When Two Strads Aren't Enough

Well, it was my own damn fault, as it usually is. I had, after all, told Naïa that I was a relentless, an indefatigable, diagrammer of sentences, so I was really on the hook: I had to stop listening to some of the twentieth century’s greatest music and take a look at her three sentences.

She got them right, but couldn’t tell me why, nor what the seven parts of speech are.

“I guessed for most of them,” said Naïa, who has the open frankness of Lady, her mother.

I wanted to interfere further, but her tutor was sitting nearby, and it felt a little intrusive: would my intrusion be construed as silent criticism? But I did have to wonder—what good is doing something correctly if you have no idea why it’s correct?

What would I have done? Well, we could have started with the parts of speech, about which Naïa knew nothing.

“We haven’t gotten to that, yet,” said the tutor.

Hunh?

I didn’t say it, but it makes no sense to be diagramming sentences without knowing the parts of speech—it’s like swimming without water.

Well, it wasn’t my battle, so I went back to the question of Anne Akiko Meyers, the young American violinist who has two Strads and was recently given the use—for the rest of her life—of what’s sometimes called the “Mona Lisa” of violins: the 1741 “Vieuxtemps” Guarneri del Gesu.

The “Vieuxtemps” is unusual on several levels—it’s in fabulous shape, never having been cracked, never having had any extensive work on it. It also has a hefty price tag on it—they were asking 18 million bucks, though it was sold at auction for an undisclosed amount (though the auctioneer did note that it was the highest price ever paid for a violin). Lastly, it spent the last five decades lying under the bed of a rich London banker.

Understandably, Meyers was a happy lady, that day in January of 2013 when she was given the use of the Guarneri. Here’s what she said in her press release:

“I have never heard another violin with such a beautiful spectrum of color,” Anne said of the "Vieuxtemps” Guarneri del Gesu in a press release today. “I am honored and humbled to receive lifetime use of the instrument, and I look forward to taking the violin to audiences all over the world.”

Just as understandably, some people wondered what would be happening to the two Stradivarius violins that Meyers owns—would she be playing them, or would they be sitting at home, in their cases? And was it really fair…

It has to be said: not all in the world of classical music is quite as harmonious as the music that gets played. And though cellists are reputedly the nastiest of all instrumentalists, the violinists are no pikers, either. Here’s a sample of the comments on violinist.com:

I’m starting to think this is all a publicity stunt by Anne Meyers. I was told by a reliable source that she has a rich funder who purchased the Molitor strad for her. And now this Guarneri del Gesu too ?? If I was a private collector who owned the Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesu. [Sic.] Anne Meyers would NOT be the first artist that comes to my mind.

Whatever the merits of having two Strads and a Guarneri may be, there’s no question that the violin is better off than are many famous, and perhaps equally good, violins that are either in museums or—worse—being held by investors in a vault. Here’s what Time magazine had to say in 2009, at the pit of the recession:

Facing volatile equity markets, investors often look to gold and silver. But an updated study of classical-instrument valuations by Brandeis economist Kathryn Graddy shows that violins may be among the most stable of investments. Graddy's data indicate that between 1850 and April of this year, the value of professional-quality instruments rose in real terms (i.e., after inflation) about 3% annually. High-end violins have appreciated at much higher rates — particularly rare instruments made by Italian masters like Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri del Gesù.

There is, in fact, some good news in this gloomy picture. The first is that, at least in some double-blind tests (where neither player nor listener knew what they were playing or hearing), modern instruments were chosen above Strads or Guarneris for sound. So as glorious as a Strad may be, it’s not the only fiddle in the world.

Lastly, any reader out there with a million pounds lying about used might consider contacting Florian Leonhard, a London-based violin restorer who has made a specialty of authenticating old Italian instruments, advising institutions with money on the instrument, and then acting as a matchmaker between the musician and the institution. Here’s a description:

In addition to the pursuit of capital appreciation, the fund intends to loan the violins to young, up-and-coming musicians who are priced out of the market. The goal is to help exceptional musicians reach their full artistic potential and optimise the quality of classical performance at the highest level. This philanthropic enterprise will separate the fund from museums and institutions which kept fine instruments from the marketplace.

Be sure to tell them I sent you!

We've Come to Their Neighborhood

Right—time to eat crow.

I wrote yesterday something to the effect that it’s easier for gay people to come out now than it was in the 60’s and 70’s. But guess what? If the documentary Out in the Silence is correct, it’s actually much worse.

At least it was for CJ, the high school kid who was a jock on the football team until he came out as gay. Then, the bullying started, the phone calls threatening to burn down the house began coming in, the pushing and the shoving started taking place—incredibly—in front of teachers and school monitors.

CJ’s mother yanked him out of school, and did what any mother would do: she goes before the school board and protests. Their response? They didn’t even shrug their shoulders….

