Victor
March 10, 2022
My brother, Victor, was born on this day, March 10,1943. Ordinarily, I’d call Victor to wish him happy birthday and to talk as we’ve done regularly throughout our lives. But Victor passed away last July 30th. He was 78 years old.
Victor was my kid brother, six years younger than I, and it never entered my mind that he would leave this earth before me. The oldest should go first in an orderly world, you’d think, but Victor suffered from an incurable Parkinson’s-like disease offering no cure and only a debilitating downward journey that in his case lasted seven years.
For our entire lives, Victor and I got along wonderfully—whether operating our toy train set as kids, playing ping-pong as teenagers, hiking in the mountains as adults, or making music together throughout our lives. Our loving relationship was due in large part to Victor’s gentle nature, his humor, and his respect and ready acceptance of people just as they are.
Our parents were passionate music lovers, and so it was inevitable that we were both encouraged to learn an instrument. I took up the violin at age six, and Victor the piano at age seven. Hardly less surprising was the fact that both of us became professional musicians. Mom and Dad must have passed on their music-loving genes to us, and, just as importantly, we were marinated in music growing up. Our parents took us to concerts regularly, the radio in the house was always on the classical music station, and Dad often brought home recordings of some of the great musicians of the day for us to listen to.
Still, despite having the same parents and growing up with many of the same musical influences, Victor and I became very different musicians. I never wanted to compose music and undoubtedly would have had little gift if I had tried. But not Victor. At age nine or ten, two works I was practicing at the time must have caught his attention: Bach’s so-called “Air on the G String,” an arrangement for violin and piano of the second movement of his Third Orchestral Suite, and “The Hot Canary,” a popular novelty piece. Victor’s response was to present me with “Hot Air on the G String.” The melody was slightly jazzy, but surprisingly well crafted. Could my brother have sensed that this duality—the popular versus the serious—was a harbinger of his future as a composer?
Victor rapidly developed into an excellent pianist and musician. Home from school, I would often stop my own practicing to listen admiringly to his growing authority and sensitivity as he worked through such monumental works as Beethoven’s Eroica Variations and his Sonata Opus 31 No. 3. Victor soloed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at age fifteen, and upon graduation from high school was invited by the renowned piano pedagogue Rosina Lhévinne to study with her at the Juilliard School of Music. I imagine Victor felt pressure to follow the well-worn path for aspiring young musicians living in Southern California to go East and study at one of the distinguished music conservatories. I, his older brother, had done so, as had many of his fellow piano student friends.
However, Victor rejected that path. He had grown into not only a person of talent and thoughtfulness, but also someone already keenly aware of his comfort zone. For example, after a superb performance of the Brahms D Minor Piano Concerto with one of the Los Angeles orchestras, Victor announced, “I had no memory lapses, but all I could think of was that I might. And so that’s it. I will never, never, ever play music by memory again.” And for the rest of his life he never did.
Another example: Victor and I hiked summer after summer in the Sierra Nevada mountains—sometimes alone, sometimes with a friend or two. Once, when it looked like we’d arrive at our planned campsite long after dark, our group suggested leaving the trail and taking an uncharted shortcut over the mountain saddle just above us. Victor, however, was uneasy about scrambling over unknown terrain. “You all go,” he said. “I’ll sleep on this side of the mountain and meet you tomorrow morning.” When Victor showed up for breakfast the next day, I asked him whether he wasn’t scared sleeping alone in the wilderness, as I certainly would have been, with bears and other assorted wild creatures roaming around. “Nah,” he said, “sleeping alone is fine, but climbing into the unknown without a path—now that really makes me nervous”.
And so, Victor turned down Rosina Lhévinne’s offer to study with her at Juilliard. He told me that New York City was too crazy a place and that having to deal with all the competition at such a high-powered music school was simply not for him.
Remaining in Los Angeles turned out to be a good choice. Victor continued his studies with Aube Tzerko, a charismatic piano teacher in the area. The name “Aube Tzerko” struck me as so odd that I once asked Victor about it. He explained with relish that Tzerko had traveled to Berlin as a young man in order to study with Arthur Schnabel. But when he introduced himself to the great pianist as Abraham Kotzer, Schnabel burst out laughing. “Kotzer” means “one who vomits” in the German language. In an instant, Abraham became Aube and the scrambled letters in Kotzer emerged as Tzerko.
Victor also studied composition with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Henri Lazorof at UCLA, where he earned an M.A. in composition. These distinguished teachers undoubtedly presented him with a solid if traditional education, but Victor was already headed down his own distinct path.
