The following essay was written eight years ago while I was facing the
aspect of retirement from the Conservatoire de Lausanne, Switzerland. It was to
be almost two years later that my destiny led me to the Musashino Academia
Musicae in Tokyo, Japan.
This has become a very welcome and happy destiny.
Vintage '38
In every country one encounters, it seems
to be inordinately bureaucratic, especially to foreigners. Having been through
the process of immigration in several countries, I feel safe in saying that
Switzerland may be the most bureaucratic of all. Foreigners muse over the possibility
that this constant badgering of residents holding something other than Swiss
passports is representative of a latent but chronic form of xenophobia. We all
sense this, sometimes we speak about it, but as far as I know we’ve never taken
action. Perhaps it’s just not all that bad.
I had been living in Lausanne,
Switzerland for five years before the foreign police and the Conservatoire de
Lausanne discovered I had not reported my residence; they couldn’t believe it;
I must have been the first to get away with such a thing. The school had to use
their lawyer to rush through a “B permit” for me, so both they and I would be
legal. The Conservatoire informed me that I would be held responsible for both
the legal fees and the fine. That’s the last I ever heard about it. Perhaps the
school paid it, but if so, it would have been quite out of character.
Now, six years later, I have been
informed that I will be given a “C permit”, which is like having Swiss citizenship
in every way being able to vote; this is ironic, because as of one year ago I
was deemed too old to continue my work in Switzerland because I was 65. I feel
sure this is another kind of bureaucratic oversight but in any case I will
accept the “C permit”.
When I went to the directors of the
Conservatoire de Lausanne and protested this compulsory retirement, they went
into shock. It seemed to me that I was the first person in Swiss history to complain!
“Don’t you want to rest now, don’t you want to take walks by the lake?” My
visceral reaction to those questions was to reach across the desk, grab the
director by the collar and say, "No, I'm not tired and I have better
things to do than to take walks around your lake!" I didn’t, but I was having
a new concept of what was meant by “small country!”
We did find a compromise, however, in
that they agreed to let me continue teaching until all the students, who were
all foreign (a problem for the school) and who had come there specifically to
study with me, had graduated. This would fiscally take me to August 2005 when I
would be 67. Actually, this situation couldn’t have come at a better time. My
work in Manchester at the Royal Northern College of Music was increasing. They
like me and they want me there full time for as long as I am able, and they
also want as many foreigners as possible; not to mention the fact that the RNCM
is a vastly superior music school compared to the Conservatoire de Lausanne. In
the school year 2004-2005 I will simultaneously be nearly full time at both
Manchester and Lausanne and I look forward to organizing it.
Retirement remains unthinkable to me and
other than the physical demands of being a tuba soloist, I have given little
thought to the aging process. However, the foreign police have required me to
get an up-to-date photograph for the C permit document, which I did. It was in
one of those automatic photograph kiosks that are found in post offices and
railroad stations. I adjusted the height, smiled and saw in the screen in front
of me an older man, a little less hair, nearly completely gray and because of a
diet, which is very successful, the face that was “full” was now full of jowls.
I would guess from the picture that I was about 65, which is what I was!
Well, so what! I rarely see myself in the
mirror, I shave in the shower, I brush my hair without my glasses and my barber
seems quite amused when I ask him to turn the barber chair facing the small
place (square) at the corner of rue de Petit Chene and rue de Midi so I can
watch the people instead of seeing my hair being cut.
Of course, this aging process doesn’t
come as a great surprise. The statistic has always been clear to me but now
that I’ve seen the C permit photo, the statistic has become a little clearer. I
noticed even a few years ago though, that when I would walk into a restaurant
or a pub with a group of my students that the eyes of the younger women inside
would go to the students, not me; I wasn’t used to that. Growth hormones,
cosmetic surgery and hair dye are not my thing so I guess the only thing to do
is get used to it; I’m still working on it!
Seeking a female companion at my age can
be frustrating and no matter how much I try and comprehend the realities, I
always seem to be most attracted to women in their late twenties ---- over and
over again! And indeed I have several relationships with women in that age
group, all paternal and avuncular. If I keep clear that’s what it is, these are
valuable and wonderful friendships. I’m grateful my work brings me into
constant contact with that age group!
Women in their thirties are equally
attractive but they are just enough older to begin to fear the arrival of their
own aging process and a deep friendship with a man my age scares them.
