Death and Transfiguration

by Gerald Elias

“And you think the same is true with O’Brien?”

  “Well, of course I wasn’t there, so I don’t know for sure. And these days, with women in orchestras, you need to be more sensitive, but…”

  Moskowitz left that to hang in the air.

  “Thanks, Ronnie. Sorry to take up your time.”

  “No problem. Just one question. Does Herza know about this grievance business?”

  “I got the feeling that she’s collared everyone at Harmonium and their extended families about it. I’m guessing the only way Herza wouldn’t know about it is if he were deaf.”

  “Too bad. She might have hell to pay. Well, nice talking to you, Jake.”

  “Get a hole in one,” he said and hung up.

  FOURTEEN

  Because the finishing touches on the construction of Harmonium Hall were not yet complete, and because the orchestra had been booked to play a concert at Tanglewood, the audition for concertmaster of Harmonium took place at Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall, built in 1994 and named after the Boston Symphony’s illustrious music director. The Shed concert hall had been deemed unsuitable for the audition, as it was huge, open sided—thus susceptible to distractions and eavesdropping—and acoustically not sensitive enough for the committee to be able to discern subtle but potentially critical differences in sound quality and tone color between one candidate and another. Ozawa Hall, however, could be insulated from external noise and provided sufficiently decent acoustics for the committee’s purposes.

  As the audition was for the most important position in the orchestra, that of concertmaster—the first chair of the first violin section—the audition committee was larger than usual, with twenty-four members. Normally, it would comprise the principal string players, one other member of each string section, and one woodwind, brass, and percussion player. For this audition, there also would be an additional tutti player from each string section, plus every woodwind, brass, and percussion principal player. Ordinarily, the concertmaster would sit on all audition committees, but in this unique situation that role was taken by the associate concertmaster—the second-chair first violinist—Lawrence Nowitsky. With a ready smile that had grown with his waistline over the years, Nowitsky had a reputation as a levelheaded consensus builder. One of the few musicians able to straddle the gulf between the orchestra and Vaclav Herza, he was elected to chair the committee, which made sense. After all, he would be sitting next to the winner of the audition until one of their careers ended. The union shop steward, who was the orchestra’s bass clarinetist though not a voting member of the committee, was entrusted to make sure everything proceeded aboveboard, that there would be no discrimination against a candidate and no unfair or inaccurate voting. Vaclav Herza, the music director, would attend the final round, as was standard, and would have the ultimate say in who would be hired. The committee’s recommendation, though potentially compelling, was, in the end, no more than advisory. This also was standard.

  * * *

  All told, an even forty candidates showed up for the audition, at least making the exhausting day easy to schedule. They were divided into four equal groups, A through D, and each candidate, numbered 1 through 10, was slotted for ten minutes. Acknowledging the months of preparation and the expense of traveling to Tanglewood, as a courtesy the committee determined in its ground rules to give all forty their full time allotment, though it retained the right to dismiss any candidate at any time who it deemed clearly unqualified. This the committee would ascertain by a show of hands, at which point, Nowitsky, if he agreed with the overriding sentiment, would say, “Thank you. The candidate is excused.”

  Group A was scheduled to start at 9 A.M. After candidate A10 finished, which would be after about one hundred and ten minutes, the committee would take a ten-minute break to vote on Group A and to clear their heads and/or their bladders. For the preliminary round it was agreed the voting procedure would be simple: Yes meant the candidate was advanced to the next round; no meant the candidate was excused. A simple majority of thirteen yeses would advance a candidate. There would be no discussion before the vote. However, if a member had a serious objection to the result for or against a certain candidate, he could voice that opinion afterward, and if he was convincing, the committee would consider revoting for that candidate.

  After Group B finished, the committee would take a lunch break of an hour. After Group C, another ten minutes, and after Group D, God willing, they would be done for the day. After each group, the committee would vote, the union steward would notify the personnel manager, Tyson Parsley, which candidates, if any, would be advanced to the next round, and Parsley would so inform the candidates.

  As had become the standard procedure for the preliminary round of orchestra auditions, a curtain was placed between the stage on which the candidates performed and the committee, which sat in the audience. This was to ensure anonymity and prevent preferential or discriminatory treatment. In fact, the committee knew the candidates only by the numbers they had picked out of a University of Kentucky booster’s hat provided by Tyson Parsley when they arrived at 8 A.M. for the audition: A1, A2, A3, et cetera, for the first group, and similarly down the line for the other groups.

  Once the candidates chose their numbers, all those not in Group A were instructed to return at the appropriate hour. Tiny Parsley escorted Group A to individual practice rooms scattered in and around Ozawa Hall. He provided each candidate with excerpts the committee had chosen from the overall list and cautioned them not to speak once they were onstage. He would be there with them, and if they were unsure of something or had a question, they needed to whisper it to him, and he would ask the committee. He also recommended that the female candidates wear flat shoes or none at all rather than high heels so that the committee would be unaware they were women when they walked on the reverberant wooden stage.

  Each member of the committee was given a pad and pen in order to take notes, because after hearing the same excerpts over and over again, all at the same high level, as time wore on, it was otherwise difficult to recall who did what. Many of the committee members also brought a thermos of coffee.

