by Gerald Elias
“Mr. Jacobus called him ‘the Whistler.’ Is that part of his muse as well?” Lilburn asked Parsley.
“You’ll find that a lot of orchestral musicians have unique callings. Everything from fly tying to collecting antique Chinese porcelains. Cappy’s is the knack of being able to whistle imitations of a piccolo or any birdcall in the universe. He’s very proud of himself—he’s even made up a few of his own.”
“Quite a talent,” said Lilburn.
“Charming,” said Jacobus, “except it used to drive everyone, especially Beanie, nuts. I think the more Beanie wrote in the fingerings, the more Cappy would do his whistling thing. Until it became a compulsion. Then the guy just couldn’t stop. You could hear him coming from a mile away.”
“Providing enough of a heads-up for everyone to head for the hills,” said Parsley. “Maybe after the rehearsal,” he said to Jacobus, “you can mosey over to the personnel manager’s office and see them.”
“How do you know they’ll be there?” asked Jacobus.
“Oh, they’ll be there! If there’s an issue, they’ll find it. And if there isn’t, they’ll invent one. My brother tells me all about it when he needs to vent.”
“Your brother?” asked Jacobus.
“Tyson Parsley. He’s the orchestra personnel manager.”
The clamorous warming-up onstage suddenly subsided.
“Aha!” said Junior. “Things seem to be getting under way. Here comes Lubomir.”
“Lubomir?” asked Jacobus.
“Lubomir Butkus,” Parsley said, now in a semiwhisper. “Herza’s man Friday since God knows when. Some of the guys in the orchestra call him, uncharitably, I suppose, Herza’s ‘butt boy,’ or Bupkis, or Buttkiss. Orchestra humor. Loyal to the core, though. One of his rituals before every rehearsal is to place a towel and a mug of something on a music stand for Maestro.”
“You said you were chairman of the orchestra committee?” asked Jacobus.
“That’s right.”
“What can you tell me about Sherry O’Brien’s grievance against Herza?”
“We process a million grievances. The rehearsal should begin any moment now.”
SIX
When the orchestra completes its tuning, Lubomir intones his daily mantra, “Wishing you the joy of greatness,” and Herza, under his own limited power, hobbles between the cellos and violas toward the podium, dragging his left leg behind him. Several thousand worshippers erupt into a thunderous ovation.
Herza stops in his tracks and glowers at the throng, silencing them.
“This behavior is disgraceful,” he says in stroke-slurred speech. “This is a rehearsal, not a rock concert. You will be silent or you will leave.”
The audience receives the admonition with shocked obedience, except for nervous laughter rippling through the tongue-tied hush from those few who can’t quite believe it. Jacobus, within earshot, hears him mutter, “Filthy public.”
Herza mounts the podium, grunting with effort. “Mozart,” he commands. The musicians, more familiar than the audience with Herza’s routine, lift their instruments, soldiers responding to the order to present arms.
The orchestra plays the first three notes of Symphony Forty-one, the “Jupiter.” Herza screams.
“No!! No!! You play bump! brrump! brrump! I conducted bump! brrump!! brrump!!!” His eyes bulge. “You play like cattle! Bump! brrump!! brrump!!! Not bump! brrump! brrump! Again, the beginning.”
The orchestra plays the first three notes a second time. Herza stops.
“What did I just say?” Herza rants. “What did I just say? Larsen, what did I just say? Are you deaf? Answer! Are you deaf?”
“No, Maestro,” says Larsen, from the middle of the second-violin section.
“Then why do you play bump! brrump! brrump! when everyone else plays bump! brrump!! brrump!!!?”
“I’m sorry, Maestro.”
“You are sorry, you say. You are sorry. Play it. Alone.”
Larsen does not respond. In the silent standoff that ensues, Jacobus hears footsteps emerge from the wings.
“And that would be Tyson,” Jacobus comments offhandedly.
“You’re right!” says Parsley. “But how did you know?”
“Heavy but rapid footsteps. A large man, like you, and in a hurry. Who else but the personnel manager in a situation like this?”
