Gerald Elias's Blog, page 3

A Castrucci Renaissance

How many of you are familiar with the name Pietro Castrucci? Not many, I bet.

Isn’t he a renowned Italian chef on a popular cooking show? Or is he the head of the opposition in Italy’s parliament? The leader of the Italian Resistance in WWII? Wasn’t he the winner of the marathon in the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympics?

As you’ve probably guessed, he was none of those. Pietro Castrucci (1679-1752) was a violinist-composer who studied with the great Arcangelo Corelli in Rome, then moved to London to ply his trade. He achieved his own renown there, primarily as concertmaster of George Frideric Handel’s orchestra for twenty years.

Though he was considered one of the finest virtuosos of his day, he composed very little music: two sets of violin sonatas (Op. 1 & 2), a dozen each, and a set of twelve concerti grossi (Op. 3). Perhaps the reason for his scant output was that he just didn’t have enough time, being too busy rehearsing with the orchestra or on the road performing.

We can be thankful, though, that what music he did leave behind is remarkable for its drama, its expressiveness, its freshness, and its distinctively unique voice.

One would think that even given Castrucci’s place on the periphery of the pantheon of Baroque rock stars, the unequivocal genius of his music would have attracted attention. Yet, believe it or not, there is not a single complete recording of either opus of his violin sonatas! The only recordings that exist are of a few individual, selected sonatas.

I’m about to change that. I’ve been invited by the distinguished record company, Centaur Records, to record the entire twelve sonatas of Opus 1. Performing from the only edition extant–the original 1718 publication by Roger, Amsterdam–this recording will, for the first time in history, bring back to life the music of a forgotten master.

Pietro Castrucci died of malaria in Ireland in 1752, a pauper like so many other great composers. Yet, despite his poverty, he was buried with full ceremony at St. Mary’s Church in Dublin, a posthumous tribute to a musician who bestowed incomparable beauty upon the world. In 2021, my personal tribute will be to make Pietro Castrucci a household name through his music, so when asked the question, “How many of you are familiar with the name Pietro Castrucci?” everyone’s hand will go up.

We have already raised $3,500 of $5,000 necessary to make this recording project a reality. Please visit my GoFundMe campaign and help me cross the finish line.

Thank you.

[image error] “The Enraged Musician” (1741) by William Hogarth,
believed to be a caricature of Castrucci.

In Case You Were Wondering

Here’s a curious turn of events.

I used to have a website called geraldelias.com. When my “lease” expired with GoDaddy I decided not to renew it.

Curiously, my domain name was picked up by a sleazy Thai gambling site called Sexy Baccarat. If that’s something that floats your boat, hey, it’s a free country.

But if you’re more interested in finding out about my new novel, The Beethoven Sequence, you’ll find more success going to my Writing page.

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Have a great day.

Symphonies & Scorpions: “War & Peace. And Music”

WELCOME TO THE 29th, AND FINAL DAILY INSTALLMENT OF SYMPHONIES & SCORPIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL CONCERT TOUR AS AN INSTRUMENT OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACY.     

I INVITE YOU TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK, ONE DAILY EPISODE AT A TIME, FOR FREE, OR YOU CAN PURCHASE THE BOOK IN ITS ENTIRETY (with many photos not found here) IN PAPERBACK OR KINDLE, HERE.

NOW THAT WE’VE COME TO THE END OF SYMPHONIES & SCORPIONS, I WELCOME YOU TO TAKE A PEEK AT MY OTHER BOOKS. AND BY ALL MEANS, PLEASE STAY IN TOUCH!

(P.S. If you FOLLOW me, you’ll be sent all future episodes automatically!)

WAR & PEACE. AND MUSIC

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[An earlier version of this essay first appeared in the Autumn, 2017 Boston Symphony program book. The following expanded version, featured as a TEDxSaltLakeCity performance in September, 2019, was awarded first prize for creative essay by the Utah Division of Arts & History.]

An international concert tour’s main ingredient is, of course, music making. But as I wait at crowded Takadanobaba subway station in central Tokyo, I reflect there’s also a large dollop of goodwill cultural ambassador. And, looking ahead to my evening’s destination, a dash of culinary adventure thrown in.

A cheerily Smurflike tune signals my train’s arrival. Every Tokyo station has its own unique eight-second jingle—it’s a stretch to even call it music. Perhaps the reason for them is so that blind riders—or hung-over businessmen—can tell at which station they’re arriving. Just a theory.

I am on my way to join decades-old Tokyo friends who are treating me to a gourmet kaiseki dinner in the upscale Yoyogi Uehara neighborhood to celebrate the successful conclusion of the Boston Symphony’s smoothly planned and executed autumn 2017 concert tour. Its only hiccup—other than when I drank too much sake—was when the cargo truck from Tokyo carrying our string basses and all of our music arrived in Nagoya four hours late, delaying and abbreviating our first rehearsal. (The audience never knew the difference.)

For the dinner, my friend, Tetsuro, has brought along a buddy of his, a Japanese violinist named Kiichi Watanabe. As the first courses are served, Watanabe tells me in admirable English he had played for a time in the New Japan Philharmonic, on occasion with my old boss, Seiji Ozawa, the longtime music director of the Boston Symphony whose tenure with the orchestra ended in 2002. I mentioned that though I had performed with the Boston Symphony on the just completed tour, I had in fact left my full-time position with the orchestra years ago to become associate concertmaster of the Utah Symphony.

“Joseph Silverstein!” Watanabe says, his eyes lighting up. “He conducted in Utah. Did you know him?” The answer was yes, and in many capacities. Before becoming the music director of the Utah Symphony, he had been a renowned concertmaster of the Boston Symphony when I was a full-time member there. Before that, he had been my violin teacher at Yale University.

Thus began a long evening of “who do you know.” It was fortunate the dinner had so many courses because the connections were extensive. Watanabe had studied at Indiana, one of the foremost conservatories in the US, and in the early ‘90s was a student at the Tanglewood Music Center at the same time I was performing with the BSO, and where his chamber music coach was the eminent violinist and pedagogue, Louis Krasner (who, like Joey, had been one of my former teachers). Watanabe had revered both, calling Silverstein “a genius.” Not unusual among musicians, shared experiences had formed deep, enduring bonds that transcended cultural and national boundaries. When Tetsuro asked me whether a few weeks had been enough time for me to practice the music for the concerts, Mr. Watanabe burst out laughing even before I did, replying, “Of course. He’s a professional musician!” The fraternity is universal.

How the broader relationship between Americans and the Japanese has mended in the past seventy years is close to miraculous. A mere two generations ago, members of Tetsuro’s family were killed by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Now, Tetsuro’s seven-year old son calls me Uncle Jerry.

That’s not to say there aren’t reminders of the former divide. Arriving in Nagoya after a seemingly endless flight over the Pacific, I regained the use of my legs on the orchestra’s free day, exploring Nagoya’s modern, attractive downtown, rebuilt upon war-charred ruins. My destination was Nagoya Castle, the city’s prominent historic landmark, where today children romp in the surrounding gardens, and tourists like me lick green tea ice cream cones and take too many snapshots.

Adjacent to the fortress is the ancient palace, which was totally destroyed in the war. Currently in the final stages of painstaking reconstruction, using the same materials and exact design as the original, every detail down to the color of the tiger’s eyes in the silk screen murals has been lovingly recreated. It’s a spectacular achievement, a tribute to the stunning artistry and architecture of old Japan and the patient dedication of new Japan to throw substantial financial and artistic resources into reproducing it. The imposing castle fortress, with its massive stone works, is a reconstruction too, but was rebuilt back in 1959 with modern concrete and steel simply to provide the appearance of the original exterior. The inside, of modern design and functioning as an exhibit space, contains a gut-wrenching photo display of the wartime strafing of the city and castle.

Though the destruction of all that exquisite beauty was tragic and perhaps unnecessary, what must also be considered is the castle’s original politico-military purpose: to effectively unleash its own dogs of war when deemed necessary, inflicting untold casualties and death upon the enemies of the military rulers of the day. Indomitable for centuries, Nagoya castle finally succumbed in 1945, as all castles—real or metaphorical—inevitably do. Poetic justice? Perhaps not, but in one form or another, Nagoya Castle bears witness to the seemingly endless human cycle of brutality and reconciliation.

After spending four comfortable days in Nagoya—performing once there, followed by a run-out back and forth to Osaka, then by a concert in Kawasaki en route to Tokyo—the positive swing of history’s cycle could not have been more powerfully demonstrated than at the Boston Symphony’s concert in the embracing acoustics of Tokyo’s Suntory Hall on November 7. The featured work on the program was the Shostakovich Symphony No. 11, entitled “The Year 1905.”

Like many of Shostakovich’s symphonies, the eleventh is a musically graphic depiction of historic Russian events, in this case the Revolution of 1905. More specifically, it portrays the tragedy that triggered it: the massacre of innocent, peaceful petitioners—men, women, and children—mercilessly shot to death by the Tsar’s military forces on January 22, 1905 in front of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. Depending on which source one believes, anywhere from ninety-six to four thousand people were killed. In the symphony we hear prayers, we hear armies marching, we hear the shooting, we hear the death and mourning. Finally, we hear the overpowering warning bell, called the tocsin. Shostakovich intended it as a warning not only in the historical context of the piece; it also tolls for the audience itself to beware! Beware of liberty deprived. Beware of the forces of despotism and militarism.

In the audience of the Tokyo performance on November 7 were two special guests: Crown Prince Naruhito and Princess Masako, a couple beloved by the Japanese and respected around the world. As we played the Shostakovich, I couldn’t help but wonder what might be going through their minds, and from time to time I looked up at them—they were sitting in the first balcony in a direct line cross-stage from me—to see if I could read their faces. I was curious because here was the son of the emperor of Japan, the royal equivalent of the Tsar of Russia, whose grandfather, Emperor Hirohito, approved the order to attack the United States at Pearl Harbor. Yes, music is to be enjoyed, just like the art at Nagoya Castle. But for Shostakovich there was much more at stake. Music was his power: the power to inform and, in the process, to teach, to foment, and to heal. (Being true to royal form, the Prince and Princess betrayed no other sentiment than to appear to greatly enjoy the performance.)

What a mysterious phenomenon music is! A select group of people spend their lifetimes learning to blow air through tubes, scrape with horsehair on strings pulled taut over a wooden box, and bang on stretched skins with sticks, all to create uniquely complex sets of vibrations, the instructions for which appear as black dots on paper, many of them centuries old. This group of blowers, scrapers, and bangers then travels around the world where thousands of people with a different culture and history, who have worked many hours in order earn enough money to pay for the opportunity to gather en masse in a big room, absorb those vibrations into their bodies. When it’s over, the listeners slap their hands together and go home. Somehow, miraculously, even when the vibrations are about strife, the strife is gone.

Maybe that’s why it will be music that saves humanity from the wanton cruelty we seem determined to inflict upon each other. Maybe that’s why the goodwill component of tours such as the Boston Symphony’s to Japan is more critical than we ever imagined. As I say good-bye to my friends after our big dinner on the town, I recall a written sign at Takadanobaba station as the train arrived and I heard that innocuous little jingle. At first I merely took the sign’s meaning at face value. Now, upon reflection, it carries the same portentous weight of Shostakovich’s tocsin. The sign read, “Doors close soon after the melody ends.”

[image error]A metaphor for life?

(Since writing this essay, Crown Prince Naruhito and Princess Masako assumed the throne of Japan as Emperor and Empress. It is encouraging that the Emperor is a serious violist.)