If parents have a lot to do with how their children turn out, I’d lay some of the responsibility for my brother’s personality on our dad, Mischa Steinhardt. Dad loved to pun and play with words. Perhaps this was due to the fact that he spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, Russian, and English. Victor and I as kids would roll our eyes when we passed a cemetery and heard Dad say, “You know, people are dying to get in.” Or, another of dad’s favorites on Independence Day, “If you drink a fifth on the fourth, you may not go forth on the fifth.”
Undoubtedly, a lot of Dad’s wordplay resurfaced in Victor. If I suggested a rehearsal time for an upcoming recital, Victor might respond with, “Let’s not rehearse. Let’s hearse, and if it doesn’t go well then we can re-hearse.” Once, when the University of Oregon was looking for a violinist to fill an open position in the music department—a place where Victor taught for much of his adult life—I suggested the violinist Andor Toth to my brother for consideration. “Wait a minute, Is Andor one or two words?” he asked. And for his occasional visits with our family, Victor’s puns were so numerous that our young son Alexej put a quota on them. “One hundred puns and you’re out of here, Victor,” he would threaten in mock seriousness.
And so, Dad’s sense of play rubbed off on Victor, and Victor’s rubbed off on his musical compositions. When does funny become serious, or serious funny, you might ask. Victor’s “Seventeen Variations in the Form of a Limerick” appears to be an elaborate joke, but in reality it is an ambitious and highly imaginative work. On the other hand, what about his “Sonata Boogie for Violin and Piano,” and “Ein Heldenboogie for Solo Piano?” Are those works serious? Yes. Are they humorous? Yes. Victor once told me what he loved about out-of-tune train whistles was that you often couldn’t tell whether the chord was minor or major. It was that sense of in-between that tickled him. Even so, there was no in-between to Victor’s “Tango for Violin and Piano,” which makes you want to weep as it comes to an end, or his short “Arietta for Viola and Piano,” which begins imaginatively with all four of the viola’s open strings and then bursts into vibrant and heartfelt song.
Victor Steinhardt
Of course, there was no question about such pieces for piano as “Dog Walk,” “The Love Pickle,” and “Octaboogie.” Victor was simply having fun. At one point, he set out to expand the concept of entertainment by intentionally writing an utterly silly piece for violin and piano. And our dad unwittingly played a part. When we were growing up, Mom would often ask, “Mischa, what do you want for dinner?” “Gedaemte gedullas” (Yiddish for steamed shoe leather) was Dad’s answer. The title of Victor’s experiment in tomfoolery was a foregone conclusion. He called it “Gedaemte Gedullas.”
From 1968 to 2007 Victor was a professor of piano at the University of Oregon in Eugene. He was beloved as both teacher and music colleague. Along with teaching, Victor often performed over the years as a soloist, and with a long and impressive list of chamber music collaborators. They included cellists Leonard Rose, Jules Eskin, and Ron Leonard; violinists Ida Kevafian, Josef Suk, and Pamela Frank; violist Michael Tree; clarinetists David Shifrin and Michael Anderson; flutist Ransom Wilson; and the Penderecki, Peterson, Los Angeles, Lafayette, and Guarneri String Quartets.
But I’ve left out one collaborator—Victor’s brother, Arnold. Victor and I first performed together in a recital on January 17, 1960. I remember that the program announcement caused me great embarrassment: The San Gabriel Philharmonic-Artists Association presents Arnold Steinhardt, violinist, accompanied by his brother Victor Steinhardt. My kid brother was only seventeen at the time but he was already no mere accompanist. Among music by Stravinsky, Roy Harris, and Schubert, the program included Beethoven’s Spring Sonata.
Victor and I performed together frequently through the years and made records as well. He was a superb pianist and musician, and a joy to work with. In rehearsal Victor was never shy in offering thoughtful musical ideas, but he was also willing to accept mine, and always with grace and good humor. In all the years we played together, I do not recall a single argument.
I spent a good amount of time with Victor and his loving and deeply devoted wife of thirty years, Betsy Parker, during the last days of my brother’s life. Naturally, Victor and I spoke of his illness, his approaching death, and how his beloved Betsy might fare after he was gone. And in so many words and gestures we were able to express our deep love for one another and for the blessed gift it had been throughout our lives. But our conversations often drifted into something oddly normal, as if the last consequential event in Victor’s life, looming with great speed toward him, was still at a respectable distance. We reminisced about events in our childhood, about Andy and Rafi, their beloved dachshunds, and about music, musicians, and composers. We talked with no apparent rhyme or reason about Mozart, Debussy, Shostakovich, and Victor’s own music. At one point I told Victor I’d recently read that John Cage was a great expert on fungi. “Really?” Victor said, “I didn’t realize he was such a fun guy”.
