A couple of weeks ago I experienced an Aida almost as ghastly as the Robert Wilson Kabuki-Aida.
The one single piece of furniture on the otherwise totally empty stage was the throne of the Pharaoh, looking suspiciously like a department store Spring Garden Furniture sale chair for £69.99, ceremoniously carried to a corner of the stage by two half-naked slave characters.
Mostly high ROH standards of singing and playing, with some, but not all, superb voices, but with Nil acting, just bellowing at the audience, on a constantly dark stage, with Nil (alas, not Nile) scenery and ludicrous costumes, a blond Amonasro dressed like Gunther from Götterdämmerung, a ballet with sham nakedness and the usual faded pseudo-coital ructions, a scene for the return of the heroic Radames reduced to an embarrassing persiflage (a scene where even in small provincial houses they manage to fill the stage with colour and movement and even an occasional camel), a scene on the Nile that looked like the second story ramp of a shopping centre garage, but not lit well enough to see who was singing, etc., and sadly, etc.
The one single allusion that the action was supposed to have taken place in Egypt, was the one, where Radames is given a rag to show around as a holy object to demonstrate that he is in command of the army, while half-naked characters were hanging from the ceiling with their heads down and their bellies punctured by swords wielded by naked dancing girls - blood flowing in streams. This used to be a favourite method of interrogation in Mubarak's police stations, but without the benefit of the naked girls.
Very moderate applause from an audience that did not know better.
Sorry, but I just cannot keep my eyes shut most of the time when in Covent Garden.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Andras Schiff in the footsteps of Casals and Toscanini
Andras Schiff, the world famous Hungarian pianist and conductor refused an invitation by Zoltán Kocsis, leader of the state-supported Philharmonic Orchestra, himself a pianist of high reputation (but as a conductor only of limited achievements) to give a concert in Budapest. He wrote to Kocsis that he will never again play in Hungary and, as his mother is no longer alive, he will not "put a foot in Hungary again". In his long and brave letter Schiff renounced his long friendship with Kocsis.
Kocsis has identified himself totally with the new, rightwing government, but has stressed that he is not anti-semitic and has even boasted of the number of Jewish and Roma musicians active in the State Orchestra which he leads, and enumerated some of his Jewish friends. This made Schiff even more furious.
The Orban Government's actions, driving further and further into a jingoistic, clerically supported farce, are even more irrational than the Horthy Regime's that led to the tragedies of 1944-45 and everything that came after.
Poor Hungary. Nominally, it is still a Parliamentary democracy and the opposition is not imprisoned in camps. But, inch by inch, the freedom of expression of the opposition media is curtailed by restrictive press laws and changes in a drastically revised Constitution.
Orban's absolute majority was achieved by just over half of the votes cast by only half of the electorate. In simple terms that means an authoritarian government supported only by a quarter of the registered electorate, with 17% of the votes cast for the ultra-reactionary and proto-fascist "Jobbik" Party. The awakening will be sad and ominous.
Kocsis has identified himself totally with the new, rightwing government, but has stressed that he is not anti-semitic and has even boasted of the number of Jewish and Roma musicians active in the State Orchestra which he leads, and enumerated some of his Jewish friends. This made Schiff even more furious.
The Orban Government's actions, driving further and further into a jingoistic, clerically supported farce, are even more irrational than the Horthy Regime's that led to the tragedies of 1944-45 and everything that came after.
Poor Hungary. Nominally, it is still a Parliamentary democracy and the opposition is not imprisoned in camps. But, inch by inch, the freedom of expression of the opposition media is curtailed by restrictive press laws and changes in a drastically revised Constitution.
Orban's absolute majority was achieved by just over half of the votes cast by only half of the electorate. In simple terms that means an authoritarian government supported only by a quarter of the registered electorate, with 17% of the votes cast for the ultra-reactionary and proto-fascist "Jobbik" Party. The awakening will be sad and ominous.
Sunday, 6 March 2011
“Gulash-Antisemitismus”
Ungarn, dieses Januskoepfige Land, hat es immer verstanden aussichtsloseste Perioden nationalen Unterganges in eine lauwarme Scheinexistenz zu verwandeln.
So, nach den weissen Terror nach Horthy’s Machtergreifung in den fruehen zwanziger Jahren, ist der in Ungarn immer schon schwelende Antisemitismus ein bequem schnarchender Gulash-Antisemitismus geworden, wo die Ruhe nur durch die alljaehrlich traditionell gewordene Judenverpruegelung auf den Universitaeten fuer einige Zeilen in der Boulevard Presse gestoert wurde.
Die dreissiger Jahre waren die goldene Zeiten in Ungarn. In Budapest, das ein halbes Jahrhundert nach der Emanzipation der juedischen Bevoelkerung in eine herrliche und kosmopolitische ~Metropole verwandelt wurde, hat an den grossen juedischen Feiertagen fast die Haelfte der Bevoelkerung, und mit ihr, der Rest der Stadt aufgehoert zu arbeiten.
Unter diesen Umstaenden hat die Nachricht, die am Abend eines kuehlen Maerztages 1938 Budapest erreichte,dass auf den Heldenplatz in Wien Hunderttausende den Fuehrer mit hysterischem Jubel empfangen haben, bei der ueberwiegenden Mehrzahl der juedischen Bevoelkerung nur den immer wieder mantraartig wiederholten Spruch hervorgebracht - Bei uns kann so etwas nicht passieren.
Mich hat die Nachricht bei einem Konzert von Jasha Heifetz erreicht, und ich war wie von Blitzschlag getroffen. Mit meinem Jura - Doktortitel konnte ich wegen den ersten antijuedischen Gesetzen schon nichts anfangen, aber mit nur 24 Jahren habe ich eine viel versprechende Karriere bei der riesigen Landwirtschaftmaschinenbau Firma, Hoffherr Schrantz- Clayton Shuttleworth - welch ein eindrucksvoller Name - begonnen, wo mir als Abteilungsleiter die komplizierte Einfuehrung des damals modernsten Elliot-Fischer Buchungsmaschienen Systeme anvertraut worden war.
Von fruehester Kindheit an habe ich ein Doppelleben gefuehrt. Mit sieben habe ich angefangen Cello zu studieren, und an der noch immer auf hoechster Stufe stehenden Franz Liszt Akademie habe ich als Bewunderer und Schueler des unvergleichlichen Professors Leo Weiner, dem Jupiter des Kammermusikunterrichts, Jahre verbracht.
Die taegliche Qual mit tausenden von Buchungs Eintrtaegen wurde durch Orgien von Opernvorstellungen, Konzertbesuchen und vor allem mit Kammermusikabenden mit erstklassigen Kommilitonen von der Akademie, von denen spaeter viele weltberuehmt wurden, ertraeglich gemacht.
Ich las viel und habe die immer duesterer werdenden Sturmwolken, die sich ueber Europa zusammenzogen, in ihrer wahren Gefaehrlichkeit erkannt.
Die Nachricht ueber den Anschluss hat mich noch waehrend des Heifetz- Konzerts ueberwaeltigt. Stundenlang auf dem schon leer gewordenen Ring herumirrend, habe ich den festen Entschluss gefasst: Rauss aus diesem Land!
Ja, aber wie? In Ungarn war in den Reisepaessen die religioese - Zugehoerigkeit schon Jahre vor dem “J” Stempel eingetragen. In den spaeten dreissiger Jahren ist es unmoeglich geworden, mit einem “juedischen” Reisepass ein Ein- oder Durchreisevisum zu erhalten. Noch waehrend dieser langen Nacht ist mir eine Idee, wenn auch eine naive und aussichtslose, eingefallen. Wie waere es, wenn ich als voll qualifizierter Cellist versuchen wuerde, in einem sogenannten Salonorchester einen Platz zu finden, das mich dann ins Ausland mitnehmen wuerde? In meiner Naivitaet dachte ich, dass wenn ich schon im Ausland bin, kann ich nach England reisen und dort in Oxford oder Cambridge weiter Jura studieren...
Um mich als Salonorchester -Musiker zu qualifiizieren, habe ich mich dringend mit Klarinette, Es -Alto- Saxophon, einer Gitarre, einer Geige und, lebenswichtig, einem Kontrabass ausgeruestet. Im Wintergarten unserer stattlichen Wohnung am Parlamentplatz habe ich angefangen, alle diese Instrumente zu studieren, mit den zu erwartenden jaemmerlichen Erfolgen.
