In Cincinnati and on the Road with Hans Rott

Tom Consolo at his desk at the Cincinnati Post, where he worked as copy editor, page designer and assistant business editor from 2000-2007.

Violinist/conductor Tom Consolo was a member of the Philharmonia Orchestra at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music when the orchestra led by Gerhard Samuel performed the world premiere of Austrian composer Hans Rott's Symphony in E Major on March 4, 1989 in Corbett Auditorium at CCM.  Samuel and the Philharmonia performed the work at the International Mahler Festival at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris on March 10 and made the world premiere recording for Hyperion Records at St. Barnabas Church in London on March 13 and 14.  Tom, now associate conductor, publications director and principal second violinist of the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, wrote about the trip for the U.C. Alumni Association magazine "Horizons" in May, 1989.

"Playing Their Hearts Out: Philharmonia Triumphs in Paris in London"
by Tom Consolo

Musicians deal in human triumph and tragedy every day. They dedicate their lives to expressing and reliving everything from the unshakable faith in the human spirit of Beethoven’s ninth symphony to the barbarity of decadent power in Richard Strauss’ Salome to the despair and love of Gustav Mahler.

But playing about such things and living them are two very different things. Members of UC’s Philharmonia Orchestra found that out the hard way: A concert tour to Europe, to Paris and London in the springtime, ended with sudden, senseless death.

CCM students first heard of plans for the trip in the fall of 1987. In the Philharmonia Orchestra’s first rehearsal of the year — like most first rehearsals, the group’s introduction to itself, it was not particularly good — music director and conductor Gerhard Samuel stopped after another train wreck in the Brahms Symphony Nr. 3 and announced matter-of-factly, “I’d like to take this orchestra to France next spring.”

Until this fall, the only new development was that we would be part of a Mahler festival in Paris and that we would be in august company. By October, 1989, though, most of the specifics were made public. Philharmonia had been invited to participate in the International Mahler Festival at the Theatre du Châtelet in Paris. We were to be the only conservatory involved and the only orchestra from the United States.

And the company was indeed august: London’s Royal Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and, sandwiching our concert, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic. The roster of conductors was equally impressive, featuring Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Vaclav Neumann and Simon Rattle.

The big mystery was what we were to play. Since mid-winter, 1987-88, the most rampant rumor was that we would play the Mahler Symphony Nr. 7. It was a nice idea since the seventh is about as obscure as Mahler symphonies can manage to be these days despite being a wonderful piece. A closer look, though, revealed that to be nearly impossible. Besides being immensely difficult to play individually and as a group, Mahler’s seventh requires a huge performing ensemble — more than would be reasonable to take to France.

The answer: “Totenfeier,” first draft of the first movement of the Resurrection (second) symphony and the world premieres of six early Mahler songs orchestrated by Luciano Berio and of the Symphony in E Major of Hans Rott. Reaction from the orchestra was unanimous. Hans who?

Rott was a colleague of Mahler’s at the conservatory in Vienna. He died at age 26 of tuberculosis and left but one work of substance, the E Major symphony. Mahler admired it very much, calling it “the beginning of the New Symphony as I know it.” The score of the Rott had been discovered, not wrapping a cheese in St. Petersburg or in the musty trunk of a distant relative, but in the library of the Vienna Philharmonic. It was lost through lack of use.

  November, 1988; A-9 rehearsal room at CCM: We attempt to read the Rott. The parts are officially declared “a mess” by the conducting students who have to mark them. There are so many mistakes in the wind parts that only a string sectional is possible. Most of that is spent fixing more misprints. The word “litigation” is occasionally overheard.

The rehearsal has one other message: The Rott has a lot of notes. Many of them nasty. Our work is definitely cut out for us.

  “Totenfeier” got its North American premiere as part of a Philharmonia concert in the fall; it will get an encore in March before hitting the road. Besides that, little is done on tour repertoire until mid-winter quarter.

In the interim, we had our standard complement of three concerts per quarter. The most important was the CCM Gala, a cavalcade of famous CCM alumni performing at a benefit to help defray costs of the tour, estimated at nearly $100,000 — a twist on singing for our supper. In less than two weeks, we put together the program, accompanying baritone Julian Patrick, pianist Anton Nel, soprano Blythe Walker, dancer Suzanne Farell, and Broadway stars Lee Roy Reams and Pam Myers. Jerry Herman, composer of Mame, Hello, Dolly, and La Cage aux Folles, performed in a retrospective of his work.

The tour’s “preview” concert was Saturday, March 4, in Corbett Auditorium. We thought we played extremely well, and both the reviews and the audience reaction confirmed that. “Philharmonia is ready for Europe,” as the Cincinnati Enquirer put it. By then, we had actually come to appreciate, even to like the Rott.

