Spring Break

by Gerald Elias

  ‘One could make the case that historically informed performances are, in the best sense, ideal museum pieces, providing a reasonable facsimile of how things might have been done during a particular slice of time. But perhaps a more accurate, nonbiased moniker would be historically restricted or, taking a cue from Civil War aficionados, who duplicate classic battles down to the last brass button, reenacted.’

  ‘May I interject a word here,’ Sybil Baker-Hulme said.

  ‘I’m not finished replying to Mr Nobis’s question,’ Handy bristled. ‘You’ll get your turn.’

  Jacobus took a handkerchief from his back pocket and, stifling a laugh, pretended to cough into it. ‘Don’t mind me,’ he said, waving the handkerchief.

  ‘One of the charges leveled at classical music for having a relatively small share of the vast entertainment market,’ Handy continued, ‘is that we’re a “museum piece.” But one major difference between art and music is that once a painting is hung on the wall, that’s it. It doesn’t change. In fact, every effort is made to prevent it from changing. To wit, heroically painstaking efforts to restore masterpieces like The Last Supper and The Night Watch to their original glory.’

  Throat clearing.

  ‘Music, on the other hand, is always changing, no matter what we try to do to understand and maintain its “authenticity.” Concert halls and the cultural context of the folks inside them change dramatically over time: Thirty musicians playing Beethoven’s Fifth are no longer going to shock you out of your seat. Instrumentalists tinker with their instruments and, from night to night, the performance changes: The oboist might be trying a new reed. The bass player might be invigorated by a New York Yankees victory.’

  This drew a few chuckles.

  ‘Or the Mets.’

  Even more.

  ‘Thank you. I’ve finished my answer.’

  ‘May I respond now?’ Baker-Hulme asked, almost imploringly.

  ‘Not quite yet,’ Hedge responded. ‘It seems our next question is for Mr Jacobus, signed by someone simply named Alicia. She writes, “Aren’t you being really harsh about the quality of music and performance in the Baroque era? It sounds like an exaggeration.” Maybe that’s why Alicia didn’t write her last name! Mr Jacobus, it’s all yours.’

  ‘Harsh? Maybe,’ Jacobus began. ‘But I’m being diplomatic as hell compared to what Mozart and Beethoven had to say about general standards. You’ve got to remember in those days there was no TV. No movies. No radio. No recordings. At night it got dark. Instead of a ball game you could watch a pack of dogs trying to eviscerate a chained bear or go to a public lynching. Or you could go hear music or theater. If you really got desperate you could stay home and read the family Bible.

  ‘The routine for composers was to get up in the morning and write a new piece for a dinner or private party that very evening. Baroque music, except for expensive operas, was rarely played more than once before it was tucked away forever, because audiences felt if something was performed a second time they were being cheated and would start throwing rotten vegetables.

  ‘Yes, there were geniuses, especially in the halls of wealth and power, because that’s where geniuses had to go if they wanted to get paid what they deserved. They followed the money. Vivaldi at the Ospedale in Venice at the height of its republic. Corelli in Rome was subsidized by cardinals and popes. Couperin in Paris for King Louis. Bach in Cöthen with Prince Leopold. Handel in London for King George.

  ‘Sure, some guys got those cushy jobs. The lucky few. But even for them their job status was lower on the totem pole than a butler or coachman. Most musicians went to work every day, rain or shine. Played in poorly lit rooms where they’d freeze their asses off in winter and swelter in summer. Worked all hours at the whim of the local potentate for only enough grolschen to go home at night to share some bread and cheese and a glass of beer with their wife and nineteen kids. Musicians’ unions today wouldn’t allow such conditions, and God bless ’em.

  ‘Most musicians played on instruments that Tawroszewicz noted were no better than the playing conditions. Strings, made of pigs’ intestines from the local butcher, were constantly out of tune and always breaking, especially without any kind of temperature control. Horsehair for bows came off the old gray mare. Their fiddles rattled around in little wooden coffins, so even if they were any good to begin with, a few years of commuting to work in the family oxcart would’ve knocked any quality they might’ve had out of them.

