Choosing a New Conductor

Today we read an interview of Bernard Madoff and how amazed he was that his gigantic Ponzi scheme wasn't discovered earlier. At the end he had to go public with it in order for others to realize what he had been up to all those years. It was as if a conductor, perhaps another Jewish poster boy, would tell his board and supporters that after a quarter century on the podium he was nothing but a a fake, a fraud. May be there is more in common with two such men than anyone could guess, both sociopaths with no conscience.

We are gullible people. As on paper every investor with Bernie got incredibly high returns, nobody questioned how that was possible. Money is God after all. Before our financial meltdown a little more than a year ago, private colleges increased their tuition to the level of more expensive schools, to "prove" that they were equally good. Needless to say they became more popular. Kids and their parents snicker at more affordable state schools, unless they are situated in another state and thus as expensive as private ones. There are people willing to pay top dollar at Neiman Marcus for the very same product found elsewhere for much less. Just because they stupidly insist on overpaying, their acquired goods are "better" than if they had done their homework and shopped at a discount store or online.

In music, you'll find teachers in every city who charge twice the standard or even more. Some parents are impressed by the large fee and are duped into thinking that this greedy individual must be great. Never mind that he/she isn't able to perform in public. Neither can another violin teacher who accepts only students who aspire to become "professionals". After performing a movement or two of the mandatory Khachaturian concerto, learned by imitation at an early age, most of these kids will disappear from the scene. The said piece certainly isn't one of my favorites. I remember the esteemed Estonian conductor Neeme Järvi telling me about recording it in Moscow on a xylophone. The percussive music suits that instrument far better than the violin.

The Utah Symphony, another troubled arts organization, recently chose a new Music Director. The process was done in secrecy and many were surprised to learn that a relatively unknown Swiss maestro, Thierry Fischer, was chosen. Quite a few names had been mentioned as possibly candidates in the Salt Lake City media, among them an individual that the orchestra rejected for the second time, decades apart. Usually orchestra musicians are involved in such an important decision, or they would like to be. But this business has changed a lot and a board chairperson or the organization's executive director acts more like a CEO of a big corporation. We all know how much they value the opinion of a worker.

Many important American orchestras are presently without a music director. Chicago finally has Riccardo Muti as a music director designate, after several years with Bernard Haitink and Pierre Boulez guiding the excellent group under different titles. Philadelphia lacks one, although Charles Dutoit came to the rescue by agreeing to serve as their chief conductor. Leonard Slatkin finally took over Detroit which had been adrift since the departure of Neeme Järvi.

It is interesting how negatively European conductors view American music director positions, although our country would love to have them instead of home-grown ones. Perhaps the good and capable conductors would just like to make music as they do back home, and not be involved in fund-raising and all the brown-nosing that comes with it. Having to repeatedly kiss the cheek of an old dried-up but wealthy lady or to pretend to admire an elderly gentleman's opinion of orchestral sound while his hearing aid whistles may be a turn-off to a true maestro. Too often an American conductor resembles a General Motors or Ford vehicle. Yes, most of the time they transport people as expected, but driving one is hardly as exciting as being behind the wheel of a Porsche, a Mercedes or a BMW.

a Maestro for Halloween by talvi

Happy Boys Club

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that majority of the world's affairs are taken care by a clique of some kind. Even heads of state surround themselves with loyalists and cronies. Just think of the people in George W's inner circle, most of who eventually became disgraced for a reason. Decisions by boards have been decided in advance by a small group of insiders; voting is but a rubber stamp. If you don't agree, too bad: you'll be a former board member in no time. Insider trading takes place on Wall Street every day, however illegal it is. In classical music, a conductor has a small circle of friends and supporters in his band. A musician's success in an audition depends on how likely he or she'll become one of these pawns. The actual professional skill has very little to do with winning a job.

Such cliques and clubs are nothing new. Years ago, to be a successful violinist in America one had to have a relationship with Ivan Galamian and/or the famous virtuoso Isaac Stern. The latter would travel to Israel yearly, listen to the talented youngsters play, and point his finger saying you, you and you will come to the United States. The rest were doomed to become members of the Israeli Philharmonic or accept low-paying teaching jobs. In New York, there was a circle of talented gay composers, all close friends, from Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein. They pretty much had a monopoly on whose works got performed. If you fell out of favor, you became a Nobody. David Diamond was one of those less fortunate and rightfully bitter about it.

My last visit to Los Angeles resulted in an interesting conversation with a former colleague. The Pacific Northwest is not exactly a focal point in people's lives down there but there was some curiosity from this person's part. How's the Womanizer these days? He has sort of fallen off the radar screen; is he still up there after all these years? I had to ask which womanizer my friend was referring to, as several individuals fit the term. The matter was clarified. He's probably no longer after young females but rather competing for the attention (and perhaps money) of an older generation. More I didn't know as the person no longer is part of my life. What about the Deadly Duo? Again, as several such combinations exist, I had to repeat the question. The ones with a foot fetish; they're not missed around here. Then I understood. Don't know much about their current affairs. They're probably as busy trying to destroy others' lives and careers as a couple decades ago. For some reason the famous Lewis Carroll poem The Walrus and the Carpenter popped into my head. Those poor misled oysters!

This chat made me think of a discussion my wife and I had with a full-of-himself gay man here years ago. He was bragging about being part of the local Happy Boys Club. The names dropped included some important and powerful local people, from a media critic to a head of a large arts organization. We were made to understand that this club (some members might have been bisexual or still in the closet) pretty much decided who would succeed in this town. This conversation sent shivers down our spines at the time. We are far from being homophobic: both of us have counted many gay and lesbian people among our closest friends. Personally, I have nothing against gay marriage: if two people are in love and want to take care of each other, their sexual orientation shouldn't be an issue. Many of the most gifted and creative individuals throughout history have been gay, or for that matter left-handed, also formerly considered another flaw of character. True, a homosexual critic tried to destroy my career in my teens as I rejected his advances, but as a group gays don't make me feel as uncomfortable as an old heterosexual letch desiring a young woman, possibly a daughter. It is also obvious to me that Nature has to do something about earth's overpopulation and thus an growing number of people are born who won't add to the increase.

But back to the local Club: there was a time when some of its members were eager to ruin my family's well-being. But it is amazing how matters resolve with time and patience. Many of these "Klansmen" have met with an untimely death or are dying; others have lost their jobs and with it their influence. A tiger without its teeth and claws is pitiful indeed. Perhaps we ought to rename it Unhappy Boys Club. The clique has gone the way of once mighty Diners Club in North America, the first charge card. Now it is just another MasterCard, owned by Discover Card yet.

I have no illusions that such cliques won't reemerge in the future or are perhaps being formed as I'm writing this. However, at this stage of my life, it no longer matters. The art scene is rapidly going down the drain and I can't claim to care. Perhaps our children or grandchildren will witness a rebirth from the ashes of the phoenix bird. It has to grow from the ground up. The present model, a sandbox for the aged well-to-do, is most passé indeed. After all, who in his right mind would want to watch half of a local baseball team play against the other half, week after week?

The Walrus and the Carpenter, Victorian drawing

A Dark World

Life is often not what it logically should be. We picture goodness as the opposite of evil, genius of craziness. Yet more often than not, such qualities in a human being resemble a circle, like the face of a clock. An immensely gifted person may be sane at 11:59 and fly over the cuckoo's nest at 12:01. There is sometimes very little difference between a genius and a madman. Love can turn into hate and rage with a snap of a finger; two such opposite feelings, just a tiny bit apart on life's circle.

Mental health and a balanced life can never be taken for granted. Our natural reaction is to stay away from a person who's going through a rough period in his/her life. In the eyes of the affected person it is us who turn into monsters and crazies. A key to treating such an imbalance is that the person suffering admits help is needed, that the world isn't mad, but that the individual perceiving it as such might be instead. Yet any health care professional knows that treating an ill person often fails because the patient feels sane. Medication may be taken for a while but then discontinued. In our system there is the added element of expense and the lack of any kind of a safety net.

So, we try to run away from people who are out of the ordinary and whose behavior may be hard to take. As a nation, we like to think that if we close our eyes, a problem doesn't exist. Didn't we have a popular President who said that there are no unemployed and poor people, just ones who don't like to work, or that there are no homeless, just people who don't like living in a house or an apartment? If one surrounds himself will nothing but other well-to-do people, in that world there indeed is no poverty.

Artists, whether painters, musicians or writers, often happen to be on the borderline in the sanity circle and probably more likely past the middle point the more talented and creative they are. Many have been the most productive during an acute phase of what the "normal" people would call a mental illness. Masterpieces have been painted and written in such a state, as well as under the influence of recreational drugs, today illegal but not necessarily so in history. One could argue that the more gifted an artist is, the more likely he/she is to be in very fragile mental health. The great Norwegian painter Edvard Munch was rather mad, at least in the eyes of his very religious family, a true black sheep. When he died, no relative saw any value in the paintings left behind, including the different versions of the famed "Scream". They were given away, made to disappear, as works of a nut possessed by demons. History is full of examples of similar stories.

