I think that every great artist has to have that ability to gamble, to take a chance, to stay out there on the edge and open new frontiers. Josef would try; sometimes he would miss; and sometimes he would crash and burn; other times he was just unforgettable. But he was always there again, to try once more, and I think that was part of his greatness in my estimation.--Bert Turetzky
In 1946, at the suggestion of the musicologist Alfred Einstein, the English horn player of the Metropolitan Opera began a publishing venture which was to initiate a new era for wind players. This English horn player was Josef Marx and the firm he founded carried both his and his first wife's family names: McGinnis & Marx.
Lux Feininger, artist and son of the famous Bauhaus artist Lyonel Feininger, wrote to us about the firm of McGinnis & Marx: "To tell of the early times of Josef Marx and his friends is to breathe again a richly hopeful air of my past... His publishing company of McGinnis & Marx changed its address repeatedly but never faltered in doing battle for the underdog. From Hell's Kitchen it had moved by the late forties to Waverly Place, which seemed hopeful. But it was not so for long: in 1949 we see Joe Marx in a lowly dwelling at 408 Second Ave., trying to pick up the pieces, not of his publishing enterprise but of his home life. The marriage with "McGinnis" had collapsed, although the firm somewhat mysteriously survived under the old masthead.
Why would an oboist working hard hours in the pit of the Metropolitan Opera be destined to start a publishing company? To our surprise we began to accumulate a great deal of information which showed Josef to be most unusual among oboe players.
Which of us can trace the history of his family back beyond three or four generations and in that search find anything in common between our life's work and that of our forebears? We have read with interest of dynasties of oboe players in the Baroque and Classical ages. The Philidor and Ferlendis families are good examples; these flourished over the period of a century or so. Josef Marx's ancestry can be traced as far back as the Middle Ages, with scholarship a strong characteristic throughout the centuries. Through his mother's family, for instance, Josef was descended from the great scholar of the Torah and Talmud, Solomon Yitzaki Ben Isaac, known as Rashi (1040-1105).
Josef's father, Moses, was typical of the Marx family's scholarly mind. Gershom Scholem, in his book Von Berlin nach Jerusalem, describes Moses Marx as "the co-owner of a textile business on the Spittelmarkt whose heart however, belonged to Hebrew typography..."
Eventually Moses Marx would leave Berlin in 1926 at the beginning of Hitler's threat to the Jewish people. Through the help of his brother Alexander, a scholar and librarian at Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City, Moses obtained a similar position in the library of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati Ohio. Moses' wife, Ida Weisbrem Marx, and his children Jacob, 16; Josef, 14; and Imanuel, 9, joined him a year later.
When the Marx family settled in Cincinnati in 1927, they shared a two-family house with the Singer family. Daniel Singer described his first meeting with these newly-arrived immigrants in a recent letter to Angie Marx: "I remember the day the Marx family moved into the flat below ours in the two-family yellow brick house at 3422 Ridgeway Avenue... That first day we couldn't talk very well across the language barrier, but we communicated... Josef was wearing a German watch with a porcelain face. The numbers went around from 1 to 12, then inside the first circle from 13 through 24. I was already impressed... I realize now that when the Marxes moved to Ridgeway Avenue they must have felt that they had come to a cultural desert. Certainly no house in our neighborhood had such a library. Immediately Mr. Marx had a great set of bookshelves installed in the living room from floor to ceiling, covering the gas-log fireplace."
The three boys, Jacob, Josef, and Imanuel, went to a school for immigrants for a short time but eventually they all attended Walnut Hill High School which included grades 7 through 12. According to Daniel Singer, each of the boys followed his own bent: Jacob studied the natural sciences with a passion but eventually got involved with photography and became a portrait photographer; Imanuel, who was Daniel's best friend, went on to become a math professor at Purdue University.
Singer reports that Moses Marx kept his boys at a "respectful" distance, but took great care to prepare Imanuel for his Bar Mitzvah. George Marx, the son of Imanuel, wrote us that Josef was the most troublesome of the children and had difficulty getting along with his parents.
Josef's mother, Ida, was the first influence in the boy's musical development. Anna Jacobson, Ida's cousin, wrote me that Ida was quite a good pianist. Earlier, Ida had seen to it that Josef studied violin with Anna. Apparently Josef did not make very much progress on the violin although he enjoyed the lessons. Anna reflected: "Later he said that I laid the foundations of his career as a musician." These early lessons had taken place in Berlin where Josef was 8 or 10 according to Anna. He also sang in a chorus at school there, and remembered that as being a wonderful experience.
In America, Josef became interested in studying either clarinet or trumpet at Walnut Hills High. Angie Marx reported: "but the moment an oboe was put into his hands, they began to shake, and he knew that the oboe would be his instrument. He produced a sound on the oboe right at the start." Josef was tutored by the High School Orchestra conductor, Merrill Van Felt, before starting private lessons.
