mrs. Thomas a s a gift .
Another disappointmen t wa s hi s directorshi p o f th e newl y founde d
Cincinnati College of Music (now the College-Conservatory of the University
of Cincinnati) . He ha d hope d t o establis h a stron g scholarship progra m for
gifted youn g musicians, but hi s board was interested onl y i n thos e student s
whose parents could pa y the ful l tariff . A happie r relationship wit h tha t cit y
evolved when Thomas founded the Cincinnati May Festival, still going strong,
and directed it until his death. He was Artistic Director of the American Oper a
Company, devoted to opera in English and opera without stars, but this proved
another financia l morass, and Thomas los t his shirt in that misadventure.
More happily, he was conductor o f the Ne w York Philharmonic fro m 187 9
to 1891 . In 1891 , he founded the Chicago Orchestra , rename d th e Theodor e
Thomas Orchestra in his memory, and now the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
He had, all things considered, chosen a tough road, but then, from the time he
had landed in New York as a boy, he was used to hard work. Still, the financial
struggle to make his various enterprises go was unremitting, an d of course th e
tours themselves were exhausting. When he gave them up in order to settle in
Chicago, h e was, at fifty-six, a prematurely old man.1
1
Another her o amon g nineteenth-centur y musica l missionaries in America wa s the extraordinar y
Norwegian violinist Ol e Bull, who, beginning in 184 3 an d continuin g unti l hi s death i n 1880 , gav e
many hundred s o f concerts al l over thi s country . H e wa s a greater musical geniu s than Theodor e
Thomas an d a far more flamboyant personality, but h e had non e o f Thomas's organizationa l skills.
Chicago wa s a splendi d fina l chapter , whos e culminatio n wa s Thomas' s

success at persuading the board to endow his orchestra permanently. "I would
gladly go to hell if they gave me a permanent orchestra, " he had exclaimed i n
1889. He also talked the board into building him a proper hall. He conducte d
the inaugura l concert a t Theodore Thoma s Orchestr a Hal l on 1 4 December
1904- The Salut e t o th e Hal l o f Song from Tannhduser, th e Beethoven Fifth ,
Death and Transfiguration, an d the "Hallelujah! " Chorus from Handel's Messiah
were o n th e program . The Straus s tone poe m prove d a spookil y propheti c
choice, fo r this gala was Theodore Thomas' s last concert. A cold progressed to
pneumonia, an d he died in the earl y morning of 4 January 1905.
I wish I had a clearer idea of what sort of music Theodore Thoma s made .
Unassuming o n th e podium , h e regularl y rouse d audience s t o enthusiasm .
Anton Rubinstein, Wieniawski, Nikisch, and Gericke were among the musicians
who admire d him . Bu t neithe r newspape r review s no r th e comment s o f
colleagues are specifi c enoug h t o give a picture of his style. Some o f what h e
did surel y would no t sui t us : fo r example , hi s liberall y thickene d an d
reorchestrated Bac h or his decision o n one occasion i n Chicago t o drop th e
finale of Beethoven's Nint h from D to C so as to make it easier for the singers.
But he constantly rethought such questions, just as he never stopped absorbing
new scores or coming up with new ideas for the improvemen t o f the musical
state of the union .
He had difficulties an d his life was not fre e of friction, but he was recognized
and appreciated , valued and loved, during his life as well as after his death. Of
all the things I have read about Thomas, th e one that touched m e most was a
letter written to him on 26 October 190 1 by the architect Daniel H. Burnham,
the inspired designer of the Chicago Loop (including Orchestra Hall, Thomas' s
last dream) and of such masterpieces as New York's Flatiron Building and th e
Union Station in Washington, D.C. Burnham was in Washington with Frederick
Law Olmsted, th e landscap e architect o f New York's Central Park , Yosemite,
and the Stanford University campus; Charles Pollen McKim, architect of New
York's Pennsylvania Station and the Boston Public Library; and Augustus Saint-
Gaudens, America's greatest sculptor. "We have talked of you constantly," wrote
Burnham, "and wis h you were with us and you have come in and take n part
almost as if present in body as well as in spirit. The Senat e has appointed us to
improve th e par k system. . . . Again ha s come th e ol d joy of creating nobl e
things [and ] altogethe r w e have rise n where I never hope d t o trea d i n thi s
existence. And you have been with us and we all think of how much of our
power to dream truly we owe to you, dear friend an d comrade! "
It is noteworthy that Thomas's entir e caree r took place in this country; he
never played or conducted a single concert in Europe, though he was renowned
and respected there. And when he was invited to conduct at the Paris Exposition
of 1900 , his indignation ove r th e Dreyfu s tria l made it impossibl e for him t o
Missionaries 18 5
accept. H e replie d t o th e invitatio n with characteristi c an d ters e dignity: "I

regret sincerel y tha t circumstance s hav e s o change d o f lat e tha t I a s a n
American, wh o lov e justic e an d liberty , a m prevente d fro m visitin g th e
Metropolis of France next summer."
His is the story , of course, of how our musical life came to be what it is, but
more largel y it i s a stor y o f enterprise , resilienc e an d goo d humor , infinit e
resourcefulness, a willingness to improvise, faith in education and improvement,
belief in a land of unlimited possibilities. I see it also as a story of America at its
best, and that makes it a special pleasure, at this dark moment i n our history,
to look at it and to retell it.
—M.S.
Sigmutid Spaeth?
Someone You Should Know
S
igmund Spaeth . Th e nam e hardl y seems real. Yet it wa s real enoug h
between th e 1920 s and th e earl y 1960s, fou r decade s during which h e
wrote thirty-two books—good sellers, most of them—and hundreds of
articles in newspapers and such magazines as Esquire, The New Yorker, and Th e
Saturday Evening Post. He was friendly with George Gershwin and recalled th e
afternoon when he dropped in on the composer just as he was writing the last
notes o f An American in Paris. He turne d page s for Richard Straus s on th e
stage of Philadelphia's Academ y of Music while the grea t soprano Elisabet h
Schumann san g the composer's lieder. He was a dinner companio n t o Albert
Einstein, playe d chess with the violinis t Misch a Elman, and appeare d at th e
White House , twice , a t th e reques t o f Franklin Roosevelt . A s "Th e Tun e
Detective," h e took to the stag e at Radio City Music Hall. For years he was a
regular on the Metropolitan Opera Quiz, the intermission feature of the Met's
radio broadcasts. On television he appeared with Jack Benny, Steve Allen, Art
Linkletter, Mike Wallace. He died in 1965 , a year that continues t o recede, as
bygone years will do; but figure s fro m th e past sometimes seem even larger to
us than they did to those who encountered the m every day—Gershwin, perhaps,
or FDR . Yo u can't sa y that abou t Sigmun d Spaeth . Durin g hi s lifetime , h e
seemed t o be everywhere you looked. Who know s him today ?
Yet Sigmun d Spaeth' s lif e i s more tha n a n objec t lesson i n th e temporary
nature o f human glory . During his time, h e was one o f America's best-know n
music popularizers, an d h e i s still one o f the mos t tireles s workers on music' s

behalf tha t thi s countr y has known. H e was a believer. "Music for Everybody"
was not simply the title of his syndicated newspaper column; it was the motto he
lived by. But perhaps he believed too strongly. Perhaps his intensity, the source of
so much of his appeal, eventually got the best of him, cutting him off toward the
end fro m th e trul y populist ideal he cherished . Fo r today Sigmund Spaet h i s a
cultural artifact, part of a past we will eventually and inevitably forget, since so
much els e i s so much mor e important—th e grea t music, fo r example, whos e
rhythms and harmonies shape d him , an d which continue s t o extend it s living
influence int o th e presen t an d into th e future . Sigmun d Spaeth' s subjec t was
greater than he was. He wouldn't have argue d otherwise. He served music, but
music also brought him celebrity that he enjoyed. In the end, as the world around
him expanded an d the pond he swam in grew, he just displaced less volume.
He was born in Philadelphia o n 10 April 1885, the son of a Lutheran minister
who had emigrate d fro m German y twent y years earlier. His father compose d
hymns, his mother playe d piano an d organ , an d sh e edited th e Church Book
with Music an d wrote a book on Hans Sachs , her o o f Die Meistersinger, whic h
would become Sigmund's favorite opera. Sig, second youngest of seven children ,
grew up in a household wher e music was a given. Everyone, but fo r one olde r
brother, san g and playe d piano o r violin, whic h wa s not a s remarkable in a n
upper-middle-class home o f the lat e nineteenth century as it would be today.
"It was always taken for granted in the Spaeth famil y that anyone a t all could
both sing and pla y on som e instrument, b y note or by ear," Sig wrote in th e
"Personal Reminiscences" wit h which h e prefaced his Fifty Years with Music, a
book publishe d i n 1959 , b y which tim e phonograph s ha d take n th e plac e of
the famil y piano . " I cannot remember just when I learned t o read music, for I
assumed i t wa s a perfectl y normal process , lik e learnin g t o spea k an d rea d
one's ow n language." For the rest of his life, he would believe that "anyone a t
all" could sin g or play music, and tha t conviction drov e him in his campaign
on music' s behalf. He fel t "tha t if you understood [music ] a little better , lik e
how the themes are put together, for example, that it would be more enjoyable,"
said his grand-niece, Patrici a Spaeth, i n 2002 . "So that you know what's going
on. Like some of us go to a football game and have no idea of what's going on,
and it's really hard to enjoy it if you just see this ball going back and forth. It's
the sam e way when yo u hear al l these instrument s goin g back an d forth. " A
musician herself, Patricia Spaet h recall s Sig's visits when sh e was growing up
in Southern California : th e famou s uncl e fro m bac k East dropping in during
his trip s to Hollywood , cheerin g u p her widowe d mother an d exercisin g hi s
prerogative as an eminence, an d a childless on e at that, t o assume a paternal
role t o th e youn g girl and he r brothers . Si g entertained th e kid s with corn y
jokes, but he also played piano duets with Pat, reliving those parlo r musicales
of his own childhood .
Missionaries 18 9
Sig attended Haverfor d College and did graduate work at Princeton, wher e
he wa s concertmaster o f a string orchestra conducte d b y Philip Mittell . Sig
claims that Mittell had been a friend of Brahms's, but the name Mittell appears
in no Brahms literature I have seen, an d when I asked one of the composer's
recent biographer s if he had encountered i t in his research, he drew a blank.
None of this means that Mittell had no Brahms connection, bu t it does suggest
that Sig—o r perhap s Mittell—was overstatin g th e relationshi p b y using th e
word "friend." Throughout his college days Sig sang in glee clubs and arranged
music fo r theatrica l productions . H e listene d t o concert s b y th e Ne w Yor k
Philharmonic, which , he says, visited the Princeton campus under the directio n
of Gustav Mahler—though this informatio n is also difficult t o confirm . Th e
New York Philharmonic ha s no documentation o f having played at Princeto n
under Mahler, but its records from thes e years are incomplete. I am not out to
prove tha t Sigmun d Spaet h wa s deliberately misleading hi s readers, nor d o
two questionabl e assertion s tha t can' t b e verifie d o r conclusivel y disproved
establish a pattern; yet it is hard not t o feel that Sig was trying to deflect some
glory i n hi s direction. Bu t othe r publi c figures , mor e famou s tha n Sigmund
Spaeth, have done worse, and his contentions her e ar e pretty innocent.
Sig took hi s Ph.D. no t i n musi c but i n English , German , an d philosophy,
and for a brief period after his graduation in 1909 he taught German at Princeto n
as a member of Woodrow Wilson's faculty . In 1912 , after a few years teaching
at a boys' school i n North Carolina , wher e he als o coached football , soccer,
and swimming, he went to New York to work half time at the publishing house
of G. Schirmer. Then he got his break—what he calls his "surprise appointment"
as music critic on the Evening Mail. The staf f included sports writer Grantland
Rice, cartoonist Rube Goldberg, and reporter Ed Sullivan. The offic e boy, B. P
"Benny" Schulberg, would go on to become a motion pictur e magnate and to
father a son named Budd, who achieved even greater celebrity as the author of
What Makes Sammy Run ? an d screenplay s for such films a s On th e Waterfront
and Th e Harder They Fall. Only i f you were made of granite would you not b e
shaped by company such as this.
Spaeth's nex t caree r move , afte r a stint coverin g sport s for the Ne w York
Times, seems a retreat into calme r territor y from th e charge d atmospher e a t
the Evening Mail, bu t i t was really what pushe d hi m int o th e fron t line . H e
took a position as educational director and promotion manager for the electri c
player pian o calle d th e Ampico . I n hi s new capacity, he bega n speakin g o n
music, and h e made his first radi o appearances. His public life ha d begun . I n
1924 he published his first book, The Common Sense of Music, which he calle d
"the first serious attempt to approach music in general from the layman's point
of view and in everyday language, completely eliminating technica l terms. "
His goal was noble. I t was to bring music to the people. His method wa s to
demystify, t o reduc e complexitie s t o simpl e forms . H e woul d disassembl e a
Haydn symphony, say, taking care to number the gears and valves and gaskets
before spreading them out for examination, an d then he put them back together
again. He coul d com e u p with felicities of phrasing that spoke directly to his
audience, suc h as this from "Symphonies for Business Men," an article written
before th e onse t o f the Grea t Depression an d included i n his 1929 collectio n
They Still Sing of Love: "For m in music is very much th e sam e as form i n golf .
Essentially it represents the power to secure the greatest results with the leas t
waste of effort. "
In the same piece, he expounds on aesthetics fo r Everyman. '"Why do men
write symphonies? ' ask s th e Practica l Busines s Man . 'Ther e i s certainly n o
money i n it.'" Granted, say s Spaeth. Bu t "th e tru e creative artis t alway s has
the urg e t o d o somethin g i n th e gran d manner , an d this"—her e come s th e
punch—"applies even t o th e books , th e drama s an d th e epi c poem s o f th e
world, man y o f which ar e a dea d los s commercially." H e continue s wit h a n
object lesson in listening, renderin g the abstract concrete b y appealing to what
his "Practical Busines s Man" already knows: "The bes t advice to the business
man who would like t o enjoy a symphony is that he shoul d liste n t o it in th e
same way that he looks at a cathedral o r a great picture or a group of statuary.
With a book o r a play , i t i s different, an d rathe r easier . For a book o r a play
presents only one thing at a time, out of which a complete impression is gradually
built u p . . .. You cannot completely enjoy or appreciate a symphony in a single
hearing an y more tha n you can gras p th e significanc e o f a cathedral wit h a
passing glance. " Wha t effec t migh t hi s word s hav e ha d o n thes e practica l
commercial gents of the lat e 1920s , many of whom were just a few years away
from becoming tragi c figures, stepping into eternity from thei r offic e windows
fifteen stories above Wall Street because a system they trusted had failed? Would
any o f th e acquaintance s the y ma y hav e mad e throug h Spaeth—say , th e
recollected beauty of a passage from Mozart—have brought them back to safety?
Spaeth almos t always had som e genuine knowledg e t o impart, and almos t
always he began by imparting it in a n engaging way, as he doe s in his tips for
"businessmen." Ye t once on to a good thing, h e found i t all but impossibl e to
stop, like an evangelist who will not res t his case until th e las t member of his
congregation step s forwar d t o b e saved . I hav e quote d fro m th e firs t thre e
paragraphs o f "Symphonie s fo r Business Men." Th e essa y continue s fo r te n
more pages, and the variations Spaeth writes on his theme prov e only that he
was no Elgar or Brahms.
Yet he could cut to the chase. As early as 1929, in "What's the Matter with
Music?" Spaeth addresse d a question that has yet to be resolved. "The athleti c
coach in an American schoo l or college would not drea m of seriously urging his
pupils to adopt a professional athletic career . . . . Yet the musi c teacher, with a
smaller an d les s lucrative fiel d tha n that o f professional athletics, encourage s
any more-than-average talen t t o 'go in for a career.' As a result, the ver y ones
Missionaries 19 1
who shoul d b e developin g int o goo d amateur s an d therefor e eve n bette r

listeners, ar e strugglin g with th e problem s o f professionalism , eventually
becoming, at best, the tradespeople of their art." This is gutsy writing. It shows
how much he cared.
The Spaet h metho d o f demystifying reache s it s culmination i n one o f his
most ambitiou s projects , his 193 6 Great Symphonies: Ho w t o Recognize an d
Remember Them. To my mind, this sums up his inconsistency a s a writer and as
a proselytizer , for i t i s perhap s als o hi s bigges t miscalculation . I n Great
Symphonies, Spaet h fit s lyric s of hi s ow n t o staple s o f th e basi c symphoni c
repertory. He was not th e firs t t o do this, an d others hav e don e i t since, no t
always with as noble a n intent as Sig's; but whe n a certain Mabell e Glenn of
Kansas City asked him t o prepare a set of mnemonic aid s for a convention of
music teachers i n her hom e town , h e was on hi s way to becoming th e mos t
celebrated o f these unlikel y collaborators. His Kansa s City project gave him
the idea for an entire boo k devoted t o what he called "symphoni c texts." H e
outlined hi s guiding principles: The text s "must be simple and direct enoug h
to appeal to children, but not so silly as to offend intelligen t adults. " The point ,
again, is to render what might be intimidating a little less scary for new listeners.
Once that is accomplished, he can go for the bull's-eye and get down to teaching
musical form: "Th e compose r does things with these tunes, " he points out in
his first chapter, "like a playwright or a novelist working with his characters, so
every symphony really has a musical plot, in which each movement i s like a n
act i n a play. " Throughout hi s book, Spaet h manage s t o conve y lesson s i n
musical structure . There i s alway s a caveat , however , an d i n thi s cas e i t is
Spaeth's "lyrics. " Eve n a s you rea d this , h e ma y b e answerin g fo r the m t o
Beethoven, Mozart , and Haydn . A s generou s a s one want s t o be , Spaeth' s
verses tend to range from th e odd to the out-and-out bizarre. They have a sort
of inspired goofiness about them, an d the y swell with unintended humor—th e
sorts of things with which graduate students in the liberal arts might entertai n
each othe r a t partie s afte r havin g ha d to o muc h t o drink , lik e reciting , fro m
memory, the first twenty lines of The Canterbury Tales Prologue in Middle English.
All thi s said , I must share som e of Spaeth's lyrics . Here i s the openin g of
Mozart's Symphon y No. 40 , which onl y h e an d Rober t Schuman n see m t o
hear a s happy music.
With a laugh and a smile like a sunbeam,

And a face that is glad, with a fun-beam,
We can start on our way very gaily,
Singing tunes from a symphony daily;
And if Mozart could but hear us,
He would wave his hat and cheer us

Coming down the scale,
All hale and strong in song,
All hale and strong in song.
Here is what he does with the melody that opens the second movement of
Beethoven's Fifth :
When the moon rises in the sky,

And all the stars of Heav'n are shining clear on high,
We fear no Fate,
No task to o great,
We are masters!
And then this, for the great blaze of C major that opens the last movement:
Fall in line, and let your armor shine!