  ‘And then there was the question of training. Some musicians had the advantage of learning from older masters, but in general if you made a mistake you got whacked on your head with Master’s bow and thrown into a closet until you got it right.’

  Jacobus paused. He suddenly lost his train of thought. He took a sip of water and then another until it came back. Oh, yeah. Performance practice. He needed a rest.

  ‘Not to get too esoteric, but you also have to consider competing tuning systems during the Baroque period. Pythagorean, well-tempered, meantone-tempered, and equal-tempered. Enough to make you hot-tempered. What I’m saying is that most of the performances you would’ve heard during the Baroque period probably sounded like shit. So here’s the punchline: If we really want to recreate the authentic Baroque sound are we willing to accept listening to bad music sounding terrible?’

  The question was rhetorical, but Jacobus would not have minded someone arguing with him. There being only silence, he continued.

  ‘Or do we want to play only the best Baroque music and make it sound a helluva lot better than it did then? And that requires making judgments. Or, in other words, using your brain.’

  More applause than the first time around. Jacobus gathered they had finally realized he wasn’t just bullshitting. But maybe he was. After all, what did he know? He wasn’t there three hundred years ago. Though sometimes he felt like it.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Jacobus,’ Hedge said. ‘Now, finally your turn, Professor Baker-Hulme.’ Hedge flipped to the next question. ‘And you’ll be happy to know it’s from the renowned composer of Platonic Dialogues and Synchronos, and coincidentally the devoted husband of Sybil Baker-Hulme. Our own Aaron Schlossberg!’

  ‘Hello, dear!’ Aaron Schlossberg shouted from the back of the hall, which got a big laugh.

  ‘So happy you could make it,’ Baker-Hulme replied into the microphone.

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world!’

  Once the general laughter died down, Hedge continued.

  ‘This kind of family atmosphere,’ he said in reverential tones, ‘is what makes Kinderhoek unique. But enough propaganda. Here’s the question. I’ll read it verbatim, but remember, I’m just the messenger! Aaron writes, Don’t let Jacobus get away with it, dear! Tell us about the glories of the Ospedale!’

  Everyone, audience and panelists alike, laughed at both the question and Hedge’s dramatic rendering. Even Jacobus smiled.

  ‘Thank you, Aaron,’ Baker-Hulme replied. ‘I would be delighted. My dear husband has been kind enough to lob me a softball.

  ‘The Ospedale della Pietà was a convent, orphanage, and music school in Venice, almost exclusively for figlie, girls, and was, in the words of Mr Jacobus, one of those rare, sought-after “cushy” institutions. Not all the students were orphans, nor even poor for that matter. Initially, and through the seventeenth century, the ospedali – there were four – provided training in sacred music. As the excellence of the Pietà’s training grew, so did its reputation. It attracted the attention of the nobility, who sometimes enrolled their infants, legitimate or otherwise. Many of the concerts were arranged especially for important, wealthy visitors—’

  ‘So in some ways things haven’t changed all that much, have they?’ Hedge interjected. More laughter.

  ‘Quite,’ Baker-Hulme replied. ‘But unlike concerts these days, the young ladies, because of mores of modesty, were constrained to perform behind an iron lattice grille, like a wall, which served as protection from the prying glances of lecherous men.
I’m not sure the modern woman would countenance such acts of subservience.’

  The feminists in the audience applauded in agreement. One shouted, ‘Right on!’

  ‘La Pietà hired the best faculty in the city and promoted its high quality concerts. None other than the great Antonio Vivaldi was appointed a violin teacher in 1703 and served in various roles on and off until 1740. Much of his greatest music was written for performance at the Pietà.

  ‘One would not imagine that life in an orphanage had much to offer, so it might surprise you that, for the young ladies, the status that came with being successful figlie was much coveted, and created incentive for excellence. Though most remained at the ospedale their entire lives, some were lavished with gifts from admirers, a few were permitted to marry and were even provided dowries, and many were offered vacations in villas on the Italian mainland.’

  ‘I’ll take that!’ a young lady in the audience called out, much to everyone’s delight.