Daniel Singer reported that Josef's practice irritated Moses Marx very much. Moses made his son practice in the attic above the Singer's part of the two-family house. Apparently, Moses did not realize how shrill the sound of the oboe was as it "drilled down" through the attic floor until he visited the Singers one day while Josef was busy practicing. Daniel remembers his comment: "Have you been enduring this the whole time?"
All in all, life was much better for Josef in Cincinnati than it had been in Berlin. Angie reports that things were so bad for him as a child in the Berlin schools because of the intense discrimination against the Jews, that he walked around with a piece of lead pipe in his pocket for protection.
When Josef was attending Walnut Hills High, an excellent opportunity arose during his junior year (1929): Burnet Tuthill, a clarinetist teaching at Cincinnati Conservatory, was asked to establish a Wind Instrument Department. First, he enlisted all of the solo chairs of the Cincinnati Symphony as teachers and then sent out a call to the five high schools in Cincinnati. Each was to send 10 boys for instruction on their respective instruments. Josef came to study oboe with René Corne and later with Marcel Dandois, and graduated in 1931.
In the fall of 1931, Josef entered the University of Cincinnati and in 1935 received his BA in Comparative Literature, Romance Languages and German, with minors in mathematics and chemistry. While at the university, Josef continued his oboe lessons with Marcel Dandois. Josef played principal oboe in the Dayton Symphony Orchestra during his junior and senior years. It should be remembered that Josef accomplished all of this during the period of the Great Depression. In the summer of 1935 he kept busy in a WPA band in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
In the latter part of 1935 Josef left the U. S. to become first oboist of a new orchestra in Palestine formed by the violinist, Bronislaw Huberman. This orchestra was to be conducted by the great Arturo Toscanini. Unfortunately, Toscanini did not appear the first year, and Josef was content to wait it out. The 1935-36 season, therefore, found Josef in the Jerusalem Police Band and also as first oboist of the Tel Aviv Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he taught oboe at the Jerusalem Conservatoire.
During this period Josef began learning music theory with the composer Stefan Wolpe, and these studies continued until 1941, by which time Stefan and Josef were both living in New York City. Wolpe was one of many intellectual Jewish refugees who had fled Hitler's Germany to live in Palestine. Others whom Josef met there and who became lifelong friends were the poet Noah Stern and painter Max Bronstein, by then known as Mordecai Ardon. Ardon paintings hang in the Marx apartment in New York today.
It was during Josef's Palestine period that the Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in modern Hebrew was creating his masterpieces in what eventually would become the state of Israel. This man, Shmuel Yosef Czaczkes, known by his pseudonym Agnon, was married to Josef's Aunt Esther, his father's sister. Gershom Scholem speaks of Esther in Von Berlin nach Jerusalem: "...the fabulously beautiful daughter of one of the, I would almost say, most aristocratic families of Jewish orthodoxy in Germany whose renown is not forgotten yet. Esther Marx had two attributes which were then especially notable for me: she was as convinced an atheist as she admired, and mastered, the Hebrew language, indeed a rare combination among German Jews. " It must be remembered that it was men like Esther's husband who were creating the modern Hebrew language of what was an ancient language relegated to the Books of the Bible and to Jewish prayer.
With men like Agnon, Wolpe, Stern and Ardon as friends, Josef was in good hands in Palestine. During his first year there he spoke with excitement to his many friends about the great English oboist, Leon Goossens. Some members of the Tel Aviv Symphony got together to play a trick on Josef: they sent him a fake letter supposedly written by Goossens, inviting Josef to come to London on scholarship to study with this great master!
In the summer of 1936, therefore, while the orchestra members all waited for Toscanini's fall appearance, Josef borrowed against his orchestra salary for the 1936-37 season and set sail for London. Arriving on Goossens' doorstep totally broke, he was taken in by the great master and taught free of charge first at the Royal College of Music and then privately.
The Palestine Orchestra finally did materialize under Toscanini, but Josef stayed for only one season: 1936-37. Josef was back in the U.S. playing first oboe in the 1938-39 season.
The following season, 1939-40, Josef went to New York City as solo oboist in the New School of Social Research Concerts led by Otto Klemperer and Rudolf Kolisch. By the 1940-41 season Josef had finally hit the "big time ": he became solo oboe for the Bach Concerts given by the Adolph Busch Chamber Players in Town Hall. He also began the first of two seasons with the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra as first oboist under Antal Dorati. This then led to his appointment as principal oboist of the Pittsburgh Symphony under Fritz Reiner for the 1942-43 season.