Of course, being on the "wrong" side of the clock is applicable to everyday people as well. Many such people do dot fit in our society and end up having trouble with the law or as homeless on the street. One study mentioned in a BBC program estimated the percentage of schizophrenic people approximately equal the number we sentence to prisons in this jail-happy country of ours. Clearly locking a suffering soul in such an institution is an inhumane act but we do that to remove them from our midst. Yes, imprisonment is expensive but cheaper than mental hospitals or even long-term outpatient care, as most of these unfortunate people do not have insurance. Even if they do, mental health is usually equally well covered as visiting the dentist, where a root canal and a mandatory crown more than wipe out the annual benefit amount many times over, even in the best of plans.

However, there are situations where we cannot ignore such illness, namely when it involves a family member. An aging parent may suffer from Alzheimer's, another one from a phobia that prevents a normal life. The situation becomes tragic when a raging soul belongs to a member of an immediate family, a spouse or a child. An affected person may suddenly see you as his/her archenemy and threaten to destroy your life. A mother may suffer from serious delusions and paranoia, and feel certain that her daughter is after every knick-knack is her possession. The child's request to have a copy of a key to her house is an indication of ill intentions and plans of theft, when in fact the child is just concerned about the well-being of an aging parent. A spouse (or especially an ex-one) might write terrible letters to all corners of the globe, to make sure that everyone knows what a monster or a criminal yesterday's love is and to do his/her best to be as destructive as possible, short of outright killing this former mate. When such hateful behavior comes from a grown child that a person has always dearly loved, it hurts the most and is tough to swallow and understand. One just has to go on loving and praying that it will all go away. The wrong way is to close one's heart forever but one has to protect him/herself. Why would anybody wish to be abused?

Another one of life's circles involves friends. A quarter to the hour a person pretends to be your best pal with nothing but good thoughts and wishes in mind. Along come a few malicious people who help to push your minute hand well into the other side and all of a sudden this friend is your worst enemy, ready to turn your life into hell. But the same clock ticks for the former friend and the minute hand is stuck at quarter after in no time at all, while in the victim's life it again has passed the half-hour mark and sun is rising after the night.

Actually, I think it is a mad world, a very black one. Universe is filled with dark matter we hardly understand, yet it amounts to much of its mass. But in the blackness it is easy to see the shining lights from stars and galaxies, the bright diamonds from the hearts of those who truly love and care. At age 61 one has seen a lot of it, if not all.

Munch's "Scream" from 1893

Bach to Basics

Anybody who has studied the arts, such as painting, knows that an important part of the training, especially in the past, was to copy old masterworks. For instance Manet spent years in museums, trying to understand the secret of how the Flemish masters handled light, or how and why earlier Italian masters included very detailed landscapes in their portraits. In short, in order to create something new and unique, one had to have an understanding of art’s history. The same is true with music: a composer ought to know why Debussy sounds like Debussy, Hindemith like Hindemith. Part of general music education is to understand counterpoint and harmony, or to analyze a fugue. Unfortunately very few performing artists are interested in the past performance practices, perhaps wanting to stay away from anything “old-fashioned” that could possibly ruin their reputation as instrumentalists. Yes, there have been copycats: Erick Friedman wanted to mimic his one-time teacher Jascha Heifetz and succeeded in doing so rather well. Many spoon-fed students have no voice of their own: one famed violin teacher’s students all make the same glissandi in identical places. Teachers are notoriously inflexible and hard-headed: they teach as they themselves were taught. This is very human. Don’t most parents raise their children in the same manner they were raised? I had four copies of the Tchaikovsky concerto, all with very different fingerings and bowings, and I was expected to execute them properly. Naturally, I later took what I liked from each and added my own to the mix. Gabriel Bouillon had a very simple principle regarding fingerings: in fast passages make them as simple and clear as possible and save the fancy finger work for the more melodic passages. Ricardo Odnoposoff, himself supposedly the favorite student of Carl Flesch, insisted that I use his teacher’s editions, yet changed most of the fingerings.

In my youth it wasn’t easy to learn about performance traditions in music. I has an opportunity to play for a couple old-timers born in the 1800s and learned a lot from them. My first teacher (after being self-taught initially) was a longtime student of Jacques Thibaud (the only male, he used to say, as the maestro had an eye for young pretty females). He had inherited a lot of music with the great Frenchman’s markings, by his own hand. I remember when I was handed a copy of Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole and the entire slow fourth movement basically read 4-4-4-4-open string. As playing with the pinkie was almost unheard of (that’s why Fritz Kreisler’s fingerings in the printed music almost never use that digit), Thibaud must have had an unusually strong little finger and was able to produce a beautiful sound with it. Kreisler, of course, was famous for never using his own markings, playing even different notes from the printed page in his own compositions. My teacher had a vast collection of old 78s, many in bad shape, but I learned quickly how to filter the sound while transferring them to tape. Most French HMV recordings had been made using copper masters and during the occupation of most of France, the German army melted those down for war materials. I had the fortune of hearing and copying an early Thibaud recording, pre-vacuum tube amplification, the soloist standing right in front of the horn microphone, accompanied by the only source loud enough: a brass band. One side had d’Ambrosio’s Canzonetta, the other Gabriel-Marie’s La Cinquantaine. Thibaud was at his prime and the playing of those works probably among the greatest ever recorded.

Today it is rather easy to find historical recordings which have been transferred onto a compact disc. On them one finds great artists whose names are missing even from books. Not only are early 78s replicated but also the first experiments on wax rolls. One of my personal favorites is The Great Violinists, Recordings from 1900-1913, on Testament label. Of particular interest to me is the way movements are performed from J.S. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin. We hear Joseph Joachim in 1903, four years before his death and Pablo de Sarasate from the same year, five years before his passing. Present are also the great French pedagogue and soloist Henri Marteau whose Bach is ten years younger, Thibaud from 1904 and Joseph Szigeti from 1908. Since Joachim was responsible for resurrecting the works and publishing the first truly playable edition of them, with the help of his student, friend and colleague Adreas Moser, one is most interested in him. To my surprise Joachim’s interpretation seems contemporary and it would be hard to believe the recordings age if it weren’t for the scratchy sound. Vibrato is missing or very minimal, intonation and style exquisite. Sarasate plays the E-major Preludio like a virtuoso piece but even that sounds fresh. The Frenchmen and Szigeti sound a bit freer in style but their playing is a far cry from what the “norm” was to become in 15-20 years. The Roaring Twenties and following Great Depression left their imprint. Even baroque music was supposed to sound romantic and the more glissandi, vibrato and other effects were present, the better. No wonder Odnoposoff warned me about the Flesch edition: phrasing and most of the bowings are great, at least thought-provoking as the original is right underneath, but please, pay no attention to the fingerings which made every movement seem like the Air on the G-String. Heifetz, who for an unknown reason never let students use his own mentor’s editions, always played Leopold Auer’s David-influenced Chaconne with the 16th notes on the last page turning into triplets and them to 32nds. Very effective but hardly what Bach’s intention was, although I don’t think the composer would have minded as the performances were so fabulous every time.

Post-war interpretation of Bach changed a lot. Violinists from the Soviet Union started showing up in competitions and their approach with the all-steel strings and a certain hacking style became popular. Other Eastern European fiddlers played very similarly, such as the Polish Wanda Wilkomirska whose otherwise excellent Chaconne has all the trademarks of 1950-60s. In Germany style still remained akademisch and Wolfgang Schneiderhan recorded an absolutely perfect and pristine Chaconne. The only problem with it was that you couldn’t light a match and even smoke a cigarette in the same room as the recording sounds outright flammable, so extremely dry. Arthur Grumiaux played his Bach beautifully as did Nathan Milstein and many others, Henryk Szeryng included. In David Oistrakh’s Soviet Russia there was no real tradition in Bach or other German/Austrian composers. Even Mozart was off-limits unless a violinist was to participate (with the government’s blessings) in an international competition. Oistrakh had a somewhat odd preference to Bach’s violin/keyboard sonatas, not the composer’s most exciting works.

As a teacher, I think it almost criminal not to introduce gifted students to that part of our instrument’s history we nowadays have access to. Yes, the recordings hiss and high pitches are missing, but neither does the Mona Lisa look like it did after Leonardo da Vinci finished painting it. It is up to the individual to decide what is important. In my 20s I was teaching Wieniawski’s second concerto to a student at the Sibelius Academy and lent her a recording of Heifetz playing it. A week later she returned the LP and I asked how she liked it. Her reply said it all: “I don’t know, it wasn’t in stereo.”