We have won, we have won,
And all the struggle with our enemy is done!
(Personally, I may never forgiv e hi m fo r that one. I first encountere d thes e

lines when I was in high school. To this day I have difficulty thinkin g o f that
great momen t withou t Sigmun d Spaeth' s nutt y verse s bangin g aroun d
between th e trumpet s and the violins , threatenin g t o turn the whole thin g
into a Looney Tune.)
Here is the opening of the "Merry Gathering of Country Folk" in Beethoven's
Pastoral Symphony:
The peasants are dancing and prancing together,

The weather means nothing to them, ha, ha, ha!
Now swing your partner and don't let her go,
A dance in the country is never too slow!
More: The openin g of Schumann's Rhenish Symphony:
Rhineland, lovely Rhineland,

Superfine land,
Full of beauty, song, and story,
Land of legend, land of glory!
Missionaries 19 3
My personal favorite is the openin g of the Brahm s Fourth:
Hello! Hello!
What ho! What ho!
Hello!
What ho!
Hello!
What ho!
This give s you a n ide a o f what t o expec t fro m Great Symphonies. I thin k
these verses are ridiculous, and I take pleasure in sharing them. But Sigmund
Spaeth was not a ridiculous man—not even in his role as the "Tune Detective,"
in which he found surprising though usually not very meaningful correspondences
between famous tunes. He points out, for example, the similarities between th e
Westminster Chimes of Big Ben and one of the tune s in the las t movement of
the Brahms First Symphony—the one played by muted horns over shimmering
strings, jus t befor e th e bi g chorale them e make s its firs t appearanc e in th e
trombones. The ability to spot things like this may strike you as a perverse sort of
talent, yet Spaeth was often called on to testify i n songwriters' plagiarism suits.
His writing could be stylish and elegant, o r plodding. He wrote a lot, an d
one has the impression that he did not spend much time revising or agonizing
over his words or his purpose. He knew he was right.
At th e sam e time, he was a realist. In Opportunities i n Music, publishe d in
1950 by a firm calle d Vocationa l Guidance Manuals , he produce d an entir e
volume on the various niches th e music business offers, fro m performing artist
to agent. And wh o can quibble with advice such as this:
To those who honestly believe that they can win out as independent artist s on a big
scale one can only say, "Be absolutely sure that you have no t merel y an impressive
talent bu t suc h extraordinary gift s a s to amount t o positive genius . Do not accep t
the flatterin g opinions o f your friends and relative s as to your ability. Get yourself
heard if possible by experienced an d unprejudice d judges and by neutral audience s
whose reaction s ar e presumably sincere. Convinc e yourself that you have worke d
honestly and thoroughly, under competent teaching , an d that you are fully equippe d
for a professiona l performanc e befor e askin g anyon e t o pa y t o hea r you . Mak e
perfection your ideal, and do not be satisfied with anything 'good enough' even if it
is indulgently accepted . Whe n there i s no longe r an y reasonable doub t a s to your
fitness fo r a professiona l career , ge t hol d o f th e necessar y capita l someho w an d
begin th e arduou s campaign of'winning friend s and influencing people.'"
Sigmund Spaeth did not focus solely on concert music, nor was his emphasis
merely on listening . H e wante d people to make music . He love d barbershop
quartets and thought their performance within virtually everyone's grasp—or
every man's, a t any rate. Barbershop quartets still exist, of course, and maybe
I'm jus t revealin g th e limitation s o f my taste whe n I sa y that a littl e bi t o f
"Sweet Adeline" in four-part harmony goes a long way. But I think that Spaeth's
fondness for barbershop quartets really places him in another era , an era whose
ideals were summed up by the 1950s , and which ended with JFK's assassination,
Vietnam, an d Watergate. Concer t music survives such assault s on humanity .
Barbershop quartets do not .
Today, much of Sigmund Spaeth's writing can be read as social documentary,
not just as a document o f musical taste and teaching. Jus t consider th e estee m
in which h e was held b y those wh o had forgotten that they were ever young.
The stiffnes s o f an entire generatio n i s summed up when Eugene Ormandy, in
a foreword t o a 1952 reprint of Great Symphonies, says : "If every member of our
concert audiences , plu s the multitud e o f radio an d recor d listeners , forme d
the habit of approaching great symphonies in this entertaining an d informative
manner, the enjoymen t of the masterpieces of music would unquestionably be
vastly increased, fo r the benefit of all concerned." Th e prose , sapped of heart
and color , ha s al l the eloquenc e o f an Eisenhowe r speech , an d i n th e smu g
assurance of this defender of the old guard we get a sudden flash of why, in just
a fe w years, Elvis would be s o adored, an d o f what, i n a few more years, th e
1960s woul d rebe l against . Ormand y i s not even hones t i n hi s introductory
words. He claims that "these eas y little jingles are actually forgotten once the
music is firmly established in the memory, having served their obvious purpose."
Perhaps—but only if you encounter the m from Ormandy's perspective, which
is the perspective of someone who has long known the music minus the words.
For th e res t of us, these eas y little jingles , once the y hav e hacke d thei r way
into brain cells, seem to replicate themselve s lik e computer viruses.
Sig Spaeth stoppe d bein g a ma n o f his time . I n Januar y 1963 , tw o years
before h e died , i n hi s prefac e to hi s las t book , Th e Importance o f Music, h e
sounds a bitter chord that had been absent in his previous work. "The opinion s
expressed ar e purel y personal, a s they shoul d be , an d i f they creat e violen t
disagreement, o r even significan t controversy , s o much th e better . A t leas t
they ar e completely honest , an d unfortunatel y complete honest y stil l seems
difficult t o achiev e i n th e comple x fiel d o f music , wit h al l it s prejudices,
exaggerated enthusiasms as well as criticisms, its frequently false values and its
continued vulnerabilit y to the ancien t handicaps of snobbery and hypocrisy."
Snob an d hypocrite are not word s to describe Sigmund Spaeth. Bu t for all
his dedication t o the commo n man , t o music for everyone, he faile d t o grasp
something essentia l in music's nature. Cal l it spontaneity an d improvisation .
"It ha s lon g been a rule with popula r singers to sta y off the bea t a s much as
possible, slowing up one phrase and hurrying another s o as to keep up a running
fight with the basic time marked by the instrument s o f percussion," he writes
in a 1952 review of Peggy Lee's recording of Richard Rodgers's "Lover," a review
Missionaries 19 5
that becomes a condemnation o f song stylists—"one of the pe t abomination s

of thi s reviewer. " He continues : "Distortion s o f melodic line ar e als o a fairl y
old story, with classic models in th e 'breaks ' an d 'hot licks' of jazz." Then he
assesses Peggy Lee's treatment o f the Rodgers : "The fac t tha t i t is done wit h
fiendish skill makes it all the more objectionable." Sigmund Spaeth did not get
it. Sigmund Spaeth did not realize that he didn't ge t it.
He hated rock 'n' roll—hated it—and he believed it was his responsibility to
say so. Perhaps it was just that change was coming too quickly for Sig, turning
him into a proto-Patrick Buchanan . I n 1957 , he wrote this in his newspaper
column: "Recen t newspape r headlines hav e emphasize d the fac t tha t th e
illiterate gangsters of our younger generation are definitely influenced in their
lawlessness by the parod y of music known as 'Rock 'n' Roll.' Either it actually
stirs them t o savage orgies of sex and violence , o r they use it as an excuse for
the removal of all inhibitions an d the complete disregard of the conventions of
decency." Then he really let s go.
"In a theater no t lon g ag o an ushe r an d severa l spectators were stabbed
during a general riot of teen-agers. The picture which apparently aroused these
violent emotion s was something called jamboree"—a B movie featuring Jerry
Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Fats Domino, Slim Whitman, Franki e Avalon, Coun t
Basic, Connie Francis, and Dick Clark, not name s tha t com e t o mind whe n
you think about performers who might inspire a riot. In Jamboree, Sig continues,
various reputabl e disc jockey s lent themselve s t o th e exploitatio n o f a serie s of

Rock 'n' Roll specialties featuring imitators of Elvis Presley, whose leering, whining,
moaning, an d suggestiv e lyrics blandly offered a vicarious sexual experience.
If anyone missed the point of these filthy performances, a practically unique naivete
would seem to be indicated. Ho w this picture ever passed the censor s is a mystery.
Perhaps they are still unacquainted with the fact s o f life.
Aside fro m th e illiterac y of this "music," it has proved itself definitely a menace t o
youthful moral s and a n incitemen t t o juvenile delinquency. There i s no poin t i n
soft-pedaling thes e fact s an y longer . The dail y papers provide sufficien t proo f of
their existence .
All this strikes us as so much wind today, but i t is not th e rantin g of some
old fuddy-duddy. These are the words of a man who felt th e essenc e of his lif e
being threatened. Hi s great-niece Patricia, reflecting on this , think s tha t Sig
fell prey to "the feeling you tend to get when you're fifty o r sixty, that the world
is passing you by, and that suddenly there's all this incomprehensible stuf f going
on—music, modes of dress, modes of art. I'm not certai n [Sig ] was necessarily
just negative, but h e wa s saying Don't forget tha t thes e othe r peopl e are still
there. I think he had a feeling that maybe Mozart and Beethoven weren't going
to survive without their champions. "
As hard as Spaeth worked on behalf of the music he loved, he campaigned
against music he abhorred. In the 1950 s and 1960s , the Encyclopaedia Britannica
Book o f the Year, fo r which h e wrot e critiques of the previou s twelve months '
worth of popular music, gave him an annual forum for this. Here we read him
decrying "the menace of'rock 'n' roll'" that continued throug h 1959, the "curse
of 'rock 'n' roll' [that ] stil l hung heavil y over most of the widel y heard songs
[of 1960 , when ] mor e tha n 90 % o f thi s materia l coul d b e dismisse d a s
unadulterated trash." He describes the rock 'n' roll of 1961 as "nauseous," and
that year "even the titles appearing most frequently were singularly unattractive.
Often the y consisted o f a single word—'Twist,' 'Kiddio,' 'Yogi,' 'Stay,' 'Sleep,'
'Hucklebuck,' 'Ruby, ' 'Calcutta,' 'Wheels,' 'Runaway,' 'Apache,' and 'Cryin'.'"
The shee r intensity o f his fury say s much about the beast consuming him .
Where did it lead ? In a follow-up to the colum n in which he describe d the
"general riot of teen-agers," Spaeth reveals some responses to his evaluation of
rock. He quotes one teenager's letter "verbatim, without correcting... spelling
or English": "Elvi s Presley is the bes t singer in th e U.S . as proved by a recen t
pole (sic) . He sing s wonderful and surle y (sic) acts well. That something you
couldn't d o ... yo u are a square."
"You are a square." It is a sad epitaph for a man s o dedicated t o populism,
who eve n towar d th e en d o f hi s lif e coul d say , "Progressive educators no w
realize that th e snobber y of the pas t was a serious mistake and kept million s
from a n hones t enjoyment of music by making it a mystery and a matter of
special privilege, talent an d experience. 'Musi c for Everybody' ha s become a
literal possibility." He wante d peopl e to enjoy music . Imagine what he would
think today, with Elvis an icon and five-CD collections o f rock 'n' roll classics
of the 1950 s for sale on late-night TV . "I just couldn't seem to stop /Watching
while other musical styles /Came stumbling to the top," wrote Patricia Spaeth's
younger brother, Thaddeus Spae , in "Uncl e Sig, " a song he compose d abou t
his famous relative. "Psychedelic and surf came through," Spae's lyrics continue,
Heavy metal glitter and disco too

Punk and funk and reggae, thrash and new wave
Uncle Sig's whirling in his grave . . .
Maybe Sig died i n time , befor e h e ha d t o se e the pun k an d fun k comin g

through, and the pilgrimages to Graceland. But had he witnessed it, might he
have com e t o som e inner reconciliation , seein g a t las t that th e worl d is big
enough fo r rock 'n ' roll and concert music , and mayb e discovering—though
this is probably too much to hope for—tha t a love of one does not preclud e a
love of the other ? In a n ideal world, he might have see n tha t the impuls e to
Missionaries 19 7
make music, whatever form the music takes, was the same for Bach and Chuc k
Berry. That we may not lik e all the music we hear, but that the reason music is
bigger than any one o f us is that it—all of it—is so much a part of us all. An d
that his work on music' s behalf was good work, despite its shortcomings an d
occasional failures of vision. He lived, as Richard Rodgers said, "a productive
and purposeful life." He died having earned th e right to be satisfied with what
he had done. I hope he was.
—L.R.
Isaac Stem—On Music and Life
I
n 198 7 Isaa c Ster n playe d th e Brahm s Violin Concert o wit h th e Los
Angeles Philharmonic , conducte d b y that orchestra's then favorite guest
conductor, Kurt Sanderling. The opportunity to visit both these musicians
was too good to miss, and wanting to ask Stern some questions about his early
years in San Francisco, I called on him at the Beverly Hills house of his friend
Richard Colburn , a generous patron of the art s with whom he was staying. I
had hit , i t turne d out , on a topic especiall y dear t o him . S o here, fro m tha t
sunny morning, is a bit of Stern on Stern .
"I love Tokyo , I love Paris, New Yor k has been hom e fo r more than fort y
years, and I always enjoy being there," h e said, relaxing after a rehearsal. "But
San Francisco! One touc h of that fragran t fog, to see and smell the sunlight in
some street—the memories that bring s back: my first tenni s gam e on a hard
court, a place a t th e corne r o f Van Ness and Lombar d where the y had thes e
fabulous thic k milkshakes , learning t o drive on on e of those Mode l T's wit h
three pedals—I worked for a while with a pianist who lived right on one of the
S-curves of Lombard, and when you've driven that you can drive anywhere—
the Esse x that ble w a gasket on Californi a somewher e between Powel l and
Stockton, m y whole childhood, everything. "
Stern had last worked with Kurt Sanderling when they had done the Brahms
Concerto wit h the Leningrad Philharmonic thirt y years ago. And it was in the
Brahms that, fou r months sh y of his seventeenth birthday , he made his officia l
debut with Pierre Monteux an d th e Sa n Francisc o Symphon y on 1 9 and 20

March 1937 , the Orchestra' s Silve r Jubilee season. The "rea l but unofficial "
debut had happened th e year before with the Saint-Saens B-minor Concert o
under th e directio n o f the Symphony' s Assistant Conducto r an d Principa l
Cellist, Willem Van den Burg , with whom he had just enjoyed an unexpecte d
reunion a few days before. "I was disappointed that Monteux wouldn't let me
play the Sibelius," Stern remembers . "I didn't know any better." Did he recall
the first time he heard the Brahms? A long, thoughtful silence yields the name
of Kreisler, but tentatively . He shakes his head. " I don't know . Look it up and
see who played it then." It was not Kreisler, who performed with the Symphony
only once, in 1914, but it could have been Enescu, concertmaster Mishel Piastre,
Nathan Milstein , Efrem Zimbalist, Heifetz, or the not quite fourteen-year-old
Yehudi Menuhin .
San Francisc o is where Isaac Stern gre w up, but i t was not hi s birthplace.
That was a small Ukrainian tow n called Kremenetz . How did he com e to be
raised i n San Francisco ? "First of all, ther e wa s a revolution i n Russia. That
was the reason for getting out. We settled in San Francisco because my mother
had relatives there. In Russia, my father had been trained t o be an amateur—
an amateur in painting, in music, in living. When he came to America he had
to mak e a living, s o he becam e a hous e painter . H e die d i n 1945 , o f lead-
poisoning." Estranged for a time, father and son were closer again toward the
end: "H e mad e folders an d file s fo r my music, kept track of my clippings. H e
lived lon g enoug h a t leas t t o se e th e possibilitie s of my life." Stern' s mother ,
who sang and from whom he learned muc h in childhood, live d until 1981 .
Where di d th e Stern s live ? "Al l ove r th e place . O n 43r d Avenue , o n
California, on Buchanan near Mr. Blinder"—Naoum Blinder, the San Francisco
Symphony's concertmaster an d Stern's principal teacher. "I n 193 2 we moved
to New York so that I could work with Louis Persinger"—former San Francisco
Symphony concertmaster and teacher of Yehudi Menuhin. "W e stayed for four
months, bu t mone y an d opportunit y ran ou t an d w e cam e back. " B y then
Stern ha d bee n studying violin fo r four years . " I began a t th e Sa n Francisc o
Conservatory when I was eight. M y very firs t teacher ? Somebody. I'll ge t i n
trouble fo r no t remembering . The n a t th e Conservatory , ther e wa s Ada
Clement, Lilia n Hodgehead, Natha n Abbas, Robert Pollack—Lord, these are
names I haven't spoken in years. Ernest Bloch was Director of the Conservatory
and conducted th e orchestra, and I was his concertmaster before my feet could
reach th e floor. " He laughs : "Everybody created m y career; some really had a
hand in it."
Stern continues t o think of those who "really had a hand i n it." "There was
Miss Lutie D. Goldstein—it was always Miss Lutie D. Goldstein—who bought
me my first fiddle, and Cantor Reube n Rinder, who made the shittach [di d the
match-making]. And Dr . Leo Eloasser, a brain surgeon, so high"—Stern levels
Missionaries 20 1
his hand about four feet off the floor—"a most execrable violist and a remarkable
man a t whose house we used to play chamber music." At twelve , Isaac Stern
was alread y somebody on th e Sa n Francisc o musica l scene. "Yes , all right, I
was the talente d ki d on the block. I began at eight, when violinists ar e really
already over the hill . Yes, my parents were surprised and the y were delighted.
They were not fulfillin g a lack in their own lives by forcing me to become what
they hadn't become. I learned musi c to be educated, not t o become a fiddler.
You weren't educated i f you didn't pla y music."
Stern's retur n t o Sa n Francisc o als o marke d th e beginnin g o f what h e
remembers as "the mos t seminal period" of his young years, those years fro m
twelve to seventeen whe n he worked with Naoum Blinder, always referred t o
as "Mr. Blinder." Stern learne d a lot o f violin fro m Mr . Blinder, but wha t h e
learned abou t musi c more generall y and abou t attitude , ethica l stance , an d
commitment wa s no les s important . Th e endles s quarte t partie s with olde r
musicians, most of them members of the Symphony, were an important part of
that—"quartet upon quartet upon quartet, then an enormous meal, then another
couple of quartets. Hausmusik, that's real living with music. That's why someone
like Sanderling is so familiar t o me, someone who comes out o f that culture of
living music, where music is essential. And ho w important it was to learn no t
just at lessons but in the doing . And thes e experience d musicians , with great
love they didn't hesitate t o give me hell." That was his real education. "I went
to school for about a year. Then I got what they fancifully calle d tutors, people
who ha d rea d a little mor e tha n I . When I was eleven I too k th e Stanfor d
intelligence test . I tested out at sixteen. 'G o home,' they said."
He began going to hear a lot of music as well. The peopl e who left the most
powerful an d lastin g impression , tim e havin g sorte d ou t s o much , wer e
Rachmaninoff, especiall y whe n h e playe d Beethoven ; Artu r Schnabel ;
Bronislaw Huberman (who m Thomas Mann called "the ugl y little sorcerer"—
der hdfiliche kleine Hexenmeister), th e grea t Polis h violinis t wh o wen t o n t o
found what is now the Israel Philharmonic; "an d of course Yehudi." Later there
was Heifet z ("yo u really want t o thro w you r fiddl e away" ) an d als o Joseph
Szigeti, whos e performance s of Bac h an d twentieth-centur y musi c mad e
tremendous impact . Th e Symphony' s conducto r the n wa s anothe r grea t
musician and memorable personality, Alfred Hertz, "bald as an egg and with a
beard as dense as Rasputin's. He was the man with the hair in the wrong place.
He was Jovian and jovial in one. He and [hi s wife] Lil y were the artisti c bosses
in town, there was no question about that." Opera was important too. "Most
of all I remember my first Ring. Bodanzky conducted, an d we had Flagstad and
Melchior and Lotte Lehmann in the same Walkure, and Friedrich Schorr, when
you could still tell which note he was singing."
Not onl y did Stern lo g hours of chamber music each week, but he went t o
hear other s pla y it a s well. "I first hear d al l the Beethove n quartet s with th e
Budapest, an d the y playe d Bartok an d othe r moder n composer s too. Th e