In 1943 Josef was 30 years old and America was involved in World War II. He was not drafted because of a thyroid condition and therefore was able to audition and obtain the best of all his orchestral positions, that of principal English horn for the Metropolitan Opera Company, a job which he held until 1950. In 1943 he also began playing summers with the Goldman Band.
John di Janni, principal violist of the Met at the time, sat near Josef in the pit and remembers his English horn playing as being "resonant and beautifully rich. " John also wrote that in 1943 (Josef's first year at the Met) the two men formed a trio with a pianist, Rita La Piante, and Josef was instrumental in getting engagements for the group in several midwest colleges. Josef lectured on historic woodwinds while on these tours.
Also, Josef played the oboe in the Met Woodwind Quintet. The horn player of this group was Gunther Schuller, who composed several works for Josef during this period including the Trio for Oboe, Viola and Horn and the Sonata for Oboe and Piano. The Trio was written for Josef and Gunther to play with the violist, Walter Trampler, since all three of these performers lived in the same apartment building at the time and were good friends.
During World War II, Josef taught oboe to several young pupils. One was Henry (Hy) Richardson, Jr. His mother, Margaret, described Josef giving Henry, Jr. his first oboe lesson: "Josef scowled at him: 'Let me hear you play an A.' Hy did. 'For God's sake! Listen to the sound that goon just made!' " She continued: "Josef came to our apartment [for Hy's lessons] and often stayed for dinner. He swore and cursed Hy and alarmed me so often that I asked Hy what on earth was the matter. 'Nothing, Mom. That's just Josef teaching me!' "
Margaret Richardson also wrote to us poetically of those days: "It was during the war and the gas shortage and we went down to an odd little place on Long Island called Ketcham Creek, as a substitute for the Cape; five or six shacks on the deepwater stream opening out onto the Great South Bay, a lovely little place. Josef came down for a weekend, immediately fell in love with it, rented the shack next to us and brought Beulah [McGinnis] down. Then he brought a pianist who was giving a recital with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The next summer we ended up with a half-dozen musical celebrities in that row. On Sundays my husband made coffee and I cooked eggs. Hy made toast; other people drifted in and it ended with my serving ten or a dozen breakfasts. That's a summer I'll never forget. Imagine hearing Josef play the Shepherd's Song (Tristan, Act III) by moonlight at one a.m. over that beautiful stretch of water!"
Mrs. Richardson goes on to tell how Josef and Beulah McGinnis got married during that summer of 1945 and named their firstborn after her: Maggie. Also, that summer Josef was invited by his friend, Stefan Wolpe, to give a series of ten lectures at Black Mountain Summer College in North Carolina on 17th and 18th century music. This was unusual for an English horn player in an opera orchestra, but not for Josef who, armed with his family's bent for pursuing knowledge through research, enjoyed and was deeply interested in this study.
It was in 1946 during the Met years that Josef would start the music retailing and publishing firm of McGinnis and Marx. Beulah's father lent Josef about $300 to help him get started, hence the McGinnis family name in the firm title. In 1949 the marriage of McGinnis and Marx broke up. Lux Feininger, who designed several of the covers for the new firm, including the Galliard Bassoon Sonatas, the Stamitz Quartets, the Mozart Duos for Horns, and the Wuorinen Flute Variations, spoke eloquently of those times: "Looking back -- more than thirty years! what a long time! -- see the Master, with his back to the wall, struggling with the powers of darkness. He was much more afflicted by his divorce than he would admit. Economically and spiritually his life was at the nadir. His health was poor, at times he feared that arthritis would cripple his playing; his lip was cut by an umbrella one rainy day. For a period, the disorder of his abode was becoming nearly unbearable. Groping one's way up a dark and smelly stairway one entered his kitchen, where amidst the remnants of such suppers as he was able to devise for himself, he could be seen in the light of a flickering spirit burner, a deadly little contraption with which he heated the keys of wind instruments to be fitted with new pads... Piles of books, manuscripts and papers were everywhere; his instrument collection stacked like firewood in grocer's crates. The place was a morass, yet his friends did not forsake him."
During this difficult period, Josef was most unhappy about being separated from Maggie. He saw her once a week at least, either taking her out somewhere or bringing her to his place.
In 1949 when the marriage with Beulah McGinnis was ending, the turmoil was also spilling over into Josef's work at the Met and at the end of the 1949-50 season he lost his position there. Angie Marx reflected on the fact that Josef had easily angered several of the conductors there by openly reading during rehearsals. One time, during an intermission in a Philadelphia performance after being reprimanded for a wrong entrance, Josef told the conductor: "Maestro, the only difference between when you make a mistake and when I make a mistake is that mine can be heard!" The conductor became so angered by Josef's statement that he chased Josef around the stage, shaking his fist! Everyone was laughing at this scene, including Josef as he ran. Only the conductor, Emil Cooper, was deadly serious and furious.
