Johann Valentin Rathgeber (1682-1750)

Life unfolds in the strangest ways. In May 2017, I received an email from one Lisa Herrmann-Fertig who was working on her dissertation project (Historical Musicology/Ethnomusicology) at the University of Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany. Its working title –in its English translation– was: “Intercultural communication in mission. Music as an instrument of Jesuits in South India from the end of the 17th century until their expulsion in 1759”.

My name had been recommended to her and she wondered if I could be of some assistance in her project.  The staff at Xavier Centre for Historical Research Porvorim had rung me a few days earlier, to tell me she would be writing to me.

Her research project was a niche area, and although I certainly didn’t have any leads at the time, I offered to help her as best I could on her planned trip to Goa that monsoon. Long story short, I accompanied her to the “usual places”, the Archives, the records at the Archbishop’s Palace as well as the Xavier Centre. She went on her own to several other places in Goa, including the Rachol seminary, and her search took her to a few locations in South India as well.

We got talking about music in general, and when Lisa told me she was an organist, I took her to try out the pipe organ at the Panjim church. In advance of the visit to the organ, we printed off sheet music that she wished to play, by a composer that I hadn’t heard of before, Johann Valentin Rathgeber.

 

What she told me intrigued me. An almost exact contemporary of the great Johann Sebastian Bach (he was just three years older, and they died the same year, in 1750), the composer, organist and choirmaster Rathgeber is cited in German literature as “one of the most fruitful” composers of sacred music of his time, quite a claim when measured side-by-side with Bach.

Lisa was kind enough to bring along some music by Rathgeber on her subsequent visit to Goa the following year. And so it is that our Child’s Play India Foundation monsoon concert (incidentally celebrating our tenth anniversary year) will feature, what I have no doubt will be the Indian premiere, of one of Rathgeber’s secular compositions, his Concerto 11 in G major, a concerto grosso for strings and cembalo, featuring children as soloists. Child’s Play in word and deed.

Rathgeber’s father (also named Valentin), an organist, gave him his first music lessons. At the beginning of the 18th century, he began studying at the University of Würzburg, initially studying rhetorics, mathematics and law; later he changed direction and continued his studies in theology. His first position was as a teacher at the Julius Hospital in Würzburg. In 1707 he took up the post of chamber musician and servant of the abbot of the Banz Abbey, Kilian Düring. A short time later he joined the Benedictine Order, and in 1711 entered the priesthood. Thereafter, he was organist, choirmaster and preacher at the Banz abbey.

Rathgeber did indeed write a significant oeuvre of sacred music: 162 Offertories,  61 Marian Antiphons , 42 Masses , 36 Hymns , 16 Spiritual Arias , 15 Psalms , 14  Vespers , 13 Litanies , 1 Requiem , 8 Miserere, 6 Tantum ergo, three Tenebrae, three Magnificats, two Te Deums, and two Libera me settings. Surely even this pales in comparison to JS Bach’s output, but it is impressive nevertheless.

Given the fact that he took the religious orders of a Benedictine monk, his copious writing of sacred music is quite understandable. But he seems to have had trouble with the vow of obedience on at least one occasion. When at the monastery in Banz, his request to “familiarize himself with the innovations in the field of music” was rejected by the abbot, he took what could only be diplomatically be described as an “unauthorized study trip”: between 1729 to 1738, he went to Mainz, Bonn, Cologne, Trier, Stuttgart, Regensburg, Switzerland, Vienna and Styria; compositions written during this period are dedicated to his hosts along the way.

Whether this was an act of rebellion or not is still debated; some cite the fact that Rathgeber had to renew his vows as evidence of this, whereas others argue it was routine practice at the time to renew one’s priestly vows periodically. Some accounts say Rathgeber was temporarily “imprisoned” in his cell upon his return. Whatever may have been the case, he was eventually restored to his earlier position and lived in the Banz abbey until his death.

So little is known about Rathgeber that most music encyclopedias give him just a footnote, if that. The question that comes to mind, inevitably, is: could he have known about his contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach? There is certainly no extant record of the two Johanns having ever met. The ‘travel years’ of Rathgeber seem to have taken him southwards and westwards from Banz (today Kloster Banz, part of the town of Bad Staffelstein near Bavaria) but never northwest to Leipzig, where Bach was Kantor at its Thomaskirche. The two locations are tantalizingly a mere 228 km apart, just about two and a half hours on the Autobahn today.

It is worth recalling that Bach himself remained a provincial composer, known only to connoisseurs, until Mendelssohn led a Bach revival with a performance of his St. Matthew Passion in 1829, nearly a century after his death. But could Rathgeber have been one of those connoisseurs? It is difficult to say. The fact that Bach adhered to the Lutheran church tradition, and Rathgeber to a Catholic religious order, might have meant they occupied parallel universes, even though geographically not that far apart.

Music and religion being so closely intertwined, it is perhaps not surprising to find a composer-priest (Vivaldi comes to mind, as does Liszt although much later). A look at his Opus numbers (1-20) is telling: all but one (Opus VI) contain sacred music. So this concerto falls in that Opus. Opus VI contains 24 concerti, the first twelve showcasing strings, and the latter twelve giving centre-stage to trumpet or horn. This Opus was written in 1728, just before Rathgeber developed ‘itchy feet’.  The information on the Internationale Valentin-Rathgeber-Gesellschaft e. V., (formed in 1993 to research the works of this hitherto-unknown composer) seems to suggest that criticism of his style of writing this Opus led Rathgeber to travel, to “present his compositions to the public and to answer the requests of the music market.”

Another unnumbered secular work that gets referred to in almost every biography is his ‘Augsburger Tafel-Confect’, essentially a collection of songs meant to be performed at dessert (in contrast to Tafelmusik, which would have been performed during the main course). Apparently it was published ‘anonymously’, and in installments.

The concerto is in typical Baroque ‘fast-slow-fast’ (Allegro-Adagio-Allegro) three-movement form, with the middle movement a mere connecting bridge between the outer movements.

We are fortunate to use the edition from the Internationale Valentin-Rathgeber-Gesellschaft e. V. Markt Oberelsbach. It is edited by German Roman Catholic theologian Erasmus Gaß.

(An edited version of this article was published on 15 September 2019 in my weekend column ‘On the Upbeat’ in the Panorama section of the Navhind Times Goa India)

 

 

 

 

 

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Mozart and the Flute

It is an all-too-commonly accepted trope that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) disliked the flute. And yet, he wrote a fair amount of music for the instrument, with at least four orchestral works showcasing the flute in just one year, 1778: Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra in C major, K. 299; two more concertos for flute and orchestra, in G major (K. 313) and D major (K. 314) respectively; and another concerto-like work, Andante for flute and orchestra in C major, K. 315/285e.

