George Szell: a life of music
Michael Charry
University of Illinois Press, Urbana; 2011; xxii + 434
The focus of this book is the rise of the Cleveland Orchestra from a second rate one to a world-renowned orchestra between 1946 and 1970, the years George Szell was in charge. OK. We learn about how Szell, born in 1897, was a prodigy, how he studied composition, music theory and the piano in Vienna at the age of 6. He was 11 on his debut as pianist/composer. At the age of 15 he had a ten year composition contract with Universal Editions. He had his conducting debut a mere two years later and was an assistant conductor to Richard Strauss between 1915 and 1917. In fact, Strauss thought highly of him and unsuccessfully tried to get him appointed his assistant in Vienna when he was appointed chief conductor there. In 1920 Szell married Olga Band who he divorced six years later. He spent most of the years between 1920 and 1939 conducting orchestras in Berlin, Prague and Holland. In 1937 and 1938 he toured Australia, conducting Australian orchestras. He married his second wife, Helene Schultz Teltsch in 1939. In that year they went to New York. He taught composition and advanced theory at the Mannes School of Music (which is where the author of this biography teaches). He was a guest conductor for various orchestras between 1941 and 1946 as well as having a contract as principal conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. In 1946 he was appointed Musical Director of the Cleveland Orchestra and remained with it until his death 24 years later in 1970.
We learn quite a lot about how Szell developed musically up to about 1939. It would have been interesting to learn more about the relationship between Szell and Richard Strauss because they seem to have admired one another and worked well together. His marriage to Olga Band is scarcely touched upon in the biography. We are not told why. Is it because there is a dearth of papers, letters or diaries for that period. Or was it done by Charry out of respect for Szell’s second wife, Helene? There is certainly a lot of documentary evidence for his tours of Australia which is used extensively in the book. And some of it – in particular, Szell’s opinion of Australian orchestras; and vice versa - makes quite amusing reading.
The real trouble with this biography starts once Szell and Helene get to New York in 1939. Behind a lot of the musical information lies the hint of a struggle to live in a new country. But we are left to guess at what their life was like. He taught at the Mannes School. But we don’t know what his colleagues or students thought of him, both as a man and as a teacher. What sort of social life did they have? What sort of communication did they have with friends and relatives left behind in Europe? In fact, we learn scarcely anything about George Szell’s own family. I can’t even remember there being a mention of brothers or sisters! And his two wives exist in the same limbo, except that Helene had had a previous marriage with two sons who were left behind in Europe. And only one of the sons survived to come to America in 1945. There is a whole story there. Only you won’t find it in this biography. To be honest, the reader really wants to know about the women the subject of the biography marries. Who were they? Their interests? Family? Background? And we get none of this. There are almost certainly letters and diaries hidden away in the Szell archive which would open our eyes. What about Szell’s relationship with his stepson? Nothing.
From 1946 right up to Szell’s death in 1970, the biography is truly a biography of the Cleveland Orchestra. The reader learns just about nothing about his private life, except for blunt statements about going on holiday after Charry has provided pages of detailed descriptions of most of the concerts Szell conducted during the preceding season. While I haven’t counted, there must be hundreds of concert programmes listed with selections from press reviews from time to time. Szell raised the Cleveland Orchestra from a second rate orchestra to a world-beater. And yet we learn relatively little about how he actually did it, except that in the first couple of years he encouraged certain players to leave and encouraged others to join. He taught the orchestra members to listen to what everyone else in the orchestra was doing at all times, which was one of the characteristics of the Cleveland under his baton. Where did he learn this? Or was it his own idea? There is quite a bit of Orchestra politics from time to time. I wondered whether this was all necessary.
If you are looking for a biography that tells you something about the social man, his friends and family with stories about episodes in his life, then this not the book for you, I’m afraid. I even wonder how much it tells you about him as a musician. Except that he was incredibly hard working all his life.
