Chicago Symphony

May 2, 2014

Fred Spector: From Combat to Friendship with Fritz Reiner

Fred SpectorWhat part does courage play in being an orchestral musician? In the life of 89-year-old Fred Spector, that part was not small. A Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) violinist from 1956 to 2003, his early career progress was interrupted by World War II.  But the experience prepared him for his eventual contact with Fritz Reiner, orchestral martinet nonpareil, as well as one of the greatest conductors of all time.

Fred entered the Army Air Forces in 1943 as an 18-year-old navigator of a B-25 aircraft. Mortal combat, not playing the fiddle, was now his life. Once the war ended, Fred took up the violin again for the first time in three years. Living on Kyushu Island in Japan, he was asked by a priest to give a classical violin recital. With his commander’s encouragement and lots of practice, Fred gave the first post-war concert in that area along with an accompanist in 1946.

After returning to the USA, Spector’s aspiration to become a CSO member returned. Indeed, he had taken lessons with John Weicher, the Chicago Symphony’s concertmaster, before entering the Army Air Forces, as a stepping stone to his eventual goal. For the next decade Fred spent time with the Civic Orchestra (the CSO’s training orchestra) as its concertmaster, played recitals, worked on radio broadcasts, performed in night clubs, and conducted Broadway shows that were touring. His reputation spread until Fritz Reiner hired him in 1956 to join the CSO’s second violins.

fritz-reiner

Reiner was notorious for “testing” musicians he didn’t know. It wasn’t long before Fred’s turn came. Leon Brenner, then the assistant leader of the second violins, became ill. Fred was moved from well into the section to the spot that was almost within the conductor’s reach.

During one rehearsal of two or more hours, Reiner targeted the young Spector, then a man with flaming, bright red hair. According to Fred:

Every 10 or 15 minutes he would stop the orchestra and say, ‘Spector, you are playing wrong!’ He wouldn’t tell me what I was doing wrong. We’d start again and 10 or 15 minutes later: ‘You are playing wrong!’ This went on for the whole rehearsal. I asked Francis Akos (the leader of the seconds, who was sitting next to me) what I was doing wrong. He said, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing wrong.’ (After that day) I sat there in the same seat (while Brenner was ill) and Reiner said not a word to me.

When Leon came back, Reiner made one of his few jokes. While I was going back to my regular seat he said, ‘Spector, you played very well. Spector De la Rosa (referring to my red hair).’ He laughed and the whole orchestra laughed. (Thereafter) I got to know him and became very friendly with him because of photography. Photography was a hobby (we shared) and I was the unofficial photographer of the CSO… I took some very good pictures of Reiner that he loved.

I asked Fred if he ever questioned Reiner about what he was doing “wrong” once he and the conductor became friendly.

We were at a party that he threw and I was sitting at a table with him and David Greenbaum (longtime CSO cellist), and David’s wife and Reiner’s wife were there, too. Reiner’s wife had David do some imitations of Reiner and then (Reiner kidded) David: ‘So now that you did that, where are you going to work next year?’ And at that point I asked Reiner, ‘Remember, three or four years ago, you were telling me I played wrong all the time?’ He said, ‘Yes, yes.’ ‘What did I do that was wrong?’ He said, ‘Nothing. I just wanted to see if you would get nervous.’ I didn’t get nervous, I was great!

I then questioned Fred about how he managed to keep his composure, since Reiner was notorious for breaking the confidence of many seasoned and talented musicians.

It really wasn’t difficult for me. I guess, compared to combat, that was nothing.

Fred Spector, as he enters his 90th year, has seen it all, done it all, and then some.

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The 2010 photo of Fred Spector is courtesy of his son, J.B. Spector. It was sourced from Wikimedia Commons. The second photo is Fritz Reiner.

 

 

February 22, 2014

Lessons in Saying Goodbye: The Farewells of Carlo Maria Giulini

Giulini

Meaningful farewells are rarely easy. Some people hide their emotions, others are overwrought. Here are two examples from someone you will relate to: Carlo Maria Giulini (1914-2005), the famous Italian musician whose 100th birthday anniversary we are celebrating this year. His model of how to handle parting might nudge you to rethink your own.

The first farewell was both heart-rending and public, beginning with a rehearsal and then in performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) in March, 1971 when Giulini was its Principal Guest conductor.

