Klarinet Archive - Posting 001221.txt from 2004/03
From: Dan Leeson <leeson0@-----.net> Subj: [kl] Richard Strauss concertino for clarinet, bassoon, string orchestra Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 11:18:16 -0500
The man for whom Struass wrote this work was Hugo Burghauser and I knew
him. He was one of the bravest and most remarkable men I ever med. So
much so, that I wrote a story that was published in two different places
including the journal of the bassoon society. It's worth finding and
reading it because it speaks of a brave man. But because it may be
difficult to find, I offer it to you here. A brief reference to the
concertino is given as part of the story.
Dan Leeson
A RIGHTEOUS PERSON
(This story appeared in Moment Magazine, August, 1998 under the title,
"Remembering Burghauser," and reprinted in The Double Reed, a
professional journal for bassoonists and oboeists in 1999, under the
title "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.
On a Saturday morning in 1966, when I was still living in New Jersey, I
received a phone 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 catch a ride with him to the matinee performance. 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 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, your presence will not bother me in the least," 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." And then,
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 [the faithful]." In the world of music,
to have someone of the magnitude of Richard Strauss write and dedicate a
work to a performer makes the recipient of that honor very special, indeed.
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 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 in 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, refused to comply, stating that he would
not participate in such an immoral act. Storming out, he went back to
work. Called in for a second meeting where he was threatened,
Burghauser again refused to obey. 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 made of him, 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 searching for a
principle bassoon. Burghauser, on the basis of Toscanini's endorsement,
was offered the position.
Strangely, 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 immediately be 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 coincidence, 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 and
reputation. 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
humankind. 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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