the loser (2016) 60'

solo baritone, solo piano; perc, va, vc, db

The Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2016 Next Wave Festival

Libretto

Suicide calculated well in advance, I thought, no spontaneous act of desperation.

SCENE 1
Even Glenn Gould, our friend and the most important piano virtuoso of the century, only made it to the age of fifty-one, I thought to myself as I entered the inn. Now of course he didn’t kill himself like Wertheimer, but died, as they say, a natural death. Exactly twenty-eight years ago we had studied with Horowitz and we (at least Wertheimer and I, but of course not Glenn Gould) learned more from Horowitz than during eight previous years at the Vienna Academy. Horowitz rendered all our professors null and void. But these dreadful teachers had been necessary to understand Horowitz. For two and a half months we locked ourselves in our rooms and worked day and night, insomnia had become a necessary state for us, during the night we worked through what Horowitz had taught us the day before. We ate almost nothing. Once our course with Horowitz was over it was clear that Glenn was already a better piano player than Horowitz himself, and from that moment on Glenn was the most important piano virtuoso in the world for me. Wertheimer and I were equally good, even Wertheimer always said, Glenn is the best, even if we didn’t yet dare to say that he was the best player of the century. When Glenn went back to Canada we had actually lost our Canadian friend, we didn’t think we’d ever see him again, he was so possessed by his art that we had to assume he couldn’t continue in that state for very long and would soon die. But two years after we’d studied together Glenn came to the Salzburg Festival to play the Goldberg Variations, which two years previously he had practiced with us day and night. After the concert the papers wrote that no pianist had ever played the Goldberg Variations so artistically. Glenn never played a single note without humming, I thought, no other piano player ever had that habit. He spoke of his lung disease as if it were his second art. That we had the same illness at the same time and then always came down with it again, I thought, and in the end even Wertheimer got our illness. But Glenn didn’t die from this lung disease, I thought. He was killed by the impasse he had played himself into for almost forty years, I thought. He never gave up the piano, I thought, of course not, whereas Wertheimer and I gave up the piano because we never attained the inhuman state that Glenn attained, who by the way never escaped this inhuman state, who didn’t even want to escape this inhuman state. Wertheimer had his Bösendorfer grand piano auctioned off, I gave away my Steinway one day to the nine-year-old daughter of a schoolteacher so as not to be tortured by it any longer. The teacher’s child ruined my Steinway in the shortest period imaginable, I wasn’t pained by this fact, on the contrary, I observed this cretinous destruction of my piano with perverse pleasure. Without my music, which from one day to the next I could no longer tolerate, I deteriorated. From one moment to the next I hated my piano, my own, couldn’t bear to hear myself play again; I no longer wanted to paw at my instrument. So one day I visited the teacher to announce my gift to him, my Steinway, I’d heard his daughter was musically gifted, I said to him. The teacher accepted my gift immediately, I thought as I entered the inn. I hadn’t believed in his daughter’s talent for a minute; the children of country schoolteachers are always touted as having talent, but in truth they’re not talented in anything. The teacher’s daughter took my instrument, one of the very best, one of the rarest and therefore most sought after and therefore also most expensive pianos in the world, and in the shortest period imaginable destroyed it, rendered it worthless. But of course it was precisely this destruction process of my beloved Steinway that I had wanted. I will now devote myself to philosophical matters, I thought as I walked to the teacher’s house, even though of course I didn’t have the faintest idea what these philosophical matters might be. I am absolutely not a piano virtuoso, I said to myself, I am not an interpreter, I am not a reproducing artist. No artist at all. The depravity of my idea had appealed to me immediately. The whole time on my way to the teacher’s I kept on saying these three words: Absolutely no artist! Absolutely no artist! Absolutely no artist! If I hadn’t met Glenn Gould, I probably wouldn’t have given up the piano and would have become a piano virtuoso and perhaps even one of the best piano virtuosos in the world, I thought in the inn. When we meet the very best, we have to give up, I thought.

SCENE 2
Strangely enough I met Glenn on Monk’s Mountain, my childhood mountain, which is also called Suicide Mountain, since it is especially suited for suicide and every week at least three or four people throw themselves off it into the void. The prospective suicides ride the elevator inside the mountain to the top, take a few steps and hurl themselves down to the city below. Their smashed remains on the street have always fascinated me and I personally (like Wertheimer by the way!) have often climbed or ridden the elevator to the top of Monk’s Mountain with the intention of hurling myself into the void, but I didn’t throw myself off (nor did Wertheimer!). Several times I had already prepared myself to jump (like Wertheimer!) but didn’t jump, like Wertheimer. I turned back. Of course many more people have turned back than have actually jumped, I thought. I met Glenn on Monk’s Mountain. I spoke first, I said, both of us are studying with Horowitz. Yes, he answered.

