by Janos Gereben
to Paul Moor, Prophet & Friend to T. Quasthoff
Dear Paul: From your Berlin headquarters you instructed me to give your regards to Thomas Quasthoff when/if I see him in Oregon.
I am glad to report that I fulfilled the deed, albeit under rather bizarre circumstances.
There was a Rotary Club lunch today at the Eugene Hilton, with Oregon Bach Festival officials as the invited guests. They were to show the Sixty Minutes segment on Quasthoff and to talk about upcoming concerts featuring him -- the Haydn Creation and Penderecki's still unfinished Credo. [The latest on that: with a big chunk of the music still missing, the composer has just decided to go from Puerto Rico to Warsaw before coming here, so he may/may not arrive a couple of days before the world premiere!]
What the good Rotarians did not know what that festival director Royce Saltzman talked Quasthoff (who arrived yesterday from a Schubert festival in Austria, en route for 26 hours) into making a surprise appearance.
Armed with all this intelligence, I waited outside the meeting room (having assured friendly Rotarians that I can miss the salad and the reading of the minutes without ill effect), and sure enough, there came Quasthoff, with the shortest crewcut I've ever seen on him, jeans and Nikes, accompanied by the tallest pianist in all Germany, Justus Zeyen. (I asked him about his rather unusual family name and he said it's of Huguenotte origin; useful information to have.)
I joined the groups, said hello to TQ, and told him that you're sending your regards. He smiled warmly and asked me how you were. I assured him that you are doing very well, one hopes.
We talked about his upcoming schedule: he is very happy about the NY Philharmonic gig, with Ozawa, and perhaps even more so about a two-week cruise in the Mediterranean where he is expected to give one concert.
We then stood in the back of the meeting hall while the Ed Bradley interview was being shown. Watching TQ watch himself was... weird, lacking a more precise word. At one point, somebody leaned down to say something to him, but he waved the man off, not wanting to miss any of the interview; it was somehow touching how he made no pretense of being uninterested. What I sense is that he has little or no pretense in general.
After that poignant ending (would he rather have his voice as he is or a healthy body and no voice), the lights came up and Saltzman had his dramatic moment: "Ladies and gentlemen..." and there was a sufficient number of gasps of surprise and delight.
TQ sang An die Musik and, appropriately to rural Oregon, that old trout song. He was OK, but nothing really in comparison to the astonishing bass solo he is singing at this very moment at the Die Schoepfung rehearsal (I am typing away on a laptop just now).
There was a brief Q&A session at the Rotary lunch. He was asked how come that he is appearing for the third time in this small town. "Money makes the world go 'round," Quasthoff said. He then cut short the response of rather nervous laughter by saying that in his youth, he dreamed about working with Helmuth Rilling, and now he has that opportunity. "I have friends here and I am among friends: that is very important."
Because his mother was featured in Sixty Minutes prominently (TQ's reference to her years of living with guilt constricts the throat), he was asked if she is traveling with him. Quasthoff said she cannot fly long distances since her heart attack three years ago, then -- to counteract sympathy which, I think, makes him feel uncomfortable -- he said nobody is really an adult as long as living with or close to parents. "I like to be an adult sometimes," he said, to the same nervous giggles that greeted the money joke. Living close to his parents in Hannover gives him plenty of chance to see them, he said.
Would he like to sing something different from his usual repertoire ? An evening of Frank Sinatra songs would be nice, he said, Saltzman writing a note to himself.
Thomas Quasthoff, Rotarian and Sinatra fan. It's a small world after all.
June 30, 1998