I suppose Joseph Frank’s 5-volume biography about Dostoevsky’s life and works has set an incredibly high standard for learning about the lives of prominent people. He gives the reader a chapter describing a period of Dostoevsky’s life; the following chapter discusses his work in the same period. By doing this he is able to link life and work intimately. This method keeps the reader engaged from start to finish. And I think a similar approach to George Szell’s life would have provided the reader with a rounded picture of the man.As for fiction, if I start with historical novels, they span many years. The earliest was Susanna Gregory's A Masterly Murder which had Matthew Bartholomew solving the usual mayhem of late 14th century Cambridge. A great jump to the 18th century led to Christopher Waklin's The Devil's Mask set in Bristol:
The Devil’s mask
Christopher Wakling
Faber and Faber, London; 2011; vi + 312
ISBN: 978-0-571-23922-1
This superb novel is about the lengths people will go to in order to conceal their wrongdoings. At its heart is the cargo of the ship Belsize which has just docked in Bristol port.
Inigo Bright qualified as an attorney to work in Bristol just six months before the story starts. He belongs to a merchant family; his three brothers work for his father’s company. His father definitely looks down on Inigo for abandoning the family business. Sometimes the company funds whole ships and sometimes only buys a share in a ship. This is the case in the most recent voyage of the Belsize. While the action is focussed on the Belsize and its investors, it takes place all over Bristol and, briefly, in Bath. The shareholders in the last voyage were only interested in making a profit and didn’t care how it was done.
Adam Carthy the lawyer who Inigo works for, has been asked to audit the Dock accounts to establish which ships and companies have failed to pay their customs dues over the past few years. Very quickly, Inigo becomes aware that there was something not right about the Belsize’s last voyage. At the same time mutilated bodies of three black people are found still with manacles attached to them. This is surprising as slavery was abolished some time ago in Britain. Then a black seaman – Blue – steps in to help Inigo. He was on the last voyage of the Belsize and tells him that some slaves were carried in a concealed deck. At this point Carthy is kidnapped and Inigo is warned off any further investigation. Soon after that, Inigo and Blue go to Bath to interview one of the ship’s officers. Only they are taken and kept in prison by a corrupt Bristol judge.
Eventually the truth emerges about the illegal slavery, but Inigo is stripped of hiss right to work as an attorney in Bristol. Carthy’s kidnapper turns out to have been his own father who also kept one of the illegally imported slaves in the same dungeon under his house.
This is a good story, well told. I keeps your attention right to the very end as the twists and turns are surprising. A humorous, and recurrent theme in the novel is the problem Inigo has in controlling his unruly hair.
At the opposite end of the country, in Northumberland, the problems of keeping secret the dangerous herb garden of an apothecary and his daughter leads to all sorts of problems in the household. That is from Maryrose Wood's The Poison Diaries. There is a link to the poison garden at Alnwick Castle which the present Duchess of Northumberland has developed. Rosalind Brackenbury's brilliant Becoming George Sand moves effortlessly between modern Edinburgh and 19th century France.
Becoming George Sand
Rosalind Brackenbury
Mariner Books, NY; 2009; xii + 296
ISBN: 978-0-547-37054-5
The first thing to say about this novel is that it is smoothly written. There are no spare words. Nor are there any inappropriate words to interrupt the flow of the story. In fact, the text is beautiful. The story flows effortlessly from beginning to end and carries the reader with it. The sheer quality of writing makes me want to find other books Rosalind Brackenbury has written.
This is the story of an academic couple who live in Edinburgh and teach at the university there. He is a scientist with a particular interest in the flora and fauna of the Mediterranean. She teaches French. They live in a large house with their two children. So far, so good. So normal.
Maria has always been interested in George Sand. On one visit to Paris she bought her diaries. Well, five of the six volumes. In an Edinburgh bookshop she buys another book and orders the letters between Sand and Flaubert. While her book is being wrapped, a handsome young man walks in. They chat briefly and decide to go for a coffee. He is a scientist researching the human immunity system. This meeting leads to an affair. Meeting and making love in her spare room in the afternoons before the children get back from school. She sort of wonders how the affair between George Sand and Chopin began. Was it as innocently as hers? Isn’t this how many affairs begin? A chance meeting?