Fred Spector, a now retired CSO violinist, told the story in 2001:

We were doing the Verdi Requiem and we knew that his mother had just died (unexpectedly, while he was in Chicago). He walked out on stage (to rehearse with us), starts to conduct the Requiem and stops. He was crying and he said “They want me to come home. What good is that? My mother is dead. It is more important that I have this experience with you and the Verdi Requiem and think about my mother.” And now he’s got us all crying, the whole orchestra in tears. “That’s more important because then I can experience and think about my mother in this marvelous Requiem.”

That is kind of what this man was about and those were the greatest performances I’ve ever played of the Verdi Requiem, bar none…. We wanted to get that feeling that he wanted for his mother.

Giulini said goodbye in a different way when he accepted the Music Directorship of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, to begin in 1978. It would mark the end of his 23 year association with the Chicago Symphony, the orchestra with which he made his American debut in 1955. The announcement came about one year before his final CSO concerts.

The conductor handwrote a letter to the Orchestra itself shortly after the news became public, and he eventually would make the rounds of the various staffers at Orchestra Hall to say a personal farewell when he returned during the 1977/78 season, before taking on his Los Angeles duties. Here is a portion of his April 16, 1977 letter:

My Dear Friends,

Circumstances made it that during the week of your deserved rest I was regrettably unable to personally meet with you. In a sense, this may have been a blessing in disguise, since such a meeting would have produced in me so many emotions that I would have been overwhelmed. That is why I am writing this letter to each and every one of you.

How long has it been since we have been together and made music together? At times it seems it was so long ago and at others, as if it were yesterday. In all of these years, so much music and work was translated in a rare and precious manifestation of friendship and collaboration between us that transcends the level of dutiful professionalism and indeed represents the true spirit of our calling as musicians. In the course of our long association, a rare and precious relationship developed among us — much as the one that existed among my quartet companions of my younger days (when I was a violist). A relationship that springs from excellence, love and dedication to the noblest purpose of music — of which we are the custodians.

For the music and work we did together, for your trust and loyal support, for all the feelings of joy and fulfillment we shared, and for what we have been able to transmit to music lovers, I thank you most profoundly.

There is not much more for me to add — because I am sure that you will understand both what I feel and what I mean.

You will continue to occupy a special place in my heart as you always have,…

As for the future… it is in the Hands of God.

Until we meet again, I fraternally embrace each and every one of you and wish you all the very best and —

Godspeed.

Carlo Maria

Thomas Saler* wrote of the rehearsals that preceded the conductor’s last CSO performance on March 18, 1978:

“Chicago was the most beautiful moment in my musical life,” (Giulini) said. “It is in my blood, not just in my heart.” Ever the Italian poet, Giulini expressed that sentiment to his musician friends at the first rehearsal before those final concerts. “For me, Venice is more incredibly beautiful every time I return. And so, gentlemen, are you.”

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For more on Giulini see: A Man Who Refused to Judge.

*Thomas Saler, Serving Genius: Carlo Maria Giulini (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 86.

December 6, 2013

A Dressing Disaster and More: The CSO at Princeton

Solti 2

When on tour, great orchestras like the Chicago Symphony are expected to “show their stuff.” But, at Jadwin Gymnasium, Princeton University on December 4, 1972, a bit too much of “their stuff” was showing. It was a time before orchestra contracts guaranteed proper dressing facilities, nice hotel rooms, and the kinds of auditoriums that made the ensemble shine. And the Princeton event was the type of calamity that led to some of those guarantees.

The program included Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides” (Fingal’s Cave) Overture and Mahler’s Symphony #5. The latter had already put the CSO and Solti on the cover of Time Magazine. European and American audiences were floored by an orchestra that could, in the words of NY Times critic James Oestereich, “grasp those huge, complex works whole and, with remarkably sustained virtuosity and power, render them as gleaming monolithic unities, seemingly perfect in every detail and cumulatively overwhelming.” Such was the power and precision of the CSO’s Mahler, something it retains to this day.

But Jadwin gym was no Carnegie Hall. Indeed, it was no concert hall at all, but rather an athletic facility with risers for seats. If you sat in the first several rows of those risers and came early, you saw the empty musicians’ chairs and screens or partitions just behind them, presumably to help reflect the sound forward to the listeners. But if you sat high up on the risers, you saw something extra: Tom Hall, then a CSO violinist, told me the story in a 2006 interview:

We arrived to discover that “Jadwin Auditorium” was actually Jadwin Gymnasium. The audience was seated in bleachers… the top of the bleachers of which were high enough so that people who came early could see over the screens that had been placed behind the orchestra… And the orchestra’s wardrobe trunks were there and we had to change (into our concert attire) back there and some of the changing was visible to the audience…!