***

Click on the title if you’d like to purchase Symphonies & Scorpions in its entirety. It’s available in two paperback editions, one chock-full of black-and-white photos, the other with color photos, and in Kindle.

NEWS FLASH: MY FIRST POLITICAL THRILLER, THE BEETHOVEN SEQUENCE, IS SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON SEPTEMBER 8! A MENTALLY UNBALANCED MUSIC TEACHER BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! PREPOSTEROUS? STAY TUNED.

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Symphonies & Scorpions: The Mystery of Music

WELCOME TO THE 28th, AND NEXT TO LAST DAILY INSTALLMENT OF SYMPHONIES & SCORPIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL CONCERT TOUR AS AN INSTRUMENT OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACY.               

I INVITE YOU TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK, ONE DAILY EPISODE AT A TIME, FOR FREE, OR YOU CAN PURCHASE THE BOOK IN ITS ENTIRETY (with photos not found here) IN PAPERBACK OR KINDLE, HERE.

ENJOY!

(P.S. If you FOLLOW me, you’ll be sent all future episodes automatically!)

Epilogue

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The Significance of Understanding

It all comes down to understanding. A few years ago, my family and I were driving along a country lane in rural Ireland and were unsure which fork in the road we needed to take to our destination, a prehistoric stone cairn. We stopped and asked directions from an elderly gentleman walking down the road from his farm. He proceeded to engage us in animated conversation for about a half hour as if we were his closest kin. At first, I got very fidgety, thinking this guy, who was wasting our time, certainly must be a little bit off his rocker. Then it dawned on me, that’s what people do in Ireland! How civilized! That’s what experiencing Ireland is all about. Maybe that’s even what life is about. I remember that incident with clarity, but I don’t even recall what our so-important mound of rocks looked like.

It takes an effort to bridge the gap between people of diverse cultures. It’s not always easy or successful, but the effort to understand is never a wasted one. The couple in Nezu from whom I finally bought a scarf reached out to my friends and me partly because we engaged them in simple polite conversation (if our smiles, nods, and an occasional “thank you” can be construed as a conversation).

Our differences about food are a case in point. Why not eat a scorpion? Because it’s alien to our daily experience? Food for thought, which led me in a tortuous way to a much bigger question: How Americans think “the American way” will fix any problem anywhere in the world, either with arms or by manufacturing an election, when we have such a paucity of understanding of other cultures. Take Afghanistan, as only one example, whose culture and history bear little resemblance to ours. Why do we think that domestic tranquility and democracy are a natural order of things, when history tells us that both are at best fleeting and often illusory; and that we should be the ones to impose our version of good governance upon Afghanis? If yours truly, making his best efforts, can’t even force a li’l ole scorpion kebab into his mouth, how can our nation, which has made no discernible effort to understand the deep-rooted issues of another, have any reasonable expectation to be able to transform it?

Wherever I’ve traveled—Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Down Under—I’ve found that the people I’ve met and worked with are overwhelmingly friendly, intelligent, accommodating, and caring. I concede that long-distance relationships don’t have all the push and pull that occurs over the grind of day-to-day interaction, but I have rich friendships that have lasted for decades with people I first met while traveling. One wonders where all the world’s strife originates. I suspect much of the answer lies somewhere between the power-hungry and the greedy, using government and the media as tools. I’m not talking just about America here. For me, the most effective way to improve international relations has been to meet people on their home turf. It may be pie in the sky, but I wish some of our world leaders would live incognito in the places they’re so ready to criticize (or blow up) before spouting off.

China Daily, the English language newspaper in Beijing, is a proxy voice of the central government. Unlike the Shanghai Daily, which is more nuanced, it not-so-subtly criticizes our government’s Asia policy implicitly in news stories, overtly in editorials. You can find a brief paragraph here and there in the middle pages chastising corrupt local government officials, but only up to midlevel and only in the context of “we’re making things better.”

Mainly, though, you’ll hear a lot about what they perceive as America’s push for hegemony in East and South Asia. On the surface, it sounds like blatant fear mongering. Not that the media in the US is much less biased when you think about it. And consider that in the not-too-distant past China suffered the ultimate in national humiliation, carved up and subjugated into zones of influence at the pleasure of the US, Japan, and European powers. Ancient history to us perhaps, but in terms of the millennia of Chinese history, the blink of an eye. And think of how we would feel if the shoe were on the other foot.

I’m inclined to believe we, as individuals, should take it upon ourselves to make the world a better place one silk scarf at a time, because governments seem to be botching the job terribly. Go for it. Bite the bullet and choke down that scorpion. Otherwise it might sting you in the end.

Mystery of Music

Clearly, the financial and logistical challenges of an orchestra concert tour are staggering. The question then arises: Why bother? What’s in it for the organization and the musicians to go to all that trouble? Why not stay home and play for the hometown crowd and let the orchestras in Beijing or Tokyo cater to their own? In this age of instant, free, and virtually unlimited access to music of all kinds, what’s the attraction of seeing a foreign orchestra in person? How is it that the Boston Symphony can give a standing-room-only concert in Tokyo, a city with eight professional orchestras, and charge extravagant ticket prices that Bostonians wouldn’t pay for their own beloved orchestra? The answer lies in the complex algorithm of a symphony orchestra’s raison d’être, not simply its bottom line. “The mission-based intangibles,” as BSO artistic administrator, Tony Fogg, insisted.

Some musicians—like me—love touring. Others dislike it for reasons not hard to understand or sympathize with. Tours are exhausting. Travel and lodging can be uncomfortable. One is separated from friends and family. Eating healthfully is a challenge. One is far-removed from regular health care. Teaching schedules are disrupted. Who’s going to take care of the house? Who’s going to walk the dog? Who’s going to water the plants? I’m sure I’m leaving out plenty of other reasons. Regardless of the inconveniences, however, musicians continue to believe that touring is an integral component of the artistic mix of a great orchestra. 

Classical music as a vehicle for international understanding is well recognized, not only the aesthetics of it but also the actual personal interaction. In 1975 there were only two Asian musicians in the BSO, both of them violinists and both of whom are still in the orchestra. Ikuko Mizuno is from Japan. Bo Hwang is Korean. Asian concert artists such as violinists Cho Liang Lin, who was born in Taiwan, and Midori from Japan, were considered curiosities as much as great musicians.

In the past forty years, the Asian and Asian-American population in American orchestras has increased at a seemingly exponential pace. This should come as no surprise. Countries like China and Japan have long embraced classical music. The Shanghai Symphony was founded in 1879 and had international musicians and conductors perform with it from the early 1900s. The Shanghai Conservatory was founded in 1927. The Tokyo College of Music was founded in 1907, followed by the famous Toho Gakuen School of Music in 1948. Conservatories such as these would not have been built unless there was already a pressing need for them and a high value placed upon music education.

In 1986, when I was a guest professor at the Musashino Academy there was a student body that included hundreds of string players, pianists, and singers in each of those disciplines. The question that we in the West were still asking at that time was whether the Asian musicians as a whole would ever really “get it;” meaning, whether the cultural and historical traditions upon which European classical music is based were esthetically translatable to cultures that had radically different backgrounds. Though that notion sounds like it smacks of racial chauvinism, I was asked that very question by some of the Japanese music professors themselves, who sincerely wanted to know what they could do to gain greater understanding of what has been a predominantly Western art form.

I think time has answered that question emphatically. When pessimists here in America talk about the decline of classical music, I point out that their view is myopic; they’re just looking at the future in the US. If you look around the world, not only in Asia and Europe, but in South America too, the picture is much rosier. Perhaps classical music in our country has been taken for granted in our education and our psyches. Perhaps fewer American youths have the passion or the urge to work as hard as students in Asia to attain the degree of expertise necessary to excel in the field. Whatever the truth of the matter is, Asian musicians are bringing an increasingly higher level of artistic excellence to the classical music scene in the US.

One of the highlights of the 1979 tour to China was the final concert, a joint affair with the Peking Central Philharmonic Orchestra in the People’s Hall. First they played some music, then we played, including some traditional Chinese compositions that had been arranged for orchestra. And then both orchestras combined on a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 with our music director, Seiji Ozawa, conducting. The audience response was so overwhelming that Ozawa did a spontaneous victory lap around the floor of the indoor stadium where we performed.

Would the storyline of the ‘79 tour have been even greater had it also signaled the beginning of political and social freedom inside China? Beethoven’s Fifth is a metaphor for the triumph of liberty if there ever was one. And if any composer embodied the spirit of individual free will, it was Beethoven. Did the message of that music get through to Deng Xiao Ping and the thousands of others seated in the People’s Hall that night, or was it merely one of history’s cruel ironic twists in a story not yet fully written?

After all these years, music is still very much of a mystery to me. How does one explain the stories of Indian veena music being able to light candles and form storm clouds? How is it that vibrations conceived and jotted down with quill pens in Europe between the 18th and 20th centuries have such an effect on people hundreds of years later and around the entire world? What is it about music that drives people in Asia to expend such effort to drag the Boston Symphony halfway around the world to go there to perform?

Because the vibrations the BSO conjures up are more potent than the ones Asians can manufacture on their own? Do I really have that power in my fingertips? And why the music of Berlioz, for example, whose only connection to China might have been the opium he consumed?

Music is a very strange phenomenon, when you think about it. There’s something we don’t yet understand about its unique, complex sets of vibrations—I’m almost convinced of it—that trigger neurochemical reactions, not just in the brain, but also throughout the body. It goes so much deeper than speech, or any other type of stimulus. And it all happens in the moment. Like the water calligraphy in Xiangyang Park in Shanghai, the image is there for a flash but is gone as quickly as it’s perceived, never to return. Yet the power of that moment can be profound and indelible. Music has been integral to the human psyche since the origin of our species, yet we still haven’t figured out why. These days, when music is so ubiquitous it’s taken for granted, I wonder if it ever will be.

One thing I’m sure of. Music opens a door for the mind, the heart, and the soul to enter, and anyone and everyone is welcome to cross the threshold. Its power to promote understanding is undeniable, if unexplainable. Even battle-hardened veterans of orchestra tours feel it. The enduring image of BSO violinist Xin Ding, performing Mahler Fifth with tears in her eyes as her proud old violin teacher from Beijing watched her from the audience, proved that beyond a doubt.

[image error]My favorite photo. BSO violinist Xin Ding with her former teacher, Prof. Zhen Shan Wang.

***

Click on the title if you’d like to purchase Symphonies & Scorpions in its entirety. It’s available in two paperback editions, one chock-full of black-and-white photos, the other with color photos, and in Kindle.

NEWS FLASH: MY FIRST POLITICAL THRILLER, THE BEETHOVEN SEQUENCE, IS SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON SEPTEMBER 8! A MENTALLY UNBALANCED MUSIC TEACHER BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! PREPOSTEROUS? STAY TUNED.

Symphonies & Scorpions: Breaking Up The Band

WELCOME TO THE 27th DAILY INSTALLMENT OF SYMPHONIES & SCORPIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL CONCERT TOUR AS AN INSTRUMENT OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACY.               

I INVITE YOU TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK, ONE DAILY EPISODE AT A TIME, FOR FREE, OR YOU CAN PURCHASE THE BOOK IN ITS ENTIRETY (with photos not found here) IN PAPERBACK OR KINDLE, HERE.

ENJOY!

(P.S. If you FOLLOW me, you’ll be sent all future episodes automatically!)

