MEETING MY YOUTH
A few months ago, I had one of those milestone birthdays--you know the kind I mean--and I realized I was getting a bit long in the tooth. I don't think I am superannuated, but looking back over the years, I am aware that I have led a pretty fantastic life. In remembering things past, what I found particularly fascinating were the twists and turns of fate that interrelate and entwine one's life with events and experiences in other peoples lives.
Music has always been an important part of my life. By the age of 12, I was fairly well grounded in classical music.
Our next-door neighbor, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, was Thelma Votipka. A Czech mezzo-soprano of imposing stature, she sang supporting roles in Metropolitan Opera productions, especially Wagnerian operas. Madame Votipka taught me a great deal about music, and on Good Fridays at our neighborhood church, this boy soprano joined her in singing Sir John Stainer's "Crucifixion." My father was a fine baritone and used to sing recitals on WJZ, New York, back in the B battery days of radio reception.
My very musically oriented family owned one of those big Victor Orthophonic phonographs, and I was immediately enamored of the clunky, fragile, monophonic 78-rpm records. Even in those primitive days (electrical transcriptions had been on the market for just about six years), I was very concerned with the sound quality of the recordings. What I deemed the best sounding were the Victor recordings of the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Not only did I like the sound, but I loved the repertoire chosen by Maestro Stokowski and the great playing he got from the orchestra. Thus I reveled in such listening experiences as Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" with the composer as soloist, Brahms' Third Symphony, Scriabin's "Poem of Ecstasy," and the Symphonic Synthesis of Act Ill and "Good Friday Music" from Wagner's Parsifal. No doubt about it, I was as much a fan and disciple of Leopold Stokowski as any wild-eyed rock fan is of The Rolling Stones. Nowhere in my wildest youthful imagination did I ever fantasize that 25 years after hearing these records I would be recording this great conductor as he led the Houston Symphony Orchestra in most of this very repertoire! As a youth I was also fond of big band music and attended concerts by the likes of Benny Goodman and Woody Herman. I certainly never dreamed that I would make the first stereo recordings of these bands in Chicago's Blue Note in 1951 and 1952.
These are but two examples of the numerous interrelations in my life involving music, musicians, composers, and conductors.
Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra were certainly one of the fabled synergies of conductor and orchestra in American musical history.
The Philadelphia under Stokowski was held in awe as much for the richness of their orchestral color as for the opulence and beauty of their string tone.
Although Stokowski encouraged free bowing instead of unison playing on the strings, he employed a little psychoacoustic trickery: In a diminuendo passage that would ultimately fade into nothingness, he would have the players continue to draw their bows across the strings, even though they were not producing actual sound. The effect was magical! A friend of mine had the 14-record set of Schoenberg's monumental "Gurrelieder," with Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. This work required a huge orchestra including seven clarinets, 10 horns, and a vast percussion battery which contained a set of large iron chains! These artists, along with choruses and soloists, added up to 554 musicians! I first heard this work in 1934, and needless to say, a work on this grand scale is rarely recorded. The next time I heard it was in 1953, and therein lies a tale.
I have been an ardent devotee of the music of Gustav Mahler ever since 1935, when I heard his Second Symphony, "Resurrection," as recorded by Eugene Ormandy and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra on 22 sides of 78-rpm records. I also fondly remember Mahler's Fifth Symphony conducted by Bruno Walter, and Mahler's First Symphony recorded by Dimitri Mitropoulos and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. This recording was transferred to LP, and I believe it was the only Mahler on LP for quite a while. It must be remembered that even in his own time, Mahler's music was considered quite controversial and received a lot of negative criticism. During the period from 1930 to 1958, his music was little known and seldom played in the United States. In 1952, I was at the Chicago premiere of Mahler's Ninth Symphony with Rafael Kubelík conducting the work in Orchestra Hall. The First Movement of this profound work runs up to 29 minutes, depending on tempos. I well remember several people walking out of the hall before the end of the First Movement and Kubelik turning around and giving them a contemptuous glare! Mahler was acutely aware of all the criticism of his music and was said to have stated, "My time will yet come." This motto was used on the gold Medal of Honor for Mahler, struck by the Bruckner Society of America. I used a reproduction of this medal on the front cover of my Everest recording of Mahler's Ninth Symphony with Leopold Ludwig conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.
Getting back to the "Gurrelieder," in 1953 I received an invitation from the Haydn Society to attend a reception at the New York City apartment of Stella Adler, the well-known acting teacher and drama coach. The occasion was to celebrate the Haydn Society's LP release of "Gurrelieder" conducted by René Leibowitz. The usual crowd of voluble critics wandered about, libations in hand, when someone grabbed my arm and steered me to an attractive older woman and said, "Bert, I'm sure you want to meet Alma Mahler." I was stunned, to say the least! It really was the widow of the legendary Gustav Mahler! She was in her mid-70s, and I could still see the fairness and grace of the woman who was once known as the most beautiful girl in Vienna. She was very poised and self-assured, almost to the point of feistiness. She still retained a charming Viennese accent.
I was damn near speechless, but of course I told her how passionately I admired her husband's music. I mentioned the Chicago concert of the Ninth Symphony, and she knew all about it. I told her a prime ambition of mine was to record all of her late husband's symphonies. She asked me which one was my favorite, and I replied that I liked them all but that I found the Ninth very special, along with the First, Second, and Fifth. A little more diverting small talk, and she was gone. Little did I know that five years hence, I would indeed make the first stereo recordings of the Mahler First, Fifth, and Ninth Symphonies.
As for Alma Mahler, this remarkable lady died in New York City in 1964 at the age of 85. Mahler was 20 years older than Alma Schindler, the beautiful music student, when he married her in Vienna in 1902. At that time, Mahler was director of the Court Opera House and already well known for his music.
Alma travelled with Mahler on conducting tours in Europe and the United States. He became the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, but in 1911, his second controversial season, had to cut his work short to return to Vienna, where he died of a heart attack.
Alma married architect Walter Gropius in 1915 and divorced him in 1918.
(In later years, Gropius designed the Pan-Am Building in New York City.) While still married to Gropius, Alma met writer Franz Werfel and had a son by him. She moved in with Werfel and married him in 1929. Talk about your soap operas! Werfel and Alma fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and settled in California in 1940. These experiences resulted in Werfel writing his well-known book, Song of Bernadette. Werfel died in 1945, and Alma moved to New York City in 1952. Alma Mahler Werfel freely admitted she was attracted to geniuses and had love affairs with many who fit that description. One was the famous Russian pianist Ossip Gabrilowitsch, who later became the conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and ultimately married Mark Twain's daughter.
It has been said that Alma Mahler Werfel was a brilliant and creative composer whose talents were suppressed by Gustav Mahler. Listed in the CD catalog, under Alma Mahler-' Werfel, is Complete Piano Songs, a program for soprano with piano accompaniment. It is on the CPO label (distributed by Koch International). A harrowing story concerns the aforementioned Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Leopold Stokowski, and Stokowski's wife, pianist Olga Samaroff. The Stokowskis were guests in Gabrilowitsch's Munich home in 1914 when the First World War broke out. German troops arrested Gabrilowitsch, but Stokowski, his wife, and two friends were able to flee the country. Stokowski had tucked a copy of the score of Mahler's Eighth Symphony, "Symphony of a Thousand," in his suitcase. It's quite a tale, but you'll have to wait until the next issue to read about it!
(adapted from Audio magazine, Sept. 1990; Bert Whyte)
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