In addition, his K. 297b work (later renumbered variously as Anh. 9 and Anh. C 14.01), Sinfonia Concertante for Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon and Orchestra in E flat major is now thought to be a spurious arrangement  of a lost Sinfonia Concertante for Flute, Oboe, Horn, Bassoon, and Orchestra from that same year.

Mozart’s ‘violin’ sonatas numbers 5 to 10 (K. 10-15) are described for Keyboard with Violin (or Flute) and Cello. He also wrote four ‘flute’ quartets (flute, violin, viola, cello), of which the first two (D major K. 285; and G major K. 285a) were written in that extremely ‘fluteful’ gestation period 1777-1778, while the third and fourth were written a little later, C major K. 285 b in 1781-1782 and A major K. 298 in 1786-1787 respectively.

Mozart’s final (and considered by many as his best in several aspects) opera, as we know, is Die Zauberflöte (the Magic Flute). The flute, when it appears in his orchestral music, which is most of the time, is given no step-motherly treatment in relation to other instruments in the quality of the writing. Hardly evidence to suggest that Mozart ‘disliked’ the flute. On the contrary, his flute music is quite beautiful.

So where did this notion even begin? It seems to hinge around a letter Mozart wrote to his father from Mannheim, dated 14 February 1778 (the same year incidentally of his prodigious surge in writing for the instrument): “I never have a quiet hour here … besides, one is not always in the mood for working. I could certainly scribble things the whole day long, but when a composition of this kind goes out into the world, naturally I do not want to to be ashamed of my name on the title page. Moreover, you know I am quite powerless to write for an instrument [the flute] which I cannot bear.” He was referring to the flute compositions he had received a commission to write while at Mannheim for the amateur Dutch flautist H. de Jean (or Dechamps).

Musicologist Martha Kingdon Ward discussed this at length in her article ‘Mozart and the Flute’ (Music and Letters, vol. 35, no. 4 pp. 294-308). She reminds us that Mozart was a young twenty-something in 1778 when he wrote the letter against which he is being held to account. As she puts it, tongue firmly in cheek: “Now if everyone is to have his letters believed implicitly, many people would have to take greater care what they write, certainly at the age of twenty-two.”

She ascribes his throwaway comment to a “passing aversion” to the instrument, which was brought on by the fact that he had not been fully paid (and quite rightly, as he hadn’t finished the commission!); that it wasn’t a commission he was enjoying writing, a mere trifle for an amateur; and perhaps Mozart truly felt the flute was more limited in expression than, say, the clarinet.

The reason for any possible aversion may also have been due to the imperfections inherent in the crafting of the flutes of the day, with the holes being bored into the wooden instrument to suit the spread of the hand sometimes to the disadvantage to pitch, causing several notes to sound out of tune unless blown with great care.

You have an opportunity to hear for yourself one of Mozart’s “graceful, refined, and irresistibly charming” flute quartets. Child’s Play India Foundation is pleased to showcase the Baridisi quartet in a performance (21 September 2019, 6 pm, Menezes Braganza hall; donation passes at Furtados) of his Flute Quartet No. 4 in A major, K. 298. It was his final composition for flute quartet. Unlike the previous three quartets, written for the flutist Ferdinand De Jean, the Quartet in A is believed to have been written for recreational purposes, and not written on commission.

The quartet is in three movements: 1. Andante, Theme and variations 2. Menuetto and Trio D major, and 3. Rondeau: Allegretto grazioso.

In the score, Mozart gives a humorously detailed tempo indication for the final movement: “Rondieaoux: Allegretto grazioso, ma non troppo presto, però non troppo adagio. Così-così—con molto garbo ed espressione” (or, translated, “A joke rondo: Allegretto grazioso, but not too fast, nor too slow. So-so—with great elegance and expression”).

It is light, airy music with vivid contrasts, delicious textures and irrepressible wit.

Many of you will remember Jonathan Bager (flute); he is no stranger to the Indian concert stage. In Goa he has performed twice, once as part of the Bager trio with his two sons Jeremy (bassoon) and Frederick (piano); and more recently in 2016 a benefit concert for Child’s Play in a piano trio with Laura Riccardi (violin) and Angela Feola (piano).

He returns with Riccardi specially to celebrate Child’s Play’s tenth anniversary milestone concert, where they will be joined by Gudrun Theodora Sigurdadottir, formerly cellist in the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra (and currently teaching cello at Child’s Play) and yours truly (viola).

Jeffrey Khaner, Principal Flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra takes the view that Mozart would have thought primarily as a pianist or a singer or as a string player. So he tries to play the slow movements as though they are soprano arias, concert arias he might have written for voice. Whereas in the fast moments, he tries to articulate the way he hears pianists articulate in piano concertos.

His imagery of the flute in slow movements is quite imaginative: he imagines “a music box”, inside which is “a beautiful dancer who moves so smoothly and gracefully.”

So come along, to the opening of Mozart’s exquisite music box and the enchanting dance and call of the flute!

(An edited version of this article was published on 08 September 2019 in my weekend column ‘On the Upbeat’ in the Panorama section of the Navhind Times Goa India)

To be Young, Gifted and Black

A twelve-year old little girl, Eunice Kathleen Waymon, from a poor family but whose prodigious ability at the piano had already been discovered years earlier in her local church, is on-stage, about to make her concert debut with a solo recital. Her proud parents are seated in the front row.

Suddenly, this idyllic picture goes terribly wrong. Eunice watches as her parents are unceremoniously asked to move to the back of the hall. Why? Because of the colour of their skin. This is 1940s North Carolina, they are black, and white people wish to have their seats. Think of the embarrassment and humiliation, and the psychological effect it must have on a young child about to perform at such a crucial coming-of-age event, nerve-wracking on its own terms even without this outrage to add to it.

But Waymon, at 12, takes a stand. She refuses to play until her parents are moved back to the front.

The girl grew up to take the stage name of Nina Simone. She never forgot the childhood incident, and it significantly contributed to her later involvement in the civil rights movement.

As I’ve mentioned in earlier columns, I’ve been listening to the BBC Proms classical music festival online, on internet radio. Prom 45 was devoted wholly as a Homage to Nina Simone (1933-2003).

Before she took to singing, Simone had aspirations to be a concert pianist. As was discussed in the Proms Plus talk in the interval of the Proms tribute concert, it was imbedded in her from the start. The hometown community in Tryon North Carolina raised money so she could take piano lessons with an Englishwoman living in the area, from whom she studied the music of Bach, Czerny, Liszt and other piano greats. Her supporters also helped her enroll in the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in New York, where she studied in 1950 under German pianist and teacher Carl Friedberg.