Breaking Up the Band: Sunday, May 11-Monday, May 12

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Ah, the final breakfast buffet. How will I survive without them? I say my goodbyes to the early risers. Almost everyone is going home. A small group is staying in Japan and going to a luxurious Buddhist monastery in Kyoto for “spiritual revitalization.” Assistant concertmaster Elita Kang and violinist Jennie Ahn are going to Korea to visit family. Elita, born in New York, will be meeting her ninety-two-year-old grandfather for the first time. I’m the only one I know of who’s staying in Tokyo, and look forward to long hours of visiting friends, eating, drinking, and telling old stories.

To me it feels like the end of something, but most of the musicians will be flying back to Boston together and will be back in the grind in a few days when the Pops season starts. What’s that old maxim? The Boston Symphony gathers no moss?

Nostalgia in a Nutshell

I’m on my own. The three-story Kimi Ryokan, tucked away on a side street in Ikebukuro, is the perfect place to wind up my trip. An example of simple Japanese elegance, my room consists of a tatami floor, a futon, and a pocket door storage closet. The inn is geared to budget travelers, both Japanese and international, but I wouldn’t trade it for any of the Grand Hyatts I’ve stayed at over the past two weeks.

Over the next couple of days, I have warm-hearted reunions with my friend and colleague, pianist Janos Cegledy, and with my dear friends, the Yogos, Minamis, and Higashis. I could go on and on about the wonderful discussions and meals I’ve had with all of these old friends, but that would be of more interest to me than to you. Still, I find these meetings with old friends in Japan more poignant than expected, as I sense this might be the last time I’ll ever see some of them.

I also take a nostalgic visit to the Musashino Music Academy in Ekoda, just west of Ikebukuro. I’m greeted warmly by everyone from President Naotaka Fukui on down through the loyal staff who have remained since I taught there in 1986, moving up the administrative ladder. As President Fukui speaks “only” Japanese and German, they went to the trouble of providing me with a faculty English professor from Australia to translate at our meeting. I’m lucky to have had this occasion to pay a visit because I’m informed that very soon almost the entire campus will be torn down and rebuilt in order to remain competitive. During the reconstruction, everything will be shifted to their other campus in Iruma, outside of Tokyo. Then, when the new Ekoda campus is finished, it will be Iruma’s turn for a makeover.

After our cordial meeting, the staff, including President Fukui, escorts me to the gate and as the English professor and I walk away down the long lane to the subway station, he instructs me: “Turn and wave,” which I do. He explains that if I hadn’t done that, out of politeness they would’ve had to wait until we were out of sight, regardless of how busy they were. There may be a strict formality about the way Japanese do things, but I find it very touching, nevertheless.

Wrestling with Feelings: Tuesday, May 13

Which will it be? The Sumo tournament or the stunningly picturesque Rikugien garden on my final full day in Japan? If I hadn’t planned to meet the Minamis for dinner at their home on the west side of Tokyo, it would’ve been Ryougoku Sumo Hall on the east side of town. But since the makuuchi, or top division of the six, with their grand champion yokozuna, don’t wrestle until the evening of the all-day tournaments, I decide not to rush all over Tokyo only to see the lesser grapplers.

Once I arrive Rikugien, the most tranquil place in Tokyo, I know I’ve made the right choice. Even though I go there every time I’m in Tokyo, I can’t resist taking dozens of photos as I wander around the perimeter of the park’s central lake and explore its side trails. I must have looked like a dufus, taking a picture of every tree, but they had been tended so artfully and sculpted and with such loving care. I hadn’t realized, or had forgotten, the park was built in 1702, and that each of the park’s features, from the pond to the hillocks, even to individual boulders, represent the famous eighty-eight views of Japan.

[image error]Rikugien Garden, one of the world’s most tranquil spots, in the middle of Tokyo.

It was well worth forsaking the sumo tournament for my dinner with the Dr. Takeo and Makiko Minami. When my quartet toured Japan in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, they annually hosted a concert in their spacious home, which had been designed by one of Japan’s top architects. After each concert was a gourmet dinner for the entire assemblage that alone was worth the price of admission. My dinner with them and their family tonight is an opportunity to catch up on old times, and to toast to our hope for another meeting soon. It was a perfect way to spend my last night in Japan.

A Challenging Return: Wednesday, May 14

I can’t sleep. I look at the clock—5:30 AM—and decide to catch the Narita Express train, departing at 6:43, which goes directly from Ikebukuro Station to Narita Airport. Otherwise, I’ll have to take the Yamanota Line, which circles central Tokyo, with my luggage during morning rush hour, and then have to change trains at Nishi Nippori. I’m ready to go by 6:00.

Here’s a curious tidbit to highlight the vagaries of time travel: Flight JL8, nonstop to Boston, is scheduled for departure at 11:20 AM. It’s a thirteen-hour flight, and because the time difference is also thirteen hours, my scheduled arrival time in Boston is Wednesday 11:20 AM. That was the first indication of how surreal my day would be.

Challenge #1: I can’t get out of my ryokan. The doors are locked from the outside until 7:00 AM, as I discover too late from the fine print in my reservation form. I ring the bell at the front desk for service. No response. What to do? Standing in the lobby, I phone the ryokan, hoping someone two-feet away will answer. The tactic is successful, but unfortunately wakes up the guy who’s on call. He’s polite enough, though, and as soon as he lets me out the door I’m sure he’ll go back to his futon.

I schlep my suitcase and computer case, having astutely packed my violin in the BSO’s instrument trunk after the last concert, through the streets of Ikebukuro, which is bustling at night but a ghost town in the morning, to Ikebukuro Station. Only a few vocal crows, picking over last night’s goodies discarded on the street, note my passage.

Challenge #2: The JR (Japan Rail) office at Ikebukuro Station is shuttered, so I ask about tickets at the station information booth, and am instructed to proceed to the ticket machines. I have to go up and down a service elevator with all my stuff several times to get this far. It takes a while, but I finally figure out how to get the ticket I need, though I can only guess at which of Narita’s two terminals JAL is located.

Challenge #3: Which track is the train on? I don’t see the sign at first and ask around. I eventually find it off at the end of the bank of track entrances.

Challenge #4: Which terminal to get off the train at the airport? During the hour-long trip, I silently practice how to ask the conductor that question in Japanese when he takes my ticket, but there’s no conductor to be found. Fortunately, ten minutes before arriving at Narita, the TV monitor at the front of my train car lights up and lists which airlines are at which terminal. JAL is at stop number one, Terminal 2. If that’s confusing, it’s because you’re probably not Japanese. And then the conductor arrives.

Challenge #5: I’m flying from Narita to Boston on a ticket the BSO had purchased for the musicians. I had separately made a reservation for a flight from Boston back home to Salt Lake City. The check-in attendant wants to know my connecting flight number to Salt Lake. I don’t know offhand. That’s way too far into the future. If I had known, it would’ve enabled me to transfer my suitcase to the connecting flight without having to haul it from Terminal E to Terminal A in Logan. But as I have a four hour layover there to look forward to, and the activity will help me waste time and keep my legs from atrophying, I pass on looking up the flight number.

Challenge #6: The thirteen hour nonstop flight is uneventful until hour twelve when the flight attendant serves hamburgers in a self-steaming sealed pouch with an instruction manual in poorly-translated English. Prying open the uncooperative pouch, my arm bumps against the flight attendant. The rebound makes a direct hit on my hot coffee, which fortunately isn’t as scalding as McDonald’s litigious blend. And the coffee color is uncannily similar to my pants, so I’m spared the humiliation as well as the pain. The flight attendant, helpful though not particularly remorseful, offers to bring a new hamburger, which I accept, while declining a fresh cup of coffee.

I arrive in Boston otherwise intact. The first thing I notice at Logan is how shabbily dressed and unhealthy so many Americans look, but that’s for another book.

Challenge #7: Because I’m concerned my suitcase will be overweight for the domestic flight, I remove some items from it, including my toiletry kit, and put them into a smaller bag I had cunningly packed for this contingency. When I check in at Delta, I discover I was right on the money—my big suitcase weighs fifty pounds on the button. What I’ve neglected, however, are the toiletries going through security. My shaving cream is confiscated. My scissors and extra razor blades go through without a hitch.

 Challenge #8: How the hell does one get online on a smart phone if the user himself is not smart? I try every setting humanly possible for the free airport Wi-Fi with no success. Finally, I surrender and asked a guy next to me. He shows me in two seconds. He must be a genius of some sort. Whether I can duplicate the feat, however, is another question.

The flight to Salt Lake City thankfully does not present any additional challenges. However, before boarding it’s announced that one of the passengers is allergic to peanuts, and so no snacks will be served on the flight. Too bad, I was looking forward to scorpions on a stick. Great to be back in America.

***

Click on the title if you’d like to purchase Symphonies & Scorpions in its entirety. It’s available in two paperback editions, one chock-full of black-and-white photos, the other with color photos, and in Kindle.

NEWS FLASH: MY FIRST POLITICAL THRILLER, THE BEETHOVEN SEQUENCE, IS SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON SEPTEMBER 8! A MENTALLY UNBALANCED MUSIC TEACHER BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! PREPOSTEROUS? STAY TUNED.

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Symphonies & Scorpions: “Ooh!”

WELCOME TO THE 26th DAILY INSTALLMENT OF SYMPHONIES & SCORPIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL CONCERT TOUR AS AN INSTRUMENT OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACY.               

I INVITE YOU TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK, ONE DAILY EPISODE AT A TIME, FOR FREE, OR YOU CAN PURCHASE THE BOOK IN ITS ENTIRETY (with photos not found here) IN PAPERBACK OR KINDLE, HERE.

ENJOY!

(P.S. If you FOLLOW me, you’ll be sent all future episodes automatically!)

Tokyo : Saturday, May 10

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4:30-5pm  REHEARSAL Suntory Hall 6:00pm  CONCERT Suntory Hall PROGRAM: Mozart: Symphony No.38 in D, K.504 (Prague) Mahler: Symphony No. 5 CHARLES DUTOIT, conductor

“Ooh!”

The last day of the tour! It really crept up on us and I still have unfinished gift shopping to do.

On the long-distance trek from my room in the Okura South Wing to breakfast in the Main Wing, my route funnels me by all the strategically placed ritzy boutiques in the Lower Level shopping arcade. A rack of colorful scarves catches my eye. Light bulb! Cecily loves scarves. They’re lightweight and easy to pack. I enter the shop, empty but for two saleswomen.

I point to a particular scarf and ask whether it’s silk. The saleswoman says, “Ooh!”

Is that a good sign? Does she mean that she, too, finds it attractive, or is she taken aback by the cost? So I point to another, which I don’t like as much.

“Is this silk?”

She responds with a nod. “Silk,” she says. Since there are only seven or eight scarves she proceeds to point to each one. For most, she says, “silk,” but a few of them, she says, “Ooh!”

I need to get to the bottom of this. At least she hadn’t asked if she could taste me. But what was so special about the few that were “Ooh!”? I wasn’t about to give up, so I point again to one of those and ask, “Silk?”

She looks at me like I’m an idiot and shakes her head.

“Ooh!” she responds with finality. Head-scratching time. Then it dawns on me.

“Oh, wool!” I said, to which she happily nods in the affirmative. “Ooh!”