members of the Quartet wer e younger than all the young quartets today, but
mature! And those recordings stand up! Joseph Roisman"—the quartet's leader
from 192 9 until th e grou p disbanded i n 1967—"i n thos e day s ha d th e bes t
bow arm around. Heifetz use d to come and watch him. It was from Roisma n
that I learned the essential thing, that you let the phrase determine the bowing
and that you have to have the flexibility to do any bowing the phrase requires.
Did you notice at the rehearsal that I got them to change some bowings in the
first movement?" I had. Stern had done it wordlessly, with body language alone,
and concertmaster Sidney Weiss and his section had picked it up without missing
a beat. "That came right out of what I learned fro m watching Roisman."
Stern wa s sixtee n whe n Pierr e Monteu x cam e t o th e Sa n Francisc o
Symphony, an d tha t bega n anothe r crucia l an d wonderfu l chapte r i n hi s
education. He went to Symphony rehearsals constantly. First he watched Mr.
Blinder. "Whe n h e wa s leading, NOBOD Y sa t lik e THIS! " Ster n collapse s
into th e bac k of his chair. "Th e conductor-concertmaste r relationshi p i s aid
with respect in one direction, comradeshi p with respect in the other." Seein g
Mr. Blinder and Monteux work together taught him this. "With Monteux the
question was always 'What is it all about?' Why do you play, not how. Going to
those rehearsals, I learned how to look. I learned how to know. Once, someone
asked William Steinberg how he learned al l that music, and he said—a thic k
layer o f German accen t suddenl y covers Stern's comfortabl e voice—'I don' t
learn zem, I know zem.' Monteux was like that. He was imperturbable. There
was no way you could shock him. He shocked me , though. When I first me t
him he aske d me about girlfriends. I stuttered around and said I didn't hav e
time. And h e said, 'When I was your age I already had my sixth mistress.' You
know, he'd starte d as a fiddler a t the Folies-Bergeres. I told him that was what
I really called starting from th e bottoms up. He liked that. I was supposed to
have playe d the Brahm s with hi m i n Londo n o n th e 4t h o f May 1964" —
Monteux, a t eighty-nine , wa s the n i n th e thir d yea r of a twenty-five-yea r
contract a s Chief Conducto r o f th e Londo n Symphony . "It didn' t happen ,
though, an d h e die d tha t summer . Once I was together wit h Monteu x an d
Casals, an d I realized those tw o had 16 0 years of experience betwee n them .
Not jus t experience, but digested experience."
In 1937 , Stern ventured to New York for his first recital there. "I didn't tear
up th e world . Chotzinoff, th e Ne w York Post critic , wrote , 'From th e lan d of
sunshine, orang e juice, and Hollywood comes yet another on e . . . ' In thos e
days all the radi o networks had thei r ow n orchestras, and Mutual offered m e
their concertmastership . I was seventeen. Th e da y afte r m y debut recita l I
spent fiv e hour s riding on th e to p o f a double-decker bus, from Washingto n
Square t o Washingto n Height s an d bac k again , u p an d down . I decided t o
stick with it, and the next year it went better." The strengt h for that decisio n
Missionaries 20 3
came in part from Mr . Blinder. "What he left m e and what I look for in others
was tha t h e kep t me from doin g th e eas y thing . H e taugh t m e how to teac h
myself, whic h shoul d be th e goa l of every teacher , an d h e taugh t me how t o
listen, whic h i s the beginnin g an d en d o f all musicianship. Now ho w abou t
some lunch?"
—M.S.
B. HL Haggin the Contrarian
F
or twelve years or so in my thirties an d fortie s I was the musi c critic of
the Boston Globe. From time to time someone would ask me what had
led me to that position and why I had wanted to become a music critic.
My answer usually began: "Well, there was this man called B. H. Haggin . . ."
Haggin was a bewildering mix of the impossible and the admirable, and I cannot
overstate what I learned fro m hi m and how important he was to me.
As a high school student in St. Louis, I lived with my mother for a year and
a hal f o r s o in th e hous e o f a Miss Pickett—H. Lorin e Pickett—wh o wa s a
superlatively successful insurance underwriter and wonderfully feisty, energetic ,
and generou s woman to whom I owe much. Th e capaciou s basement o f her
house, a big Midwestern box on a corner lot, embraced by a screened porch on
two sides , wa s occupie d i n par t b y testimon y t o he r Ne w Dea l politica l
convictions, namel y about fifteen year s of back issues of Th e Nation and Th e
New Republic, th e latte r still very far from makin g its swing to th e right .
This wa s a treasur e trov e fo r me, a recen t arriva l in th e Unite d States ,
brought up to be sympathetic to left-wing causes and ideas, history loving, and
eager t o lear n abou t m y new country . I was discouraged fro m bringin g th e
magazines upstairs because of the clouds of dust that moving them generated ,
and so I spent many hours in a corner of the basement. In the cours e of being
instructed abou t the WPA, CCC , NR A (the National Recovery Act, no t th e
rifle people) , and Roosevelt's other ne w alphabet-soup government agencies ,
reading about the Spanish Civil War, and learning from James Agee about movies
and Malcol m Cowley about literature, I noted tha t The Nation had a regular
column on music—with occasional diversions into ballet—written by someone
named B. H. Haggin. Once in a while there was also a Haggin column on jazz.
I ha d nex t t o n o contex t fo r reading Haggin. I knew almos t none of th e
music he wrote about, an d mos t of the performer s whos e work he discussed
were only names to me, if that. I had just begun to explore books about music,
and although I was an eager newspaper reader, I don't recall reading newspaper
reviews of musical events. In sum, I was unaware at first how different Haggi n
was from other s who wrote about music for magazines and newspapers. I was,
however, drawn in by his firm-textured, clea n writing, and even more by how
sure he seemed t o be of who he was, what he heard, an d what he valued. At
fifteen, I wouldn't hav e know n ho w t o expres s any o f that. Mr . Hecker, my
senior-year English teacher, constantly insisted on "specific reference" to bolster
assertions we made in what we wrote, and somethin g els e that impressed me
about Haggin was that clearly he too subscribed to the "specific reference" creed.
What most fascinated me about Haggin, at least to begin with, was that he
wrote shocking things about famous musicians, those people my mother referred
to as "Respektspersonen"—Koussevitzky ("italicizin g distortion"), Bruno Walter
("flaccid"), Heifetz ("mincing, wailing little swells... sentimenta l and vulgar"),
Horowitz ("th e alternation o f brio and affettuos o teasin g that is the sum total
of his playing"), Menuhin ("coars e and blowzy [tone ] . .. finicky and chopped
up [phrasing]") , and Serkin ("playin g which when it isn't violent i s nerveless
and without force") - 1 As he wrote in 1964 in the introduction to his compilation
Music Observed: " I wasn't pai d t o genuflec t before eminence s o r before th e
limited perception s o f the genera l public , but wa s paid, instead, t o giv e th e
non-professional listeners who read me the benefit of my professional listener's
sharper perceptions, by pointing ou t what those reader s might otherwise no t
notice." Fo r th e benefi t o f readers suc h a s th e on e wh o characterize d hi s
criticisms of Heifetz "snide and ill-mannered impertinence, " h e added: "If any
of them couldn' t hea r what I pointed ou t or preferred t o ignore it, this didn' t
mean I was wrong in hearing and reporting it." No less interesting was the fac t
that Haggin did not hesitat e t o give most of those performer s generou s credit
when he heard something that touched him by its grace or color or some other
quality he admired, although I can't recall an exception being made for Heifetz,
ever. Here wa s an important early lesson that reviewing needed t o deal with
particularities, not generalities .
From time to time Haggin would refer t o letters he received fro m younger
readers, many of whom impressed him by how smart they were. Perhaps hoping
1
Some of these quotations come from late r years, but the y are consistent with what I would have
read in 1944-1945 .
Missionaries 20 7
to impress him too, that gave me the courage after I had gone off to college to
write to him about some of the concerts I had heard. That first letter and those
that followed alway s got prompt and ample replies. I realize in retrospect that
Haggin's letters often had something of the air of religious indoctrination abou t
them; fo r example , afte r I ha d writte n abou t a n excitin g performanc e of
Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, he assured me that I too would in due time achieve
disillusionment abou t Rudolf Serkin. When our chapel choir togethe r with a
chorus fro m wha t w e the n calle d a girls ' colleg e pu t o n a performanc e of
Beethoven's C-majo r Mass , then even les s known tha n it is now and not ye t
recorded, I suggested he come down to Princeton t o hear it. As he sat in th e
chapel for the dress rehearsal, I immediately recognized him from th e photo—
by Walker Evans, no less—on the dus t jacket of one of his books: tall, slender,
with black hair an d penetratin g eyes . On a brilliant Sunda y morning with a
flawless blue sky, he carried a furled blac k umbrella.
As I continued t o read Haggin in The Nation, also in the New York Herald-
Tribune, where for a while he had a column on music on the radio, there were
more letters back and forth. Later, when I was settled in New York as a teacher
and occasiona l writer of record reviews, my first wif e an d I would sometimes
visit him. That involved takin g the subwa y all the way up to 243rd Street, its
northernmost statio n in Manhattan. Ther e he would meet us and guide us the
last few blocks to his apartment on Seaman Avenue. Gradually I got a picture
of the auster e life he lived. He told us he had the same dinner ever y night, a n
eight-ounce stea k and half a package of frozen peas. His one indulgence was
a preludial ounce o f bourbon with a n equa l quantity of water but n o ice , a
drink I still call a Haggin. Once we persuaded him to come to dinner a t our
apartment. No sooner ha d he accepte d th e invitatio n tha n he sent a letter
with a long list of foods he couldn't o r wouldn't eat. We did well until dessert.
Partly because this was a special occasion, partl y to compensate fo r making
him clim b seventy-two steps to ou r sixt h floo r cold-wate r flat o n Mulberry
Street, m y wife, who held Haggi n in great regard, had mad e a delicious port
wine jelly . Thi s h e eye d doubtfull y fo r a few moments, the n said: "D o yo u
mind i f I don't have any ? It quivers."
Haggin spent summer s in Camden, Maine , unti l i t was spoiled for him by
the filmin g o f Peyton Place there . Ever y night dinne r i n Camde n wa s lobster
salad made and delivere d to his doorstep by a neighbor. He owned an elderly
Packard, which was kept on blocks in a garage in the Bron x and brought out
only for the annua l tri p to Camden an d back. In hi s apartment I saw iconic
objects tha t occasionall y mad e came o appearance s i n hi s writings— a
reproduction of a Cezanne still-life with apples and a framed note from Toscanini
about th e placemen t o f th e mute s i n th e Lov e Scene o f Berlioz's Romeo et
Juliette. Hi s recor d review s sometimes go t highl y specifi c abou t ho w thing s
sounded on a particular pair of speakers or with a certain setting on his amplifier,
and there indee d wa s the equipmen t I had read about so often. In fact a t one
point, when he was ready to graduate to some new speakers, I bought his old
ones, an d I admit it was a thrill for me to have them .
He played recordings for us, mostly unpublished Toscanini, who was as near
to a cynosure and ideal as he had amon g performers. It was loud, and he tol d
us tha t hi s upstair s neighbors, a Germa n Jewis h refugee couple , sometime s
complained. H e had no t actuall y ever met thos e people , but onc e he got on
the elevato r t o fin d the m alread y on board. The wif e looke d meaningfull y at
her husband and said, "Unser Feind"—our enemy. Having enemies was somehow
important to him. Haggin had a photographic-phonographic memory for dinner
parties thirt y years in th e past , of who had sa t next t o whom an d sai d what
wrong-headed thing . H e wa s ful l o f storie s abou t interestin g peopl e i n th e
musical, literary , and artisti c world he ha d known . Almos t al l those stories ,
though, ended with a tight-lipped "but we're no longer friendly." In later years,
I to o wa s on th e "n o longe r friendly " list . Th e intensit y o f his passion s an d
convictions wa s an essential par t of what made Haggin a good critic an d for
me a n immensel y importan t one , bu t th e dar k sid e o f thos e passion s an d
convictions wa s that he was not good at even small disagreements and that in
his personal life he was absolutely unforgiving of lapses from fealty . A story he
enjoyed tellin g was of a dinner a t the hous e of Ira Hirschmann, wh o used his
fortune as founder and CEO of Bloomingdale's to establish the New Friends of
Music, fo r year s Ne w York' s mos t distinguishe d chambe r musi c series .
Hirschmann's wife , Hortens e Monath , wa s a pianis t wh o ha d studie d wit h
Artur Schnabel , mos t o f whos e playin g Haggi n love d immensely . Th e
Hirschmanns enjoye d Haggin's outspokenness, but when once he ventured a
critical opinion of Schnabel ther e was an instant reproo f from th e host: "Now
you go too far." (That is still a household sayin g in my present life. )
In hi s musica l opinions, Haggi n coul d b e quit e flexible , though thi s was
rarely acknowledged. He was famous fo r his often shocking dislikes, not onl y
of som e famou s performer s I mentioned earlier , but o f much o f Brahms an d
Wagner. At New Friends concerts he would flee to the lobby of Town Hall and
sit in one of two majestic chairs, the other one occupied by the Brahms-hating
Hermann Adler, a musicologist and record producer from Brahms's home town
of Hamburg, and one of the more striking characters on the New York musical
scene. Compan y was comfort to neither man, for they disliked each other a s
much as they did Brahms.
Haggin also thought of most twentieth-century music as "arid" or "hideous."
In tha t category , though, h e sometime s underwen t a conversion , perhap s
brought abou t b y a particularl y illuminating performanc e an d sometime s
because a Balanchine choreograph y allowed him to hear through his eyes, as it
were, somethin g tha t h e ha d no t caugh t throug h soun d alone . Balanchine ,
whom he considered th e twentiet h century' s greatest creative artist , brought
Missionaries 20 9
him aroun d t o lat e Stravinsk y an d even t o som e Webern . Haggi n actuall y

enjoyed reporting that he had changed hi s mind or—this applied especially to
performers—that he could not understand how he had written so pallidly about
some lon g ag o event suc h a s his firs t hearin g o f Flagstad on a Metropolita n
Opera broadcast or that it had taken him so long to understand what he called
the "plasti c continuity " an d th e greatnes s o f Toscanini's performance s and,
conversely, to be put of f by the distortion s in those of Willem Mengelberg.
When Haggi n wrot e abou t Brahm s and Wagne r his devotio n to specific
reference kicked in, as it did not in his brusque dismissal of most modern music.
With Brahms he eve n cite d th e exac t beat i n the exac t measur e of the slow
movement of the F-major Cello Sonata where he felt that Brahms had stopped
inventing an d wa s jus t churning . Wagne r ha s o f cours e alway s been
controversial, an d dislikin g Th e Nibelung's Ring wa s an d i s no t al l tha t
remarkable. But Brahms! To this day you can fin d people who say that George
Bernard Shaw, not surprisingly one of Haggin's heroes, was a remarkable music
critic except fo r th e absurdit y of hi s negativ e writin g abou t Brahms . What
bothered Haggi n wa s when peopl e called hi s dislike a prejudice, which self -
evidently it was not.
For me , Haggin' s heterodo x view s on Brahm s an d Wagne r prove d very
productive. Partly because I was young and easily influenced, more importantly
because I had alread y learned s o much from Haggi n about Mozart, Schubert,
Berlioz, and others, I took his response to Brahms and Wagner seriously, actually
to the point of trying to go with him on these issues. Mostly it just didn't work.
But if I ended up in disagreement with him on these topics, my own relationship
to thos e tw o composers became th e riche r fo r the thinkin g tha t Haggin ha d
made me do. I had, so to speak, earned my love of Brahms and Wagner rather
than simply accepted their greatness as a cultural given. Through the Wagner-
Brahms experience I learned the importance of something Haggin often stressed
in his own writing, the importance of believing the testimon y of my ears rather
than th e declaration s o f authorities, o f responding t o acousti c an d musica l
realities and not to the glamorous aura of a great reputation. It also encouraged
me to move off on paths of my own. After all, the best teacher i s the on e who
ultimately makes himself unnecessary.
That is the heart of a critic's job—to make readers think—and that Haggin
could do. I always found i t interesting tha t a significant part of the readership
that too k hi m seriously—an d critically—wa s i n th e intellectua l an d literary
community, where he was enormously respected. You can find a vivid account
of that in Poet s in Their Youth, th e wonderfu l memoir of Eileen Simpson. Sh e
writes of the devotio n t o Haggin's writing of her ow n forme r husband , Joh n
Berryman, and that of others in that circle such as Dwight MacDonald, Irving
Howe, Mar k Van Doren , Randal l Jarrell , and Star k Young . I t wa s als o no t
surprising that afte r h e lef t Th e Nation, Haggin found a home a t a somewhat
esoteric literary quarterly, The Hudson Review. To the testimon y of those writers
I would add tha t o f Virgil Thomson, no t alway s praise d by Haggin eithe r a s
critic o r composer , but wh o deeme d Haggin' s opinion s "sound , a s well as
refreshingly non-canonical." Among still others I would mention James Levine;
my wife, wh o studied with him a t th e Clevelan d Institut e o f Music, tells me
that Haggin was required reading for Levine's students .
In 1944 , Haggi n publishe d a boo k title d Music fo r th e Ma n Wh o Enjoys
"Hamlet," i n which he discussed in some detail works he thought would provide
an entrywa y into grea t music . Hi s poin t o f departur e wa s a no t entirel y
convincing portraya l of a man who responds to poetry but no t t o music, and
whose wife has dragged him to hear a recital by Schnabel. A t first he is frustrated
because "the musi c seems to mean a lot to Schnabel, an d I suppose it means
something t o all these othe r people ; but i t doesn't mak e sense to me." By the
time Schnabel is into Beethoven's Opus 111, frustration has given way to anger
at not being home after "a quiet dinner, [with ] slippers, easy chair, and a much
read copy of Hamlet," an d he thinks: "I'l l bet it doesn't mean any more to th e
others or to the old boy on the stage than it means to me. It doesn't make sense;
and they'r e onl y pretending i t does." Th e notio n of people being conne d or
pretending i s still voiced, particularl y by people who lik e t o thro w th e word
"elitist" around . At an y rate, from thi s donnee, Haggin goes on t o show that
Schubert's an d Beethoven' s sonata s are , lik e Hamlet, example s o f "th e
employment, on large scale, of an artistic medium," conveying "insights o f . ..
mind an d spirit, " but throug h a different artisti c medium. If Schubert's an d
Beethoven's insight and their play of fantasy "do not get through to your mind,
it is because the medium is one to which, at the moment, you are not susceptible."
In what follows, Haggi n is an excellent, helpfu l guide.
But here—an d thi s i s an exampl e of how maddening h e coul d be—i s a n
example of Haggin on Brahm s from his Listener's Musical Companion (1956) :
"I recall a broadcast of a performance of the Piano Concerto No . 2 by Toscanini
and th e NB C Symphon y with Horowitz as soloist. Sounds cam e throug h my
radio that were evidence of attentive, purposefu l activity by Brahms, Toscanini,
Horowitz, the orchestra, the audience; but what also came through powerfull y
was the impression that this was the activity of people under a spell continuing
to go through a long-established ritual that was without reality or meaning—
performers and listeners going through the motion s of esthetic respons e to a
piece o f music in which th e compose r went throug h th e motion s o f estheti c
creation. Anyon e no t unde r thi s spell , anyon e abl e t o liste n freshl y t o th e
agitated statements of the piano that broke in on the quiet opening of the firs t
movement, would, it seemed to me, perceive that they were the noisy motions
of saying something portentous that really said absolutely nothing; an d listening
further h e would discover that th e entir e movemen t wa s a succession of such
attempts at now one such effect and now another." He goes on to cite Tchaikovsky,
Missionaries 21 1
who criticizes in Brahms (in Haggin's summary ) "th e consciou s aspiratio n to