SCENE 3
It’s not my way to sacrifice my existence to sentimentality. I burst into laughter and had the piano brought to the teacher’s house and amused myself for days with my own laughter about the piano delivery, that’s the truth, I laughed at my piano virtuoso career, which went up in smoke in a single moment. And probably this piano virtuoso career that I had suddenly tossed aside was a necessary part of my deterioration process, I thought while entering the inn. We try out all possible avenues and then abandon them, abruptly throw decades of work in the garbage can. Wertheimer was always slower, never as decisive in his decisions as I, he tossed his piano virtuosity in the garbage can years after me and, unlike me, he didn’t get over it, never did, again and again I heard him bellyaching that he never should have stopped playing the piano, he should have continued, I was partly responsible, was always his model in important issues, in existential decisions, as he once put it, I thought as I entered the inn. Taking Horowitz’s course was as deadly for me as it was for Wertheimer, for Glenn however it was a stroke of genius. Wertheimer and I, as far as our piano virtuosity and in fact music generally were concerned, weren’t killed by Horowitz but by Glenn, I thought. Glenn destroyed our piano virtuosity at a time when we still firmly believed in our piano virtuosity. Who knows, if I hadn’t gone to Horowitz, whether I wouldn’t be a piano virtuoso today, one of those famous ones. Immediately I quashed that idea, for I detested virtuosity and its attendant features from the very beginning, I detested above all appearing before the populace, I absolutely detested the applause, I couldn’t stand it, for years I didn’t know, is it the bad air in concert halls or the applause I can’t stand, or both. For I absolutely detested the public and everything that had to do with this public and therefore I detested the virtuoso (and virtuosos) personally as well. And Glenn himself played in public only for two or three years, then he couldn’t stand it anymore and stayed home, in his house in America. When we visited him for the last time he had already given up public concerts ten years before. We spent two and a half weeks in Glenn’s house, which he had equipped with his own recording studio. My dear loser, Glenn greeted Wertheimer, with his Canadian-American coldbloodedness he always called him the loser, he called me quite dryly the philosopher, which didn’t bother me. Wertheimer, the loser, was for Glenn always busy losing, constantly losing out, whereas Glenn noticed I had the word philosopher in my mouth at all times and probably with sickening regularity, and so quite naturally we were for him the loser and the philosopher, I said to myself upon entering the inn. The loser and the philosopher went to America to see Glenn the piano virtuoso again, for no other reason. Wertheimer and I loved New York right from the start. It’s the most beautiful city in the world and it also has the best air, we repeated again and again, nowhere in the world have we breathed better air. Glenn confirmed what we sensed: New York is the only city in the world where a thinking person can breathe freely the minute he sets foot in it.

SCENE 4
Glenn is the victor, we are the failures, I thought in the inn. Glenn put an end to his existence at the only true moment, I thought. And he didn’t finish it off himself, that is by his own hand, as did Wertheimer, who had no other choice, who had to hang himself, I thought. Just as one could predict Glenn’s end well in advance, so one could predict Wertheimer’s end long in advance, I thought. Glenn is said to have suffered a fatal stroke in the middle of the Goldberg Variations. Wertheimer couldn’t take Glenn’s death. After Glenn’s death he was ashamed to still be alive, to have outlived the genius so to speak, that fact martyred him his entire last year, as I know. For years I tormented myself with the question whether it was right to visit him in America. A pitiful question. At first Wertheimer didn’t want to, I finally talked him into it. Wertheimer’s sister was against her brother visiting the world-famous Glenn Gould, whom she considered dangerous for him. Wertheimer finally prevailed over his sister and came with me to America and to Glenn. Over and over I kept telling myself, this is our last chance to see Glenn. I actually was expecting his death and I had absolutely wanted to see him again, hear him play, I thought as I stood in the inn and inhaled the inn’s fetid aroma, which was all too familiar. I always stayed in this inn when I visited Wertheimer, since I couldn’t stay with Wertheimer, he couldn’t tolerate overnight guests. I’ve never spent the night at his house, it never would have occurred to me. For over two decades Wertheimer found refuge with his sister in one of the biggest and most luxurious apartments in Vienna. But finally his sister married a so-called industrialist from Switzerland and moved in with her husband. Of all places Switzerland and of all people a chemical-plant owner, as Wertheimer expressed it to me. A horrendous match. She left me in the lurch, blubbered Wertheimer over and over. In his suddenly empty apartment he appeared paralyzed, after his sister moved out he would sit for days in a chair without moving, then start running from room to room like the proverbial chicken, back and forth, until he finally holed himself up in his father’s hunting lodge. After his parents’ death he nonetheless lived with his sister and tyrannized this sister for twenty years, as I know, for years he kept her from having any contact with men and with society in general, umbrellaed her off so to speak, chained her to herself. But she broke loose and ditched him. How could she do this to me, he said to me, I thought. I’ve done everything for her, sacrificed myself for her, and now she’s left me behind, just ditched me, runs after this nouveau riche character in Switzerland Wertheimer said, I thought in the inn. He worked himself up several times to the claim that he had given up his piano virtuosity for love of his sister, I called it quits because of her, sacrificed my career, he said, gave away everything that had meant anything to me. This was how he tried to lie his way out of his own desperation, I thought. He once told me quite seriously that he had dreamed of growing old with his sister in the apartment, I’ll grow old with her here, in these rooms, he once told me. Things turned out differently, his sister slipped away from him, turned her back on him, perhaps at the very last possible moment, I thought.