“You got it,” says Parsley. “Sometimes it slips Maestro’s mind that crucifying a section player is no longer de rigueur. World’s hardest position, personnel manager. Don’t know how bro does it.”
“Maestro,” Jacobus hears Tyson Parsley say in similar soothing, Southern-inflected tones to his brother’s, “it’s not permitted to single out a string player to play alone.”
“Permitted?” asks Herza, as if the word were an obscenity not to be uttered in polite society. “And tell me, who decides what is permitted? You?”
“No, not me, Maestro. It’s in our contract. The collective-bargaining agreement between the musicians and the symphony. It’s been there for twenty years.”
Herza considers the situation and redirects his glower upon Larsen.
“I will speak to you at intermission, Larsen. About your future with this orchestra, perhaps. See me in my room. And for God’s sake, stop shaking so. You make me nervous. Now we begin again.”
The orchestra resumes and this time manages its way through the second phrase.
Herza yells, “Stop! Have you never heard this music before? Can it be? Even deaf people would know you were out of tune! Listen: The first phrase, bump! brrump!! brrump!!!, it is masculine. The second phrase, lu-Lah, lu-Lah, lu-Lah-lah, it is feminine. It fades away. That’s why I drop my hands to my sides. Don’t you see me drop my hands? Even a blind person could see that, like that vagrant in the front row behind me. Then it repeats: male-female, male-female. Play it this way, not like four homosexuals who can’t decide what they are.”
“Is he always this pleasant?” asks Jacobus.
“Nah. He’s on good behavior because it’s an open rehearsal. He’ll spend a good hour on the first page tongue-lashing the orchestra. Somehow, in the end, it all gets done.”
* * *
By the time intermission arrived, Jacobus was as exhausted as if he had been playing in the orchestra, and almost as disillusioned. Junior Parsley excused himself to go warm up for Death and Transfiguration.
“I guess Cappy and Beanie aren’t the only ones with a hate-hate relationship,” said Lilburn, as the musicians departed the stage for the sanctuary of the coffee machine. “Care to join me for a lemonade, Mr. Jacobus? Twenty minutes before the truce ends and combat resumes. No need to sit on our hands till then.”
“Lemonade? I could use something stronger than that,” Jacobus replied. “They have a liquor stand on the grounds?”
“A good idea, but unlikely. And I guess you didn’t know. I’ve been on the wagon. Ten years.”
“Me too.”
“You? No alcohol?”
“No lemonade,” said Jacobus.
The day was hot and sunny, and hundreds of blankets were strewn on the vast lawn surrounding the Shed, upon which picnicking music lovers consumed Camembert, cucumber, and quiche in copious quantity. Lilburn offered to assist Jacobus navigate through the umbrellaed labyrinth toward the lemonade stand, but Jacobus, using his ears and nose, had less difficulty avoiding the flowing Frascati and foie gras than did his clumsy companion.
“Lilburn,” Jacobus asked, accidentally poking a picnicker with the end of his cane, “you know something about music, so tell me. On one hand, this great maestro Herza is one little son of a bitch. On the other, it’s magic how he gets the orchestra to sound—you could hear it by the time they got done with the Mozart. But I can’t see the guy. Is he doing something no one else can do?”
“Quite the opposite, Mr. Jacobus. It’s remarkable how much control he has with such economy of movement. He sits there and barely moves a muscle, yet the orchestra responds like a racehorse
that’s been given the whip around the backstretch. It reminds me of William Steinberg, when he was old and infirm. At the bitter end, he too sat when he conducted, and all he had to do was waggle those elephantine ears of his and the musicians would go into a frenzy! Nowadays we’ve got these young Adonises who dance all over the podium like Bernstein on methamphetamine, yet they get no response from the orchestra except a sneer and a snicker.”
“I heard a story,” said Jacobus, “about Fritz Reiner when he conducted the Chicago Symphony. His beat was so small that at one rehearsal a string bass player took out a pair of binoculars to make the point that Reiner needed to give a more discernible beat.”
“And what happened?”
“He got fired. Don’t know if it’s true, but it’s a good story.”