something for which there is no poetic impulse, the striving for something tha t
must be unstrive n for , the consciou s attemp t a t Beethoven's profundit y an d
power tha t result s in a caricature of Beethoven" and , i n Tchaikovsky' s own
words, "so many preparations and circumlocutions for something which ought
to come and charm us at once."
Here Haggi n i s doing exactl y what h e condemn s a t th e beginnin g o f th e
Hamlet boo k where th e poo r man in the titl e assume s that everyon e aroun d
him is under a spell and ha s been conne d int o mistakin g pretend activit y for
real. And howeve r wrong that is, it is also unanswerable: if I have come round
to rejecting Haggin's and Tchaikovsky's assessment it only proves how powerful
the spell is. Haggin is saying, "I hear it and therefore it is so." He actually liked
quite a lot of Brahms, chiefly thos e work s in which, an d her e h e quote d th e
Australian criti c W. J. Turner, he wa s not "goin g forth t o war, " was "entirel y
natural and self-forgetful" an d "not obsessed by the tramp of Beethoven behin d
him." That is an understandable argument, and I would have t o say of myself
that o f the Brahm s symphonies, fo r example, I like th e Firs t least (an d stil l
think i t an extraordinary work) and love the Third most .
In the Hamlet book, Haggin recommended recordings, citing exactly where
on the 78-rpm disk something to which he wanted to draw particular attentio n
would be found. "T-l: .1.5-, B-1.3 + " meant side 1, just before IVi inches fro m
the rim , o f Toscanini' s recordin g o f Mozart's G-minor Symphony , while B
indicated th e locatio n o f the sam e passage on th e Beecha m set . To help th e
reader, the book included a little white ruler to enable one to find these places.
The measurement s and th e rule r caused great hilarity, but the y were in fac t
useful, much as citations given in minutes and seconds are now useful in detailed
reviews of CDs. (I n fact this updated method appear s in a later edition, whic h
also go t a ne w title , Musi c for On e Wh o Enjoys "Hamlet.") I n he r memoir ,
Simpson touchingl y describe s John Berryman , ruler in hand , locatin g thes e
musical gems . A certai n penchan t fo r pedantry als o cause d Haggi n a t on e
point i n hi s caree r t o classif y composers ' work s as "incandescent, " "great, "
"important works of lesser stature," and so on. Silly as that seems, his judgments
were discriminating and made a lot of sense.
From Haggin I also learned something crucial about performance. His praise
of th e performer s h e admire d an d i n som e case s even revered—Toscanini ,
Schnabel, Bjoerling , to cite thre e ver y different ones—alway s related to what
they did to the music itself. The same was true when he rejected a performance
by, say, Heifetz or Horowitz . Tirelessly he pointe d ou t tha t a performance is
not a free-standing, independent object : it is a rendering o/something and can
only be judged in relation t o that something , tha t symphony , sonata, aria , or
whatever. This led him to make a crucial distinction, one difficult not only for
lay listeners to grasp but also for some professionals and most students—namely,
the distinction between the ability to play an instrument well, a skill Heifetz and
Horowitz commanded t o a superlative degree, and the abilit y to communicat e
the musica l content of a composition, where they were not dependable . Tha t
distinction becam e a cornerstone o f my own later activity as a music critic.
I admired Haggin's ability to face th e trut h that sometimes, as Horace tol d
us long ago, sometimes Homer nods. Some truly great composers do too, notably
Bach. Again, it was good to be reminded tha t th e important thing was to deal,
not with a great and revered generality called Bach, but with particular works,
or even particular parts of those works. It is amusing to watch someone slowly
and reluctantly, but ultimatel y with some relief, admit that her e an d there we
find arias in the cantatas that are really boring or that the fugues in the sonatas
for unaccompanie d violin were excruciating even when Milstein played them.
As a boy I learned from Haggin to face up to that truth even though expressing
it invariably brought disapproval. And it has not affecte d m y love for the many
works I cherish an d that I can't imagin e not havin g in my life.
Something else Haggin did that was entirely unconventional wa s occasionally
to write about other critics. It made him a kind of outlaw in the fraternity. For
him, though , i t was as natural and a s important a s writing about performer s
and composers. Critics were, after all, a highly visible part of the musical scene.
He di d no t thin k muc h o f most o f them . Th e one s h e valued—fo r thei r
perceptions, their honesty, and their excellent style—wer e Berlioz most of all,
Shaw, W. J. Henderson, wh o wrote for various New York papers between 188 7
and 1924, and David Cairns, whose work he discovered when Cairns's collectio n
Responses was published in 1973 . He admired the virtuosity and grace of Virgil
Thomson's styl e but wa s often put of f by his spinning of theories tha t seeme d
to have little relation to musical realities. Clean writing was important to him.
Not surprisingl y he loathed th e swollen prose of the Times's Olin Downes and
effusion lik e Jay Harrison' s abou t Amahl an d th e Night Visitors: "Onc e agai n
Mr. Menotti has demonstrated tha t th e lyri c stage is his destiny. It is a destiny
that become s hi m a s golden robe s do a prince." Haggin' s ow n respons e was
rather different: " I listened... with incredulous amazement—finding it difficul t
to believe I was really hearing those sugary , trashy tunes, that the y could eve n
have occurred to anyone operating as a serious composer today, that he could
not have been too embarrassed by the mere thought of them to let anyone else
hear them, and that other people could have considered them worth publishing
to th e world. " Bu t gettin g bac k t o language , an d thi s tim e no t a critic's ,
discussing Bernstein's Kaddish, h e observe d tha t "th e basi c Norman Corwi n
style of vocal rhetoric is infused with a vulgarity of Bernstein's own, giving the
words an awfulness tha t forbid s quotation. "
Haggin ma y hav e bee n unparallele d a t excoriation , bu t h e wa s als o
extraordinarily war m an d emotiona l i n appreciation . Thi s come s acros s
especially i n th e bes t o f his danc e writing . And I just rerea d hi s accoun t of
Missionaries 21 3
Kirsten Flagstad's last concert i n New Yor k in 1955 . H e describes , as always

hewing carefully t o just what he heard,
the shock , whe n she began to sing, of the los s in vocal beauty since th e las t time;
then th e amazemen t as th e voic e gaine d i n luste r of lowe r note s an d powe r of
higher ones, as it went with complete assurance wherever the phrase required it to
go, an d a s i t operate d wit h complet e flexibilit y i n th e inflection s th e phrasin g
required it to make. With all this, certainly, there was a loss since the last time: one
noted that when th e voic e ros e to a soft hig h note it produced tha t not e carefull y
as a head tone; that climactic high notes, thoug h astonishingly clear and powerful ,
were les s powerful thi s time . Nevertheles s i t was true thi s tim e a s last that eve n
with what it had lost, the singing—the lustrous lower notes, th e clear and powerfu l
high ones, in the sustained phrases so exquisitely and touchingly inflected by musical
feeling an d taste—woul d have been considere d remarkabl e if it had been done by
a woman of thirty; and on e hear d it being done b y a woman of sixty.
That brings me to what there was to see. . . . There was an additional shoc k in
the change s in her appearance : the grayin g blond hai r now totally gray, th e hea d
and shoulder s slightl y hunched together , th e fac e shadowe d an d impassive . All
this a s she stood waitin g and listening ; then , whe n th e momen t cam e fo r her t o
sing, one saw her fac e amazingl y become animated, transfigured by what produced
the beautifu l phrase s one heard . An d thi s made th e occasio n movin g in th e way
Toscanini's concerts had been in recent years, when one had seen the manifestations
of increasing age and the n the manifestation s of continuing grea t musical powers.
As I look back o n wha t I learned fro m Haggi n an d th e way s i n which h e

helped for m m e a s a teache r an d a writer, I a m mos t gratefu l fo r the way s i n
which he opened u p so much music to me when I was young and my taste and
understanding were first being formed. And eve n thoug h Haggi n saying those
unthinkable thing s abou t Brahms may come to mind firs t fo r many people, h e
loved a huge amount of music from Renaissance madrigals and motets onward.
From Haggin I learned, as I would never in a million years have learned from th e
music columns of the Times or even the far better Herald-Tribune wit h the brilliant
but mentall y all-over-the-place Virgil Thomson, abou t the greatness of a lot of
repertory not taken seriously in popular discourse on classical music in the 1940 s
and 1950 s nor much heard i n concert then—th e Mozart piano concertos, th e
Schubert piano sonatas, or anything of Berlioz beyond the Symphonie fantastique.
I have mentioned hi s intense feelin g for Balanchine, whic h also brought about
some of his most gripping writing, and thi s a t a time when John Martin at th e
Times threw dead cats and dog s at Balanchin e a t ever y opportunity. Bernard
Haggin ma y i n man y respect s hav e bee n a n eccentri c crank , bu t th e
enlightening aspect s of his work outweighed his strangenesses, and b y far.
—M.S.
V.
AEFAIRS TO REMEMBE R
Loving Memories of Movie Music
H
ad i t no t bee n for a movie, I might hav e ha d t o wai t anothe r te n
years before I knew how completely th e soun d o f an orchestra ca n
immobilize everything in your life but th e presen t moment .
The movi e was The Seven Wonders o f the World, th e thir d i n tha t serie s of
Cinerama epic travelogues made during the 1950s . Cinerama, if you don't recall,
was the ultimate wide-screen process, and some film buffs maintain tha t it has
not bee n equaled . Thi s wa s the origina l moviegoin g experience, on e tha t
promised to give viewers a genuine sens e of reality. The Cineram a camer a was
loaded with three synchronize d fil m magazine s positioned side-by-side , in a n
arc. When the image s captured by this tri o were put together—cas t by three
synchronized projector s on a huge curve d screen—th e resultin g panorami c
montage duplicated the arc of human vision. Cinerama promise d to put "you"
in the middl e of the action , an d when th e unwield y camera was perched i n a
car on a Coney Islan d rolle r coaster or at th e hea d o f a rubber raft findin g its
way through th e rapid s of the Indu s River, Cinerama delivered . A big part of
the successfu l dupin g of the ey e was the way Cinerama dupe d the ear . Seve n
channels o f sound, fe d throug h speaker s distributed behin d th e scree n an d
throughout th e theater , create d a sonic image as realistic as the picture .
All thi s migh t see m tam e t o u s today, in a fil m worl d dominated b y loud
digital blockbusters an d b y IMAX. But t o audience s i n 1956 , Cineram a wa s
stunning. Part of its strategy to astound an audience was surprise. Things starte d
out smal l and slow. As the light s went down we were made to sit through a n
introduction by Lowell Thomas, the narrator. The image on the screen seemed
no larger than what you'd see in a home movie, and as Thomas, sittin g at his
desk, ticked of f in his slightly manic delivery some trumped-up raisons d'etre
for th e spectacle in which we were about to participate, the growing boredom
threatened t o annihilate an y hope o f entertainment, le t alone th e adventur e
we had been assured . And then suddenly the picture expanded to three times
its "normal " size , w e were hovering fa r abov e Iguag u Falls , an d a hundred -
piece orchestra loaded with brass and percussion pounded out crescendo upon
crescendo. M y stomach rolle d a s the pitc h o f the aeria l shot delineate d th e
curve of the earth. But what really set my pores vibrating was the sound, bursting
from a n audio system so perfect it seemed the players were here, in this room.
I had neve r experience d anythin g remotel y like it, an d I knew tha t thi s was
how music was meant t o sound.
Looking back, the effect was obviously cinematic, not what you'd call a true
"musical" experience. Fo r me, that cam e alon g roughly eight year s after tha t
day I heard th e musi c over Iguagu Falls, when I first encountered th e scherzo
and final e o f th e Beethove n Fift h an d wa s suddenl y thrus t int o a similar
epiphany, the visio n of my inner ey e expanding to three time s its normal size.
I am speaking of Cinerama an d Beethoven i n the sam e breath because music
for film s can offer a key to how "serious" music gets to us. What we hear in th e
background when we'r e at th e movie s can tel l u s a lot abou t how to get th e
most fro m othe r music . For the note s i n an y film scor e ar e linked t o what is
happening on the celluloid as certainly as the notes of the Beethove n Fifth —
or an y of a thousand othe r concer t works—stan d for their ow n set of images
and emotions .
Think of it. Might not Beethoven, give n the chance, hav e written for films?
With hi s profoun d sens e o f drama , hi s knowledg e o f how , lik e th e bes t
screenwriter or director, to build an audience's expectations an d then fulfill or
shatter them , h e would have been a filmmaker's strongest ally. All his life h e
loved the theater. He would have been the first in line for a movie job. Motion
pictures have been a seductive medium almost from th e start , certainly long
before anyon e conceived o f wide-screen, wide-sound extravaganzas. Arnold
Schoenberg, o f all people , wante d t o writ e fo r film s bu t neve r manage d t o
accommodate himsel f t o th e wa y Hollywoo d worked . Hi s 193 0 Music to
Accompany a Film Scene exemplifies his ambition. Stravinsky, too, was a motion
picture hopeful, but he also had ideas about artistic control, an d about music,
that Hollywoo d didn't share . He was approached to score both Jane Eyre an d
The Song o f Bemadette, an d althoug h th e plan s cam e t o nothing , producer s
continued t o fantasize about the classiness his name might lend to their efforts .
As late a s the mid-1960 s he was considered fo r the Din o D e Laurentiis epic
The Bible. Perhaps the Symphon y in Three Movements o f 194 6 tells u s why
Affairs t o Remember 21 9
Stravinsky's movie aspirations never came to anything. It includes passages he

claimed t o hav e compose d i n respons e t o documentar y fil m an d newsree l
footage—music so aggressively personal that it would have overshadowed any
images it intended "merely" to accompany.
You wonder whether movi e music would be held i n such contempt b y the
intelligentsia i f more first-rate composer s had writte n fo r films. Ye t who ca n
say that Ralph Vaughan Williams an d Aaron Coplan d an d Hug o Friedhofer
and Eric h Wolfgan g Korngold ar e anythin g les s than first-rate ? W e tend t o
forget that , a t leas t i n th e golde n day s o f Hollywood, ver y good composers
were often at the command of those who didn't kno w much about music but
who kne w wha t the y liked . I n N o Mino r Chords, a memoi r o f hi s day s i n
Hollywood, Andre Previ n tells story after story about the struggles waged with
otherwise intelligent an d even brilliant individuals by those who wrote music
for films . He recalls how Miklos Rosza, "during Ben-Hwr,... was beside himself
with impotent rag e when th e director , William Wyler , suggested that 'Silen t
Night, Holy Night' be played during the Nativity scene." Rosza won that fight.
And in scoring that scene he managed both to preserve his own artistic integrity
and t o create music as memorable and moving as a hymn.
But thi s i s not a guide t o tellin g goo d fil m musi c from bad . We al l know
what bad movie music is: bombastic, sappy, overblown ersatz Rachmaninoff or
Richard Strauss—though Korngold, for one, wrote some distinguished movie
music whose cholesterol content is dangerously high. We should take to heart
these generou s words of one o f the fines t composer s to have written fo r th e
movies, Bernard Herrmann, wh o said that he kne w no "good composer who
felt h e wa s being degrade d by writing for films." An d Miklo s Rozsa, lookin g
back o n hi s caree r i n hi s 198 2 memoi r Double Life, aske d himself , "[W]as I
right t o devot e s o much creativ e energ y to th e writin g of film music ? Di d I
betray my heritage?" He concluded he had not, "inasmuch as I never lost sight
of my real profession: that of composer, not o f music to order but simpl y of th e
music that was in me to write.... I have no time for any music which does not
stimulate pleasur e in life , and , even mor e importantly , pride i n life. " (I n A
Heart at Fire's Center, his 1991 biography of Bernard Herrmann, Steven Smit h
quotes Herrmann expressing a similar sentiment i n virtually the same words.)
Likewise, the musician s who play for soundtracks, whether th e scor e calls for
an ensemble of symphonic or chamber proportions, are among the best around,
and they're drawn from major orchestras and conservatories. Previn has praised
these men and women, who read through often complicated scores, often before
the in k is dry. "These players were genuinely amazing . . . . The fac t tha t th e
music might have been second-rate, or even tenth-rate, ha d no bearing on its
degree of difficulty, but I never saw any of these instrumentalists come unglued."
While this isn' t a checklist o f things t o listen an d watc h for, it migh t be a
good idea to hear what some of film music's most eloquent practitioner s have
to say about it. In a 1972 interview with Ted Gilling in Sight and Sound, Bernard
Herrmann lai d out a virtual poetics of the genre :
When a film i s well made, th e music' s function i s to fus e a piece o f film s o that i t
has an inevitable beginning an d end. . . .
Music essentially provides an unconscious serie s of anchors fo r the viewer . It isn' t

always apparent... but i t serves its function. I think Coctea u sai d that a good fil m
score shoul d create th e feelin g tha t on e is not awar e whether th e music is making
the fil m g o forward or whether th e fil m i s pushing the musi c forward. . . .
I think tha t fil m musi c expresses what the acto r can't show or tell.
Ralph Vaughan Williams, bes t know n fo r nine symphonies that represen t

one of the twentiet h century' s grea t musica l achievements , is another who
relished his film work. (In fact his Seventh Symphony, the Sinfonia antartica, is
a reworkin g o f hi s score fo r Scot t o f th e Antarctic.) "Ther e ar e tw o way s o f
writing film music," he said. "One i s that in which every action, word, gesture
or inciden t is punctuated i n sound . Thi s . . . often leads t o a mere scrappy
succession of sounds of no musical value in itself.... The other metho d . . . is
to ignor e th e detail s an d t o intensif y the spiri t o f th e whol e situatio n b y a
continuous strea m of music."
"Intensifying th e spiri t of the whol e situation " i s really what Herrman n i s
talking about , an d i t i s also th e essenc e o f what th e Russia n director Serge i
Eisenstein said about Prokofiev when the tw o of them collaborated on Ivan the
Terrible. Prokofiev's music, said Eisenstein in his Notes of a Film Director, "presents
a wonderful picture of the inner movement of the phenomenon an d its dynamic
structure, which embody the emotion an d meaning of the event.... Prokofiev
knows how to grasp the structural secret which conveys the broad meaning of
the phenomenon."
This "grasp [of] the structural secret" is the mark of film music that does its
job—that reinforces and projects a director's technique. See n in this light, th e
blast of sound tha t accompanie s th e broa d image of Iguagu Falls lying below
becomes no t jus t a perfect wedding of sound an d image but a union o f sound
and cinematic strategy , a means by which the filmmaker reaches his end, whic h
in thi s cas e i s (obviously ) to overwhel m us . (Incidentally , I don't kno w wh o
wrote the Iguac, u Falls music, but it was one of three composers who collaborated
on the scor e for Seven Wonders o f the World: David Raksin, perhaps best known
for th e them e fro m th e Ott o Preminge r fil m Laura; Jerome Moross , a fin e
composer of concert music who in his score for William Wyler's The Big Country
gave us music by which al l other score s for Westerns ar e measured; and Emi l
Newman, wh o score d a string of minor film s includin g Pi n Up Girl an d Four
Jills in a Jeep, wh o serve d as music director o n Guadalcanal Diary, an d whos e