SCENE 5
Those who live in the country get idiotic in time, without noticing it, for a while they think it’s original and good for their health, but life in the country is not original at all, for anyone who wasn’t born in and for the country it shows a lack of taste and is only harmful to their health. The people who go walking in the country walk right into their own funeral in the country and at the very least they lead a grotesque existence which leads them first into idiocy, then into an absurd death. To recommend country life to a city person so that he can stay alive is a dirty internist’s trick, I thought. All these people who leave the city for the country so they can live longer and healthier lives are only horrible specimens of human beings, I thought. But in the end Wertheimer was not just the victim of his internist but even more the victim of his conviction that his sister lived only to serve him. He actually said several times that his sister was born for him, to stay with him, to protect him so to speak. No one has disappointed me like my sister! he once exclaimed, I thought. He grew fatally accustomed to his sister, I thought. For twenty years he was able to chain his sister to him, with thousands, yes, hundreds of thousands of chains, then she broke loose from him and, as I believe, even married well, as they say. The already rich sister found herself a stinking rich Swiss husband. He could no longer tolerate the word sister, Wertheimer told me the last time I saw him. She didn’t even send me a card, he said, I thought in the inn, looking around. She stole away from him in the night and left everything lying in the apartment, she didn’t take a single thing with her, he said over and over. Although she promised she’d never leave me, never, he said, I thought.

SCENE 6
I’m the survivor! Now I’m alone, I thought, since, to tell the truth, I only had two people in my life who gave it any meaning: Glenn and Wertheimer. Now Glenn and Wertheimer are dead and I have to come to terms with this fact. The inn struck me as rather shabby, like all inns in this region everything in it was dirty and the air, as they say, was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Everything about it was unappetizing. I could have long since called for the innkeeper, I knew her personally, but I didn’t call. Wertheimer is reported to have slept with the innkeeper several times, naturally in her inn, not in his hunting lodge, I thought. The idea of wanting to see Wertheimer’s hunting lodge after his death suddenly struck me as absurd, I smacked my forehead, although without actually doing it. I’ve got a lot of nerve, I thought. I suddenly felt like a grave-robber with my plan to look at the hunting lodge and enter every room in the hunting lodge, leaving no stone unturned and developing my own theories about it. I actually had planned and still plan to look over the writings that Wertheimer may have left behind. Wertheimer often spoke of writings he had been working on over the years. A lot of nonsense, as Wertheimer put it, but he was also arrogant, which led me to assume that this nonsense might be rather valuable, would at least contain Wertheimerian thoughts worth preserving, collecting, saving, ordering, I thought, and already I could see an entire stack of notebooks (and notes) containing more or less mathematical, philosophical observations. It’s possible that Wertheimer never told anyone but me about his writings (and notes), I thought, and tucked them away somewhere, so I owe it to him to dig out these notebooks and writings (and notes) and preserve them, no matter how difficult it proves to be. Glenn actually left nothing behind, Glenn didn’t keep any kind of written record, I thought, Wertheimer on the contrary never stopped writing, for years, for decades. Above all I’ll find this or that interesting observation about Glenn, I thought, at least something about the three of us, about our student years, about our teachers, about our development and about the development of the entire world, I thought as I stood in the inn and looked out the kitchen window, behind which however I could see nothing, for the windowpanes were black with filth.

