A Genius on Top of the Heap

Why do I never hear anything but Johann Sebastian Bach?

At least, that’s the way I frequently feel when I’ve just heard Bach. And the funny thing is that I never feel that way about any other composer. Yes, I can’t imagine a world without the Beethoven string quartets, and I would miss sorely the Brahms’ symphonies. But if I had to take only one composer to the famous desert island, there’s no question who it would be.

Among musicians, this is hardly a radical statement. In fact, most musicians would say exactly the same, and I’ve never met a musician who didn’t like Bach, or was indifferent to him.

What’s surprising about Bach is how little anybody knows of him, and how, in general, unpleasant a man he must have been. As you can hear in the clip below of John Eliot Gardiner, a clinical psychologist brings in a list of symptoms of a personality disorder, and reads them off: deeply suspicious, feels that others are after him, feels surrounded by enemies, refuses to believe that he may be wrong. That’s Bach completely, says Eliot Gardiner, or words to that effect. And what is the disorder? Paranoid Personality Disorder.

Well, he didn’t have an easy life—he lost both of his parents when he was nine, and had to go off to live with an elder brother. As well, he did poorly in school, and may have been bullied; there was also a cruel schoolteacher. But he pulled himself together, got a scholarship as a chorister, and then set out to study.

Everybody in the family was a musician—in his part of Germany, the name “Bach” was virtually synonymous with “musician.” But in a letter written by his son, Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach, the names of Johan Sebastian Bach’s teachers are written and then drawn through. Did the son remember—his father wanted to appear as if he had had no teachers, as if he sprung fully formed on the world?

And nobody can say that he was a particularly happy or pleasant employee—he was complaining constantly about one thing or another: the quality of the musicians who would play his works, the living conditions, having to teach Latin to the school boys. In his first or second job, in fact, he simply got up and left, walked a couple hundred miles to go see the great Buxtehude, and stayed four months. Oh—and this was without permission.

He composed an insanely hard passage for the bassoon, and then abused the poor bassoonist, calling him the equivalent of a “prick.” So the bassoonist, with friends, jumped Bach, who drew out his rapier in self-defense. It was either this, or a dispute over wages that landed Bach in prison for a month.

Bach had twenty kids—only ten of whom made it to adulthood. And his first wife, to whom he was devoted, died before him. His second wife, Anna Magdalena, was both a musician and bore him 13 children.

So it doesn’t seem that Bach had much pleasure in his life. Yet however difficult an employee he may have been, there’s no question: he delivered the goods. And so frequently, Bach surprises by being “cheeky,” as Eliot Gardiner puts it. Check out the clip below….

But then, Bach can grab your heart and absolutely wring it of every last drop of blood. And nowhere he does he do it more effectively than in the aria Ebarme dich, mein Gott from the St. Matthew Passion. Here, Peter has betrayed Jesus, and the violin and alto trade long, agonizing lines. Here’s the German text with the English translation:
 

Erbarme dich, mein Gott,

Un meiner Zähren willen!

Schaue hier, Herz und Auge

Weint vor dir bitterlich.

Erbarme dich, mein Gott.

Have mercy, my God,

For the sake of my tears!

See here, before you

Heart and eyes weep bitterly.

Have mercy, my God.

Lastly, there’s often a glorious, triumphant quality to Bach—a jubilant quality that no other composer can match. As nowhere does Bach do it better than in one of his last compositions, the Gloria from the B Minor Mass. And the Et in Terra Pax that follows?

Sublime. 

Bach died at the age of 65, probably because of two botched operations to attempt to restore his failing sight. And the question remains—did he know how great he was? Was he aware of what he had accomplished in his life?

This man, surrounded as he thought by his enemies, would be compared to Shakespeare in literature and Newton in physics. And guess what?

It’s hard to believe that anyone will ever topple him from top of the heap.

Bached

Well, if the hurricane is over, somebody should run down and tell the ocean the news.

The surf is as strong as ever. This morning, on the trot, I saw four rows of cresting waves, each wave perhaps 15 feet tall. It was a bit like being in an animated Japanese woodblock print.