Maria reads the account of the affair between Sand and Chopin and how they go to stay on Majorca for a time in the hope that Chopin’s TB will improve. In those days you caught the returning cattle boat from Barcelona to Majorca. There they rent a house that is completely unsuitable for any of them. They move up to live in rooms in an abandoned monastery. Chopin pines for a decent piano to help him compose. After some months they return to Sand’s country house. By then the affair was over sexually but they remained close friends and companions.
Meanwhile, back in Edinburgh, Maria and her husband decide to go to Majorca for a fortnight. She wants to track George Sand and Chopin’s movements there. He wants to begin his part of a collaborative research project. At the end of the holiday, he tells Maria that he knows she is having an affair.
When they return to Edinburgh he leaves the house for an apartment he has found. He also goes to see a clinical psychologist. The children are stunned by the separation, but soon get used to having separate lives with each of their parents. Maria’s affair stumbles to an end. She now concentrates on reading and researching her book on George Sand. The children resume their normal lives. Who said that children are soft, sensitive beings? Some say all they need for a full life is food, TV and a computer. Oh, and a mobile phone. Over time the children bring increasing numbers of their friends to the house. Maria never knows who is in or out. Just that there is a heap of coats and shoes at the front door. When she cooks, she feeds everyone who is in the house at that time. It is the picture of a relaxed, happy household.
In the summer a friend in France who is a novelist and her translator, invites her to stay for a couple of weeks at her cottage in the country. The advantage of it is that George Sand’s own country house is not far away and so she will have known the countryside there. The attraction is obvious. She gets her husband to stay in the house with the children while she is away. She has a wonderful time exploring the area and being with her friends. She is, however, aware that something is wrong with her friend. A few months later, she is called to Paris to see her friend who is in hospital, terminally ill. She visits her briefly because that is all her friend can cope with. She and her friend’s husband start to sort through her papers because they have been named her literary executors. They find papers and books either completed or almost completed and plan how to arrange publication.
When she returns from Paris her husband has cooked a special meal for her. They eat and talk and realise that they still belong together. Once the children have gone to bed, they, too, go to bed. He leaves in the early hours before the children wake. They have to plan their recombination carefully. I loved this book and wished it had been twice as long.
I indulged the softer parts of myself by reading a few romances this month. I can say without a doubt that I enjoyed them all. First came Linda Goodnight's A very special delivery,then Michelle Reid's Mias Scandal and, finally, Liz Fielding's The Bride's Baby.
OK. Now for the grizzly end of the business: the murder-mysteries and thrillers. I do love a bit of blood and guts, to be honest. But not too often or too much. They are all set in the 20th century. I really enjoyed John F Dobbyn's Black Diamond not only because it is well-written, but because it draws attention to the link between American-Irish and the more extreme, underground, elements of the IRA in Ireland today. Philip Kerr's The One from the Other follows his German hero from post-war Germany to Argentina after his identity has been compromised by a war-criminal. Mark Terry's The Valley of Shadows is about extreme Islamist attacks on the USA on the eve of a Presidential election.
The Valley of Shadows
Mark Terry
Oceanview Publishing, Florida; 2011; viii + 296
ISBN: 978-1-933515-94-6
This is a novel in which the development of the characters is sacrificed to the incredibly fast-paced action. At times it almost seems to read as a screen play rather than a novel. The subject is an Al-Qaeda attack on the USA on or immediately before the day of a Presidential election.
The story starts in Islamabad in Pakistan when a joint FBI/Pakistan team surround and take an apartment. In the fire-fight four Islamic martyrs are killed and fifth wounded. The sixth man – Kalakar –who was supposed to be there, escaped after receiving a warning text message. Laptops in the apartment contain deliberately misleading information, apart from the booby-trapped one which explodes and kills an FBI agent when he picks it up. The question of who gave the warning to Kalakar is posed in this opening chapter but is not answered until the very end of the novel. Somehow this is central to the story, and it would have been helpful in tying the story more firmly to Pakistan if there had been intermittent references to it.
In the USA a team from FBI/Home Security and other security forces has just completed a dummy exercise dealing with threatened terrorist attacks. Suddenly they get a report of a bomb going off in Dallas and are mobilised to work in small teams. Early the next morning a suicide bomber walks in to Chicago Airport when there are very few people about and detonates his vest. He is the only casualty. By this time the security teams are reaching their locations around the country. The one the novel follows has been assigned to California, in particular, Los Angeles.