Ich wusste, dass ein ehemaliger Kommilitone von der Akademie im Cafe New York, dieser Kathedrale mitteleuropaeischer Kaffehaeuser, als Stehgeiger ein Salonorchester gefuehrt hat. Er hat mir erlaubt, jeden Abend als Cellist in seinem Orchester mitzuspielen, natuerlich ohne dafuer bezahlt zu werden.
Es war mir sehr wichtig, das dieses Orchester auf einer Empore gespielt hat, so dass von unten der Cellist von den Gaesten ueberhaupt nicht gesehen werden konnte. Das war fuer mich sehr wichtig, da diese Taetigkeit verheimlicht werden musste. Cellospielen im Cafe New York war nicht mit Elliot-Fischer Buchungsmachinen vereinbar.
Waehrend die Sturmvolken ueber Europa immer dicker wurden, und sogar die in Ungarn nur sehr oberflaechlich berichtete Kristallnacht juedische Emfindlichkeiten noch immer nicht aufwuehlen konnte - Bei uns kann so etwas nicht passieren - fand ich, dass meine Abende in Gesellschaft von mueden, uninteressierten und begabungslosen Musikern nichts brachten, und meine selten in Kaffehaeusern gehoerte Cellosoli schienen niemanden unter den Gaesten zu beeindruecken. Ich wurde mehr und mehr ueberzeugt, dass meine Bemuehungen nichts bringen wuerden.
Eines Abends, waehrend wir einen faden Potpurri von Kalman spielten, sah ich, dass der Pianist, ein aelterer, hagerer Mann mit einem immer vollen Bierglass auf seinem Pianodeckel, und mit einer immer brennenden Zigarette von den Lippen haengend, dessen gluehender Stummel eine Taste am Klavier bis in die Tiefen durchgebrannt hat, auf einmal zu spielen aufhoerte und mit beiden Armen bis den Boden haengend, seinen Kopf auf die Tasten fallen liess.
Ich dachte, dass der Mann, mit dem ich in den Wochen meines Gastspiels nicht ein einziges Wort gewechselt hatte, einen Herzanfall erlitten hat. Ohne einen Augenblick zu warten, fing das Orchester an La Cumparsita zu spielen, das auch ohne Piano moeglich ist. Mikulai, der Stehgeiger fluesterte dem zweiten Geiger zu- “Rasch! telephoniere ans Cafe Kolozsvar und finde einen Ersatzpianisten!.”
Das Cafe Kolozsvar in einer der duesteren Seitenstrassen gegenueber der New York Kathedrale, war ein schaebiges Etablissement, wo arbeitslose Musiker Tag und Nacht auf einen “GIG” gewartet haben.
In der Zwischenzeit wurde der scheinbar in Ohnmacht gefallene Pianist in den Hintergrund geschleppt, und in einem alten Strohstuhl sitzend, mit noch immer haengenden Armen, gab er einen genuesslich schnarchenden, besoffenen, aber friedlichen Eindruck,
Es hat keine fuenf Minuten gedauert, waehrend wir noch immer La Cumparsita herunterdroschen, dass ein Musiker, auch mit einer von den Lippen haengenden brennenden Zigarette, atemlos ankam, und sich ohne weiteres auf den Klavierstuhl niederliess.
Das naechste Stueck in unserem selten gewechselten Repertoire war eine Suite von Opern von Puccini. Dieses Stueck gab mir immer Gelegenheit, die wenigen Hoehepunkte wenigsten so zu gestalten, als ob ich wirklich musiziert haette. In der Aufregung habe ich Suave Fanciulla und die Recondite Harmonie mit mehr als der ueblicher Hingabe gespielt.
Als wir aufgehoert hatten, schlich der Pianist, mit seine Cigarette im Mundwinkel zu mir und sagte
“Herr Kollege, moechten Sie mit mi nach Teheran Kommen?”
Was konnte ich antworten? “Natuerlich! Wann fahren wir?” Ich dachte, dass das alles im Scherz gemeint war. Der Pianist war fast beleidigt. ‘
“Ich habe ein Kontrakt mit meinem Salonorchester nach Teheran zu fahren, und ich brauche dringend einen Cellisten, der so spielt wie Sie.“
Ich habe Herrn Szell, der bei der Gelegenheit, trotz Zigarettenstuemmel, ein guter und geuebter Pianist zu sein schien, fuer ein Abendessen in einem in der Naehe liegenden Restaurant eingeladen. Es stellte sich heraus, dass er mit seinem Orchester ein Jahr in der Tuerkei gearbeitet hatte, und dass jemand der sich als Agent fuer Taenzer, Animierdamen und Musiker fuer den Mittleren Osten ausgab, ihm einen Kontrakt fuer sechs Monate im Cafe Pars in Teheran angeboten hat. Visa, und Reisegeld sollten noch ankommen.
Dringend wichtig fuer ihn war, dass jedes Mitglied seines Orchesters ueber einen Reisepass verfuegen sollte, in dem er als Nichtjude beschrieben wurde.
Waehrend den naechsten Wochen begann der muehsame und teure Kampf, mit Hilfe eines professionellen Mittlers die unzaehligen gierigen Beamten zu schmieren, um eine Ausreise nach Teheran zu ermoeglichen. Der Preis meiner Verwandlung in einem Augustiner Evangelischer Berufsmusiker und Mitglied der Gewerkschaft, der nicht Militaerdienst - pflichtig ist, wurde woechentlich groesser, aber nach nervenaufreibenden Wochen stand ich vor dem geschaeftsfuehrenden Direktor von Hoffherr Schrantz-Clayton Shuttleworth und habe mich entschuldigt, meinen Posten ohne die noetige ein- Monat-Frist, zum Ende der Woche kuendigen zu muessen.
Herr Erdos und alle andere Direktoren, wo ich mich gemeldet hatte, waren fassungslos.
“Was faellt Ihnen ein? Nach Teheran wollen Sie? Und Saxophon spielen?”
Die 27 - taegige Reise nach Teheran, wo unsere kleine Wagenkolonne in den Bergen von Woelfen angegriffen wurde, und wo meinem auf dem Dach befestigten Kontrabass die enge Bruecke ueber den Euphrates den Nacken gebrochen hat, und was noch alles mit mir geschehen ist, habe ich anderswo beschrieben. (“MY Special Operations (Europe))” Das Buch ist auch in ungarischer Uebersetzung (460 Seiten - Scolar Verlag) in April 2010 in Ungarn erschienen.
Hier will ich nur bekennen, dass der besoffene Pianist im Cafe New York den fuer mich bestimmten Werdegang ein fuer allemal veraendert hat.
Wenn er nicht mehr als ueblich getrunken haette, waere ich im Laufe des sich immer bestialischer entpuppenden ungarischen Judenhasses zuerst im Militaer-Arbeitsdienst an der Russischen Front von sadistischen ungarischen Unteroffizieren zu Tode gequaelt, oder spaeter im Budapester Ghetto erfroren, ausgehungert oder ans Ufer der Donau gezerrt, nackt erschossen und in den Eisschollen geworfen, wie unzaehlige andere, oder mit den 463000 Judischen Mitbuergern nach Auschwitz verfrachtet, oder auf den Todesmaerschen nach Mauthausen auf der Strasse erschossen.
Und wenn ich all das ueberlebt haette, waere ich in den Faengen der niedertraechtigsten Stalinistischen Diktatur als Volksfeind gefoltert und wahrscheinlich zum Tode verurteilt worden...
Ueber siebzig Jahre nach mein Suave Fanciulla Solo fand ich mich in Budapest wo meine Erinnerungen ueber meine Jugend und Kriegsjahre veroeffentlicht wurden. Ich musste das Cafe New York besuchen. Inzwischen ist es mit millionenschweren Restaurationen in eine noch vergoldetere und vermarmoriertere Kathedrale unter dem Namen Boscolo neu eroeffnet geworden.
All diese Pracht hat mich nicht beeindruckt. Die alte Waerme, wo Generationen der Elite ungarischer Literatur, Kunst und Wissenschaft ueber ihre Espressos Meisterwerke geschaffen und besprochen haben, war fuer immer verschwunden. Nur die Geister der Ermordeten, Verjagten, Gefolterten, Erniedrigten und Ausgepluenderten spukten noch in den herrlichen Saelen. Ich habe meinen winzigsten und teuersten Macchiato genossen. Doch, ein Beweis dass ich meinen Kampf gewonnen habe...