It was not always the case. In the early rehearsals, there were rumbles of, “This is just bad Mahler,” and, “Mahler did this better.” It finally sank in, though, that Rott had done it first, and that, though the adjective describing such music will clearly remain “Mahleresque,” Hans Rott was a brilliant innovator cut down by fate before he could refine his craft. His symphony has some stunning moments.

The tour, as far as we were concerned, started the next day. With a rehearsal. On a Sunday night. That was a polishing session, designed to fix the few things that hadn’t worked the night before. After that, the bulky instruments, e.g. basses, ’celli, French horns, were packed for shipment to France. Cincinnati, of course, picked this night for its single, token annual ice storm.

Our reward for rehearsing Sunday was a free afternoon Monday. To pack.

Tuesday, March 7 was D-Day. Just after noon, we were herded unceremoniously aboard school buses for the trip to the airport. Not an auspicious beginning, I told myself. Our flight was to leave at about 3:30 p.m. That annoyed me by itself. I would have planned to arrive at the airport at 3:10 for a 3:30 flight; we would be there before 1:00. It took long enough to get to the Greater Cincinnati International Airport, though, that we were beginning to wonder if the whole thing had been a terrible misunderstanding and we were instead on our way to Paris, Ky.

The line the airline made exclusively for us at the terminal was of more relief to the handful of passengers on other flights than to us. It still took an hour and a half to get all of us checked in. It left just enough time for me to buy a farewell-to-Cincinnati lunch of cheese coneys.

This was coincidentally the week airline pilots were flying “by the book,” in effect a work slowdown, in support of striking Eastern pilots. We left Cincinnati more than half an hour late and were stacked up over JFK airport in New York City for at least that much again. Our connection was supposed to have departed before we even landed. Airlines may wait for no man, but for a group of 100, they make exceptions. Our Boeing 747 waited patiently for us.

Our flights combined took nearly 11 hours. We landed at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport at 8 a.m. local time (2 a.m. EST). The countryside as we landed was a deep green of a kind Cincinnati hasn’t seen in two years. The weather was sunny and warm, a drastic, sudden and welcome switch from the past afternoon. Their was another benefit, too: Our stay in France was the best kind of stay — a free stay. The French government picked up our tab on behalf of the festival.

Those who had experienced tourist hotels already were hardly reassured by that. Especially since governments likely tried to get the best deal possible. Our coaches (a thousandfold better than the school buses) drove us to Montmartre, the appropriately artistic district of Paris.

I was one of the last out of my coach; all I could see was that we had to drag our luggage up to the hotel, which was still hidden around the corner.

Our fears, though, were utterly misplaced. Nestled in a dead-end side street, our hotel was like a tourism commercial, comprising spacious rooms and suites. My roommates and I landed (purely by chance, I assure you) one of the most luxurious and spacious suite available. All three of us got a separate room.

Despite our eleven hours of travel, most of us decided to go out and see some sights. I decided to find the Associated Press office, since I was expected to file stories for both The News Record and the Cincinnati Enquirer.

That was one of my best moves of the tour. A colleague who spoke some French (I learned all my French from Pink Panther movies) got some basic directions from the hotel desk (which were wrong), and we were off to the Metro, one of the cheapest, cleanest, most efficient subways in the world. It turned out to be a blessing the directions were wrong. The two of us spent the day meandering through Paris. We found AP, and we saw Paris. Not the tourist places, but working Paris, full of Parisians leading their regular lives.

Gershwin’s American in Paris suddenly made sense, because everyday, working Paris is unspeakably beautiful. Endlessly beautiful. It was easy to understand why the mystique of the City of Light existed; it is largely true.

  Wednesday, March 8; the narthex of Notre Dame Cathedral: Late-afternoon sunlight streams through the great stained-glass rose window. David Neely and I stare. What a wonder it was to mediæval Paris we can’t imagine; it’s still a wonder today.

“How?” David asks in a hush.

  Thursday afternoon was all work, our two rehearsals at the Châtelet. The historic theater had just undergone a multi-million dollar renovation and was quite stunning. It is a tiered horseshoe with five shallow balconies, the top one raked more sharply than Riverfront Stadium’s red seats. The Mahler festival, performances of all Mahler’s orchestral works, was at the time its raison d’etre. All through the hall, at every corner and at the top of every stair stood Mahler memorabilia. The most moving to me rested outside the first balcony: an at least six-by-eight foot picture of Mahler conducting the Beethoven Symphony Nr. 9 on the stage where our orchestra was then warming up and a picture of Mahler in Nature, relaxed and happy — exactly the image one doesn’t expect to see of him.

The jet lag and sightseeing took their toll. The first rehearsal was, most agree, simply awful. Our concentration never quite turns on. That sometimes works for the best, though. Bad dress rehearsals often inspire good concerts.

