Where Musicians Come From

I once had an argument (punctuated by uproarious laughter) with a great musician who, in a particularly outrageous mood, lambasted me for my pronunciation of Götterdämmerung.  I pronounce it as any Hochdeutsch speaker would, but he insisted that it sounded pretentious, like pronouncing the capital of France Paree, with a snooty emphasis on the second syllable.

I maintained that Götterdämmerung was nothing like Paree, but his response was contemptuous.  "What do you know?  You're from Iowa!  Musicians don't come from Iowa; they come from London and Amsterdam and Vienna and Florence, not Iowa!"  I let the matter drop.

I thought back to this argument – the one about where musicians come from, not about pronunciation – when I came across this childhood essay, a biography I wrote of my maternal grandfather, Charles Herbert Parman, known to his grandchildren as “Papa Charlie."  I'm including a scan of the original because the font is so charmingly dated.

1990 Biography of Charles "Papa" Parman

Though just two generations ago, Papa Charlie’s life seems like that of a wild west frontiersman with certain resemblances to Twain and Kerouac.  He’s typical of the Greatest Generation – the salt of the earth, the depression-era mentality – who served in World War II and raised a family while farming.

So as the grandson of a farmer from Missouri and on my father’s side a carpenter from Iowa, I don’t descend from artistic royalty.  Though I’m proud that Glenn Miller – who, like my grandparents, came from humble circumstances – is the only other musical fruit on my family tree.

I’m reminded of conductor and musical diplomat Charles Ansbacher, with whom I formed a fond friendship in the last year of his life, and whose fellowship with the Vienna Philharmonic I later received.  In response to a positive review I received in Boston, Charles asked me who my press agent was.  Incredulous, I laughed and told him that I don’t have a press agent.

“Well where did you do your prep school work?”

“Charles, I’m from Iowa and went to the same public schools where my mom taught!”

Charles was astonished and delighted that a solidly middle class kid from Iowa who grew up in the suburbs was conducting Mahler and Schoenberg in Boston.

So where do musicians come from?  From the exalted cultural capitals of the world?  From pedigreed genealogies?  From the upper crust of high society?  Yes, they come from these places, and they also come everywhere in the world where curiosity and creativity are fostered.  This musician, for one, lives for the proper pronunciation of Götterdämmerung and a Beethovenian brotherhood and a Mahlerian Resurrection; and I also revel in the bawdy humor of The Marriage of Figaro, or a lascivious musical setting of a Verlaine poem, or the uncouth antics of a Haydn symphony.

Our personalities are as varied as the places from which we hail.  Musicians come from everywhere – even from Iowa.

Levi Hammer - December 2014