So, nach den weissen Terror nach Horthy’s Machtergreifung in den fruehen zwanziger Jahren, ist der in Ungarn immer schon schwelende Antisemitismus ein bequem schnarchender Gulash-Antisemitismus geworden, wo die Ruhe nur durch die alljaehrlich traditionell gewordene Judenverpruegelung auf den Universitaeten fuer einige Zeilen in der Boulevard Presse gestoert wurde.
Die dreissiger Jahre waren die goldene Zeiten in Ungarn. In Budapest, das ein halbes Jahrhundert nach der Emanzipation der juedischen Bevoelkerung in eine herrliche und kosmopolitische ~Metropole verwandelt wurde, hat an den grossen juedischen Feiertagen fast die Haelfte der Bevoelkerung, und mit ihr, der Rest der Stadt aufgehoert zu arbeiten.
Unter diesen Umstaenden hat die Nachricht, die am Abend eines kuehlen Maerztages 1938 Budapest erreichte,dass auf den Heldenplatz in Wien Hunderttausende den Fuehrer mit hysterischem Jubel empfangen haben, bei der ueberwiegenden Mehrzahl der juedischen Bevoelkerung nur den immer wieder mantraartig wiederholten Spruch hervorgebracht - Bei uns kann so etwas nicht passieren.
Mich hat die Nachricht bei einem Konzert von Jasha Heifetz erreicht, und ich war wie von Blitzschlag getroffen. Mit meinem Jura - Doktortitel konnte ich wegen den ersten antijuedischen Gesetzen schon nichts anfangen, aber mit nur 24 Jahren habe ich eine viel versprechende Karriere bei der riesigen Landwirtschaftmaschinenbau Firma, Hoffherr Schrantz- Clayton Shuttleworth - welch ein eindrucksvoller Name - begonnen, wo mir als Abteilungsleiter die komplizierte Einfuehrung des damals modernsten Elliot-Fischer Buchungsmaschienen Systeme anvertraut worden war.
Von fruehester Kindheit an habe ich ein Doppelleben gefuehrt. Mit sieben habe ich angefangen Cello zu studieren, und an der noch immer auf hoechster Stufe stehenden Franz Liszt Akademie habe ich als Bewunderer und Schueler des unvergleichlichen Professors Leo Weiner, dem Jupiter des Kammermusikunterrichts, Jahre verbracht.
Die taegliche Qual mit tausenden von Buchungs Eintrtaegen wurde durch Orgien von Opernvorstellungen, Konzertbesuchen und vor allem mit Kammermusikabenden mit erstklassigen Kommilitonen von der Akademie, von denen spaeter viele weltberuehmt wurden, ertraeglich gemacht.
Ich las viel und habe die immer duesterer werdenden Sturmwolken, die sich ueber Europa zusammenzogen, in ihrer wahren Gefaehrlichkeit erkannt.
Die Nachricht ueber den Anschluss hat mich noch waehrend des Heifetz- Konzerts ueberwaeltigt. Stundenlang auf dem schon leer gewordenen Ring herumirrend, habe ich den festen Entschluss gefasst: Rauss aus diesem Land!
Ja, aber wie? In Ungarn war in den Reisepaessen die religioese - Zugehoerigkeit schon Jahre vor dem “J” Stempel eingetragen. In den spaeten dreissiger Jahren ist es unmoeglich geworden, mit einem “juedischen” Reisepass ein Ein- oder Durchreisevisum zu erhalten. Noch waehrend dieser langen Nacht ist mir eine Idee, wenn auch eine naive und aussichtslose, eingefallen. Wie waere es, wenn ich als voll qualifizierter Cellist versuchen wuerde, in einem sogenannten Salonorchester einen Platz zu finden, das mich dann ins Ausland mitnehmen wuerde? In meiner Naivitaet dachte ich, dass wenn ich schon im Ausland bin, kann ich nach England reisen und dort in Oxford oder Cambridge weiter Jura studieren...
Um mich als Salonorchester -Musiker zu qualifiizieren, habe ich mich dringend mit Klarinette, Es -Alto- Saxophon, einer Gitarre, einer Geige und, lebenswichtig, einem Kontrabass ausgeruestet. Im Wintergarten unserer stattlichen Wohnung am Parlamentplatz habe ich angefangen, alle diese Instrumente zu studieren, mit den zu erwartenden jaemmerlichen Erfolgen.
Ich wusste, dass ein ehemaliger Kommilitone von der Akademie im Cafe New York, dieser Kathedrale mitteleuropaeischer Kaffehaeuser, als Stehgeiger ein Salonorchester gefuehrt hat. Er hat mir erlaubt, jeden Abend als Cellist in seinem Orchester mitzuspielen, natuerlich ohne dafuer bezahlt zu werden.
Es war mir sehr wichtig, das dieses Orchester auf einer Empore gespielt hat, so dass von unten der Cellist von den Gaesten ueberhaupt nicht gesehen werden konnte. Das war fuer mich sehr wichtig, da diese Taetigkeit verheimlicht werden musste. Cellospielen im Cafe New York war nicht mit Elliot-Fischer Buchungsmachinen vereinbar.
Waehrend die Sturmvolken ueber Europa immer dicker wurden, und sogar die in Ungarn nur sehr oberflaechlich berichtete Kristallnacht juedische Emfindlichkeiten noch immer nicht aufwuehlen konnte - Bei uns kann so etwas nicht passieren - fand ich, dass meine Abende in Gesellschaft von mueden, uninteressierten und begabungslosen Musikern nichts brachten, und meine selten in Kaffehaeusern gehoerte Cellosoli schienen niemanden unter den Gaesten zu beeindruecken. Ich wurde mehr und mehr ueberzeugt, dass meine Bemuehungen nichts bringen wuerden.
Eines Abends, waehrend wir einen faden Potpurri von Kalman spielten, sah ich, dass der Pianist, ein aelterer, hagerer Mann mit einem immer vollen Bierglass auf seinem Pianodeckel, und mit einer immer brennenden Zigarette von den Lippen haengend, dessen gluehender Stummel eine Taste am Klavier bis in die Tiefen durchgebrannt hat, auf einmal zu spielen aufhoerte und mit beiden Armen bis den Boden haengend, seinen Kopf auf die Tasten fallen liess.
Ich dachte, dass der Mann, mit dem ich in den Wochen meines Gastspiels nicht ein einziges Wort gewechselt hatte, einen Herzanfall erlitten hat. Ohne einen Augenblick zu warten, fing das Orchester an La Cumparsita zu spielen, das auch ohne Piano moeglich ist. Mikulai, der Stehgeiger fluesterte dem zweiten Geiger zu- “Rasch! telephoniere ans Cafe Kolozsvar und finde einen Ersatzpianisten!.”
Das Cafe Kolozsvar in einer der duesteren Seitenstrassen gegenueber der New York Kathedrale, war ein schaebiges Etablissement, wo arbeitslose Musiker Tag und Nacht auf einen “GIG” gewartet haben.
In der Zwischenzeit wurde der scheinbar in Ohnmacht gefallene Pianist in den Hintergrund geschleppt, und in einem alten Strohstuhl sitzend, mit noch immer haengenden Armen, gab er einen genuesslich schnarchenden, besoffenen, aber friedlichen Eindruck,
Es hat keine fuenf Minuten gedauert, waehrend wir noch immer La Cumparsita herunterdroschen, dass ein Musiker, auch mit einer von den Lippen haengenden brennenden Zigarette, atemlos ankam, und sich ohne weiteres auf den Klavierstuhl niederliess.
Das naechste Stueck in unserem selten gewechselten Repertoire war eine Suite von Opern von Puccini. Dieses Stueck gab mir immer Gelegenheit, die wenigen Hoehepunkte wenigsten so zu gestalten, als ob ich wirklich musiziert haette. In der Aufregung habe ich Suave Fanciulla und die Recondite Harmonie mit mehr als der ueblicher Hingabe gespielt.
Als wir aufgehoert hatten, schlich der Pianist, mit seine Cigarette im Mundwinkel zu mir und sagte
“Herr Kollege, moechten Sie mit mi nach Teheran Kommen?”
Was konnte ich antworten? “Natuerlich! Wann fahren wir?” Ich dachte, dass das alles im Scherz gemeint war. Der Pianist war fast beleidigt. ‘
“Ich habe ein Kontrakt mit meinem Salonorchester nach Teheran zu fahren, und ich brauche dringend einen Cellisten, der so spielt wie Sie.“
Ich habe Herrn Szell, der bei der Gelegenheit, trotz Zigarettenstuemmel, ein guter und geuebter Pianist zu sein schien, fuer ein Abendessen in einem in der Naehe liegenden Restaurant eingeladen. Es stellte sich heraus, dass er mit seinem Orchester ein Jahr in der Tuerkei gearbeitet hatte, und dass jemand der sich als Agent fuer Taenzer, Animierdamen und Musiker fuer den Mittleren Osten ausgab, ihm einen Kontrakt fuer sechs Monate im Cafe Pars in Teheran angeboten hat. Visa, und Reisegeld sollten noch ankommen.
