JAVS Fall 1989

21

Following high school I was granted a fellowship for four years of study at the Juilliard Graduate School, and left home for New York. Juilliard was astonishing! The small student body exuded an atmosphere electric with musical and philosophical thought. Raw ideas and instinctive decisions were rampant, particularly during chamber music rehearsals, spilling over into on-going discussions which lasted for days. We had opinions on everything: loving this composer, hating that one, Strad against del Gesu, Baldwin versus Steinway. Not until years later did we realize that it had been a dress rehearsal for life and we had left such an environment to discover a different world. I worked assiduously on the standard repertoire, including the Sonatas and Partitas. Many of their movements created no great problems. The difficult ones with the finger and bow-twisting fugues were simply played into submission. Occasionally, rising from a festering sea of black notes, I would discover a world I had never dreamed existed. How deeply touched I was upon first hearing the haunting ostinato in the second movement of the E Major Concerto! As though a switch had been thrown, I was immediately beguiled by this composer. Although my teacher was admirable in many respects, he never hinted at the fact that the works of Bach were so remarkable that they required a performer's under standing before they could be properly transmitted to the listener. That germ of discovery, so epidemic at the School, brought the realization that my labors were making me an expert on the tip of the iceberg. The allure of the School's two fine violas was irresistible, and I decided to specialize on that instrument. I returned to Juilliard, carrying a chubbier case. I was fortunate to study with Milton Katims, who, for the next four years, guided me through the repertoire, including some of the Cello Suites. We began with the Second. What a revelation! The bogey-man of my childhood had grown into a most congenial, even romantic fellow, with no intention whatever to frighten or destroy!

Although I had covered almost all of the known viola repertoire, of which (regard less of some popular opinions) there is plenty, my appetite for the Suites was never satisfied. Kellner Manuscript For some years after Juilliard, having performed, taught and analyzed the Suites, I realized that I had, in fact, created my own edition. My major source of reference had been the manuscript of Anna Magda lena Bach. I needed more authentication from another source, that of Bach's contemporary, Johann Peter Kellner. Searching for it had the air of an inter national intrigue. During one of three summers spent teaching at Indiana University, I requested from their music librarian any information that might be had on the location of the Kellner manuscript. Within an hour I was given the address and file card number of a library in East Berlin. Wearing many hats, (Professor at I.-U., New Y?rk Philharmonic, Manhattan School of MUSIC), I wrote to the library, but there was no reply. A month later, at a huge banquet for the peripatetic Philharmonic by the Ministry of Culture in Moscow, I gingerly approached the dour Minister himself, asking, through an interpreter, if someho~, someone might nudge the library people In East Berlin on my behalf. The man, suddenly more pugilistic than ministerial, became irate. I had struck an exposed political nerve by even hinting at any influence with the East Germans! However, when I arrived home two weeks later, the twenty-three beautiful pages of music awaited me. Because I cannot play and speak simultaneously while demonstrating for students, I purchased from a colleague one of the older monstrous tape deck models complet with microphone, believing this to be a solution. It would allow me to play the tape and make comments at the same time. But the machine had its own thoughts on the matter by simply recording, deleting or playing back whatever it wished. It eventually died of its own recalcitrance. At least I thought it did. The father of a student, an "electronics expert," volunteered to "take a look." He promised to bring some tools to his son's