  * * *

  The audition began promptly at nine. Each candidate was asked to play the first page, approximately, of the nineteenth-century Romantic concerto he or she had prepared (all concertos in all rounds were to be performed from memory), the exotically challenging solos from Scheherazade, the gallivanting last movement of Mozart Symphony 39 that required expert bow control, and the hyperkinetic virtuosity of the first page of Don Juan by Richard Strauss. The committee listened to each candidate for the full ten minutes, including the time it took for the candidate to leave the stage and the next one to arrive.

  Shortly after the final candidate finished at 10:50, the committee voted. There was no discussion. Parsley convened Group A.

  “I want to sincerely congratulate all of you on a fine audition. In a very real sense, you are all winners and should be proud of the way you played. Unfortunately, however, the committee is required to make oh-so-difficult judgments and choose candidates who in their view they deem from these few minutes of listening to be most suitable for the awesome responsibilities of the concertmaster position. They’ve decided not to advance anyone from Group A, but I want to say please don’t be discouraged and to thank you all for all of your hard work.”

  Group B finished at 12:50. One committee member objected to candidate B9 not being advanced because he or she had had to start the Don Juan excerpt a second time after flubbing it the first time.

  “Everyone is entitled to a mistake,” he said, “and B9 played the rest of the audition perfectly.”

  “Yeah, except that there were others who played the rest of the audition perfectly and didn’t make a mistake,” rejoined another committee member.

  “And B9 didn’t even get close to a majority,” said a third.

  “I’m starving,” said a fourth.

  “Objection overruled,” Nowitsky said.

 
; Parsley convened Group B.

  “I want to sincerely congratulate all of you on a fine audition. In a very real sense, you are all winners and should be proud of the way you played. Unfortunately, however, the committee is required to make oh-so-difficult judgments and choose candidates who in their view they deem from these few minutes of listening to be most suitable for the awesome responsibilities of the concertmaster position. They’ve decided to advance candidates B4 and B5, but I want to say to the others, please don’t be discouraged and to thank you all for all of your hard work.”

  After lunch, the committee listened to Group C, then D. One candidate was selected from Group C. By the time candidate D4 played, they were behind schedule, everyone on the committee was becoming brain-dead, and patience was wearing thin. D4 started playing the Mendelssohn concerto. After about ten seconds, Nowitsky interrupted the candidate’s performance.

  He said, in the direction of the stage, “I thought the concerto list was Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, or Sibelius.”

  “One moment,” said Parsley, who then had a hurriedly whispered exchange with D4. “The candidate says he just performed Mendelssohn with an orchestra and didn’t have time to prepare a different one.”

  Nowitsky looked down the row at his colleagues. Some shrugged, others shook their heads. “Go on,” Nowitsky said, “but we’ll take that into consideration.”

  D4 completed his Mendelssohn, then began the Scheherazade solo. At the end of the first excerpt, he smudged a not particularly difficult shift on the G-string.

  “Thank you,” Nowitsky pounced, “that will be all.” The rest of the committee nodded in agreement.

  By the end of the day, five candidates—accomplished violinists from as far away as Berlin and Seoul—were chosen to advance to the semifinal round, to be heard the next morning. They would be joined by the two candidates who were invited to skip the preliminaries based upon their prior experience, wide reputation, and the fact they were known quantities: Yumi Shinagawa, former second violinist of the New Magini String Quartet, and Scheherazade O’Brien, acting concertmaster of Harmonium.

  FIFTEEN

  TUESDAY

  The ground rules for the semifinals were somewhat different. Each of the seven candidates would perform a twenty-minute audition. The repertoire included the entire exposition of the nineteenth-century Romantic concerto (plus cadenza); the first movement of Mozart Concerto Three, Four, or Five; the solos from Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben; the solo, “Erbarme dich,” from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion; and the last movement of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. As in the preliminaries, the contestants would play behind a curtain.

  The voting procedure was also different. After all the candidates completed their auditions, each committee member would vote for his or her top three. A first-place vote would equal three points, a second-place vote two points, and a third-place vote one point. The candidates with either the most first-place votes or the most points overall would be advanced to the finals. It was also within the committee’s discretionary authority to advance a third, or even a fourth, candidate, or on the other hand, none at all, in which case a totally new audition would be scheduled for sometime in the future. Also, unlike the preliminaries, there would be discussion of the candidates’ performances, regardless of the vote, with the option of calling back a candidate to play again if opinion were divided.

  Parsley again held out his hat containing numbered slips of paper. This time, however, they were numbered just one through seven.

  The round began at 9:30 and was scheduled to finish at about noon. Lunch was provided for the committee because the postaudition discussion and voting would be intense and probably lengthy. The finals were scheduled to start at 4 o’clock, and who knew how long that would take?

  The committee took an unscheduled ten-minute break after candidate number four, not to vote or discuss but simply to decompress from the intensity of their concentration on every detail of each candidate’s performance. They resumed at 11 A.M. and listened to the remaining candidates, finishing only slightly behind schedule. The committee members penned their votes and exchanged their ballots for a boxed lunch from the union steward.