First page of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas

R-Rated

Returning last month with my youngest one from Iceland and looking at the Cascades and sparkling waters of the Puget Sound reminded me of a similar event 42 years earlier, my first landing in the United States. I was just a little bit older than my daughter is now but had been living on my own since the age of fifteen. Back then it was a warm summer Sunday and the sight of what seemed like hundreds of sailboats made quite an impression. I felt like this could be a place I would be happy living in. The SAS flight then took off for Los Angeles after refueling. Once arriving there I was deeply disappointed. There was nothing green to be seen as far as vegetation went and the polluted air made my eyes tear. The taxi driver had no idea where my hotel in Westwood was located and obviously I wasn't of much help, not having even a map of the city. The next morning I decided to leave for a walk, looking for a place to have breakfast. Almost immediately I saw a sign "Coffee Shop" but being European, I assumed that was a place to buy beans or ground coffee. I headed east and after what felt like an eternity arrived in Beverly Hills. During the entire hike I was the only one walking, a strange experience for someone used to getting from place to place with the help of his feet. At least the breakfast at the original Brown Derby was tasty although I thought that the watery coffee was simply awful.

Just a couple days back I was out in Discovery Park during an unusually warm and sunny September day. I remembered my first visit in the park in 1983 when the Army reserves still used the area for training. The tall evergreens made me feel like I was back in Northern Europe and I decided that this city would indeed make a nice place to live. Little did I know that Seattle would represent both Paradise and Hell to us. Professionally locating here was probably a terrible mistake but the nature with its incredible views made a perfect surrounding for raising a second family. Our three Boston Terriers must have thought this was Heaven after the heat and dirty parks of Los Angeles. We bought a house with a big back yard mainly for them. The view of the mountains far in the distance was most pleasing and all the space with the five bedrooms meant that my older children and parents could all come and visit at the same time.

A long time has passed and we have come to accept the combination of Heaven and Hell. Somewhere in the middle there is Purgatory where non-profits and especially certain arts organizations seem to be stuck in these days. Well, that no longer is our concern. If they deserve to survive, let it be so, and if not, no tears will be shed. Times are difficult all over and although groups here are very hush-hush, everyone with a brain is aware of the dangers and even possible meltdowns lurking around the corner. I read today that the Philadelphia Orchestra will need $15 million in the next two years just to survive. This is an orchestra that represented the very best in the field when I was growing up, a far cry from a porkestra in some provincial hick town. Philadelphia used to be a place where the truly well-to-do people of the Northeast lived and it is hard to believe there still wouldn't be plenty of money around. The combination of sky-high salaries and expensive new performing centers has proven a lethal combination in many cities. A great part of the housing market collapse was also caused by people who wanted to live beyond their means. A home is supposed to be a home, not a palace, unless money is no object and one is the ruler of the land. In my childhood we lived in a mansion nine months out of the year but in a humble cottage for the long summer vacation. Although it was fun practicing the violin in a living room the size of a small hall, my fondest memories are from the primitive summer home which at the time didn't even have electricity, not to mention running water.

The Pacific Northwest, at least in its arts, is the place for three R's: our artistic "heroes" are often Retired, Rejected or Retarded. This part of the globe is a nice place to retire but why can't all those alte kackers just enjoy their golden years? Instead they want to be in charge of something a younger and more energetic person with fresh ideas would do much better. Of, course, old age occurs at different times: someone at 50 may be ready to retire and another can go past 60 with ease. True, there may be wisdom in years, but also senility. "Rejected" refers to people who have tried to make it elsewhere but have been kicked out of their other more high profile jobs. That might include an instrumentalist fired for obnoxious behavior, not to mention declined skill level, or even a conductor whose previous many simultaneous contracts have not been renewed. For a reason not clear to me, this part of the country has a tendency to elevate such people, praising their accomplishments. My category of "Retarded" refers to people who have little interest in anything other than their narrow field of classical music and more specifically the instrument they play. I met plenty of these folks in the studios of Los Angeles. I called them MMFW, for Money, Music, Food and Wine. I had very little in common with them. Money doesn't really interest me; I see it more as a necessary evil. Music is but a fraction of my world, although something I am rather good at. Talking about food and wine is like discussing gasoline. Of course there were "misfits" with whom I felt at ease with. The excellent violinist Israel Baker was one of them. All the numerous times we conversed, music was not discussed, everything from technology to recent scientific discoveries was.

One unwritten rule existed in the studios back then: during breaks no playing was allowed. The ears deserved a rest. I was pained to find out that in an orchestra setup there are people who can't put their instruments down and who endlessly, from day to day, play each others' fiddles and try their bows, posing as the greatest experts on the planet. One time an eager beaver had opened my case and was trying my violin without permission. That qualifies them in the last R-rated category, as do "artists" who tote Frank Sinatra's autobiography in their bag, assuming it's worth the Nobel Prize in literature or at least a Pulitzer (assuming they have heard of this prize). The question is does this kind of trash put them ahead of the others whose reading material consists of mail-order catalogs? Help, where is my Kafka or at least an issue of Scientific American?!

illustration by Talvi

Numerology

Yesterday was 09.09.09, the last repeating single-number date for a thousand years. As usual, there were many expecting this world to come to an end. In China the digit "9" is a good omen, to the point that an emperor long time ago supposedly had 9,999 rooms built in his palace. In nearby Japan the number means bad luck and is often omitted in hotel rooms and such. Only "4" is worse, symbolizing death and doom. Years ago one of our country's airlines flying to the Far East was advertizing special fares with a toll free number 800-444-4444 and they couldn't figure out why the phone didn't ring off the hook. One should check with local customs and superstition, or just ask a native which GM failed to do when marketing a Chevy Nova car to Latin America. Although the company has tried to deny this, I don't think that "no go" as a name is a good selling point.

We have plenty of different groups deeply involved in the meaning of numbers. The Chabad movement within Judaism often tries to explain matters with numeric help. In Hebrew, the alphabet or alefbet have also numerical values, somewhat similarly as the Romans used I, V, X, L, C, D and M to represent numbers. Especially mystic Judaism finds hidden meanings in the numerical values of words. Likewise, as mentioned before, Asian cultures give a lot of importance to numbers. The Beijing Olympics opened on 08.08.08: "888" means three times the prosperity, "wealthy wealthy wealthy".

Science behind numbers would be useful in our society today. Some financial "geniuses" thought they had it all figured out and computer programs made hedge funds seemingly wealthier by the minute. That might have been the case until the house of cards collapsed a year ago. Global economy took a terrible hit and although there are recent signs of modest recovery, the number of unemployed remains record high and property values record low. We recently received our property tax assessment for next year and it was 25% lower than previously. Other people I've talked to tell of similar stories. In this city and county, property tax income is the main source of funding for schools and many other expenses. Washington doesn't have state income tax so it relies on sales tax. People are buying a lot less than before and actually saving these days instead of spending more than their disposable income as was the case for some years. Property can no longer be used as a personal piggy bank. Many people owe far more on their houses in mortgages and home equity loans than those properties are worth today.

Non-profits are feeling this pinch. Services for the less fortunate are suffering, such as food banks. In a "socialist" system which we seem to fear more than death, the system steps in and people are fed and sheltered, without the need for private donations. Here more and more of the poor have to go hungry, children among them. In this context the cries for help by elitist arts organizations seem ridiculous. Classical music or ballet will not fill an empty stomach. I am not saying that preserving the arts isn't important, but there has to be a proper order of priorities. We could easily live for a year or two without a symphony orchestra or an opera company. Music wouldn't die: everything is readily available on both audio and video recordings. The well-to-do snobs could have different events where the ladies could show off their latest wardrobes. Perhaps these gatherings could serve as functions to collect funds for the needs of the poor and suffering, not to fatten the wallets of conductors and such.

A provincial opera house is advertising discounts which are greater by each additional production one subscribes to. Three shows are 30% off, four 40%. With this logic the Metropolitan in New York would have free subscriptions for ten productions and they would actually pay the subscriber for the eleventh. An orchestra, having already lowered their ticket prices, is giving 20% discounts to American Express cardholders. Other groups have totally free concerts and other performances, in some cases projected onto giant screens outdoors. While this may create interest in the performing arts, it is a lousy business model. Once people get used to the idea of getting something for free, they will be reluctant to pay for it in the future. Arts organizations will become increasingly dependent on wealthy donors and even their ranks are thinning out. A matching grant becomes a reality at the last moment with an involvement of an E.T., extra-terrestrial. That's all fine and a figurehead's face is thus saved, but don't call the organization a product of civic pride. It would be more appropriate to give it a name of the Godfather: so-and-so's orchestra, opera, or ballet. Leave out the city and call the institution by the name of the benefactor. This has been done in the past so why not today? There is no 'Baltimore" in Johns Hopkins University, or "New York" in Carnegie Hall, after all.