SCENE 7
Glenn died at the perfect moment, I thought, but Wertheimer didn’t commit suicide at the perfect moment, whoever commits suicide never commits suicide at the perfect moment, whereas a so-called natural death always occurs at the perfect moment. Wertheimer had wanted to compete with Glenn, I thought, to show his sister, to pay her back for everything by hanging himself only a hundred steps from her house. He bought himself a train ticket and hanged himself a hundred steps in front of his sister’s house. Wertheimer’s calculation worked perfectly: he thrust his sister into a lifelong guilt complex through the means and place of his suicide, I thought. That calculation is just like Wertheimer, I thought. But in doing so he made himself ridiculous, I thought. He had already left with the intention of hanging himself from a tree a hundred steps from his sister’s house, I thought. Suicide calculated well in advance, I thought, no spontaneous act of desperation. I’ve always thought, one day I’ll go to Wertheimer’s funeral, of course I never knew when, only that it would happen, even though I never voiced this thought, above all not in Wertheimer’s presence, whereas he, Wertheimer, very often told me that he would go to my funeral one day, that’s what I was thinking about while waiting for the innkeeper. He wanted to publish a book, but it never came to that, for he kept changing his manuscript, changing it so often and to such an extent that nothing was left of the manuscript, for the change in his manuscript was nothing other than the complete deletion of the manuscript, of which finally nothing remained except the title, The Loser. From now on I have only the title, he said to me, it’s better that way.

SCENE 8
The loser was a born loser, I thought, he has always been the loser and if we observe the people around us carefully we notice that these people consist almost entirely of losers like him, I said to myself, of dead-end types like Wertheimer, whom Glenn Gould had pegged the moment he saw him as a dead-end type and loser and whom Glenn Gould had also first called the loser in his ruthless but thoroughly open Canadian-American manner, Glenn Gould had said out loud and without any embarrassment what the others also thought but never said out loud. We always have to deal with losers and dead-end types like him, I said to myself and lowered my head into the wind. Whereas the Goldberg Variations were composed for the sole purpose of helping an insomniac put up with the insomnia he had suffered from all his life, I thought, they killed Wertheimer. They were originally composed to delight the soul and almost two hundred and fifty years later they have killed a hopeless person, I thought. I knew the hunting lodge, my first impression was that nothing had changed. The woodsman Franz whom I knew, greeted me. He, Franz, feared that now, after the death of Wertheimer, of his provider, everything might change.

What he, Franz, particularly noticed, that is that Wertheimer had had a piano delivered from Salzburg in order to play it, certainly should have some meaning for me. A piano actually stood where no piano had stood for a decade, now there’s a piano. I was interested in Wertheimer’s notes, I had said to Franz, without hesitating Franz then led me up to the second floor. The piano was worth nothing. And it was, as I noticed right away, totally out of tune, an amateur’s instrument through and through, I thought. I shut the cover immediately. I was interested in the notes, the slips of paper Wertheimer had written, I said to Franz, whether he could tell me where these notes were. He didn’t know what notes I meant, said Franz, only then reporting the fact that Wertheimer, on the day he had ordered a piano for himself had burned entire stacks of paper in the so-called downstairs stove, that is the stove in the dining room. He, Franz, had helped his master with this task, for the stacks of notes were so large and heavy that Wertheimer hadn’t been able to drag them downstairs alone. He had taken out hundreds and thousands of notes from all his drawers and closets and with his, Franz’s, help had dragged them down to the dining room to burn the notes. When the notes were all burned, all that writing, as Franz expressed himself, he, Wertheimer, called and ordered the piano and Franz distinctly recalled that during this telephone call kept insisting that they send a completely worthless, a horribly untuned grand piano. A completely worthless instrument, a horribly untuned instrument, Wertheimer is supposed to have repeated over and over on the phone, said Franz. A few hours later four people delivered the piano and put it in the former music room, said Franz. The deliverymen weren’t out the door, said Franz, before Wertheimer sat down at the piano and began playing. It was awful, said Franz. He, Franz, had thought his master had lost his mind. I asked Franz to leave me alone in Wertheimer’s room for a while and put on Glenn’s Goldberg Variations, which I had seen lying on Wertheimer’s record player, which was still open.

copyright © 2016 by Red Poppy, Ltd., THE LOSER by Thomas Bernard Used by Permission of SuhrkampVerlag AG, Berlin. Translated by Jack Dawson. This translation used by permission of The Knopf Doubleday Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Video score preview