Klarinet Archive - Posting 001225.txt from 2004/03

From: Georg.Kuehner@-----.de (Georg K=?ISO-8859-1?B?/A==?=hner)
Subj: Re: [kl] Richard Strauss concertino for clarinet, bassoon, string
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 13:25:45 -0500

Than You very much for sharing this story with us!

Gru=DF Georg K=FChner

Georg K=FChner
Klarinetten, Saxophone
Salonorchester an der P=E4dagogischen Hochschule HD
alias "Heidelberger Saloniker"

Telefon 0621 527962
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Georg.Kuehner@-----.de
georg@-----.de

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Am 21.03.2004 17:19 Uhr schrieb "Dan Leeson" unter <leeson0@-----.net>:

> 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.
>=20
> Dan Leeson
>=20
> A RIGHTEOUS PERSON
>=20
> (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")
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> "What's the second show?" I asked.
>=20
> "Cos=EC fan Tutte," he said.
>=20
> I needed to know nothing else. A day when one can play Elektra in the
> afternoon and then see Cos=EC fan Tutte in the evening, is a gift from God.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> "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."
>=20
> "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."
>=20
> "I know," he said. "One really works hard in Elektra. I once told
> Strauss that the work exhausted the musicians physically, emotionally,
> and intellectually."
>=20
> That stopped me cold.
>=20
> "Mr. Burghauser," I said, respectfully. "You knew Richard Strauss?"
>=20
> "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, indee=
d.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.)
>=20
> And in the 1930s, Hugo Burghauser was the President of this most
> influential body.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> "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?!!"
>=20
> "He is playing the bassoon," came the response.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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=
.

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