If ticket income becomes a non-issue, more money would be saved if no such tickets need be printed and events wouldn't have to be advertised. In the winter time auditoriums could double as shelters from the cold and in the summer from the heat. Offer free ear plugs to those which classical music makes feel ill, or in fairness, play Country or Hip-Hop every so often. During my youth in Philadelphia there were movie theaters in poor areas that featured old Westerns. For a quarter you could sit in an air-conditioned space for two different movies. The theaters got their reels for nothing and provided the impoverished population an important social service at low cost.

I wish I could be a clairvoyant and see what this society will be like in a decade. On the other hand, perhaps it is a blessing I can't.

Health and Old Age

It is not often that I've had the luxury of traveling just for fun and relaxation. Too frequently the mandatory violin case has accompanied me and those few 'vacations' with younger children were in part an obligation to visit my parents and thus their grandparents. This summer I decided to take a little time off and fly to Finland on Icelandair's new route via Reykjavik and spend a few days in Iceland, a country often present in my dreams since childhood, during our return. My only remaining 'child', a young lady soon to be 17, accompanied me; this was her second visit to her second home country over the summer. It was bittersweet to see my aging dad but at least we had some nice and memorable moments together. At 98 life is approaching its end; there is precious little we can do about it.

With all the outright violent town meetings over President Obama's health care plans most Europeans are shaking their heads in disbelief. Yes, they pay high taxes but care for the sick and old and, most importantly, preventive care for children and grown-ups alike is a value no one would be willing to give up. No system is perfect and it is true that in the European model sometimes one has to wait for elective surgery. At least all the money spent on the system isn't aimed at making health insurance companies, their CEOs and hospitals rich. A healthy person is no expense to the state and there are no premiums to pay. Yes, if you want your knee or hip operation in a hurry, you can opt to go the private route. Even then the system reimburses you but only to a limited amount. Emergencies are taken care of immediately at almost no cost to the patient. Excellent prenatal care results in much lower infant mortality than here.

I was thinking about how lucky my father is, being cared for so well in an assisted care facility. He has a little 'apartment' of his own and the kind nurses feed and bathe him as he's too weak to do so by himself. The cost for this is a fixed percentage of his net income: he pays more than most as his pension is so high, but someone less well off will receive exactly the same level of care, just for less. We socialize banks but fear the idea of such principles in medicine. The Europeans are equally capitalist in their daily affairs as we are, just not when health and education are in question. So, I'm ever so grateful that my dad is well taken care of and the quality of this does not depend on his savings and investments.

It was sad to hear about Teddy Kennedy's untimely death. Surely we all knew about his grave condition and dire prognosis but Michael Jackson's addiction-related death was much more interesting a topic. I could almost sense a slant in media's reporting, to remove people's attention from a truly serious matter in favor of tabloid journalism. Senator Kennedy was trying for decades to make our citizens realize that health care for all was but an illusion. With so many unemployed losing their benefits we are indeed ill-equipped to face a possible swine flu pandemic. The only source for many to receive medical attention is through an emergency room. Tens of millions people with no insurance would result in a chaotic scene should a pandemic happen. People blindly think that they have nothing to worry about as they have health coverage through their employers. But what happens when they fall ill with a long-term or eventually terminal sickness? They will not in many cases be able to continue working and they are forced to temporarily continue their coverage under a Cobra plan (if they can afford it as it is the ultimate rip-off). Once that avenue has been exhausted no insurance company is going to cover them with a pre-existing serious condition. After all, an insurance company's sole purpose is to turn a profit, not to help the sick. If anyone can claim otherwise, I'd be the first one wanting to hear about it. We talk about the importance of having a choice, but what if the choice turns out to be between getting a doctor's help or being turned away? Interestingly a majority of people with illness-caused bankruptcies were initially insured and under the false impression that they were invincible. Threatening the loss of medical benefits as a 'punishment' is another scenario, one that I'm well familiar with.

Just like the housing bubble had to burst, we indeed have a health care bubble and one in education as well. If a person has accumulated almost $200k in loans for a basic Bachelor's degree, what kind of a mess is he/she going to be in if it is necessary to continue in higher education as so often is expected and required today? People are so naive to think that education's quality is somehow related to a high tuition. The state school back home isn't good enough: why not drive over the state line to another's similar institution and pay out-of-state rates? Are we stupid in this regard or what? Back in Scandinavia where studying is free and students actually get a monthly stipend to live on, a study calculated the point when a plumber, a nurse and a doctor would break even. The plumber was ready to retire before the doctor had caught up with his total earnings; the nurse was somewhere in the middle. This is in a system where huge student loans simply don't exist. What would happen in America if medical school would be paid by federal or state government but in turn doctors would be much more affordable since they wouldn't have huge loans to pay back? An expensive, fancy wedding doesn't guarantee a happy marriage. Ours cost a grand total of $200 and we'll be celebrating 25 years in a couple days. That was a smart investment in my book.

I'm writing this while flying over the Arctic. Yes, the climate change is obvious: Greenland's formerly pristine ice and snow has a number of blue lakes visible as a result of melting. It looks interesting and even beautiful, the blue against the white, but the polar bears and other Arctic animals must be in trouble. However, evidence shows that a very long time ago Greenland was tropical or at least thickly forested. As the Earth's magnetic field keeps on weakening, we are bombarded by more radiation from the sun. It has to have an effect on our climate, so perhaps man-made greenhouse gases are not the only culprit. It is possible that our Earth is getting ready for a reversal of magnetic poles. With the Sun this happens regularly every eleven years. In our planet's case such a switch doesn't take place regularly or frequently but we know this has happened numerous times in our Earth's history. I'd love to read a good study on this subject, regarding climate.

So, no more SAS flights between Copenhagen and Seattle as of a month ago. I first came over on one in 1967. This Reykjavik route is fast, even though the 757s are smaller than the jumbos we have been used to. Iceland makes a fascinating stop-over but that's a topic for another story. And yes, they firmly believe in universal health care and education, in spite of last year's economic collapse that hurt them unusually hard. Vikings might have been fierce warriors at one time, but deep inside they must have valued life as a basic right for all.

Sharing a book with my dad Veikko Talvi

Little and not-so-little Piggies

In the middle of a record-breaking heat wave of the Pacific Northwest the three of us, my wife, our youngest one and I, set out to drive towards the Canadian border early in the morning. Our older daughter was giving a presentation of her research in Bellingham at Western Washington University, as a final requirement for her M.Ed. degree. We are fortunate to live so close: in light traffic the trip takes only an hour and a half. This also means that during her four years there we have been able to see each other on a regular basis, not so common with most families these days. Anna has been on a fast track: the presentation took place six days after her 22nd birthday. It will be another three weeks until the actual graduation which both Sarah and I will have to miss. We have decided to try Icelandair's new route to Seattle and fly to Finland for a quick visit (my daughter's second one this summer), to see my 98-year-old dad one more time. On the way back we'll take a mini-vacation in Reykjavík as Iceland is a place we both are fascinated by.

Every parent tries his or her best raising children, or at least they believe so. One's cultural background has a lot to do with it. Anna has praised us for our hands-off care. Perhaps it has something to do with the way children grow up in my home country. It is the total opposite of some Asian country where parents think that a child needs guidance 24/7. In South Korea schoolchildren spend enormously long days in school followed by after-school classes. Yet both countries score about the same, as they are on top of the global achievement list. If I were Korean, I probably would think theirs was the only way, but I cannot pretend to be what I'm not. My wife Marjorie and I always wanted our children to find their own destinies. We had both been expected to endlessly play the violin in our youth, as if there were nothing else of importance in life. Some parents decide to raise their young as they themselves had been, others learned from their parents' mistakes. So our two girls were provided with a lot of love and a safe home environment. They knew if something was wrong: the word punishment never was in our vocabulary. No taking away privileges, no groundings or other limitations. The girls knew early on how much we trusted them and what was expected in return. They probably were some of the youngest ones around with their own credit cards, instead of allowances. Interestingly, money never became an issue, as from early on they never misused their financial freedom. Of course every child makes mistakes, just as grown-ups do, but those are important lessons in life. In the end, we have a young adult and a not-quite-yet 17-year-old who both get praise from everyone that they are in contact with, old and young alike. We are proud of their 4.0 GPAs, Student-of-the-Year and other awards, but most importantly of the love and warmth they both radiate.

As teachers, we have seen all kinds of children-parent interactions. There have been many cases where a mother or a father has decided to live her/his dreams through the child. Of course it is important that a parent is a supporting force behind a young musician, especially when the child is young and doesn't quite understand the meaning of diligent practice. But the will to work and excel in music has to come from the child, and an overbearing parent does much more harm than good. A time comes when the growing offspring will need to try how well his own wings will carry him, be it in music or any other area. Of course many parents follow along simply because the child still needs help getting here. I took public transit to my piano lessons before starting elementary school, but of course the time and place were different. And I rather see the student arrive here safely, instead of wanting to show off his two-week-old driving permit. Besides, most parents have been really wonderful and incredible, although I often have to remind my spouse that it is the children we teach, not the parents. An occasional bad apple shows up in the crop but then the relationship soon sours and off they go, to become someone else's headache.