And, yes, the program included the Mahler 5th and not long after (it began) the climate system kicked-in, the fans made a substantial noise… and the conductor and orchestra carried on. The fans (eventually) shut down. And the fans not long thereafter started up again and we kept going; and I think the third time (in the third movement) Mr. Solti had had enough. (At the end of the movement) he stopped and put down his baton and walked off. There was some applause (actually). I suppose some people thought that was the end of the piece!

Solti had good reason to stop. The gym sounded like an airplane hangar with all the engines and propellers going full-blast. The sheer volume of the CSO at full-tilt — augmented brass, percussion, and all — could not defeat the air conditioners. I know. I was there.

(Anyway) Solti went over and talked to some of the powers-that-be in the CSO management and the engineers or the presenters of the concert; and there was much pointing to the fans located in the ceiling and Solti was obviously saying, “I’m not going to continue, turn these off!” And the matter was resolved and he came back and played and there was no further interruption.

My suggestion to the (CSO’s) Marketing Department was that they report the concert as “Roaring Fans Greet Orchestra at Princeton,” but they didn’t touch that one.

While Tom Hall’s description and my own differ in a small number of particulars, the essentials of our stories are the same. It was a time when the CSO would get more cheers simply by walking on stage before a concert (especially in Carnegie Hall) than most orchestra’s received after the music stopped. But, so far as I know, this is the only time ever that the CSO was greeted by “Roaring Fans.” At least the inadvertent “dressing room” peep-show didn’t cause them to be called “The Orchestra With Nothing to Hide.”

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The top photo is Sir Georg Solti.

October 12, 2013

Fritz Reiner: A Marriage of Talent and Terror

Fritz Reiner

People were afraid of Fritz Reiner. Talented people, self-assured people, decent people. He was notorious for finding a small crack in your confidence and opening it wide. But he was also known for something else.

Fritz Reiner was not just a sadist, but a genius. One of the greatest conductors ever and the man who took the Chicago Symphony, from 1953 to 1962, and fashioned a legend. According to Igor Stravinsky, Reiner “made the Chicago  Symphony into the most precise and flexible orchestra in the world.”

For those who want individuals to be neatly categorized as all good or all bad, Reiner is confounding: both a great artist and a questionable human. He brings to mind Toscanini’s comment about the composer Richard Strauss: “To Strauss the composer I take off my hat; to Strauss the man I put it back on again.”

Fritz Reiner was a conductor who had virtually no flaws, however flawed he was personally. His repertoire ranged from the light music of Johann Strauss, Jr. and Richard Rogers’ musical theater Carousel, to the gravity of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. Equally at home in the German, Russian, and French repertoire, he played music from Bach to Bartok and much in between. But the road was hard for those musicians who joined him on his artistic quests: demanding if you were on his good side, career-threatening if you were not.

According to Gunther Schuller, who played principal horn under Reiner at the Metropolitan Opera:

He clearly had a sadistic streak in him, and truly enjoyed making musicians uncomfortable, making them squirm, humiliating them. He was the type (who)… inflicted his particular sadistic gratifications in a coolly clinical, perfectly controlled manner, a type we have seen many times in films caricaturing Prussian or Nazi officers and the like… With Reiner I clearly sensed that he was deriving a certain emotional and intellectual pleasure from torturing his victims… (He was a person who) would not only deliver his stinging sarcasm in utter calculated calm, but would also pursue his victim until the person broke, it being symptomatic of this type of verbal sadist that he can easily sense a weakling who is unable to stand up to the abuse; this type of sadist hunts down his prey until the kill has been accomplished.*

Fritz Reiner by John Jensen:

Fritz Reiner by John Jensen: http://www.Johnjensen.co.uk

Reiner’s twin capacity to inflict discomfort and create staggering musical moments combined in the surgical precision of his approach to his musicians. Through his movements and his words, the conductor was able to inflect the musical line or inflict personal pain as he chose.