Well, wouldn’t you know, after all that hard work none of the scarves appeal to me very much and I end up not buying anything, but we’ve established an unbreakable bond. We exchange repeated bows, like smiling Drinking Birds. As I leave the store, I hear the saleswoman practicing on her colleague, “Woooo… Woooo…”

Scarfing Soba

Ronan and Chan and I meet at noon in the lobby. They had heard there were traditional teashops around Ueno Park. That’s news to me, but I’m happy to go with them to find out, because that area is one of my old stomping grounds. In the Nezu neighborhood adjacent to the park, there’s a little ryokan called Sawanoya where I often stayed on past tours, eschewing the luxury palaces that were the official BSO hotels, preferring the personal touch of a simple, traditional, elegant Japanese inn. I fondly remember the owner, Sawa-san, busy at the front desk with his pet parrot perched on his shoulder. I once read a travel guide boasting that the Nezu neighborhood was “redolent of old Edo.” I never did meet old Edo to find out how true that was, but I suppose the book might have been referring to the ancient name of Tokyo.

It’s a beautiful day and the three of us have a lovely walk through huge Ueno Park, passing by shrines, the lake, food stands, and a street performer doing acrobatics on a soapbox. Amateur stuff, but a politely enthusiastic crowd ranging from teenagers to elder adults gathers around to watch, and applauds in delight when he juggles swords while balanced on a makeshift seesaw. There’s something very appealing to that old-fashioned innocence that maybe Americans have lost, at least in part. Hollywood and hi-tech might have their appeal but the ability to enjoy simplicity seems to be a vanishing art.

When I lived here in 1986, my family engaged in a long-standing Tokyo spring tradition—picnicking while watching the cherry trees blossom in Ueno Park. We shared the experience with about 100,000 Tokyo enthusiasts and our good friends, Bonnie and Bill Sexton. At that time, Bill was Asia bureau chief for Newsday on Long Island, whom I had first met when he was their correspondent on the BSO’s 1979 China tour. He had learned I was from Long Island, wrote a column on my visit to the Shanghai Conservatory, and fell in love with the Boston Symphony. Ever since, Bonnie and Bill, who became devoted Tanglewood volunteers for decades, have been our close friends.

It had been a long time since I was last in this neck of the woods, but once I spot Nezu Station I’m able to navigate more or less by feel through a maze of colorful alleys lined with flowerpots, two and three-story traditional homes with tiny but alluringly sculpted gardens, shops adorned with colorful norin banners, and neighborhood restaurants with exotic lunchtime aromas wafting through their shoji screens. Nezu is becoming more redolent by the moment.

Along one such alley is a tiny but elegant shop where some pretty scarves hang in the window. We go inside for a closer look and within thirty seconds I find the perfect scarf for Cecily, which appears to be silk and not ooh. The only problem is there’s no merchant to be found. The shop, about six-by-fifteen feet, is not a conducive place for anyone to hide from Americans, so I pass through an inner door and find myself in the entryway of someone’s house.

A man, who I assume is the proprietor, quickly emerges from a back room. Though his English is as bad as my Japanese, bit by bit and nod by nod, I establish our reason for being there. He gestures for the three of us to sit down, brings us some green tea, and departs. He returns with his wife, who turns out to be the actual shop owner and speaks a few more words of English. Asked about our presence in such an out-of-the-way part of town, I explain my affinity with the neighborhood, and that Ronan and I are violinists on tour with the Boston Symphony. This news delights them, particularly because their neighbor across the alley is also a violinist. They tried to fetch him but apparently he’s out, so I’ll never hear the end of that story.

Ronan is getting a bit peckish and asks me to ask the couple if they know a place where we could have soba for lunch. I assure him that once we complete the appropriate amount of conversation, they’ll be only too happy to comply, but that if we seem we’re in a hurry they’ll think we’re rude and give us the cold shoulder.

When the time is right, I pop the question. The couple produces a map of the neighborhood and draws several stars on it indicating the dining possibilities. We choose one on a street a few blocks away (a street being no wider than a paved path, and a block being about the length of your shadow on a winter morning). The husband puts on his shoes and escorts us to our soba restaurant. As we leave their abode, the wife presents each of us with a gift of a small stone wrapped elegantly in cane, to be used as a paperweight. When we arrive at the restaurant the husband makes sure that a table would soon be available for us, but departs before we can offer to buy him lunch.

[image error]Zen soba in the throwback Nezu neighborhood of Tokyo.

If you love soba like I love soba…The restaurant is the epitome of Zen simplicity. Just a few long, low-to-the-ground wooden tables, which can accommodate a total of perhaps fifteen people. The floor is tatami so of course we remove our shoes. There is a single wall-hanging of three real, large lily pads mounted on a wide, scroll-like sheet of rice paper.

In May, a warm humid month, only cold soba is served, of which there are two kinds: hearty, 100% buckwheat; or a subtler, 20% buckwheat/80% wheat mix. Ronan and I choose the former, Chan the latter. Everything is made from scratch right there, and I’m in heaven.

The setting is quiet and intimate, and of course everyone in Japan is ultra-polite. While waiting for our food, Ronan, who is very taken by the esthetics of the place, pulls out his camera. Chan scolds him in her Vietnamese-inflected English, “Ronan, wait until your noodle come out!”

Finale

As Dutoit has a plane to catch, the downbeat for our final concert is early, at 6:00 PM, and besides not playing any repeats in the Mozart symphony, we won’t play any encores.

I’m sure that both the presenters and our management have been pleased with overall concert attendance. Though a few of our concerts have been dotted with an empty seat here and there, there is a long line in front of Suntory Hall when I arrive. That sight is certainly gratifying for the musicians, where even venerable institutions like the Boston Symphony fight a never-ending battle to fill the hall.

Backstage, the one item typically found in American concert halls but has been sorely missed on this tour is a good coffee machine. We’ve generally had to content ourselves with water, instant coffee or teabags, with Creap instant creamer, some local snacks of unrecognizable content, and the occasional vending machine dispensing beverages with such exotically dubious names as Polcari Sweat and Calpis. In comparison, many European halls have backstage cafés and bars with abundant menus. Of course, it’s not a make-or-break issue, but when musicians are captive in the building for more than an hour between a 6:00 PM acoustic rehearsal and the beginning of the concert, and there’s no time for a real meal, it would be nice to be able to fortify oneself. It’s all for the music, of course.

Most of the tour concert halls have had dressing rooms, but certainly not enough space to accommodate a touring orchestra, so wardrobe trunks lining the corridors become makeshift dressing rooms. The exception was the hall in Guangzhou, which is designed for opera, and therefore had a cavernous backstage area where everyone’s trunk and all the instrument trunks combined took up a fraction of the space.

Our final concert is perhaps our greatest success. The Mozart sparkles and the Mahler overwhelms. I’m very confident saying that the present incarnation of the Boston Symphony plays as well or better than anytime within my memory. The string players, comprising half the orchestra, are all strong players. The wind, brass, percussion, and harp players not only are absolutely first-class individual musicians, but consistently play as an ensemble at the highest level. Most orchestras have some weak players or even weak sections. The BSO today, though, is one formidable bunch of musicians.

After the Mahler, the applause continues after the musicians leave the stage, the audience determined to extend the thrill of the experience as long as possible. Because Dutoit has a plane to catch, he is literally out of the building before it subsides.

I, on the other hand, am in no hurry. So, after bidding my wardrobe trunk a fond farewell—the mighty trunks, being retired after more than sixty years of loyal service, will be shipped home immediately and put into dry dock in favor of lighter, more maneuverable ones—I walk back to the hotel, only a few blocks from the hall. There I rejoin Ronan and Chan and violinist Jennie Shames, another of my dearest BSO friends, and the four of us go for a farewell dinner. After finding nothing of interest open in the area around our hotel, we subway one stop to the Roppongi entertainment district and chance upon a wonderfully rustic restaurant with some very unusual menu items. For example, grilled wild boar pork belly with wild mushrooms cooked at the table, all the ingredients sitting on a large leaf over a miniature charcoal grill. Starting tomorrow I’ll be on my own for a few days, visiting old friends before returning to the US, but what a wonderful exclamation point to end the official tour.

***

Click on the title if you’d like to purchase Symphonies & Scorpions in its entirety. It’s available in two paperback editions, one chock-full of black-and-white photos, the other with color photos, and in Kindle.

[image error]COMING SOON!

NEWS FLASH: MY FIRST POLITICAL THRILLER, THE BEETHOVEN SEQUENCE, IS SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON SEPTEMBER 8! A MENTALLY UNBALANCED MUSIC TEACHER BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! PREPOSTEROUS? STAY TUNED.

Symphonies & Scorpions: Suntory Time

WELCOME TO THE 25th DAILY INSTALLMENT OF SYMPHONIES & SCORPIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL CONCERT TOUR AS AN INSTRUMENT OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACY.               

I INVITE YOU TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK, ONE DAILY EPISODE AT A TIME, FOR FREE, OR YOU CAN PURCHASE THE BOOK IN ITS ENTIRETY (with photos not found here) IN PAPERBACK OR KINDLE, HERE.

ENJOY!

(P.S. If you FOLLOW me, you’ll be sent all future episodes automatically!)

Tokyo: Friday, May 9

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6:15pm-6:30 ACOUSTIC REHEARSAL Suntory Hall 7:00pm CONCERT Suntory Hall PROGRAM: Glinka: Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op.14 CHARLES DUTOIT, conductor JANINE JANSEN, violin

9:15pm Reception for Maestro Dutoit, Orchestra, Staff and Friends Group, ANA InterContinental

Snafu Postscript

Here’s what I found out later about The Mysterious Case of the In Limbo Instruments. Contrary to what I had learned earlier, it seems that neither Ambassador Kennedy nor the State Department were successful pulling rank to get the instruments flowing through Japanese Customs. I was told that, in fact, our esteemed ambassador was stonewalled. Why the big kerfuffle? Uncorroborated speculation is that it was pushback for her public criticism of Japan’s centuries-old annual dolphin hunt. “Deeply concerned by inhumaneness of drive hunt dolphin killing,” Ambassador Kennedy tweeted in the winter of 2013-14 in both English and Japanese. Japan responded by accusing critics of the hunt, including Kennedy, of being hypocrites for not also lamenting the slaughtering of cattle and chickens in their own country.

If not the doing of State Department, how did the instruments ultimately manage to get through? Mark Volpe confessed, “We threw everything we could against the wall and hoped something would stick.” Everyone from our end frantically contacted everyone they knew on the Japanese end. Volpe even asked Seiji Ozawa if he had a personal contact who might help. According to Volpe, Seiji seriously considered the question and replied, “the Emperor,” but then thought better of going that route.

An uneasy stalemate reigned until Jasper Parrot, Dutoit’s manager, made the magic phone call. The Japanese spokesman for the Foreign Secretary, someone Parrot knew personally, was finally able to set the wheels of progress in motion, and none too soon.       

Because Volpe had a notion that there was a symbolic backstory issue at the root of the Japanese intransigence over the ivory, he maintained confidence all along that the instruments would have eventually arrived by concert time one way or the other. But he was more concerned about the rehearsal that preceded it, and not simply because it was our one and only with Jansens. Our lead tour sponsor, EMC2, had provided serious financial backing and in return asked the BSO to invite hundreds of its employees in Tokyo to attend the rehearsal. If the instruments had not arrived and the rehearsal was canceled, EMC2 would have been sorely disappointed, and one does not want to disappoint major sponsors.

In the end, the tempest in the Japanese teapot appears to have been a matter of making a not-so-subtle political point. Like Volpe, I can’t imagine that the Japanese authorities would have prevented the concert from taking place, especially considering the embarrassment it would have caused some important dignitaries in attendance, including Ambassador Kennedy herself. On the other hand, the next time we come to Japan we might want to have mammoth bone tips put on our bows.