She then applied for a scholarship to study at the famed Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. But despite a well-received audition, Simone was denied admission, almost certainly due to racial discrimination. The Curtis Institute, in a classic case of too little too late, attempted to right a historical wrong by conferring on her an honorary degree only in 2003, the year of her death, literally just days before she died.

This case only came to light because Nina Simone became the legend that she is, that lives on after her. One wonders how many more brilliant careers were nipped in the bud in a similar fashion. When one wonders why there is such a gross under-representation of people of colour in classical music in the Western world, this is certainly one of the many reasons why.

But although Simone’s aspirations of a career in classical music were thwarted, her desire to express herself in music was irrepressible, and posterity thanks her for her grit and tenacity. The reason she changed her name (Nina was derived from ‘niña’ a term of affection her then-boyfriend Chico used for her; and Simone from the French actress Simone Signore, whose 1952 film ‘Casque d’Or’ she had seen) was to disguise herself from her own family, who would have disapproved of her playing piano at a nightclub in Atlantic City New Jersey, derided in her family circles as “devil’s music” and “cocktail piano”. It was the only avenue open to her, when she saw the door to a life in classical music slamming in her face. At the nightclub, she was contracted to sing as well as play, which is how she began to sing. Imagine the loss to the world if they hadn’t made that request.

Yet her interest in classical music never dimmed. In “Love Me or Leave Me”, she plays a crisply articulated Bachian contrapuntal interlude that reflects her pianistic skill.

As the Proms Plus exclaimed at the end of broadcasting the excerpt, “Bach lives! Through Nina!”

Simone’s stylistic breadth in her albums was almost all-encompassing, from gospel, soul, funk, blues, jazz, pop, folk, R&B, and of course, quite a few forays into her beloved classical music as well. Almost any song, in any genre, could be covered by her, from Leonard Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’ to Jacque Brel’s ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’, to Andy Newman’s ‘Baltimore’. Her versatility and facility were truly astounding. Even in taking someone else’s song, she could make it her own, tell the story in her own unique way, a hallmark of true musicianship.

She put her art into her passion for civil rights as well. The Proms tribute concert was titled “Mississippi Goddam”, after one of her iconic songs, (written in reaction to the white supremacist bombing of a church in Alabama in 1963, killing four black children) which she dubbed her “first civil rights song” and quickly became an anthem for the cause, along with others, “Four Women” (representing the four archetypes of African-American women in society) and “To be Young, Gifted and Black.”

The white supremacist terrorist bombing of 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama fuelled her outrage and fury so much that she is believed to have composed the lyrics and music to “Mississippi Goddam” in ten minutes.

The text is powerful: “Why don’t you see it? Why don’t you feel it? I don’t know, I don’t know. You don’t have to live next to me, just give me my equality!”

Simone paid a heavy price for writing the song, incurring her boycott by the music industry, and prompting her self-exile from the US.

Simone wrote the music for “To be Young, Gifted and Black” (lyrics by African-American composer and poet Weldon Jonathan Irvine Jr) in memory of her friend the African-American playwright and writer Lorraine Vivian Hansberry who had died in 1965, aged just 34. (She had left behind an unfinished play, titled “To be Young, Gifted and Black”).

 

Even today, if you read the comments on the song uploaded on YouTube, it gives hope and strength to countless youth ever since.

The lyrics must have spoken directly to her as well: “In the whole world you know; There are billion boys and girls; Who are young, gifted and black; And that’s a fact! ….. When you feel really low; Yeah, there’s a great truth you should know; When you’re young, gifted and black; Your soul’s intact.”

An artist with a conscience, and willing to use her art to speak out against injustice, regardless of the consequences is a rare breed indeed. But it is the need of the hour today, here and the world over. Through her music, she continues to motivate, inspire, call to action and continue the fight for freedom and equality from beyond the grave.

(An edited version of this article was published on 01 September 2019 in my weekend column ‘On the Upbeat’ in the Panorama section of the Navhind Times Goa India)

Here’s a clip of my fave Nina song:

 

Radio Gaga!

The radio played a very important part in my growing-up years. Apart from the local radio stations, there was a world out there that could be explored just through this medium.

There was the Saturday Date programme on AIR Bombay, which was a lovely way to unwind over the weekend. And of course, many of you will remember Radio Ceylon. I used to love it when the powers-that-be at Don Bosco would play its music on the school intercom, usually as a prelude to the weekend. The weekend would literally start on a good note with it.

But my horizons expanded by casting the radio net even further. I had just two avenues at my disposal: an antiquated Pye radiogram that took a long time to ‘warm up’ before it got going with a curious descending whistle. It was also weaker at picking up radio signals, but when it did, it gave a good, deep gravelly gravitas to its sound.

The other option was the lightweight, portable transistor Philips radio which seemed to have a far wider reach. I used to literally spend hours twiddling its dials, searching for new worlds to conquer, on medium or short-wave. When I made a fresh ‘conquest’, to make really sure I’d find it again, I’d actually draw the face of the dial on paper, marking the position of the red band with a coloured pencil.

I would tune in to BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Moscow, even Radio Peking on a good day, Radio Australia; these are the ones that stand out in the memory.

BBC World Service was particularly educational for me then.

On Thursday evenings (I think 8 pm our time), they would broadcast a programme called ‘The Pleasure is Yours’, hosted by (if I remember the name right) Gordon Clyde, a request programme for classical music. I would be amazed at how far and wide the requests came in, from all over the world, back in the day when you’d have to rely on the postal service (today’s snail-mail) to send it in. I tried it a couple of times, but somehow, if they did play my request, I have no recollection of it. Perhaps the request didn’t get to them, or perhaps I didn’t tune in on the Thursday they decided to grant my request.

It had a distinctive signature tune, the beginning of the last movement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Violin Concerto in E major BWV 1042. It was my introduction to the tune, and even today, it evokes a Pavlovian memory of my ‘radio days’. I heard so many other classical music war-horses for the first time: the Triumphal March from Verdi’s opera Aida, Amilcare Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours among many others. The radio signal reception would wax and wane, but I would ride it out despite sometimes machine-gun staccato static on a bad day. But on a good day, it would be crystal-clear as well, as if the music were being played right before me.

Sometime in the mid-1980s, it became more and more difficult to tune in the way I used to. Television became the new distraction, but it couldn’t nourish in quite the same way radio did.

And then in 1998, I moved to England, where the radio again became a lifeline. For classical music, two radio channels stood out among the plethora available: BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM. I still listen to both online via internet radio from here.

When the idea for Classic FM took shape, few thought it would last long.

A 24-hour radio channel devoted just to classical music, even in the UK, would never fly, the doubters felt. But ever since its launch on 7 September 1992, it has grown ever more popular, with around 5.7 million listeners tuning in each week, making it the biggest classical music radio station in the world.

