by Gerald Elias
Dunster laughed.
‘You certainly are behind the curve, Mr Jacobus. It’s all computerized now. No muss, no fuss. Students write their comments and, click, it’s stored forever. A little too easy, I think.’
‘Meaning?’
‘When you have to write with paper and pen you have to think beforehand about what you’re writing or you’re going to have an awfully messy sheet of paper. But on these computers, kids only think after they write. And sometimes not even then. Sometimes I wish they’d consider what they’re writing for more than thirty seconds before they commit their opinions to eternity.’
It sounded like Dunster had been on the short end of the stick. Jacobus was sympathetic, regardless of how good or bad a teacher Dunster was. How could someone teach, constantly looking over his shoulder, constantly worried about displeasing a student for fear of losing his job?
He and Dunster left Feldstein Auditorium and walked along the winding, cobblestone path that led to the Campus Inn. He probed the path with his cane, tapping it to the left and to the right with the deftness of an insect’s antenna.
‘Do you worry about those evaluations, Dunster?’ Jacobus asked.
‘Me? No. Not at this point in my career. I give all my students an A, anyway. I figure if they’re good they’ll make it and if they’re not, the A is something that’ll make them happy. So the students don’t give me a hard time.’
‘You think that’s what’s most important? To keep students happy?’
‘Why not? Don’t you?’
‘I figured, at a conservatory, the most important thing would be to make sure the next generation plays Bach as well as the last. Because if they don’t, who will?’
‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.’
Though the scent of newly sprouted grass and the gossip of robins and chickadees were welcome changes from Nathaniel’s Manhattan apartment, they reminded Jacobus of his demolished home in the woods. A distant Mozart C Major piano concerto floated toward him from a student’s practice room somewhere, intermingled with the sweetness of freshly blooming peonies. Jacobus forced himself from his sudden nostalgia.
‘You said, “at this point in my career.” How long have you been on the faculty?’ Jacobus asked Dunster, trying to think of something apropos to say.
‘Would you believe forty-nine years?’
‘Jesus Christ! You must be as old as I am.’
‘I do think we’re about the same age. I was studying with Galamian the same time you were with Krovney.’
‘Really?’ Jacobus was puzzled. Ivan Galamian had been the foremost violin pedagogue of his time, the teacher of many of the major artists on the concert circuit. Though Jacobus had never studied with him, he had read Galamian’s books. Krovney’s approach differed from Galamian in key fundamental ways, but Jacobus respected Galamian’s ability to turn out generations of well-prepared, solid fiddle players. What Jacobus had heard in Audrey Something’s playing was hardly representative of the Galamian school, but after forty-nine years and averaging – let’s say – ten students a year … Well, how could one’s teaching not get a little lax? He chose to refrain from commenting and changed the trajectory of the subject of Dunster’s longevity.
‘I was under the impression this school was started by a bunch of European Jewish lefties,’ Jacobus said, ‘and Elwood Dunster isn’t exactly a Jewish name, unless it’s Sephardic or something. No offense intended.’
Dunster’s fabricated laugh made it evident he’d been quizzed on the issue more than once and that his mouth no longer needed the brain to spout out the words.
‘That’s what a lot of people think about the school,’ Dunster said. ‘But that’s not exactly right. The Kinderhoek Conservatory was founded by Theodesia Lievenstock in 1935. Spinster. Last of the Lievenstock line. All the way back to the early Dutch colonists of the Hudson Valley in the 1600s. Spectacularly wealthy family. Vast landholdings. She had a heart of gold, but no heirs apparent, and more money than she knew what to do with. So she became a major philanthropist of the arts.
‘In ’31 Theodesia heard about the persecution of Jewish musicians – Dutch, Polish, and German – from one of her Amsterdam cousins. Decided to rescue enough of them to found a music colony. Called it the Kinderhoek Settlement. Means “children’s corner” in Dutch.’
‘Quaint.’