Points of View

Here’s another example of the wonderful world of geopolitics. This is how Chinese and Japanese newspapers reported the same events taking place in their south Asia neighborhood:

The Chinese version from the China Daily; Tuesday, May 6, 2014, Guangxi (page 2):

Dien Bien Phu Battle remembered

China and Vietnam face new opportunities and challenges in a volatile international situation, and young people from the two countries should remember history and promote cooperation and friendship. That was the consensus of participants at a seminar commemorating the Viet Minh victory over the French in the two-month battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

The Japanese version from The Japan News by the Yomiuri Shimbun; Friday, May 9, 2014 (page 1):

Vietnam: Chinese ships ram vessels near oil rig

Hanoi (AP)—Chinese ships have been ramming into and firing water cannons at Vietnamese vessels trying to stop Beijing from putting an oil rig in the South China Sea, according to officials and video footage Wednesday, in a dangerous escalation of tensions over waters considered a global flashpoint.

Propaganda or perspective? Or just deciding what to print and what not to print? How different is American journalism, if at all?

Trained Sushi

I’m meeting Toshiko Tanaka for lunch at her favorite sushi restaurant. Once a promising violinist who decades ago was forced to quit the concert stage due to a hand injury, Toshiko became a very formidable and dedicated teacher with generations of devoted and loyal students who ranged from highly gifted youngsters to amateur seniors playing the violin simply for the love of it.

Toshiko was already friends with several of my older colleagues by the time I met her on my first BSO tour to Japan in the late ‘70s. She still makes pilgrimages to Boston, hauling some of her best students in tow to provide them the opportunity to have lessons and master classes with BSO musicians. Whenever my Abramyan String Quartet toured Japan, Toshiko was always happy to arrange private performances for us.

So slight in build that a gentle breeze could blow her away like a cherry blossom petal, Toshiko is more diminutive than ever, yet still wields an iron will over her students. Though she’s getting on in years, she is still intensely committed to consider new ways to teach and to play the violin.

The pint-sized sushi restaurant she takes me to is on a colorful neighborhood shopping street in the Nakano district. It’s one of those sushi places where you sit at a counter and a seemingly limitless array of delicacies streams out of the kitchen on train tracks. As it chugs along you just grab what you want and go to town. Typically, restaurants like this are as low in quality as in price, but Toshiko, a person of modest means, is right on the money with this place. Yes, the price is right, but the food is as fresh as a spring day, and delicious. At the other end of the sushi spectrum, some of my colleagues went to Giro for lunch, perhaps the most famous sushi-ya in the world, and according to reports had an incredibly memorable experience in all ways. For me, I’ll take the simpler.

After saying goodbye to Toshiko and exchanging gifts, I stroll back among the crowds to the Yamanota Line to return to the Okura. It dawns on me that I haven’t seen any evidence of obesity in either China or Japan, except of course among American tourists. When are Americans going to relearn how to eat, if ever? (Yes, I understand the challenge of low-income populations in the US to access fresh, nutritional, affordable food; but by definition, tourists to Beijing and Shanghai and Tokyo are far from that poverty-stricken population.) Between stuffing ourselves and shooting ourselves, we Americans have little to fear from terrorism or even climate change, because we’ll be long gone before those annoyances will make a dent in our ability to kill ourselves.

[image error]Local poster for the BSO Suntory Hall concert .

Suntory Time

Suntory Hall opened in 1986 and is the oldest and most distinguished of the five halls in which we’ve performed on this tour. Not only is it a pleasure to play here, I have two surprises in store for me.

Surprise No. 1: Seiji Ozawa is backstage and is in better health than expected, with some of his old pep back. Always dubbed something of an iconoclast, which hasn’t always gone over well in tradition-bound Japan, tonight he’s true to fashion, dressed in jeans and a windbreaker and wearing his Red Sox cap, high-fiving everyone. All the musicians who were in the orchestra during his tenure want to have their photo taken with him and he is very obliging. As word had spread he might be attending one of our performances, I readied a copy of my first mystery novel, Devil’s Trill, gift-wrapped at the hotel, and he insisted on opening it up right away. I’m not sure if he even reads books in English, but I think he’ll like the cover, anyway.

I certainly have a lot to thank him for. Along with violinists Sheila Fiekowsky and Slava Uritsky, the three of us were among Seiji’s first BSO hires in 1975—we all started our jobs on the same day—as he only had become fulltime music director the year prior. Plus, he was influential in setting up my short-term guest professorship at the Musashino Music Academy in 1986, during which time I made so many lasting friends in Japan.

Surprise No. 2, a personal one: The Yogo family is here. They are among my dearest friends in Japan who, like Toshiko, I met because they were friends of older BSO members. Tetsuro, the son in the family, even came to live with us in Salt Lake City for part of a year when he was still in high school. Now he’s an I.T. guy, apparently a successful one, because tickets for this concert range from $125 to $375.

Many Americans think of Japanese people as being distant and formal. There may be some truth to that perception until they get to know you well, at which time they become the warmest and most loyal friends imaginable. They are also among the world’s great partiers. But I have found that even as a stranger, without exception, I’ve been treated politely, cordially, and with thoughtful consideration. On one occasion years ago, I got myself lost in downtown Tokyo. A total stranger came up to me and in halting English asked my destination. He himself couldn’t help me, so he took me to his office nearby, sat me down, found me an English newspaper, gave me a cup of tea, made a few phone calls, drew me a map, and walked me to the correct subway station. He then bowed and thanked me.

 Hiroko (Mrs. Yogo) and I give each other a very unselfconscious, public bear hug. We’ll all be having dinner together in a couple of days, and will have a chance to chat, but for the moment it’s great just to see them all again.

Seiji’s presence and Suntory Hall’s acoustics have buoyed everyone’s spirits, Dutoit’s included, and the music-making sparkles from the get-go. The audience response to the Symphonie fantastique is as enthusiastic as I’ve ever heard from a Japanese audience. There are even some boisterous bravos, a rare accolade. We play Bizet’s Farandole for an encore, and the applause is such that not only does it continue as we leave the stage, it continues long after! In fact, it’s still going on after Dutoit has changed into street clothes, and he has to go back on stage to wave to the remaining audience.

“Kanpai!”

On tour there’s usually at least one elegantly catered post-concert reception hosted by the Symphony corporation and attended by the entire entourage plus the local hoity-toity. This tour was no exception, with a big bash in the ANA Hotel next door to the hall. Musicians tend to work up a growling appetite during a concert, especially if they’ve eaten lightly beforehand. So it’s not an uncommon, if a bit ungracious, sight for musicians to make a mad dash for the buffet tables, especially the one with seafood, as soon as the doors open.

After one long-ago concert in Tokyo, the orchestra was invited to a bash hosted by the international fashion designer, Hanae Mori. She was a good friend of Seiji Ozawa and his wife, Vera, and the party took place at her downtown studio, which was very chic but a bit claustrophobic for such a large group. Coincidentally, the Berlin Philharmonic was also in town, and they too had been invited, making the studio yet more hot and cramped. Both orchestras arrived simultaneously and, musicians being musicians the world ‘round, everyone charged the buffet tables, vying especially for the sushi and shrimp, which beckoned to us as enticingly as the Sirens did to Odysseus. Some pushing and shoving ensued, and perhaps heated words were exchanged. Would this be a renewal of the Axis versus the Allies? The members of the Berlin outfit on the whole looked brawnier than the BSO musicians and were almost exclusively male, so their aggressiveness topped ours and we had to content ourselves with yakitori. Fortunately, there was plenty of sake for all. The crisis was thus averted and we departed as a friendly fraternity of musicians.

The highlight of international tours in the ‘70s and ‘80s took place on those rare days that were free of both concerts and travel, because that’s when Ozawa hosted parties for the entire orchestra. One might debate the profundity of his Mozart, Beethoven, or Brahms, but no one can disagree that his orchestra fetes were nonpareil.  And of those, the one that topped all the others was when he rented an entire onsen, orJapanese hot spring resort, high on a rocky bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the Izu Peninsula of Japan, for an all-day/all-night bash with limitless free bar, free sushi, and of course, free hot spring bathing.

In the evening there was an enormous formal dinner for the entire troupe, during which we sat on a ballroom-sized tatami floor and were served individually by costumed geishas. (For the entire day we were all dressed in blue and white yukatas—lightweight cotton robes. The late Vincent Mauricci, one of our more gentlemanly and modest violists, wore slacks and a shirt and tie under his yukata.) During the festivities, there was a traditional ceremony in which Seiji clubbed open a cask of fresh sake, which was then poured into our wooden sake cups. Toasts of “Kanpai!” echoed through the hall, after which the sake was expeditiously consumed. After the dinner came line dancing with the geishas, then yet more drinking. I found myself seated next to my buddy, Ronan, at the bar. Upon raising his glass for what turned out to be the final time, he fell over backwards, making a soft landing on the tatami floor.

They say sake doesn’t give you a hangover.

The reception at the ANA had the winning combination of short speeches and tall drinks, so it was a big success. The hero of the moment, Maestro Dutoit, was charming and gracious, and like Seiji was very obliging with the photo ops. What’s happening with conductors these days? They’re becoming so…likeable.

***

Click on the title if you’d like to purchase Symphonies & Scorpions in its entirety. It’s available in two paperback editions, one chock-full of black-and-white photos, the other with color photos, and in Kindle.

NEWS FLASH: MY FIRST POLITICAL THRILLER, THE BEETHOVEN SEQUENCE, IS SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON SEPTEMBER 8! A MENTALLY UNBALANCED MUSIC TEACHER BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! PREPOSTEROUS? STAY TUNED.

Symphonies & Scorpions: How do you say “snafu” in Japanese?

WELCOME TO THE 24th DAILY INSTALLMENT OF SYMPHONIES & SCORPIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL CONCERT TOUR AS AN INSTRUMENT OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACY.               

I INVITE YOU TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK, ONE DAILY EPISODE AT A TIME, FOR FREE, OR YOU CAN PURCHASE THE BOOK IN ITS ENTIRETY (with photos not found here) IN PAPERBACK OR KINDLE, HERE.

ENJOY!

(P.S. If you FOLLOW me, you’ll be sent all future episodes automatically!)

Part 4: JAPAN
Familiar Ground

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You know you’re getting close to Japan when a flight attendant politely announces over the PA: “Ladies and gentlemen, there will be mild turbulence in twenty minutes. Please use the lavatory now.” My excitement starts to rise.

Landing at Narita Airport feels like coming home. I think I’ve been to Japan more than a dozen times, starting with Long Island Youth Orchestra, and then the Boston Symphony and the Abramyan String Quartet. In 1986 I also spent four months as a guest professor at the Musashino Music Academy in Tokyo while on sabbatical leave from the BSO. But because it has been twelve years since my last visit, all I look forward to is seeing old friends and haven’t given a minute of thought to sightseeing. I’ll just play that by ear.

We arrive at 9:00 PM at the stylish, elegant Okura Hotel that the BSO has called home on a number of occasions. Compared to the three Grand Hyatts in China, it seems a little old-fashioned. For me the change is welcome. Each musician finds an origami turtle and crane in his/her room, which symbolizes long life and good fortune. Quaint, but don’t knock it. We can use all the help we can get. And it’s a relief not having to spend a half hour trying to figure out where the bathroom light switch is or what buttons to push to open the blinds. High tech has its place, but so too does simplicity. Light switch: next to the door. On or Off. Can’t be improved upon, and why even try to? That’s my thought for the day as I flip the switch to the Off position for the night.

