Music Media Monthly

George Szell – A Life of Music, by Michael Charry.

Biographies of major 20^th century conductors appear to be proliferating these days. Within the past year I’ve reviewed three books on Leonard Bernstein, and one each on Arturo Toscanini and Dimitri Mitropoulos. This month, George Szell is in the dock, to be followed next month with a review of an autobiography by Riccardo Muti. It goes without saying that all these men were (are, in Muti’s case) venerable maestros who upheld the highest traditions of symphonic performance and brought the canonical classical masterworks to millions, as much by the sheer force of their podium personas and star power as by their uniquely legendary interpretations.

Former assistants or disciples wrote all but one of these books about “their” maestro, and so there is often an aura of veneration that the reader has to peel away to reveal an objective assessment of the conductor as man and artist. Not an easy thing to do in the case of these biographies, which becomes even more problematic for the reader, who, unlike the acolyte, was not the “fly on the wall,” able to see the real man concealed within the public legend.

In the case of George Szell (1897-1970), his accomplishment in molding the Cleveland Orchestra into perhaps America’s greatest orchestra, and certainly one of the world’s supreme ensembles will undoubtedly remain his utmost triumph, followed by his conquests as conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, his engagements with the New York Philharmonic, the NBC and Chicago Symphonies, the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Szell’s many recordings document his genius and will ensure that his great musical legacy survives.

That being said, those who have followed Szell’s illustrious career know that, due to his unfortunate personal qualities of willfulness, arrogance and vindictiveness, he created much ill will and disdain towards him personally: abusing his players, peremptorily firing them, stealing first chair players from other orchestras, and, in a notorious incident at the Metropolitan Opera, walking out on a performance of Tannhaüser in a fit of pique, angered by a mechanical breakdown in the change of scenery. Some years later, Szell, in an uncharacteristically introspective moment, averred, “I’m my own worst enemy.” Rudolf Bing, then the Met’s General Manager, who endured Szell’s insubordination, had the last word: “Not while I’m alive.”

Similar Szell anecdotes are legion among musicians. You won’t find more than a handful, though, in Michael Charry’s book. In assessing the podium tyrants Szell and Toscanini, one concludes that there is but one possible defense of their behavior: that their music making was of such a high order that it justified their dictatorial excesses (in other words, you had to take the [very] bad with the [very] good).

For the rest, which is a mostly dry chronicle of Szell’s triumphs and brilliance throughout his long career, Charry does an adequate job. What is missing is in-depth insight into the mind and persona of a great, but conflicted and possibly troubled mind. We never get to know who George Szell is – the person. The tone instead is respectful and objective. Perhaps a fearsome personality could only engender respect. Still, Szell, the anti-Mitropoulos, love him or hate him, did change the musical world, especially in the United States, by setting the highest possible standards of orchestral performance. For this, if little else, we should be grateful.

George Szell – A Life of Music, by Michael Charry. University of Illinois Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-252-03616-3. 412 pages. Hardcover.

Carnegie Hall Treasures, by Tim Page and Carnegie Hall.

This is a fun, fact-filled, coffee-table-sized tome for lovers of classical music lore and memorabilia. It’s a sort of “Antiques Roadshow” featuring facsimiles of autographed photographs of virtuoso musicians, concert programs, reminiscences, poster art, architectural sketches and much else to pore over. Readers interested in how this, the most illustrious concert hall in America (and perhaps the world), came to be built will learn the story of the coming to maturity of America’s corporate arts culture in fin de siècle New York. The chronicle begins with two chapters that define the importance of Carnegie Hall as a cultural icon: “A Concert Hall for the Ages” and “The People’s House,” its innovative construction (by an architect who had never built a concert hall,) and the landmark inaugural concerts conducted by Tchaikovsky in 1891.

The next chapter, “Celebrating the Composers,” documents the premiere of Camille Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila in 1892 and Antonín Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony the following year, along with premieres of major works of John Philip Sousa, Jean Sibelius, Richard Strauss, and others, through the 20^th century to works of Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, and many others. This chapter, even more than the others, is filled with photographs, autographed musical manuscripts and other documentation, alongside fascinating musical commentary. As a composer, this was my favorite part. It’s through this particular panorama—as living history—that the book really comes alive.

There’s much more: chapters on the exceptional orchestras and maestros who have performed at Carnegie, and an album of great singers. Chapters on “All That Jazz,” “Pop and World Music,” “Rock and Folk Royalty” and “A Space for More Than Concerts” brings to conclusion this grand circumnavigation of Carnegie Hall’s unique and remarkable history.

“If you believe in ghosts, this would be the place to find them,” writes author/music critic Tim Page. Carnegie Hall Treasures is a wonderful book to leaf through, either in sequence or in random order, and I most highly recommended it to anyone and everyone. It’s a book worthy of its subject: a ‘treasure’ indeed. Carnegie Hall, which was saved by a group of concerned New Yorkers led by the great violinist and humanitarian Isaac Stern in 1960, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and a New York City Landmark in 1967.