‘Well, yes. But she meant well. The colony’s original mission was to provide a safe haven. Just for the musicians and their families. Solace from all their tribulations. Theodesia paid for everything. She built cottages and cabins for them – nothing fancy – and provided them stipends to get by on. And you’re right, it mostly comprised Jewish socialists.
‘Word got around about the high quality of the music-making. Attracted other musicians from the region. Then the whole country. Like a magnet. It was so unpretentious. Music for music’s sake. Unique. That added to its allure.
‘Theodesia was a visionary as well as a philanthropist. She saw the potential. She formed a board of trustees, which incorporated. What had been an unstructured music program became the Kinderhoek Conservatory of Music. As the years passed, many of the original Jewish families left. American apple pie WASPs like me started showing up. I grew up in the city, and this was much more pleasant. Gradually the community evolved ethnically—’
‘Meaning, more Christians?’
‘Yes, I suppose that’s what it means. There are still some pockets of the original Jewish socialist personality, but the area’s become pretty well gentrified.’
‘Is this the original campus?’
‘By no means,’ Dunster replied. ‘Those first settlement buildings were never intended to be permanent. They were scattered all over. They’ve all been torn down or were overgrown by the woods, as far as I know. Much of the current campus was built anywhere from ten to twenty years ago. That was when things started to get unhinged.’
‘Unhinged?’ Jacobus asked.
‘As the conservatory grew in stature and scope, costs of running it – including the infrastructure – grew concomitantly. Lievenstock and her small group of trustee friends couldn’t continue to foot the tab out of their pockets. After she passed, the financial situation became critical, even with the money she had left in her estate. Tuition, which had always been free, became affordable only to a privileged few. It came to a point that budgetary concerns threatened the institution with extinction. The program shriveled. The only students were hippie children of well-to-do parents who preferred the conservatory’s laissez-faire attitude to having to study for a serious degree at a real school.’
‘And that’s changed?’
‘You bet. In 1983. Hiram Feldstein – a former violist – who was among the first Polish émigrés to the Kinderhoek Settlement, gave ten million dollars to the conservatory and promised ninety more.’
‘Not bad for a commie musician. Sloughed off his socialist roots, did he?’
‘He wasn’t a particularly talented violist, but he had a genius for buying and selling parking lots in New York City. The only strings he attached to his gift were that the school had to be tuition-free and that the only consideration for acceptance into the program be merit.’
‘A man after my own heart.’
‘Overnight, the conservatory went from being on life support to being one of the most sought-after programs in the country. And that applied to faculty as well as to the students. Much to everyone’s dismay, Hiram went and dropped dead of a heart attack on us a few years back and now our good dean, Charles Hedge, has been lobbying Hiram’s two children for the ninety million.’
‘I thought you said he promised.’
‘All word of mouth and a handshake. I was a friend of Hiram’s and helped bring the parties together. It was a done deal.’
‘But the kinder aren’t so convinced?’
‘No, and I might not be, either, if someone told me I had to cough up that amount of change.’
‘Wasn’t it in his
will?’
‘That’s the problem. There was no bequest because he thought it wasn’t necessary, having already promised it. So that’s why Charles has been courting the Feldstein offspring. By the way, I invited them to your masterclass and they’re coming to hear Audrey play “Spring.”’
‘I never knew my masterclasses were so valuable. How badly does the school need the dough?’ Jacobus asked.
‘With all the students on free tuition and free room and board, we have to have an alternative revenue stream. Right now our faculty is chock-full of renowned composers, theorists, musicologists, and elite performers. They get paid premium rates. If we can’t pay them and have to lay them off, we’ll soon be somewhere between back on life support and dying of a heart attack.’
Jacobus thought of Yumi, his former student, and her weekly treks from the city. But not all performers lived in New York.
‘How do you keep great performers on the faculty when they’re out performing?’
‘That’s been the hardest part. You can imagine their concert schedules. A hundred, hundred and fifty concerts a year. You can’t expect them to maintain a regular campus presence.’
