HEINZ UNGER
When Dr Heinz Unger emigrated to Canada in 1948, he left behind in Germany a respected conducting career, which had only once and briefly fulfilled its promise in his appointment as resident maestro with a major orchestra. Nor did such an appointment come his way in North America. But he was invited to guest-conduct, here and there, often enough to keep the wolf from the door; and the family income was supplemented by the earnings of his wife, Dr Helga Unger, who worked as a dentist, practising in the front half of their Toronto home. Being an enterprising man, he organized funds, from public and private sources, to found his own orchestra, which he called the York Concert Society. Its funding was not large enough to provide for many concerts. But at least, whenever performances were possible, he was able to operate as Artistic Director as well as Conductor, and thus could plan his schedule to accommodate the rather time-consuming approach to rehearsal that satisfied his temperament and his working habits.
That temperament, understandably, was a product of his background in the musical and social culture of Germany. Many different kinds of personality have flourished in that setting: the dictatorial (Herbert von Karajan); the collegial (Bruno Walter); the devout (Helmuth Rilling). Heinz Unger, almost equally talented, was none of these. But he was almost a stereotype of another kind of German: without being pompous or authoritarian, he nevertheless had an ingrained sense of the respect due him on the podium; his deepest affinity was with German and Austrian composers, especially those who belonged to the late-romantic period that culminated in the neurasthenic works of Mahler; and his view of such pieces was as much philosophical as it was musical, giving rise to long and earnest disquisitions on the subject during rehearsal.
However, this last proclivity could only be given free rein when he was working with his own York Concert Society. The orchestra’s members learnt to put up with his musings patiently: it came with the job, it was a sort of occupational hazard. But when he was guest-conducting other orchestras, it was a different story: the rehearsal schedule was usually tight, leaving little room for talk, and the players would have preferred to spend the limited time actually rehearsing, rather than listening to the sermonettes he still managed to squeeze in — most of which were somewhat wearisome and even, in part, unintelligible. On such occasions, Unger must have suffered: his artistic and philosophical propensities were at war with the dictates of the budget; and inwardly he probably raged at the crass deficiencies of a North American culture that failed so dismally to match the European tradition of lavish state support for the arts.
A classic example of this conflicting difficulty, but one with a humorous outcome, resulted from one of Unger’s guest appearances with the CBC Symphony Orchestra. The program was devoted to two works, by Schubert and Mahler. The Schubert was well known to the players, and was quickly rehearsed with minimal lecturing from the podium. That left the Mahler work with the lion’s share of the time allotted, and Unger took full advantage of this to explain, at tedious length, the profound significance of every phrase in the score. By the time the last rehearsal was over, Unger had expanded on his theme, verbally, with all sections of the orchestra, and with many individual players. But time had run out on him. He had not yet made a case for his version of Mahler’s idiom with the principal trombonist, Teddy Roderman. As the orchestra dispersed, not to meet again until the following afternoon, for the broadcast, Unger took Roderman aside and asked him if he would be good enough to come up to the house next morning, to go over some aspects of the trombone part with him; there were things he had to say about them, and he wanted to be sure that he and Roderman were of one mind about their interpretation.
Now, if ever there was a musician with whom such a request was superfluous, it was Roderman. A virtuoso equally at home in jazz and classical music, he was technically adroit and stylistically responsive to any kind of direction. For example, hired once to play a piece of Gregorian chant, which was a form of music he had never heard either sung or played, he gave an idiomatically flawless solo performance after only one rehearsal with an experienced Gregorian conductor. So it can be assumed that he would have served Mahler equally well, and Unger’s version of Mahler, without there being any need for private interpretative colloquium
However, Roderman was a good-hearted and flexible man; and he acceded to the request, even though such a meeting, unpaid and confidential, was strictly against Musicians Union rules. It may be that he was curious: despite his superb musicianship, he was always willing to learn; and perhaps he might get a new angle on something from this rather odd fellow with the rather thick German accent. So next morning, at the hour appointed he showed up at the Ungers’ front door, horn in hand, checked the little card that proclaimed Dr H.Unger, and rang the bell.
The door was opened, quite quickly, by a stern-looking woman, wearing a white medical coat over her dress, who sized him up at once as a musician because of his trombone case, and said brusquely, in an impatient voice, like a Prussian drill-sergeant faced with a particularly stupid and unwelcome recruit, “Wrong door. Round the corner. Other door.”
Slightly abashed, and meekly, Roderman rounded the corner of the house to a side door, and there, too, was a little card that proclaimed Dr H.Unger. He rang the bell. Almost at once, the door was opened, by the very same lady, no longer wearing the white coat and greeting him with the gracious smile of a serene Hausfrau. “Please, to come in, yes? This door is correct for music. Dr Unger is expecting you. Other door is correct for my office: for dentistry.”
Ushered thus circuitously into the Presence, Roderman sat politely for some thirty minutes receiving Illumination, and then went home, not much the wiser, but amused. The experience was not one he was anxious to repeat; but it did make for a good story to share with his fellow-musician on rehearsal breaks.
As for the Drs Unger, they were not known to possess a sense of humour, except perhaps one of a ponderous Teutonic kind, so they were unlikely to have seen anything funny in the incident at all.
But then, in all probability, neither would Gustav Mahler.