At college level the parents are usually no longer a part of the equation. At most they might be present when the student performs, plays a recital or other solo. But young adults, insecure as they might seem during their freshman year, no longer need the same support system. A teacher easily becomes a parent figure, especially when lessons are on one-to-one basis. The 18-year-old may be shy at first but will soon realize there is nothing to be scared of. If the chemistry is right, both parties benefit from it. At least I have always felt that I learn in the teaching process at least as much as the student does. Show an interest in a young person as an individual, not just as a musician, and she/he rewards you with hard work and rapid progress. Someone looking at the clock tick will of course not be so fortunate. A snob or a slacker will soon get a reputation as such.

There was a time when someone with money could buy his offspring a good education and even a career. In today's financial climate the danger of this is lurking around the corner. A school will accept a student based on his parents' ability to pay full tuition, rather than merit. So far, at least in music, the leading institutions have kept their standards. A young "star" from the Wild West may not cut the mustard, no matter how much pressure is put on the institution. Instead, an unlikely youngster will get in, as he/she deserves it. To rewrite an old rhyme:

This little piggy went to Curtis
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy got to Juilliard
This little piggy didn't make it
This little piggy cried "Daddy you promised"
All the way home

photo of Anna Talvi with her Culmination Portfolio

Satan’s Siren Songs

The interpretation of Satan's role varies within Judeo-Christian religions. Alhough Christianity often compares Satan to the Devil, the opposing force of God, the Jewish Bible (or the Old Testament) and the Talmud portrays him as the Accuser (ha-Satan or השָׂטָן), or the Tempter. He is working for God, testing the strength of people's faith and morality, tempting them to sin. Bulgakov's famous "Master and Margarita" is based on this theme. Although in Genesis Devil takes the form of a serpent in the paradise, not generally regarded as a pretty creature, in other biblical passages Satan is described as the most beautiful of God's angels, powerful enough to have other angels follow him and supposedly desiring to replace God. Many stories tell of the fallen angels being cast down from heaven, Satan as their leader. The temptation of Christ mentions Devil as the tempter of Jesus in the desert in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew but Satan in the Gospel of Mark. None of us can deny the existence of evil as it surrounds us constantly, yet I for one wouldn't call it Satan's work.

It is interesting that we are told of God being omnipotent and yet at the same time some writings, held sacred, admit that there is a constant war between God and Evil. The Jewish faith generally believes in demons, king of whom is often mentioned as Asmodai or (אשמדאי). According to some writing he was married to Lilith (Lilli or similar names), his queen. He is overseer of gambling, prince of revenge and demon of lust. He is also one of the seven princes of hell and has seventy-two legions of demons in his command. Some tales claim Asmodai is the same as Satan but in general Satan's role is quite different as he is only supposed to act with the permission of God. Among many interesting items in Derfner Judaica Museum in the Bronx there is a deck of old playing cards from the 1920s Palestine, having pomegranates, stars of David, fig leaves and menorahs replace the usual suits. Asmodai is also pictured, as the Joker.

We are seeing an increase of anti-Semitism these days, both globally and here in the States. Neo-Nazi sites are all over the internet and the Aryan Nation flexes its muscle whenever it can. Not that Americans are strangers with this: it is not that long ago when Jews couldn't join clubs or even rent a room in many hotels ("Hebrews are not welcome"). In 1939 Cuba turned back a German ship, St. Louis, full of Jewish refugees heading for Havana, letting in only 22 Jews, those with visas. Those almost a thousand people then slowly sailed towards Miami and saw the lights of the city but weren't allowed to disembark. Western Europe finally accepted most of them but with the swift invasion of the Third Reich, 532 were trapped and of those 254 died.

Part of this raw emotion is understandable, disgusting as it is, with the worsening economic crisis and seeing so many Jewish names connected to failed institutions, not to mention the Jewish poster boy Bernie Madoff. Finding a scapegoat is a result of any crisis and pointing a finger at a certain ethnic group is easy. Muslims are treated even worse but it is because we associate them with 9/11 and terrorism in general. Jews, on the other hand, didn't improve as human beings with wealth and power. Gone is the humble piety of a poor person from the Pale. Today we more likely see a Jewish public figure that pretends to be religious only to have the support of the well-to-do community, has a lavish Bar or Bat Mitsvah for his offspring, and yet at the same time takes perverse pride in having a shiksa as a girlfriend or mistress.

We learned from Greek mythology about the deadly singing of the Sirens. Sailors couldn't resist their tempting voices and headed for their deaths. The famous anti-Semite Richard Wagner wrote some very seductive music which has brought music lovers, his intended victims, to his world in hoards. In many ways his music is that of the Sirens. The Nazis blasted it in the concentration camps so that it made the poor suffering souls even sicker before gassing them. The idea of praising a Nordic pagan religion in the Ring cycle should be revolting to Christians, but what about all the Jews who embrace the same music and ideology? Isn't the Jewish character of Mime enough of an insult? Granted, the music is very tempting at times, but do we have to give into an anti-Semite's plan any more than to fall for every seductive woman or man? We, in the West, haven't accepted the use of the swastika after the defeat of the Nazi party which stole the sacred symbol in its anti-clockwise form from India and other cultures. I would rather embrace the ornamental cross, which was never intended to cause harm, than the music of a dangerous but gifted maniac.

Is Wagner's music another test by Satan the tempter or is it a product of Asmodai the demon of lust? I don't have the answer to that but although I had to take part in numerous productions of the composer's operas, today I wouldn't be caught dead attending a performance. For reasons he never told me, my father deeply disliked Wagner's music, and thus I had very little exposure to it until much later. In my dad's situation, I think the music made him feel uneasy early on, even before Hitler's time. In any case he didn't fall for the seductive qualities of Wagner's works and genuinely hated the bombastic overtures and other such sections that he had heard. Never did his orchestra play any of the composer's music although other German music was to his liking, with the exception of Bruckner. He was a violinist after all, not a brass player, and I don't think there are too many of us who love endless tremolos.

May Israel's ban on Wagner's music remain in place in spite of the work to the contrary by some wonderful musicians, such as Barenboim. Perhaps they have given in to the lust, just like Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, formerly one of the strongest voices demanding the impeachment of President Clinton and his Monica. Take the operas to China: people there are accustomed to such stories. Ling cycle, anyone?

"Satan" by Gustave Doré
Palestine playing cards at Derfner, NY Times

Swine Lake

It is said that two of the most tragically memorable contributions of the United States joining the World Wars have been the use of nuclear bombs in the second one and the Spanish Flu pandemic in the first, traveling to Europe with American troops. Perhaps included should be the cluster bombing of German cities where people actually melted as they couldn't burn due to lack of oxygen. Those defending the atomic bomb rush to claim how many American deaths it avoided since peace was soon negotiated. If you were Japanese, you would feel differently as the victims were mainly civilians and died in many cases in inhumane pain. At the time we had no knowledge of the terrible misery radiation causes long-term. No doubt the destruction of German cities such as Dresden by the Allies was an act of revenge as London had suffered terribly in bombings earlier. One can argue that the killing of the millions of Jews, Gypsies and other unwanted in the concentration camps was a more horrendous act and thus we had the "right" to bring hell to earth in Germany. In my mind, all the terrible acts during these wars were equally senseless and criminal against humanity. The idea of testing cluster bombs was not an American invention as all sides to WWII used them but the firestorms of Dresden and Tokyo sound like a doomsday scenario dreamed up somewhere far away the both scenes.

Although the Spanish Flu of 1918-20, also known as the Spanish Disease, killed far more many people than the "Great War" itself, it soon disappeared from memory or at least from the news media. Perhaps it had been so horrible that people wanted to forget about it ever happening. For the longest time we did not even know that it was a flu virus and various different theories of its nature surfaced from time to time. It wasn't until some years ago when frozen bodies were exhumed in the far Arctic, such as Spitzbergen, that scientists were able to positively identify as a swine flu H1N1. Influenza in pigs is rather common but seldom mutates to a form that affects humans as well, although both Influenzavirus A and C can infect both species. New viruses usually develop in rural China where domestic animals and people often live under the same roof or at least in close contacts.