“Perhaps Maestro Herza has some of Reiner’s genes. You know Herza studied with Wilhelm Furtwängler in Switzerland after the war.”
“So maybe he has Nazi genes, too.”
“Though Furtwängler was exonerated by the truth commission for complicity with the Nazis. We’re here at the lemonade stand, by the way. Can I get you one? My treat.”
“No, thanks,” said Jacobus, revolted by the thought. “I’ll just listen to you drink yours.”
“It wasn’t clear-cut, though, with Furtwängler. He said his goal was simply to keep the music alive and that he had no political motives.”
“Just following ordure, eh? You go for that line?”
“Well, it was never proved otherwise,” said Lilburn. “On one hand, there’s no question he was a great and respected conductor. There’s a story that after von Karajan took over the Berlin Philharmonic from him, when Furtwängler entered the room during a rehearsal the orchestra immediately sounded better. On the other, he did manage to stay in the party’s good graces until the end of the war. I suppose Herza is trying to keep that tradition alive—the musical part, anyway—though his professional and personal adversity seems to have soured his disposition.”
“You have a gift for understatement, Lilburn. That’s never been one of my strengths. Herza also studied with Strauss, didn’t he?”
“More that he basked in the glow of his idol than actual study. He spent a few summers with the Strauss family after the war and listened to the old man extemporize on his own greatness and the incompetence of everyone else. Strauss also had a spotty record with the Nazis, but his disdain for them, and his desire to be left alone to compose music, seems a more convincing narrative than Furtwängler’s. It’s no surprise that the young, impressionable Herza, with his skills, devoted himself to the music of Strauss and became his foremost interpreter.”
“Well, fuck them both!” Jacobus exploded unexpectedly. “Both Furtwängler and Strauss. I don’t give a shit if they were Mozart and Beethoven incarnate. Slightly Nazi’s like slightly pregnant. They should’ve hanged the pair of them. We all have our excuses, don’t we?”
“I seem to have caused an upset here,” said Lilburn, surprise in his voice. “Have I said something?”
“Never mind,” Jacobus muttered, pulling back from his personal abyss. It had not been Furtwängler and Strauss who had exterminated his family. They were silently complicit, perhaps, in a tangential way, but who wasn’t? On this bright day, Jacobus’s mood had turned black, and though he had become accustomed to the incendiary onset of his rage, the pain was always raw.
“Anyway,” Jacobus forced himself to say, “Strauss composed Death and Transfiguration long before the war, before he became ‘slightly’ Nazi.”
“Indeed,” said Lilburn, attempting to mollify Jacobus, “it’s a fine piece, and the second half of the rehearsal should be interesting.”
The loud Tanglewood bell clanged, summoning the audience back to their seats.
“Time to fasten our seat belts,” said Lilburn.
Jacobus muttered something unintelligible and allowed Lilburn to guide him by his arm back toward the Shed.
“I’m also curious,” said Lilburn as they retraced their serpentine route, “about the new work they’re rehearsing after the Strauss this morning.”
“Haven’t heard about that.”
“I’m sure it’s something you’ll just love, knowing you.”
“Try me.”
“It’s a minimalist piece called ‘Life and Disfiguration’—”
“You can stop right there.”
“By Ignaz Fouk.”
“You mean the Christopher Rouse clone who’s a John Adams clone who’s a Philip Glass clone who’s a Steve Reich clone who’s—”
“I’m not certain of your genealogy, but yes, that Ignaz Fouk. Tomorrow will be the world premiere, and according to Mr. Fouk it may be performed only alongside Death and Transfiguration. That together they create—and I’m quoting here—‘the duality of existence that comprises the All.’”
“Send in the clones. I’m surprised Herza would fall for that,” Jacobus commented.
“Perhaps because Fouk is Czech and was co-commissioned by the NEA and the Czech cultural ministry to compose something for the opening of the new hall. I take it you’re not a minimalist fan.”
“To put it bluntly,” said Jacobus, “it’s the greatest dumbing down of classical music ever conceived.”
