A
Reverent Replay
By
Tom Wachunas
Another major casualty in this distressed time
of Covidemic distancing are the always marvelous live concerts by the Canton
Symphony Orchestra (CSO). I will always remember 2020 as the MasterWorks season that wasn’t.
Yet I’m happy to
report that the CSO has been active in other contexts, including its ConverZations,
a free monthly (now virtual) series of lectures. I’m happier still to invite
you to attend a particularly special session on Monday, October 12 at noon,
on Zoom, featuring CSO Music Director/Conductor Gerhardt Zimmermann on the 40th
anniversary of his very first concert in Canton. You’ll hear what being a
conductor means to Gerhardt and get the chance to ask him questions.
Register to attend
at
https://www.cantonsymphony.org/converzations/ or
https://ci.ovationtix.com/35381/production/1032045
MEANWHILE, in honor of the man and the
anniversary, I thought it apropos to revisit and share again with you what I
wrote here ten years ago. Beyond the many pleasures of watching him through the
years make magic from the podium, my lunch with Gerhardt remains among my most
thrilling memories. ENJOY.
Right Times, Right Places (ARTWACH
post from October 11, 2010)
In the Canton
Symphony Orchestra’s 2010 – 2011 Season brochure, Gerhardt Zimmermann is
quoted, “This piece literally saved my life…” He was referring to his passion
for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, one of the program selections that opens the
season celebrating his 30 years with the orchestra. During a conversation over
a leisurely lunch in downtown Canton last April, I asked him to elaborate.
He explained that
prior to his studies at Bowling Green State University (begun in the fall of
1963, and where he earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree), he saw himself
simply as a band conductor, had never listened to classical music per se, and
didn’t even own a record player. “The music department chairman said that would
be a nice Christmas present,” he recalled, “and so my parents went into a
furniture store and bought me this little baby-blue Voice of America record
player, and along with it came five free records.”
One of the
recordings, which Zimmermann still owns, was of Toscanini conducting
Beethoven’s seventh symphony. Zimmermann was clearly moved by the memory as he
spoke in slow, measured words, “And I took that sucker to bed with me every night
for a month and played it. It was, ahhh… I mean the rhythm and the intensity
and everything.” With an infectious, hearty laugh he added, “So when I sat in
an orchestra after that I was primed and ready to bite the bullet, so to
speak.”
What preceded –
and certainly followed - such an inspiring epiphany is, on the face of it, a
study in serendipity. Born and raised in Van Wert, Ohio, Zimmermann’s earliest
aspirations were anything but musical. “My dream was always to be second
baseman for the Cincinnati Reds, because I loved Johnny Temple,” he recalled.
“I had Polio when I was seven, but I thought I could get over it all the way
until I was in junior high school. I was stubborn about it, even though the
doctors said I would never walk again.”
In the fourth grade, after satisfactorily
learning to play the Tonette (at that time a requirement for all elementary
school students), he was asked if he’d like to be in band. He was discouraged
from taking up his first choice - drums. “You know, you should really take a
real instrument first,” he remembered the band director telling him. And here
came that infectious laugh again, with just a bit of mischief, as Zimmermann
shared an afterthought, “Now, I use that against my percussionists when I need
it.”
As it was, he
chose the trumpet, and envisioned himself becoming a band director someday.
Fast forward to his audition on second trumpet during a rehearsal with the
Bowling Green orchestra. He had never previously heard an orchestra in a live
setting – only a handful of recordings. “After that rehearsal, that did it,” he
said. “All the colors that you hear with the strings and the winds. That was
it. I didn’t want to be a band director anymore. I just fell in love with the
string sound.”
From this point
onward, the interview became something of an autobiographical marathon as
Zimmermann recalled, with astonishing detail, all the faces and places (too
numerous to list completely here) along the winding road that ultimately
brought him to Canton. “I guess the reason I say all this,” he explained, “is
that I tell my students that finding a conducting job is 90 percent luck. You
need to be in the right place at the right time. Once you find that break, then
you’d better have that extra ten percent to prove yourself.”
His college days
were peppered with various teaching jobs in elementary and junior high school
music programs. In one bewildering and unusual situation (student teaching), he
was required to teach elementary school violin while learning it at the same
time. “I had to sit on those silly little chairs that the fifth graders sit on.