Here in the Pacific Northwest we just read about the second death of this new wave of swine flu. Although fingers have been pointed at pig farms in Mexico, near the U.S. border, the virus itself probably originated in the Far East but possibly mutated on this continent. The 1918 flu, according to some studies, started in Kansas, though again research believes that the origins were elsewhere. The disease only got the name "Spanish" because the country was the only one reporting on the illness as the country was neutral in WWI and its news were not censored. This present swine flu resembles the one nine decades ago in some eerie ways. Back then the first wave in March of 1918 was not particularly severe and fatalities were no higher than from a normal influenza. The second wave, obviously a mutation, hit in August of the same year in the U.S., France and parts of Africa and rapidly spread globally. Up to 50% of people were infected and mortality rate was between 2% and 20%, 20-200 times higher than from normal influenza which is a major killer itself, of mainly the very young and the elderly. Back then and now many of the victims have been of an atypical age, under 50. The Spanish flu seems to have killed by making our immune systems overreact as a cytokine storm. Victims often died within 24 hours. Back then we didn't have antiviral drugs or steroids to calm the body's immune reaction down, so it that sense the mortality rate in the advanced and rich nations would not be as high as in the past. Poor and/or geographically isolated nations would suffer the worst should this present virus mutate in a similar fashion.

In the worst-case scenario the world's economies would suffer another devastating blow. Would anyone rush to a place where there would be a large concentration of people under the same roof? Sports events would have to be canceled. The performing arts, already fighting for their lives, would meet a final blow as only a suicidal person would want to go to a show or concert of any kind. A Swan Lake would become a Swine Lake to drown in. Shopping malls might as well close their doors. Groceries could be delivered to the door and charged, to eliminate human-to-human contact. Schools would temporarily have to operate on the internet; not necessarily a bad choice. Many jobs could continue from people's homes but obviously not all. Travel by any form of mass transit would come to a halt: planes are known to spread pathogens fast with re-circulated air. Filters might catch bacteria but not viruses that are many magnitudes smaller.

As it stands now, I am not planning on any traveling later in the summer and certainly would not think of buying tickets for events from August on in advance. Yes, perhaps I'm being overly cautious, but so far being careful has served me well, such as in this financial chaos. I would have smelled a rat in a Madoff-type character from the beginning but then, I'm quite good in being able to recognize a sociopath. We were recently watching a Frontline special about said Mr. Madoff and his modus operandi. It amazes me how gullible people are: in their greed they will stop asking the simplest questions. If markets are down, how can a secretive finance "genius" get your investments a 20% return? Many people had warned about Madoff's Ponzi scheme and sent detailed information of numerous red flags to the Securities and Exchange Commission, to no avail. Perhaps people working for this government branch had all invested with Mr. Madoff, who knows. It was insulting to read in today's New York Times how investors are now demanding that the Securities Investor Protection Corporation come up with the money. We know what that ultimately would mean: we the taxpayers would have to compensate for the investors' blind greed. A simple rule applies to even the very rich: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

We have suffered from the financial swine flu and now it is time for the physical Porky's Revenge. I'm ready.

photo from Scientific American

Hormonal

Recently I was amazed by the speed and accuracy of a student zipping through the Finale of Mendelssohn's violin concerto. It also seemed extremely effortless. I had performed the same work in a pair of concerts a couple of months ago. In order for my old fingers to match the student tossing the work off I had to return to a drug which I was forced to use during my years of forced labor. My body has always responded to prednisone, a synthetic corticosteroid, in a way that makes it easy to understand why the headlines more than half a century ago read: Arthritis is a thing of the past. Just like heroin another five decades or so before had made pain miraculously disappear, this new hormone, hydrocortisone, made stiff joint flexible again. The lame were walking once more. It took time for people to understand why heroin was dangerous; it also was a while before the side effects of these steroids became known. But the substances have also become lifesavers in many critical conditions, something that wasn't obvious from the beginning.

In my case back then, I was feeling 250% better and once again could perform like I did as a youngster. Then I noticed a slow but steady gain in body weight, up to 35 pounds. The typical fat redistribution was evident and my face resembled a full moon. A visit to the eye doctor revealed a steroid-induced cataract, behind the lens. It was probably the most difficult decision in my life but I deemed it necessary to come off that miracle drug. Of course I couldn't do it cold turkey as I would have become one. With the introduction of artificial corticosteroids such as prednisone to the system, the production of cortisol by the adrenal cortex lessens and eventually disappears and the body has to be tricked back to starting its endocrine factory again. In my case, I remember it taking about six months. Every time I would lower my dosage even a tiny bit, life became hell. Finally I was at zero and the weight loss was rapid. Since then I have had to go back on the drug numerous times under stressful situations but always just for a short term. Even then coming off the wonder drug is a test of character. But the fat deposits are gone, I look like myself again and during my last eye exam the doctor couldn't find even a trace of the cataract that a previous eye surgeon had eagerly wanted to operate on.

Hormones are powerful chemicals indeed. My dad will be turning 98 in a month. The last four decades he has lived with prostate cancer which in this country would no doubt have been operated on or treated with radiation. He, however, has received tiny amounts of a hormone all this time and done well. Not everyone reacts to this form of treatment. My father's father died from the disease and my brother rushed to have his gland removed when there were signs of malignant cells in it.

Other hormones determine how we grow, metabolize sugars and fats, and how our internal clock ticks, among many other things. A pianist friend as a young woman was observed by her friends as playing her scales and everything else slower and slower. In her own view she was doing everything as usual, it was just that everyone else was acting manic. Someone got this woman to go visit a doctor (I believe she was in London at the time) and the lab results quickly showed that her thyroid was almost completely inactive. Synthetic hormones soon returned her life to normal, although the amount had to be carefully titrated, as is the case with insulin in diabetes. My own mother had the opposite problem when I was just three or four: she suffered from severe hyperthyroidism. Her gland was normal size and the doctors just called it 'toxic thyroid'. Medication to treat this condition was not yet available and the surgeon just decided to remove a half of her thyroid gland. It was kind of a radical approach but in her case it seemed to work, although we always wondered what effect it might have had for her numerous later health problems.

The hormones that most affect our daily lives don't often get any medical attention: our sex hormones. As important as they are for the continuity of the human species, they are also the source of much chaos and violence. Men with too high testosterone levels easily become sexual predators. This includes rapists and murderers, such as Ted Bundy, but also men who have managed to achieve the position of a boss or other forms of power. As such they are often shamelessly preying on the weaker ones. They may be CEOs, members of the clergy or law enforcement, or in my field, orchestra conductors, executive directors or even critics. Among conductors, it would be easier to name those who haven't used their position to demand sexual favors as this is considered 'normal' behavior. Their terrible deeds often remain hidden or are covered by other powerful people, although I do remember hearing about a case long ago where a 'done deal' quickly unraveled in Utah. The excess level of hormones was too much for the Mormons (hey, it rhymes!) once they learned the facts. Instead, a decent Mensch was elected to the post. Some baton wielders' actions become public knowledge in Wikipedia or gossip publications, others' adventures are suppressed with the help of people in high places, the same ones that make blog entries disappear from search engines. Someone with a sharp tongue once remarked (pardon the language) that such an oversexed macho man thinks hormones means and is spelled whore moans. This is another reason why all of us should be educated, even in the skill of spelling.

They may be tiny molecules but let us not belittle the mighty hormones. They can both help us live and make us die. They even seem to have a place in the arts, be it good or bad.

Shattered Plans

Spring seems to have arrived finally but not in people's hearts this year. The country, and the world as a result, are in a mess. An executive of Freddie Mac commits suicide. Our new administration, trying to fulfill some of the election promises, has let us peak into torture practices of the CIA which are like from the handbook of the Third Reich, KGB or the Communist China during the Cultural Revolution. Today's youth is going to be less educated than their parents as lack of public funding has closed the doors to public (and theoretically affordable) colleges for all but the best students. With money, non-achievers can get to fancy schools, just like our former President did, but where are the vast majority of high school graduates to go? What about all those who don't get even that far? If people with degrees cannot find jobs, it can only be worse for the rest.

Our health care system is a disgrace. People who have coverage through their employed don't stop to think about what will happen when their jobs are terminated. Companies and non-profits use this threat to blackmail their employees, as I personally well know. In the news a couple days ago we read about a couple in Texas who are unable to find insurance to cover their son with testicular cancer. The system might take care of him once the parents are literally bankrupt, that is if he survives that long. I don't quite understand why this tragic story appeared in a newspaper's Entertainment section. Too much reality tv? Yet certain people foolishly feel that none of this hardship will ever touch them. They feel entitled to a certain lifestyle with no worries. It is time for those folks to wake up. The business or non-profit probably is not on such sure footing the employees imagine. In my field, performing arts and education, age-old organizations are in deep trouble. In many places this is talked openly about, other places are tight-lipped, perhaps to protect a lame-duck figurehead. Mr. Salonen just conducted his final Los Angeles concert and I bet he's happy to be leaving while the ship is still afloat. Unfortunately the financial situation in his next destination, London, is hardly enviable.