If there’s music that only the young could write (see yesterday’s post) there’s also music only the old could create. And in the end, I always go back to Bach.

Started out with the Magnificat (WHAT!! the computer has just red-squiggled Magnificat and suggests instead magnificent!! Dear Reader, we live in degenerate and dangerous days!)—a tremendous piece of music.

And it’s music written with a sure hand by a man in full command of his talents.

Right, so I sat and watched the waves this morning, and heard Bach, and thought that perhaps there is no other composer who manages to capture a particular and wonderful emotion.

Exaltation.

When those trumpets start blaring away, in the first movement of the Magnificat, I’d better be in private, not public. My hands are incapable of remaining at my side, but are instead flung up in triumph to the heavens. I am a Roman emperor, striding in victory into the city. It’s aural orgasm.

Well, the Magnificat lasts only 20 minutes or so, and I wanted a bit more. I’d been living down in the “H’s” on my iPod (damn thing is jittery, so it was easier just to stick to Haydn and parts, and not try to move around too much) but I’d made the effort to move to the “B’s.” (Which is, of course, a pretty crowded neighborhood, in the city of classical music ….) So, time for the Mass in B minor.

To which I came late, as did Bach. (Sorry, combining me and Bach in the same sentence feels just a bit pretentious…)  In fact, I had heard it years ago, and stuck it in the “later” folder in my brain.

Warning to hypoglycemics—eat a FULL meal before you enter the concert hall. Even so, you may want to sneak in some jellybeans to munch on—it’s gonna be an hour and a half easily.

My main impression from that performance? A sense of failure as a listener. It was common in those days—I’d go to a concert with some heavy-duty music and I’d be in seat 33 in row F. Also, I’d be at the beach, mentally—at any rate far away. Not paying attention. Not giving the great music its due.

So the Bach went on and on—hey look at the trumpet player turn completely red wow is he gonna stroke out?—and I’d sit there—'bet the third chair cellist studied with Karl Fruh'—trying to listen—'he’s gotta be hung' days—and well, you get the picture.

I left feeling like I’d been Bached.

I wish someone had pointed out that there’s evidence that Bach never intended it all to be performed on a single occasion. And it might have helped if I had known that Bach completed it in his last year, though parts of the work were written years before.

So I sat, this morning, and thought about the hurricane that has left and is still going on. The people sitting alone in dark, cold apartments. The people who, as one commentator said, are not the homeless but now are.

Also thought about a cellist who morphed into a writer and didn’t go away, though why, I’ll never know. Mostly, he’s stubborn, I guess.

And there’s a lady who went away, and is now back. She’s stirring around, and will stir further, I’m sure. We go to the beach, most days, on the trot that has now incorporated the plunge. “Moe” I say to her, and she says, right—I’m on that.

Moe writes his thing.

“Brian,” I tell her.

Ditto.

“Let’s get into that water,” she says, and I throw her / me in, diving head first into a crashing wave, which spins us around and soaks us in its power, and we race laughing and exalted to the shore.

We’ve been Bached.

Three Piano Movers and a Mother-in-Law

Well, it was emotional hijacking, but very much welcomed.

Not to say needed. I had had a waking dream of Franny, something that I rarely do. Is it that my conscious brain has been dealing with her so actively? Has my subconscious gotten bored with the thing and gone on to something else? Certainly, two or three months ago, I decided ¡ya! Enough already! Franny Shmanny—drop it!!!

Well, there she was in my dream last night, full of piss and vinegar. Jack, too.

“She doesn’t know she’s dead,” I was telling Jack.

“I know, she’s driving me crazy…”

So I was telling Franny she was dead, and sobbing a bit into the pillow. Then I woke up, wondering…

…is she dead?

Certainly wasn’t last night. She was about fifty—well, that sort of makes sense. I would have been 14 when she was fifty—just at that stage where parents become people. And I remember the remark that prompted the realization.

“Milo Flaten is sort of a horse’s ass….”