Dringend wichtig fuer ihn war, dass jedes Mitglied seines Orchesters ueber einen Reisepass verfuegen sollte, in dem er als Nichtjude beschrieben wurde.
Waehrend den naechsten Wochen begann der muehsame und teure Kampf, mit Hilfe eines professionellen Mittlers die unzaehligen gierigen Beamten zu schmieren, um eine Ausreise nach Teheran zu ermoeglichen. Der Preis meiner Verwandlung in einem Augustiner Evangelischer Berufsmusiker und Mitglied der Gewerkschaft, der nicht Militaerdienst - pflichtig ist, wurde woechentlich groesser, aber nach nervenaufreibenden Wochen stand ich vor dem geschaeftsfuehrenden Direktor von Hoffherr Schrantz-Clayton Shuttleworth und habe mich entschuldigt, meinen Posten ohne die noetige ein- Monat-Frist, zum Ende der Woche kuendigen zu muessen.
Herr Erdos und alle andere Direktoren, wo ich mich gemeldet hatte, waren fassungslos.
“Was faellt Ihnen ein? Nach Teheran wollen Sie? Und Saxophon spielen?”
Die 27 - taegige Reise nach Teheran, wo unsere kleine Wagenkolonne in den Bergen von Woelfen angegriffen wurde, und wo meinem auf dem Dach befestigten Kontrabass die enge Bruecke ueber den Euphrates den Nacken gebrochen hat, und was noch alles mit mir geschehen ist, habe ich anderswo beschrieben. (“MY Special Operations (Europe))” Das Buch ist auch in ungarischer Uebersetzung (460 Seiten - Scolar Verlag) in April 2010 in Ungarn erschienen.
Hier will ich nur bekennen, dass der besoffene Pianist im Cafe New York den fuer mich bestimmten Werdegang ein fuer allemal veraendert hat.
Wenn er nicht mehr als ueblich getrunken haette, waere ich im Laufe des sich immer bestialischer entpuppenden ungarischen Judenhasses zuerst im Militaer-Arbeitsdienst an der Russischen Front von sadistischen ungarischen Unteroffizieren zu Tode gequaelt, oder spaeter im Budapester Ghetto erfroren, ausgehungert oder ans Ufer der Donau gezerrt, nackt erschossen und in den Eisschollen geworfen, wie unzaehlige andere, oder mit den 463000 Judischen Mitbuergern nach Auschwitz verfrachtet, oder auf den Todesmaerschen nach Mauthausen auf der Strasse erschossen.
Und wenn ich all das ueberlebt haette, waere ich in den Faengen der niedertraechtigsten Stalinistischen Diktatur als Volksfeind gefoltert und wahrscheinlich zum Tode verurteilt worden...
Ueber siebzig Jahre nach mein Suave Fanciulla Solo fand ich mich in Budapest wo meine Erinnerungen ueber meine Jugend und Kriegsjahre veroeffentlicht wurden. Ich musste das Cafe New York besuchen. Inzwischen ist es mit millionenschweren Restaurationen in eine noch vergoldetere und vermarmoriertere Kathedrale unter dem Namen Boscolo neu eroeffnet geworden.
All diese Pracht hat mich nicht beeindruckt. Die alte Waerme, wo Generationen der Elite ungarischer Literatur, Kunst und Wissenschaft ueber ihre Espressos Meisterwerke geschaffen und besprochen haben, war fuer immer verschwunden. Nur die Geister der Ermordeten, Verjagten, Gefolterten, Erniedrigten und Ausgepluenderten spukten noch in den herrlichen Saelen. Ich habe meinen winzigsten und teuersten Macchiato genossen. Doch, ein Beweis dass ich meinen Kampf gewonnen habe...
Einfache Gerichte, die man in der Schweiz oder Deutschland nie findet wunderbar und einfach fuer den Winter
Patate, uove, salcice gratinate all’ungherese
In reich gebutterte Gratinschuessel schwichtweise gekochte Kartoffelscheiben, scheibenweise hartgekochte Eier, und wuerzige Wurstscheiben - immer mit viel Sauerrahm und reichlich mit Butterflocken anrichten.
In mittlerheissen Ofen lange genug backen, bis sich eine goldene Kruste bildet. Braucht nicht gewuerzt werden, da die Wurst gezuerzte Fluessigkeit ergibt, die durch alle Schichten durchdraengt. Mit Gurkensalat (sehr duenn geschnitten, mit Schnittlauch, Sahne und ein ganz wenig Zucker) serwieren.
Paprika-Kartoffel mit Servelat oder Wienerle
Gehackte Zwiebeln tuechtig anbraten, reichlich mit echten ungarischen Paprika bestreuen - Paprika darf nicht verbrennt werden, mit etwas Tomaten-Puree koecheln lassen, dann geschaelte Kartoffeln in kleine Stuecke schneiden und mit ganz wenig Wasser, langsam koecheln lassen.
Oft ruehren, und nicht verbrennen oder zu weich kochen lassen. Mit etwas Knoblauchsalz verfeinern. Soll wenig Fluessigkeit am Boden bleiben. In den letzten fuenf Minuten eine gute, weiche, wuerzige Wurst, oder sogar einfachhalber Wienerle beimischen.
Mit sauere Cornichons serwieren.
Szegediner Gulasch
Gechackte Zwiebeln anbraten, und mit Sauerkraut sehr langsam koecheln lassen. Mag ganz wenig Wasser brauchen. Mit ungarischen Paprika reichlich, und wenig Knoblauchsalz bestreuen.
In kleine Stuecke geschnittene Schweinfillet oder Huhn beimischen und koecheln lassen, bis das Fleisch gar ist.
In den letzten zwei-drei Minuten mit viel sauere Sahne verfeinern, aber nicht zu heiss, noch etwas koecheln lassen.
Mit Sauerteigbrot und Pellkartoffeln servieren.
Gefuellte Paprikaschotten
Paprikaschotten wo Cholesteringehalt nicht halb so schlimm, wie es klingt... In verschiedene Farben entkernen und Adern entfernen.
Hackfleisch mit Zwiebeln nur ein wenig anbraten und mit ein Drittel in Masse von halbgekochten Basmati Reis und ein oder zwei Eiern gruendlich vermischen, und in den Schoten einfuellen.
Eine reiche Tomaten Sosse mit Passata, etwas Zucker, etwas Paprika, Knoblauchsalz und Sahne - auch vielleicht ein Tropfen feiner Essig, in eine Ofenschuessel giessen, und die gefuellte Schoten, mit Oeffnung unten in so viel Sosse anrichten, dass wenigsten zwei Drittel der Schoten unter Sosse liegt.
In sehr langsamen Ofen, und mit Deckel, so lange kochen, biss die Schoten ganz leicht mit eine Gabel durchgestochen werden koennen. Die Sosse immer wieder ueber die Schoten triefeln lassen.
Kann mit Salzkartoffeln serwiert werden.
Mozzarella in Carrozza a’la Francesco
Zwischen zwei Scheiben weissen Toastbrot, Mozzarella Bufala mit etwas senf und Paprika anrichten, mit Zahnstoechern zusammengehalten, und dann reichlich panieren, und kurz frittieren.
Nachdem, ein zweitesmal panieren, und knusprig frittieren.
In reich gebutterte Gratinschuessel schwichtweise gekochte Kartoffelscheiben, scheibenweise hartgekochte Eier, und wuerzige Wurstscheiben - immer mit viel Sauerrahm und reichlich mit Butterflocken anrichten.
In mittlerheissen Ofen lange genug backen, bis sich eine goldene Kruste bildet. Braucht nicht gewuerzt werden, da die Wurst gezuerzte Fluessigkeit ergibt, die durch alle Schichten durchdraengt. Mit Gurkensalat (sehr duenn geschnitten, mit Schnittlauch, Sahne und ein ganz wenig Zucker) serwieren.