Silence may be golden, but the old saying what you don't know can't harm you doesn't hold water today. Members in a provincial orchestra may be great in their imagination but in truth, very few if any would find employment elsewhere should the house of cards collapse. I was watching and listening to four members of the Berlin Philharmonic performing Schumann's Konzerstück for four horns the other day, from the orchestra's concert archives. The three men and one (American) woman played splendidly. There were no big egos present (more than what is normal for a hornist) and yet each of the musicians played rings around a typical American principal. Most amazing part was how well they blended together. Talk about teamwork! Yes, they were still younger than some people here tooting their horn (literally) and thus age hadn't left its imprint in their sound and technical capability. Later this season, in June, Berlin's incredible principal flautist Emmaunuel Pahud is playing a solo which I cannot miss. I am not crazy about Elliott Carter's music but it will do in this case. A senior flute player here in this country can claim that he is in better shape than ever but we all know that is utter nonsense. One's rhythmical errors don't correct themselves with ripe old age, the frequent source of complaints by guest conductors about a house flautist in a far-away place. String players may see themselves as God's gifts to the world, but place them next to a recent Curtis or Juilliard graduate in an audition behind a screen and the greatness will turn into embarrassment. They don't know how lucky they are for having won a position when they did. Of course, not every orchestra is a Berlin, but since supply here far outnumbers demand, the competition is tough.

Businesses and non-profits alike have often made grandiose plans which in the current crisis have had to be downsized or entirely scrapped. The unexpected happens and things get out of hand, as the cartoon illustration of Porky Trumpet tells. The smart move is of course to act immediately, before matters get really bad, just to be safe. It is better for a ballet or dance company to scrap their orchestra instead of reducing the number of dancers. They rehearse to a recording and probably will perform best to the same canned music. A compact disc or digital file on a hard disk doesn't have components that call in sick or get lost during a show. They save a conductor's salary as well. The money will be better spent for understudies or multiple casts as dancers inevitably tend to get injured in an art form that is grueling to one's feet. Opera is the least cost-effective form of performing arts. The New York City Opera recently announced that it had spent most of its endowment just to survive. Yet some other groups seem not to have a worry in the world as they are planning more expensive productions than ever. One mustn't forget how the chairman of one of the fallen investment banks bragged on the company website about their financial stability just days before its collapse!

America's best orchestras have generally put their previously frequent overseas tours on ice as the sponsorship isn't there. Regional orchestras are performing often with fewer rehearsals to save money, a practice common in Britain. That used to be the case here with Pops programs, an orchestra's cash cow, but lately a big name soloist may come to play a show and there is time for only one run-through that morning. A critical listener would immediately sense this and feel cheated, but today's audiences, especially in a papered hall, are blissfully ignorant. Orchestras often sponsor other events, such as recitals and chamber music concerts. The former will not fill barn-size auditoriums and even with free tickets the upper tiers are off-limits as otherwise the house would look empty. Is it better to put a visiting and supposedly expensive string quartet in a small auditorium of 500 and claim the event was sold out? An organization simply cannot charge the kind of ticket prices it would need to break even.

Musicians feel the same entitlement as members of the UAW and don't want to even think about pay cuts and lesser benefits. If the survival of GM is questionable under the existing system, workers have to come to terms with facts. Why musicians feel that they are immune to the market beats me. After all, everyone needs transportation, but music is mere entertainment and a luxury we could well do without. That's All Folks!

Porky Pig (Warner Bros)

Easter 2009

Today is the High Holiday for Christians, the most important day of the year, Easter. Even to those who don't agree with Jesus having been the promised Messiah, the day should be a reminder that there is life after death. It should also remind us that those who were killed unnecessarily, for their good deeds rather than sins, but who did not agree with whims of the ruling class, did not die in vain. There have been so many martyrs, some who are remembered but most forgotten. Even if we don't know about them, collectively they have helped mankind and humanity to make progress. This has been slow, for sure, but at least the direction is correct.

In addition to individual human beings, Easter should bring hope to organizations that have died or are about to. Perhaps the important humanitarian non-profit group that has had to fold due to lack of funding will one day be reborn and continue its mission. Businesses we shouldn't worry about, as they exist only for a demand that is there. Who cares if a bank goes under as there are healthier ones ready to take over. Yes, investors may lose money, sometimes a lot, but one shouldn't forget that they initially bought stock out of hope of making a handsome profit. Many would call it greed or gambling. There is nothing noble about the latter as people either win or lose.

If an arts organization suffers and dies or is forced to shrink its operations, again one should not grieve. It is a supply and demand situation, too. There is nothing sacred about an orchestra or a theater. Yes, art in all forms should be valued and treasured, but when people in such an organization have become so greedy that their demands cannot be supported by the society, it is time to wipe the slate clean and start again, more modestly this time.

We fear the word "socialism" in our system, although some 70-80 years ago the tone was very different. Across the Atlantic, countries have generally taken a different direction. Often their most conservative parties seem far more left-wing than our extreme liberals. Nobody over there would question a citizen's right to health care or education, for instance. We should be lucky enough to enjoy such different values instead of fearing them. Yes, they do appreciate the arts, too, but also educate their young people in them. Support comes almost entirely from the system. Opera houses and concert halls don't carry names of the very wealthy and usually the boards which are responsible for running these organizations consist of knowledgeable people, not totally ignorant but rich people.

Florida with its Madoff-type and also more honest super-wealthy class is an excellent example of what is wrong with our system. That state has no shortage of philanthropists. It has probably more fancy auditoriums than other places, yet it has no orchestras or other such groups for the performing arts to speak of. A training orchestra hardly counts. Instead of paying for musicians and other artists, it is more important that the donors have their names engraved in the marble of large dominating buildings. It is easy to fly in groups from the outside. Yes, the Cleveland orchestra probably sounds better than a local orchestra would, but for an audience with hearing aids and very limited knowledge of music to start with, I don't think it would matter. But the well-to-do are aware that Cleveland and other such groups are world famous and therefore they are getting "the best" for their money. Following that thought process the entire country could get rid of its provincial arts groups and the very best could serve us all, traveling from one city to another. We don't need twenty subscription concerts a year plus a number of others. Why not make every performance special, worth fighting for a ticket? Or should we follow in the footsteps of the Metropolitan Opera and Berlin Philharmonic and attend high definition format concerts and other performances either in movie theaters or at home? We could see and hear a lot better for one things and, in case of opera, the subtitles would be easier to read that the supertitles high above the stage. One would also have the option of turning them off. For a person like me this choice would be a no-brainer.

But let's go back to this holy week of Easter and Pesach. More and more Christian congregations are celebrating Passover as we all share the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible. My wife and I played two performances of the Fauré Requiem on Good Friday in a church. Between the beautiful services there was dinner served for the choir and the orchestra, mainly leftovers from their Seder. One had to be a bit careful with what to put on the plate (even shrimp was present) but we managed fine. We had fifteen people at our own Seder, but Anna, our oldest, had a third Seder for her friends in Bellingham and had eighteen participants at her house there. The second one was at her Hillel with a larger crowd. Marjorie is probably dreaming about bread by now but I could probably go on indefinitely as long as my wife's absolutely delicious matzo ball soup was available. I never get tired of macaroons, either.

It has been a long time since the Exodus. With all recent news I sometimes wonder if the Hebrews are attempting a reversal and want to return to the Pharaoh. Why wait for the Red Sea to part when one can conveniently wipe out the Gaza Strip? There must be enough snobs in Cairo to fill a concert hall. We could help with building the orchestra by sending a few string players and a couple of tooters, in addition to a conductor. Some of the Madoff fortune must be still there hidden somewhere and since he is behind bars (reportedly unhappily so), he would probably be delighted to lend his name and give some financial assistance to the group. Move over West-Eastern Divan, this is the Bernard Madoff North-Southern Diva World Class Band.

Easter Lily

The Hearse Corporation

Death is an inevitable part of the cycle of life. Animals, humans included, have a limited life span, but at least we can in most cases create the next generation and thus our lives continue. With four daughters, all of whom except for one all have grown up (the remaining one soon will) and a couple of grandchildren, my life's main purpose is over and done with. And unlike many others, I can be proud of what I have produced, although of course it hasn't happened without the help of another person. Unlike former President Bush I can truly declare "Mission Accomplished".

We live in a time when there is an epidemic fatal illness affecting institutions, jobs and businesses. It is as if the dreaded Spanish Flu and the Plague have returned, this time not attacking people directly but the very fabric of our society. Casualties are already many and increasing by the day. Of course there are those whose lives are not yet in jeopardy and others who don't admit that their AIDS is full-blown, no longer a worrisome infection of HIV. Some can be kept alive artificially but most will succumb sooner or later (read sooner). Yes, the organizations can resemble a giant tortoise or some long-living avian species but they can also be similar to a mouse or even a dragonfly. A museum or an ancient library could be compared to a tree that can live seemingly forever.

