I was often asked why I chose to play the bassoon. The answer is simple and might be the same for many other bassoonists: in my youth, students for this instrument were very scarce so when I wanted to enter the Vienna Conservatory the Dean of this prominent Academie offered me every course free of all tuition if only I would take up the bassoon. The student orchestra that year did not have even one, so the instrument was really in demand. Life with my father was under the rule not to make music a profession, though it was respectable to play violin and piano as a hobby. In former days Vienna grammar school boys were all taught singing and violin - and later piano too. So with this preparation I applied for admission, auditioned for studies and thus was accepted as a regular pupil.
My teacher, Hans Boehm, was a member of the Philharmonic, as are many of the pedagogues there. He had a strong inclination to Philosophy and used to quote Kant and Schopenhauer when he tried to imbue his pupils with the higher meaning and metaphysical sense of the holy art of music. Hardly did I anticipate, though, that this peculiar instrument--the bassoon--would be my life-long companion and would also be instrumental in dangerous situations even to saving my life!
Even ardent music-lovers know little of the difficulties in mastering this rather unpopular instrument or the intricacies of the reed on which depends the quality of playing. The most accomplished finger technique and perfect embouchure formation is in vain if the reed is no good or if--as usual--it changes from good to bad depending on the quality of the raw material and the skill in applying the knife and file to accommodate each reed individually.
Fortunately for me, there were good reedmakers in Vienna who specialized to such a degree that one could order a staccato reed to play Beethoven's Fourth Symphony or a "piano" one for Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique," to play as the Germans say: "as light as with the nose." Many years ago also, there was the experience in Europe of manufacturing reeds from steel. They sounded beautiful, spoke easily and lasted of course for a very long time, with but one hitch - after five minutes playing a splitting headache resulted!
The bassoon is considered the humorist in the orchestra which seems to me a superficial label. High clarinets in D and E-flat illustrate far better the humorous possibilities of music as in Richard Strauss's "Till Eulenspiegel." Yet the reaction of some listeners is such that they make the bassoon the funny-man in the orchestra. An episode might illustrate this assertion. At my last examination I played C. M. Weber's Concerto with orchestra. After the performance my teacher appeared enraged. He told me that the listener next to him started laughing at the mere appearance of the bassoon and continued so all during the playing to the very end! Fortunately the rest of the audience proved more serious in their attention; yet evidently the bassoon seems to evoke occasionally a hilarious reaction. A psychological parallel could be made that professional humorists on the stage often evoke melancholic personalities which is a somewhat shared characteristic with the bassoon.
The tuning of instruments was just beginning to change from the "normal -- ton" of 435 vibrations for "a" to the higher pitch of 440 vibrations. I believe even this was an aggravation to our instrument. Before the First World War reeds were larger and more flexible and the tone volume was greater also. It was much easier to play softly in the low register and by the way, the old pitch was a blessing to the singers whose high notes are less hazardous if the pitch is lower in general. With the advent of the microphone, radio and the mass media the sharping of pitch became inevitable. So the bassoon changed from wide bore to narrow and the reed also became smaller. At the time, Germany's bassoon manufacturers considered many extra keys detrimental to the acoustic and to the wood. Also, in Vienna, he crook-key was considered a sort of "fetish." "Whisper-mechanic" is the name for it and only the tiny hole in the crook existed (no key) - and it was usually permanently closed rather old fashioned and anti-progressive. We all learned to play without it, and the high solo c" in "Meistersinger" or C#" in "Der Rosenkavalier" and later on even Stravinsky with d" in "Le Sacre du Printemps" and e-flat" were all produced with the crook hole closed. Of course the method and solution was to employ a hard and somewhat brittle reed and a firm embouchure. When this was done, one wondered why in the time of an old Musiklexicon the bassoonist was called the "Tonholzknueppel-Vergnugling" which means, "the one who plays with great relish!" Possibly the former name "Dolcian" is significant that under more sensitive circumstances the bassoon was a rather differently judged instrument.
Be that as it may, the days at the Academie of Music in Vienna were of a rare charm. In the old House of the "Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde" some of our teachers had been the pupils of Anton Bruckner and Johannes Brahms and as a consequence there reigned a strict tradition, especially in theory. When the structure of the new house was completed, Richard Strauss was commissioned to write his "Festliches Praludium" in honor of the inauguration of the "Konzerthaus" and the adjacent Academie for music.
The standard then was remarkably high. Great conductors were available then for the opera productions of the students -- nowadays they are not even attainable for first class symphony orchestras. In those days Erika Morini, a pupil of the famous Schefzik (Seevcik) made her debut as a child prodigy playing a Paganini Concerto conducted by the General Direktor of the Staatsoper, accompanied by the student's orchestra.