Lux Feininger went on in his letter describing these years to us: "Of an evening, the lowly and humble, as well as the rich and pampered, could be seen making for the house entrance when Joe gave a party, twenty to thirty guests in this firetrap with seating facilities perhaps for six or eight. To behold the scene of such revels the morning after was an experience not easily forgotten. But the sordidness of it all serves, in my memory, only as a rich foil for something bright and wonderful. " We then learn that that something "bright and wonderful" was Angelina, who was to become Josef's new wife (in 1954) and helper in the firm.
The third period of Josef's professional life includes his years with Paul Boepple's Dessoff Choirs as first oboist (1950-1966) and with Clifford Richter's American Bach Society (1959-1978). Most important, though, was Josef's involvement at this time in chamber music of the most rewarding kind, namely in the Josef Marx Baroque Ensemble, in the Hartt Chamber Players, and in the Group for Contemporary Music at Columbia University.
Angie Marx was helping in Josef's activities during this period, and she was able to continue the publishing firm after his death. Walter Bendix of C. F. Peters Music Publishers feels strongly about Angie's influence on Josef, and he concluded his letter to us with the following remark: "All of us were glad when we knew that she would keep the life-time contribution of Josef Marx [McGinnis & Marx] alive for the music world." And Lux Feininger continued his reminiscence about Josef's apartment, as he knew it in the early 1950s, with the following story describing the appearance of Angie on the scene: "Dropping in on him one day I found everything changed. The bed was made, the kitchen cleaned up, the furniture and floor disencumbered, the old instruments decently confined. Joe for a wonder was shaved and neat. What had happened? Almost nothing, it would seem to gather from the answer I got to my question; everything -- as it turned out eventually. "
Angie wrote to us of her early years with Josef: "After I left the Met in 1949, I went to Europe and stayed there three and a half years working as a dancer. I came back to the States in the fall of '52. Shortly thereafter I started seeing Josef. We had been friendly when we both worked at the Met. He was married then and we never considered each other as more than friendly co-workers." Also Angie remembered: "Josef was my favorite person to sit next to on the train when we were on tour with the Met because I could pick his brains. I was interested in painting and art and we had long discussions." Of their life together she said: "Josef wasn't an easy person to live with... There was almost always a constant stream of people coming to see him, to rehearse here... I was extremely busy as a hostess and cook for lots of people." On top of Angie's devotion to Josef and working for the firm of McGinnis & Marx, she was also busy bringing up their three children, Deborah, Alexander, and Ida!
Angie Marx reflected on Josef's move into chamber music: "Some conductors liked him very much and were friendly. Others just did not like him... Josef's personality helped him out of orchestras and into chamber music... He left the Met because of personal antagonisms. He was a bit of a renegade... There was a tendency to make a smart remark once in a while. He got saved once by the orchestra committee. The year after, he realized that the committee would not be able to save him, so he resigned."
During this third period Josef left the Goldman Band. Angie spoke to us about this event which occurred in the summer of 1955: "Originally he played for Papa Goldman in the Goldman Band. He needed the income. He was fired from the band by Richard Goldman (son). There was antagonism of course, and Josef did have a great deal of knowledge about music, as well as an acerbic wit."
With the more relaxed schedule of chamber music as opposed to the rigid rehearsal and playing schedule of the Met, Josef was able to undertake further course work. In 1951 he enrolled at the Asia Institute in New York City for courses in Oriental Music. Also he did private study with the great German art historian, Max Raphael, in the ethnological and archeological phases of art as they relate to music instrument history.
He had written the first of several articles for Woodwind World Magazine in 1950, "Edith Weiss-Mann", in which he described an incredible ensemble in pre-World War II Hamburg which was exploring the contents of the libraries in the area to locate early music. He documents the discovery of the Alessandro Marcello Oboe Concerto and its performance in the 1920s by Edith Weiss-Mann's Hamburg Society for the Performance of Old Music.
For the Galpin Society Journal Josef produced his magnificent study, "The Tone of the Baroque Oboe ", published in the June 1951 issue. This deals with personages, repertory, and historical perspective in a masterful way, long before the age of performances on historical woodwinds. It has become a classic in the literature. This kind of research would eventually make possible the renaissance in early music that we now take for granted in ensembles like the Concentus Musicus of Vienna.
In 1955 Josef was actually experimenting with learning how to play an 18th century oboe. His work is described for Woodwind World in "Preliminary Report on the Baroque Oboe". Again, this was long before the time when one could pop over to Basel to learn the art from Michel Piguet and company.