The team traces through the LA underworld and picks up clues about various individuals who might be dealing in bombs and small nuclear devices. They leave a trail of bodies behind them. They realise, however, that the imam of a particular mosque is communicating with radical elements in the Muslim community. These include the Vice Consul of Pakistan whose offices are on the floor above that of an Entertainment Lawyers’ office. The lawyers are predominantly Pakistani.
To cut to the final chase, Kalakar has been armed through the imam including a Stinger ground-to-air missile. He stays with an acquaintance who is an air traffic controller at LA airport. He has persuaded him to tell him the flight path and best place for visual contact with the ice-Presidential jet that will fly in on the day before elections. John Seddiqi fails to do as he was told. Kalakar kidnaps his child and tells him to repeat the exercise the day following when the Governor’s plane is due. If he fails again, his daughter will be killed.
FBI have managed to identify Kalakar and are chasing him as hard as possible but are never quite close enough. In the end, on election day, Kalakar meets John’s wife, who he kills; the daughter escapes while he struggles to arm and launch the missile. As he is aiming it, two agents arrive and open fire. Seriously wounded as he is, Kalakar does manage to launch the missile before expiring. The airplane pilot is warned and, having been a fighter pilot knows what to do, takes successful evasive action.
Meanwhile, in Washington four suicide bombs have gone off in the airport with devastating effects. I can’t quite see thee point of this episode. There is nothing leading up to it. Nor is there any aftermath. It just happens out of the bl;ue and then it’s back to the real story.
The true conclusion is that two prominent generals in Pakistan, one with the President’s ear, are identified as the overall organisers of the attacks on the USA. Justice is meted out without recourse to the law courts.
OK. It’s an Al-Qaeda novel. The link with Pakistan is good. The shenanigans in LA are a bit over the top. But at least the slowly building romance between the two key FBNI players is conventional. As in a James Bond 007 movie.
I loved L J Sellers's The sex club not just because it is well plotted, but because it addresses up-to-date ethical questions.
The Sex Club
LJ Sellers
Spellbinder Press, USA; 2007 – 2010; vi + 304 pp
eISBN: 978-0-9795182-0-1
This is a delightfully complex novel. At its heart is extremism and terrorism. By a Christian group. There are three inter-connected strands that run through it. The first is the conflict between a group of people who work for Planned Parenthood and who give advice to teenagers on sex, STDs and abortion. They are strongly opposed in everything they do by a powerful Christian group, mainly drawn from the First Baptist Church. A second strand involves Ruth, a member of the protest group, who is so radical that she is prepared to bomb for her beliefs. The third strand is teenage rebellion which belongs to a group of teenagers who belong to TeenTalk a youth group attached to the First Baptist Church. And a fourth strand, that runs intermittently through the novel is the slow-growing love/attraction between Kera, a worker at Planned Parenthood and Detective Wade Jackson, a detective leading the team investigating deaths that are linked back to the other three strands.
Kera from Planned Parenthood treats Jessie for genital warts and suggests she think about forms of contraception. Next day, after Planned Parenthood has been bombed and a client has lost her life, Jessie is found murdered in a dumpster. Her parents are shocked to discover that she has been having sex with more than one man and that she is pregnant. They thought she was a pure Christian girl. Before the police investigation is really fully under way, Planned Parenthood workers receive anonymous letters denouncing what they do.
Kera decides to visit the local school that Jessie went to and to see if she can talk to the most sexually vulnerable group. The headteacher says they don’t do sex education, leaving all that stuff to parents. As Kera leaves the school, one of Jessie’s friends asks to talk to her. They briefly chat in Kera’s car and swap numbers. Next day that girl is found dead.
Detective Wade Jackson decides that the two murders are connected because both girls have been smothered and have relatively recently had sex.