Victor’s disease had often been grueling, but as his death came nearer, a calm settled over him. At one point, in a pensive mood, Victor said to me that no matter how hard I tried I could not be him, and no matter how hard he tried he could not be me. On the face of it, those words seemed almost laughably obvious, and yet I thought I could see what he was getting at. We had made our different journeys through life, and Victor had come to the realization with a certain amount of assurance, acceptance, and even a measure of satisfaction that yes, this was who he was, and this was who he was meant to be.
In those final days Victor lovingly greeted dear friends who came from all over to spend a last cherished bit of time with him, and when the end finally came, with Betsy and me holding his hands, Victor left this earth peacefully.
A couple of days before Victor passed away, something unexpected crossed my mind. “Victor, you’re going to die, and then I’m going to die. But if there turns out to be some kind of life after death, what music would you like to play with me?” Victor thought for a moment, smiled, and said, “Let’s play Schubert’s Fantasy for Violin and Piano again.” The Fantasy, a work filled with haunting mystery and ineffable beauty, is notoriously difficult for the violinist but especially so for the pianist. Victor had performed the Fantasy masterfully. I smiled back at my brother and said, “You’re on.”
Now, with Victor gone I sometimes think back on that conversation and realize I had missed a golden opportunity to steal one of his lines. “You’re on, Victor, but let’s not rehearse. Let’s hearse, and if it doesn’t go well then we can re-hearse.”
Arietta by Victor Steinhardt, performed by the Steinhardt brothers.
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Comments
Dear Arnold,
Your beautiful memories, your tribute to your family, and especially to your brother, fill me with aching peace and humble gratitude for the gift of music in our lives. Thank you for this. I will always remember the first time I heard Victor perform, in Portland, around 1957, 1958. What a joy.
With sincere thanks,
Sandra
What a lovely, lovely tribute. And Arietta is absolutely beautiful.
A beautiful memorial. You were very lucky to have such a beloved and dear brother. The memories live on. Your story got me ferklempt.
H
I wish that all siblings could have such lifelong nourishing love and acceptance. Thanks for the wonderful tribute to your brother.
Thank you for sharing! It was a very touching article. I am very sorry for your loss. It is my first time writing even though I have been reading you for years now. Thank you so much for sharing a lot of wisdom and fun stories. You are an inspiration for other musicians. By the end of the piece you got me crying, what a wonderful brother you had. Thank you for everything.
beautiful memories and beautiful life.
Especially with the Schubert Fantasy.
Thank you for sharing the memory of your brother.
OMG, you kept quiet about how good a viola player you were. I don’t blame you!
Thank you so much for this fine, warm and interesting account of your relationship. I enjoyed listening to your brother’s compositions, which I was not aware of. And I wonder, (as a violinist)if it is possible to buy the sheet music for some of these violin/vla & pno works. ?
This was a lovely remembrance. I feel that Victor is still with us.
How lucky you both were. And how generous you are to share his memory–along with those death-defying puns!
Arnold. Thank you so much for this loving tribute to your brother Victor. Through you kind
and loving reminisces, and the superb photo,I almost feel that
I’ve met him.
My love to you and Dodo from Cambridge, where I will be until late Fall.
Francis.
As always, your provocative comments led me to remember my relationship with my older brother, Jim Helmuth. He never learned to sigh read music, preferred to play by ear, and what an ear he had. He was an engineer, inventor, and teller of jokes every Sunday evening when we talked on the telephone. I am lucky as his daughter is closed to me, and I can talk about Jim with her.
That was very moving. Thank you for writing it.
I was very touched by the beautiful tribute you wrote about your brother. I also enjoyed your brother’s playfulness with words. He, like you, was successful in the world of music.
I attended the HS of Music and Art and studied piano with Paul Wittgenstein. I enjoy your anecdotes aoooooo much.I also struggled to get to Tanglewood in 1947 so I could be with
my boyfriend, Charlie. WE were surrounded such musicians like
Leonard Bernstein, Lukas Foss, Serge K. Jasha Heifitz etc.
I am so delighted with your newsletters. They are beautiful and filled with great anecdotes.
May the memory of your brother be for a blessing.
Dear Arnold
I send my condolences to you from one who also has lost a dear and wonderful younger brother.
I also send condolences to you for University of Oregon piano professor Victor Steinhardt on behalf of his mature student, my late wife Emily Rhodes Parker Lorraine (1925-2007), a Eugene OR piano teacher who, with Dean Robert Trotter’s help, returned to U of O 1968-70 to complete her interrupted B.M. degree, studying piano with Victor, whom she appreciated.