Carnegie Hall Treasures, by Tim Page and Carnegie Hall, 2011. HarperCollins ISBN 978-0-06-170367-6. 221 pages. Hardcover.

– Steve Dankner

The Life of Schumann, by Michael Musgrave

Concert presenters and performers looking for a “hook” can perhaps be forgiven for latching on to famous composers’ birth (and death) anniversaries in programming canonical works. The celebratory appearance of a beloved past master’s music in mass quantities is a sure way to increase concert attendance, especially by listeners with conservative tastes. It’s not the same with books. Here, I admit I’m less cynical of the motives of authors of composer biographies. A re-awakened interest in the 200^th birth year anniversary of Beethoven in 1970, followed similarly by the Schumann and Chopin bicentennials last year, were the occasions for new and important research, resulting in valuable contributions to our understanding about their lives and music. The Life of Schumann, by Michael Musgrave, is a case in point.

Schumann is a composer about whom much is generally known, but not in any great depth. The general trajectory of his tragic and eventful life is familiar: his beginnings as an passionate artist equally in love with both literature and music; his failed attempt to become a virtuoso pianist; his meeting and falling in love with Clara, the daughter of his piano teacher, and his turn to composition thereafter; his founding of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik; the development and expansion of his compositional goals from solo piano to vocal to music for strings and the creation of symphonies, concerti, choral works and an opera; his close friendship with Mendelssohn and his professional dealings with  most of the musical giants in the milieu that centered around him, due to his growing influence as editor and music critic for the Neue Zeitschrift; his fostering and championing of the young Brahms, and, sadly, his gradual descent into madness, an attempted suicide and his terrifying confinement in an insane asylum for the last two years of his life.

Finally, there’s the conundrum of the visibility of Schumann’s music: the solo piano works have always been in print and are regularly performed, as has been the ever-popular Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54. Not so secure, however, have been the four symphonies – which were criticized for their heavily scored textures despite the inspired and beautiful music they contain. And there are the many choral and sacred works (including a Mass, Op. 147 and a Requiem, Op. 148), the opera Genoveva, and many other works in various genres that are rarely heard, even today. For a major and influential composer, Schumann is perhaps on a par with Berlioz in suffering semi-obscurity, for many of his late and highly original works remain unknown to the concertgoing public.

Author Michael Musgrave does an admirable job of filling in the detail of Schumann’s life, and much of it is revelatory and shocking. In an introductory chapter, he focuses on the youthful Schumann’s impending insanity, and its cause—syphilis, revealed only in 1971, with the publication of the composer’s notebooks, correspondence and diaries. The author writes: “… though Schumann did not manifest the clear symptoms of tertiary syphilis until the 1850s, his many ‘routine’ illnesses over the years were manifestations of the ‘latent’ secondary stage.” Symptoms of the disease had first appeared as early as 1831, and Schumann underwent periodic treatments from then on, hoping for a cure, which he thought he had obtained by 1840. Musgrave continues: “This explains why he subsequently married and had a large family: that Clara did not apparently contract the disease is not a challenge to this view: she could have been a carrier, but not infectious.”

Is it, then, an out-of-bounds stretch to infer that this may be why Brahms—by 1853 a member of the Schumann household—thought better of marrying Clara after Schumann’s death in 1856? Musgrave does not bring this up, but the idea insinuates itself: Brahms was above all a cautious and conservative man, and certainly would have known the root cause of Schumann’s horrible, terminal illness. Brahms researchers—what do you think?

Musgrave examines Schumann’s phobias and obsessions as a window through which to view his music, but does not conclude that these mental aberrations caused a decline in the composer’s creative powers:

There is no doubt that the traditional assumption of Schumann’s illness —whether one of incipient madness attached to creativity, or a progressive mental illness leading to attempted suicide—has influenced the evaluation of his music, especially his later music: and viewed the other way, that the often inward, even brooding character of some later music is evidence of a declining mind… if there is a certain fatigue, this is the result of physical strain and over-production, not of reduced mental capacity.

The Life of Schumann conveys with great sensitivity and insight the inner world of Robert, and also his relationship with his beloved Clara, as it charts the scope of his triumphs in Leipzig and Dresden, his ensuing disillusionment in Düsseldorf, and the despair to follow at the end of his life. Clara’s diary excerpts of Robert’s schizophrenia are heartbreaking to read; shortly after they were written he threw himself into the Rhine.

Today, 156 years after his passing, Schumann speaks to us with a voice we intuitively recognize—one of innocence merged with complexity, and triumph mingled with unnamable sorrow.

The Life of Schumann is part of Amadeus Press’ ‘Musical lives’ series. Most highly recommended for lovers of Schumann’s music, and for those interested in early-to-mid German Romantic music and the beginnings of 19^th century music/literary commentary, it deserves a place in library collections with comprehensive composer biographies, music histories and music criticism.

The Life of Schumann, by Michael Musgrave. Cambridge University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-521-80248-2. 224 pages. Hardback.

– Steve Dankner