The Seventh Cellist: Life and work of the Cellist and Founder of the Ensemble of the 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Prologue

Jeden Augenblick des Lebens,

er falle aus welcher Hand des Schicksals er wolle, uns zu,

den günstigen sowie den ungünstigen,

zum bestmöglichen zu machen,

darin besteht die Kunst des Lebens

und das eigentliche Vorrecht eines

vernünftigen Wesens.

(Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, 1742-1799, German writer and scientist)

These famous lines about the art of living, about living each moment in life have guided me all through my life. The idea of dealing with both life’s favourable as well as unfavourable moments and forming them both to one’s advantage – as Lichtenberg points out - is our privilege as rational human beings.

Every day I look at these lines at the wall in front of my desk, I feel stranded by the waves of life, often distanced from the outside world, and I am challenged to cope with my innermost thoughts and feelings. During my active life as a musician, my instrument and I were a medium which distributed music to others, often inspiring enthusiasm at many places in this world, together with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and, of course, with the 12 Cellists!

Now, when contemplating the walls in my study, I see photographs of enlightening encounters I had in those many years: one of them shows a conversation with Herbert von Karajan, and the second one displays Yehudi Menuhin during a formative encounter. What I see in our faces is a sort of inner glow resulting from the concert experience we had just shared. I also notice big concert halls in front of me, they lead me from Berlin to Tokyo and New York, among many other places. And finally, I feel again what I have once been: a cellist in a world-renowned orchestra!

No, I don’t want to be someone who reminisces about past deeds and glory, just to escape some gloomy winter moments. I want to live in the present, but I need to relive and rethink the past, in order to find out who I am today. And I feel that I am grateful for people who ask me about it.

Friends and companions have encouraged me to put my thoughts into writing, while enjoying many of my often-amusing anecdotes. But eventually my intention is to show internal references of my professional and personal life, with and for music.

My reflections on life and music will include a lot of gratitude, as well as very special moments a musician lives through, apart from practicing for and playing in concerts. They will show how the favourable corresponds with the unfavourable and perhaps will reveal a certain pattern in the end. Some may ask: How does it feel to hold your beloved cello in your arm for hours on end, drawing the bow over the strings with your right hand, while your left hand creates the line of the melody, with your head slightly bent to better absorb the sound, and with your eyes closed - self-critical and touched at the same time?

And finally: How does a person deal with life – past and present – who used to experience those moments of happiness when sound and soul were in complete harmony, culminating in something close to what might be called a revelation?

Perhaps the reader may also sense how difficult it is, after a life of such deep involvement and emotion, to, all of a sudden, lose one’s hearing, a predicament I have now had to live with for quite some years.

The notes, which follow, may be a way of not losing myself on a dark winter’s day.

Berlin, January 2019

A Wartime Childhood

To tell a life takes a lifetime – if you have tried hard enough to be truthful and fair to your memory. I have therefore tried to layout some sort of line, along which to proceed to include the essential points and markers, which were to determine my path and direction in life. In my early years these were both the element of music, as well as the strong relationship with my father, who had seen my talent and fostered it.

I was born on a July morning in 1931 in Wiesbaden. My mother singing and my father playing the viola, left an imprint even before my birth. And, looking at the horoscope, the stars must also have been favourable at my birth, leaving me with qualities typical of Cancer, including emotional awareness and artistic talents. However, I would not then know the importance music would assume during my adolescent years, nor the level of protection and comfort, which it would provide me later on.

I was born the second of five children. Marie-Theres was the eldest, and after me there were three more siblings: Klaus, Irmgard and Peter. My father was the viola soloist at the National Theatre of Wiesbaden and directed several men’s choirs in the Rheingau region. My mother was a kindergarten teacher who had given up work after her marriage, as was common in those days. She loved singing and had a wonderful voice! While doing her housework, she was often carried away by her singing, which added a new dimension to the room. For example, she sang the Ave-Maria with a passion that touched me deeply. With Händel’s solemn Largo however, her work at our kitchen stove was no longer important! Sometimes we children stood right behind her, copying her singing practices, open-mouthed and mimicking her gestures. It seems to me today that our mother’s singing was her way of distancing herself from us children, which, of course, we must have found confusing. This is how I see it today.