Well, you learn by fire.”
Zimmermann
earned his MFA in Orchestral Conducting at the University of Iowa in May of
1972. Several months later he began teaching at Western Illinois University. In
his first year there he tied for second place in a conductor competition in
Chicago, overseen by Georg Solti of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He
remembers Solti saying, “It is unfortunate that you are a conductor. You will
not be able to get enough power out of the orchestra.” A year later, Zimmermann
learned that Solti’s comment was meant to convey that his (Zimmermann’s)
physical condition would undermine his ability to withstand the rigors of the
conductor’s life. One need only peruse his bio on the Canton Symphony website
to see vigorous evidence to the contrary. Reflecting on Solti’s assessment,
Zimmermann said, “That’s when you learn about prejudices. Not skin-color
prejudices, but other kinds of assumptions.”
During the
summer after his first year at Western Illinois he actually turned down an
offer to be assistant conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. “I
didn’t have the guts to go into the head of the music department at Western and
say I’m resigning, since I was the fourth conductor in four years, and the
school year would begin in six weeks” he mused. But several months later he was
persuaded to reconsider. He went to St. Louis to hear a concert and discuss the
job, accompanied by his fiancée, Sharon. The story prompted another observation
about his life journey. “She’s still my wife, which is another unusual thing
for a conductor,” he said proudly. “I’ve been married for 36 years to the same
woman.”
Zimmerman’s
eight-year tenure as assistant conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
began in the summer season of 1974 and was comprised of one year under Walter
Susskind, three years under Jerzy Semkow, and four years as associate conductor
under Leonard Slatkin. During his seventh year, 1979, his manager found out
that Canton was looking for a conductor and was interested in hiring
Zimmermann. Reluctant at first, Zimmermann came here to hear the orchestra.
After the concert he went out with Linda Morehouse and Bill Blair (who had gone
to St. Louis to hear a concert that Zimmermann conducted), talked until 2 a.m.,
and accepted the job.
Looking back at
that time, Zimmermann observed, “I needed to make the next step from being an
associate. I needed to have an orchestra of my own. They wanted the best
orchestra they could have and I felt there wasn’t any of the board politics
that can muddy up the works. It was a good fit. I think this orchestra, like
the North Carolina orchestra when I went there in 1982 (where, concurrent with
his position in Canton, he was Music Director and Conductor for 21 years), was
hungry. They were hungry to play well and they wanted someone to demand that
they play well.”
Is there a
philosophy behind the chemistry between conductor and orchestra? Zimmermann has
told every orchestra he’s ever worked with, “The better you get, the more I’m
going to demand from you. There’s only one sound I have in mind, and that’s the
sound of the Cleveland Orchestra, the sound of the Vienna Philharmonic… I don’t
care whether you’re students or not. That’s the ideal you should always work
toward.”
The Maestro
acknowledges that in pure technique, there are orchestras that give “cleaner
performances” than he might offer. But he’s not willing to settle for technical
excellence alone. “I would hope my performances at least bring some excitement
to the table,” he said. “So most of the time in rehearsal, I work a lot on
musical ideas – the sound. I have found that if you start there, fifty percent
of the technical problems will take care of themselves, instead of wasting too
much of your time on just that (technique), and then you don’t bring it up to
that higher level.”
He added that
beyond the remarkably disciplined and gifted individuals who actually perform
the music, there is another vital component to the healthy working atmosphere
of the Canton Symphony Orchestra. “It’s amazing how much an orchestra depends
not only on who’s sitting in those chairs, but the leadership from the board
and the management.”
So, really, how
is it that a boy with Polio goes from dreaming of playing professional baseball
in Cincinnati to showering Canton with the glorious music of the masters for 30
years? Only serendipity? Just the random vagaries of luck? Or something of a
higher order? Late in our talk, Zimmermann at one point paused and, with a look
of genuine wonderment, said, “My career has been very unorthodox. Someone
somewhere helped me, was taking care of me.” And for all of that, we’re blessed
that he had his extra ten percent well in hand, proved and multiplied now
beyond measure, as he continues to regale us with the rhythm and the intensity
and…everything.