Reiner took a minimalist approach to the use of his baton, in what came to be called a “vest pocket beat.” As Philip Farkas (principal horn for most of Reiner’s CSO tenure) recalled:

He conducted with everything he had, not only with his hands. I recall he’d be looking at the first violins, so we’d get only a profile. A big brass entrance would come in. He’d suddenly turn his head and, still directing his hands toward the violins, would look at us and puff out his cheeks right on the beat, which was a real demonstration of when the winds should come in. Then, if we’d had that attack he gave us with his cheeks, if he wanted a crescendo, his eyebrows would go slowly higher. While still working with the first violins, he might kick out in back of him and bring in the violas with his foot**

Clearly, Reiner knew his business and knew what he could achieve by talent and by intimidation, as Farkas illustrated in recalling Reiner’s first rehearsal with the CSO as its new Music Director:

We’d had a long number of years of lax discipline and too many guest conductors. The men were good, it was a good orchestra, but undisciplined and far from being a cohesive group. So Reiner took over and tore that orchestra apart. In a two-hour rehearsal he pulled us apart and put us together again — literally — and in the course of doing it actually fired one of the men. He said, “I don’t accept that kind of playing in my orchestra.” We thought, “Gee, you haven’t even got the orchestra yet, it’s only an hour or so.” But it was his orchestra, he had a contract to prove it. Anyhow, he took us apart and we needed it, we all knew that. And when he put it back together and we went straight through Ein Heldenleben (by Richard Strauss) the last hour of rehearsal, it was a revelation. There we had it, and we knew we had it, but we couldn’t do it until he came along. When he did it, it was great. But, as I say, he was rough. He spared no mercy on us at all. As he went out the door after the rehearsal, he was the only calm one. The rest of us were ringing wet. As he went out the door, one of our wags in the orchestra, (the violinist) Royal Johnson, said, “Well, not much of a conductor, but an awfully nice fellow!”***

Reiner’s reputation had preceded him. Indeed, one attributed feature of his almost demonic musicianship was the ability to give every player the feeling that he and he alone was being watched by the conductor at every moment. Perhaps it was that quality that accounts for the following CSO story, also involving Royal Johnson. Johnson was seated on stage — on the aisle that led to the stage door. At an early rehearsal in Reiner’s tenure, Johnson got up as Reiner moved past him to the podium and walked very quietly just behind the conductor, peering over his shoulder. What he observed was an apparent surgical scar that Reiner had on the back of his neck, something other musicians had already commented on. Johnson quickly returned to his seat before Reiner noticed anything unusual. The violinist turned to his stand-mate and said, “You know, that’s not his original head!”

For Gunther Schuller, Adolph (Bud) Herseth (the CSO’s legendary principal trumpet), and many others, the key to survival under these conditions, was to stand up to the conductor — to look Reiner in the eyes as he stared you down and to keep playing well, no matter how many times he might ask you to repeat a phrase in order to “test” you. Reiner claimed that he wanted musicians he could rely on, who he could depend upon “in the trenches.” If you passed his tests and didn’t break, he usually left you alone thereafter. But, it was a day before strong musicians’ committees and contracts that protected the players. The conductor did, indeed, have your professional life and livelihood in his hands.

Could he have achieved what he wanted without being ruthless? Theoretically, the answer is, of course. But, at a human level, our strengths are frequently also our weaknesses. His ability to lead and his unyielding dominance were probably inextricably intermingled.

The cost of Reiner’s achievement was doubtless a high one. But often, it must be admitted, that combination of talent and terror led to something special. Never more than on a CSO tour concert in 1958. Philip Farkas relates the story:

As time went along on this Boston concert, it was obvious that we had a “no-hitter” going. Tension was mounting — there hadn’t been the slightest flaw, no scratch. Intermission came, and we said, “Jeez, what’s going on? We’re playing even better than usual.” So at the end of the concert — nobody had scratched a note anywhere during the entire concert. We were all aware of this, and very excited about it. When we went off stage after the applause had stopped, Reiner was there shaking everybody’s hand, tears streaming down his face. “All my life I’ve waited for this moment: a perfect concert. The only one I’ve ever experienced.” And it was, so far as I know. I came out the door, and there was (Arthur) Fiedler (conductor of the Boston Pops): “You’re not men — you’re gods,” he said.****

Gods? You can find out for yourself. Sony has just issued every recording the CSO made with Reiner for RCA:
Fritz Reiner — Chicago Symphony Orchestra: The Complete RCA Recordings.