Thursday, May 8

4:00pm-5:30 REHEARSAL Metropolitan Theatre Concert Hall 7:00pm  CONCERT Metropolitan Theatre Concert Hall PROGRAM: Mussorgsky: Night on Bare Mountain Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.5 in E minor, Op.64 CHARLES DUTOIT, conductor JANINE JANSEN, violin

A Village of Twenty Million

Who would have thought that Tokyo, a metropolis of twenty-plus million, would ever feel like a sea of tranquility? Yet, compared to the cities in China we just visited, Tokyo seems almost staid. It doesn’t feel crowded, even in the subways, at least not during rush hour. People are quiet and considerate and avoid bumping into each other. The architecture no longer appears ostentatiously cutting-edge. The air is fresh and breathable.

The Japanese, themselves, might not share my sanguinity, as the low-key vibes are in part the result of their ongoing economic downturn, now well into its second decade. And the country as a whole is using less power after the Fukushima catastrophe and subsequent decommissioning of all the nuclear plants, so the city’s lights are not glowing quite as glaringly as they used to. On the “bright” side, they’re using less energy and are managing, setting a positive example for the entire world.

Unmusical Chairs

For breakfast, I wander to the hotel’s lovely Terrace Restaurant patio garden where I find violist Jonathan Chu, one of the newer BSO musicians who I’ve not yet had the opportunity to meet. What a personable, and I gather, talented guy! Though his presence is undoubtedly a real plus for the orchestra, his situation is an example of the quandary many professional musicians find themselves in these days.

Before coming to Boston, Jon played in the Philadelphia Orchestra, and being a highly intelligent individual who has a knack with numbers, he was on musicians’ orchestra committee throughout the 2011 debacle when the orchestra found itself in bankruptcy court over what was primarily a pension dispute. As the New York Times reported on May 23, 2012,

“After going to bankruptcy court on April 16, 2011, the Philadelphia Orchestra took a number of steps to reduce costs. It negotiated a new contract with the players that cut salaries and the number of musicians. Old rent due the Kimmel [the concert hall where the orchestra performs] was forgiven and the current rate shrunk. The orchestra dissolved a partnership with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops, but agreed to pay that ensemble $1.25 million. The Philadelphia Orchestra resolved a dispute with the musicians’ union pension fund, costing it $1.75 million to withdraw instead of the demanded $35.5 million.”

One unfortunate result of the deal was that some young, gifted, and discouraged players like Jonathan left the orchestra.

His other predicament derives from the very nature of symphony orchestras. A few dozen American cities are lucky enough to have a major symphony orchestra, but no city has more than one. That means if you leave your orchestra but want to remain a full-time orchestral musician, you also have to leave your city. And if you have a spouse who is also a professional musician, which is not all that rare these days, it’s a challenge for both to find employment under the same roof.

That’s because you can only join an orchestra if you win an audition for a specific position. Those positions become vacant only when the persons holding them die, retire, or leave the orchestra for some other reason. The result is that opportunities are few and far between. For example, major symphonies have one or two harp players, and they generally stay for life, since that position is the pinnacle of the profession for that instrument. So, no matter how qualified a harp player you may be, if you’re on the outside looking in you might have to wait for years before a single position even becomes available for audition. And no matter what city it’s in, every other terrific harp player in the world looking for a job will be with you be at that audition.

The upshot is that Jon’s wife, Beth Guterman Chu, recently became the principal violist of the St. Louis Symphony—a fine achievement—so circumstances have forced them into a long distance relationship. There’s been a lot of shuffling back and forth between cities, and to compound things, they also have two kids. At the moment there are viola openings in both orchestras, so hopefully in the near future they’ll be able to play sweet alto clef music together.

(A happy postscript to this story. Shortly after the tour, Jon was hired to be assistant principal viola of the St. Louis Symphony, where he sits next to his beloved.)

How Do You Say Snafu in Japanese?

Typically, there are three staggered bus departure times from the hotel to the concert hall. This is done primarily to enable those musicians with large instruments, like string bass and tuba, who have their instruments shipped directly to the hall, to arrive early and have adequate time to practice before a rehearsal starts. Before leaving the Okura for the Metropolitan Theater in Ikebukuro, I receive a text on WhatsApp sent to all the musicians from Chris Ruigomez, BSO operations manager, informing us that the bus schedule from the hotel to the hall has been changed because the entry of our instruments into Japan from China has been held up. With this delay, it would be pointless for musicians to go to the hall early. Since I’m not taking the bus, anyway—I’ve decided to make an excursion on my own to the Meiji Shrine by subway on the way there—I don’t pay much attention to Chris’s text.

Strolling along the wide gravel avenue from the entrance of the park to the tranquil Meiji Shrine brings back sweet memories of walking the same path with my wife, Cecily, and our kids in 1986 during my sabbatical. Kate was still a toddler and Jake less than a year old when we carried them in backpacks and pushed them in strollers. I can’t say I didn’t get a little choked up visiting the place again.

[image error]Traditional Japanese wedding ceremony at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. (I kept my distance out of respect.)

Emerging from Ikebukuro Station, I scope out the concert hall after getting a little turned around. Ikebukuro is one of several major transportation, commercial, and entertainment hubs of central Tokyo, and just finding the correct exit from the massive train station—the size of a small city—is an enterprise in itself. After all the times I had been to Ikebukuro I feel a little shame-faced to discover the hall a block-and-a-half from the station. It turns out the hall is also in the same neighborhood as the Kimi ryokan, or traditional Japanese inn, where I’m going to stay for a few days after the official tour ends.

I still have plenty of time before the rehearsal for a delectable set lunch of grilled mackerel, rice, miso soup, daikon salad, and something curiously served in a sealed Styrofoam container. As soon as I lift the lid, I understand why it had been so painstakingly quarantined. It’s natto, the worst concoction in the history of the world, though many Japanese swear by it. The fermented soybeans have an aroma highly reminiscent of—forgive me—vomit, and the one time I actually tasted the lumpy, gooey abomination that’s even fouler than Vegemite, I almost gagged.

As soon as I recognize it, I slam the container shut. There are legitimate claims that natto is highly nutritious and might help prevent illnesses such as Alzheimer’s Disease. However, if I had to choose between one or the other I’d pick senility, especially if it could help me forget the time I actually ate the stuff. I should mention that the rest of the lunch is excellent, and all for about eight bucks. Who said eating in Tokyo is expensive?

Returning to the hall, I bump into Ruigomez, who has arrived  in advance of the musicians. He gives me the blow-by-blow for the delay, which can be distilled into one word: ivory.

Because of the fraction of an ounce of elephant ivory that traditionally, but no longer, is used to make the protective tips of string instrument bows, Japanese customs officials won’t let them into the country, or any of the other instruments that accompany them, ivory or not. This bureaucratic snafu is placing our remaining concerts in jeopardy.

The BSO actually went to great lengths to make sure the ivory issue had been resolved, filling out endless documents to the point they were confident they had found safe haven from the inexhaustible supply of red tape, but apparently some diligent civil servants had an extra roll stashed away. Japanese officials told the BSO that had the musicians brought the instruments into Japan individually everything would have been hunky-dory, but as group cargo it was verboten. The officials were not only empowered by regulation to say no, they were required to do so. I later learned that American regulations are essentially the reverse: the US says it’s OK for instruments to be shipped out as group cargo, but the Japanese say for the instrument to come into the country the owner of the individual instrument must have it in his hands, placing the BSO in a classic Catch 22.

Ah, bureaucracy! That universal brotherhood of intransigence that binds us all. Chris tells me that discussions to resolve the situation are ongoing. I suggest that we should just ditch the string instruments and have a brass band concert. Or leave the offending ivory-clad bows at Customs and play Tchaikovsky Fifth Symphony all pizzicato. I always try to be helpful.

There are still almost two hours before the rehearsal and I have a coffee date with pianist Janos Cegledy, a dear former colleague from the Musashino Academy where I taught. Janos, Hungarian by birth, transplanted for a time to New Zealand, and living in Japan for almost four decades, has a pronounced tri-national accent. Add to that a coffee shop with ridiculously loud ambient noise and his inclination to talk very fast and excitedly, and to tell very long, meandering stories, I only understand about a quarter of what he tells me. But I get the gist and his smile and wit are still infectious, so I gather everything is OK and smile back.

I return to the hall. The instruments have arrived! The story on the street is that the breakthrough came about only after the intervention of our Ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, who had been called by Mark Volpe. The sendoff we got from her Uncle Ted in 1979 has apparently come full circle, but my inner Woodward wants to delve deeper. To be continued…

Back to Music

Instruments in hand, we promptly get down to brass tacks and begin our rehearsal of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with our guest artist, the highly gifted and highly attractive Janine Jansen. Surprisingly, there’s an audience of several hundred people. I have no idea what they’re doing here, but mine is not to ask why.

Jansen, wearing tight jeans, stands with her back to the violins, and our view of the Maestro is a bit inhibited because she is quite tall and plays with a lot of verve. As we’re playing, my colleague sitting behind me taps me on the shoulder. I expect to be apprised of a change of bowing or a request for me to move my seat. Instead, the violinist whispers, “I can’t stop looking at her ass.” Before you shout, “male chauvinist pig,” I should inform you it was one of my female colleagues who offered this observation, though most likely the same thought had occurred to many in the orchestra and audience by that time. Nevertheless, how does one respond to that comment in the middle of a rehearsal? What would the appropriate response be, if there is one? I said, “Me, neither. Great Cheek-ovsky.” Not bad on the spur of the moment.

Anatomy aside, I think Jansen’s playing is excellent. A different kind of interpretation from the old masters and she does move about a lot, but she clearly has thought about the details in context of the whole and her technique is enviable. There are some in the orchestra who are turned off by her style, but if I could play that well I’d have no regrets.

At the end of the rehearsal, Dutoit announces that we will not play the repeat in the third movement of the Mozart Prague Symphony at the final concert. In Mozart’s time it was standard fare to repeat all the sections of the music indicated by the composer, but that tradition has become very flexible, and these days the second of two repeats in the longer movements is often disregarded. James Levine is one of the few conductors who plays every repeat, much to the orchestra’s dismay. Until now the repeat in the third movement of the Prague was the only one we had played with Dutoit, eschewing all of them in the first two movements, presumably because the second half of the program, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, is so long. The reason in this case for omitting the third movement repeat? After the final concert, Dutoit has to dash to Narita to catch a plane to London for a rehearsal the next morning. For those who say that musicians have their heads in the clouds when it comes to their art…well, maybe in a way they do.

Between the rehearsal and concert, I find a great hole-in-the-wall soba/udon place a block away. It’s so tiny that one has to eat standing at a counter. For under five bucks (480 yen) I’m handed a humongous bowl of soba and tempura fish with a to-die-for broth, which I noisily slurp down in traditional Japanese fashion. I repeat, who said eating well in Tokyo was expensive?

Broken Record and Record Broken

Forgive me if I sound like a broken record, but once again the orchestra plays beautifully, unlike a broken record. Jansen performs with polish and pizzazz, and not surprisingly is warmly received. For an encore, she plays the Sarabanda from the Bach D Minor Partita with imagination and expression, which I prefer to the more traditional, gloves-on austerity. [See what Daniel Jacobus had to say about that Sarabanda in Devil’s Trill.] The Tchaikovsky Fifth, our third performance of it on the tour, has come back to life for me. It’s the best so far, possibly because I’m finally fully awake. In any event, it all seems to have had just the right energy; the audience is very enthusiastic, and the applause goes on and on and on, perhaps breaking a world record for longevity. We again play the Brahms First Hungarian Dance as an encore. I try to analyze what makes the melody so universally appealing, and speculate that somehow there’s an undercurrent of danger exuded by the dark minor key and driving syncopated rhythm.