These teachers were truly inspiring and youthful criticism we kept to ourselves, even though Sigmund Freud, who lived in Vienna, had discovered the complex psychology of inhibitions and the subconscious. This of course was widely misunderstood in practice, even in music to the elimination of the harmonic structure of the music which caused the appearance of the "Second Viennese School"--Arnold Schoenberg with his Pontiflex and his followers with their numerous aberrations called "Art and Music." All this came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the first World War.
My generation was called up for military service and in the winter of 1916, when basic training was accomplished, part of my regiment was to go to the front line. The day of the military transport the company lined up in front of the freight trains which were painted over with large letters saying, "Eight Horses or Forty Men." Before boarding the train the commanding officer read the order of the day. To my surprise, after he had dispensed with other announcements, I heard my name. Private Burghauser was to make himself available at once to the regimental band. As it happened, the first bassoonist of the regiment, in private life a patissier who specialized in sweet cream pastries with glazed icings, had accidentally spilled a cauldron of the boiling glaze over his hands, badly burning himself. It was over a month before he could return to his bassoon. My company, like many of the regiment it belonged to, was obliterated in the battle of the Black Mountains in Serbia.
After the winter of 1918 I returned home. Vienna was now the capital of seven million people, greatly reduced from the sixty million strong monarchy. Although there had been no bombing, the city's aspect was dismally bleak -- with thousands of displaced nationals drifting through and trying to reach their far away homes. Except for farmers and the very rich, the Viennese were fed at "Gemeinschafts--Kuchen" where one could get a bowl of soup and a piece of grey bread for next to nothing. There was a lack of fuel, so the shops were lit with candle stubs and acetylene gas which smelled in the streets long after they had closed for the day. There was hardly any new clothing to be obtained and half the orchestra, when it had been reassembled, played in their military uniforms.
In the midst of this general upheaval and misery, music and the Imperial Operahouse with its famous ensemble was virtually intact. At this time Richard Strauss was at the apex of his success and was called to the helm of the Opera. There was an audition for me and I was engaged.
For a young musician beginning his career conditions were actually ideal. The Viennese musical tradition was unharmed by the war, singers were of legendary beautiful voices and conductors of the greatest status were present. Goethe says, "Name ist Schall und Rauch" (Names are Sound and Vapor), but most of these outstanding artists (some of them still alive) can be heard half a century later on recordings and, in spite of obsolete and poor technical facilities, can be recognized as still unsurpassed in excellence.
Among other greats, Chaliapin appeared as Mephisto in Gounod's "Faust." As he sang the demonic serenade he became dissatisfied with the conductor's tempo. He drew his sword from the great scabbard hanging from his belt, jumped on top of the prompter's box and directed the orchestra with his sword for the duration of the aria!
At this time also, Artur Nikisch came to Vienna. By then seventy, he wore a little goatee, his hair covered one of his eyes and there was present the essence that always accompanied him--Charisma. Before giving the orchestra the beat he would turn to the public and fix them with a brief regard. It was an exquisitely aesthetic motion bringing about a hypnotic effect. Even hard-boiled musicians felt as if in a trance. Then the music would begin. People said that if Nikisch appeared on a podium and raised his baton to an empty pit, the audience would actually hear the symphony he could coax from the unoccupied chairs - such was his fame. It was also at this time that we played at the Philharmonic under Bruno Walter, Felix Weingartner, Furtwangler, and of course Richard Strauss.
It may be of interest to mention the extent of our repertoire, which consisted of sixty different operas and half a dozen ballets--during a 10-month season. Since it was virtually impossible to rehearse each of those operas, the musician was required to be familiar with most of them and also able to play for various conductors. For a young novice this was a formidable task but also a fascinating one. Of course he had ample opportunity to attend performances and listen before he took an active part; for the first few years it was quite risky. But on the other hand, we had been fortunate as students to become fairly well acquainted with the standard repertoire which naturally included the great operas of Mozart, Richard Wagner and Strauss as well as those of the Italian and French masters. One acquired fast and accurate sight reading ability. Yet, after all this, I believe Mozart operas like "Cosi fan Tutte," Beethoven's "Fidelio" and for example the "Barber of Bagdad" by Cornelius are still the most sensitive and difficult to perform correctly.
With the approach of the 1930's an international crisis was spreading throughout the world and made itself felt at our concerts and theater through a diminished audience. At this time of predicament, I was called to take over the administration of the Vienna Philharmonic and to introduce ameliorations. Fortunately this was not too difficult. At this time the dictatorship was established in Germany and many foremost artists like Otto Klemperer, Artur Rodzinski and Bruno Walter accepted our invitations. We switched from permanent conductors to a system of guest conductors. And on top of these luminaries, Arturo Toscanini appeared for the first time with the Philharmonic and continued for the next five years to produce operas in Salzburg and in Vienna too. But all this greatness came to a traumatic ending when in 1938 the German army marched into Austria.