Reiner complete—

Special thanks to John Jensen for permission to use his Reiner caricature. Other excellent images can be found at: http://www.johnjensen.co.uk/

*Gunther Schuller, Gunther Schuller: A Life In Pursuit of Music and Beauty (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2011), 378.

**Hillyer, Stephen C., ed. “The Podium” 2, no. 2, (Country Club Hills, IL: The Fritz Reiner Society, 1978), Reiner Symposium in Bloomington, IN, March 11, 1978, 12.

***Hillyer, “The Podium,” 12.

****Hillyer, “The Podium” 3, 1979, 22.

July 17, 2013

Where Does Greatness Come From? A CSO Story

Frederick_Stock

Organizations have a culture even when they aren’t cultural. The ethic can be noble and good, bottom-line oriented, or a great many other things. But the question for me as a psychologist has been, how do they get that way?

Indeed, I’ve wondered how some of them become dedicated to a higher purpose, where the individuals believe that there is something more important than themselves at least some of the time. Well, I think I have the answer with respect to at least one such institution: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO).

Not all orchestras behave well. The mid-20th century version of the New York Philharmonic was described by William R. Trotter in Priest of Music: The Life of Dimitri Mitropoulos, as having “an attitude comprising, in more or less equal parts, paranoia, economic insecurity, pride, touchiness, and tough-guy, chip-on-the-shoulder arrogance.” It took many years before conductors looked at an invitation to lead “the Dead End Kids” as something better than entering the lion’s den.

Not that seeing the conductor as an enemy has ever been the sole property of Manhattan musicians. Cellist John Sant’Ambrogio, in his memoir The Day I Almost Destroyed the Boston Symphony and Other Stories, relates the following joke:

Question: If you find yourself in an elevator with a conductor and a rattlesnake, and you only have two bullets, which one do you shoot first?

Answer: You shoot the conductor twice, because you can never be too sure you got him the first time!

The CSO was known to be different. Whatever the private opinions about the person on the podium, there was a level of respect and an orchestral standard to maintain: the best possible performance, whatever the circumstances.

Some years ago I asked the late Ed Druzinsky, the CSO’s principal harpist from 1957-1997, what he could tell me about this. His answer referred to the two orchestral posts that preceded his time in Chicago, Pittsburgh and Detroit:

As a harpist I have to get (to the hall) early. I do my warming up. I don’t carry my instrument with me like the others do. They can practice at home and warm up and just come down and play… And I always like to get there early anyway. In Pittsburgh I used to have to wait until the janitors would come to unlock the doors. Then I went to Detroit and, following my same practice, there were one or two other guys also there (early). I came to Chicago, I was part of a crowd. That surprised me at first.

Is there some way in which this is enforced? Ed continued:

Say someone comes into the Chicago Symphony and he is not that conscientious. He is surrounded by people who come early and practice. And they look down at him, and they say “What’s the matter, get with it.” And he adapts. But it was like that with Stock. These are traditions that pass from one generation to another as people come and go in the orchestra.

1936-37_season_announcement

Frederick Stock, the CSO’s Music Director from 1905 until his death in 1942, had been with the ensemble from 1895 as a violist under its founder, Theodore Thomas; and succeeded Thomas when he died. Might this conscientiousness go back that far, as Ed suggested?

I asked Milton Preves shortly before his death in 2000. Preves had joined the CSO under Stock in 1934 and became its viola principal from 1939 until his retirement in 1986. Preves recalled that Stock would come through the hall early — “for a ten o’clock rehearsal he would come at nine, or little after” — to see who was on stage practicing.

Ed Druzinsky said that before George Solti, Music Director from 1969-1991, the CSO was “the world’s greatest unknown orchestra.” Under Frederick Stock the CSO toured little, even domestically. And in those days of railroad travel, Chicago was a long way from the cultural centers of the East, where reputations were made and lost.

While Stock would be pleased that the professionalism he instilled remains intact, it is doubtful that he would recognize today’s CSO as his own. In Stock’s time it was an almost all-male, all-white enclave with Central European roots. Now it is approximately 40% female and 20% Asian or Asian-American, with a woman as president; as well as including openly gay and lesbian players. Auditions are performed on carpeted floors, behind screens that prevent the listeners from letting externals get in the way of judging musical qualities alone.

Much as some aspects of the CSO’s corporate culture needed to change, Stock’s hard-won work-ethic survives. Although Solti and his band made the CSO famous, we should remember that musicians like Stock and the self-disciplined players in his wake prepared the way. Even now, over 70 years since Stock last gave a downbeat, he is, in some sense, still on stage in Orchestra Hall, Chicago.

