Alan S. Oser

There is a legend in my family about my prowess as a violinist at the age of 10, in 1941.

By that time I had begun to show a little bit of talent, having started lessons at my own insistence four years earlier out of jealousy of my older sister, Zelda. She was being driven to piano lessons every Saturday morning while I was kept at home in the dull company of a sitter. My bitter complaints were heeded, to my sorrow, before a year was out. I got to drive with my sister to Saturday morning lessons, but I had not expected to be obliged to practice every day. It turned out that violin lessons were no joy either.

Nevertheless, after four years I found myself performing at a concert inaugurating the completion of a new addition to the Manhattan School of Music, then on East 105th Street in East Harlem. John Barbirolli, the conductor of the New York Philharmonic, was in the audience, as was the great soprano Lily Pons. On the stage, I sat waiting my turn with other stellar students and my accompanist, my father.

In due time I performed a short piece. The audience applauded, and I bowed. The applause continued, and I continued to bow. No one had told me when to stop bowing so I kept it up, apparently waiting for the applause to stop. Instead, the applause turned to laughter and my father dragged me off the stage.

My sense of mortification stayed with me for a long time after that. The early training on the violin also stayed with me. Even though I abandoned lessons at 13 and never touched a violin in late adolescence, I was in an excellent position to take it up again in my 20’s when a remarkable thing happened. I discovered Music.

Music? I had never thought about music as a child. In playing the violin I was merely learning another skill. I was learning to play chess too at that time, and also punch ball, a city-street version of baseball.

Once I discovered Music in my 20’s, I started taking lessons again. I listened to the Budapest String Quartet play great pieces and told myself, “I’ve got to play this stuff.” I found a teacher, he showed me what to do, and for the last 55 years I have been trying to do it.

Mostly I do it as the second violinist in amateur string quartets. Once you are playing in a string quartet, hearing in your brain the sounds of the Budapest String Quartet as you bungle the second violin part of Beethoven’s Opus 130 quartet, you feel nothing but gratitude for the early training your parents foisted upon you. But for their persistence, you would have no chance even to attempt this remarkable music and to experience the intense thrill of playing it.

The lesson of all this is that it is good to learn as many skills as possible at an early age, when learning is easiest, and to focus on music in particular if a shred of talent exists. Surveying the wide cast of characters with whom my musical life is now entwined, I see many examples that confirm this point.

I think of my friend H.J., who suffers from depression and in his 50's has already retired from his medical career. He is a first-rate cellist, and amateur chamber music playing gives him his greatest satisfaction. There is my friend L.O., a retired physician and widower who lives alone. An excellent and much admired violinist, chamber music is a central feature of his social life.

Playing string quartets regularly also works well as a source of gossip, another underestimated advantage.

“Did you know that X is living with Y?” H.J. asked me one evening, referring to a certain violist.

“No!” said I. “You mean that Y has left Z?”

“I never knew that Y lived with Z,” said H.J.

“Y herself told me she was living with Z, but that was a year ago,” I said. “I think Z introduced Y to X.”

And so on, until Schubert takes over.

The associations formed in a chamber music circle work well when the time comes for a memorial service. Dear friends will not hesitate to volunteer to play movements of a Mozart viola quintet, and one player may even rise to give a glorious tribute to the deceased violinist. To be certain that music will put the gathered throng in tears, I recommend a performance of the slow movement of the Schubert cello quintet.

Best of all, a life in music produces anecdotes that sustain one’s reputation as a dinner table conversationalist in advanced years. I am forever grateful in this respect to a couple named the Steins, who lived in Belmont, Mass., near Cambridge, when I arrived at Harvard as a graduate student in 1952. They were well known as chamber music hosts.

I was new to chamber music playing in those days but I was highly enthusiastic. I had been advised to call the Steins and wangle an invitation to play at one of their soirees, which took place two or sometimes three nights a week. Mrs. Stein welcomed me heartily on the telephone, and invited me to come the following Saturday night to play. “We’ll play the Forellen Quintet,” she said.

I agreed at once, although I had never heard of a composer named Forellen. I went to Harkness Library to look him up, but he was unlisted.

My sophisticated reader knows that “forellen” means “trout” in German, and Mrs. Stein was referring to the celebrated Schubert quintet for piano and strings, known, even to me at the time, as the Trout Quintet but to afficionados by its German name. The Steins enlightened me as soon as I arrived. My heart sank. I had never played the Trout Quintet, which has only one violin part, quite virtuosic in places. The other instruments are viola, cello, piano and bass.

Making matters worse, the hosts had invited a dozen guests to hear this hotshot violinist newly arrived at Harvard play the demanding violin part of the Forellen. I quickly confessed that I would be sightreading, and warned the listeners to modify their expectations drastically. Then I proceeded to justify the warning. Nevertheless, I stumbled through, thinking to myself “What a disaster” as I played.

But I was young. Grown-ups will forgive the flawed efforts of a self-effacing youth who at least has the gumption to try. The Steins comforted me, fed me, and invited me back.

I am no longer sightreading when I play the Trout Quintet, or anything else in the standard repertoire. But I am still collecting anecdotes. I am now the one who comforts the young players starting out. Keep it up, I tell them. Pass on the flame. Pick up some good tales to tell along the way. They may last even when skills fade.