Klarinet Archive - Posting 000210.txt from 1995/12

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re Strauss work for clarinet and bassoon
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 1995 11:55:32 -0500

Someone named "S" commented that Michele Zukovsky played the work in
Los Angeles just a few nights ago and it brought to mind a really
interesting story that I would like to share.

At least 25 years ago I was playing Frau Ohne Schatten with the Met in
NY. I could play good then. I got lousy later. It is a giant basset
horn part that ends up on C clarinet. Long book. Hard. A killer.
Karl Boehm was the conductor. Couldn't beat worth crap. Got fabulous
performances. Can't figure out how.

Anyway, a very elderly man came into the pit about 15 minutes before we
began and was given a seat over by the timpanist, Fred Hinger. Everyone
greeted this old man and was very deferential to him. When Boehm came
out to conduct, he saw the old man, stopped dead in his tracks, acknowledged
him with a courtesy of a hand wave, went to the podium and began the opera.

At the intermission, the old man stayed put and, coming back from the
rest room, I saw Boehm over speaking to him. The old man was polite
but distant in some way. It was obvious to me that there was some problem
between the two but I could not put my finger on it, and in any case
I could not overhear their conversation. Boehm was a fanatic about not
having anyone in the pit for a free performance and I presumed that that
was what the conversation was about, but if Boehm wanted the guy thrown
out, he would have contacted the house manager or someone. Instead, it
appeared to me that Boehm was trying his best to be open and friendly
to this man, and "open and friendly" was not what I would consider were
Boehm's normal dispositon.

After the performance was over (about 4 hours of hard blowing), I was
introduced to the man by name (which slips my mind, but someone on
this board will know who it was in a minute and I ask that person to
post it.) He was introduced as the former second bassoonist in the
Met orchestra who liked to come back every now and then and hear a
performance or two.

We chatted and he was a delight! In conversation about this and that,
I asked him if he liked the music of Strauss (whose opera we had
just finished). And he told me that he liked Strauss very much,
particularly the double concerto that Strauss had written for and
dedicated to both him and some clarinet player (whose name also
escapes me, maybe Leopold Wlach).

So I said, "Are you the co-dedicatee of the Strauss double concerto?"
and he said that he was, which later research proved to be absolutely
the case. Well I wasn't going to let this moment go by and so I
asked him many questions about how he knew Strauss and when he knew
him, etc.

And all of his answers allowed me to come to the conclusion that he
had been first bassoon in the Vienna Phil since at least the time of
the first world war. So the logical question to be asked was, "how
did the first bassoon in the Vienna Phil get to be second bassoon at
the Metropolitan Opera?" And he said, "Easy. I went to Canada first."

This answer made no sense to me, but I felt that I should not push
such personal issues to a man who was a complete stranger. Later that
evening I got the whole story on the ride home.

This man, one of Austria's finest musicians, from one of Austria's
oldest and most respected Catholic families, refused to accept the 1939
orders of the Nazi government that Jewish musicians were to be fired
from the Vienna Phil. He was personnel manager as well as first
bassoon. And he told the Nazi govt. to stick it up their ass. Karl
Boehm was one of the men who had acceeded to the Nazi order and
they apparently had had some falling out over the matter in 1939.

The old man not only quit the Vienna Phil., he refused to stay in
Austria under a Nazi government, immigrated to Canada and became
second bassoon in the Toronto Symphony and then later second
bassoon in the Met Orchestra.

And I met him. I met this decent, noble person whose honor was more
important to him than his career. It was a few men like him who saved
the otherwise disgraced honor of Austria.

He died a short time after that, was returned to Austria and was
buried in the Catholic cemetery that housed his family for generations.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================