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The reproduction of the CSO’s announcement of its 1936/37 season comes courtesy of the orchestra and its Archivist, Frank Villella.

November 14, 2010

Give Me Presence! The Magic of Charisma

No, the third word in the title isn’t a misspelling. I do mean “presence,” not presents.

Just wanted to get your attention.

According to the online “wiktionary,” the word presence can be defined as “a quality of poise and effectiveness that enables a performer to achieve a close relationship with his audience.” It goes on to give an example: “Despite being less than five foot, she filled up the theater with her stage presence.”

It is that almost indefinable quality about which I am writing. An ineffable “something” about a person which draws us to him, focuses our attention, grabs us so that we are “taken” by him to the point of being more easily influenced, touched, or otherwise affected. The kind of characteristic that people refer to when they say that they can’t take their eyes off of someone or are mesmerized by his voice.

It tends to be a thing that one either has or doesn’t have, not a talent that is easily taught or self-created.

Wilhelm Furtwängler had it. Furtwängler was best known as a German symphony and opera conductor who lived from 1886 to 1954. He was a physically unattractive man (see photo above): tall, bald, and socially awkward. Yet remarkable stories are told about him, and his recordings of the great German composers (e.g Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert) are riveting.

The long time timpanist of the Berlin Philharmonic, Furtwängler’s orchestra, recalled a rehearsal at which they were led by a guest conductor. Werner Thärichen, the timpanist, was waiting for his part in the composition and simply following along in the musical score, turning pages as he did so. Then, suddenly, he noticed that the tonal quality of the sound changed dramatically; that is, the intensity, expressiveness, and beauty of sound abruptly increased.

Startled, he looked up.

Furtwängler had simply walked into the hall in order to observe the rehearsal. His physical presence alone, even in the absence of a look or gesture, was enough to alter the way that the musicians played and evoke a different aural characteristic.

Surely you have known people like this. They have big personalities and a magnetism that is hard to resist. It is said by those who have spoken face-to-face with Bill Clinton, even by some of his detractors, that when he talks to you his gaze makes you feel as if you and you alone are the only thing that exists in his universe.

But “presence” is not always benign. Some people, without ever saying a word, have a physical bearing and facial expression that produces intimidation. Others can intimidate not by looking menacing, but by the combination of their intensity, seriousness, and apparent intellect.

One can try to change or soften one’s presence, but it can be difficult. It is said that the dramatic and exciting conductor Sir Georg Solti sometimes implored the members of his orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, to play in a softer, less aggressive way than they characteristically did for him. To his dismay, despite his words, the musicians were compelled to respond to his large, angular gestures and the urgent, kinetic quality of his being. Although they desired to achieve what he wanted, he evoked a different sound than that which he described on these occasions; the players were irresistibly carried along in a way that neither they nor he wanted.

Might you know someone whose basic good humor and shining presence makes you feel good when he enters a room? My youngest daughter, from an early age, would complain that “people are looking at me!” At first my wife and I worried about the possibility of an early developing paranoid state.

But then, we noticed something interesting.

People were looking at her. Carly had an animation and expressive vitality that drew the eyes of strangers and today, make her an excellent performing musician. She “owns” the stage and that quality was there, on its own, from the start.

Confidence and a lack of self-consciousness help to create a big personality, of course, but they are not absolutely essential.

No, this is something quite mysterious. You can be beautiful and not alluring, plain but engaging, unwise but compelling; you can have the right answers to which no one listens; or be a charismatic leader with the wrong answers — indeed, disastrous plans that can sweep a whole nation along with you to its doom. Any time we worship at the altar of charisma we are at risk.

Even so, it is better for each of us to have a strong presence than not and best to know how we are perceived by others and whether we are producing an unwanted impression.

Still, most of us don’t want to be the guy who, when he is in a crowd, makes the crowd stand out. Having some impact is usually better than having none.

But, as relationship consumers, each of us needs to be sure that the person we are with is not simply a great “presence,” but that he has something substantial to offer.

Be careful.

We are all drawn to the sound of the “sizzle” of a steak on a grill, even without the steak actually being there.

Unfortunately, the sizzle without the steak doesn’t make much of a meal.

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The top image is of Wilhelm Furtwängler. The bottom image is of Sir Georg Solti.