Paprika-Kartoffel mit Servelat oder Wienerle
Gehackte Zwiebeln tuechtig anbraten, reichlich mit echten ungarischen Paprika bestreuen - Paprika darf nicht verbrennt werden, mit etwas Tomaten-Puree koecheln lassen, dann geschaelte Kartoffeln in kleine Stuecke schneiden und mit ganz wenig Wasser, langsam koecheln lassen.
Oft ruehren, und nicht verbrennen oder zu weich kochen lassen. Mit etwas Knoblauchsalz verfeinern. Soll wenig Fluessigkeit am Boden bleiben. In den letzten fuenf Minuten eine gute, weiche, wuerzige Wurst, oder sogar einfachhalber Wienerle beimischen.
Mit sauere Cornichons serwieren.
Szegediner Gulasch
Gechackte Zwiebeln anbraten, und mit Sauerkraut sehr langsam koecheln lassen. Mag ganz wenig Wasser brauchen. Mit ungarischen Paprika reichlich, und wenig Knoblauchsalz bestreuen.
In kleine Stuecke geschnittene Schweinfillet oder Huhn beimischen und koecheln lassen, bis das Fleisch gar ist.
In den letzten zwei-drei Minuten mit viel sauere Sahne verfeinern, aber nicht zu heiss, noch etwas koecheln lassen.
Mit Sauerteigbrot und Pellkartoffeln servieren.
Gefuellte Paprikaschotten
Paprikaschotten wo Cholesteringehalt nicht halb so schlimm, wie es klingt... In verschiedene Farben entkernen und Adern entfernen.
Hackfleisch mit Zwiebeln nur ein wenig anbraten und mit ein Drittel in Masse von halbgekochten Basmati Reis und ein oder zwei Eiern gruendlich vermischen, und in den Schoten einfuellen.
Eine reiche Tomaten Sosse mit Passata, etwas Zucker, etwas Paprika, Knoblauchsalz und Sahne - auch vielleicht ein Tropfen feiner Essig, in eine Ofenschuessel giessen, und die gefuellte Schoten, mit Oeffnung unten in so viel Sosse anrichten, dass wenigsten zwei Drittel der Schoten unter Sosse liegt.
In sehr langsamen Ofen, und mit Deckel, so lange kochen, biss die Schoten ganz leicht mit eine Gabel durchgestochen werden koennen. Die Sosse immer wieder ueber die Schoten triefeln lassen.
Kann mit Salzkartoffeln serwiert werden.
Mozzarella in Carrozza a’la Francesco
Zwischen zwei Scheiben weissen Toastbrot, Mozzarella Bufala mit etwas senf und Paprika anrichten, mit Zahnstoechern zusammengehalten, und dann reichlich panieren, und kurz frittieren.
Nachdem, ein zweitesmal panieren, und knusprig frittieren.
Monday, 28 February 2011
On some critics
Know-all, pontificating, self-aggrandizing, self-appointed critics are the sort I do not like. I also occasionally write reviews, but they are based on how deeply my intellect, my emotions and my experience gathered in a long lifetime in opera, and music in general, are engaged.
I have deep respect even for performers who do not impress me sufficiently, and I would hate to treat them with the contemptuous nonchalance of some of the professional critics. They write about great performers as if they were the prosecution, judge and jury rolled into one supreme authority.
I heard Di Stefano, then at the height of his career, mercilessly booed in the Scala because he slipped on a notoriously difficult passage. Some critics almost hope for something to go wrong, for the opportunity to pontificate on the minor mishaps that can befall even truly great performers, or to speculate how their best years are already behind them.
If I were to write about Bryn Terfel as Mephisto, I would not say how much better Chaliapin sang the role, although I heard and admired his hamming in his favourite role in the late 1920s.
Great performers are great in their own right - which is not to say that sensible, considered criticism of them does not have its place, but I would rather they were not considered as X-Factor fodder.
I have deep respect even for performers who do not impress me sufficiently, and I would hate to treat them with the contemptuous nonchalance of some of the professional critics. They write about great performers as if they were the prosecution, judge and jury rolled into one supreme authority.
I heard Di Stefano, then at the height of his career, mercilessly booed in the Scala because he slipped on a notoriously difficult passage. Some critics almost hope for something to go wrong, for the opportunity to pontificate on the minor mishaps that can befall even truly great performers, or to speculate how their best years are already behind them.
If I were to write about Bryn Terfel as Mephisto, I would not say how much better Chaliapin sang the role, although I heard and admired his hamming in his favourite role in the late 1920s.
Great performers are great in their own right - which is not to say that sensible, considered criticism of them does not have its place, but I would rather they were not considered as X-Factor fodder.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Some comments about the recent Tannhäuser at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Although I have spent, throughout my long life, a very considerable effort to learn all I could about Wagner (I have been to Bayreuth six times, once at the invitation of Herr Wolfgang and have even met Gottfried Wagner who disagreed strongly with my meek suggestion that Wagner would have had some trouble with Goebbels), a most well-informed article by Tim Ashley in the Guardian about Tannhäuser taught me a great deal. Freud was enthusiastic about Wagner and spent hours with Mahler talking about their mutual addiction. My late brother happened to be the doyen of the Hungarian psychoanalytical movement and his last work, which was not completed, would have been an analysis of the Ring protagonists.
I considered last December’s ROH Tannhäuser, from the points of view of orchestra, conductor, chorus and much of the singing, and the particularly fine and striking performance of Christian Gerhaher as Wolfram, up to the now, usual, high ROH standard. On the other hand, I found the staging, lighting, costumes, set design and the entire – in my view, fatuous “Regietheater” concept, appalling, and kept my eyes closed most of the time so as not to get too upset.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the superb orchestral performance under Semyon Bychkov and the exceptionally fine and striking singing of Gerhaher, I found Johan Botha’s performance, for all his vocal splendour, rather wooden. His passionate and deeply studied, but stationary and rather uninvolved performance, appearing to use every opportunity to sit on the chairs thoughtfully spread around the stage, would have been more impressive in a concert performance.
As Andrew Clements in his review rightly observed, much of the singing was addressed to the audience. This came from the two acoustically favoured corners of the stage, (from conveniently placed chairs). The alternative could have been the presentation of dramatic encounters between fundamentally differing characters.
For my taste, the inept and often appalling direction, stage "design", costumes, lighting – in short, the entire concept, reminiscent of a performance of Katja Kabanová in Novosibirsk, cancelled out my pleasurable anticipation of hearing this wonderful, last romantic Weberian scream, in a production not having to rely on the legacy of Ruth Berghaus to make it a self-seeking, Regietheater plaything. I was expecting a fearless presentation of the opera as it was meant to have been performed, with all its clumsiness and yet heroic stature and scenic splendour!
As for the Venusberg scene being so "sexy", by the way, it made me think of an extended gym session at a secondary school in the said Novosibirsk, with the girls, instead of undressing to tempt Tannhäuser, cavorting in their underwear on an enormous white table, offering no more suggestion to a somewhat bored Botha, sitting brooding on the only furniture offered for more sexually explicit exploits, than a chair borrowed from the ROH’s own Hamlyn Hall bar. These chairs and 34 endlessly and individually lit candles were the only items to evoke the glory of the radiant and noble Hall that Elisabeth was supposed to greet with rapture.
The protagonists were dressed in dinner jackets, some with machetes dangling at their sides. Chorus members, dressed as early 20th Century kitchen porters or members of the cleaning staff of a village near Munkacevo, carried Kalashnikovs. The Markgraf seemed to be dressed as a 19th Century Premysl horse trader. All this, submerged in a mercilessly and continuously underlit dark stage, in which one could hardly make out who was singing, contributed to an almost constant urge for me to close my eyes and just drink in those superb and inspiring cadences that Wagner, even at a relatively early stage in his career could conjure up.
Please give us opera as it was presented only a few days earlier in a superb and enchanting production of Adriana Lecouvreur - without machetes and Kalashnikovs.
I considered last December’s ROH Tannhäuser, from the points of view of orchestra, conductor, chorus and much of the singing, and the particularly fine and striking performance of Christian Gerhaher as Wolfram, up to the now, usual, high ROH standard. On the other hand, I found the staging, lighting, costumes, set design and the entire – in my view, fatuous “Regietheater” concept, appalling, and kept my eyes closed most of the time so as not to get too upset.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the superb orchestral performance under Semyon Bychkov and the exceptionally fine and striking singing of Gerhaher, I found Johan Botha’s performance, for all his vocal splendour, rather wooden. His passionate and deeply studied, but stationary and rather uninvolved performance, appearing to use every opportunity to sit on the chairs thoughtfully spread around the stage, would have been more impressive in a concert performance.