Also from 1955 are the in-depth liner notes for Mercury Recordings. In these, Josef heralds a new age since, prior to this time, liner notes for the most part were thin or concentrated on the performers rather than on the history of the works being performed. These liner notes as well as the forementioned articles for Woodwind World and the Galpin Society Journal are now collected in an anthology published by McGinnis & Marx and available from Pietro Diero Music Headquarters. The title is AN ANTHOLOGY: The Writings of Josef Marx, Volume I.
Josef's lectures during this time had included another visit to Black Mountain College in 1952 where he spoke about the history of musical instruments. (Black Mountain College is also known as the location of the first of John Cage's "happenings" in the early 1950s.) The essence of this lecture is reprinted in the Josef Marx anthology as "Introduction to Some Fundamental Concepts of Organology". Other lectures from this period were given at Juilliard, Columbia University, and the Contemporary Music School and all deal with organology and the information he had gained from his work with Max Raphael.
It was in the summer of 1955 that Josef began his friendship with the brilliant master of the contrabass, Bertram Turetzky. They met through the lutenist, Joseph Iadone, at the famous McGinnis & Marx music store at 408 Second Avenue in New York City. Bert remembers it: "A urine-smelling corridor leading to a courtyard out back on which sat an old house. The music store was on the second floor, downstairs was used for storage. "
Bert's initial meeting with Josef introduced him to what Angie refers to as Josef's integrity and at the same time, his salty humor: "I as a double bass player was always looking for double bass music. I found in Josef's store some Donemus stuff, pieces by van Baron and Pijper, who are certainly not great composers... Well, I said: 'Mr. Marx do you know any of these pieces?' He said: 'Yeh, I know these two pieces; I brought them home and we played through them, and they're real s--- !' So I said to him: 'Mr. Marx, you know this is your store, you're in the business of selling music and you're telling me that these pieces are s---?' He said: 'Yeh, I'm a musician first, though, and these really are s---! But look, you're a young man, why don't you take them home and try them and when you find out that I was right, that they are s---, you'll send them back.' So I thought that this was very unusual behavior for the owner of a music store in New York City. I did tell him so. And I felt that this was a very strange man indeed!"
In 1958, Josef got Turetzky into the Moyse circle at Brattleboro, Vermont. The chamber orchestra there, in which Josef and Bert played, was set up along the lines of the Adolph Busch Chamber Players and was conductorless. Also in 1958, Turetzky set up a summer chamber music series at Westbrook, Connecticut. The Josef Marx Ensemble, which was one of the groups which participated in the series consisted of the following musicians at that time:
Josef Marx -- oboe
Joan Brockway -- cello
Robert Conant -- harpsichord
Bertram Turetzky -- contrabass
Turetzky remembers Josef improvising ornamentation in the Ensemble and varying it from rehearsal to rehearsal relying on the cellist, Joan Brockway, to "throw the ornaments back" in the Handel G-minor Trio Sonata.
In 1959 Bert got Josef an adjunct appointment at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut. Josef went to the school once a week to team-teach music history with Bert, to coach chamber music, and to play oboe with the Hartt Chamber Players. Josef's association with Hartt lasted four years.
Bert remembers always having to defend Josef's tone, which did not match the newer, darker quality that had come into vogue through the efforts of Marcel Tabuteau and his many students. Bert relates that most people loved Josef's musicianship but just could not get into his bright, intense sound: "His intensity was difficult for a lot of people; that was the kind of intensity Sidney Bechet had, that a Charlie Parker had, that a Billie Holiday had!... It was white hot!!" (A recording of Josef's oboe playing is presently available from Diero: Josef Marx Plays the Oboe, Vol. I).
Because Josef was an American oboist with a European sound, he was chosen to be soloist with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra on its American tour during the 1959-1960 season. Also by 1960 his interest in playing chamber music began to manifest itself in a new series of lectures. For the New York Baroque Festival at Schroon Lake, in which he played, he gave two lectures: "The Extra-Musical Content in the Music of J.S. Bach" and "On French Music". For the American Recorder Society he gave his lecture: "Is Old Music Expressive?" which is included in the Josef Marx anthology.
In 1963 Josef joined forces with Charles Wuorinen and Harvey Sollberger in what was to become one of the most important new music ensembles in the history of American music, The Group for Contemporary Music at Columbia University. This famous ensemble commissioned and played to New York City audiences the compositions of a whole new generation of composers. Rehearsals usually took place in Josef's apartment. Josef managed the Group and reinforced his commitment to the ensemble and to contemporary music by publishing via McGinnis and Marx some of the new compositions (just as his Josef Marx Baroque Ensemble had gone hand-in-hand with his publishing of critical editions of early music). Some of the composers represented include Donald Martino, Harvey Sollberger, William Sydeman, Mario Davidovsky, Morton Subotnick, Thomas Briccetti, John Harbison, Charles Wuorinen, Charles Whittenberg, Raoul Pleskow and Warren Cytron. In regard to the encouragement he gave to these composers to create a new repertory for the oboe, Josef constitutes a link between Leon Goossens and Heinz Holliger.