‘She’s gotta get a lawyer,’ I thought to myself yesterday, since I had only watched the first half of the documentary. So I was relieved when she turned to the ACLU; after a two-year struggle, anti-harassment seminars began in the high school.

So why is it so rough for gay kids today? Well, first of all, kids are coming out in high school, not in college or beyond. Second, what had been a taboo topic has become one on everyone’s lips. And third, the religious opposition has become much better organized.

It all started when the filmmaker Joe Wilson sent an announcement of his marriage to his male partner to The Derrick, his local newspaper in Oil City, Pennsylvania. The Derrick published the announcement—along with a picture—and then the letters began rolling in. One particularly painful comment—“it would have been better if you had never been born”—is enough to tell you the story.

That’s when CJ’s mother wrote, announcing that her son was being bullied, and wondering if he could help. So Wilson headed to Oil City, which had been the site of the first oil well in the States, and was now moldering away. His purpose, yes, was to look in on CJ, but also to see how the town in which he had grown up was dealing with LGBT issues.

It wasn’t pretty. Oil City was the home of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Family Association (AFA), which is pretty much as you would imagine. Founded in 1977 as the National Foundation for Decency; headquarters in Tupelo, Mississippi; 180,00 paid subscribers; 3.3 million people receiving “action alerts.” Does that tell you the story? Oh, and here’s Wikipedia:

AFA has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as of November 2010 for the "propagation of known falsehoods" and the use of "demonizing propaganda" against LGBT people.

Think that’s extreme? Well, check out the clip below, entitled They’re Coming to Your Town; the “they” is less gay and lesbian than that dreaded “homosexual agenda.”

Who has the agenda? Is it the lesbian couple, who are renovating an old movie house as a neighborhood center? If so, their agenda is less pushing their homosexuality on people than it is about turning around a decaying city center, providing jobs, making money, improving the community. But Diane, the president of the state AFA, called around to local businesses, trying to arrange a boycott. At one point, one of the lesbians loses it, and comes out says, “Diane has done nothing for this city but stir up hate.”

There are victories: a Christian pastor who modifies his views; the father of a gay kid who won’t turn his back on his son, even though the father himself had beaten up gay people in his past.

But for all the victories, it’s the overwhelming negativity of Diane and the AFA that linger. Looking at her, you see not a woman filled with hate, but rather someone terrified.

And with good reason. If she feels that her world is threatened, well, isn’t she right? Yes, we have an agenda. We’re not going back in the closet, we’re not going to stop pressing for rights, we’re not going to accept abuse or hate anymore.

The decline of the traditional family? Is it perhaps time to suggest that there were some aspects of the traditional family that were less than ideal? For every family that mimicked Leave It to Beaver, wasn’t there one with sexual abuse, secrecy, drunkenness, lies, battered limbs?  

We are a threat—we who have been honest with ourselves, honest with others, and have fought against those who disagreed. Mostly, we’ve been a threat when we moved into communities, bought houses, started raising our families.

What’s more threatening than a new idea?

Then and Now

Hey, you guys up there—slow down! You’re making me dizzy….

Last June, by one slim vote, the Supreme Court threw out the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). At that point—as I remember it—fewer than ten states allowed gay marriages. Now? It’s 17, and may be 18 if Michigan…

…sometime after five PM last Friday, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman issued a ruling after a two-week trial, based mostly on whether there was any evidence that kids were harmed by being raised in gay homes.

The judge—a conservative appointed by Ronald Reagan—decided no. And so he tossed out the ban on gay marriages, which had popular support a decade ago, though recently more and more people are scratching their heads, wondering what that was all about….

It was a weird time—those years when everybody was up in arms and needing to defend the sanctity of marriage. Was it that the ritual satanic abuse thing had faded? Because, remember—the fear had swept the country, starting out in a California daycare center, run by this woman Virginia McMartin? Here, Dear Readers, I present her fearsome visage—don’t look too long or too intently, lest the sulfurous stench of evil rise up and poison your eternal soul….

Look, she’s clearly not having the best day of her life, but satanic? And here, under the very appropriate heading “Bizarre Allegations,” is Wikipedia’s description of the affair.

Some of the accusations were described as "bizarre",[5] overlapping with accusations that mirrored the just-starting satanic ritual abuse panic.[4] It was alleged that, in addition to having been sexually abused, they saw witches fly, traveled in a hot-air balloon, and were taken through underground tunnels.[4] When shown a series of photographs by Danny Davis (the McMartins' lawyer), one child identified actor Chuck Norris as one of the abusers.[20]

Some of the abuse was alleged to have occurred in secret tunnels beneath the school. Several investigations turned up evidence of old buildings on the site and other debris from before the school was built, but no evidence of any secret chambers was found.[4] There were claims of orgies at car washes and airports, and of children being flushed down toilets to secret rooms where they would be abused, then cleaned up and presented back to their unsuspecting parents. Some interviewed children talked of a game called "Naked Movie Star" suggesting they were forcibly photographed nude.[1][4][21] During the trial, testimony from the children stated that the naked movie star game was actually a rhyming taunt used to tease other children—"What you say is what you are, you're a naked movie star,"—and had nothing to do with having naked pictures taken.