As Andrew Clements in his review rightly observed, much of the singing was addressed to the audience. This came from the two acoustically favoured corners of the stage, (from conveniently placed chairs). The alternative could have been the presentation of dramatic encounters between fundamentally differing characters.
For my taste, the inept and often appalling direction, stage "design", costumes, lighting – in short, the entire concept, reminiscent of a performance of Katja Kabanová in Novosibirsk, cancelled out my pleasurable anticipation of hearing this wonderful, last romantic Weberian scream, in a production not having to rely on the legacy of Ruth Berghaus to make it a self-seeking, Regietheater plaything. I was expecting a fearless presentation of the opera as it was meant to have been performed, with all its clumsiness and yet heroic stature and scenic splendour!
As for the Venusberg scene being so "sexy", by the way, it made me think of an extended gym session at a secondary school in the said Novosibirsk, with the girls, instead of undressing to tempt Tannhäuser, cavorting in their underwear on an enormous white table, offering no more suggestion to a somewhat bored Botha, sitting brooding on the only furniture offered for more sexually explicit exploits, than a chair borrowed from the ROH’s own Hamlyn Hall bar. These chairs and 34 endlessly and individually lit candles were the only items to evoke the glory of the radiant and noble Hall that Elisabeth was supposed to greet with rapture.
The protagonists were dressed in dinner jackets, some with machetes dangling at their sides. Chorus members, dressed as early 20th Century kitchen porters or members of the cleaning staff of a village near Munkacevo, carried Kalashnikovs. The Markgraf seemed to be dressed as a 19th Century Premysl horse trader. All this, submerged in a mercilessly and continuously underlit dark stage, in which one could hardly make out who was singing, contributed to an almost constant urge for me to close my eyes and just drink in those superb and inspiring cadences that Wagner, even at a relatively early stage in his career could conjure up.
Please give us opera as it was presented only a few days earlier in a superb and enchanting production of Adriana Lecouvreur - without machetes and Kalashnikovs.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
The Queen's English
When I left the country of my birth, my spoken English was still at the "I was - you was" level. Self-respect, determination, my service in the Forces and, chiefly, the BBC, helped me to make English my first language in speaking, writing, reading, dreaming, counting and just living.
I long for the now forgotten days, when Lord Reith was the first Director General of the BBC. Its supreme task was to educate. Under his iron rule, news-readers had to don dinner-jackets and speak with a uniform, well modulated, distinctively clear and careful pronunciation: The Queen's English... To talk like that these days is food for vulgar comedians.
After a lifetime trying to live up to these standards, I still have an ineradicable foreign accent. Spending a major part of my waking hours listening to BBC Radio, LBC chat-shows, to BBC TV, ITV and Channel 4 broadcasts, I am therefore even more appalled to witness an ever growing contempt for the English language that I consider and cherish as my greatest intellectual treasure.
Do you also cringe when you hear, now at all levels of social class, those awful, sloppy, uncaring (and sometimes affected) accents, pronunciation nothing to do with genuine dialects and the ever-returning meaningless filler phrases like "You know - You know what I mean - Yeah - I'm good - Sort of - Kind of - Effing This, Effing That...”?
Only recently, all of the eminent scientists and even the presenter in an otherwise interesting discussion on BBC Radio 4 again and again embellished their contributions with a shower of "Sort of" and "Kind of" fillers.
I feel as if I were sitting on a bench, reading my newspaper, and above scores of sparrows and pigeons aim their droppings at my head... I wish the gaunt ghost of Lord Reith would still haunt the executive corridors of Broadcasting House.
And as for the standards of spoken and written English, displayed by school-children, school-leavers, and even students in higher education and at university, in broadcasts and in general in shops, offices and on public transport, I wonder just what was the response to Tony Blair's "Education, Education, Education" mantra.
I know that as a B.F. to the end of my life I have little right to complain, but what are blogs for if not for irritating the natives?
I long for the now forgotten days, when Lord Reith was the first Director General of the BBC. Its supreme task was to educate. Under his iron rule, news-readers had to don dinner-jackets and speak with a uniform, well modulated, distinctively clear and careful pronunciation: The Queen's English... To talk like that these days is food for vulgar comedians.
After a lifetime trying to live up to these standards, I still have an ineradicable foreign accent. Spending a major part of my waking hours listening to BBC Radio, LBC chat-shows, to BBC TV, ITV and Channel 4 broadcasts, I am therefore even more appalled to witness an ever growing contempt for the English language that I consider and cherish as my greatest intellectual treasure.
Do you also cringe when you hear, now at all levels of social class, those awful, sloppy, uncaring (and sometimes affected) accents, pronunciation nothing to do with genuine dialects and the ever-returning meaningless filler phrases like "You know - You know what I mean - Yeah - I'm good - Sort of - Kind of - Effing This, Effing That...”?
Only recently, all of the eminent scientists and even the presenter in an otherwise interesting discussion on BBC Radio 4 again and again embellished their contributions with a shower of "Sort of" and "Kind of" fillers.
I feel as if I were sitting on a bench, reading my newspaper, and above scores of sparrows and pigeons aim their droppings at my head... I wish the gaunt ghost of Lord Reith would still haunt the executive corridors of Broadcasting House.
And as for the standards of spoken and written English, displayed by school-children, school-leavers, and even students in higher education and at university, in broadcasts and in general in shops, offices and on public transport, I wonder just what was the response to Tony Blair's "Education, Education, Education" mantra.
I know that as a B.F. to the end of my life I have little right to complain, but what are blogs for if not for irritating the natives?
Friday, 28 January 2011
Mozart's Performing Rights?
Has there ever been an attempt to estimate what Mozart's income would have been if he had lived in our materialistic age, one in which a composer of popular musicals could auction a small part of his wine cellar for several million pounds?
Mozart was paid a pittance by his imperial and clerical employers. His deep faith did not seem to have prevented him from expressing contempt in many of his letters for the bigoted "bloated" clerics who treated him like a recalcitrant servant.
One of the reasons why I taught myself German was to be able to read his letters.
Having been a dedicated amateur musician all my life, I increasingly feel that it is Mozart who formed many of my aesthetic values and taught me in purely musical terms what faith in compassion means.
Mozart was paid a pittance by his imperial and clerical employers. His deep faith did not seem to have prevented him from expressing contempt in many of his letters for the bigoted "bloated" clerics who treated him like a recalcitrant servant.
One of the reasons why I taught myself German was to be able to read his letters.
Having been a dedicated amateur musician all my life, I increasingly feel that it is Mozart who formed many of my aesthetic values and taught me in purely musical terms what faith in compassion means.
Thursday, 27 January 2011
The Art of Creative Listening
I’m well into my 98th year, but through some genetic grace enjoying physical and mental fitness and alertness.
I was a student of the great Leo Weiner in chamber music, (in the same class as Sir Georg Solti), and although a strictly amateur cellist, I was able to - and I did - perform with professional musicians in most of the late Beethoven string quartets up to a few months ago.
Unhappily, severe arthritic deformation in my fingers put an end to my cello-playing and, after some 90 years of virtually daily practice, this has left a big black hole in my life.
Although for almost three years now I have been a music critic, accredited to the superb Festspielhaus in Baden Baden (one of Europe’s largest opera and concert halls), writing for MusicalCriticism.com, I had to look for compensation for my virtually daily cello-playing. (My articles and reviews can be seen here.)
I spend many hours listening to my classical CDs and DVDs and having also played in my student days under most of the great maestros of the twenties and thirties, I was always familiar with, and fascinated by, the technique of conducting.
I have now started “CO-CONDUCTING” opera performances, symphony concerts, and even chamber music, solo works and lieder, and I believe that I have discovered an entirely new “ART OF CREATIVE LISTENING”.
Age old taboos force a concert or opera audience to sit rigidly throughout even the longest performances and the tightness of the seating accommodation imposes further restraints. It is only when allowed to applaud that this unnatural physical and mental posture can be relieved.
Like Pavlovian dogs, we are tuned to respect this taboo, even when we are listening to music in privacy.
In a live performance we rely on the body language of the performer to interpret for us what we are prevented by our taboos bodily to express ourselves. We are compelled to watch and concentrate motionlessly and passively.
I found that, when liberated from the constraints imposed on me in a concert hall, in my privacy I can give passionate bodily expression, at least similar to the performer’s or conductor’s interpretation, through “co-conducting”, and this with a baton.