“Don’t you think that statement is a bit simplistic? After all—”
“You take a few pleasant-sounding but otherwise unrelated chords, you overlap them at their edges creating what masquerades as creative harmonies, then you doll them up with mathematically altered rhythms and repeat it until your mind is numb. As an afterthought you choose a few random tempos and dynamics, and there’s your masterpiece.”
“Powerfully stated, Mr. Jacobus,” said Lilburn as they took their seats, “though I still believe your opinion uncomfortably severe. But have you ever given thought to composing, yourself?”
“Minimally.”
* * *
Some of the musicians, returned to the stage, were rehashing last-second details before the rehearsal of Death and Transfiguration. Jacobus felt that the stories—and the music—of some of the later tone poems, Alpine Symphony and Symphony Domestica, for example, verged on the trivial; that Strauss had run out of inspiration and was running on fumes. But in Death and Transfiguration, written when the composer was still young, Jacobus felt Strauss had realized his most profound creation until the Four Last Songs that he composed on his deathbed and in which he quoted this earlier work. Death and Transfiguration is not so much a story as it is a dramatic scene in which a fatally ill man undergoes his final death throes and emerges into the light of a more beautiful world.
The orchestra tuned again, and Vaclav Herza again mounted the podium, this time sans applause, for Death and Transfiguration.
Herza’s interpretation of the protagonist’s feebly pulsating heart at the beginning of the piece, played first by the strings and then by solo timpani, was so convincing that Jacobus covertly placed his hand on his chest to make sure his own was still beating. Then the sudden stab of pain, the music rushing into a panic of anxiety—perfect, just perfect, thought Jacobus. Unlike the first half of the rehearsal, this time Vaclav Herza hardly stopped at all, a refreshing change for the audience and, Jacobus was certain, for the musicians as well. Perhaps, because it was one of Herza’s signature pieces, the orchestra knew it so well that it needed no correction. Perhaps Herza was happy with the way things were going, unlikely as that might be. Or perhaps he was getting tired. Or bored. With conductors, one never knew. In any event, the tone poem proceeded like an opera without libretto. With music whose meaning was so clearly apparent, words would have been superfluous.
There are momentary oases in Death and Transfiguration during which the dying man, racked with physical and spiritual agony, glimpses an ephemeral ray of divine light through his torment. One of these visions is portrayed by a concertmaster solo. Though not on the scale, either in terms of technical challenge or length, of some of Strauss’s concertmaster solos in other of his tone poe
ms, it nevertheless requires a beautiful quality of sound and sense of line. Jacobus awaited the solo in order to gauge Sherry O’Brien’s ability to play under pressure.
The moment arrived and O’Brien began. After just a few notes Herza stopped the orchestra. To Jacobus, capable of being critical of any violinist save Jascha Heifetz, it sounded fine. He could not think of anything he would have suggested for improvement, so perhaps it was some other instrument he had not been listening to that required Herza’s attention.
There was commotion on the stage.
“What’s going on?” Jacobus asked Lilburn.
“Maestro has stepped down from his podium, has gotten down on his knees, painfully so from all appearances, and has put his hands together in supplication to Ms. O’Brien.”
Jacobus heard Maestro’s next words, not because his hearing was so acute or because he was in the front row, but because Maestro made sure they were audible to the entire audience.
“How can such a pretty little girl,” he said, “play so ugly?”
The audience, accustomed to respectful, if not always cordial, interaction between conductor and orchestra at Boston Symphony rehearsals, buzzed with as much shock as the decorum of a classical music audience would allow. Jacobus thought to himself, He’s an even bigger prick than I am.
“Maestro,” said the voice Jacobus recognized from the day before, “I’d be happy to play it however you want. In the meantime, can I help you up?”
There was laughter from the audience but none from the stage. The tension behind him may have broken, but so too had the flow of the rehearsal. Herza reverted to his first-half form, stopping every few seconds to dispense criticism, often, for no apparent reason, aimed at Junior Parsley. By the time they finished the piece, only a few minutes were left of the rehearsal, and they still needed to work on “Life and Disfiguration,” which, like most premieres, especially of modern music, needed the most preparation.