What happened was, according to Wikipedia, “the longest and most expensive criminal trial” as of 1990. The first allegations had arisen seven years earlier, in 1983; the case ended with charges being dropped.

Gay people are used to it—at least those of us who are of a sufficient age. Raf was told decades ago that he couldn’t see his young nephew, who now has a child of his own. Raf and I passed the child back and forth last year at a family reunion.

Oh, and remember Anita Bryant? Who can forget here explanation that gay people—not able to reproduce—had to be out “recruiting” children to keep the pink race going? Presumably, it was like a scene out of Boys Beware, a film from the 1950’s that will shock the hell out of you.

The film starts out well enough, with the cheerful—no, let’s call it peppy—music in the background as we see a police captain leaving the police department, on his way to go speak to some “young people” at the local high school. Along the way, he sees Jimmy Barnes, innocently trying to hitch a ride on the side of the road.

Alas, not all the people in the world are as innocent as Jimmy! Though the person who gave Jimmy the ride seemed nice enough—asking Jimmy questions, and giving him a pat on the shoulder as Jimmy got out of the car.

That’s when we see the driver, who until now has been only in profile. And need I say it? The face is satanic—wait, I’ll be a good blogger and figure out how to take a screen shot:

Jimmy, honey? You were riding home with that?

That, Dear Reader, is a proper 1950’s homosexual—and it’s also what we came out of, or away from. Because I was born in 1956, which meant that for the first decade of my life, this is what society was telling me I was going to grow up to be. Which meant I could repress my entire sexuality, or I could become utterly depraved, as this man was.

Nor are such types subtle—since the very next day, what happens? Yup, there the stranger is, after school, and today he decides to treat Jimmy to a Coke. And then the homosexual told a few off-color jokes—obviously testing the waters.

Look, I saw the clip a year ago, and really, I don’t need to see it again. In fact, having lived through the whole thing, and overcome it, I really prefer not to relive it. Suffice it to say that all turns out well for Jimmy, but that other boy?

“He became a statistic,” intones the 1950’s voice.

If you grew up with this garbage, it took real work to move away from it. It took therapy, group sessions, consciousness raising, activism, marching for the first time in a parade, telling your mother (guess what? It’s always mother first…) you were gay, walking three times around the block of the first gay bar you were hoping / dreading to go into, telling everybody you were gay—and now, how many years have passed? And surprise—you’re not done!

You’re not out of the closet, you see. Sure, you’ve done all of the above—you have weeded that garden as rigorously as you could, and then you get cruised by the pilot who has flown you 1600 miles to New York City. And what do you think, reflexively?

“They have gay pilots!!!”

Down on your knees, pulling more weeds!

There’s a twenty-ish gay guy two tables away talking to his friend, or his lover, or whoever he is or however they’re defining it. And his experience as a gay guy? He probably didn’t have to worry about getting kicked out of school, getting kicked out of his home, about being beaten silly when he left the bar.

But the good news? Other people have been pulling weeds, too, including conservative judges in Michigan, who got asked if he really would like to affirm a law that says that some people can get married, others cannot.  Here’s what  Friedman said:

In attempting to define this case as a challenge to “the will of the people,” state defendants lost sight of what this case is truly about: people. No court record of this proceeding could ever fully convey the personal sacrifice of these two plaintiffs who seek to ensure that the state may not longer impair the rights of their children and the thousands of others now being raised by same-sex couples.

So last Friday, Michigan had allowed gay marriages. Saturday, everybody ran down to City Hall to get hitched. Then the ax fell—the state’s attorney general asked for a stay, and so now gay marriages aren’t legal in Michigan. See?

It occurs to me—there’s something a little sad about how so many of us have done it: rushed frantically to get hitched before some hack of  a DA or AG runs off to the next court up to block it. Parents living the next state over don’t get to see the ceremony. Musicians who would have chosen Monteverdi’s Si dolce e’l tormento have to live with Whitney Houston.  The superb cooks are eating a store-bought cake and drinking champagne and grinning like fools and rubbing their eyes and calling their distant family.

One Michigan couple who got in under the wire was my old friend Geek, the celebrated chap who—having outwitted and outlasted Fred Phelps—took his lover of 27 year to the courthouse or city hall or wherever it was and brought him back as his husband.

And now, having scared the hell out of you by showing you a proper 1950’s homosexual—as well as that satanic grandmother—let me show you the updated version—considerably less menacing….