***

Click on the title if you’d like to purchase Symphonies & Scorpions in its entirety. It’s available in two paperback editions, one chock-full of black-and-white photos, the other with color photos, and in Kindle.

NEWS FLASH: MY FIRST POLITICAL THRILLER, THE BEETHOVEN SEQUENCE, IS SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON SEPTEMBER 8! A MENTALLY UNBALANCED MUSIC TEACHER BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! PREPOSTEROUS? STAY TUNED.

Symphonies & Scorpions: “May I taste you?”

WELCOME TO THE 23rd DAILY INSTALLMENT OF SYMPHONIES & SCORPIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL CONCERT TOUR AS AN INSTRUMENT OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACY.               

I INVITE YOU TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK, ONE DAILY EPISODE AT A TIME, FOR FREE, OR YOU CAN PURCHASE THE BOOK IN ITS ENTIRETY (with photos not found here) IN PAPERBACK OR KINDLE, HERE.

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On to Guanzhou: May 6

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How Do You Say, “What Did You Say?”

“May I taste you?” she asks.

“Excuse me?” I reply, nonplussed.

“May I taste you?” she repeats.

I consider the proposition.

“No, thanks.”

The waitress smiles and departs.

I ask Ronan and Chan, with whom I had just caught up for breakfast, if they understood what she had said. They’re not sure, but thought it might have been, “May I assist you?” “Oh. That’s good,” I say. “I just hope she brings me coffee.”

Drums Over Guangzhou

On China Eastern Airlines flight MU5333 to Guangzhou I sit next to timpanist Tim Genis, who describes his burgeoning drumstick business. You can’t imagine the innumerable considerations that go into bamboo timpani sticks! How the bamboo is grown, where it’s grown, how it’s cured, how it’s shipped, how it’s cut. As Tim’s website explains:

            “TG12 Bamboo Leather Series Hard Timpani Mallets are like a warm substitute for wooden mallets, getting a significant amount of depth from the drums instead of the thin, tinny sound that wooden mallets can produce. Tim uses this model as a wood substitute in Mahler symphonies, and it works very tastefully in Baroque/Early Classical music as well. These mallets utilize Tonkin bamboo and are built already ‘played-in’ to avoid inconsistencies in sound that can happen with other leather mallets as they turn around in your hands.”

The two-hour flight is hardly enough to understand it all. And this is only one of dozens of instruments that percussionists use. I didn’t dare ask about the xylophone. How little I know about other instruments in the orchestra, and even after a lifetime of holding a fiddle under my chin, how much more there is to learn about that!

A Guangzhou Snapshot

The bus ride on the freeway from Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport to our Grand Hyatt du jour is thought provoking. The route takes us through endless forests of high-rises, many of which appear shabby and mossy, perhaps a product of the semitropical climate. This place is no Shanghai, I say to myself. Then the bus arrives at the top of a hill and we’re able to see “downtown” in all its glory. Another vast, modern metropolis. I take back my words.

Upon entering the hotel, we discover a curious configuration that requires us to take an elevator up to the lobby on the twenty-second floor, and from there an elevator back down to our rooms. Reverse the process to leave the hotel. What goes down must come up, a comforting thought for those who suffered during the Great Recession.

There’s a lovely park-like pedestrian mall about a mile long that has footpaths connecting our hotel to many of the important downtown cultural attractions: library, museum, tower, and the opera house where we’ll perform tonight. It’s a shame we’re in town less than twenty-four hours.

And of course, skyscrapers. From my hotel room and within a radius of a few blocks, my view encompasses six, seven, yes eight huge skyscrapers simultaneously under construction. I hope they find tenants, and don’t end up like the Inner Mongolian city of Ordos, which the Chinese government built for over a million people but which was never more than two percent occupied before being abandoned. The concierge gives me directions to a restaurant off the mall, but I discover that to get to it I’d have to circumvent a construction site the size of Duluth, so I give up and visit the underground food court instead.

Grand Finale in China

8:00pm CONCERT Guangzhou Opera House CHARLES DUTOIT, conductor BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV, piano PROGRAM: Glinka: Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op.43 Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.5 in E minor, Op.64

[image error]Priceless violins with priceless BSO violinists, Jenny Ahn and Julianne Lee, at the Guangzhou Opera House.

Performing in different and often unfamiliar halls night after night, the changing acoustics have a definite impact on the ensemble’s sound, and consequently its morale. A concert hall bears comparison to a musical instrument. Like a violin, it is a hollow box that vibrates when stimulated by airwaves. In a hall it’s the entire orchestra setting those airwaves in motion; in effect, “playing” the hall. And like the violin, the materials—from the ceiling down to the carpet—and dimensions of the hall determine the quality of sound.

We’ve been fortunate on this tour that each successive concert hall we’ve played in was better than the one before. To have gone in reverse order would have been a real downer. My earlier theory about the sound in the hall in Beijing reflecting a cultural esthetic was clearly incorrect: the acoustics in Shanghai and now Guangzhou are different, and an improvement. By the time we play our two final concerts, in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, a venue where many internationally touring orchestras have regularly performed over the years, we know we’ll be grateful for its high quality acoustics.

More musicians are down for the count at the Guangzhou Opera House, our last concert in China. One violinist has severe muscle aches and leaves at intermission. Another has a coughing fit during the Rachmaninoff, though I can’t say it detracts much from the performance. Yet another had some swelling in her leg earlier in the day that turned out to be nothing, so she toughed it out. And yet another violinist caught the fingers of her left hand in a door at the end of the concert, which put her out of action for the rest of the tour, at least. I’m starting to think there’s something in the air most foul that smites only violinists. I contemplate holding my breath until we get to Tokyo.

All those calamities aside, the concert goes well enough. I suppose in reality it goes very well, but Tchaikovsky Fifth is wearing thin. I love the piece dearly but repeating it so often makes each performance feel longer and longer. I find myself having to dig deep down for the energy—I guess that’s why we get paid the big bucks.

And Dutoit knows how to milk the applause! When he gestures for a musician to take a solo bow and deems the audience response inadequate, he cups his ear until the din rises to the appropriate decibel level; that is, when the audience is hollering. At one point he even engineers a contest between one side of the audience and the other to see which can be the most raucous. A good way to get encores, perhaps, but I wonder if he’d dare do that in Vienna.

Wednesday, May 7: In Transit

On tour, you hit the ground running, which makes it feel as if we’ve just gotten started, but when I look at my schedule I see there are only three concerts to go!

As much as I would like to see something of Guangzhou, it’s not in the cards. It’s a rainy morning and we have to have our suitcases in the lobby by 10:45 for a noon departure for flight JL856 to Tokyo. We do have a consolation prize, though: the world’s greatest buffet breakfast. There are enough food stations to fill Fenway Park, with chefs serving noodles, dumplings, soups, fried things, steamed things, boiled things, fruits, fresh squeezed juices, grains, cold cuts, cheeses, breads. My cholesterol level is going up just thinking about it.

Concert tours do have their perks but they can also be a grind, as was the case in Guangzhou, where we arrived in the afternoon, had an evening concert, and then left the next morning. Our tour managers, though, have worked on the little things to make the coarse grind a palatable espresso. For example, back in the day we had to wait for everyone to be herded together before proceeding from baggage claim to buses. Now, the travel company has a half dozen strategically positioned sentries holding BSO placards, so all we have to do is follow the signs. It makes for a lot less fraying of nerves, having to waiting impatiently for the more bewildered stragglers.

Our flight is uneventful. We’re served the usual mediocre airplane meal followed by a mediocre movie. Quite a blah change from the high intensity week we just completed. By all accounts—except perhaps by the Beijing security guards—it had been a successful week artistically and commercially, even if not of the politically earthshaking 1979 variety. The relationship between the orchestra and Dutoit is still percolating, which clearly seems to have been felt by the audiences.

***

Click on the title if you’d like to purchase Symphonies & Scorpions in its entirety. It’s available in two paperback editions, one chock-full of black-and-white photos, the other with color photos, and in Kindle.

NEWS FLASH: MY FIRST POLITICAL THRILLER, THE BEETHOVEN SEQUENCE, IS SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON SEPTEMBER 8! A MENTALLY UNBALANCED MUSIC TEACHER BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! PREPOSTEROUS? STAY TUNED.

Symphonies & Scorpions: Ephemeral Images

WELCOME TO THE 22nd DAILY INSTALLMENT OF SYMPHONIES & SCORPIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL CONCERT TOUR AS AN INSTRUMENT OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACY.               

I INVITE YOU TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK, ONE DAILY EPISODE AT A TIME, FOR FREE, OR YOU CAN PURCHASE THE BOOK IN ITS ENTIRETY (with photos not found here) IN PAPERBACK OR KINDLE, HERE.

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(P.S. If you FOLLOW me, you’ll be sent all future episodes automatically!)

Shanghai

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May 5: Many Lessons, Some Learned

My day begins with an idea to visit to the Shanghai Conservatory. In 1979 a brief excursion there altered my view of music, humanity, and the world. After thirty-five years, I’m eager to pay my respects and see how things have changed.

Considering the tug-of-wars we’ve had with bureaucracy so far, I have little expectation that my last minute request can be accommodated. I nevertheless ask the concierge at the Grand Hyatt to call the conservatory on my behalf and see what, if anything, might be arranged. Amazingly enough, the school’s international administrator, a young lady whose English name is Margaret and whose real name is Ma Xiaoming, graciously consents to give me a tour.

On my way out of the hotel I bump into one of my colleagues, a longtime violinist and a good friend, and ask if she wants to join me, explaining that I had done a master class at the Conservatory in ’79 with Joseph Silverstein, who was then the BSO’s esteemed concertmaster, assistant conductor, a truly great violinist, and a fine teacher. I got a surprising response: No thanks, she said, adding she felt she hadn’t been included in those ’79 plans because Silverstein gave preferential treatment to his former students who had won BSO positions—there had been a handful, including yours truly—and she had resented it. After thirty-five years, I guess she really had! I know that her displeasure isn’t directed at me but at Silverstein, and whatever validity there is to it, and maybe there is some, I also sense she might not be alone with that opinion. I tell her I appreciate her candor and there are no hard feelings at all. Yet it gives me yet more to chew on about complex relationships within a symphony orchestra, where there’s so much roiling under the surface that even the musicians themselves never know everything that’s going on.

As a result of Shanghai’s strong historical ties to Europe and the former Soviet Union, the faculty at the Conservatory was strongly grounded in classical training from its founding in 1927. All that met an abrupt roadblock during the Cultural Revolution. Anything with Western influence, including classical music, was declared decadent and tainted, and was purged from Chinese society. European music and instruments were destroyed along with the lives of the people connected with them. Conservatories were shut down and the professors “reeducated” in the countryside, but before they were hauled away many hid their music and instruments, risking their lives doing so. The Boston Symphony arrived in China just as a new cultural dawn was awakening, and the gates of the conservatory and of artistic expression were reopened after years of being shuttered, allowing the light to stream in.