I would tune in to it a lot while at the wheel, driving long distances in the UK. Admittedly it has a lot of advertisements and several works from the top hundred on the Classic FM Hall of Fame are repeated, but they would take the edge off being stuck at traffic gridlock or help one to detox after a hard day’s work. And despite being shunned by classical music purists, it can still throw up surprises every now and then. I recommend Classic FM to many parents who ask how their children can be introduced to classical music. A music CD has its advantages of course, but it has a finite segment of music on it, whereas a radio station can give you an inexhaustible trove to explore, and you learn some trivia as well along the way quite often. I leave it on at home frequently, for my own listening pleasure, and so that it percolates to my ten-year-old as well.

For the more serious listener, there are few places today better than BBC Radio 3.

Especially during ‘Proms season’ every July to September, when the BBC Proms festival (“the world’s largest classical music festival”) is held mainly at London’s Royal Albert Hall, but increasingly at other locations in that city. I’m hooked daily.

In the past I would stay up to hear live broadcasts, which would spill into the wee hours of the morning, but their ‘Listen Again’ feature allows much more a godly, civilized listening time, at a time of one’s own choosing. One can also listen in installments to a broadcast if one wishes. And the Proms Plus feature which plays during the interval of each concert provide a platform for so much interesting learning, on so many subjects directly or even tangentially connected to the concert programme, from music to history, art, folklore, literature, fashion and so much more, with renowned experts in their fields weighing in. To give you an example, during the interval of a performance of Hector Berlioz’ L’Enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ), the fact that the work germinated from a practical joke Berlioz played on his audience, claiming it the work of a fictitious long-dead composer triggered a most absorbing Proms Plus discussion on literary hoaxes and forgeries. I urge those interested to tune in; you won’t regret it.

There’s also NPR (National Public Radio) and a whole host of stations from the US and elsewhere, but BBC Radio 3 does the trick for me just fine right now.

Thanks to the FM function on my phone, I love to tune in to the radio stations whenever I visit a new place, be it in India or abroad. It’s an interesting form of auditory tourism, and one learns a lot, even if the language may be unintelligible. I found Bhutanese music very soothing, for example. I found interesting classical music radio stations in Singapore and Sweden.

And although Radio Ceylon may be a thing of the past, do check out their Gold FM channel on internet radio if you have a thing for golden oldies popular music going back decades.

The Radio star is still shining bright. Nothing is likely to kill it any time soon.

(An edited version of this article was published on 25 August 2019 in my weekend column ‘On the Upbeat’ in the Panorama section of the Navhind Times Goa India)

        

 

In one man, the loss of a national treasure

My association with Percival Noronha would have begun from my childhood, when my father Dr. Manuel Dias would take me by the hand, accompanying him on his excursions and errands around town. I remember going to Percival’s house innumerable times, and they would talk animatedly in Portuguese about the old days and their current time.

As I grew up, I got to know Percival on my own terms, and he became a go-to person for a vast range of subjects, from the history of our city, of the bairros of São Tomé and Fontainhas, of Goa in general, advice on research avenues in the run-up to our Casa da Moeda 175^th anniversary celebrations in 2009, Goan furniture, to numismatics, astronomy, and so much more.

Percival’s house was spotlessly and elegantly kept, but the inner room with its large table was like a war room, a veritable beehive of activity, with papers, books, photographs scattered all over as Percival feverishly dictated letters and his thoughts to one or two assistants trying their best to keep up with him. Although I hadn’t visited him in the last few months, I’m willing to bet he remained active on some project or the other as best as his health and mobility would allow him, to the very last.

He convinced me to become a life member of the Friends of Astronomy group started by him; the lifetime membership then (and perhaps even now) was an extremely low sum, of a hundred rupees if I remember correctly. Thanks to him, generations of us have been fortunate to watch eclipses and other celestial phenomena through the telescope up on the terrace of Junta House. One memorable occasion I’ll never forget was the time it was possible to see the planet Saturn, with its rings, ‘disappear’ behind a glorious full moon, only to reappear on its other side a while later. The Friends of Astronomy has sparked an interest in the heavens in so many generations, and perhaps influenced some choices of career paths as well. Percival would often be there himself, supervising things, with a devoted bunch of extremely knowledgeable and dedicated youth milling about him. In the Friends of Astronomy alone, he has left an indelible, immeasurable legacy. I remember him telling us on several occasions about the logistics, of handling and maintaining the expensive telescope, and other aspects of the running of the group, including the publishing of a regular, very informative newsletter. He often lamented the fact that ever-increasing light pollution in the city was obscuring the observation of the night sky, something that children today will grow up ignorant about unless measures are taken to curb and reverse it.

Percival graciously accepted our invitation to speak about Indo-Portuguese furniture at the maiden edition of our Casa da Moeda festival in 2009. His presentation was extremely well-attended and received, and covered all aspects of the subject, down to whom to go to even for ongoing maintenance and upkeep of antique furniture.

He was a seemingly timeless fixture of Fontainhas, watching life go by from his first-floor window. He had a wry sense of humour, even when lamenting the erosion of so much that was and is beautiful about our heritage, the upkeep of the city in general and monuments in particular, and of basic values such as civic sense, honesty, integrity and decency. Our best way to remember him would be to live as he lived, by the values that he cherished and the many noble causes he espoused. We have lost in one man, a national treasure.

(An edited version of this article appeared in the Times of India on 21 August 2019, incidentally the death anniversary of my own father, Dr. Manuel Dias. They are probably picking up where they left off, in their conversations in Portuguese, up there somewhere)

 

Patronage, Philanthropy and Music

The ‘Ode to Joy’ theme from the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is arguably the most recognizable western classical music tune in the world. Young children taking up an instrument will soon learn to pick out its notes. It has snuck into elevators, hotel lobbies, ringtones and your-call-is-important-to-us music. Its music is synonymous with the fall of the Berlin wall and the reunification of Germany in 1989, with “both Germanies” represented in the orchestra and chorus. It has been used in popular culture. One example that comes to mind is the 1988 American action-thriller ‘Die Hard’, where Michael Kamen uses the theme throughout the film in his score, but as a leitmotif for villain Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) et al. The chorus is heard exulting the ‘Ode to Joy’ when the high-security vault is finally breached. Somehow, I get the feeling that Beethoven wouldn’t have approved.

But it’s worth remembering that this iconic work was only made possible because Beethoven received a commission to write it, from the Philharmonic Society of London, for a sum of £50.

Much as Beethoven chafed at being dependent on patronage, many of his compositions only saw light of day because of their financial support.