Congratulations, Geek and Martín!

A middling Enemy

Well, I voted “no,” on the general belief that it has to stop somewhere—and for once I was on the winning side. But then I had to wonder—should the Satanic Temple perform a ritual on Fred Phelps ’s gave, in order to turn him into a gay man in the afterlife? Here’s Lucien Greaves on his promised Pink Mass:

The Satanic Temple exercised its own right to offensive Free Speech in our performance of the Pink Mass at Fred Phelps’s mother’s grave this past summer. After having two same-sex couples (one male, one female) engage in homoerotic activity at the gravesite, we declared Fred Phelps’s mother a post-mortem homosexual conversion. At the time, I predicted that Fred hadn’t too much longer till he would pass, and I stated –- in a direct tweet to the WBC -– that I would be presiding over Fred’s own Pink Mass before too long. As I have made a promise to a dying man, I fully intend to do my very best to see it through, and the pomp and circumstance of this Pink Mass will surely far, far exceed that of the original event in Meridian, Mississippi.

I would have said “no” to this one, too, before I saw the video clip below of documentary filmmaker Michael Moore confronting Phelps. Because it’s one thing to read about the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) and their odious “God hates fags” protests—it’s another thing to see and hear it. There, the emotion is visceral—the loathing and fear are as palpable as a slap in the gut.

As I contemplate the death of Phelps, I wonder if any good came out of Phelps’s life. He was, in fact, an admirable enemy to have—virtually impossible to like, completely absurd, outrageous. How much different than some of our other enemies!

There was Anita Bryant, for starters, who admittedly was no intellectual goliath, but who certainly had that Southern charm, as well as a megawatt smile. “I don’t hate homosexuals,” she said, or words to that effect, “I love them enough to tell them the truth….”

And we all knew what that was….

For all her wholesomeness, for all the cloy she exuded, the message was pretty bitter. At issue was Dade County, Florida, which in 1977 had approved a resolution that—grab ahold hard onto your seats, friends—prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. So what did Bryant do? She started a campaign called Save our Children, and went around the country whipping up the crowds. Want a sample of the intellectual fiber of the debate? Consider these statements, from the Wiikipedia article linked with her name, above:

"As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children" and "If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters."

Bryant’s life went downhill rapidly—she divorced her husband and manager, which alienated her from her hardcore religious base. As well, she declared bankruptcy a couple of times, and her career languished.

Bryant was one thing—Falwell, another. Remember this one, immediately following the September 11^th attacks?

"Throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools," he said. "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad.

"[T]he pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America," Falwell continued, "I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

"Well, I totally concur," responded Robertson.

Then the predictable happened:

Angel Watts, a spokeswoman for Robertson's Christian Broadcast Network, said Robertson "of course" did not blame gays or atheists for the attacks.

Right—mopping up after the damage has been done.

Then there was the pope, or the Pope Emeritus, who came out and let us know that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and therefore homosexuality could never be moral. 

All of this leads us very comfortingly to the smarmiest lie of all—that these people who condemn us are condemning the sin, not the sinner. Yeah? And if I said that “Christian acts are intrinsically disordered?” Would anyone believe that I didn’t have a little grudge, a little axe to grind?

For all his extremism, Phelps may have done considerably less damage than more mainstream, less visibly crazy people. Quick—who is the president of the Mormon Church, which threw more money into California’s Proposition 8 than Phelps and the Westboro Church could ever dream of?

Will Phelps be missed?

Of course not…

Was he our worst enemy?

Absolutely not.

Open Letter to Roberto González Nieves

(Note: this post was written several weeks ago. The most recent news is that Archbishop González Nieves is cooperating with the federal and local authorities. However, the diocese of Arecibo—which has been accused of being the “dumping ground” for abusive priests—is still fighting in court the subpoenas that have been issued against it….)
 

When are they going to get it?

What happens if I go out, take a shine to a 13-year old kid on the playground, offer him candy and the coolest tennis shoes (which his mother won’t buy him because she can’t) and then take him home and rape him? Well, the cops do an investigation, there’s a trial, and if convicted, I go to jail.

OK—what happened when a Catholic priest sexually abused a minor? Here’s what the archbishop of San Juan had to say:

“En una investigación preliminar el sacerdote admitió el abuso al entonces menor. Fue suspendido, quedando relevado de sus funciones ministeriales el 7 de septiembre de 2010. El día 30 de diciembre de 2011 el Tribunal Metropolitano culminó la investigación preliminar y el 4 de enero de 2012, el Tribunal Metropolitano remitió el expediente de este asunto a la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, dando cumplimiento al trámite requerido por el orden jurídico canónico”, aceptó González Nieves.