‘“Maintain a regular campus presence.” Translated into English, you mean they make for great PR on the brochure, but they’re sighted as often as a California condor?’
‘Maybe, but I have to admit, we’ve got a top faculty who’ve attracted some pretty talented kids.’
‘Sounds idyllic,’ Jacobus said. ‘Must be totally unlike other music schools dedicated to professional training that I’m familiar with.’
‘In what sense?’
‘People getting along with each other.’
‘Now you’re putting words in my mouth.’
They arrived at the inn.
‘Need help getting to your room?’ Dunster asked.
‘I think I can make it on my own. Thanks.’
‘By the way, are you going to Aaron Schlossberg’s spring equinox party tonight?’
‘Party? No. Not if I can avoid it.’
‘You should go,’ Dunster said. ‘He’s had a soiree every equinox since he joined the faculty. And with tomorrow being the last day before spring break, everyone gets to gorge and work it off over the vacation. I’ll be there, holding hands with Eve and Eli Feldstein. The food at the spring ones is especially good.’
‘Better than his music, I hope.’
‘There, there, Mr Jacobus! Aaron Schlossberg is considered one of the great composers of our time.’
‘Which puts him on the rung just below Dittersdorf for all time.’
‘You’re not a fan of contemporary music?’
‘I’m not a fan of bad music, old or new. I have very eclectic tastes in the music I dislike. Random squeaks and squawks somehow don’t do it for me.’
‘My student you heard playing “Spring” earlier? Audrey Rollins? She’s big into new music and is playing in the premiere of one of Aaron’s new chamber pieces. Synthesis III.’
The title alone made Jacobus cringe. What ever happened to ‘Symphony,’ ‘Sonata,’ and ‘Concerto’? It was as if the composer felt a need to convince the listener that the piece was something special and couldn’t count on the music alone to do it. Presumably there had been a Synthesis I and a Synthesis II, though that was by no means a given. In any event, Jacobus was not discomfited at not having heard any of the series.
‘When’s she playing it?’ he asked.
‘May fifth. It’s on her graduation recital. Would you be free?’
‘May fifth? Nah. I think I’ll need a colonoscopy that day.’
‘I take your point, Mr Jacobus, and don’t necessarily disagree with you. It’s just that when you’re on the faculty of a music school, some things are best left unsaid. See you tonight?’
‘Well, maybe.’
‘Everyone will be there. They’re dying to meet you up close and personal.’
‘Well, then maybe not.’
FOUR
‘Jake, we’re going to be late,’ Yumi called from outside the bathroom door.
‘I’m still on the can!’ Jacobus shouted back. The very notion of being confined among an assemblage of self-absorbed academic musicians and being expected to engage in hoity-toity conversation of little to no consequence had thrown Jacobus’s bowels into open rebellion.
‘How much longer?’ she asked.
‘Who the hell knows? What do you expect me to do when nature calls?’
‘Tell her this is not a convenient time and you’ll call back. We have to go.’
‘OK, but it’s your car.’
It did Jacobus’s stomach no favors when Yumi veered off the paved road onto Sylvan Hollow Road, the pocked dirt lane that led to the modernistic manse of Aaron Schlossberg and Sybil Baker-Hulme, nestled in the woods five miles from campus. As the car jolted along the corduroy road, he closed his window to barricade himself from the noise.
‘Do me a favor and try not to hit a tree,’ Jacobus groused as the car went over another pothole.
‘I’m doing my best. Camaros aren’t built for off-roading. What’s with your stomach, anyway?’ Yumi asked.
‘Must’ve been the mystery meat they served me in the cafeteria before the rehearsal.’
‘Well, you’ll enjoy Aaron’s food.’
‘So I’m told. What’s it all about?’
‘You’ve heard of farm to table?’
‘Is that like hoof to mouth?’
‘Never mind. Aaron does forest to table. He’s a renowned forager and hunter – written books about it – and a gourmet cook. Maybe you’ve heard of his book, Wild Living?’
‘Hot dogs with mayo?’