Chief among them was Archduke Rudolph, youngest son of Emperor Leopold II,

to whom Beethoven dedicated 14 compositions, notably his Piano trio in B flat major, Op. 97 (nicknamed ‘Archduke’ trio) and his Missa Solemnis. Another big one was Count Andreas Razumovsky,

who commissioned, and therefore whose name is forever tied to the string quartets Op. 59, numbers 1-3, the Razumovsky quartets.

It is thanks to Prince Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowitz

that we have Beethoven’s Third, Fifth and Sixth symphonies, string quartets Op. 18, string quartet Op. 74, his Triple Concerto and the song cycle ‘An die ferne Geliebte’. There were other patrons in his life as well. Beethoven’s relationship with his patrons may have been stormy at times, but even he had to grudgingly acknowledge his dependence on patronage for his creativity to flourish. And to a greater or lesser extent, this was true for composers before him, and to many that followed, although not as dependently as in the past.

But ironically, those very patrons are remembered today precisely because of their association with the works they commissioned. Would we know or care about Count Razumovksy or Prince Lobkowitz or the others otherwise? They have achieved vicarious immortality because of their generosity towards music.

Patronage and philanthropy have sustained the cause of music beyond the commissioning of music compositions. If the names Carnegie,

Peabody, Curtis, Juilliard

or Gulbenkian

are familiar to you, it is because of the legacy they left, not merely in the edifices, the concert halls that today bear their name but also in most of these cases, their funding of education programmes and scholarships that have enabled thousands of young people over several generations to pursue their calling in music and the other arts. In fact, George Peabody (1795-1869) is widely regarded as the father of modern philanthropy.

The inspiration for this column came from recent issues of ON Stage magazine, published by the NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts) Mumbai. The NCPA completes half-a-century this year. Quite a milestone. It owes its existence to the far-reaching vision of Jamshed Bhabha (younger brother of renowned Indian nuclear physicist Homi Bhabha)

and his legacy has enriched the cultural life of not just the city of Mumbai, but the whole nation, in Indian and western classical music, popular and jazz music, theatre, dance and film. It is still the only venue in the subcontinent with world-class symphony-hall acoustics, a matter of justifiable pride for the NCPA but ought to be an embarrassment to the rest of the country.

With the concept of CSR (corporate social responsibility), one hopes that corporate houses and philanthropists in India have additional impetus to leave their imprint on the arts, as Bhabha has so admirably done.

I was made aware of an exciting example of philanthropy tied to music education while listening via the internet to the BBC Proms concerts, currently on at London’s Royal Albert Hall from July to September.

The National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA), is a surprisingly young ensemble, formed only in 2012; contrast this with the National Orchestra of Great Britain, which was formed decades before, in 1948, and which formed the template for the formation of NYO-USA.

The NYO-USA is organized by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute.

Each summer, following an application and audition process, about 120 musicians ages 16 to 19 attend a two-week residency (a free programme for all participants) with leading professional orchestral musicians at Purchase College, New York, followed by a national or international tour.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the Carnegie Hall involvement in music education. Through its Weill Music Institute, it connects hundreds of thousands of young people, families, aspiring artists, and educators in the country with creative musical experiences, nurturing the finest musical talent at all levels and harnessing the power of the arts to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.

We have a crying need for this sort of ‘development’, an investment in people rather than concrete, not just in Goa but all over India. This was brought home recently by a picture shared on social media, of the Orquestra Sinfonica de Goa, in 1952.

Every one of the musicians in the photograph was of course a home-grown and trained Goan. Contrast that with today, almost seven decades on. Have we progressed or regressed since then? It seems impossible today to cobble together an ensemble with a full complement of strings, woodwind and brass without extraneous help. The reasons for this are many, of course.

Even in middle-class circles, it is difficult to find good-quality teaching across Goa. I know this, as I get queries from anxious parents on almost a daily basis. The decline of music education (despite all the whooping exultations of a ‘musical Renaissance’ and the hoopla around concerts and festivals in exotic locations) is the elephant in the room that few here want to address, still less invest, even in terms of just thought and energy, let alone finance.

A strong pedagogical foundation can only be established through consistent high-quality teaching. But it comes with a price tag, (but at a fraction of the cost of a player in IPL or ISL, mind you). What we need are philanthropists who really believe in this idea, and invest in it. The returns will be there to see and hear within less than a decade, if done properly.

Child’s Play’s Endow-A-Chair programme would fund not only a principal player in the Camerata but the musician would also train children and coach aspiring teachers, as well as make chamber music with other faculty and more advanced players in the project and in the community, giving a boost to the cultural life in the state and laying a pedagogical foundation.

This is certainly a way to ensure one’s name lives on forever.

(An edited version of this article was published on 18 August 2019 in my weekend column ‘On the Upbeat’ in the Panorama section of the Navhind Times Goa India)

Circumnavigation, Magellan, Enrique and a Goan Marinheiro

I was fortunate to be able to attend the public lecture “From 1498 to Magellan: Memories and Archives” by Dr. Ângela Barreto Xavier, researcher of the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS, UL) and a Visiting Professor of the Cunha Rivara Chair, Goa University, on 23 July at the Casa Basilio Dias riverfront premises of the Centro de Lingua Portuguesa- Camões.

In previous columns from a while ago, I have mentioned more than once how revelatory and insightful her lectures have been to my understanding of Goan and world history. I was truly sorry that my schedule didn’t permit me to attend her most recent lecture series “The Government of Difference in the Portuguese Empire (15th to 18th centuries)”.

In her Panjim lecture, Barreto Xavier invited us to imagine how the so-called Voyages of ‘Discovery’ (‘Discovery’ being a loaded term, apparently provoking heated debate among contemporary academicians in Portugal and elsewhere) would have been viewed in the Iberian peninsula in the late 1400s and early 1500s, before what she terms “the tyranny of historical memory” coloured that perception forever. In other words, how were they viewed before they began to yield such disproportionate profit to the powers that bankrolled them.

And apparently the evidence seems to suggest that the voyages were seen at least by the common populace (judging from accounts in literature and theatre from that time) as a colossal waste. The focus until then had been on a land-based expansion of territory, and such ambitious (hare-brained even, as some may have thought then) plans for charting new courses in unfamiliar waters to seek ‘new’ lands so distant from home, were seen as an extravagance.

That feeling persisted even in the early years of the Estado da Índia and Carreira da Índia. Although the profits were colossal, the risks were exorbitant as well. The morbidity and mortality rate from shipwrecks, skirmishes, scurvy and tropical disease was extremely high. Barreto Xavier told us that a saying prevalent at the time translated thus: “When it comes to India, one man gets rich; but a hundred die and twice as many get poorer.”

That saying could apply just as well to the India of today, don’t you think?

Barreto Xavier also reminded us that the much-celebrated circumnavigation voyage of the Earth (1519-22) was not actually completed by Ferdinand Magellan (born Fernão de Magalhães) as he was killed in a skirmish on the island of Mactan (in today’s Philippines); it was completed by Juan Sebastian Elcano.