I happen to be familiar with conducting techniques, but any music lover could express these genetically imprinted urges to respond to music with bodily reactions to its rhythm, logic, emotional and intellectual content, without having to handle a baton with professional competence.
A baton seems to defy even gravity, and has its own sensitive life, responding to the most subtle and subconscious pressures, like a water-diviner’s two-pronged dousing device. The baton, almost acting on its own, determines the pulse and separates the bars, throwing a clear light on the structure of the composition. You are almost forcibly identified with the performer, and, curiously, even with eyes closed, one can virtually visualise the entire orchestra to the extent of being able to give spacially correct cues to sections or soloists.
This intense identification with the performers and the feeling that one is really in charge of the performance is perhaps the most striking feature of this experience
I “did” recently the Ring transmitted from Bayreuth, two Meistersingers, Il Trovatore, Tales of Hoffmann, Rigoletto, Don Carlo, Ernani and most of the superb BBC Prom concerts, with, amongst many other works, Mahler 1, 3, 4 and 5, Brahms 1, 3 and 4 and an unforgettable Mahler 9th under Abbado, and it was not only an exercise idly waving my arms...
With a baton in hand I came to rely on this inner sensitivity to revive a truly enormous richness of memories that now enables me to give to myself parallel performances, as it were, of an almost unlimited repertory, always assisted by superb interpretations, which I replicate, almost performing myself. I have also found that I can cope with “co-conducting” works that are new to me, just relying on the powerful inner logic imparted by the use of a baton.
“Co-conducting” is an emotional and intellectual challenge, and, importantly, a major physical effort, possibly no less powerful in intensity than real live performances.
Elementary “co-conducting” may offer a significant assistance to therapeutical measures treating Alzheimer and Dementia sufferers. Recent research shows that musical memories are the ones that best resist the ravages inflicted by the dying of brain cells. I imagine that “co-conducting” for patients in group therapy would be an enjoyable pastime that also could increase the remnants of self respect and confidence.
If you get yourself a baton, you may be persuaded that I have opened a new window on “creative listening”. Presenters introducing recorded music or transmitting live performances may suggest to listeners to try this form of “creative listening”. Acquiring a baton is the first step in this experience.
I was a student of the great Leo Weiner in chamber music, (in the same class as Sir Georg Solti), and although a strictly amateur cellist, I was able to - and I did - perform with professional musicians in most of the late Beethoven string quartets up to a few months ago.
Unhappily, severe arthritic deformation in my fingers put an end to my cello-playing and, after some 90 years of virtually daily practice, this has left a big black hole in my life.
Although for almost three years now I have been a music critic, accredited to the superb Festspielhaus in Baden Baden (one of Europe’s largest opera and concert halls), writing for MusicalCriticism.com, I had to look for compensation for my virtually daily cello-playing. (My articles and reviews can be seen here.)
I spend many hours listening to my classical CDs and DVDs and having also played in my student days under most of the great maestros of the twenties and thirties, I was always familiar with, and fascinated by, the technique of conducting.
I have now started “CO-CONDUCTING” opera performances, symphony concerts, and even chamber music, solo works and lieder, and I believe that I have discovered an entirely new “ART OF CREATIVE LISTENING”.
Age old taboos force a concert or opera audience to sit rigidly throughout even the longest performances and the tightness of the seating accommodation imposes further restraints. It is only when allowed to applaud that this unnatural physical and mental posture can be relieved.
Like Pavlovian dogs, we are tuned to respect this taboo, even when we are listening to music in privacy.
In a live performance we rely on the body language of the performer to interpret for us what we are prevented by our taboos bodily to express ourselves. We are compelled to watch and concentrate motionlessly and passively.
I found that, when liberated from the constraints imposed on me in a concert hall, in my privacy I can give passionate bodily expression, at least similar to the performer’s or conductor’s interpretation, through “co-conducting”, and this with a baton.
I happen to be familiar with conducting techniques, but any music lover could express these genetically imprinted urges to respond to music with bodily reactions to its rhythm, logic, emotional and intellectual content, without having to handle a baton with professional competence.
A baton seems to defy even gravity, and has its own sensitive life, responding to the most subtle and subconscious pressures, like a water-diviner’s two-pronged dousing device. The baton, almost acting on its own, determines the pulse and separates the bars, throwing a clear light on the structure of the composition. You are almost forcibly identified with the performer, and, curiously, even with eyes closed, one can virtually visualise the entire orchestra to the extent of being able to give spacially correct cues to sections or soloists.
This intense identification with the performers and the feeling that one is really in charge of the performance is perhaps the most striking feature of this experience
I “did” recently the Ring transmitted from Bayreuth, two Meistersingers, Il Trovatore, Tales of Hoffmann, Rigoletto, Don Carlo, Ernani and most of the superb BBC Prom concerts, with, amongst many other works, Mahler 1, 3, 4 and 5, Brahms 1, 3 and 4 and an unforgettable Mahler 9th under Abbado, and it was not only an exercise idly waving my arms...
With a baton in hand I came to rely on this inner sensitivity to revive a truly enormous richness of memories that now enables me to give to myself parallel performances, as it were, of an almost unlimited repertory, always assisted by superb interpretations, which I replicate, almost performing myself. I have also found that I can cope with “co-conducting” works that are new to me, just relying on the powerful inner logic imparted by the use of a baton.
“Co-conducting” is an emotional and intellectual challenge, and, importantly, a major physical effort, possibly no less powerful in intensity than real live performances.
Elementary “co-conducting” may offer a significant assistance to therapeutical measures treating Alzheimer and Dementia sufferers. Recent research shows that musical memories are the ones that best resist the ravages inflicted by the dying of brain cells. I imagine that “co-conducting” for patients in group therapy would be an enjoyable pastime that also could increase the remnants of self respect and confidence.
If you get yourself a baton, you may be persuaded that I have opened a new window on “creative listening”. Presenters introducing recorded music or transmitting live performances may suggest to listeners to try this form of “creative listening”. Acquiring a baton is the first step in this experience.
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
The Grace of Dying Early
A German Chancellor coined a phrase that became one of the most effective quotes in Germany to show that the generations born after the Nazi tragedy cannot bear the responsibility for its deeds:
DIE GNADE DER SPAETEN GEBURT = THE GRACE OF BEING BORN LATE.
I have turned it round to show how fate was kind to those who died too early to have suffered the calvary prepared for them.
I conceived a potential script for a TV or film feature to which I gave the title: “The Grace of Dying Early”.
In a nutshell, the idea was to show a doctor, who in 1938, when antisemitism in Hungary was not yet at the bestial state it reached in 1944, suffers a heart attack, but is revived by the ambulance crew. He recovers and is well enough to, with his wife, accompany his son, who, through devious ways has managed to obtain a visa to leave the country at a time when still so few thought of doing so, to the railway station to say goodbye.
In the course of the next few years the doctor and his wife suffer the fate of the tormented and abused Jewish population in Budapest, until Eichmann reaches the scene in the spring of 1944 and with the enthusiastic approbation of a good part of the population, deports 460,000 Jews to Auschwitz. The Jews of Budapest are given a respite by Horthy being pressurized by the Western Powers not to allow their wholesale deportation, and are herded into ghettoes.
It is then that my good doctor is denounced for some trivial reason and is deported to Treblinka. Immediately on arrival, like all the other deportees, he is driven naked through a narrow passage in the forest, quite near the railway station, and murdered by an extermination squad.
The shot that is to kill the doctor is amplified into a cataclysmic explosion, and the screen goes blank, only to revert to the scene, where the ambulance arrived in 1939 and he was revived after his heart attack.
An alternative version:
The son, returning to Budapest after many decades spent abroad, visits the memorial at the corner of the Parliament, the place where Jews dragged out of the ghettoes in the bitter winter of 1944 had to undress, and were shot, tied together in groups of three and dumped into the Danube.
While brooding over these terrible events, the story of his father emerges in his recollections of those terrible events.
Amongst the victims is the Father and the shot that hits him is magnfied into a cataclysmic explosion that sets the clock back to the time of his heart attack in 1938. This time, the efforts to revive him fail, and the doctor dies in peace, spared the suffering he would have had to endure if he had survived.
So in the closing scene, instead of the Father and Mother taking their leave of their son at the railway station, only the doubly grieving Mother waves as the red lights at the end of the train disappear into the gloom.
I cannot help thinking that this could be the basis of a script - unusual and having a very meaningful title, so far not exploited.