(“In a preliminary investigation, the priest admitted to the abuse of the (then) minor. He was suspended, being relieved of his ministerial duties on the 7^th of September of 2010. On the 30^th of December of 2011, the Metropolitan Tribunal (a church court) culminated its preliminary investigation and on the 4^th of 2012, the Metropolitan Tribunal submitted the file on this matter to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, complying with the process of canonic law,” accepted González Nieves.)

Full disclosure: this quote comes from a blog called Cristianos Bíblicos, which attributes it and the whole post to an article in El Nuevo Día. A cursory search in El Nuevo Día’s website revealed no results for the title of the article, Dinero a cambio de silencio; víctima de violencia sexual en la iglesia católica en Puerto Rico.

Another disclaimer: from my reading of the paragraph, it’s not entirely clear whether the victim was a minor at the time she or he made the complaint, though it’s clear that the victim was a minor at the time of the abuse. And that’s important because, as Telemundo assures us,

De igual forma, González Nieves confirmó que la Iglesia no refiere a las Autoridades los casos de sacerdotes pedófilos si las víctimas ya son mayor de edad.   

(“As well, González Nieves confirmed that the church doesn’t refer to the authorities those cases of pedophile priests if the victims are currently of age.”)

OK—so let’s assume that the quote is indeed by González Nieves, the article did appear in El Nuevo Día, and that the victim was of age at the time of making the complaint. So what? The archdiocese has a sexual predator on its hands—one who has confessed to the crime, by the way, and for which it has taken the church over a year to “investigate”—and they don’t go to the cops? And weaseling out by saying that the victim is now of age is—however legal—questionable morally. If the priest abused some kid once, will he do it again? Very likely.

Oh, and remember this quote from my February 13, 2014 post (extracted from childwelfare.gov)?

Puerto Rico

P.R. Laws Ann. Tit. 8, § 446(b) (LexisNexis through Dec. 2009)     

Any person who has knowledge of or suspects that a minor is a victim of abuse, institutional abuse, neglect, and/or institutional neglect shall report that fact through the hotline of the department, to the Puerto Rico police, or to the local office of the department.

True—it says “a minor.” But look, González—where’s your law degree? How do you know whether the statute of limitations has run out? Shouldn’t you let the District Attorney figure that out?

You know, González, we’re talking about a crime here. We’re talking about a trial, prison time, “rehabilitation.” And what have you done? You’ve completely usurped the civil authorities, taken off your sanctimonious robes, and turned yourself into the cops, the judge and the jury. And so you let a criminal go scot free—since the “priest” is no longer on the island and no longer a priest. I’m not a lawyer, either, González, but you know what I’d call it? Right—obstruction of justice.

Of course, there’s something else I’d call it: aiding and abetting a criminal. And by the way, did you have the perpetrator under 24 / 7 surveillance all that time? And I don’t care whether the victim was currently of age, because, guess what? Relieved or not of his priestly duties, he could well have been screwing little kids all during your yearlong investigation. He probably had more time to do it, in fact.

You know, I’m so frigging tired of the overwhelming, overweening, arrogance of the Catholic Church. I watched a guy, Colm O’Gorman, on YouTube yesterday describe his abuse at the hands of an Irish priest; I heard the story of how the priest made the fourteen-year old kid feel that it was his fault. I heard the story of how the kid left home before he was 18, and landed on the streets of Dublin: it was better than the abuse at home. And he pulled himself together, went on to make a good career, have a life. No thanks to your church, González.

So some guy on your payroll rapes a kid and you take off his collar and buy him a one-way ticket to somewhere. News flash, González:

The guy—very likely—is still raping kids out there.

Sleeping well these days, González?

Damn, Gotta Cut Out That Morning….

First of all, Dear Reader, let me discharge my surging sea swells of gratitude to the cashier in the gas station whose first words—drenched and virtually dripping with compassion and concern—to me, as I presented my bloody nose, face, and hands, were, “no hay baño.” (“There’s no bathroom…”)

I had been out on the trot, and hadn’t noticed—so involved was I with Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber—the manhole cover that wasn’t raised sufficiently to be immediately apparent but was certainly raised sufficiently to catch my foot and hurl me to the pavement, where I skidded for most of the length of three football fields, leaving huge skid marks of epidermis and blood. I ended up by screaming an obscenity, which was completely ignored by the tattooed gentleman ahead of me—who was also listening to music.

It’s undoubtedly Biber who is the villain here—since who else could it be? True, the man has been dead for 310 years, but the point is that his Requiem à 15 in Concerto is a seriously wonderful piece of music—a sublime and rapturous piece of music that you definitely should listen to—especially if you’re in restraints in a padded cell. Otherwise, you could have the experience of Marc’s morning: floating until skidding. Click on the clip below, if you dare…



I had known about Biber for years, since a cello teacher had told me that he (that’s Biber, not the teacher) had been an influential composer for the violin in the last half of the 1600’s. In fact, there’s a famous passacaglia for solo violin that gets hauled out periodically. But it wasn’t until recently that people began to begin listening—often at serious risk to limb and tissue—to Biber.