  Thursday, March 8; the Châtelet theater: Dinner helps our concentration, and the second rehearsal — on the Rott — is going much better. After one troublesome passage, though, the voice of Philharmonia Assistant Conductor Teri Murai slices through from the back of the hall.

“Fiddles. You know those places you get away with in Corbett (CCM’s auditorium) because it gets covered up? Well, they’re perfectly clear in here.”

We chuckle . . . and cringe.

Friday, March 9, 4:30 p.m.; in the courtyard of our hotel: Our morning (and early afternoon) are free. I run into David Hoffecker, returning from another day of sightseeing. “I have a list as long as my arm of places I want to see the next time I come here,” he says.

“Yeah,” I said, “half the orchestra feels that way.”

“Only half?”

“The rest just don’t want to leave.”

  The concert Friday night was sold out. “Totenfeier” and the early songs made up the first half, the Rott — a hearty hour long — the second. Cheers and enthusiastic applause greeted us and our soloist, a baritone whose cologne smelled like Raid, after each. They liked him, and they liked us.

  Friday, March 9, 9:15 p.m.; the Châtelet theater: The entire brass section lines up against a backstage wall for a group picture. They have just played “Totenfeier” to death, and we and they know it.

Reports from the hall say the audience is impressed.

All’s well at intermission.

After an hour of Rott, the audience was less enthusiastic. It may have been the piece (after all, it took us quite a while to learn to like it) or it may have been us (many of us walked off stage muttering how sloppily we thought we had just played). Either way, the concert was now a clear success, but not a triumph.

We left for London at 7:30 the next morning. Many just hadn’t gone to bed; they hadn’t yet packed, and it was less painful than getting up. And we wanted to soak up our last moments of Paris. We really didn’t want to leave.

Imagine just not really wanting to go to London.

It took longer to get from Paris to London than to get from New York to Paris. Our tour guide didn’t let us sleep, either, greeting us as we crossed World War I battlefields with — and I’m not making this up — “Wakey, wakey!” We made a pit stop half way to the Calais at what we declared the Stuckey’s of France, the only mediocre food from our stay on the continent.

Our fears of London are confirmed. Our hotel was a dormitory with maid service, apparently in charge of handling London’s student group tours. And our schedule was tight, too. Only Saturday and Tuesday evenings were free. Sunday was taken up by a rehearsal and concert, and Monday and Tuesday were eaten by twelve hours of mentally exhausting recording sessions.

The pubs, though they served some of the finest beer in the world, gave last call at 11 p.m., and even our salvation in France, good food, was not easily found. England has basically no native cuisine. As one classmate put it, “They even boil their wives.”

Foreign cuisine they do have. Apparently all the refugees from the former peripheries of the Empire decided to open restaurants in London, most notably from India, Singapore and Hong Kong. Americans have not yet returned to Britannia besides McDonald’s, though Domino’s has now opened a handful of stores (Britain was shocked at the idea of pizza’s being delivered).

Almost all of us opted to blow our remaining funds Tuesday night on a feast at various London eateries. The group I was with chose Indian; another group chose Chinese.

It was in the middle of dinner that Russell Kline, a first-year master’s student, a fine French horn player and a member of the latter group, realised he was suffering an allergic reaction. A few questions nailed down the culprit: peanut products (either a sauce or oil) on some kebabs. Russell was allergic to peanuts. He excused himself to go back to the hotel, where he had medication, feeling embarrassed to spoil everyone else’s dinner. A fellow horn player insisted on going with him.

Russell’s condition worsened on the subway, and he collapsed on the platform of the station where he was supposed to get off. He was rushed to the hospital.

At the hotel, we were filtering back from our dinners. We heard of the incident, but we weren’t really concerned; he was, after all, in proper care. I had just started liquidating my remaining U.K. currency into Bailey’s Irish Cream, a pleasant repast before the long flight home. Many orchestra members were already in bed.

At about 11:30 p.m., Teri Murai and orchestra librarian Mack Richardson pulled aside Russell’s closest friends to tell them Russell was dead. The allergy had triggered an athsmatic attack, and the combination had overcome his heart. Those who were awake didn’t sleep — or speak or feel well — much that night, pondering something so absurd it would be ridiculous if it hadn’t proven deadly.

The trip to Heathrow took place in virtual silence, and not because it was early. Even Mr. Wakey-Wakey had the sense to leave us in peace.

And so the flight home to Spring Break was even longer than we had expected. I split from the group in New York to visit some high school friends now living there. Most of the German citizens spent their break in Germany; another group stayed in London.

The tour was finally put to rest, though, Thursday, March 30, with a memorial service for Russell at CCM. Most of the orchestra attended. There, his friends and colleagues bade him farewell as best they could.

With music.

From the warmth of the sun on our faces on the banks of the Seine to stark death, it was truly a week and a half to remember.