Death and Transfiguration

by Gerald Elias

  “In that case,” said the usher, still grasping tenaciously to sovereign authority over her domain, “all right, but you have to take responsibility for him.”

  “With greatest respect for the import of the task you have bestowed upon me, you may be sure.”

  When she had left, Jacobus said, “Lilburn, I thought the Times had finally put you out to pasture.”

  “Alas, Mr. Jacobus, forgotten but not gone. I am technically retired, but my former employer calls upon me for the occasional freelance feature when the new critic, who shall remain nameless, is too busy pontificating from on high. I’m here to interview the maestro and finish a story on the opening of Harmonium Hall next week.”

  Lilburn led Jacobus to a seat immediately at the foot of the conductor’s podium, unfolded it for him, and then sat beside him. The rest of the section was empty save for Harmonium staff and a few of the Tanglewood conducting Fellows. On this sunny summery Saturday in New England, thousands of Herzaphiles were congregating behind them to witness the open rehearsal, the first ever given by Herza and Harmonium, since until now Herza had throughout his career refused to allow the public to his rehearsals. A buzzy, festive atmosphere reigned as musicians trickled onto the stage to warm up.

  “Comfy?” asked Lilburn.

  “Yeah,” said Jacobus, already fidgety. “When does the rehearsal start?”

  “Still about ten, fifteen minutes to go.”

  “What’s so interesting in the program?”

  “Mr. Jacobus, you’re still a constant source of amazement. How did you know I was reading the program book?”

  “I’d need to be deaf not to hear you flipping pages back and forth like a parent looking for his kid’s photo in the local newspaper. Hell, what else would you be reading ten minutes before a rehearsal? A Bible? First, you’re an atheist, and second, Sunday isn’t until tomorrow.”

  “You’re right as usual. I find it fascinating the information these new-style program books contain. Even the ads. Here’s one for a bank with a photo of some over-the-hill male model supposedly looking like a conductor. A very serious expression on his face. The only problem is he’s holding the baton in his left hand. ‘Conduct your financial affairs with class,’ it says in elegant writing.”

  “I’m thrilled you’re having such a fine time keeping yourself entertained,” said Jacobus.

  Lilburn ignored him. “In the old days, a program was one page, maybe two, listing the music that was going to be played that day. Later they started adding the roster of orchestra personnel, staff, and board, and maybe one or two ads from sponsors. Now you get a program book as thick as that Bible I’m not reading. It’s got program notes for each piece, a bio of Herza and of all the composers whose music will be performed, all the guest artists, a history of Harmonium, photos all over the place, pages of contributors from million-dollar ‘Beethoven’ patrons to the ten-dollar ‘Bruckner’ donors. I could almost do my whole story just plagiarizing from this program.”

  “That’s never stopped you,” Jacobus cracked.

  Lilburn laughed. “Time hasn’t altered you a bit, Mr. Jacobus. It’s a comfort to know some things never change.”

  “There’s one thing that changes, according to you.”

  “What might that be?”

  “Program books. What else have they got?”

  “Here are five pages just on the building of the new hall, which will be the orchestra’s first real home. Can you believe that, after forty years?”

  “I thought they play at Carnegie and Avery Fischer,” said Jacobus, more attracted to the Carnegie Deli than Carnegie Hall on the infrequent occasions he was dragged to New York City.

  “Yes and no,” said Lilburn. “They’ve been playing a handful of times every year at those halls for God knows how long, but the vast majority of their concerts have been on the road. ‘The only orchestra in the world,’ it says here, ‘for which touring is their primary concert activity.’”

  “Sounds like those nineteenth-century violinists,” said Jacobus. “Like when Paganini left Italy for a six-year tour of Europe!”

  “And that’s before suitcases had wheels. It’s hard to imagine an individual doing that, let alone an orchestra. Can you imagine the expense, the planning, the—”

  “Fuck-ups? The complaining?” Jacobus added. “Taking a hundred musicians on the road is like putting a hundred cats in a shoe box.”

  “I can imagine it.”

  “No, actually you can’t. Anything else interesting in the book?”

  “Have you heard much about the new hall?” asked Lilburn.