Much earlier (c.1955) Josef had begun to publish the works of Stefan Wolpe, a member of the earlier generation, who until this time was unknown. For Josef, Wolpe had written such well known works as the Suite im Hexachord (1936), Sonata for Oboe & Piano (1941), and Quartet for Oboe, Cello, Percussion and Piano (1955). Bert Turetzky described to us a little incident which occurred between Stefan Wolpe and Josef after Stefan had heard Josef give a magnificent performance of a Handel Sonata:
Wolpe: "Josef, why don't you play my music like that?"
Josef: "Because this music is written for the oboe. Your music is written against the oboe! Ha-ha! "
Bert has this to say about the relationship between Wolpe end Josef: "They had wonderful fights but were fabulous friends. The Wolpe pieces are intense because they were written for one of the most intense oboe players ever! "
From among the younger composers, the following works written for Josef poured forth in the 1960s, the years of the Columbia Group's ascent:
1962 Donald Martino: Cinque Frammenti (oboe and contrabass)
1963
Harvey Sollberger: Two Oboes Troping
1965 Charles Wuorinen: Composition
for Oboe and Piano
1965 Charles Wuorinen: Chamber Concerto
1966
Charles Wuorinen: Bicinium (2 oboes)
1968 Charles Whittenberg: Iambi (2
oboes)
1968 Raoul Pleskow: Movement for Oboe, Violin and Piano
1968
Nicolas Roussakis: Concerto Trio (oboe, contrabass and piano)
1968 Peter
Phillips: Piece for Oboe and Piano
This repertory joined an already extensive list of other works written especially for Josef:
1936 Stefan Wolpe: Suite in Hexachord (oboe and clarinet)
1940
Elliott Carter: Pastorale: version for English Horn and Piano
1940 Marion
Bauer: Sonatina, Op. 32a (oboe and piano)
1941 Stefan Wolpe: Sonata (oboe
and piano)
1943 Marion Bauer: Concertino, Op. 32b (oboe, clarinet and
string quartet)
1948 Gunther Schuller: Trio for Oboe, Viola, and Horn
1951 Gunther Schuller: Sonata for Oboe and Piano
1952 Ralph Shapey:
Sonata for Oboe and Piano
1952 Ralph Shapey: Oboe Quartet
1955
Stefan Wolpe: Quartet for Oboe, Cello, Piano and Percussion
1957 Ralph
Shapey: Rhapsody
1959 George Rochberg : La Bocca della Verita (oboe and
piano)
1959 Isaac Nemiroff: Concerto for Oboe and String Orchestra
Edgard Varèse loved Josef's manner of playing the oboe. After the premiere of the Gunther Schuller Sonata for Oboe and Piano, Varèse was heard to say to Angie Marx: "Now that's the way an oboe should sound!" In 1962 when the Hartt Chamber Players led by Ralph Shapey played the Varèse Octandre in New York, Varèse gave Josef the score of Integrales with the inscription: "To Josef Marx, the master oboist: I hope that I live to hear you play the solo in my Integrales. " Angie Marx also had this to say about Josef's manner of playing: "If Josef had to push a reed beyond what was acceptable, he did it without worrying about the tone. If he felt that the music demanded it, he was not adverse to producing an intense sound which was not 'Pretty' . "
Bert Turetzky, who played contrabass in the Columbia Group, wrote about those days in the 60s: "Josef changed my life -- many other people's too... He used to play music from Jacopo da Bologna (fl. 1350) to Cornelius Cardew; not many oboists around could or have done that... I was into Jacopo da Bologna, Machaut, Landini and some Renaissance Musicke (Lasso, Morley, Gastoldi, Willaert, etc.) and wrote arrangements. This idea was later taken up by Wuorinen and Sollberger with the Columbia Group for Neue Musik: Charles [Wuorinen] did terrific arrangements; mine as above were simple and inartistic compared to his and Harvey's [Sollberger]."
Bert tells of a wonderful one-liner spoken by Josef at an appearance by the Columbia Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Group had ended a concert with an aleatoric work in which Josef had very little interest. After the performance there was a reception during which Bert and Josef got into a lively conversation with a very proper woman who was a patron of the arts. When the matter of the aleatoric piece was brought up by the patron, Josef looked directly at her and said: "Lady, you can't make borscht out of s---!" Bert reports that Josef delivered this line with a demeanor of a rabbinical scholar!