brother Alfred went on t o far greater fame a s a film composer.)
Filmmakers an d composer s can als o collaborat e i n mor e subtl e way s t o
communicate with the audience . Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, as Steven Smit h
has pointe d ou t i n hi s Herrman n biography , is a fil m base d o n th e Frenc h
novel D'Entre les Marts (b y Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac), an updated
version o f th e Trista n myth . Muc h o f Herrmann's musi c for th e fil m coul d
almost b e mistake n fo r Wagner's Tristan music , an d Herrmann' s strategy —
withholding resolutio n virtuall y until th e end—i s similar to Wagner's i n his
opera. In th e fina l seconds o f Vertigo, Scotti e Ferguso n (James Stewart) looks
down from th e bel l tower of the missio n at San Juan Battista, an out-of-the-
way village down the California coast from San Francisco. The terro r of heights
that has plagued Scottie sinc e th e film' s openin g is gone at last, and th e film' s
conflict i s resolved. Now the music , which for most of the pas t two hours has
mirrored Scottie' s ordea l in it s search for ways t o escape the mino r mode , is
suddenly free to rise into the major mode. (It has done so only twice previously,
in scenes d'amour—I borrow that title from Herrman n himself—tha t en d with
the musi c shifting into majo r an d th e scree n goin g dark: structural devices,
but als o metaphors for completion an d th e petits marts of love.)
Here is another example of how director and composer can join in conveying
a point of view. In Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront, Terr y Malloy (Marlon Brando)
finds the body of his brother Charley (Ro d Steiger), a mob operative who has
been murdered for not following orders to kill Terry. Terry lifts Charley's corpse
off a longshoreman's hook and onto his shoulders. For this grim scene, Leonard
Bernstein conceive d heartbreaking , tende r music—musi c that , si x minutes
earlier, ha d firs t appeare d i n th e "Contender " scene : "Yo u was my brother,
Charley," says Terry . "You shoulda looked ou t fo r me a little bit . . .. I coulda
been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instea d o f a bum, which i s what I
am." No w Terr y look s ou t fo r hi s slai n brothe r i n a scen e accompanie d b y
music that, in another context , migh t be construed as a lullaby—or perhaps in
this context , too : jus t as , two hundred year s earlier, Johann Sebastia n Bac h
had created a sorrowful lullaby to the dead Christ at the end of the Saint Matthew
Passion. The dirg e for Charley in On th e Waterfront i s in stark contrast t o th e
harsh dissonance s t o which we'v e become accustome d i n Bernstein' s score .
This lovely music tells u s that Terry has a side we have no t ye t seen. I t als o
signals a turning point in the narrative.
Call al l this wha t you will—"grasping th e structura l secret," "intensifying
the spiri t of the whol e situation, " "expressin g what th e acto r can' t sho w or
tell." Wha t i t come s dow n t o i s the communicatio n o f ideas an d emotion s
through sound. The most memorable film music, whether grand and epic (Ben-
Hur, Star Wars) o r intimat e (T o Kill a Mockingbird, Ou r Town), convey s th e
spirit of the momen t an d contribute s t o th e overal l impact. In othe r words,
film music does exactly what we expect of concert music. It exists as a coheren t
entity tha t touche s ou r hearts, and it can make us feel anything imaginable.
Movies made me fall i n lov e with th e soun d o f the orchestra , but there' s
more to this story. When we watch a film, we begin, after themes are introduced
and recur a few times, to associate music with various characters and states of
mind and places and situations. Usually we have no idea we're doing this. Part
of our satisfaction at the end is created by the music that has been working on
us. Music has become inextricably linked t o the drama we've witnessed.
This sens e of music as drama offers a n enormously rich point of entry int o
the world of concert music. Personally, I have a debt of gratitude to repay men
like Miklos Rosza and Alfred Newman. They provided much pleasure in their
own right. They also led me to the music of their colleagues, Bach and Mozart
and Tchaikovsky. For when we listen to the Dvorak Seventh, th e Brahms Fourth,
or the Bruckner Fifth as dramas, we need not concern ourselve s with questions
of key, harmony, development, o r recapitulation an y more than we would be
consciously concerned wit h the technical aspect s of lighting or camera position
while watching The Treasure o f the Sierra Madre.
What do I mean by listening t o music as if it were a drama? Not attachin g
images to it in the manner of Fantasia, or correlating the sound with a succession
of scenes a s outlined b y Richard Straus s and Mahle r i n thos e program s they
sometimes provide d fo r their music . What I mea n i s listening t o wha t th e
music says i n its own terms—hearing the pattern s of loud and soft , swee t and
bitter, slow and fast; recognizing tunes when they recur or come back in slightly
different forms : loude r or softer tha n when you heard the m last , or slower, or
played by one instrumen t instea d o f sixty instruments. Never agai n will any
listener who discerns these patterns have to fear the revelation of an ignorance
of sonat a form . Musi c speaks, an d i t speak s as directly a s any actor . But yo u
have to be listening t o hear what it has to say.
If you haven't don e s o already, try, the nex t tim e you're at a concert, givin g
an orchestra th e kin d o f attention yo u give the scree n when th e trailer s end
and th e light s g o all th e wa y down. Liste n a s thoug h yo u were listening t o
dialogue—because yo u are . A s thoug h t o mis s a lin e no w wil l lessen you r
comprehension o f what ma y happen i n fiv e minutes—becaus e i t will. More
often tha n you think, yo u will encounter musi c that speak s to you. Imagine
that thi s is the scor e for some drama of particular import. Because it is. From
it, you will take a memory of sound that will be yours forever, tha t will become
part of you and accompany you as another dram a unfolds: the one that means
the mos t to you, the stor y of your life .
—L.R.
Vienna Trilogy:
Vignettes from the City of Music
I
I. Attitude on a Day in Old Vienna
had m y first tast e of Vienna attitud e i n th e summe r of 1996 , when my
family and I spent a few days there visiting our friends Luna and Richard.
Luna, who has become a proper Viennese lady, picked up her name when
she was a hippie and fel t a special kinship with the moon . Her birth name is
Gertrud, but even today only Richard calls her that. They pass their winters in
an old high-ceilinged apartmen t in Vienna's Firs t District, near th e Rathaus
and University, a residence Richard found year s ago and which is kept within
their means by rent control. During the summer their home base is at the edge
of the Vienna Woods, in Baden, a spa town where the Roman s once diverte d
the hot spring s into baths , where Constanze Mozar t went t o take the waters
while Wolfgang was working on The Magic Flute and th e Requiem , and where
Beethoven composed parts of his Ninth Symphony. Midsummer temperatures
in th e resor t are rarely as incapacitating a s Vienna's, whic h is one o f Baden's
many attractions. So it was from her e tha t we set out t o explore the bi g city,
boarding the blu e tram called th e Badene r Bah n on e morning for the hour -
long ride tha t terminate d nea r th e bus y intersectio n o f Karntnerstrasse an d
the Opern-Ring. When we disembarked, we found ourselves diagonally across
from th e Vienna State Opera, a grand temple of art that was bombed in World
War II, restored to its original splendor, and today wears a cassock of Ringstrasse
soot and the residue of pollutants unknown when it opened its doors in 1869 .
Groups wer e gathering behin d guide s at th e Oper a House , read y to b e led

through its sacred corridors. When I asked a t th e ticke t des k if an English-
language tour were available, the cashier' s eyes narrowed and sh e gave me a
smile, tight-lipped and ambiguous . "]a," sh e sneered. "Especially fo r you."
I hadn't expecte d to purchase attitude with the Schillings I handed over, in
bills bearing the likenes s of Dr. Freud. But I was a guest, so I simply returned
the cashier' s smile and picke d up the tickets . No offens e taken . As attitudes
go, this woman's was mild. I had been warned about the Viennese, not only by
Luna, who gre w u p near th e Czec h border of Austria, but eve n b y Richard,
who is Viennese himself. Yet I never reached a verdict. Having spent a total of
three days of my life in Vienna, I did not grow intimate with the collective soul
of its citizens. (Anyon e who wishes to explore that subjec t is directed t o Th e
Viennese b y Paul Hofmann, wh o approache s th e issu e with humo r an d th e
authority of a native.) And i n Vienna, there is more than one kind of attitude
to attrac t your focus . Becaus e I was fortunate enough t o encounter th e cit y
through friends, I could enter it as I would enter a n embrace, never mind one
surly cashier. I approached it, you could say, with the righ t attitude.
That attitude led to some discoveries. They were not unique . Even if you
have never experienced Vienna yourself , you have undoubtedly heard it said
that thi s city is an amazing place. That is a truth I repeat with no hesitation .
Everywhere yo u look , Vienn a meet s you r attitud e wit h it s own : wit h it s
commitment to grandeur, to beauty, and to elegance, a commitment that takes
the for m o f public stance an d spiritua l position. It is an attitude expressed in
the magnificenc e o f the grea t Ringstrass e buildings, lavis h monument s t o
aspiration, architecture that exudes unashamed emotionalism and sentiment.
It is expressed in the forma l restraint of the garden s that connec t the Upper
and Lowe r Belvedere palaces, in th e lus h geometries of the ground s around
Schonbrunn, in the overwhelming presence of Saint Stephen's Cathedral, whose
every stone seem s to thro b wit h hot energy , reinforcing the impressio n tha t
this is some prototypical star cruiser about to lift of f on a shot for heaven. An d
many of this attitude's most profound manifestations are in the reams of music
conceived here , masterwork after masterwork— conceived here, as though th e
intersection o f latitude and longitude in this corner of the eart h had create d
an elemental force that shook music into being, a kind of Bermuda Triangle in
reverse. Here, instead of vanishing down a bottomless tube of darkness, men
and women regain a sense of priorities through the grea t life-giving forces of
the harmonies that have taken shape and been born in this spot.
All this, in its most superficial form , make s it easy to mistake Vienna fo r a
cultural theme park , a Straussland that cater s t o thos e i n searc h of Sacher-
Torte and a look at some of the houses once inhabited by Haydn and Beethoven.
True, Vienna ha s it s version—classier , of course—of th e Hous e o f Wax an d
the Mystery Spot. This is the Mozart Concert, hawke d throughout the cente r
of town by characters who seem to have come from anothe r ag e but wh o you
soon discove r ar e depressingly from ou r own . Dressed in powdered wigs an d
eighteenth-century breeches, they will give you a hard sell—in German, English,
French, Spanish , or Italian—for a performance at the Musikverein, where for
an outrageously expensive ticket you can have the privilege of hearing a pickup
ensemble in period costume play excerpts from Mozart' s most popular works.
Mozart Concerts an d even the Rings trasse buildings can make Vienna seem
a great monument t o the past, as fixed i n time as the statue of Maria Theresa
that stands in the plaza between the Museum of Art History and the Museum
of Natural History, massive twin edifices that stare across at eac h other lik e
mirror images of vanished empire . But when you see a billboard in front of the
Art Histor y Museum advertising an upcoming concert b y Tina Turner at th e
Prater Stadium, you realize that here, as elsewhere, the minutes and hours and
days an d year s continue t o pass . Everywhere in Vienna , image s remind yo u
that time does not stan d still . Here ar e some images I brought back with me:
Schonbrunn, the countr y home of the Hapsburgs , is now surrounded by the
city and accessible from a subway stop that bears its name. On a stage erected
outside the palace entrance, a n American jaz z orchestra plays a brassy version
of "Twis t and Shout. " A t th e Centra l Cemetery , where Vienna' s grea t lie in
rest, I ask a caretaker where Brahms's grave is, but I realize even a s I phrase it
that m y question— "Wo is t der Brahms?" —must com e acros s a s thoug h I' m
talking abou t an acquaintance wh o might be waiting around th e corner . No
matter. The ma n responds in the same spirit, and I realize that this is perhaps
the onl y plac e o n eart h wher e Johanne s Brahms , d . 1897 , ca n stil l i n al l
seriousness be der Brahms. Yet when we reach his grave, right next t o Johan n
Strauss, Jr.'s , an d jus t opposit e Beethoven's, w e discover tha t no t even thi s
place is static, for a funeral processio n is marching u p a nearby walk, and th e
people gather before th e pries t to murmur prayers for their dead .
Outside th e Hofbur g Palac e lies the Heldenplatz , a great open fiel d wher e
in 193 8 Hitler gav e his first addres s to the Viennese afte r th e Anschluss. This
evening another crow d is gathered here. From what I can make out, they have
assembled for the openin g of a conference on diversity in Austrian society. A
poster is displayed prominently near the podium. It depicts photos of four brains.
Three of these brains , equal in size , respectively bear the label s "European,"
"African," an d "Asian. " The fourth , which is tiny, is labeled "Racist. " Thoug h
Vienna has been rebuilt to look as though the bombs of 1945 had never fallen,
memory will not b e deceived. Th e past , indeed, i s a very mixed bag.
At th e Uppe r Belvedere Palace, we find othe r pasts . Part of the Austria n
Gallery i s house d i n thi s seventeenth-centur y building , an d jus t no w a
retrospective on "Painting at the Turn of the Century" is on display. The Klimts
and Kokoschkas evoke an era, and to be in their presence is suddenly to grasp
Mahler an d Schoenberg , t o be reminded o f the backgroun d from whic h the y
emerged: the astonishin g intellectua l cauldro n that churne d wit h the likes of
Freud, Wittgenstein, Erns t Mach, Theodor Herzl , Alexander vo n Zemlinsky,
Otto Wagner, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Adolf Loos. Here, at the outside edge
of Western Europe—Vienna lies farther east than Prague—this abundance of
mind and emotion onc e hurtle d forward a t such speed that the weight of new
insights far exceeded that of old spiritual and intellectual supports. The shakin g
of society's inner ground could have been measured on a seismic scale, and the
energy released helped shap e an attitude that carried civilization to the brink
of World War I, the faul t line tha t divided th e world into The n and Now.
But there are attitudes and there are attitudes. If you hear a waltz in Vienna,
it represents yet another stance , one poised to make the most of life as we find
it—predating, coinciding with, and outlasting disaster. At a sidewalk cafe where
we had had lunch, we now settle down for an evening snack—gently bucking
tradition with an order not fo r strudel or Sacher-Torte, but fo r a veggie pizza.
The redhaired waitress with whom I had chatted i n both English and German
is back at our table. We spoke English before, I remind her. "And did you want
to d o tha t again? " she asks , her voic e suffuse d wit h th e faintes t hint o f yet
another kin d o f Vienna attitude . A s nigh t falls , w e rush back t o th e Bade n
tram station at Opernplatz. The train, which runs only every hour, is preparing
to pull out. I cannot ge t the ticket machine t o accept my fifty-Schilling piece .
The drive r notices m y desperation, get s out, an d trie s th e machin e himself ,
but hi s luck is no better tha n mine. H e point s t o the waitin g train car . "Ge t
on," he tells us. "You're riding for free tonight. " I am struck, as the tra m finally
makes its way out o f the cit y and pick s up speed unde r a gleaming moon, a t
how quiet the crowded car is. No one, it seems, would even thin k of playing a
radio here. Time s hav e no t change d that much . Bu t I wonder: If anyone di d
switch on some music, what would we hear? Would it be "The Blu e Danube"?
Or would it be Alanis Morrissette ?
II. Back to the Future with Viennese Operetta

What is the sensibility we have come to call "Viennese," somethin g as difficult
to pu t int o word s a s Gemutlichkeit i s t o rende r i n English ? It i s a sens e o f
cheerfulness, but also of wistfulness, tha t at its worst is sentimental bu t that at
its best makes your throat lump up—immediately. Is this aura of nostalgia built
into Viennes e operetta ? Or doe s i t aris e only fro m ou r ow n yearning for th e
idealized world these works represent as we look back and hear them a hundred
years after the y were born? Some of their bittersweet appeal comes from what
we ourselves bring to them, but more is inherent, a s when Alfred and Rosalinde
in Di e Fledermaus sing , "Glucklich ist, wer vergisst wa s nicht zu dndem ist" —
"Happy is the person who forgets what can't be changed"—and of course "what
can't b e changed" i s another wa y of saying "the past. " This brand o f worldly
Affairs to Remember 227
wisdom, which admit s regrets but refuse s t o let the m sto p forward motion , is
echoed by Richard Strauss's Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier—an opera whose
setting, plot, and reliance on dance rhythms reveal its heritage in the operetta
tradition to which Strauss's namesake had contributed so brilliantly. "One must
be light," the Marschallin sings, "light of heart an d light of hand, t o hold an d
take, hold an d let go. .. . Life punishe s those tha t ar e not so ... an d God has
no mercy on them. "
Sentiments suc h as these ar e especially suited to the New Year season and
to that nigh t o f nights, Ne w Year's Eve—a time t o celebrate th e ol d and th e
new, a time to look backward and forward , thankfu l for what we think o f as a
chance t o begin again . And wha t could be more musically expressive of this
simultaneous parting and greeting—and the pain in the gut created when our
hearts ar e yanked in two directions a t once—than the bittersweet sounds of
the waltz, and the cheerfulness and heartbreak encompassed in the form tha t
relies so heavily on the waltz, the operetta .
Operetta was a popular genre that blossomed for only a short time, from th e
middle of the nineteenth century until early in the twentieth, i n Vienna—and
in other places as well, though because Viennese operetta s by Johann Strauss,
Jr., and Franz Lehar scored international successes , we tend to think of operetta
as an almost uniquely Viennese form . It came from France, and it was Jacques
Offenbach wh o in 186 4 suggested to Strauss Junior that h e should tak e tim e
out from composing waltzes and give operetta a shot. For operetta had a ready-
made audience, an d in the las t half of the nineteenth century that audienc e
ballooned. Between 1860 and 1890 , Vienna's population grew by 259 percent.
The ne w immigrants were hungry for fashionable entertainment tha t taste d
great and was easy to digest—Lite Opera, Ninety-nine Percen t Angst-Free .
Von Supp e ha d alread y produced wha t i s considered th e firs t Viennes e
operetta in 1860 with Die Pensionat, but Offenbach's French productions were
still what drew crowds to the Theate r a n der Wien and th e Carltheater . Al l
that changed in 1871 , when Strauss's Indigo and the Forty Thieves was produced.
This set the style for Viennese operetta, with its emphasis on music built around
dance forms , especiall y the waltz. Of the man y operetta composers in Vienna
between the 1870 s and the 1890s , few are remembered today. Always there is
Strauss, and of course von Suppe, but of someone like Hellmesberger—Joseph,
Jr.—we hear only occasional numbers, in the United States at least. Lehar was
responsible for the last great flowering of the Viennese operetta, and The Merry
Widow, produce d in 190 5 an d approachin g an almos t operatic integration of
story and music—looking back to the Singspie l tradition of which Th e Magic
Flute is a part—breathed lif e into th e for m even a s it was expiring.
The Grea t War ended man y things, an d while it is impossible to establis h
cause and effec t betwee n tha t upheava l and th e declin e o f operetta, th e war
made clear that the world as it was before August 1914 was now as uninhabitable
as the moon. With the horrible knowledge of mortality and darkness brought
home so indisputably, how could anyone take seriously plots of petty infidelities
and mistake n identity , o r militar y characters whos e clai m t o distinctio n la y
more in the cut of their uniform s and the luxuriance of their whiskers than in
what the y had don e a t th e front ? I n Th e Waltz Emperors: Th e Life an d Times
and Music o f th e Strauss Family, Josep h Wechsberg quote s Pau l Henry Lang ,
who sai d tha t th e reason s Viennes e operett a die d ou t wer e part o f its very
essence: "senseles s action , insipi d content , insincer e feelings , laboriously
invented jokes. " These ma y not be characteristics of the operettas we remember
and love today, but i f they describe the bulk of the genre , they explain why, by
the 1920 s an d 1930s , thoug h composer s continue d t o writ e operettas —
operettas full o f charming moments—the form itself belonged t o the past.
Fortunately, the best operettas have refuse d t o go away. Strauss and Lehar
will be with us always precisely because the sentiments thei r music touches—
despite an y inadequacies o r inanities o f plot an d character—ar e sentiment s
that neither conflagratio n nor world calamity can eras e completely, and we
might even say that it is because of the bitter tragedies of the twentieth century
and the beginning o f the twenty-firs t tha t w e look back with fondness on th e
simple sweetness of those ligh t an d tunefu l Viennese dramas . In tha t worl d
love triumphs, the good guys win, and the music is invigorating and beautiful.
We know that i s how it should be, and we want to believe tha t tha t i s how it
will be. Which is what makes this music so appropriate as an old year ends and
a new year begins, a s we look back at what we have lef t behind , fo r better o r
worse, and ahea d t o what, for better or worse, will come.
III. Ne w Year' s Eve , Vienna , 190 0