  ‘Yes,’ Baker-Hulme continued, ‘not bad for an abandoned infant.

  ‘As you can imagine, the ospedali’s activities provided countless commissions for local violin and other instrument makers, liuter del loco, not only for the manufacture of good instruments but also for the constant maintenance and repair of such instruments, to which the good Mr Jacobus has alluded.

  ‘With the wealth of information we have gathered, we can now recreate – in the best sense, Professor Handy – the best performance practices of the best music – thank you, Mr Jacobus – and hopefully, one day Professor Tawroszewicz will take the trouble to avail himself of that end of the musical spectrum.’

  She nailed all three of us in one sentence, Jacobus thought. Not bad.

  ‘Sorry to have been so longwinded, but it was such a good question, dear!’

  There were no questions for Professor Tawroszewicz, which was cause for a bit of embarrassment. But Hedge covered it up with aplomb, telling Tawroszewicz he was lucky to have gotten off so easy. Jacobus silently echoed his relief that the discussion was over. Hedge then thanked everyone for coming and directed everyone to the lobby for refreshments.

  After five minutes of schmoozing at the reception, Jacobus was eager to leave. The small talk was as stale as the cheese and crackers. Alicia, the student whose question had been addressed to Jacobus, tried to engage him in conversation, but he was exhausted. His energy level had been on the wane, and he felt a desperate need to sleep. When she brought up the backstage shout during his spiel, he shrugged. Nothing had come of it, and he had no reason to disbelieve Hedge’s assessment that it had simply been a prankster. Jacobus excused himself as politely as he could muster and sought out Yumi. She congratulated Jacobus both for the content of his presentation and style points – ‘you didn’t once call anyone an imbecile or hysterically misinformed’ – which was as much of that tête-à-tête as he could endure. On their way out, he steered clear of an animated discussion between Sybil Baker-Hulme and Bronislaw Tawroszewicz, but it was impossible for him not to overhear one heated exchange:

  ‘You might have learned something, Bronto, had you been at the Pietà.’

  ‘Maybe. But your husband, he would not have liked being there,’ he replied.

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘He would not have liked the grille.’

  THREE

  Thursday, March 19

  The situation in Feldstein Auditorium Thursday morning was reversed. Students were on the stage and Jacobus was sitting in the audience. Yumi had dropped him off there, putting him in the hands of Elwood Dunster. She then went off to teach, stranding him without an escape strategy from the two-and-a-half-hour Vivaldi rehearsal. Dunster had been assigned to shepherd Jacobus around the rolling campus located within walking distance of the hamlet of Kinnetonka Crossing. Jacobus would have preferred exploring on his own and expressed that opinion, but the administration had politely insisted that he be given ‘the full red-carpet treatment.’

  It was unseasonably warm for early spring, and the auditorium’s air conditioning had not yet been activated for the semester. The cloying scent of student sweat radiated from the stage. Worse, Jacobus was already getting bored. The Kinderhoek Conservatory Chamber Orchestra was decent enough, Jacobus grudgingly accepted, as far as student orchestras went. But the conductor, Tawroszewicz, bore out what Sybil Baker-Hulme had more than hinted at the night before; he was neither historically informed nor particularly informed in any other way. Energy, whether controlled or not, seemed to be his sole default.

  The girl playing the solo in Vivaldi’s violin concerto ‘Spring’ didn’t have especially refined technique, nor did she have much sense of what passed for acceptable Baroque style these days, though that was a different discussion altogether. She had arrived late to the rehearsal and was struggling. Her name, Yumi had informed him, was Audrey Something. One of Dunster’s students. His best, supposedly. Jacobus tried not to imagine Dunster’s worst, but with Dunster sitting next to him, he kept his mouth shut. As Jacobus’s own teacher, Dr Krovney, used to say about such students, ‘She’s played twelve years and is four years behind.’ One thing was clear. She seemed to be giving it the old college try, even if the brook in Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’ churned more than it murmured. With two weeks before the performance, at least there was still enough time to dredge the sediment.