  “Not much. It’s on landfill in New York Harbor, right?”

  “In the Hudson, right at the base of Manhattan, with a view of the Statue of Liberty. That was Herza’s idea. In fact, the whole brilliantly insane idea was his, like Wagner building Bayreuth. He designed it, named it, chose the location—”

  “How do you get to it, if it’s in the middle of the river?”

  “The Freedom Bridge. Paid for by the Prague government as a gift to New York and the U.S. in gratitude for America’s stance against communism, or so the canard goes. A monument like the Statue of Liberty, in a way. The design parallels its ancient sister bridge in Prague, the Charles Bridge, except it’s updated, of course, and the colossal statues that line its sides are composers instead of saints.”

  “Sounds like Herza’s a man on a mission.”

  “He’s the last of the old-time maestros, in my humble opinion. These days, your typical jet-setting music directors spend ten, twelve, maybe fifteen weeks a year max with ‘their’ orchestras. The feathers in their cap accrue not with the quality of their musicianship but with the number of orchestras they conduct. In the golden age, a music director spent thirty to forty weeks with his band and the badge of honor was derived from the musical personality of the orchestra the maestro developed. The Philadelphia sound of Stokowski and Ormandy. The Cleveland sound of George Szell. Any serious concertgoer can conjure those sounds in his head. Herza has been and still is the only conductor that Harmonium plays for. Unprecedented. The New York Phil has had five different music directors during his reign, and that’s why the Harmonium sound is so distinct and every other orchestra so faceless.”

  “I never heard you say that when you were the Times critic,” said Jacobus.

  “Well, perhaps not to that degree,” Lilburn confessed. “Perhaps it was more nuanced.”

  “You mean you needed to keep your job,” Jacobus added.

  “Mr. Jacobus, do you insinuate—”

  “Calm down, Lilburn. I was trying to unnuance your nuance.”

  Jacobus squirmed in his seat. The rehearsal still hadn’t started, but the arthritic pain had.

  “I’ve got a question,” he said. “Don’t the musicians get tired of seeing Herza’s same ugly kisser day in, day out, if he’s conducting them forty weeks a year?”

  “I was at his first U.S. concert in ’56—that dates me, doesn’t it?—when he filled in for Stokowski at the last minute and did Mahler Nine. I wrote at the time that it was ‘unsurpassed perfection,’ which in hindsight is very poor writing, but in my view nothing has changed. So how can the musicians complain? Now and then there have been some rumors about illicit behavior—innuendo, no doubt, as is the case with a lot of conductors—that you would more likely find in the National Enquirer than the Harmonium program book, but in the end, it’s the best orchestra, bar none, and they’re also the highest paid. They’re negotiating a new contract right now—their old one expires the day before the hall opening, so things might get contentious, but I’ll bet Herza’s hold on the orchestra is secure.”

  “I assume they’re a union orchestra.”

  “They were one of the last to unionize, maybe because they were already so well compensated and didn’t feel they needed the AF of M, or maybe because Herza’s grip on the orchestra is so firm. But considering his avowed history as a champion of the common man, it would have been hypocrit
ical for him to deny the musicians their right to bargain collectively. There’s no doubt, though, that Harmonium is an organizational anachronism, a throwback to Toscanini’s NBC Symphony. Greatness with the despot, or run-of-the-mill without. Take your pick.”

  “But if the big event opening the hall is next week, why is Maestro and his merry band gracing the Shed with their presence?”

  “Well, the reason is simple: construction delays. They’re still putting the finishing touches on the hall, and I’m informed that the workers, in order to complete the project on time, have been at it nonstop, making it impossible to rehearse there. Too much noise and commotion. Since the Boston Symphony is on tour in Europe, Harmonium was able to hastily make a deal with BSO management to rehearse and play a concert up here. The BSO is good at planning on the fly. Not a summer goes by when a conductor or guest artist doesn’t cancel at the last minute. But Herza has never done an open rehearsal—that was part of the deal because it’ll make a splash and bring the BSO a welcome windfall—so it should be an interesting occasion, to say the least.”