None o f them aspire d t o a dinne r invitatio n a t th e Hofbur g Palace . The y
understood that th e guests at Franz Joseph's table—a table that seated twenty
and more—were served, each i n turn, afte r th e Empero r of Austria and King
of Hungary had been given his portion. He sat there, self-satisfied i n his mutton-
chops and medals. Claiming privilege of birth, he began eating as soon as the
food wa s arranged on his plate. When he finished a course, it was a sign that
you, the guest , were finished with it too, no matte r if your place a t th e tabl e
meant you had not yet been served . The Empero r was not a big eater, but h e
was a fast one. Depending on where you had been seated, you could conceivably
be a guest for a dinner yo u would never taste . Instead o f eating, you could sit
with you r hands i n you r lap, admirin g th e shadow s an d pattern s tha t th e
candlelight cas t on th e ivor y walls. You could coun t th e facet s i n th e crystal
serving tray that overflowed with grapes and apples and bananas at the table's
center, frui t tha t woul d never be touched an d that, whe n th e guests had left ,
would be tossed into the trash with the rest of the uneaten meal while Vienna's
poor huddled agains t the late-Decembe r cold , just a century after Loui s XVI
lost his head. Yo u would leave hungr y and sober . With luck, you would still
have time to stop at a restaurant or Lokal for Schweinsbraten and sauerkraut.
Since the y had never aspired to a dinner invitatio n a t the Hofburg, the y sat
in their armchair s in this high-ceilinge d roo m whose far corners were barely
visible in the electric light, newly installed, that shone from the single chandelier.
The room was in a large apartment in Vienna's First District, near the University
and jus t of f the Opera-quadran t o f the Ringstrasse , a walk of no mor e than
fifteen minute s fro m th e Hofbur g i f you measured the distanc e i n footsteps,
though using other measure s you might conclude tha t th e space between th e
two places could no t b e covered i n a lifetime. It wa s New Year' s Eve , 1900 .
The guest s at th e Hofbur g migh t still be unfed , bu t th e tri o gathered i n thi s
humbler room had full bellies and now they sipped plum brandy. Those Hofbur g
dinners were part of the collective past, just as the Emperor himself was, though
he had been secure in his seat of hereditary power for five decades and seemed
destined t o live forever. That had no t bee n th e fat e of his beautiful wife , who
two year s ago had bee n kille d b y a n anarchist . He r lif e ha d symbolize d old
ways an d a n ol d world order. Sissi's assassin had use d murder to restructure
society. The me n in this roo m had thei r ow n tools for dismantling th e world
and puttin g i t bac k togethe r again . The y wer e Arnold Schoenberg , Gusta v
Mahler, and Sigmund Freud—the unmusical Dr. Freud, who might not hav e
had muc h t o do with the ar t of his distinguished contemporaries , thoug h h e
certainly coul d relis h th e stimulatio n o f their talk . The y were , al l of them ,
forces o f th e futur e i n a cit y preparin g t o launc h civilizatio n int o a ne w
understanding of itself, for better or worse.
They were bent, a s Carl Schorske has said, on "creating a new culture from
an old," on "th e excavatio n o f the instinctual. " O f course their gatherin g o n
that New Year's Eve is pure fantasy, but had they met that evening, what would
the talk have been like? Schoenberg would go on to speak for all of them in his
Harmonielehre, but he could as easily have spoken the words that night : "Th e
organ of the Impressionis t is a ... seismograp h which register s the quietes t
movement. .. . [The Impressionist ] is drawn to the still, the scarcely audible,
therefore mysterious . His curiosity is stimulated to taste what has never bee n
tried." In their own ways, they were all Impressionists, each o f them.
Yet on tha t night , lookin g ahea d int o empt y space, at virgin time no t ye t
ravished b y incidents o n th e Marne , an d a t Auschwit z an d Hiroshim a an d
New Yor k City , di d the y sens e ho w muc h the y woul d contribut e t o th e
vocabulary for understanding a new century? Surely they could not have known
that here , i n Vienna, i n just fourteen years, the fat e o f the centur y would be
outlined followin g Archduke Fran z Ferdinand's assassination , when Austria's
offended hono r sparke d a Great Wa r tha t woul d be a rehearsal fo r an eve n
greater conflict two decades later. Surely they were on the verge of more than
even their vast imaginations could conceive .
They looke d ahead . The y ha d n o us e for Hofburg dinners . Ye t they, wh o

were standing a t th e edg e of a new century just as we are, must have neede d
anchors, certainties tha t would stabilize their flight into unexplored terrain. In
theory their goal s might have been allie d more closely with those o f Vienna's
Secession artists , but thes e thre e als o kne w th e valu e o f tradition . An d i f
tradition too k the form , a t leas t once a year, of a Viennese waltz , they would
have understood. The waltzes , like the seasons, keep returning. They remin d
us of certainties—not in a sentimental association with Vienna's Imperial past,
which i s the stabilit y of rigor mortis, but becaus e of what the y say about our
aspirations fo r beauty . The Straus s waltzes: if Freud simply tolerated them ,
surely Schoenberg an d Mahler loved them, just as Brahms had loved The Blue
Danube, loved it so much that h e once confesse d he wished he had written it
himself. Those waltzes, like all great art, fulfill a craving for stability even as we
search for the new, always hoping that our craving for the one will not scare us
into abandonin g ou r searc h fo r the other . Mayb e Stanley Kubric k really was
telling u s something deepe r tha n we imagined whe n h e choreographe d th e
graceful fligh t o f his rocke t shi p i n 200 1 t o Th e Blue Danube —music we're
pretty sure will still exist years from now , as doubtful a s its longevity (o r ours)
might have seemed in 1968 , when Kubrick's film was released.
Strauss may represent the old culture, the lif e tha t continue s steadil y even
on th e fa r side o f upheaval, a s it di d i n 191 8 an d agai n in 1945 . Freu d an d
Mahler and Schoenberg could not have known it then, but the beloved waltzes
of the Viennese, a s much as that musi c might be identified with the old order,
would outlas t the ol d order by a century at least. And thoug h non e of them
might hav e aspire d to a dinner invitatio n a t th e Hofburg , the y woul d hav e
taken the opportunity to sit down for a beer with Johann Strauss, Jr., someone
who would have taken pains to make sure his guests were attended t o properly.
Had tha t maste r still been aliv e on 1 January 1901, perhaps they would have
gathered with him after th e New Year's Day concert. The y would have take n
their seat s around a table near th e Musikverei n and studied the sunligh t of a
new century, absorbing what it taught about continuity. Reassured, they would
have raised their glasses. They would have thought of all they had lef t behin d
and of all they carried with them into th e future. They would have toasted th e
known an d th e unknown . Then, ears full o f waltzes and appetite s keen, the y
would have wished each other a Happy New Year.
—L.R.
Music? True or False
discovered concert music when I was sixteen, afte r watching a Wonderful
I World o f Disney life of Beethoven, with the Germa n actor Karl-Heinz Bohm
portraying th e composer . Beethoven' s rag e agains t hi s deafness , his
struggle to write a kind of music that would be the ultimate obscene gesture to
a Fat e tha t ha d deal t hi m a lous y hand o f cards—all thi s appeale d t o m y
adolescent sense of injustice and isolation and defiance. The idea of Beethoven-
as-hero was appealing. To me he seemed a role model, with a disdain of manners
and social convention that could match any teenager's, and with a moral and
artistic superiority that set him apart and made him untouchable. Who would
dare take on the compose r of the Fift h Symphony for having a messy room? I
discovered music , you see , throug h unmusica l means. I sa w it a s a huma n
being's stance in relation to his life, something to be worn as a label that listed
the ingredient s of the soul . I cam e to musi c by identifying its beauties and
dramas with a kind of ethical position . That sounds severe and Germanic an d
pompous but, when you come to think of it, is really the onl y way to approach
music if you approac h music through Beethoven , wh o i s not pompou s at all .
Music, and what it could say and where it could lead: all this was a discovery like
one o f the man y discoveries tha t teenager s continu e t o make , believing tha t
certain fact s abou t life hav e lai n i n hiding fo r centuries. An d I suppose those
facts actually do remain hidden, awaitin g detection jus t as a volume of Keats or
a recording of Bach sits dormant until a reader or a listener comes along.
When I sa y that I wa s attracte d t o th e ethical conten t o f music , I' m

distinguishing this from the technical content—from an awareness of harmony,
meter, an d an y theoretica l boundarie s tha t composer s take int o accoun t a s
they go about their work. I am talking about an idea rooted in the nineteenth
century, when art was supposed to instruct and delight. I can sympathize with
Stravinsky's insistence, year s afte r h e ha d writte n The Rite of Spring, tha t th e
music was intended not a s a depiction of life in pagan Russia, but a s a series of
abstract sonic images. Sure, we can approac h The Rite of Spring a s something
abstract—and we can approac h the Beethove n Fift h fro m tha t point o f view
as well. In eithe r case , th e beaut y of the forma l structur e will still appeal to
something personal in the listener, because all of us hear the music in our own
way. Am I just stating the obvious ?
So I go t hooke d o n Beethoven , an d tha t le d t o harde r stuff . I mea n my
tastes wer e expanding , an d befor e I kne w i t I wa s immerse d i n th e basi c
orchestral repertory. In an earlier time and place this might have take n more
years than my patience o r ability would have allowed . But by the lat e 1960s ,
the long-playing record was a fact of American life. The catalogue of Columbia
Masterworks ("36 0 Sound" ) wa s dominated b y Leonard Bernstei n an d th e
New Yor k Philharmonic , Eugen e Ormandy an d th e Philadelphi a Orchestra ,
and Georg e Szel l an d Cleveland . Londo n Record s ("Ful l Frequency Rang e
Recording") gav e u s Ansermet an d LOrchestr e d e l a Suiss e Romande. O n
RCA ("Livin g Stereo"), w e foun d Reine r an d th e Chicag o Symphony , and
Leinsdorf an d Boston . O n Ange l an d Deutsch e Grammopho n (n o catch y
nomenclature o n their jacket s t o describ e th e soun d o f thei r vinyl ) w e
encountered Klempere r an d th e Philharmoni a (nothin g wron g with you r
turntable—that first movement of the Pastoral Symphony was being played at
half-speed) an d Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic (deep-pil e
Beethoven, accompanie d b y liner note s i n thre e languages , in a prose style
that fed a sense of intellectual inadequacy among readers in the United States ,
the UK , France , an d Germany) . Among them , thes e artist s duplicated jus t
about every big symphonic work of the nineteenth century (the symphonies of
Joachim Raff and Alexander vo n Zemlinsky would have to wait for the CD era
for anythin g lik e name recognition) . One o f my great delights was spending
time at Rose Records on Wabash Avenue, unde r the "L " tracks in the Chicag o
Loop. There , I flippe d throug h th e bin s an d avoide d th e salesmen , wh o all
spoke in jaded tones and strange accents—possibly British, but probably not—
and who were always irritated by the imperfectly phrased questions of a novice.
I fantasized about owning Stokowski's recording of the Ive s Fourth, and about
Szell's box of Brahms symphonies. I was a geek.
My friend Peter was a geek, too—a science geek who was intrigued by high-
tech sound, circa 1967 . Today he would be called a n audiophile. He built his
own speakers and powered them with a tuner and amplifie r i n the day s when
most of us were still playing LPs and 45 s on G E portables, the one s with th e
speakers you unsnappe d fro m eithe r sid e o f the cas e an d positione d aroun d
the room as far as the wires reached. Our parents , most of whom remembered
playing platter s a s fragil e a s glas s o n crank-woun d turntables , calle d thes e
machines recor d players, and so did we. When I listened t o Beethoven o n my
record player at home, I got a good idea of the sound's outline. When I played
the same LP on Peter's system, I heard the music's soul. Actually, the sound he
was able to conjure probably wasn't much better than what you get today from
a boom-box you've picked up on sale at Circuit City, but i n 196 7 it was pretty
wonderful. S o as my collection expanded , I made a point regularl y of taking
my new records to Peter's, to hear what they really sounded like. I should tel l
you that, Peter's fascination with recorded sound notwithstanding, hi s idea of
music wa s forme d b y jus t a fe w favorit e albums . Thre e tha t I recal l ar e
Leinsdorf's Boston Symphony recording of the Mahler First; a collection calle d
One Stormy Night, a precurso r of "environmenta l music " b y a n ensembl e
identified a s the Mysti c Moods Orchestra , featurin g strin g arrangement s of
"Misty" and "Girl from Ipanema" played against the background of falling rain;
and Holiday i n New York, a stereo demo disc disguised as an odd sonic travelogue,
in which you heard things like a subway rumbling under the Manhattan streets
and th e gentl e tap-tap , fro m lef t t o right speaker and back, o f a table tenni s
match a t a local "Y. " All thi s wa s a mixe d bag , a bag whose content s were
offered with such regularity that one album seemed to shift shape into another,
and sometimes I still feel the urg e to whack a Ping-Pong ball or check th e sky
for gatherin g clouds when I hear Mahler.
Peter's tastes stayed pretty close to home, yet he could enjoy a n occasiona l
experiment, an d on e da y h e brough t hom e a recordin g o f Karlhein z
Stockhausen's Gesang derjiinglinge. H e was more intrigued by that melange of
electronically generated sounds than I was—because I approached music from
the perspectiv e of drama, beginning-middle-end, an d I was clueless when I
encountered anythin g tha t didn' t fi t that mold . For Peter, the soun d was th e
thing, and though he always seemed to like hearing my latest acquisition, he was
clearly more interested i n the quality of reproduction than in the music itself.
One day , I visite d Pete r wit h m y ne w recordin g o f Bruckner' s Eight h
Symphony, Solti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic i n London's latest FFRR
sound. Part s o f Bruckner' s Eight h ge t abou t a s lou d a s anythin g acousti c
instruments can generate. Those of us who love this sort of thing characterize
it as "sublime," and to us it signifies the heavens opening. It sounded magnificent
on Peter's stereo equipment. If you know the Bruckner Eighth, you know that,
by the time you reach the end, more than an hour from where you started, you
feel you've been through a struggle for your life. In the final seconds, Bruckner
(never one to miss beating a point into the ground) hammers away in a kind of
religious ecstasy, having discovered how to tie up all the strands of his symphonic
argument and bring it to an end, which (yo u guessed it) leaves us standing a t
heaven's gate . You are liberated and for a moment carried into anothe r world.
What you want when the music stops is a little space to gather your thoughts .
But without pausing for breath as the stylu s rose from th e fina l groove of Side
4, Peter switched on his reel-to-reel tape recorder. "I want you to hear something
I picked up off the radi o yesterday," he tol d me .
A woman began singing Hank Williams's "Settin' the Woods on Fire." Her
voice was clear and pure and as happy as a beauty queen's smile—none of the
pepper an d ho t sauc e of a country singer here. He r enunciatio n wa s perfect.
This wa s the G-rate d versio n of Hank's song . All th e gri t and sexines s o f his
original were gone, which meant that this wasn't Hank at all. It was Phony Hank.
"Isn't that a great voice?" Peter asked, his enthusiasm on the rise. "What a sound!"
At this point Peter's mother, attracted by what was coming from the speakers,
popped he r hea d int o hi s room . " I like that! " sh e announced . "Somethin g
different*." The n sh e looke d a t me , barel y abl e t o contai n herself , and sai d
something tha t seeme d t o giv e her grea t satisfaction. "It doesn't hav e t o be
boom-boom all the time! "
What? Oh: Bruckner. Boom-boom. Somehow I knew that it wasn't the sound
level tha t wa s nagging her. We had cranke d u p the volum e often, an d ofte n
quite late , an d not onc e ha d we heard a n objection. Fo r that matter , Phony
Hank himsel f was blasting pretty loud. No. Boom-boom wasn't a question of
loud. It was something else .
I dismissed Peter's mother's objection at the moment, but over the years her
words have stayed with me and nagged me. Often I wonder: Does it or does it
not hav e t o b e boom-boom al l the time ? Wh y woul d anyon e prefe r a sani -
tized versio n o f Hank William s t o Bruckner ? Why woul d anyon e prefe r a
sanitized version of Hank Williams t o Hank Williams ? As I said, the year was
1967. It was a time of protests against the war in Vietnam. In Chicago, wher e
we ha d bee n listenin g t o Bruckne r an d no w were listening t o Phon y Hank ,
Martin Luther King, Jr., had marched through white neighborhoods th e summer
before i n suppor t of open housing , an d w e had see n ho w quickl y neighbors
could turn into hater s once yo u started talking racial integration. I n anothe r
year, with King dead, the city's West Side up in smoke, and Mayor Daley issuing
his infamous "shoot t o kill " order , the atmospher e i n Chicag o wa s ugly, an d
Chicago's atmospher e was no differen t fro m th e res t of the country's . Every
day pitted th e individua l agains t the rulin g powers, the independen t agains t
the machine. You didn't have to be a teenager to be angry, you just had to have
a sense of social justice, like Beethoven's. I n August 1968, when th e Chicag o
Police Department demonstrate d its unique version of crowd control in fron t
of th e world' s TV cameras , most Americans believe d tha t thing s coul d only
get better , an d the y wer e wrong . Peter's mothe r truste d Mayo r Daley an d
President Johnson, and she had once told me that anyone who chose to question
Affairs t o Remember h23 5
his elected official s wa s best advised to go live in another country . America:

Love it o r leave it, sh e said, with th e blun t eloquenc e o f a bumper sticker. I
think sh e sensed that Bruckner's sublime disregard of all this was an attitude
that could poison the mind of impressionable youth. Bruckner might send you
off in search of the ideal world he was referring to with all his boom-boom, but
it was a search that was likely to land you in jail. Best to clean up "Settin' th e
Woods on Fire." Forget boom-boom.
For tha t matter , th e rea l Han k William s als o come s wit h a prett y hig h
quotient o f boom-boom—not horns an d trombone s an d timpan i at ful l blast,
but Boom-boom, with a capital B: the explosive and dangerous element Peter's
mother detected in Bruckner and all the other concert music I schlepped over
to pollute her son' s mind. She sensed something there. Sh e just didn't know
what to call it. I don't reall y mean tha t as a criticism. None of us knows the
proper name for Boom-boom. But none of us has seen the Almighty, either, for
he want s no grave n images of himself, an d th e wor d Yahweh wa s conceive d
because God's name is not t o be uttered.
The choic e w e ar e give n in ar t i s really a choice betwee n Boom-boom or
Phony Hank . Boom-boom i s serious, it deal s wit h th e issues , and i t ca n b e
intimidating. It is not usuall y something that we understand perfectly on firs t
acquaintance, which means that it has different layers , which is a code phrase
for complexity, which, if you believe focus groups and Hollywood , is something
Americans would rather avoid.
Those in the business of producing concerts of "serious" music are constantly
on the lookout for new audiences, and a perennial theme is the need to recruit
young listeners. These days , we tend t o fea r tha t shortene d attentio n span s
make concert musi c less appealing. Yet the averag e symphony or concerto is
shorter tha n th e averag e movie. Fo r tha t matter , an entire concert generally
lasts about two hours, not much longer than the average movie. The problem
seems to be more one of language than length, though for a listener, the language
of music has little to do with technical expertise , or the abilit y to read a score.
Most of the works in the basic concert repertory were conceived t o be enjoyed
as drama s by a n audienc e a t leas t a s attentiv e a s th e audienc e a t a movi e
theater—and not necessaril y an audienc e of specialists. Most works in the
basic concert repertor y are full o f emotional peaks and valleys, gathering and
dissipating tensions. To pay attention t o these is to grasp musical narrative. To
grasp this is to leap an important language barrier.
But what about complexity? Complexities in art grow out of the complexities
we inherit a t birth—the consequence o f our ancestors having eaten th e frui t
in Eden. When you turn out the lights at night, those complexities come down
to questions of life and death, of how to live most completely and most fully as
a hedge against the inevitable, which is a simple question, with many answers.
A questio n of life an d death—it' s what all good music is about, whether th e
music is Beethoven, Bruckner, Hank Williams, or Bruce Springsteen. The music

you love is a stance in relation t o life. It is on Boom-boom, in its various forms,
that we can rely in the end. When our hearts are plummeting to the ground at
supersonic speed , i t i s the interwove n fiber s o f the thin g calle d Boom-boom
that will be our safety net. Complexit y means only that you're alive. Passion is
better than indifference. A soul that comprehends Eros is closer to understanding
its fellows than one tha t i s emotionally celibate .
The world is bigger than Bruckner and Beethoven and Haydn and Stravinsky
and Ive s and Adams , but i t i s also bigger because of them. The y ar e not th e
only one s wit h somethin g t o sa y about it , an d even thei r commentarie s ar e
different. What they have in common is Boom-boom, the basic ingredient. Does
it have to be Boom-boom all the time ? Maybe the answer depends on what we
mean by all the time. I would ask Peter's mother t o clarify this , but i n the years
since she uttered her pronouncement we have lost contact, an d I keep turning
to Bruckner and Beethoven an d their colleague s for the answer.
—L.R.
Why We Are Here
I
t i s now mor e tha n twent y year s sinc e I cam e acros s a n articl e i n th e
Sunday pape r o n ho w th e roc k generatio n o f th e 1960 s an d 1970s ,
approaching middle age, was turning into "the pop cultural establishment."
It discusse d such phenomen a a s Pau l Simon's albu m Hearts an d Bones an d
Linda Ronstadt' s What's New, he r recordin g o f pre-rock standards suc h a s
"Someone t o Watc h ove r Me"—an d tha t doe s see m t o be somethin g agin g
stars do , recor d song s that hav e age d better tha n the y have . O f Hearts and
Bones, th e write r noted tha t i t was "marketed a s a pop record, b u t . .. in its
sophistication is more like a collection o f art songs." I bought Hearts and Bones,
listened t o it , an d foun d i t quit e engagin g bu t no t a bit lik e Winterreise o r
Winter Words.
As Stravinsky once remarke d in anothe r context—an d wit h no intent of
denigration—it is a different fraternity . I intend no denigration either, but I do
want t o make a distinction. Th e musi c we are involved wit h in th e concer t
hall, tha t musi c w e hav e neve r manage d t o agre e o n a nam e for , neithe r
"classical" nor "serious" serving quite convincingly, but th e music responsible
for bringin g us by such diverse paths into concert hall s and t o read books like
this one—in sum, Why We Are Here—this music has aspirations beyond those
of Hearts an d Bones.
At least this music is capable of such aspirations, and here I need t o make a
distinction withi n a distinction. W e take som e stuf f to o seriously , seate d i n
rows an d facin g the front , attending , a s thoug h t o " A Solemn Musick, " t o
what Telemann or even Mozart intended a s Muzak, for which there were names
such as Tafelmusik an d cassazione. It is also true that Mozart' s Muzak include s
moments tha t ravish the sense s an d pierce th e heart—privat e addresse s to
the dinner guest who is undernourished by the pompous ass on the left and th e
airhead o n the right, and who has started paying attention t o the band. Th e
language, the musica l language, is capable of that, an d ther e i s a continuou s
spectrum from elegantl y turned-out musique de table to Figaro or Beethoven' s
Opus 13 1 or the Mahle r Ninth or wherever you choose t o locate heaven .
Musical heaven, i n any event, i s attainable. I t offers thre e sorts of pleasure
or deligh t o r nourishment—sensuous , intellectual , an d emotional . Th e
perception o f sensuous pleasure in music requires no preparation, only clea n
ears. With experience your receptiveness will become broader, and with it your
idea of pleasure. I think of Schoenberg, sayin g about a passage of deliciously
idiosyncratic scoring in his Variations for Orchestra: "I hope tha t som e day
these sound s will be foun d beautiful. " For that matter , I recall my own no w
long-ago dismay upon first hearing a countertenor o r a harpsichord or a Baroque
organ that didn' t soun d like a Cavaille-Coll in a French cathedral .
The two other pleasures , the intellectual an d the emotional, require, along
with clea n ears , preparation—o r readiness—i n tha t ther e i s a languag e t o
understand, and als o a set of conventions. Th e languag e is rich and complex.
Musical discourse speaks to experience and , ideally , to a generously stocked
and well-functioning memory. Obviously a musical event exists in the present,
at th e momen t o f its sounding, but i t also has a past, a history. It comes fro m
somewhere. Even if it stands at the beginning o f a piece it comes from silence ,
and music can emerge from silence in different ways . Think of the Beethove n
Fifth, the n thin k o f the Pastoral —and thos e difference s matter . Each even t
also has a future, somewher e to go, even i f only into silenc e an d applause . In
1939, Thomas Man n onc e gav e a lecture to students at Princeton abou t The
Magic Mountain. He advised them to read it twice, "unless you were bored th e
first time." Mann went on to point out the musicality of the composition of his
stupendous novel, declaring that was precisely the reason behind hi s "arrogant
demand t o read [it ] twice. You can only fully tak e the measure of the comple x
o f . . . relationships and enjoy it when you already know the themes and are in
a position to interpret the allusions forwards as well as backwards." To remember
a musical event is, so to speak, to put money in the bank, to make an investment
in future pleasure.
Form, Walter Pater said, is the lif e history of an idea. The pattern s made by
these life-threads , by this pla y of backward and forward , o f being here an d i n
the pas t and in the futur e al l at the same time, are in themselves fascinating,
beautiful, and, to those sensible to their speech, moving. The mind—the ready
mind—can find transcendenc e an d be stirred to ecstasy as much as the body
and the heart .
And the emotions? One road to the heart goes directly through the senses.
We ca n b e touched , stirred , move d b y th e beautifu l ton e o f a voic e o r a n
instrument, by the insistence of one rhythm or the teasing suppleness of another,
by the tensio n i n a leap, by a stimulus as simple as the soun d of a full orchestr a
at flood tide or by a barely audible hush. A rock musician I know—a colleague
of one of my sons, a producer of rock recordings—attended his first symphony
concert a few years ago. I recall his marveling not onl y at th e richnes s o f the
percussion writing in Leonard Bernstein's HaUl but also his thrilled astonishmen t
at how much volum e unamplified acoustic instruments could generate , how
plain loud an orchestra could be.
Another roa d t o th e heart—no t s o easy a road—goes throug h th e mind :
the play of form, the unfolding of the life histories of the composer's ideas, that
is not onl y lovely in itsel f but i s also where th e riches t par t of the expressive
content o f a piece resides . By "richest" I mean tha t which wil l longest yield
new perceptions and where the familia r will longest stay verdant. We respond
to th e releas e of tension an d suspens e when w e return to th e hom e ke y and
when we land in a recapitulation. And—if you have been paying attention—
we ca n respon d withou t havin g an y intellectua l concep t o f "tonic " o r
"recapitulation." I learned tha t mor e tha n half a century ag o when I was a
teaching assistan t in an Introduction to Music course. One o f my duties was to
run sessions in which we played the recordings of that week's assignment and
where I was available t o answe r questions. Always there wer e students who
swore they couldn't follow what we were trying to tell them about sonata form ;
always, when the recapitulation of a Beethoven symphony movement arrived,
those sam e student s shifte d in thei r chairs , visibl y relaxed, and (remember ,
this was 1951) reache d for a cigarette.
The sens e o f recognition, whic h depend s o n attentio n an d memory , is
essential to musical experience. The mos t subtle of the musician' s resources,
the one that challenges our most delicate attunement, i s harmony, the sting—
or the ache—of dissonance (t o think in terms of detail) or the grandly farsighted
strategy o f a whole Beethove n quartet , a Bruckner symphony , or a Wagner
opera. Tristan und Isolde, th e ver y symbol for all that is recklessly emotional i n
art, depend s for its effect o n presenting a dissonance fiftee n second s into th e
piece an d refusin g t o melt i t into consonance unti l fiftee n second s fro m th e
end—something lik e fiv e hour s later . Al l tha t feve r fro m a n unresolve d
dominant seventh! And a work like Tristan, where the compose r so carefull y
and s o skillfully tie s specifi c musica l sounds t o specifi c emotiona l jolts , als o
shows us how something in us vibrates to reminiscence, allusion , quotation .
I know tha t suc h tal k can scar e people an d anno y them . Bu t it's th e talk
that doe s it , th e words—"dominan t seventh, " o r eve n worse , "unresolve d
dominant seventh," "fla t submediant," "Neapolitan sixth"—not the music itself.
The words are useful: precise terms make conversation efficient an d agreeable.
Imagine th e nuisanc e o f no t bein g abl e t o sa y "bunt " o r "bechamel " o r

"backhand"! Th e ter m "fla t submediant " ma y alar m you. But I kno w your
heart is pierced when, in Elgar's Enigma Variations, the strings sneak an E-fla t
under tha t delicat e bridg e o f a suspende d G t o begi n tha t nobl e paea n t o
friendship, th e Nimrod Variation . Bu t agai n I have t o say , only i f you've been
paying attention! Hamlet speak s to you, or King Lear, in a way that Lamb's Tales
from Shakespeare (th e original Classics Comics) cannot, but you don't sit in the
theater or in your living room counting t o ten in your anxiety over the iambic
pentameters or keeping track of just how many sibilants occur in
There's hell , there's darkness , there's th e sulphurous pit,