In the fall of 1965 Josef played his last concert as first oboist with the Dessoff Choirs. Also at that time he was appointed Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music at C.W. Post Center of Long Island University where his old friend Stefan Wolpe was Chairman of the Music Department. In the fall of 1966 Josef was made a full-time Assistant Professor of Music History and by 1974 he had attained the rank of Full Professor. In addition to music history, Josef also taught oboe and conducted the chamber orchestra there.
In Josef's curriculum vitae he wrote that in the area of music history and research he was entirely self taught with the exception of his studies with Max Raphael. His knowledge of music history developed out of two phases of personal activities: first, his pursuit of all there was to know of oboe literature and bibliography (which got him involved in music literature, styles, and performance practice), second, his interest in musical instruments and in his instrument collection which is one of the most important private collections in the U.S.
During this final phase of Josef's career he developed an interest in the music of Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, a contemporary of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. His interest is documented in the article "Murder by Encyclopedia" to be found in the anthology of his writings. The number of details which Josef gives us in his pursuit of Janitsch is really fantastic.
A glimpse into the chamber music activity at Josef's apartment (which was a constant and continuing weekly event) was revealed to us in a letter from the eminent bassoonist, Christopher Weait: "On my visit to the Marx home in November, 1978, the weekly soiree was in progress. ("If you are coming, bring your bassoon!") The music that evening included some of the five-part pieces by John Jenkins. The players were friends; the instrumentation typical for such a gathering: alto flute, oboe, English horn, bassoon, and cello. It sounded marvelous. Mental note made to investigate and play it someday. What wonderful music! A lively discussion took place on the philosophy of the theory of music in Rameau's treatise. Angie had refreshments ready in the kitchen... Sirens wailed past on Broadway or 86th Street. One felt welcomed, embraced, stimulated, part of an unusual web of friendship. "
Josef was so busy in his final years that projects he normally would have undertaken were suggested to others among the intelligentsia who gathered around him. Betty Bang Mather, Professor of Flute at the University of Iowa, was encouraged by Josef to write her book which he eventually published through McGinnis & Marx, The Interpretation of French Music from 1675 to 1775.
Angie Marx described Josef during this time: "There was never enough time to carry things through or enough leisure to concentrate on only one thing. The publishing had almost become a hobby -- an expensive one! " Josef was so busy with his many activities that he would often practice on the train in the men's room on the way to a concert in the suburbs. Angie relates that he once practiced in a car while being driven to a concert. She also tells a wonderful story: "Josef used to leave the oboe out of the case at home so he could try to keep in shape just like Julie Baker (the flutist), picking it up and playing for a few minutes at random during the day whenever he passed it." (Angie does not mention just how Josef dealt with keeping his reeds wet all day. But her son Alexander told us that Josef kept them in a little glass with water and scotch ! )
In 1971 Josef made the first of several visits to the campus of the University of California, San Diego at La Jolla. It was at the La Jolla campus that his old colleague Bert Turetzky was teaching music history, chamber music and contrabass. Bert remembers a fabulous concert organized by Josef in 1975 at La Jolla which was performed at a millionaire's home. A Telemann Tafelmusik was played during a dinner, and the meal was catered with the exact menu used at the premiere which had taken place in a princely household in Hamburg 250 years before. People in La Jolla are still talking about this musical feast!
In the summer of 1977 Josef was invited to participate in the Basically Baroque Festival at La Jolla. Bert wrote us of that time: "J.M. wasn't a conductor but he could inspire and had often wonderful concepts of what to do. " What Bert was referring to was the fact that some people at the festival did not want Josef to conduct and that this hurt both Bert and Josef. There were other tensions and sadness too during Josef's final years. Musicians with and for whom he had worked, composers among them, were no longer friendly, and no longer stayed in contact. As Bert puts it: "As long as you keep working with a composer and playing his pieces, he remains your friend."
In a lecture given at C.W. Post Center in 1976, Josef gave an indication of his conflict with composers in regard to the performance of contemporary music, longing for a return to earlier values: "In the world of polyphonic music the performer was born when the composer was born, to be his compliment." (Josef emphasized that last phrase!)
Shortly before he died, Josef ended a letter to Betty Bang Mather with these words: "At this point bed is indicated. School, Europe, California, one directly after the other, and now just a month till school starts once more. I can feel it. So I shall at least get my measure of sleep." This letter was written in August of 1978; Josef died on December 21, 1978, slightly more than 65 years after his birth in Berlin on September 9, 1913.
In the fall of 1983 Nancy received a letter from Angie Marx concerning the fact that Josef's name had been misspelled as "Joseph" in Nancy's recent IDRS article on contemporary oboe music. Angie was contacted immediately and after apologies had been given, the plan for this article was put forth.