  Jacobus asked Lilburn to read the personnel list in the program book, curious if there was anyone in the orchestra he knew from the old days. Lilburn started with the first violins, then the seconds. Halfway through the viola section, Jacobus interrupted him.

  “You know, when I started playing professionally you heard a lot of guys speaking French or German or Hungarian,” he said. “After the war, only NASA benefited more than orchestras from the European brain drain. Now, not only do I not recognize any of the names, I’m wondering whether the official language of this orchestra is Mandarin or Japanese!”

  “There certainly has been an influx of Asian musicians in the past decade,” said Lilburn, “not least among them your former student, Yumi Shinagawa.”

  “And to their credit,” said Jacobus. “I’m no conspiracy theorist, but Harmonium seems to have a corner on the market. Any string players left on the program who might be from our hemisphere?”

  “Mind if I join you gents?” interrupted a deep male voice with a Southern lilt.

  “Only if you’re authorized,” said Jacobus.

  “Authorized? I play in this band, sir.”

  “Why aren’t you on stage, then?” asked Lilburn.

  “Because Mozart was wise enough not to include trombones in the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony.”

  “So, a busman’s holiday?” interrupted Jacobus. “Any self-respecting musician would be on the golf course when he didn’t have to play.”

  “Who mentioned anything about self-respect? By the way, Parsley’s the name. Junior Parsley.”

  “Well, Mr. Parsley, please join us in our little oasis,” said Lilburn. “I suppose we too should introduce ourselves. I’m Martin Lilburn, occasionally of the New York Times, and this is my friend, Daniel Jacobus, eminent violin pedagogue.”

  Jacobus extended his hand into the air and Parsley shook it.

  From the size of Parsley’s hand, Jacobus guessed he was well over six feet tall, and when Parsley overflowed the seat next to him he gathered he was equally wide.

  “Any trombone player who’ll listen to Mozart when he doesn’t have to is worth shaking hands with,” Jacobus said.

  “We were just discussing the preponderance of Asian musicians in Harmonium,” Lilburn continued. “Perhaps you can shed some light.”

  “None of this is for the record. Right?” asked Parsley. “See, I also happen to be chair of the orchestra committee, and as you may know we’re coming down to the wire with our contract negotiations.”

  “In the interest of full disclosure, I am assembling a story on the history of Herza and Harmonium. I hadn’t intended to include anything about your orchestra’s demographics—it was more Mr. Jacobus’s curiosity than mine—but if I do, it will only be in the broad context of the profession as a whole, and you’ll have no worries about attribution in either case. Fair enough?”

  “Seems reasonable, Mr. Lilburn. Well, then, the orchestra business is still a pretty safe haven for good old red-blooded American trombonists such as myself, but string players from Asia have made some real inroads. They can certainly play, for sure, but I think Maestro has a special affinity for them—he’s almost a cult figure there, particularly Japan. That’s one of our primo touring destinations. Have you ever been to the Sapporo brewery up in Hokkaido? They have this lamb dish called the Genghis Khan that—”

  “I can’t say I have, but it sounds lovely. Why do you suppose this to be the case, that Herza and the East have such a relationship?”

  Jacobus felt Parsley shift his weight. An uncomfortable question? Jacobus listened with curiosity to the answer with one ear. With his other he listened intently as more musicians arrived onstage, learning about the personality of the orchestra by the way they warmed up. In the back of his brain he made a mental note to find out more about the Genghis Khan.

  “As you may already know,” Parsley replied, “and will no doubt experience in a few minutes, Maestro Herza has a predilection for—how to say it nicely—exerting musical will over the musicians. We euphemistically call it his Old World charm, especially after we’ve downed a few beers. It can rub American guys the wrong way, but the Asian musicians, they almost seem to bask in it. As I say, he’s almost a god in Japan.”

  This time it was Jacobus who squirmed. Disinclined to reverence of anyone other than Beethoven, as an orchestral musician he had been particularly cognizant of the narcissism that bloomed when that little white stick magically transformed a mortal into a “maestro.” He also squirmed for another reason: From within the rising onstage cacophony, his ears lasered in on the sound of a particular violin. Emanating directly in front of him, he had no doubt it was Sherry O’Brien practicing a slow C major scale—plain old C major—carefully massaging the intonation and vibrato. What could he glean from that?