Also, the expedition wasn’t meant to be a circumnavigation when it set sail from Spain heading west; it was thought it would be round trip, returning the way they came. But the unforeseen vastness of the Pacific Ocean (which got its current name from Magellan) dictated the change of course.

The credit for the circumnavigation seems to have another contender in South-East Asia (although Barreto Xavier informs me that the historical evidence doesn’t support it): Enrique of Malacca.

Enrique (Malay name Panglima Awang) was ‘acquired‘ by Magellan as a slave in Melaka (Malacca) in 1511 at the age of fourteen, possibly on account of his ability to speak Malay and other local languages and accompanied him on the circumnavigation voyage. A month after Magellan’s death, he presumably left the expedition to set sail for home ie Malacca, although there is no clear evidence of this. Indeed, there is no further mention of him from then on. But if he did succeed in getting home, he would have been the first to circumnavigate the globe.

Both, the Asian Civilisations Museum Siingapore and the Maritime Museum Malacca that I visited, give Enrique much prominence. At the museum in Singapore, there is a statue of him, with the carefully-worded caption “In memory of Enrique de Malacca, who contributed greatly in the first circumnavigation of the world 1511-1522.”

Magellan had provided in his last will and testament that Enrique be freed upon his own death, although he was only allowed his freedom a month later. The relevant portion of Magellan’s testament is also highlighted in the museum.

It also plays on loop a short film documentary on Enrique (also called Henry the Black, Enrique el Negro, Enrique de Cebu). He is celebrated in verse as having “embarked upon the greatest adventure ever to circle the globe, the final frontier; To explore strange New Worlds, To seek out new life and civilisations”, and with shades of Star Trek here: “To boldly go — where no man has gone before.”

The Muzium Samudera (Maritime Museum) in Malacca (incidentally housed within an elaborate floating replica of Flor do Mar ‘Flower of the Sea’, the Portuguese nau or carrack used by Afonso de Albuquerque in its short lifespan from 1502 to 1511, and presumably the very vessel he commanded during the conquest of Goa in 1510) also has, apart from a statue of a very youthful Afonso de Albuquerque, a lifesize representation of Enrique de Malacca.

It was interesting to learn from Barreto Xavier’s lecture that Magellan’s expedition included among its crew from several disparate parts of the world, an unnamed Goan sailor, who she thinks could have been a slave. Perhaps he too was an ‘acquisition’ by Magellan, who did spend eight years in Goa, Cochin and Quilon (or Coulão, the old seaport city on the Laccadive coast of Kerala) from 1505 onwards. He certainly would unwittingly have been the first Goan to clock so many nautical miles. So could we also celebrate his ‘contribution’ to the circumnavigation, just as Malacca does with Enrique?

I was pleasantly surprised to find, prominently displayed at Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum, an oil-on-canvas painting, apparently dating to the late 18^th century, artist unknown, titled “Sailor with Goa in the distance.” As you can see, it portrays a dark-skinned man in a ‘caxtti’ standing by the Panjim riverbank of the Mandovi.

The caption below the painting elaborates further: “The region of Goa on the western coast of India was captured by the Portuguese in 1510, and became a major trading port.

Under the figure is the Portuguese word marinheiro, which means sailor. He gestures towards the mouth of the Mandovi river. On the opposite shore, at the base of the hill, is the Reis Magos church. At the top of the hill is the Aguada fortress.”

I tried to ascertain more about the painting from the museum staff, but had no luck. The caption obviously should read “Reis Magos fort”, and not Aguada. But wouldn’t it be interesting to know who painted it, and how the museum acquired it?

A clue is provided by two other similar oil-on-canvas ‘Goa’ paintings in the same style, dated “around 1785-1800” and ascribed to a “private collection, Portugal”, one depicting a “Brahmin woman”, the other titled Gentio de Angarca, Gentia de Pano (Man in Angarkha, Woman in Pano).

An internet search seems to indicate the artist might have been a Goan, one José Maria Gonsalves (1800 – 1845).

The paintings complement a splendid display of costumes, jewellery and furniture from Goa.

So while we may not necessarily circumnavigate, Goans and their cultural legacy do get around!

(An edited version of this article was published on 11 August 2019 in my weekend column ‘On the Upbeat’ in the Panorama section of the Navhind Times Goa India)

Unity in Diversity on Pride Rock

If you are a parent of a little child, or if you just love a good musical, chances are that you saw The Lion King in its 2019 avatar, this time featuring photo-realistic graphics in 3-D. Many in my family preferred it over the ‘original’, more conventional, 1994 cartoon version.

Sometimes the story behind the camera can be just as fascinating as the one in front of it.

At the beginning of both film versions, the first thing you hear is ‘Nants’ Ingonyama!’ That opening chant is inextricably linked in our imagination with The Lion King.

It is the voice of Lebohang Morake, better known as Lebo M.

The story of this South African singer, composer and producer is quite remarkable. Despite the lack of any formal training in music, he left school in his hometown of Soweto, Johannesburg at the age of nine to perform in nightclubs. He recorded his first single at twelve (receiving a measly $20 in return) and at thirteen became the youngest performer to sing at the Club Pelican nightclub, stepping in for a backup singer.

At 15, he was noticed by the US Ambassador, who helped Morake apply to the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Morake jumped at the opportunity to self-exile himself from apartheid-era South Africa. On graduating, he moved to Los Angeles but making ends meet wasn’t easy. It was while he was working as coffee gopher in a studio that he met German film composer Hans Zimmer, who was obviously impressed by Morake. Together, they co-wrote and co-produced the music for the 1992 film The Power of One.

Zimmer turned again to Morake “to help bring some authentic Africana” to his 1994 commission, “an animated movie about lions”.

In an interview, Lebo M reminisced:  “I didn’t even know anything about the movie. I just knew it had something to do with a conflict between a father and a brother, that has a son in it. No detail.”

“I noticed the image of Mufasa. And my entire system went to: What happens when an important person in my country, my culture, walks in? What happens when a king walks in? The musicology of my thought became ‘Nants’ Ingonyama!’ — that then translates to ‘All hail the king. All bow down in the presence of the king.'”

Lebo M contributed vocals and vocal arrangements to the songs and the score of The Lion King, whose story struck a personal chord in him.  “I am the Simba at this point, who grows up in exile. I don’t go back home to take over a country, but I go back home a professional. And Mufasa, to me, becomes immediately the image of Nelson Mandela.”

Although Lebo M and Zimmer come from completely different backgrounds, Zimmer too is in his own way a self-taught musician.

He hated the discipline of formal lessons, claiming he had only “two weeks” of piano lessons in his life, and that he was “thrown out of 8 schools”.