  The steward caucused with Nowitsky and Tiny Parsley, who joined them from backstage to tally the votes. After checking and double-checking, they reconvened the committee, just finishing their chocolate chip cookies.

  Nowitsky announced the results, from most votes to fewest. “So if we base our decision on the number of first-place votes, candidate four is clearly the winner. If we base it on the number of total points, candidates four and two are neck and neck. However, if we base it simply on the total number of votes received for any of the first three places, candidate five may be considered in the running as well. None of the remaining candidates are in the ballpark. Opinions?”

  “I voted for number five for third place,” said one committee member, looking down at his notes to refresh his memory. “I wrote ‘great concertos,’ but it was clear from his excerpts that he hasn’t been around the block with the repertoire. His tempos were fucked-up. We need someone with experience if he doesn’t want to be chewed up by Herza.”

  “How do you know it was a he?” asked one of the women on the committee.

  “I don’t,” said the other. “That’s just what we call traditional English. I stand corrected: ‘he or she.’”

  Before an argument ignited, Nowitsky quickly interceded, “Any other opinions?”

  “I don’t know a lot about string playing,” said the principal bassoon player, “but I thought his/her playing was very strong. I voted for him/her for second place and think he/she should be advanced to the finals. I think his/her playing was stronger, orchestrally, than candidate two’s, which to me sounded too much like chamber music, so even if he/she is young, if he/she is that good, he/she might be someone that we’ll regret losing in the long run.”

  “Thank you for your comments—and your diplomacy,” Nowitsky said. “I suggest that we have a straight up-or-down vote whether to advance candidate number five to the finals along with the other two.”

  “I demand a secret ballot,” said one of the members.

  “You don’t have to demand,” said Nowitsky. “We’ve got plenty of paper and pencils.”

  The vote was thirteen to ten with one abstaining vote, to advance candidate five.

  The seven contestants backstage had become increasingly anxious; the discussion among the committee seemed interminable. One of the contestants had resorted to telling viola jokes to dispel the stress: “Why don’t violists play hide-and-seek? Because no one will look for them.” The nervous laughter was encouraging if not palliative. Before he had time to tell the answer to, “What do a Scud missile and a viola have in common?” he was interrupted by Parsley.

  “We have a result,” he said.

  The contestants gathered around, no longer interested in the punch line.

  “There will be three candidates advanced to the finals. To the remaining four I would like to extend my congratulations and appreciation for your fine playing. The candidates to be advanced, please remain for a brief meeting. They are numbers two, four, and five.”

  Hurried, insincere congratulations and condolences were exchanged, and the four dismissed candidates departed.

  * * *

  By late afternoon, Jacobus was finally peckish again. He put the finishing touches on an extra-thick tongue on corn rye sandwich, fingered around in the Ba-Tampte sour pickle jar until he found a satisfactorily massive example, and had just sat down to listen to a recording of the Mozart Divertimento in D Major, KV 251, when the phone rang.

  “Dammit,” he cursed, his oral and aural pleasure put on hold. He picked up the receiver. “What?” he snapped.

  “It’s me,” Yumi said. “I made the finals.”

  “I know.”

  “How could you know? They just notified us.”

  “One, because you sound happy. Two, because I know how you play. I wou
ldn’t have expected otherwise,” said Jacobus. “Who else?”

  “Sherry O’Brien and a young guy from the Bay Area. We play again in a couple of hours. I’ve got to run.”

  “Run? With a violin in your hands? You crazy?”

  “Any secret tips for the finals?”

  “Just one: Whatever else happens, make sure you take your time. Force yourself to take your time.”

  “Thanks, Jake. I promise. Now get back to your tongue sandwich and Mozart.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “You think you’re the only one who can figure things out?” She laughed and hung up.

  He was happy that Yumi had done well, especially now that his stomach was no longer in revolt, but if he were forced to, he’d still put his money on O’Brien. Maybe it would even be better that way. If O’Brien wins the audition, and has any sense, she won’t give a shit about that cockamamie grievance of hers, he thought. The odds were more thoroughly stacked against her on that one than on winning the audition; that was certain. Jacobus dropped the needle on the Mozart, sat in his chair, and took as large a bite of his sandwich as his mouth, if not good sense, allowed.

  SIXTEEN

  The final round would not be behind a curtain. There is some disagreement within the orchestra community whether the potential for bias in this regard is outweighed by the importance of seeing how a candidate plays, for indeed body language attains a heightened level of significance for the leader of a section, even more so for the concertmaster. Visual cues that could be misleading or just plain distracting, things that can turn off an audience or even sink a performance, should be something a committee is aware of. On the other hand, some committee members might have a prejudice against a woman, or an Asian, or an old person, or a young person, or a short person, so the issue isn’t clear-cut and different orchestras have different solutions.

  The solution Harmonium resorted to was to invite the entire orchestra to attend and witness, though not to vote in, the finals, thereby minimizing the potential for a committee member to engage in discriminatory behavior. And of course, Herza would be there, and if he liked or disliked someone’s playing, it didn’t matter what anyone else’s opinion was.