  First, a musician a few days away from the most important audition of her career would more likely be frantically sawing away at her concertos and excerpts. Though that would annoy everyone within earshot it would do her little actual good, because when everyone’s onstage warming up, you can barely hear yourself think. So that meant she displayed levelheaded, analytical judgment. Second, she wasn’t even practicing the music for that morning’s rehearsal. With a demanding conductor like Herza, you don’t want to be caught with your bloomers down, especially the concertmaster, so she must have done her homework in advance. Conclusion: calm, prepared, and supremely confident. Maybe her grievance wouldn’t backfire after all. The other side of the coin was that Yumi would be hard-pressed to win the audition.

  Jacobus put those thoughts in his back pocket and returned to the conversation, changing its trajectory.

  “And the old-timers?” he asked. “Do they prostrate themselves before the maestro?”

  “Yes and no. There’s always some bitching and moaning. But that’s true of any orchestra, any music director.”

  “Just before you arrived,” Lilburn said, “I was reading the personnel list for Mr. Jacobus to see if there were any veterans whom he might know.”

  “In the strings?”

  “For starters,” said Jacobus.

  “There aren’t too many left from your day. No offense, sir,” said Parsley. “Try this pair on for size: Ebeneezer Frumkin and Casper Lulich.”

  “Beanie and Cappy!” Jacobus exclaimed. “Cappy the Whistler! They’re still kickin’?”

  “Kickin’ each other’s more like it. They’ve been sitting together for decades. Only difference is they used to be the first stand of the viola section; now they’re in the back. We call it Beanie and Cappy’s Last Stand. They’ve had what one would call a hate-hate relationship. The Mega-Herza versus the Killa-Herza, in a nutshell.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “This orchestra may play together like nobody’s business, Mr. Jacobus, but it’s divided right down the middle with how the guys feel about Maestro. Maestro’s personality does not engender fence-si
tting, so just about everyone’s lined up either pro or con, and we’ve taken to calling each group the Mega-Herzas and Killa-Herzas. That’s not for publication, Mr. Lilburn, by the way.

  “Beanie, bless his heart, is self-absorbed in the minutiae of existence, the polar opposite of Cappy, and is a Mega. He takes a half hour to make sure his bow tie’s on straight before a concert. He and Cappy, an ardent Killa, almost came to blows because Beanie pencils in fingerings over virtually every note of his music, or—”

  “Excuse me, but is something wrong with that?” interrupted Lilburn, who had once been a pianist. “Wouldn’t it be helpful to insert one’s fingerings?”

  “As a trombone player, it’s all a nonissue as far as I’m concerned. But as chair of the orchestra committee, I’ve had to be a referee and forcibly separate combatants from time to time. I’ll defer to Mr. Jacobus to explain the intricacies.”

  “The gist is,” Jacobus said, “it’s okay to write in your fingerings if you don’t have to share music with anyone else, like if you’re in a string quartet. But when you’re sharing the same part with your stand partner, it can drive him to distraction, since everyone’s hands are different and what makes sense for one musician could be totally useless for another. Also, some musicians come up with a good fingering and stick with it their whole lives, but others like using different fingerings every day depending on what they think is musically appropriate for the moment. Having someone else’s fingering is like Chinese water torture; at first it’s a mild irritant, but after a while you want to strangle someone, then yourself.”

  “Strangling myself,” said Lilburn with a condescending chuckle. “Quite a trick.”

  “Try it sometime,” said Jacobus. “You might like it.

  “Most orchestra string players tacitly discourage writing fingerings in their parts,” Jacobus continued. “Some orchestras ban it outright.”

  “I take it Mr. Lulich sees things differently from Mr. Frumkin,” Lilburn commented.

  “Cappy’s a natural,” said Jacobus. “It’s like one day he picked up the viola and just started to play it and never needed a lesson or had to practice, but he’s undisciplined in all ways, including music. Regardless of what’s written on the page or whatever anyone else is doing, Cappy follows his own muse.”