Klarinet Archive - Posting 001107.txt from 2000/12

From: Neil Leupold <leupold_1@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re the Vienna Philharmonic
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 19:28:43 -0500

An incredible article, Dan. Thanks for posting. -- Neil

--- Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net> wrote:
> Hattner's interesting note mentions that Wilhelm Jerger, who was a
> contrabassist in the orchestra and a Lieutenant in the SS, became the
> chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic. Let me give you the story of the
> man who was his predecessor, because it was men like him who saved
> whatever honor Austria had in this matter. This story was published in
> two magazines and I mentioned it in an earlier posting.
>
> Dan Leeson
>
> A RIGHTEOUS PERSON
>
> On the tenth of December 1996, I went to La Honda, California, a small,
> isolated town on the spine of the last mountain range before the Pacific
> Ocean, and planted a redwood tree in memory of Hugo Burghauser, taking
> care to select a Sequoia that would someday produce the largest, most
> noble, longest living member of the species, and choosing a site not
> likely ever to see a lumberman's chainsaw. Since I don't know
> Burghauser's exact date of birth, I chose the anniversary of his 1982
> date of death for the ceremony, one at which I was the only attendee.
> My effort was not as a result of some formal action but was
> self-motivated because of my conclusion that Burghauser was a righteous
> person, deserving of the honor. His behavior in 1938, though modest in
> scope, required great personal sacrifice and strength of character. Let
> me tell you about him.
>
> Before moving to California, I lived in New Jersey and, on one Saturday
> morning in 1966, I received a call from the personnel manager at the
> Metropolitan Opera House asking if I were free to play that afternoon's
> performance of Richard Strauss' one act opera, Elektra. When an
> orchestra member gets sick at the last moment, as had the orchestra's
> bass clarinetist, someone must be engaged to fill in and, since I played
> at the Met from time to time, my name was on the substitute list, which
> is how I came to be called that day.
>
> Accepting the engagement, I called Herb Blayman -- my friend and then
> first desk clarinet at the Met -- in the nearby town of Tenafly to ask
> if I could ride in with him to the matinee. He agreed but with the
> caveat that he was playing both matinee and evening performances that
> day and would not be able to leave until after 11 p.m. That meant I was
> either to wait until he finished or take the bus home.
>
> "What's the second show?" I asked.
>
> "Così fan Tutte," he said.
>
> I needed to know nothing else. A day when one can play Elektra in the
> afternoon and then see (and hear) Così fan Tutte in the evening, is a
> gift from God.
>
> It was while warming up backstage that Blayman introduced me to Hugo
> Burghauser. He was a neatly dressed man who appeared to be in his
> mid-seventies. "There will be a seat on your left for Hugo to occupy
> and watch the opera. He used to play bassoon with the orchestra but is
> now retired," said Blayman.
>
> "I'm very glad to meet you," Burghauser said to me, his German accent
> noticeable at once. "I hope you don't mind me sitting next to you, but
> since your seat looks directly at the conductor's right hand side, it is
> a good place for a view of the stage. You recognize, of course, that in
> the pit, the closer one gets to the lip of the stage, the less one sees
> of it. I will be sure not to inconvenience or disturb you."
>
> "Mr. Burghauser, the pleasure is mine," I replied. "You realize that I
> am kept very busy during the opera so I won't be able to see much of it
> with you."
>
> "I know," he said. "One really works hard in Elektra. I once told
> Strauss that the work exhausted the musicians physically, emotionally,
> and intellectually."
>
> That stopped me cold.
>
> "Mr. Burghauser," I said, respectfully. "You knew Richard Strauss?"
>
> "Very well," he replied. "I was privileged to work with him many times
> in Vienna and elsewhere. He was a marvelous conductor." Pausing for a
> moment, Burghauser added, "though a terrible card player." Much later I
> was to learn that Strauss' "Concertino for Clarinet and Bassoon with
> String Orchestra and Harp" was written for and dedicated to "Hugo
> Burghauser, dem Getreuen."
>
> At that point the orchestra began to file into the pit, tuned up, and
> got ready to open with the muscular "A-GA-MEM-NON!" theme that pervades
> the entire opera. On my left, with his chair turned 90 degrees --
> placing his back directly against the audience separation wall which
> gave him a face-front view of the stage -- sat Burghauser. The lights
> dimmed, the conductor made his entrance, we rose and bowed to the
> audience, seated ourselves and, with a flick of the wrist, were into the
> story of matricide amongst the ancient Greeks.
>
> For the next hour and thirty minutes -- the length of the opera -- it
> became obvious to me that Burghauser knew every detail of the work. He
> flicked a finger when Klytemnestra missed an entrance by an eyeblink.
> And when, for the arrival of Orestes, a trumpet overshot a cue by a
> millisecond, Burghauser's hands, folded and resting on his lap,
> imperceptibly rose up, as if to give the player a helpful cue. It was
> just a tiny movement, but I saw it out of the corner of my eye.
>
> After the performance, I asked him if he might join me for supper,
> explaining that I was finished playing but was coming back for the
> evening's performance. And that is how I got a small piece of Hugo
> Burghauser's remarkable story. It took a long time to get all of it.
> He was so modest and self-effacing that he chose not to speak of
> himself. The details came from others much later.
>
> It is not wild hyperbole to state that, until 1938, Hugo Burghauser was
> the most powerful musician in the world. During that time, he was the
> President of the Vienna Philharmonic -- as well as the principle bassoon
> -- which means that he was the most influential person in the world's
> most influential symphony orchestra. Ergo, he was the most dominant
> musician in Vienna, in Austria, in Europe and, therefore, in the world.
>
> There is no orchestra quite like the Vienna Philharmonic. Proud,