If there was ever an example of technology not being a necessity for an excellent education, or—dare I even suggest, of actually being an impediment to education—I witnessed it at the Shanghai Conservatory in 1979. Resources were absolutely Spartan. Unheated classrooms had packed dirt floors. Poor lighting made it a challenge to read the lessons written on blackboards and large sheets of paper lining cement walls. Students, five-years-old and up, bundled in frayed overcoats and scarves, sat on wooden stools, their hands folded behind their backs. Yet the level of education and training going on there was enviable. When Joseph Silverstein and I gave a short class, we were asked questions worthy of any conservatory students. A group of youngsters performed for several of my colleagues and me, and not only were they technically proficient beyond their years, they played with a musicality one does not often hear at that age. Because much of their performance was played in unison, I assumed that their training might be along the lines of the Suzuki method that originated in Japan. When I asked their teacher at what point the students learn to read music and study theory—both of which are regrettably undervalued in Suzuki training—she responded somewhat perplexedly, “from day one, of course.”

There’s one image so etched in my memory that I could have sworn I had a photo of it, though I don’t. In addition to music, the Shanghai Conservatory taught instrument making. In 1979 it was a rare event when a great violin came through the city, so when the BSO musicians showed up with their collection of priceless 18th and 19th-century Italian violins it was like manna from heaven. Perhaps the finest instrument in the orchestra, a J.B. Guadagnini, was owned by Silverstein, and he graciously offered to show it to the faculty. Remember for a moment that in those days there was no Internet, no digital camera, no iPhone. In China, hardly anyone had any electronic technology at all. The gathered faculty didn’t even have a camera with them. The only way for them to record the details of the Guadagnini for future study was to look at it and to remember it! As they huddled around Silverstein and his Gudagnini I looked on, not at the violin, which I’d seen every day for years, but at the faces of the violin-making faculty. I have never in my life, before or since, seen such a look of intense concentration as in those few moments in which these dedicated individuals examined every molecule of this masterpiece with their eyes alone, too polite to ask to hold it. They never knew when or if they would ever see a great violin again. What was so evident was the devotion that they brought to their profession under the most trying of circumstances. Little did they know the lesson they were teaching me.

Today, as is apparent to everyone in the field, the tide has turned. The market in China for expensive violins is the hottest in the world, with business consortiums not blinking at million-dollar price tags. And the new instruments now being made in China are gaining the respect of musicians worldwide. In 1979 one would have been hard-pressed to make such a brazen prediction.

The original building that constituted the main part of the school in 1979 has been appropriately refurbished and the conservatory has expanded steadily along with funding and resources. Also, today is a beautiful spring day with blooming gardens, a striking contrast to the bitingly cold and gray early March day in ’79 when I first visited. The conservatory is now a multi-structured complex with a student body of 2,500, boasting modern technology and a new concert hall. For decades, it has been the common practice for the best students to travel to major conservatories in the West for advanced training. But with the explosion of new orchestras in China itself, conservatories like the ones in Shanghai and Beijing are beginning to reverse the traffic and attract international students.

At this point, there are few Chinese orchestras of the caliber of the top thirty orchestras in the US. The venerable Shanghai Symphony would be one of them, and their music director, Maestro Long Yu, has conducted many major American orchestras. But if the next thirty-five years bring as much progress to music in China as the last, and if American orchestras continue to struggle for relevance in the age of reality TV, you’ll find Americans flocking for jobs in Chinese orchestras.

To culminate my guided tour, Margaret receives permission for my request to sit in on a violin lesson in the new teaching building. As the lesson had already begun, we stand outside the studio door, waiting for a pause in the student’s performance of the Bach B Minor Partita. It’s adequate playing, not without discernible clunkers. I whisper to Margaret, “Funny how violin students make the same mistakes all over the world.”

When the student comes to a pause, we knock and enter. The room is small and spare: a window, an upright piano, and a professor seated at a simple desk covered with music. There’s an extra chair, which I’m invited to sit in. Margaret makes quick introductions. The student, a young lady, is wearing a sweatshirt with a big logo that says Jun Jug My MVP with a smiling monkey’s cartoon face wearing an American football helmet. The student is not particularly advanced and, playing from memory, stumbles too many times. Wrong notes go by the boards without her seeming to be aware of them. Musically, the student’s understanding of Bach is at about the same level as mine is of Jun Jug My MVP.

After a while the professor, who has so far said nothing other than to inform the student of the wrong notes, addresses her quietly yet firmly for several minutes. I don’t know a word of Chinese but I know from his tone of voice that it’s along the lines of the speech I’ve had to administer to a few of my own students from time to time. Something called the riot act. After we leave the room, Margaret confirms my suspicions and provides details.

The young lady has only a few weeks until a required recital, and the professor is sharing his concern she won’t be ready. I concur with his opinion, but when a student has difficulty memorizing, which seemed to be her biggest stumbling block, there are methodical ways a teacher can help, ranging from the mechanical to the aural to the visual to the conceptual. These days, some teachers don’t think memorizing is important, but I’ve found it to be a valuable discipline for young musicians, helping them cement a concerto in their minds and muscle memory for a lifetime. Some students memorize very naturally and there’s no issue. Others work hard at it in order to succeed. Most students, regardless, need guidance. What’s essential is for the teacher to know each of his students’ personalities and strengths and weaknesses, and from there determine what approach will work. Surprisingly, a lot of teachers don’t provide systematic training on memorizing, and I got the sense from my visit, but may well be totally wrong because of the language barrier, that that process was not happening at this lesson. Maybe the professor himself was a natural memorizer or had never given it much thought. Judging by his body language, his student’s overall performance was within his expectations, at least as far as my translation of Chinese to American body language went.

My tour finishes shortly thereafter, and I thank Margaret for taking the time to show me around. As I leave, she informs me that foreign musicians often come for a week or two to give classes and performances. Maybe that’s in the cards. I don’t think my snapshot view of the conservatory has given me a full picture of the quality of training there. Or maybe it has, but I would need a longer exposure to help convince me that the fervor and dedication of the professors in 1979 remains unabated.

Ephemeral Images

[image error]Water calligraphy on pavement at Xiangyang Park

My next destination is People’s Square but after just a few blocks I happen upon the quietly inviting Xiangyang Park. Along a tree-lined, paved brick promenade, elderly women dance with each other to Western and Chinese music humming over loudspeakers. A huddle of young men staring intently at the ground catches my attention. No, they’re not playing hopscotch. They’re practicing calligraphy, using the promenade’s square, gray brick tiles as an enlarged substitute for the boxes one finds on calligraphy paper. And their ink? Water in a bucket, which when brushed on the bricks renders remarkably detailed characters until they evaporate into the ether scant moments later. There is undeniably a philosophical statement here about existence.

From Xiangyang Park I take a subway to People’s Square. From the name, I anticipate a huge open area where the masses go to witness corrupt officials being publicly humiliated. Instead I find a beautifully landscaped public park, several blocks square, with throngs of urban strollers tranquilly refreshing their spirits among the trees, flowers, and children’s rides.

Around a lovely, little pond, groups of crones play cards and young couples contemplate their futures. Curiously, one industrious individual is fishing! I take a closer look into the shallow but almost opaque water. The only fish I can discern are finger-length goldfish. I wonder how many he’d have to catch to make a meal of it, and how he planned to cook them. “You should’ve seen the one that got away! It was at least two inches long. Maybe three!” Somewhere inside the deep recesses of my brain, a voice is telling me the idea of fishing for goldfish in a city pond is a profound metaphor for something about life, but I can’t figure out where to go with it. I think the ephemeral calligraphy is a better bet. When I reach the other side of the pond, obscured by a little peninsula with a café on it—charming location, mediocre food—I spot a school of large carp, so maybe the fisherman really does know what he’s doing. And as there are only six fish in the school I conclude he must be an excellent fisherman because obviously he’s caught all the rest.

What Goes Up…

For the man on the street peering up at Shanghai’s unfettered vertical growth, prosperity appears unreachable. I suppose it depends on which man you are, but it clearly has not been achieved across the board or without cost.

Walking along bustling Nanjing Road, which extends from People’s Square as a boisterous pedestrian shopping street, a destitute old man lies motionless on the ground in front of a busy fruit stand while the vendor hawks his merchandise and humanity flows around him with nary a downward glance. An old woman passes me, an untreated tumor totally covering one eye. A block further, another woman standing in front of a designer apparel store applies slices of cucumber to her face, pleading with indifferent passers-by to buy her product. Just outside the entrance to our ultra-modern, ultra-luxurious hotel, another elderly man lies propped against a pillar, fast asleep, his hand, curiously suspended in midair, grasping a short, sharp knife.

This isn’t to say there aren’t the ill, the indigent, and the uncared for everywhere else in the world. But the juxtaposition of poverty and wealth in Shanghai is extreme, particularly as the social safety net so often attributed to communist doctrine seems suspended in Shanghai, where the glaring banner of economic success—the forest of spectacular skyscrapers—is brandished for everyone to see.

And also when the haze of pollution covers the entire population, obscuring even the most imposing edifices. Fortunately, it hasn’t been so horrible since we arrived, though later in the day the downward view from my room on the 64th floor becomes a ghostly and ghastly gray-brown.

At least for the moment, Shanghai appears to have been so blinded by profit that it doesn’t mind being blinded by smog. The energy use in the building that houses our hotel alone could power a small city, and in Shanghai we’re talking about a city of twenty-four million, greater than the entire island of Taiwan and three times the population of New York City. Even with China’s growing commitment to solar power, the relentless drive for economic growth may come back to haunt them in the same way the Great Leap Forward did in the 1950s, when Mao’s predilection for backyard steel mills over agriculture led to economic collapse. Even as new thousand-foot spires puncture the Shanghai sky on a daily basis, someday it could all come crashing down to earth.

That sounds more pessimistic than I really am, but I like the rhetorical image. At the moment, Shanghai is an amazing city. Life on the street level has a normalcy about it that belies the futuristic skyline. The differences in architectural vision between Beijing and Shanghai seem to mirror the cities’ personalities. The former gravitates toward the heavily grandiose and monumental, and except for the ancient buildings like the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven is not nearly as inspired as Shanghai.

Likewise, Beijing had a feel of being somewhat stiff and standoffish; Shanghai is more open and freer flowing. Could being near the seat of Chinese government make for an added degree of formality and wariness, as if one does not want to be caught smiling too much at an American stranger for fear of detection?

That’s all conjecture on my part, and it may be hocus-pocus, but in any event Shanghai is very different, perhaps because of its history as an international port and a center for no-holds-barred free enterprise. The energy feels much more positive and forward-looking. I don’t know if the Shanghaiese intentionally snub their noses at Beijing, but I get the sense that they’re out to prove they can outdo the capital in all ways.

Virtuosos of a Different Sort

After taking a rest, Ronan, Chan, and I attend an evening performance of Chinese acrobats. I’ve had more than enough exercise for the day, having walked many miles, and am happy to watch someone else work for a change.

There are two different acrobat shows playing in town: one more traditional, the other high-tech. We choose the former and don’t regret it. One routine is more amazing than the other, whether it’s jumping through hoops, gymnastic feats, balancing a dozen wine glasses on your forehead, sleight of hand tricks, spinning rings, spinning tops, or spinning dishes. Our heads were spinning. It’s great to see people performing for us as a change of pace!

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NEWS FLASH: MY FIRST POLITICAL THRILLER, THE BEETHOVEN SEQUENCE, IS SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON SEPTEMBER 8! A MENTALLY UNBALANCED MUSIC TEACHER BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! PREPOSTEROUS? STAY TUNED.