She flung it off carelessly, a little aside. And wow, she had a comedian’s timing, too.

Floored me.

Well, she could do that. Remember the first time she met Raf’s parents?

It hadn’t been easy for them—doña Ilia and don Quique—to get past their son’s being gay. It wasn’t like now, when I peer at the contact list on their refrigerator door. Quico and Mayra, Frankie and Lucy, Ito and Marc…

…with our telephone numbers beside the names.

Our first meeting was stiff, but cordial. Later, Raf was told that he could include me in family gatherings. I got on my high horse and refused to go.

Wasn’t an invitation.

At about this time, we moved to this street. Mr. Fernández had decreed that the process could be done gradually, a chair or two at a time.

Yeah?

I have just gone into the living room, to count all the stuff.

Three sofas, nine side chairs, three large chairs, seven side tables, one huge china cabinet, a dresser on which rests the treasured photo of Her Supreme Majesty, three large Oriental rugs, an easel on which rests two good paintings by Taí, sixteen tons of bric-a-brac and…

…the baby grand piano.

And we were gonna move all this stuff by ourselves?

Well, we did, mostly. I’d grab a chair, Raf a table, and we’d start off.

Fortunately, it was downhill.

Unfortunately, it was past a seedy bar filled with drunks.

All of whom were laughing themselves silly at us.

Well, it was ridiculous.

Nor, apparently, did they approve of any of our furnishings.

OK, look, Victoriana is not everybody’s favorite style.

Well, a side chair is one thing. A baby grand another. Franny came to Puerto Rico, to observe all this foolishness, and to check out the new digs.

Bringing her little camera with her. Fortunate, too, because she documented the whole thing.

Quite literally. I put my foot down—that piano was gonna be professionally moved.

I had imagined lifts and cranes, pulleys, ropes, weights and counter weights.

Nope.

Three big guys.

Oooops…. Guess it was four. / Photo by ©Frances Newhouse

 Well, Raf and I were cowering in the kitchen, imagining / awaiting the last chord the piano was gonna make as it got dropped down the staircase. Or would it be a sequence of chords? Schoenberg? Cage? A descending passage, certainly.

And where was Franny?

Right there on the staircase, filming it all!

Well, she was fascinated. Told them at one point to stop, slithered past them, and filmed it from below. Incredible—three guys moving that piano!

Two hours later, Ilia and Quique arrived. Bringing mail. Ito was off getting food—and lots of wine.

Well, time for the parents to meet!

And Ilia, bless her, has marvelous social skills. She talked, she laughed, she complimented, she charmed!

We invited her up for coffee.

This was profusely but graciously refused. Ilia is a martyr to arthritis—quite true—and she went into a paean—or perhaps a threnody, maybe a lyric ode—of description as to the suffering and limitations she faced. We repeated the invitation, she refused. She could never get up the steps. Ilia warbled on, a wren trilling, when Franny injected…

“…well, we do know three good piano movers….”

This fortunately went sailing over Ilia’s head.

Not mine, though! I had learned—you gotta be on your toes around that lady.

So I was a bit mournful this morning, as I set off on my morning walk. She’s gone and all we’ll ever have are these stories! No new material! The writer’s worst fear!

I put the B Minor Mass blaring into my ears and did my morning trot. Then came home, sat down to write, checked my emails. And my editor, toiling through the night, had designed a new cover! The old one, though glorious, would not work well as a thumbnail. 12:36 in the morning, my tireless editor, burning that midnight oil, had sent that email. Past midnight, and I am snoring away, but sleeps she? 

Never! Late, late, into the night has she labored, struggling to give birth to a cover worthy of the words I had spilled out those months ago!

Cover photos and design by ©Taí Fernández

 It was a situation that required all the tact of doña Ilia. I raved about the images, about the font of the title, the perspicacious look on the visage of the iguana. Then I asked…

…are you entirely sure about the spelling of the author’s name?

Never gonna live it down, doña Taí!

Note the wine glass on the piano! / Photo by ©Frances Newhouse