He was already an established film composer by the 1990s, with more ‘serious’ films such as Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, The Power of One, and many others under his belt. What prompted him to take on an animation movie?

He cited two reasons in an interview. In the first place, he didn’t like Disney musicals. But far from being affronted, the producers welcomed a fresh new approach. “’Great, that’s exactly what we want! We don’t want somebody who wants to do what we did before.'”

The other reason was his little daughter Annabel. As Zimmer puts it “Every dad wants to show off. And I couldn’t take her to see True Romance [an earlier film whose music Zimmer had scored] or something — like a shootout or whatever. I thought, ‘Oh, no, this’ll be good — it’ll be a cartoon, it’ll be funny, it’ll be harmless. It’s about fuzzy animals.’”

But the story hit Zimmer on a visceral level as well, just as it had done to Lebo M, although for a different reason. He could relate to Simba as he was orphaned early in life too. “I didn’t realize it was profoundly going to go and hit me in a really hard way… because my dad died when I was 6 years old — which was her [Annabel’s] age.”

It would take a really hard heart not to shed a tear when Simba prods Mufasa’s lifeless body, urging him to wake up, and we in the audience know he won’t.

It’s “just a movie”, but the scene speaks to the child, to the son or daughter in all of us. Those of us who have lost a parent are transported back, if even for a fleeting nanosecond, to that personal trauma.

Zimmer continues, “There I was, and the only thing I could do was to open those deep and dark boxes, and let all the darkness out. And so, weirdly, the score is pretty epic and pretty big for a movie about small, fuzzy animals.”

I thought I detected a (subconscious or deliberate?) snatch of Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus motet in the stirring motif that recurs several times in the film.

Zimmer was looking at new ways to look at the movie score. He had watched an online video recording by the Re-Collective Orchestra,

an all-black ensemble founded by Stephanie Matthews and Matt Jones to record the latter’s arrangement of the track ‘All the Stars’ from the 2018 American superhero film Black Panther, based on the eponymous Marvel Comics character. The motivation of the orchestra was to step into the world of Wakanda, asking themselves: “What would the orchestra of Wakanda look like?”

Zimmer invited the members of the Re-Collective Orchestra to collaborate with the LA session players from Hollywood. What resulted was, according to many who witnessed the recording sessions, “the most diverse film scoring session ever”, united by the shared language of music.

“I was going for diversity,” Zimmer said in an interview to NPR (National Public Radio). “And then, as soon as everybody started playing and sitting next to each other, it became this amazing thing — which wasn’t diversity at all. It was unity.”

(An edited version of this article was published on 04 August 2019 in my weekend column ‘On the Upbeat’ in the Panorama section of the Navhind Times Goa India)

 

 

 

 

The Smartphone as Teaching Aid

I’m quite a technophobe (old dog, new tricks) and resisted acquiring a so-called smartphone until 2012. My trusty old phone had begun playing up, I had been invited as part of a music pedagogy delegation to the US and friends advised me that I’d need a smartphone to stay in touch with family and colleagues on WhatsApp (I hadn’t heard of it until then!).

I reluctantly got myself a Samsung smartphone just before the trip. But over the years, I have grudgingly come to see its many advantages.

I would like to focus on the many ways a smartphone can be used as a music teaching aid. I am sure there must be even more. Not all our Child’s Play children or parents/guardians have access to a phone, but a surprising number of them have at least surrogate access, through another child or neighbour.

The most obvious use is of course, WhatsApp. Where applicable, I use it to communicate individually or as a group to students, and to their parents or guardians. Apart from mundane matters to do with timetables and changes in schedule, it can be used effectively to discuss issues with parents, especially those who are unable to accompany their child for each lesson.

Learning points can be reinforced through this portal as well. For instance, a discussion on recognition of key signatures and the Circle of Fifths can be bolstered by sharing a pictorial representation of it. It also becomes a handy pocket reference for the child and parent at home.

Those who have even periodic internet access can be given homework to read up on e.g the lives of composers (I usually ask them to write down and remember just three key points, such as the period they lived in, their country of origin, and one or two famous works). If the piece they are working on is called a Minuet or Gavotte or Rigaudon, it is the perfect entry point to learn more about dance forms in classical music. And so on.

I think that only those of my generation will appreciate just how remarkably easy it is to get hold of information today. Today’s generation take it as a given. When I was growing up, if there wasn’t a book at home or in the library to consult, or on the fine print of a record sleeve, then one just couldn’t learn any more on the subject, no matter how hungry one was for that knowledge. If someone at the time were to tell us that someday one would be able to look up anything one wanted at the mere press of a button on a pocket-sized gadget, we probably wouldn’t have believed them.

The video function of the camera can help to record a student’s playing and discuss several aspects ranging from posture to bow distribution and length, tone production, sound quality, intonation, and so much more. A video where the teacher demonstrates the learning points of the session can then be sent to the child’s/parent’s phone to serve as a reminder when home practice is being done. The parent has a better idea of what to concentrate on when the home practice is being supervised. This can be done for an individual child, or for a larger group, as is often the case in Child’s Play. Some of our older children are beginning to leave high school and enter college, and the new academic schedule sometimes doesn’t permit as regular contact as before; so the video link helps plug this gap in its small way.

In some cases, (and I wish it happened more often!) diligent parents video on their phones their  child practicing a segment that they find problematic, and suggestions can be offered via WhatsApp on how to ‘solve’ the problem’, as it were. It helps a child to come better prepared for the next lesson, and the teacher gets a clearer idea of how practice is being done at home.

YouTube is an invaluable resource as well. Most of our Child’s Play children don’t have access to good audio systems in their home. In our earlier years, we experimented with cheap MP3 players (and they did do the trick while they lasted), but sooner or later, the gadgets developed technical glitches. But with a smartphone and even sporadic internet access allowing one to download music videos sent across to them, they are able to listen and watch top-notch playing.

Exposure like this to high-quality playing helps broaden horizons and better attune the inner ear to aspiring towards a fuller tone, good intonation, musicality and phrasing, and opens a window to a much wider world than the classroom and their geographic limitations. At the same time that a child is learning the ‘craft’ of playing, if you like, it is also important that they see and hear the art, and familiarize themselves with the great instrumentalists in the world,  past and present. Many of our children go on to choose their ‘favourite’ artist and begin to listen to other tracks by him/her.

A video of someone as young as them playing to the highest level can be hugely inspirational. It is audio-visual proof that it is possible, provided the work is put in, and under proper guidance, of course.

In addition to performance videos, there are a lot of good-quality music education videos out there too (although caution must be advised, as there are equally many that are quite terrible). For instance, several students found a Suzuki video on intonation and tonalisation points extremely helpful.