My father often accompanied my mother on the piano. Overall, music was very important for my parents’ marriage. All of their children, except for Irmgard, played an instrument. Marie-Theres, the eldest, learned to play the piano. But now it is my turn.

Margarete Weinsheimer, 1930

One day, when I was eight years old, I was playing Klicker with my friends in front of the house. This is a game where you roll marbles on the ground, and when a special one touches a glass ball, the marble belongs to you. Suddenly I saw my father coming along the street, carrying an object covered in a case under his arm. I became curious a bit suspicious, and indeed, shortly afterwards he called me from the first floor window, Rudolf! Come upstairs immediately! When I entered the room my father pointed to the string instrument before him, explaining, This is a half-sized cello. Try it out! Even though it was smaller than a normal cello, made especially for children, the sheer size of the instrument somewhat intimidated me. Also, I had no idea how to start playing it. I was puzzled!

Sit down, my father said, putting the cello in front of me right between my knees and across my shoulder. I took the bow and stroked it across the strings a few times, which seems to have convinced him, You make a beautiful tone, and you will be a cellist!

From then on he spent one hour a day teaching me the instrument. He showed me how to hold the bow, how to find one’s focal point by keeping your arm in the right position and how to move the bow with your whole arm across the strings, while at the same time putting the fingers of your other hand on the strings. He watched me patiently and gave me advice when I got too tense.

Gradually, I discovered how to elicit melodious, well-sounding tones from the instrument. In my father’s eyes, I had now advanced into the community of musicians. There is a saying that to be recognized for one’s talents is bliss, and in looking back, I am grateful to my father for having seen my talent early on and for supporting me accordingly. Alas, during those days of early childhood, I quite often missed going outside and playing Klicker with my friends.

Soon afterwards, my father looked for an experienced cello teacher who could seriously teach and coach me. It was Miss Härtel, an elderly lady living in Rheinstrasse, about 15 minutes from our house, whose cello playing finally convinced him. This is when I started to learn about scales, finger exercises and practice, and intonation.

Her apartment was huge, but when I sat there and played, there was only the cello and I, and the strict eyes of my teacher. Some time later we began practicing Goltermann’s Cello Concerto in G-major, a well-known and popular concerto for students.

One day, as I was heading to my lesson, my cello on my back, some soldiers – it was the year 1939 - were standing on the pavement, smiling and asking me, Where on earth are you coming from with this giant guitar? Never short for an answer, I replied self-confidently, I am coming from a concert tour! This was supposed to be funny, but, in hindsight, I tend to think that perhaps even then I had an intuition about where my path would eventually lead me.

At that time, war had already started. Often, my father took my sister and me to visit hospitals, in order to play for wounded soldiers; I remember playing Beethoven’s Gassenhauer Trio and also the Goltermann Concerto. This was the first time I experienced a sense of stage fright, even though our audience were far from being critical. I told my sister, In case I get lost somewhere, please continue with your part, I’ll find my way back in! When this did happen once, though, I did not find my way back in so quickly. Theres played on and on, until my father pushed her aside and took over the accompaniment on the piano. I felt very sorry for her, because she cried bitterly. However, she never blamed or reprimanded me for it!

Like all other boys, I had to join the Hitlerjugend, Hitler’s Young Boys’ Group. The cello, however, provided an excuse from the usual drills like exercising and parading. I was joined by two young violinists and a viola player, all of similar age, and we performed as a string quartet before high-ranking party members visiting town. We played Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik and smaller pieces by Schubert. Afterwards we were ‘promoted’ and received a lace, and later on a star to be put on our boys’ uniforms, which made me proud at the time. Today, of course, it reminds me of a very cynical and deadly context: For us boys, the star meant a badge of honour, for others it was to be a symbol of death.

On the annual Day of House Music, in which a selection of children attending Music Schools were allowed to perform, I was playing the Goltermann Concerto, together with my sister on the piano, and we were awarded First Prize. That was in 1941, when I was ten years old.

In the same year, I attended Gutenbergschule, a secondary school in Wiesbaden, where I played cello in the school orchestra and – on special occasions – performed as a soloist in our Assembly Hall.

At that time the bombing of big cities had already started. Almost every night, the sirens were wailing, and my mother took us five children,