In her forties, if a woman is still
single or has become single, she is often soured and embittered by something in
her history and with the inevitability of her biological changes; a friendship
is frequently volatile.
By fifty, most women are set in their
ways, they can be lovely companions but, frankly, they scare me!
I recently renewed an old friendship with
a girlfriend from my conservatory days, who had just had her sixtieth birthday.
She was equally successful as I and very opinionated. When I was asked a
question, she would answer for me ---- always, and in public places she would
apply new coats of lipstick every 10 minutes. I can’t attribute these things to
her age, she’s the only woman in that age group I have had a friendship with,
but let’s just say she seemed to have changed through the 40 years since I had
seen her and the attraction was no longer there!
Quickly, I must point out that I’m quite
aware that forty years of time has also changed me ---- a little!
I’m curious why 65 has come to signify
the age of retirement. Who determined 65 was the age to quit work, why and
when? Was it religion? Maybe it was political or maybe it was so long ago that
the cultures simply realized most people would be dead by that age so it was
mostly a hypothetical number. And what of the economics, what of the baby
boomers who are all very close to that mysterious age now and in a few years
will become eligible for the social pension payments from already over-stressed
systems? It will be curious to see when this time arrives if suddenly the
retirement age is changed. If so, what will the result be regarding unemployment?
The bottom line is clear to me, this planet is over-populated, and that problem
needs to be alleviated.
But how? Perhaps it’s AIDS, or something
even worse will cut back world population the necessary 75% or 80% needed.
Maybe a real all-out World War III would be a good thing, or perhaps cannibalism
could be the answer; I know from my years in Italy how easy anything goes down
with a little garlic and a little extra virgin olive oil. Or consider this;
maybe the North American Indians were right; When a person has nothing more to
offer, it’s time to take him or her to the top of a mountain, make a comfortable
place, say goodbye and leave him or her there to catch the next spaceship to
the happy hunting ground. Maybe they had it right hundreds of years ago.
Anyway, something has to be done!
Personally, I hope I can continue teaching
for the next 35 years. 100 seems like a rounder number than 65. Equally, I hope
when I start to deteriorate I will recognize it or, if not, that some trusted
friend would tell me.
I like very much the vintage wine analogy;
no one knows the cellar life of a wine for sure, some reach maturity quickly
and some become better and better.
In 1979 I gave a masterclass in Moudon,
Switzerland. One of the students (now the tubist of l’Orchest de la Swiss
Romand in Geneva) was from the very small town of Feshy. After the last day he
invited all the class to his farm in the country; there were 12 or 15 of us.
Tables were set up in the cross roads of the village. We ate and drank and it
was clearly an exceptional evening. Soon we began to play tuba ensemble music
in this isolated rural crossroads. Across the street was another party and the
host of that party was also a musician, (everyone in that part of Switzerland
had some connection with the band community). Soon the two parties converged
and very soon after, the padrone of the party across the street invited us to
visit his wine cellar. Shortly, it became clear that this gentleman, whom I was
very sure was about my age, was not only an inhabitant of Feshy, but also a
principal wine merchant of the region. Perhaps the principle wine merchant of the region. To this day I can’t remember
whether he had twenty 40,000 liter casks of wine or forty 20,000 liter casks.
In any case he had more wine than I had ever encountered, and he quickly began
to encourage us to sample all of it! Soon he suggested, instead of the 1979
vintage, that we sample the 1978, and then the 77. It was an education and a
religious experience. We were moving backward through time and I was amazed how
different the wine was from year to year. We went through the 70’s and into the
60’s when he began asking birth dates from my students. Upon hearing the birth
years he would disappear for a short period and reappear with a bottle of vintage
Fechy from that year. He went through the whole class and finally asked if
there was anybody else and looked at me with a fraternal smile.
“Well, my birth date is 1938” I said.
“Oh, that’s my birth date too”, he said. He left for a long time and we all
began to think the party had come to an end when he arrived back with a crusty
old bottle with a big 38 rubber stamped on it like the rubber stamps we used in
grammar school when I was a boy. He opened it, poured it and it was both a
great wine and a religious experience. I hope to find him again someday and
remember that evening together.
There was another time I tasted a vintage
from 1938. For my 60th birthday present, my good friend and manager Emily
Harris gave me a bottle of 1938 port. It was magnificent.
It’s difficult to realistically assess
one’s own aging process, but I’m convinced vintage ‘38 was a great year.
Fiesole, Italy, March 2004
Republished and retouched September 23,
2012