What I didn’t know about Biber is that, in addition to his many works for violin, he wrote a lot of sacred music, of which the most famous is probably his Missa Salisburgensis from 1682. It’s a knockout too, though to date it’s never inflicted bodily harm on me.

So there I was, on the sidewalk watching the help walk away from me (it does occur to me to wonder how much of the world I’ve missed as I’ve listened to music these many mornings since Wal-Mart), and pondering which was more difficult: picking myself up or dying under a tropical sun.

So I walked into the gas station that was across the street from where I had been felled, to be greeted by the lady who made Mother Teresa look like Ivana Trump or Leona Helmsly, or whoever the Queen of Mean was. Her first words, as you recall, made reference to the lack of a bathroom in the gas station. Unfortunately, she was standing in front of and to the left of an open room, in which there was a sink.

“I wonder if you might be mistaken,” I said, sounding cooler than in fact I felt, “since there appears to be a sink in that room there to the left.”

As clever as she was compassionate, she instantly denied that that was a bathroom.

“Hay una correlación estadística con la presencia de un lavamanos y un baño.”

(“There’s a statistical correlation with the presence of a bathroom and a sink.”)

Wonderfully, the clerk admitted that there was a sink, but there wasn’t a bathroom.

“Muy bien, porque no quiero un baño; lo que quiero es un lavamanos.”

(“Great, because I don’t want a bathroom, what I want is a sink…”)

“Lo siento, pero los baños están cerrados…”

It now, you see, was a bathroom, but it was closed.

I pointed out—with crystalline Aristotelian logic—that any room that had an open door was by definition not closed. She responded—with murky French Deconstructionism—that it was closed in the sense of being unavailable to customers. It now occurred to me that I had been drafted into a George Burns / Gracie Allen skit; ‘this has been quite a morning,’ I thought.

As resourceful as she was clever and compassionate, Gracie had the answer. I could use paper towels—which felt slightly harder than the sidewalk—with hand sanitizer! Oh, and she was good enough to point to where the paper towels were.

It was a good thing, I decided later, on two levels. Because what happened, twenty minutes after applying the hand sanitizer on the open gashes on my chin, nose, and hand? Yup—I felt as if I had drunk two martinis on an empty stomach after flying across the Atlantic. So now I know—if the shock of pain hadn’t been enough to tell me—exactly how much alcohol there is in hand sanitizer. Put bluntly, hand sanitizer is rubbing alcohol in gel form.

“Thank you so much,” I told my heroine, with heartfelt…something. “You’ve been so much more than helpful!’

“You oughta go to the Emergency Room,” she said.

Hunh?

“Or to the bathroom,” I nearly said, but by this point I was floating—chemically if now not musically—home.

And now?

Well, I’ve taken a shower, my hand periodically oozes blood or exudates or something, and my left chest feels as if the entire Green Bay Packers had spent the morning tackling me. My chin hurts, my hand hurts, my whole body hurts. And guess what? Even drinking two cups of coffee and eating two utterly-illicit-but-needed Milky Ways had absolutely no effect: the average nursing home patient is a master instructor of Yoga compared to me….

Oh, and I have a blister on my left finger, which means that I can’t play the cello today, which is a major annoyance, since having gotten back to playing, I now suffer when I don’t play.

Damn, now I know what it is, now I know why I feel so awful!

I’m medical history, Gentle Readers—the first known patient to get a hangover…

…from hand sanitizer!

A Glorious, if Nazi, Voice

“And don’t give me that stuff about Fischer-Dieskau being Hitler’s favorite baritone,” snapped Pablo, as I waited in line yesterday to get the popcorn. And did eyebrows rise?

Of course not—we were at the Metropolitan Opera Rebroadcast, and the movie theater was filled with people who have been hearing this argument for years.

As it happens, the jury is probably in on Fischer-Dieskau. Yes, he was a member of the Hitler Youth—as was everyone’s favorite Pope Emeritus—but neither man probably had much say in it. And he served in the German army, at one point caring for horses in the Russian front, and later getting captured by the Allies. The point is that he was a young man during the war, and hadn’t started his musical career: Hitler probably had never heard of him.

OK—so what about older musicians, those who had been established at the rise of Nazism, especially those who were German? Did they have the moral obligation to speak out?

Specifically, what about Elisabeth Schwarzkopf—certainly one of the greatest singers of the last part of the 20^th century, but also a Nazi? And if so, how much of one? Because look, it’s one thing to get—grudgingly—into bed with the bastards, it’s another thing to seek them out, flirt outrageously, and commit outrageous libidinous acts with them.