Today marks the last issue of a local Seattle newspaper. The Hearst Corporation has become the Hearse Corporation. The death of the Seattle P.I. (where the P stood for "Post" but now means "Past") could be followed by others, such as the once-mighty San Francisco Chronicle. Perhaps the time for the printed media is approaching its end. Just about everything you read today was available on the radio, television or the web already a day before. Nobody really is interested in yesterday's news. Yes, there remains the backbone of great newspapers, investigative journalism, but today's average person has a very short attention span and doesn't really care for anything surpassing 300 words. In general, the shorter the information, the better. Today's tech-savvy person seems to prefer the 160 mark limit of a text message to a slightly longer but more detailed email. With the limited length, spelling and grammar have gone out of existence and the resulting texting lingo has created a language, or gibberish, of its own. Thus reading through a long investigative report is too much to ask for most readers and if they attempt to see what the story is about, the headline is read and perhaps the first two or three paragraphs.

Will I miss this paper? Yes and no. On one hand they have done a great service to the local community by exposing numerous scandals and outright criminal activity in local politics and even in law enforcement. They have had a terrific managing editor. Some of the columnists have been excellent. Yet the paper has at the same time kept a few totally inept and thoroughly corrupt people on payroll, especially in areas that were close to me. These "reporters" have shamelessly promoted like-minded people and friends of theirs, essentially wanting to decide who was to survive and succeed. Objectivity was never thought of. I told my wife years ago just to wait patiently as the paper, as we knew it, would be history. She thinks I may be a clairvoyant, as most of my predictions have already materialized, including the present financial mess which I saw coming quite a while ago. I am not overly optimistic a person but not a true pessimist either, rather a realist. The P.I. will continue on the web, just as the excellent Christian Science Monitor will after they soon cease their print edition. However, the competition will be fierce from other such publications and blogs.

The practice of art criticism is rapidly disappearing. There is a thought-provoking article by David Hajdu in the January-February issue of Columbia Journalism Review, titled Condition critical: can arts critics survive the poison pill of consumerism? This link will take to one of the many reprints available on the web. Warning: you need to read more than the first two paragraphs. Other than an occasional issue of the New York Times, the "Arts" section (having in most papers been renamed "Entertainment") has at most one or two reviews or articles about "classic" arts. The pages are full of popular culture which in my humble opinion has very little to do with art. Entertainment is a better description, to most people. But even then I doubt the demand for such topics is there. The audiences know what they like and buy the tickets and support their idols totally independently of any press coverage. The opinion has also long been that if a critic praises something, it is a good reason to stay away from the film or show. Just recently in my home country a new film was ridiculed by the leading paper. The producers took out a whole page ad, printing the worst parts of the review, using this method of reverse psychology to their advantage. After all, how many real success stories at the box office have received raves from the media?

Today's news via the web also tells about the Baltimore Opera filing for Chapter 7. Another article speculates which group in that city will be next to fall. The Baltimore Symphony is mentioned in this context. At least people are openly talking about the grim situation, unlike here, where silence seems to be golden and the topic is next to taboo. There was an item recently in the surviving daily revealing that donations have dropped up to 50%. The local tabloids have been a bit more vocal, bringing attention to a struggling group in a nearby city which, with help from Down Under, seems indeed to be going down under. From back home, a surprising news item just surfaced. The Finnish National Opera (which in the European fashion also includes a ballet company), long a black sheep because of their financial struggles, actually turned up a profit of around $1.5 million last year. This was a result of careful cost cutting much before the current fiscal mess, and also smart programming. The ticket sales have been at an enviable 87% and instead of international (=expensive) superstars the company has relied on the vast talent pool the country has to offer. Nobody knows what kind of figures this year will bring, of course, but if the balance sheet stays in the black, perhaps they have a model the rest of us could emulate.

An entertaining review of the Czech Chamber Philharmonic was picked up by a search engine. This one comes from Lebanon of all the places (I didn't know the country was safe enough to have concerts) and was published in the Daily Star. This is a prime example of writing which results in the reader actually witnessing the event. Enjoy!

Missing Notes

Every musician knows how difficult, and also expensive, it is to get hold of sheet music these days. Major cities may have a music store with some standard literature in stock but if one is after something rarer, mail order is generally the obvious solution. Another option is a public or university library and the help of a copy machine, illegal as it may be for works still under copyright. Amazon.com may be able to send a book to your door in a day or two but getting hold of a few sheets of music published overseas may mean a waiting period of weeks or even months. Much is simply impossible to obtain. I have three all-in-ones, the largest of which handles 11 by 17 inches, for the out-of-print and fragile pieces. Sheet music is seldom letter sized and especially older copies from early 1900s are gigantic in size.

To someone teaching music the availability problem is even more acute. I generally recommend getting all available CD Sheet Music discs, including orchestra repertoire for those taking auditions or interested in having a clean copy. Granted, many of the scans have mistakes and resemble old Kalmus editions, but they are convenient and priceless when a student needs a quick copy. And the CDs are surprisingly affordable and a good backup even when one owns the actual printed version.

Publishers are not necessarily honest folks. The popular Barbara Barber Solos for Young Violinists series had five pages missing in volume 6 until recently, as the Vivaldi-Respighi Sonata in D was in her audio recording but not in the printed form, probably stemming from copyright issues. Then the composition all of a sudden showed up in new shipments. Surely all the old stock was returned to the publisher so that every new purchase would include the work. Wrong. Except for a few online sources every sheet music dealer was trying to get rid of their old stock even if the buyer had specifically requested that the newest edition be sent. Another example: all the recent copies of the "other" Barber, Samuel B's Violin Concerto have notes missing on the next to the last page in the solo part. There must have been a piece of paper stuck on the plate or during the digitizing process as the identical fault appears in every copy. The publisher surely must know of this defect but doesn't have enough self-respect to pull back the edition and reissue correct parts. I am tired of writing in the missing notes after having done so too many times. Now I have a stack of copies of the page to give out, to be glued or taped over the faulty page.

That Samuel Barber concerto is an interesting composition. As it is to this day rather unknown in Europe, I didn't grow up playing or even listening to it. Yet it is a wonderfully beautiful piece of music, especially the two first movements which the composer intended as the entire work. The perpetual motion last movement was added later as violinists refused to perform a concerto lacking fireworks for a standing ovation. In my opinion the work makes an ideal concerto for a student to learn. The first two movements are technically rather easy, yet full of unexpected harmonies and thus good for intonation. The second movement calls for an advanced bow control and vibrato to sound the way it ought to. And the add-on last movement is really not that difficult, more like an etude. Yes, there are four or five nastier passages in it, but all in all a good student will learn it quickly. As a matter of fact, the Barber concerto is one of the few works where the accompaniment is harder to pull off than the solo part. Or perhaps I have had the misfortune of having played the orchestra part with conductors that haven't been up to the task. Accompanying is an art form of its own, after all.

Teaching gives an instrumentalist an opportunity to revisit old friends. I have recently enjoyed helping someone with Wieniawski's First Concerto in F sharp minor. I remember the time I had to learn it in my teens. My teacher told me that there were two concertos in that key, both having the reputation of being the most difficult ever composed, and he wanted me to learn and perform each of them. The other one was by Ernst who probably wrote his own first, and Wieniawski decided to answer with a work of equal difficulty. I can't tell which is harder. Ernst seems totally impossible at times but Wieniawski is longer and has three movements, although the slow one is short and by no means as well developed as the gorgeous Romance of his Second Concerto. The latter is as beautiful as his Légende which was written after Isabella Hampton's parents wouldn't let him marry their daughter. After hearing the piece they quickly changed their minds and Wieniawski got the young woman he loved. I have a habit of asking a student to play scales in the same key as the concerto or other major composition he/she is working on. F sharp minor is about as difficult in this respect as it gets, especially when both melodic and harmonic varieties are included. Only when played in sixths does the key become "easy".

When growing up the Sibelius Violin Concerto was heard in my home country ad nauseam and I refused to perform it then, but of course had to learn the music. It has taken me decades to appreciate the work but, as a bonus, I don't have someone else's forced interpretation weighing me down when teaching it to students today. Having been away from Finland for so long has taught me to appreciate the famous composer's music from a new perspective. People here don't care for it and the few attempts of performing a symphony of his by an orchestra or two have resulted in failures, by both the interpretation and the audience reaction. Concluding a program with his Fifth is the only time when a conductor didn't have to return for a second bow in my memory.

For a person who dislikes classical music I seem to be surprisingly fond of it, at least when I get to pass my knowledge of Prokofiev's First or the Glazounov Concerto onto others. Even the old war horses, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and others, don't appear half bad. Perhaps I'm just getting old and soft in my head and/or heart.

illustration by Joseph Farris/cartoonstock.com