Burning, scalding, stench, consumption . . . .
"If you'v e been paying attention," I said a moment ago. Great music is something
for you to do, not jus t something for you to pay for and hav e done t o you or for
you. And s o we come back to the issu e on which I touched a t the beginning .
We are talking here about a human activity of high aspirations in the matter of
touching peopl e in their inmos t regions. Each time I hear th e Mahler Ninth ,
for example , I think what a frightening invasion o f privacy it is. And i t is an
activity as rich in possibilities as it is ambitious in aspiration.
But again, this works only if we do our part. Music, this music, is a demanding
partner in love. Those elements of musical experience that touch us most deeply,
most lastingly, that ca n change ou r lives, are below the surfac e of experience.
They ar e not mean t fo r effortless access . Oh, an d ho w many of our musical
love affairs hav e begun in frustration an d anger ! How easy it is to say, "That's
not what I call music!"
The violinis t Rose Mary Harbison has written: "[Music] requires [from us]
an intentional reachin g o u t . .. a willingness to probe its rich intricacies, th e
capacity to be startled and dismayed, to have one's sou l tormented a little, t o
come unadorned , emotionall y fresh , t o stan d alon g with other s an d witness
the hope s and th e visio n of the composer . And a truly great performer i s one
who is willing to reveal the hidde n an d difficul t sid e of a piece."
Music ha s hidde n an d difficul t side s an d i t offer s ric h intricacie s fo r ou r
delighted unraveling . Don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that music, or
any for m o f art , shoul d b e a gri m experience . I n a n articl e title d "Th e
Degradation of Work and the Apotheosis o f Art," Christopher Lasc h cites one
of my favorite history books, Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens, a favorite in part
because it i s so ungrim. Huizinga writes: "The grea t archetypal activities of
human society are all permeated with play from the start.... [Language, myth,
and ritual], law and order, commerce and profit, craft an d art, poetry, wisdom,
and scienc e [ar e all] roote d i n th e primeva l soil of play." Lasch comments :
"The seriou s business of life, i n othe r words , has alway s been colore d b y a n
attitude tha t . . . finds mor e satisfactio n in gratuitou s difficulty tha n in th e
achievement o f a given objective with a minimum of effort. Th e play-spirit , if
you will, values maximum effort fo r minimum results."
Compelling i n al l this i s the intercuttin g o f the seriou s and th e playful .
Goethe referre d t o his Faust—chose serieuse, if ever there was—as "diese sehr
ernste Scherze," thes e very serious jests. That we are capable of serious jests is
one of the things that we, as human creatures, can be proud of. Lewis Thomas
put it this way: "Computers will not take over the world, they cannot replac e
us, becaus e the y ar e no t designed , a s we are , fo r ambiguity." The designe r
who wired us for ambiguity blessed us at th e sam e time with appetite s bot h
for complexit y and simplicity , with a lust for solving problems, with deligh t
in lookin g fo r th e secre t door , with th e sens e t o realize , sometimes , tha t
surfaces ar e only surfaces, wit h th e jo y of knowing tha t next tim e w e hear
the Mahle r Nint h we shall hea r an d understan d mor e an d be move d tha t
much more.
Once at a concert I found myself seated next to a lively and charming woman,
a retired professor, and at some point during our chat she said, "Of course, the
greatest livin g artis t i s X. " No w X i s indee d a first-rat e musicia n an d
instrumentalist a s well as a most beguiling performer. What bothered m e was
the idea tha t ther e shoul d o r could be such a creature at al l as "the greates t
living artist. " I t i s typica l o f th e distraction s tha t th e wizard s o f caree r
management set in our path daily. It is a distraction from musi c itself, and it is
a disservic e in tha t i t promote s th e li e that a Beethoven concert o become s
worth our attentio n onl y when i t i s performed by a superstar. Those eterna l
cocktail party questions, "Which do you think i s the greatest orchestra in the
world?" or "Wh o d o you think is the greates t conductor?" are fatiguing and
discouraging, not just because I don't know the answer, not even because there
can be no answer, but because of the confusion about values that lurks behind
those questions . An outstandingl y successful concer t pianis t remarked to me
once tha t w e were fast turnin g into a society where merely to be very good at
something is regarded as a birth defect.
We are her e becaus e of music. That musi c is a profession and a business
cannot b e written out o f the world order, but le t us remember in the mids t of
the swir l that i t i s also the subjec t of a contract ful l o f words like attention ,
listening, meditation, reflection, remembrance, wit, joy, torment, delight, heart,
brain, spirit. Yes, the elevation of the spirit is the ultimate reward, the one tha t
comes after we have learned to take that nourishment o f the senses, the brain,
and th e heart , o f which I spoke earlier. When I read th e secon d volum e of
Elias Canetti's autobiography , The Torch in My Ear, I came acros s a though t
that struck me hard. Canetti i s speaking about painting, but what he says works
for musi c too: "The reaso n pictures slumber for generations is that there is no
one to see them with the experience that awakes them." There we have quite
a challenge, but haven't we all had some searing moment of learning what may
be given us, what we might become, when we do face u p to tha t challenge?
The reaso n we are here is, as Friedrich Nietzsche said so simply, that "without
music, life would be a mistake."1
—M.S.
1
1 found the Nietzsche quotation in an obscure piece of writing, I think maybe an introduction to a
book by someone else, by Thomas Mann. My essay was originally a talk at a function of the American
Symphony Orchestr a League i n Sa n Francisc o in 1984 , and I suspec t tha t wa s the origi n o f th e
subsequent floo d o f T-shirts, coffe e mugs , an d s o on, emblazone d with the Germa n philosopher's
excellent sentiment.
VL
POSTLUDE
The Sound s We Make
A
n odd bit of theater too k place at a recent concer t here . Beethoven' s
Emperor Concert o wa s on th e program , in a performance that ha d
everything you would want by way of lyricism, intelligence, an d crack-
ling virtuosity. The wa y the firs t movement end s i s unmistakably designed t o
elicit applause; at this concert, however, almost complete silence greeted those
closing chords. "Almost, " because there wa s in fac t on e singl e handclap, bu t
the author of that sound, apparently feeling that he or she had done somethin g
wrong, immediately retreated fro m action . Th e pianis t turned an d nodded i n
the directio n o f the solitar y clapper, but i t wa s and remain s unclea r t o m e
whether he was being courteous or sardonic. The audience, though, interpreted
his actio n a s a messag e tha t the y probabl y should hav e applauded . The y
proceeded t o d o that , heartily , whereupon th e pianis t stoo d an d responde d
with a full bow from th e waist.
It was not tha t peopl e hadn't enjoye d the performance. This pianist is well
known to this audience and popular, he had drawn a full house, and the ovation
at th e en d o f the concert o wa s huge; rather, it seemed t o me that to o many
members of this audienc e ha d bee n tol d to o often that i t is bad for m t o clap
between movements . Tha t notio n i s constantl y reinforce d b y soloists an d
conductors wh o respon d t o applaus e between movement s b y presenting a
posture of "I don't hea r anything. " I imagine tha t th e smirkin g of orchestral
musicians on those occasions has its effect too . This time , though, the solitary
clapper was quite right, and I was happy that whe n th e concert wa s repeated
the followin g evening th e crow d burst into applaus e at th e en d o f the firs t
movement. Audiences ar e unpredictable.
Beethoven woul d have bee n appalle d by that silenc e a t th e firs t concert .
When Brahms, surely no applause hound, played his D-minor Piano Concert o
in Leipzig for the firs t time , he wrote in distress to his friend Joachim that no t
only was the work badly received at the end but that there was "no reaction at
all to the first and second movements." Thirty-eight years later, when Brahms,
then a dying man, went to a performance of his Fourth Symphony in Vienna—
it was the last concert he was able to attend—each of the fou r movements was
greeted b y a n ovatio n gladl y acknowledged . A t th e premier e o f Elgar's
Symphony No. 1 in Manchester i n 1908 , th e applaus e at the en d o f the firs t
movement wa s such tha t th e compose r had t o leav e hi s box and tak e bows
from th e stage . Back in 1778 , Mozart was thrilled whe n a particularly witty
stroke of his in th e final e of the Pari s Symphon y stirred the audienc e i n th e
French capital to clap and cheer while the music was actually under way. Every
time Haydn introduced one of his new symphonies in London in the 1790 s the
movements were not only all applauded, but many of them had to be repeated
then an d there . Comin g bac k t o th e Emperor, th e grea t nineteenth-century
pianist Hans von Billow reported that he regularly got a big hand a t the end of
the series of three cadenzas that ope n that work. When the thirteen-year-ol d
Bronislaw Huberman performed the Brahms Violin Concerto in the composer's
presence, he was deeply chagrined because the audience applauded at the end
of th e cadenza , blotting ou t par t of the poeti c coda . Brahms , far from bein g
offended, simpl y consoled th e boy , patting hi m o n th e shoulde r an d saying,
"You shouldn' t hav e played it so beautifully."
We seem to have forgotten all that. Applause in the "wrong" place is now a
sin, like driving an SUV, eating red meat, and smoking cigars. What happened
and what does it mean? In the last part of the nineteenth century people became
interested in the question of what held a large, multi-movement work together
as well as in the delight s of its individual movements. One reaso n for this was
fascination with the ver y long-range compositional strategies in the operas of
Richard Wagner; another was the appearance of cyclic works in which theme s
from earlie r movement s o r section s ha d crucia l part s t o pla y i n late r ones .
Theorists an d critics often cared more about such matters than the composers
themselves. Mozar t and Beethove n n o doubt too k pain s t o make the various
movements of their pieces be well suited to one another, but neither compose r
hesitated o n occasion t o swap movements around. Mozart also had no qualms
about playing three movements of a symphony at the beginning of a concert an d
ending the evening with the finale. Beethoven mad e what seem to us appalling
suggestions abou t th e re-orderin g an d omittin g o f movement s o f hi s
Hammerklavier Sonata. At an y rate the idea that th e flo w of an entire work was
Postlude 24 7
an essential part of its musical character and one that ought not to be interrupted
began to take on more weight, and there is something to be said for that.
No less important is what happens at the ends of movements. In the Emperor,
Beethoven build s a subtle harmonic bridg e from th e firs t movemen t t o th e
second. Th e forme r E-fla t keynot e reappear s as the firs t melod y note o f th e
Adagio, though now written as D-sharp in what sounds like very far-away B
major. That is precious and wonderful, but is it really more important than the
rhetoric of the dramatic gestures with which the Allegro ends? After all, getting
excited by a soloist's artistry, virtuosity not excluded, is an essential part of the
concerto experience, especially in a piece in which keyboard bravura is so central
an element. Moreover , do we have to assume that fifteen second s of applause
necessarily blot ou t al l memory of the E-fla t harmonie s wit h which th e firs t
movement s o emphatically ends? Stayin g with th e Emperor, w e will come t o
that mos t magica l place i n it , tha t supremel y happy-making moment whe n
Beethoven leaps without pause from the meditative and poetic slow movement
into th e exuberant finale. He links movements in this manner in quite a few
works, and many composers emulate him in this. This would seem to eliminate
the applaus e problem. One exceptio n occurs , surprisingly, i n Mendelssohn ,
who is a bit maladroit in handling the bridge between the first two movements
of his Violin Concerto, s o that th e quie t emergence of the Andante from th e
seemingly applause-biddin g clos e o f th e Allegr o i s sometime s drowne d i n
clapping. (Elsewhere in this book I tell a similar story about Weber's Invitation
to the Dance.)
It can g o the othe r wa y as well. Movements can arriv e at thei r las t notes
and stop, but stil l be open-ended enoug h to need th e firs t sounds of the nex t
movement t o complet e o r continu e th e musica l thought. Th e storm y firs t
movement of Beethoven's Opus 111, his last piano sonata, ends on a repressed
C-major chor d wit h th e hand s ver y fa r apart on th e keyboard . The secon d
movement begins with another quie t C-major chord, but with the hands now
in mid-range, filling in the empty space in the preceding sonority. It would be
horrible to interrupt that connection with applause. Another reason, one that
probably speaks to listeners more immediately because it is directly connected
to emotion an d temper , is that endin g in pianissimo is not b y itself enough t o
defuse th e turbulenc e o f that firs t movement : i t wil l take th e whol e o f th e
second movemen t t o accomplis h that . I n othe r words , the firs t movement ,
even though it ends, is not really finished. Similarly, in the Appassionata Sonat a
you can't stop at the end of the firs t movement for brow-mopping or applause
or anythin g else : tha t las t F-minor chord, even thoug h th e harmon y hasn' t
shifted for six measures, is profoundly restles s and the musi c has to move on
into the Andante. In the Waldstein Sonata , on the other hand, you can, without
harm t o th e music , fling you r arm s into th e ai r on th e firs t movement' s last
chords and even stand to take a bow if the audience responds to your invitation.
So OK, sometimes you mustn't, sometimes you may, sometimes you should.
How d o yo u kno w whic h i s when? In th e eighteent h centur y i t wa s not a
problem: you waited for your host or the highest-ranking nobleman present to
applaud. If you clapped before His Highness you were being exceedingly impolite
and you would not be invited t o dinner again . The psychology of appealing to
a singl e listene r is very different fro m tha t of seekin g to inflam e an entir e
audience, an d tha t i s why Bach's Brandenburg Concertos don' t en d with extra
temperature-raising chords but simply finish with the last note of the last phrase.
That, however, is not ou r situation today, and the inciden t I recounted a t
the beginnin g fascinate d m e as evidence o f how uncertai n w e can b e i n our
relationship t o classica l musi c an d it s performance . To clap afte r th e firs t
movement wa s bad for m a t on e moment , bu t te n second s late r i t wa s OK.
Much o f ou r concer t lif e i s determine d b y convention s abou t al l sort s of
matters—what performer s wear , havin g th e concertmaste r a t orchestra l
concerts make a solo entrance (o r not), the tuning ritual, and what constitutes
a normal amount of applause (very different convention s obtai n for rock, jazz,
classical music , opera , ballet , an d regula r theater) . Toda y we expec t th e
conductor to be recalled to the stage two or three times at the end of a concert,
but no t muc h more than a hundred year s ago even a single recall was worth
special notice i n a newspaper review. In th e las t couple of decades, applause
inflation ha s le d t o th e standin g ovatio n changin g fro m a specia l an d rar e
tribute to an obligatory event.
We also take it for granted that th e conductor will ask the orchestra to rise
and share in the applause; only half a century ago that was an uncommon and
therefore a remarkabl e gesture . Righ t now , i n fact , w e ar e witnessin g a
convention i n the process of change. When a conductor gets the orchestra up,
the player s have usuall y stood facing the podiu m just as they had done whil e
seated and playing, and, I must add, most of them look as though all that nois e
out front cannot possibl y have anything to do with them. In the last few years,
though, som e conductors hav e aske d the musician s to face th e audience , a n
innovation i n whic h I believ e Neem e Jarv i i n Detroi t wa s th e pioneer .
Surprisingly, ther e i s still som e resistance t o this , bu t whe n an d wher e i t is
done th e effec t o n th e atmospher e is happy. Finally, and no t least , eve n th e
very fac t tha t w e express pleasure—or jus t goo d manners—b y clappin g th e
palms of our hands together is a convention. A t every concert there is someone
for whom the experience is new and the ritual and convention unfamilia r and
probably in par t irrational o r at leas t incomprehensibl e an d confusing . How
many times, for example, have I been aske d about the concertmaster walk ?
But let us think about what the music itself tells us. Loud, flashy, harmonically
unambiguous endings ar e easy. They tel l us: "Clap!" I would even g o so far as
to say that i f the feve r pitch seems to demand it, it would really be all right to
start clapping right into the last long C that ends the Beethoven Fifth . That is
Postlude 24 9
very rare at concerts, but we routinely do it at the opera. That's wha t all those
tonic chord s at th e en d o f a Verdi aria like Sempre libera are all about. German
audiences tend to be very earnest about not disturbing the music, a good impulse,
but i t alway s feel s funn y t o sit in solemn silence throug h thos e rabble-rousing
noises tha t ar e really not mean t t o be listene d t o a t all . Once i n a while we
experience the converse of this when a conductor starts the music right into th e
applause welcoming hi m t o th e stage . I still remember th e hair-raisin g effec t
when th e eighty-three-year-ol d Stokowsk i whipped int o th e Flying Dutchman
Overture that way. That can be exciting, but it is a gimmick to be used sparingly.
It is the quie t endings tha t caus e trouble. They leave us in a different kin d
of moo d fro m th e excite d ones , perhap s dream y (Afternoon o f a Faun),
transported to a faraway, private place (Beethoven Opus 11 1 or Mahler's Song
of th e Earth), unsettled (th e Sibelius Fourth), or dark (Tchaikovsky's Pathetique
or th e Eight h Quarte t o f Shostakovich). A spel l has been cast . Then what?
Silence ma y be the ideal response. Applause rudely shifts th e focus awa y fro m
the musi c or wherever th e musi c has take n u s back t o th e performers , t o a
world of bows and smiles , embraces and bouquets. Just a few days ago I heard
a profoundl y moving performanc e of Elgar' s The Dream of Gerontius, and I
must say I both hated th e applause that burst out after ten seconds of beautiful
silence an d tha t I joined in it. But even i f we do recognize that silence i s the
right response we really don't kno w how to do that at a public concert. Habi t
(or convention ) an d th e desir e t o expres s our gratitud e t o th e performer s
interfere, an d so does our need t o release tension i n ourselves.
At the very least, though, we need a n interval of silence before the noise we
make begins. More often than not, a conductor, pianist, violinist, or whatever
can command silence at the end of a piece with body language and sheer forc e
of personality; there is, however, no defense against the person who just has to
demonstrate h e owns the C D an d know s when Tapiola i s over. He wil l shout
his "Bravo!" before the music has stopped resonating in the room ("he" because
this seem s to be a peculiarly male obnoxiousness). Some musi c needs t o be
cushioned by stillness, before and after: no less than sound, silence is an essential
component o f the musica l experience. A s the conducto r Davi d Zinma n has
put it: "Silence i s the canvas on which the composer paints." Might it help to
remind concertgoers that LISTEN is an anagram of SILENT? It is all a question
of sensitivity, of tact, of experience, of the willingness to allow someone else to
be in charge of the flo w o f events, an d you can't legislat e any of those things .
Nothing, not even coughing, enrages musicians more than an audience's denia l
of tha t stil l moment i n which t o let th e musi c sink in . What doesn't hel p is
that we have become a society that abhors silence. Rock music does not know
silence, an d peopl e brought u p on i t tak e ever y silence a s a signal that th e
music is over. Silence i s also frowned o n i n radio , and to o ofte n announcer s
leave no space between th e en d of a piece of music and the next words.
I mentione d coughing , an d tha t i s our othe r sonorou s contributio n t o

concerts. Applause can be iffy, but coughing is always bad. Less than one tenth
of the coughin g at concerts i s caused by bonafide respirator y distress. For th e
rest, the pianist Claude Frank years ago put it to me very simply: "It means just
one thing: they'r e not listening." Now the word "listen" has become devalued.
People say they "listen" t o classical music while studying or doing their taxes .
That's not listening, that's hearing, overhearing, half-hearing. I know someone
who calls some classical music "thinking music, " meaning musi c that allow s
her to think about other, serious matters. Most coughing comes from inattentio n
or ou t an d ou t boredom . A Hayd n symphon y is as ingeniously plotte d a s a
good crime novel, but the cougher, who would not read a book by Donna Leo n
or Henning Mankell with such inattention, i s not followin g the story , else he
would not tur n his bronchial tube s inside out, fortissimo, a t a hushed momen t
of greatest suspense. When it comes to gender, coughing is more of an equal
opportunity pastime than premature clapping, but b y and large it is the me n
who dominate . Somethin g I hav e foun d interestin g i s tha t mos t coughin g
happens in the expensiv e seats, an observation that open s quite a few cans of
worms regarding the sociolog y of our musical life.
I also find it remarkable that it does not occu r to people, most of whom act
with reasonable intelligence i n other area s of their lives , that i t is possible to
cough other than fortissimo. Bu t this, I have come to believe, is less an issue of
intelligence tha n of morality. The loud , uninhibite d coughe r i n a pianissimo
passage or worse, in a silence, is inattentive, unmusical , and unmannerly. Most
crucially and infuriatingly , he i s arrogant—someone who take s it for granted
that h e i s the mos t importan t perso n i n th e room , mor e importan t tha n
Beethoven, tha n th e musicians , tha n th e res t o f the audience . ( I have no t
even touche d o n th e plagu e of cell phones.) Coughin g i s a singularly touchy
subject, and more than one conductor ha s told me that th e nastiest mail they
get i s in response , no t t o playin g music by Schoenberg o r Wuorinen, but t o
their comment s o n audienc e noise . "Hey , thi s i s America, we'v e pai d good
money, we're entitled. . . . " You wonder, though: ho w did these peopl e ever
find thei r way into a concert hal l and get mixed up with Mozart and Mahler?
For a long time I took "it's simple, they're not listening" t o be the end of the
story, but I have come to think it's more complicated. Not long ago I attended
a coupl e o f performance s of Britten' s Wa r Requiem, widel y regarded a s a n
important an d meaningfu l work, and o n thes e evening s sun g and playe d as
beautifully a s I have eve r heard it . Bot h performances , though, wer e blotted
out b y an unceasin g tempes t o f coughing. I believe wha t happene d ther e i s
that Wilfre d Owen' s poetr y and thos e specifi c projection s of it adde d u p t o
something too eloquent, to o urgent, too immediate for many in the audience ,
particularly at a time—April 2005—when much of the population was deeply
troubled by this country's recent an d current military history. The air was alive
with acut e discomfort , and th e reactio n wa s squirming, unrest, coughing . I t
Postlude 25 1
doesn't hav e t o be discomfort from tha t kind of a source either. A friend call s
this th e Embarrassmen t Theory o f coughing. Fe w pages in th e symphoni c
literature ar e i n thi s sens e mor e dangerou s tha n th e las t fiv e minutes—al l
pianissimo and less, and with many silences—of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. The
emotional stakes are clearly so high, the tension so great, that some people simply
cannot remain still. This is a story not of insufficient attentio n and engagemen t
but of a need t o escape frightening demands on one's emotional capacity.
The perfec t audienc e doe s exist . Whe n an d wher e yo u wil l fin d i t i s
unpredictable, like so much else about audiences. The subscriptio n system, so
necessary to the financial stability and health of performing arts organizations,
not t o forge t th e menta l healt h of their administrators , can militat e agains t
getting the ideal audience into the hall. You get people who are there because
it's Friday, not becaus e they specifically wanted t o hear th e Bruckner Eighth.
And wha t d o the y bring t o concerts ? Everything, I suppose: their whol e lif e
history and also what the parking lot attendant sai d at 7:45. At th e Gerontius
performance I mentioned, a single event i n a fine church building, everything
was just right. I don't know who that audience was. Some mixture, probably of
oratorio buffs, Elga r lovers, devout Catholics, an d that most important subset
among concertgoers, th e inquisitive , th e peopl e with open ears, open hearts ,
open minds . But then again, I heard Mahler' s Sixt h Symphony , not a n easy
listening experience , emotionall y o r i n an y othe r way , played fo r a totall y
concentrated an d silen t audienc e tha t wa s the sam e subscriptio n audienc e
that had obliterated th e Britten War Requiem a couple of weeks before. Is it all
just a part of chaos theory?
There is music such as Renaissance madrigals that is addressed primarily to
those performing it, and there is private music, for example the late Beethove n
quartets, for which one might ideally want to be an audience of one (o r maybe
two). But symphonies and operas and oratorios address crowds. The audienc e
is, a s it were, built into th e piece . Ho w embarrassing it i s to experienc e th e
soapbox rhetoric of the Beethoven Nint h or a Bruckner or Mahler symphony
all alon e i n you r living room ! Onl y yesterda y someone sai d t o me : "Book s
separate people, but music brings them together. " When you do get the righ t
audience i t is a beautiful reminde r of music's power to unite us.
—M.S.
I append a very short reading list:

Elias Canetti's fascinating study Crowds and Power (Continuum )
Lisel Mueller's poem Brendel Playing Schubert (i n Alive Together, Louisian a
State University Press)
Alfred Brendel' s poe m Cologne (in On e Finger To o Many, Englis h versions
by the author with Richard Stokes, Faber and Faber), or in the original German
as Koln (i n Fingerzeig, Car l Hanser Verlag)

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Oxford Universit y Press, Inc., publishes works that

Copyright © 2006 by Michael Steinberg and Larry Roth e

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

Oxford i s a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dat a

Grateful acknowledgmen t i s made fo r permissio n t o us e passage s from th e

In "On th e Trail of W. A. Mozart": From A Mozart Pilgrimage: The Travel Diaries

In "B . H. Haggin th e Contrarian" : Fro m Music Observed by B. H. Haggin , ©

From L.R. t o Karen and To m

And from both of us

III. THE RECENT SCEN E

Three American Composer s

With a few exceptions, thes e piece s al l appeared originally (som e in slightly

Kathy Brown, KC Congedo, Rober t Guter, Margo Hackett, Rene e Harcourt ,

At te n I went t o Englan d o n a Kindertransport. Ther e I spent mos t of the

wanted t o go into Miller' s to thank the m fo r what, unwittingly and probably

he was already almost thirty. He spoke no English and was a veteran

glimpse of a very different kin d of TV program that my father was watching. It

concert wit h Car l Schurich t conductin g an d th e wonderfu l Clara Haski l as

word fo r music." In composer s Mozart has inspire d aw e and lov e an d envy .

and forgiveness . As the novelis t Maev e Brenna n sai d abou t th e Andant e of

grown-up sel f a s a literary man, no t a musician; th e late r an d seriou s piano

this i s a s subjectiv e a s th e musi c itself— Davidsbiindlertdnze i s o f al l o f

Then there ar e Schumann's songs , about half of them, tw o hundred or so,

"up the dark staircase, humming." I am haunted b y what he found a t the to p

Berg, an d Kur t Weill, th e tim e wa s right t o reflec t on what thos e concept s

Bosch's creatures—but of whose truth you're convinced. Create d in sweat and

plain an d simple . Som e misremembere d b y design , s o a s t o augmen t an d

perspective i s no t tha t badl y askew . Second , i f w e conside r Schubert' s

self-absorbed, peremptory, and rude, and his forgetfulness an d negligence could

n a mugg y Augus t evenin g i n 1966 , shortl y afte r m y seventeent h

I had been listening t o the classics—for me, that meant Beethoven—onl y

of th e firs t performanc e o f Beethoven' s Ninth) , an d wit h Car l Mari a vo n

economical o f ways, as in the firs t movement o f the Secon d Symphon y or th e

Certainly Clara embodied i n every respect Johannes' ideal of womanhood, an d he

suggest. I f you liste n fo r them , yo u wil l hear hint s o f typicall y "Brahmsian"

Brahms possessed by the demo n of artistic creation, but, as Swafford suggests,

Exhibit B: On anothe r da y Kalbeck visited Brahms and heard him at work,

How can on e composer' s music suggest so much beyond itself ? What is it

effect, o n ou r abilit y to assimilate the horizonta l events o f the musi c as they

inundated Vienn a fro m ever y bandstand, cafe , an d restaurant . Then, a s his

gave Schoenberg his most penetrating lessons in coherence, an d in that sens e

Rosenkavalier but, before that , hi s groundbreaking operas Salome an d Elektra,

A mor e sympatheti c Straus s biographer , Michae l Kenned y (i n hi s 197 6

experience i n th e cours e of my creative work . Mahler's opinion wa s just th e

beyond it must die. It seems as if something might be imparted to us in the Tent h

had separated them in Europe.1 Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky were on opposite

of Schoenberg and a slightly older colleague of Bartok, Stravinsky, Webern, and

In hi s later years , Rachmaninoff cam e mor e an d mor e t o lik e lea n musi c

The concentration , clarity , nobility o f style, and beaut y of sound o f the fe w

characteristics o f concentration, clarity , nobility of style, and beauty of sound

n a gray Vienna mornin g in 1954 , Erich Wolfgang Korngold sits in

o- a hote l room , tryin g to figur e ou t wha t wen t wrong . He i s fifty -

back t o th e previou s century. Contemporaries suc h a s Berg and Schoenber g

film, an d tha t wa s really all it took . H e foun d th e movi e absorbing , an d i t

Besides, films wer e exciting. An d h e was proud of what he contribute d t o

At it s premiere , th e Symphon y wa s a disaster , victi m o f unintereste d

The reaso n pictures slumber for generations is

of "glaring inconsistency"). What music a composer knew, admired, and loved

What fascinates Tchaikovsky is not s o much Mozart's music as the idea of