  Tawroszewicz abruptly interrupted Jacobus’s daydreaming about music with a river theme – The Moldau, Siegfried’s Rhine Journey, Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, ‘Ol’ Man River’ – when he stopped the orchestra and reprimanded the students. He coarsely informed them that if he had played that meekly when he was a student they would have made him sew doilies for the rest of his life. ‘Do you want to sew doilies for the rest of your lives?’ There being no response other than a sullen silence, they began once again.

  ‘What do you think, Mr Jacobus?’ Dunster whispered into his ear.

  ‘Eh? What do I think?’ Jacobus sought quickly for positives. As a guest at the conservatory he didn’t want to be critical of the man’s best student. An ‘esteemed’ guest, they kept telling him, though by being esteemed he felt as if someone had fastened a target to the back of his shirt.

  ‘I think Tawroszewicz doesn’t want his side of beef served on doilies.’

  ‘Clearly,’ Dunster whispered, stifling a chuckle. ‘But I meant about Audrey. What do you think of Audrey’s playing?’

  Bullseye.

  ‘Hard worker. Potential.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dunster concurred.

  ‘Sophomore?’ Jacobus asked, immediately realizing it was as dangerous a question as asking a woman when her baby was due before finding out whether she was pregnant.

  ‘Senior. She seems distracted. I think you being here made her nervous. More than usual, anyway.’

  ‘Nervous type?’

  ‘Hyper. Too much adrenaline. Competitive, too. Maybe because she’s a Plain Jane, you know?’

  ‘No. I don’t know.’

  ‘Pasty, acne, socially ill at ease. But she loves the violin.’

  ‘It’s a competitive field. Might be to her advantage, the competitive part,’ Jacobus said, though he almost choked on his words saying it. For him, competition was the bane of music and the main reason he had distanced himself from the professional world. ‘Young people should play with each other, not against each other,’ had long been his mantra.

  ‘She’s really looking forward to playing at your masterclass,’ Dunster said. ‘I’ve tried my best with her, but no doubt your insights can fill in the gaps.’

  Jacobus shrugged. Was there a bit of sarcasm there? No matter. He had already compiled a mental list of a dozen basic gaps in the girl’s playing that needed addressing. If a six-year-old had that many gaps in her mouth, the tooth fairy would be filing for bankruptcy.

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ Jacobus said.

  They listened to the little that remained of the rehearsal in silence. It went reasonably well, but Tawroszewicz’s style, the
way he treated both the music and the students, was outdated by anyone’s standards. As Jacobus had made abundantly clear the night before, he was far from being an ardent proponent of historically informed performance. But neither should Vivaldi be played with Brahmsian opacity.

  Whatever. He would be charitably evenhanded. To each his own. That’s what makes music great, after all. But he didn’t really believe that, either.

  Tawroszewicz wrapped up the rehearsal, chastising the students a final time that if they did not live up to his high standards their lives would be worthless. He then excused them with a warning to practice harder over the spring break if they had any pride. The students disbanded with few words among them.

  ‘I get the sense they don’t like him very much,’ Jacobus said.

  ‘He’s tough on them, but for some reason they seem to respect him for that,’ Dunster said. ‘He’s always bragging about getting great student evaluations.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Student evaluations.’

  ‘That’s what I thought you said. Don’t you have that backwards? The teachers evaluate the students. Since when do students evaluate teachers?’

  ‘Times have changed, Mr Jacobus,’ Dunster said. ‘Every semester the entire faculty is evaluated. It’s one way the powers that be determine how well we’re doing our jobs. We have to do them in order for the school to remain certified. Along with hours taught, numbers of students, of graduating seniors, student concert attendance, faculty performances. It all goes into the mix. If you don’t get recertified, you’re in deep doo-doo.’

  Jacobus pondered the bizarre premise of students evaluating teachers and concluded that had his past students been given that license, he might have been sent to the electric chair. Many times. And those were from the ones he was nice to.

  ‘Every faculty member, every semester, by every student?’ he thought out loud. ‘That’s enough wasted paper to fill the Smithsonian.’