Once more my bassoon became a metaphorical raft enabling me to sail to the other side of the globe. It was quite an adventure to attempt this without traveling papers and with no money! Only 10 marks were allowed taken out of the country. My opportunity came about when I heard that Sir Ernest MacMillan was looking for a bassoonist for his Toronto Symphony and the Royal Conservatory in Toronto. Having never before heard of this town I first believed it might be Taranto in Italy (!). For my ignorance I got some reciprocity in Canada, when after my arrival I wanted to send a cable to Vienna. I was told there is a "Vienna" in Ontario, but they knew of no other Vienna in the world. I tried to point out the "Blue Danube" Waltz originated in Austria; it was to no avail. Only perhaps in Australia might Vienna be!
But long before arriving at the point of these vicissitudes I had the real problem of making the trip across Europe to Cherbourg to prepare for crossing the ocean. Meanwhile another job possibility appeared, this one in Lima, Peru. This impressed me as even farther away and exotic; so I passed this job on to an old colleague of mine, who went there and lived very happily for some time. The story of my own odyssey would be too long to recount here -- but eventually I arrived in Paris at the time of Chamberlain's Munich trip and his proclamation "Peace in our time." This pronouncement caused a complete moratorium to the effect that no one could draw any money from a bank-- which for me meant the end of my itinerary. Soon the Paris police asked me what my future intentions were and when it appeared doubtful that I could arrange to go abroad, I was told that I would be deported in one week-- to Germany. To avoid this I saw only one way out, by joining the Foreign Legion. At their bureau on Boulevard Malesherbes I was readily admitted and told to be ready in two days for shipment to Dakar, Senegal (a place I had visited 15 years earlier when on tour to South America with Richard Strauss). Of course, I really did not want to go there. Only last year, the Philharmonic under Bruno Walter had been honored guests in Paris, wined and dined in mansions of the cultured society. With such fond memories I tried to borrow $100 for which a ticket to New York was available. But the political climate had changed and also the recently so generous people. Faraway Dakar was my destiny, or so it seemed.
On the day of induction into the Legion I awoke early and took a walk which meant farewell to Europe. Strolling through alleys strewn with golden leaves which a biting Fall wind had torn from their branches, in my imagination the "Golden Twenties" appeared. Remembrances of memorable artistic events like Lotte Lehmann singing Richard Wagner's "Wesendonk Lieder" under the baton of Toscanini. Afterwards she received the Philharmonic's Ring of Honor and said, "With this accolade, I feel that I am the fiancee of the orchestra, and your chairman Burghauser receives the kiss." Crossing the Place Vendome, there was another comforting picture. Next to the house where Chopin died is Schiaparelli's fashionable hat and Parfumerie shop. The enormous shop window was decorated in what seemed to be a scene from Mozart's "Magic Flute." There was Pamina with a beautiful Schiaparelli hat on her head, being threatened by Monostados who had imprisoned her in a gilded cage. As I stood admiring it, there was a screech of brakes behind me, and when I wheeled around I saw to my disbelief Signora Carla Toscanini stepping out of a car and hurrying into the Ritz Hotel next door. It had been just a week since I had been the Toscanini's guest in Milan. They were just on their way to LeHavre for boarding the boat to New York. I explained my predicament to her and that I expected to appear within the hour at the office of the Foreign Legion. She immediately reached for her pocketbook, pulled out a thousand francs and demanded, "E abbastanza?" ("Is this enough?"). I lost no time in booking a place on the steamship "Champlain" and one week later was reunited with the Toscaninis at the Hotel Astor in New York City.
There I heard at N.B.C. the Maestro conducting Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and Richard Strauss' "Don Quixote" with Emanuel Feuermann playing the cello part magnificently.
Next day I arrived in time for the general rehearsal in Toronto's Massey Hall, which is a replica of London's Queens Hall, soon to be destroyed by the German blitz. There at the symphony orchestra and the Conservatory under the noble leadership of Sir Ernest MacMillan I enjoyed three artistic and hospitable seasons playing and teaching the bassoon.
One year later the war in Europe started. Newcomers became "enemy aliens" and were liable to be interned for the duration. With my bassoon I was graciously considered an "asset," but I decided to emigrate to the USA where regulations were less strict because, for the time being, America was not involved directly in the war. My nicest acquaintance among many musicians was Harold Gomberg, who came as first oboist at the same as I arrived in Toronto. Life for a short time became carefree again, until Fall, 1939 when World War II started.