Angie told us that we were not the first to make an error in spelling Josef's first name as Joseph and related to us the following: "A lady from some music library somewhere in the U.S. called Josef one day attempting to trace down some compositions of Joseph Marx. Josef explained patiently that he was not that composer, and that Joseph Marx (not a very good composer) had died in 1936. The lady persisted and asked Josef if he could indicate any way she could get some information about this particular composer. Josef answered quietly: 'Go to hell.' There was a short shocked silence. Then she laughed. I suppose he then indicated to her that Grove's, Baker's, Blume, etc. would probably have information about Joseph Marx."
The visit by the Lehrers to the Marx apartment on December 4, 1983 was indeed a fulfilling experience. Angie Marx was all, and more, than what Lux Feininger has written of her: "bright and wonderful!"
As we sat on the couch hearing about Josef and his life, we were surrounded by the paintings of Lyonel Feininger and Max Bronstein. To our left were the display cases of instruments containing examples of oboes from the Baroque Age through the Romantic Era. We gazed with amazement at an oboe made by the great Henri Brod and saw several by the Triebert family, direct predecessor of the Lorée firm. In the entrance hall, down the hall which leads to the bedroom and in Josef's study were the bookshelves, "the great set of bookshelves installed from floor to ceiling..." filled with a huge collection of books on music, art, philosophy, psychology, astronomy, parapsychology, et al.
Since we did not know Josef, Angie tried to give us a flavor of his personality: "This was an enormously gutsy man. He was also humorous, feisty, and sometimes even bawdy. When he came back from Palestine in the late 1930s he had a thyroid operation to remove a growth. It grew back. After his divorce he volunteered as a guinea pig for a procedure to destroy his thyroid with radioactive iodine. When an umbrella point got jabbed in his mouth, making a bad cut, he put aspirin directly on the cut to kill the pain because he had to play that night. This gave him blood-poisoning of a kind which nearly killed him. He was very ill, and never stopped playing. The destruction of the thyroid gave him arthritis of the hands. His finger joints became stiff, swollen and calcified. He never stopped playing. In the last years, he had two seizures of heart failure a year apart. He never stopped playing. With all this, he was famous or notorious for his sense of humor and funny stories. He collapsed on the 18th of December, 1978, and died on the 21st after four days in a coma without ever becoming conscious. On the 10th of December, which was the Sunday before that, he played two concerts in one day, and taught his classes at school the week following. He knew he was not feeling well and that something was wrong, but he was driven and passionate about playing and teaching."
It was a wonderful visit, but after we left a strange feeling came over us. We both realized that most of all we needed to speak with Josef himself, a man we had never met. There was so much we could learn from him about music, art, and life! But, alas, he was gone.
Program for the Group for Contemporary Music, October 27,
1969
Program for the Group for Contemporary Music, December 18,
1972
1. Encyclopedia Judaica. Jerusalem: The Macmillan Company, 1971.
2. Encyclopedia of World Art. New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1959.
3. Groves Dictionary of Music, The New. London: Macmillan Company, 1980.
4. International Double Reed Society Publications: Journal and The Double Reed. (ed. Daniel Stolper and Ronald Klimko). East Lansing, Michigan: IDRS.
5. Perspectives of New Music. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964-present.
6. Scholem, Gershom. Von Berlin nach Jerusalem. New York: Schocken Books, 1980.
7. AN ANTHOLOGY: The Writings of Josef Marx, Vol. I. (ed. Gloria Ziegler). New York: McGinnis and Marx, 1983.
The Josef Marx Concert Series. Josef Marx Plays the Oboe. Columbia, AMS-6176. Elliott Carter Sonata (Quartet).
Walter Bendix, C.F. Peters Corporation, December 15, 1983.
William Berton, (via Angelina Marx), April 7, 1980.
Nina Courant, December 11, 1983.
Lux Feininger, December 12, 1983.
Joseph Hawthorne, Duluth Superior Symphony, May 3, 1984.
Anna Jacobson, December 23, 1983.
John di Janni, University of New Mexico, December 19, 1983.
Angelina Marx, December 4, 1983. George Marx, January 3, 1984.
Betty Bang Mather, University of Iowa, December 12, 1983.
Raoul Pleskow, Long Island University, December 13, 1983.
Nora Post, Rider College, January, 1984. Sigurd Rascher, February 1, 1984.
Margaret Richardson, December 10, 1983.
Daniel Singer, (via Angelina Marx), November 13, 1979
Bertram Turetzky, University of California at San Diego, December 21, 1983, January 10, 1984, March 28, 1984.
Burnet Tuthill, (via Angelina Marx), November 6, 1979.
Alfred Van Loen, Long Island University, December 15, 1983.
Christopher Weait, March 20, 1984.