‘Don’t be silly. You can’t imagine the kinds of things he comes up with.’
‘Yes, I can. That’s what worries me. How much farther?’
‘We’re almost there. Thanks to your uncooperative digestive tract holding us up, a lot of people will already be there. We’ll have to park a little farther away and walk. Is that OK with you?’
‘Whatever. Tell me about this shindig. Is this par for the course?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘The impression I got from Dunster is that this school is something special.’
Yumi pulled the car onto the left shoulder as far as she safely could next to the trees, and judged she had left enough room on the road for another car to squeeze through. She was able to squirm out her door and went around and helped Jacobus out of his side.
‘I haven’t been teaching here very long, but it does seem different from your typical music school.’
‘So it doesn’t have your typical rivalry between academic and performance divisions of the faculty? Or cutthroat competition for talented students among performance teachers? Or conflicts over budget and curriculum between administrators and faculty?’ The tightening in Jacobus’s stomach returned, if it had ever left. ‘Or festering jealousy between faculty who are full-time, “dedicated” teachers versus those more illustrious teachers – like yourself – who are primarily performers? Or—’
‘Jake, you are so cynical!’
‘What makes you say that?’
Jacobus felt his ribs elbowed but not hard enough to hurt.
‘These are nice people,’ Yumi said. ‘And I’ve told them such good things about you.’
‘You’ve just shot your credibility to hell.’
He felt another jolt.
‘Just behave yourself,’ she said.
As they approached the house, the raspy chatter of blue jays darting through the woods and more distant caws of crows soaring above it gradually merged with and were overtaken by a low hum of human conversation, the clinking of china, and the occasional shout of orders to hired wait staff. A virtuoso catbird on a branch caustically impersonated the sound of them all.
Jacobus, with Yumi on his arm – or rather, he on Yumi’s – poked his way forward with his cane, stumbling from time to time, Yumi catching him, as the dirt path changed
to crushed stone, then to flagstone, then to polished concrete. It was something a person with sight would have had no difficulty traversing, but to Jacobus it was yet one more adventure into the unknown.
It had been the opposite in his old house. In his yard he had known where every root and stone laid in wait to trip the infrequent visitor to his ill-maintained homestead. Inside, he could adroitly navigate the clutter of his living room, strewn with dust-covered music, records, and a maze of music stands, chairs, and paraphernalia of indecipherable origin, while his friends stumbled about, even with the lights on. Though the memory of those patterns would be with him forever, all that was now gone.
‘Almost there,’ Yumi whispered encouragingly into Jacobus’s ear. ‘Sybil’s at the door, welcoming visitors.’
The reception line crawled along, giving Jacobus ample time to second-guess his decision to come.
‘Dearest Yumi!’ The unmistakable voice from the symposium. Imperious yet charming. ‘So wonderful to see you here,’ Sybil Baker-Hulme said, perhaps even meaning it. ‘And the extraordinary Daniel Jacobus!’
‘Must be a different Daniel Jacobus,’ he said. He extended his hand, which was received firmly.
‘You’re far too modest,’ she rebuked him, graciously. ‘I’m so looking forward to picking your brain later on, but as I must man the battle stations and welcome guests at the moment, I will ask the lovely Yumi to accompany her handsome escort through the house to the veranda where Aaron awaits to pour him a glass of excellent Chardonnay.’
Jacobus nodded and went to move on, but Baker-Hulme didn’t relinquish her grip on his hand.
‘I really mean that,’ she whispered. ‘I have something to talk to you about that I think you’ll find interesting.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Jacobus said, extricating his hand from Sybil’s clutch. She seemed to be trying too hard.
Yumi ushered him into the house.
‘Harold!’ Jacobus heard Sybil say from over his shoulder, the surprise in her voice thinly veiled. ‘You’ve actually come! Your appetite got the better of your convictions?’
With all the other conversation going on, Jacobus couldn’t make out Harold Handy’s response, but supposed it would be his typical monotone.