And according to The Guardian, Schwarzkopf went quite a ways with the Nazis: she joined the Nazi Student League, which according to The Guardian was hardly unusual: half of the students were members. But according to The Guardian:

What was unusual, however, was that she volunteered to become an ANSt leader, at least for one term. That demonstrated dedication to the cause of Nazism beyond the call of duty, and was an obvious sign that she wanted to get ahead quickly in her profession.

There’s more—she may have had an SS general for a lover when she contracted tuberculosis and had to spend a year in a sanatorium. She joined the Nazi party, although only one in five musicians were active in the party. When the war ended, Schwarzkopf was with the Vienna State Opera, which was handy, since she was more easily “de-Nazified” there than in Berlin.  And she later took an American boyfriend after the war, and then married an English Jew, which gave her British citizenship (and allowed her to earn a title). Nor was that all: the husband was Walter Legge, artistic director of EMI Music, and a man who would shepherd her career adroitly for decades.

Her defense? Well, according to The Washington Post:

"Everybody at the opera joined," she told the New York Times. "We thought nothing of it. We just did it."

As well, she told the Times that it was the equivalent of joining a union: if you wanted a job, you joined the party.

Think this is just about Nazism? Hardly, since Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezuelan conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has recently been criticized for not having criticized the current president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. Worse, according to his critics, Dudamel played a concert in Venezuela the day after a particularly bloody protest. And Dudamel’s defense? Well, he is a product of a remarkable program called El Sistema, which takes kids out of the barrios, puts instruments in their hands, and teaches them both how to play remarkably well, and how to be disciplined, how to work together, how to succeed. And for that program to work? It needs government support.

Nor is Dudamel alone—what about Valery Gergiev—the Russian conductor who has supported Putin and his actions in the Crimea and the Ukraine? Oh, and has been comfortably silent on the draconian anti-homosexuality laws? Doesn’t he have the moral obligation to speak up?

If we say yes, then the question becomes “why?” Why hold Dudamel / Gergiev to a different standard than a rock star, a movie star, a writer? If we demand that classical musicians and no one else stand up and denounce repressive states or dictators…well, aren’t we claiming the moral high ground? Aren’t we saying that what we do is better than anyone else?

Why not come out and say it?

Yes.

I could invoke the philosopher Schopenhauer; here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

"[...] “Schopenhauer thought that music was the only art that did not merely copy ideas, but actually embodied the will itself.”[29]

He deemed music to be a timeless, universal, language which is comprehended everywhere, and can imbue global enthusiasm, if in possession of a significant melody.

But why not put Schopenhauer aside, and just say that there’s something special that we do—those of us who have spent years practicing our art? True, Michael Jordan spent years practicing his hoops—but I’m sorry, it’s different.

It’s curious—Schwarzkopf was known for her recording of Strauss’s Four Last Songs, but it was actually another soprano, the Norwegian Kirsten Flagstad, for whom Strauss wrote the work. And Flagstad took some heat for returning to Norway during World War II; here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

Nonetheless, against the best advice of her friends and colleagues, including former president Herbert Hoover, who pleaded with her to stay out of Europe, she returned to Norway via Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Marseille, and Berlin in April, 1941.[3] Though during the war she performed only in Sweden and Switzerland, countries not occupied by German forces, this fact did not temper the storm of public opinion that hurt her personally and professionally for the next several years.[4] Her husband was arrested after the war for profiteering during the occupation that involved his lumber business. This arrest, together with her decision to remain in occupied Norway, made her unpopular, particularly in the United States. The Norwegian ambassador and columnist Walter Winchell spoke out against her. In 1948, she performed several benefit concerts for the United Jewish Appeal. In defense of Flagstad's husband, Henry Johansen, it should be noted that after his death it was revealed that during the occupation he was arrested by the Gestapo and held for eight days. Also, Johansen's son by his first marriage, Henry Jr, had been a member of the Norwegian underground throughout the war.

Well, I spent time listening to the great, last song of the Four Last Songs, “Im Abendrot.” Schwarzkopf has the more technically perfect recording—it sounds as if it were recorded yesterday. Flagstad has all the creaks and crackles of an old recording, and the quality of the recording isn’t high. But it’s easy to get a sense of what an amazing voice it was, and what an interpretation she gave the song.

Somehow, however gloriously Schwarzkopf sings, it’s the voice of Flagstad that seems less mannered and more majestic.

Or is it just that a Nazi isn’t singing it?

Music from the Camps

I had known about it for years, and had even read memoirs about it. So when The New York Times announced that Alice Herz-Sommer, the oldest survivor of the Nazi camps, had died I wasn’t surprised to learn that she had been a pianist, and had been one of the lucky few whose music had saved them from the gas chambers. The Nazis, having a love of music and a need for publicity, decided to, well, not kill two birds with one stone. So they set up Theresienstadt, which would be a feeder camp for Auschwitz, and also would be a model camp featuring the best of Jewish cultural and intellectual life.