> haughty, brilliant, though, by today's standards, unforgivably sexist
> and inflexible. But in early 1930, it stood at the pinnacle of symphony
> orchestras, a law unto itself. The VPO is completely self-governing.
> Unlike the vast majority of professional orchestras, one does not find
> two faces; i.e., the musicians on one hand and management on the other.
> On the contrary. The orchestra manages itself, inviting who it wishes,
> ignoring those with whom it chooses not to be involved. As royalty is
> not told what to do, one does not dictate to the VPO. They can be
> pressured, to be sure -- as was the case of the recent scandal caused by
> their obstinate refusal not to hire women -- but they are a law to
> themselves, with vast record sales, a large government subsidy,
> completely sold out subscription concerts, and the world's most
> prestigious summer festival (Salzburg). Thus, the VPO can and does
> thumb its nose at demands that, in any other orchestra, would be
> political suicide. It is a private club. (I do not defend their
> attitude, only report it.)
>
> And in the 1930s, Hugo Burghauser was the President of this most
> influential body.
>
> After the "anschluss" or occupation of Austria by Germany, Burghauser
> was requested to appear at the headquarters of the Austrian Nazi party.
> There he was directed to dismiss all Jewish players from the orchestra
> and, further, to prevent the hiring of all artists and conductors who
> were Jewish or whose politics were not in accord with Nazi philosophy.
>
> Burghauser, a Roman Catholic with no Jewish ancestors -- but married to
> a Jewish woman then on tour in South America -- refused to comply,
> stating that he would not participate in such an immoral act. Storming
> out, he went back to work. Burghauser was called in for a second
> meeting where he was threatened, and again he refused. Ordered to
> appear a third time, he refused to go. Two days later he was summarily
> fired from the Presidency of the VPO and his more amenable replacement
> immediately terminated the employment of every Jew in the ensemble. A
> later and very public disagreement with a Nazi party member in the cello
> section resulted in Burghauser's resignation from the orchestra.
>
> Burghauser did not have to do any of this. Had he concurred with the
> request that he fire all the orchestra's Jews, he would have continued
> in his important and well-paying job, perhaps facing criticism at the
> end of the war, but who knows? However Burghauser's ethics were such
> that he gave it all up rather than be a prisoner to the Nazi view of who
> should not be permitted to play in Austria's most important symphony
> orchestra.
>
> Now, being without a job, he approached his friend, Arturo Toscanini who
> recommended him to Sir Ernest MacMillan, then conductor of the excellent
> Toronto Symphony, an orchestra that was then searching for a principle
> bassoon. Burghauser, on the basis of Toscanini's endorsement, was
> offered the position.
>
> Burghauser had no idea where Toronto was and thought that he had been
> engaged to play in Taranto, Italy. Since his mother was Italian -- his
> grandfather had played flute under Verdi -- he was fluent in the
> language and looked forward to living there. But soon, the
> misunderstanding was clarified and he was on his way to Canada with his
> bassoon and exactly ten marks, the maximum allowable on leaving Austria.
>
> Arriving in Paris on his way to Cherbourg where his boat journey was to
> begin, it was his intention to finance his trip from a French bank
> account he maintained. However, a bank moratorium, caused by
> expectations of an imminent war with Germany, prevented any withdrawal.
> Overnight Burghauser had gone from being the most powerful musician in
> Europe to being indigent in a foreign country. He was also advised by
> the French police that, without a steamship ticket, his tourist status
> would be revoked in one week and this would be immediately followed by
> expulsion from France. Alone and without resources, Burghauser chose
> the only avenue available to him: he joined the French Foreign Legion.
> By the most incredible of coincidences, on the day of his induction --
> the last day before he would have been expelled from France and the day
> before his scheduled but unpaid-for boat trip to New York -- he ran into
> Mrs. Carla Toscanini on a Paris street. Like Burghauser, the Toscaninis
> were abandoning Europe and scheduled to take the same boat from
> Cherbourg, for which he was ticketed but without money to pay for the
> trip. Mrs. Toscanini lent him the amount needed for the boat fare and
> he was on his way to New York and Toronto, sharing the ocean voyage with
> his old friend, a conductor who also had thumbed his nose at fascism.
>
> Ensconced in the first bassoon chair, Burghauser spent three seasons in
> Toronto before departing for New York where he played first with the NBC
> Symphony and later assumed the second bassoon/contrabassoon chair at the
> Metropolitan Opera House. A vignette about an event during his time
> with the Toronto Symphony reveals the magnitude of his prestige. The
> TSO had hired a world-famous guest conductor who appeared for rehearsal
> at the appointed time. He took one look at the orchestra, saw
> Burghauser, and left the stage, ashen faced.
>
> "Do you realize who it is you have playing first bassoon?!" he said to
> the orchestra manager. "That is the most powerful musician in all
> Europe. What is he doing here?!!"
>
> "He is playing the bassoon," came the response.
>
> Hugo Burghauser was a righteous person. Unlike Oskar Schindler and
> Raoul Wallenberg, Burghauser did not directly save lives, but his
> actions and behavior in the face of a hostile, ferocious, and oppressive
> government were consistent with the highest ethical principles of
> mankind. The behavior of a few people like him saved whatever honor
> Austria retained following the events of 1938-1945.
>
> The last time I played Elektra, it was with the San Francisco opera and,
> as I played it, I thought of this gentle, kind, brave, and righteous
> man. It was later that I decided to plant a tree in his memory.
> --
> ***************************
> ** Dan Leeson **
> ** leeson0@-----.net **
> ***************************
>
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