I was in fact the son who survived (my brother did too, but that’s another story). The details of my escape from Hungary and my subsequent induction into the British services and the S.O.E. could be intertwined with the suffering of the good doctor. Both stories are potentially interesting even now, even so many years after the events.
By the way, the reason the doctor was denounced is that he kept a secret radio in the Ghetto. My screenplay shows him recognizing the voice of his son, broadcasting from Italy as an S.O.E. agent, using the phrase he said to his mother at the railway station: “I will return when roses in Hungary grow without thorns”. As that same phrase crackles through radio the doctor immediately recognizes the identity of the speaker. He later excitedly tells others in the ghetto about this, but someone betrays him, the Nazis find the hidden radio in his room, and his doom is sealed.
DIE GNADE DER SPAETEN GEBURT = THE GRACE OF BEING BORN LATE.
I have turned it round to show how fate was kind to those who died too early to have suffered the calvary prepared for them.
I conceived a potential script for a TV or film feature to which I gave the title: “The Grace of Dying Early”.
In a nutshell, the idea was to show a doctor, who in 1938, when antisemitism in Hungary was not yet at the bestial state it reached in 1944, suffers a heart attack, but is revived by the ambulance crew. He recovers and is well enough to, with his wife, accompany his son, who, through devious ways has managed to obtain a visa to leave the country at a time when still so few thought of doing so, to the railway station to say goodbye.
In the course of the next few years the doctor and his wife suffer the fate of the tormented and abused Jewish population in Budapest, until Eichmann reaches the scene in the spring of 1944 and with the enthusiastic approbation of a good part of the population, deports 460,000 Jews to Auschwitz. The Jews of Budapest are given a respite by Horthy being pressurized by the Western Powers not to allow their wholesale deportation, and are herded into ghettoes.
It is then that my good doctor is denounced for some trivial reason and is deported to Treblinka. Immediately on arrival, like all the other deportees, he is driven naked through a narrow passage in the forest, quite near the railway station, and murdered by an extermination squad.
The shot that is to kill the doctor is amplified into a cataclysmic explosion, and the screen goes blank, only to revert to the scene, where the ambulance arrived in 1939 and he was revived after his heart attack.
An alternative version:
The son, returning to Budapest after many decades spent abroad, visits the memorial at the corner of the Parliament, the place where Jews dragged out of the ghettoes in the bitter winter of 1944 had to undress, and were shot, tied together in groups of three and dumped into the Danube.
While brooding over these terrible events, the story of his father emerges in his recollections of those terrible events.
Amongst the victims is the Father and the shot that hits him is magnfied into a cataclysmic explosion that sets the clock back to the time of his heart attack in 1938. This time, the efforts to revive him fail, and the doctor dies in peace, spared the suffering he would have had to endure if he had survived.
So in the closing scene, instead of the Father and Mother taking their leave of their son at the railway station, only the doubly grieving Mother waves as the red lights at the end of the train disappear into the gloom.
I cannot help thinking that this could be the basis of a script - unusual and having a very meaningful title, so far not exploited.
I was in fact the son who survived (my brother did too, but that’s another story). The details of my escape from Hungary and my subsequent induction into the British services and the S.O.E. could be intertwined with the suffering of the good doctor. Both stories are potentially interesting even now, even so many years after the events.
By the way, the reason the doctor was denounced is that he kept a secret radio in the Ghetto. My screenplay shows him recognizing the voice of his son, broadcasting from Italy as an S.O.E. agent, using the phrase he said to his mother at the railway station: “I will return when roses in Hungary grow without thorns”. As that same phrase crackles through radio the doctor immediately recognizes the identity of the speaker. He later excitedly tells others in the ghetto about this, but someone betrays him, the Nazis find the hidden radio in his room, and his doom is sealed.
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Hungary: a Janus-faced country
I'm well into my 98th year. I left the country of my birth, Hungary, just before the Second World war, because, like Bela Bartok, I felt that the - then only still mildly reactionary policies of Goemboes and the indecision of Horthy in accepting advice from Bethlen, would drive the country into tragedy. It was driven and the word tragedy is insufficient to describe the depths to which the country sank during the forties...
After the war, Hungary experienced the most vicious pseudo-communist dictatorship and, after its lethargic demise, another corrupt and incompetent "pseudo-social democratic" regime, with four years of "Orban-ery", which was also so incompetent that even "Gyurcsany-ism" could twice defeat it in free and fair elections.
Now, after another free and fair election, Orban has returned, this time with powers that inevitably will repeat the fatal indecision of the last Horthy years. Even after a few months he already shows shades of autocracy, like some Heads of nominally "democratic" states further East. He will profess to clear up the Augian Stable he inherited, but for all his considerable intellectual and charismatic gifts, by giving himself absolute power to run the country single-handed, and also by not resolutely distancing himself from the extreme rightwing vote that helped him to power, he will recreate the Goemboes era, with its reliance on the fatuous belief that the disaster of Trianon can be assuaged by jingoistic, chauvinistic sloganizing, a return to a personality cult based on the adoration of Horthy and so-called "Christian virtues", and the pretended uniqueness of the country, supposedly superior to all its neighbours.
Hungary will remain a nominally parliamentary democracy.
In the meantime, tourists with dollars and Euros will continue to flock to Hungary and enjoy the beauty of Budapest, the healing waters of Heviz, the smart coffee shops and many other delights. Behind the majestic boulevards, FIDESZ voters will continue to need two jobs to survive, and the age-old Hungarian disease of looking for scapegoats to hate will fester at an ever increasing pace. The few Jews left after 460,000 of them had been shipped to Auschwitz by their compatriots in 1944, the Roma, liberalism, and European cosmopolitism will serve well as ammunition.
I still love the memory of my happy childhood, my education, my artistic development at the Liszt Ferencz Music Academy, the smells and tastes of the food, the brilliance of the art, music, literature and science, and the beauty of the language and landscape. Yet, apart from occasional bouts of homesickness, I am relieved never having to see again the brutal cock-feathered Gendarmery, or read the vicious antisemitic outbursts of a Bayer Zsolt under the cloak of journalism - the publication of which now seems to be tolerated, or watch demonstrations on the Heroes' Square by large crowds greeting visiting SS veteran "brothers in arms".
There is still a brave, talented and progressive elite in Hungary,that hopefully will one day offer true statesmanship to that wonderful but Janus-faced country.
After the war, Hungary experienced the most vicious pseudo-communist dictatorship and, after its lethargic demise, another corrupt and incompetent "pseudo-social democratic" regime, with four years of "Orban-ery", which was also so incompetent that even "Gyurcsany-ism" could twice defeat it in free and fair elections.
Now, after another free and fair election, Orban has returned, this time with powers that inevitably will repeat the fatal indecision of the last Horthy years. Even after a few months he already shows shades of autocracy, like some Heads of nominally "democratic" states further East. He will profess to clear up the Augian Stable he inherited, but for all his considerable intellectual and charismatic gifts, by giving himself absolute power to run the country single-handed, and also by not resolutely distancing himself from the extreme rightwing vote that helped him to power, he will recreate the Goemboes era, with its reliance on the fatuous belief that the disaster of Trianon can be assuaged by jingoistic, chauvinistic sloganizing, a return to a personality cult based on the adoration of Horthy and so-called "Christian virtues", and the pretended uniqueness of the country, supposedly superior to all its neighbours.
Hungary will remain a nominally parliamentary democracy.
In the meantime, tourists with dollars and Euros will continue to flock to Hungary and enjoy the beauty of Budapest, the healing waters of Heviz, the smart coffee shops and many other delights. Behind the majestic boulevards, FIDESZ voters will continue to need two jobs to survive, and the age-old Hungarian disease of looking for scapegoats to hate will fester at an ever increasing pace. The few Jews left after 460,000 of them had been shipped to Auschwitz by their compatriots in 1944, the Roma, liberalism, and European cosmopolitism will serve well as ammunition.
I still love the memory of my happy childhood, my education, my artistic development at the Liszt Ferencz Music Academy, the smells and tastes of the food, the brilliance of the art, music, literature and science, and the beauty of the language and landscape. Yet, apart from occasional bouts of homesickness, I am relieved never having to see again the brutal cock-feathered Gendarmery, or read the vicious antisemitic outbursts of a Bayer Zsolt under the cloak of journalism - the publication of which now seems to be tolerated, or watch demonstrations on the Heroes' Square by large crowds greeting visiting SS veteran "brothers in arms".
There is still a brave, talented and progressive elite in Hungary,that hopefully will one day offer true statesmanship to that wonderful but Janus-faced country.
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