Nothing illustrates the enormous and horrifying paradox that was Nazi Germany better than their relationship with music and the Jewish musicians who played—often—the great works of German / Austrian composers. But let The Guardian tell the story:

In 1943 the Nazis struck upon two entwined ideas. One was to stage Brundibár, a children's opera composed in 1941 by Hans Krása, invite a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross to see it, and let these distinguished guests be the judges of what they saw. The children sang, the orchestra played and the Red Cross was delighted, underwriting Terezín with its international authority and a clean bill of health. Within days, almost the entire cast of children had been shipped "East" to the gas chambers.

The second scheme was to produce a documentary entitled The Führer Gives a City to the Jews, for which Terezín was cleaned up and grotesque sequences filmed in which apparently happy inmates, in reality doomed to die, play football and cultivate market gardens. And of course there is music: the Terezín Orchestra plays, under the baton of its founder and conductor, Karel Ancerl. Here, his genius is exploited for a nauseating propaganda purpose – "but he could not do otherwise," recalls Anka. But she knew him differently, for who he really was, her memories both intimate and epic.

Better, consider the story of Herz-Sommers, as The New York Times describes it:

Music spared Mrs. Herz-Sommer a similar fate. One night, after she had been in Terezin for more than a year, she was stopped by a young Nazi officer, as Ms. Stoessinger’s book recounts.

“Do not be afraid,” he said. “I only want to thank you for your concerts. They have meant much to me.”

He turned to leave before adding: “One more thing. You and your little son will not be on any deportation lists. You will stay in Theresienstadt until the war ends.”

And so Herz-Sommers had the paradoxical privilege of being allowed to live, though she had to escort her mother to the deportation center for the “East” in Prague (small wonder—she called it the worst moment of her life), and see her husband in 1944 transferred from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz and then to Dachau, where he died.

Perhaps because of the music, she never turned bitter. The Times quotes her thus:

“It was propaganda,” she later said. “We had to play because the Red Cross came three times a year.”

But for Mrs. Herz-Sommer, who played more than 100 concerts in Terezín (the Czech name for Theresienstadt), the sustaining power of music was no less real.

“These concerts, the people are sitting there — old people, desolated and ill — and they came to the concerts, and this music was for them our food,” she later said. “Through making music, we were kept alive.”

“Making music” I assumed to be the act of interpreting somebody else’s music, but I was only half right. Because there was music being composed, too—and a special music it was. Because Czechoslovakia had a special, dual musical heritage. Yes, they were deeply influenced by Germany, studied there and played its music. But there had also emerged a distinctly Czech school: Smetana, Janácek, and of course Dvorak, who straddled both worlds. Here’s what The Guardian has to say:

Listening to the new Nash CD, and earlier recordings of the Terezín works by the La Roche Quartet, the Pavel Haas Quartet of Prague (Haas died in Auschwitz in 1944) and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, one gets a very strong sense that not only were great composers murdered in gas chambers, but also that a whole greater than the sum of its parts was summarily eradicated: a distinctively Czech school of music – bursting with talent, energy, innovation, yearning and wit – poised to flourish and reinvent the national music in the world of postwar modernity.

Of course it never happened, but those few composers who did survive – mostly gentiles such as Bohuslav Martinu – offered a hint of what might have been but never was, with his extraordinary blend of Bohemian romance and modern rigour. However, the saplings of that truncated Prague Spring did very briefly grow, could be heard and were heard – en route to the gas chambers.  

Thus, a whole nascent musical tradition was lost. But what had it been? How did the music from Theresienstadt sound? Tantalizing to think about, and especially so when considering the words of one particular composer, Victor Ullmann, who died in the camps in 1944. Here’s what Wikipedia had to say about him:

The particular nature of the camp at Theresienstadt enabled Ullmann to remain active musically: he was a piano accompanist, organized concerts ("Collegium musicum", "Studio for New Music"), wrote critiques of musical events, and composed, as part of a cultural circle including Karel Ančerl, Rafael Schachter, Gideon Klein, Hans Krása, and other prominent musicians imprisoned there. He wrote: "By no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon. Our endeavor with respect to arts was commensurate with our will to live."[3]

I turned, as always, to YouTube, and sure enough, it was there: the Third String Quartet, written in 1943. And how did it sound?

Well, it’s music I admire more than like. It’s also music that is tightly reasoned, well-crafted, highly serious; this composer let’s you see why one of the foremost composers of the time, Arnold Schoenberg, thought so highly of Ullmann. It’s music that refuses to sink to bathos or cheap sentiment.