I had been to America once before, a few years earlier, under very different circumstances. Louis B. Mayer of M.G.M. in Hollywood invited me to conduct Johann Strauss' "Fledermaus." When delays with the singers' arrival occurred I could not wait, so as a token activity I took the job of arranging and conducting opera scenes in the movie "Anna Karenina" which was starring Greta Garbo in the title role. I enjoyed this intermezzo hugely. I lived on Sunset Boulevard at the "Garden of Allah" and felt as if I were living in Shangri-La. There was Louise Reiner playing in "The Good Earth," and the fascinating young Jean Harlow, and easygoing and good companion it seemed to me as a newcomer. A year later I could hardly believe that this beautiful creature was no more.
Now, in New York in 1941, conditions for an emigrant were somewhat less pleasant. At the College of Music I taught bassoon. It was a trying time for youngsters: to obtain an instrument and preferably a Heckel bassoon was difficult, and with the war approaching, the students expected to be called for military service. The future for them seemed problematical, and also for their new teacher who in their eyes was a European "square." Once when I objected to a pupil's unpreparedness in playing a lesson he answered, "Why should I bother before knowing how much money I'll make with the bassoon?" He may have only meant to tease me, but I decided to let someone else teach this unidealistic youth.
As the musicians' union required a six-month waiting period before soliciting for a playing job, I had to find something else to do. I even applied for a position as a chauffeur for a man who wished to make musical conversation as he drove in New York. But when I submitted my musical background and gave Maestro Toscanini's address as a reference, the gentleman refused to see me! Perhaps he was afraid of a "longhaired" musician (not knowing that I am bald). Anyhow, the whole plan came to naught. In due time, I was accepted at N.B.C. After a short stint with the conductor Spitalny, I preferred to go to the Metropolitan Opera where my good friend Stephen Maxym had to leave his position to join the navy.
It was in mid-season and a musician was expected to play everything without a rehearsal, which suited me very much. After decades of experience one prefers to play only in performances. Of course for a "greenhorn" anywhere there are always surprises. George Szell conducted "Salome" and I was to play bassoon and also the solo contra bassoon part. When I asked to see the instrument, I was taken a back when told that I was to provide the big "Lindwurm." In Europe it's the orchestra which owns the big ones , like timpani, bass drums and Ctr. Bassoon. Soon I could borrow one from the New York Philharmonic and later the Curtis Institute sold me one.
My very first evening in the pit was Mozart's "Figaro, " with Bruno Walter conducting. Hearing the voices of Ezio Pinza and Jarmila Novotna, I really felt at home in the Metropolitan Opera. Many of the artists had been regular guests in Salzburg for many seasons, and to hear them now again was like magic for me. For once the great artists of the past were not as Goethe said, "Schall und Rauch. " Among many outstanding personalities was Sir Thomas Beecham who inspite of his brilliance was often underrated. To give one example of his great capacity I mention an episode: When the general rehearsal for "Tristan" was to begin the message arrived that Bruno Walter was ill. Sir Thomas was present and took over. Taking his place at the lecturn he asked nonchalantly for the score. But there was none at the Met! Walter had left his, of course, at home. Beecham simply said, "Never mind" and gave the upbeat, conducting the whole opera by memory. Many so-called great ones would not be able to do this without long preparation.
Such was the stature of artists both here and in Europe and not a rarity like today, when a Karajan or a Bernstein appears somewhere like a migratory bird and disappears after two weeks. With conductors like Richard Strauss, Felix Weingartner, Victor de Sabata, Ernest Ansermet, Dmitri Mitropoulos, Fritz Reiner and others whose names are less known in the USA it was quite different at the first half of this century. Reflecting the recent past and comparing to it the present situation, these old masters appear like a "Fata-Morgana," which occurs, of course, only in the desert-- which seems to be the case in music today; where only a single star exists for a whole continent. Most of the others are through lack of something better, "stars by default." The inevitable result is pedestrian at best and so often mediocre. The cause of it -- probably insufficient training. Beginners start at the top, labeled "progressive" champions of aleatoric computerized systems, which they call "music" and which consequently disgusts listeners so much that many of them give up frequenting this sort of artistic milieu altogether.
After the war I paid a visit to Richard Strauss in Switzerland on Lake Geneva where he lived at the Montreux Palace Hotel. As a German citizen he was for the time being deprived of his royalties and was in financial difficulties. To alleviate this he copied calligraphically some of his Symphonic Poems and sold them as autographs. He had just finished his "Last four songs," but before that he made good his promise to write a "Duet-Concertino" for clarinet and bassoon, accompanied by strings and harp, which he dedicated to me in a letter in which he says, "In remembrance of many hours of making beautiful music with the Vienna Philharmonic." Asked what was his opinion of temporary music, he answered with one word only, "Schwindel" (a swindle), with which he referred to atonality. When invited to appear on a program with contemporary composers, Richard Strauss refused by saying, "I am not a contemporary," which was after all logical and sincere. One year later, in 1949, he died at the age of 85 in his home in Bavaria.