Although I am still fond of my trusty tuning-fork which is pitched at concert A (440 Hertz), today anyone with a smartphone can download a free tuner app. It helps many a student and parent with instruments that go out of tune. Many apps give absolute pitches for each string, and “tell” you when you are tuned, but I advise the old-fashioned reliance on the ear for tuning the other strings in relation to the A.

Another useful app (and again, there are so many of them for free!) is the metronome. Although I possess the good old wind-up version, I use it less and less.

The smartphone is so much more portable and handy, literally. I personally dislike the ‘digital’ sound of some of them, but thankfully there are many that sound just as authentically ‘tick-tock’ as the real thing. It is useful to regulate slow practice of a tricky passage, and gradually notch up the tempo to performance speed.

Perhaps you know of other uses of the smartphone as a music teaching aid? I’d love to hear about them!

(An edited version of this article was published on 28 July 2019 in my weekend column ‘On the Upbeat’ in the Panorama section of the Navhind Times Goa India)

A Study of Hatred

“My Grandfather would have shot me.”

Can you think of a more provocative title for a book? Grandparents are usually the most doting individuals in one’s formative experience.

Who could this monstrous grandfather be?

If you’ve seen Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film ‘Schindler’s List you’ll remember the terrifying figure of SS Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) Amon Göth (played by Ralph Fiennes) who becomes Kommandant of the Płaszów concentration camp, in southern Kraków, Poland.

The scenes of his wanton cruelty and savage brutality are perhaps the most unforgettable and disturbing in the film. The cold-blooded shooting of prisoners for sport from his porch, the merciless beating of his Jewish ‘housemaid’ Helen Rosenzweig Hirsch; these are just some of the scenes that come to mind.

Amon Göth (nicknamed the Butcher of Płaszów) was no fictional character; he really existed. And survivors testify that the Amon Göth depicted in the film is a watered-down version of the monster he really was.

He is also the grandfather from the title of the book I’ve just finished reading, written by Jennifer Teege. Göth was tried for his crimes against humanity and executed by hanging not far from the former site of the Płaszów camp, in 1948.

Why does Teege think he would have shot her, his own grandchild, had he lived on? Because Jennifer is the daughter of Göth’s daughter, and of a Nigerian father. This would of course have been sacrilegious to her grandfather’s notions of racial purity.

Jennifer Teege’s story is truly stranger than fiction. Born in 1970 in Munich and given to foster care as a child, she was adopted aged seven with no idea of her origins.

Quite by chance, at the age of 38, Teege found out about her family history, by picking a book in a Hamburg library (among the tens of thousands of books housed there) which happened to be her mother Monika Hertwig’s biography and where she discovered that Amon Göth was her grandfather. It took her by shock and plunged her into a deep depression. Her book “My Grandfather would have shot me: A Black Woman discovers her Nazi Past” was her cathartic response to her depression.

The book title had me hooked. Because we also live in an age where, both at home and abroad, collective hatred has become normalised, institutionalised, rationalised and invisibilised, the book seemed very relevant.

The devastating legacy of hatred among victims and their descendants even several generations later has been well-documented and studied.  But what does it do to descendants of perpetrators? Psychoanalyst Peter Breundl discusses this in the book: “Violence and brutalization have a deep impact on the generations that follow. What makes them ill, however, is not the crimes themselves but the silence that surrounds them. There is an unholy conspiracy of silence in perpetrator families, often spanning generations.”

“Guilt cannot be inherited, but feelings of guilt can. The children of perpetrators subconsciously pass their fears and feelings of shame and guilt on to their children. This affects more children in Germany than one might think.”

Could one look at hatred dispassionately, epidemiologically, clinically? The way we would approach a medical disease? Either on the individual or collective level, what causes, or predisposes to, or facilitates, hatred? Are some more susceptible than others? If so, can it be detected early, and nipped in the bud?

Teege asks: “What kind of person takes pleasure in tormenting and killing others, in inventing different ways of doing so?” But there is no easy answer. “I keep on asking myself how it was that he became that way. I don’t think it was his childhood or even his hatred of Jews. I think it was much more banal than that: In this world of men, killing was a contest, a kind of sport. It reached a point where killing a human being meant nothing more than swatting a fly. In the end the mind goes completely numb; death has entertainment value.”

His driving forces: his love of his uniform and of Discipline, and a fanatical ‘love’ of ‘Fatherland’. Sound familiar?

Teege writes: “I read book after book, looking for answers, to find out what drove the perpetrators to act the way they did, but in the end I gave up. Yes, I found some explanations, but I would never understand it completely.”

It raises the spectre of the potential for evil within all of us, our darker side, which can come to the fore if we allow our conscience to be quelled.

As she puts it: “I think we all have a bit of him in us. To believe that I have more [merely due to lineage] would be to think like a Nazi – to believe in the power of blood.”

Teege mentions the 1967 book ‘The Inability to Mourn’ by psychoanalysts Alexander & Margarete Mitscherlich. The authors regularly dealt with patients who were active members of the SS or other Nazi organisations before 1945.” They didn’t appear to have any sense of remorse or shame; they and their fellow Germans continued to live their lives as if the Third Reich had never existed.”

The conclusion they drew at the end was that the Germans had denied their past and suppressed their guilt; ideally the whole nation should have been in therapy.

But the effect on their progeny is a different matter. Often, the grandchildren of Nazis come to him for totally different reasons, says Peter Breundl: depression, unwanted childlessness, eating disorders, or fear of failure at work. He encourages them to research their past and tear down their family’s web of lies. “It is only then that they can live their own lives, their own, authentic lives.”

He explains that, to ensure normal development, children need to grow up thinking, My parents are good people. “It is awful to have murderers for parents, to have to think, me, a child of killers. That’s why many people accept their parents’ silence on the subject, and they too keep quiet about it. They don’t ask questions about what their parents actually did during the war.”

Teege’s co-writer Nikola Sellmair mulls: “It is very easy to demonize the prominent Nazis, to treat them like animals in a zoo: Look, aren’t they cruel and perverted? It offers a way out of having to deal with one’s own actions, one’s family’s actions – or indeed of those of the many people who joined in on a small scale, those who no longer greeted their Jewish neighbours, and those who looked away and walked past when Jews were being beaten up in the streets and their businesses destroyed.”

I think this was one of the most hard-hitting passages in the book, relevant to our times. We can demonise our contemporary haters, the mob-lynchers, vigilantes, the for-hire thugs, the politicians who rabble-rouse and give the orders, all those directly involved in the bloody business of killing. But our own Day of Reckoning will also come, when we called to account, and asked what we did (or didn’t) do or say as all this happens in our time.

(An edited version of this article was published on 21 July 2019 in my weekend column ‘On the Upbeat’ in the Panorama section of the Navhind Times Goa India)