Running in parallel with all this is the normal First Baptist Church activities involving adults. Long meetings with other groups some distance away. Bible Study groups, etc. Ruth is caught up in the middle of all this. She was the person who made and planted the first pipe bomb at Planned Parenthood. Having heard from her daughter about Kera and her interests in the dead girls she plants a car bomb on her car. While she is a church meeting, she goes outside and, by phone, detonates the bomb. Little does she know that her daughter and a friend have gone round to Kera’s to kill her because they believe she knows all about their sexual activities. Kera has just managed to escape their clutches and run out of the house when the car bomb goes off and one of the teenagers is killed.
The solutions to the three murders are pretty neat and very definitely surprising. So I can’t spoil them for the reader. Suffice it to say, this is a good read. The text is well-written and fast moving. And, in an action book, the characters are really well drawn. Go read it. And then read the following three Jackson murder-mysteries. Does he really get to marry Kera in the fourth novel? I hope so.
Maxie Mezcal's Concrete Underground is a pretty weird murder-mystery, but Leslie DuBois's Ain't no sunshine draws you in. Raymond Benson's The Black Stiletto draws you in, entangles you in its threads and spits you out at the end slightly confused but very satisfied.
The Black Stiletto: the first diary - 1958
Raymond Benson
Oceanview Publishing, Florida; 2011; xii + 268
ISBN: 978-1-60809-020-4
This novel starts in a fairly unpromising way. A son wonders what point there is in visiting his nursing-home-bound, Alzheimered mother. She’s a complete mystery to him, even though he is successful in his own life. Then he has a meeting with his uncle who hands him some keys and confirmation about where to look in his mother’s house that has been up for sale for the past two years. He has held this on his sister’s instructions until he decided it was time to hand it on to her son. He has no idea what lies behind the instructions or what the keys will lead to. He is just a dumb lawyer.
So the son goes to his mother’s house. There he finds a cleverly concealed small room in the basement. It contains some black leather suits, masks, capes, a whole collection of diaries that start in 1958, comic books, newspaper cuttings and books. And they are all about a murderous woman who called herself The Black Stiletto.
He starts to read the 1958 diary, hence the sub-title of the book. He learns that his mother’s father died when she was young, that her mother re-married and that, when Judy Cooper was 13, her stepfather raped her. She left home and made it to New York, having stolen her stepfather’s wages. She finds a boxing gym run by a man called Freddie, an ex-boxer. She asks him to teach her to box, but he refuses. In the end they come to a deal. She cleans the gym while the men are using it; he will teach her boxing in the evenings. And she can have a room in his apartment above the gym. He will never allow her to box his male clientele. She is a quick learner and becomes proficient in this sport. He then introduces her to a Japanese martial arts master who teaches her karate. She progresses from utter novice to black belt. She is still uncertain that she can deal with everything she might faced in the street and asks Freddie to introduce her to a man who can teach her how to fight with a knife. Freddie disapproves, but does find her an Italian named individual. Unfortunately, he is a member of a mafia mob. He insists on Judy living with him while he teaches her. They fall in love. One New Year’s Eve they attend his mafia boss’s party as guests. Then, during the following year he goes missing. Killed by the boss. The next New Year’s Eve party she gatecrashes the party and kills the boss and one of the pair of twins who are his close body guards. The other chases Judy and nearly catches her. But he is caught by the police who want him for a series of crimes that result in a 52-year sentence. Judy has begun to make a name for herself as The Black Stiletto who protects innocent members of the public from street robbers and thugs. She continues acting in this vein. And leaves messages with the papers every now and again. But we never learn why she gives up being The Black Stiletto.
The novel takes place 52 years after she first became The Black Stiletto. The twin who was sentenced to 52 years in prison is released from Sing Sing. He immediately sets out to find and kill Judy. But the old mafia network is no longer there. He has to track down separate members of the mob who lead him to her house. But there is no one there. And the house has obviously been standing empty for some time. And then tracks her down to the nursing home. She surprises everyone there, even though she has not spoken a word for two years nor sshown any signs of appreciating anything in the world about her for the same length of time.
I enjoyed this book. It is well plotted and has many surprising turns in it. It is set to be the first in a series of adventures by The Black Stiletto, I hope.
I feel very guilty about reading no poetry this month - unless you count The Book of the Dead, which I don't. So that is an omission I shall have to make good next month.