When I finished my urban planning degree at U of O in 1969, I moved to Schenectady NY, and I spoke to you in Union College Chapel in February? 1970 after Guarneri’s amazing, gripping Beethoven Op.130/133 performance, mentioning to you that Emily studies with Victor.
In Emily’s Los Alamos NM years (early 1960s) she studied with Ralph Berkowitz in Albuquerque whom she introduced me to after our marriage in 1970. Ralph showed and told us his analysis of Bach’s Chaconne from Violin Partita. Ralph’s art-making, displayed on his home’s walls, and everything about Ralph, fascinated.
In 1998, I became Artistic Director of the San Jose [CA] Chamber Music Society [SJCMS] concert series, and in April 2006 was happy to learn of our shared high regard for and enjoyment of Ralph Berkowitz when SJCMS presented you with pianist Lydia Artymiw — and during the post-concert Q&A, you said your book on the violin was about to be published and dwelt on the Bach Chaconne – and I said: “Stop the presses! You must include Ralph Berkowitz’ analysis of it!”, and you replied: “Keep the presses rolling – because Ralph’s analysis is at the core of my discussion of the Chaconne!” I treasure that memory.
I’m glad I got to hear the Guarneri later at Sunset Center in Carmel and at U.C. Santa Cruz while reading your book Indivisible by Four.
Thank you, Arnold, for sharing this moving story of, and tribute to, Victor and brotherhood. You helped me know and greater to appreciate Victor – and you. and brought to life Ralph, and Emily. Those dear to us are ever with us in memory, until we get to ‘hearse’ and be with them again hopefully.
with best wishes.
Ted Lorraine, (still) Artistic Director, San Jose Chamber Music Society [1998-].
What a lovely piece about Victor. Thank you for sharing it!
We are so sorry to hear about Victor. We met him at the Grand Teton Music Festival in 1996.
He gave a wonderful performance (I think it was Sonata Boogie) with violinist Kathryn Lucktenberg. When we told him we had a trio with violin, clarinet and piano he was so kind to send us the music to Running Blue later on.
With our condolences and warm greetings from Sandy Goldberg and Robert Hairgrove in Winterthur, Switzerland
It was sad to hear of your loss. Your brother sounded like a dear brother but also dear friend and companion. Please accept my condolences.
Enormously touching. I shall send it on to a good friend, a musical one, whose equally musical husband died two days ago. She will love it.
Thank you for this. I was a classmate of Victor’s during his years at Mount St. Mary’s. He was brilliant in class, and his playing immediately drew me in. He was a formidable musical force. I tried to attend all his performances, even some at UCLA. When we talked, which was infrequent, he enjoyed teasing me and said things to try to shock me. I often wondered why. You’ve answered that question for me. I was sorry to learn the manner of his passing. Thank you for your remembrance. I’m sorry I never heard you two play together, though, happily, I did hear you and the Guarneri play to a select group in Baton Rouge shortly before the quartet disbanded.
What a touching memoir, and the viola piano duet sheer loveliness. As is true I n my own birth family, it is as though you had the same brain but you used it differently. There’s nothing quite like sibling closeness. Fortunately you have these great memories to warm you in the years ahead. My deepest sympathies to you for this great loss.
Dear Mr Steinhardt,
I enjoyed every aspect — from the corny to the sublime — of this entertaining and moving tribute to your late, beloved brother Victor. But I was most struck by your and Victor’s selection of Schubert’s Fantasy, whose beauty is, as you say, ineffable. For what it’s worth, I’m entranced by the 2015 Chamber Music Society performance by the young duo Benjamin Beilman (violin) and Juho Pohjonen (piano), available on YouTube. As always, I look forward to your next essay. My thanks and best wishes.
What a beautiful tribute. Reading this was like having dear Victor, if only for a moment, back with us again. Thanks Arnold.
What a precious, touching story!
What a wonderful loving tribute to your brother! And beautiful performances of his music Arietta and Gedemptegullas. Hilarious about Aube Tzerko; I had no idea! Happy Birthday, Victor! Thanks for sharing these great stories, Arnold!
Thank you for sharing the wonderful stories. It’s wonderful to cherish his wonderful influence as he forged his own paths.
My heart breaks for the pain you must have gone through this past year. Your writing is always so beautiful and sincere, and the wonderful relationship with your amazing brother really shines through. Thank you for this.
We have good memories of meeting your brother at Curtis when you both were recording. He was a very special person, it was clear. By the way, Victor’s birthday is the same as Danny’s. Warm regards to you, Arnold. ~Hiroshi
Thank you, Arnold – that is just so moving. I love every pun and every detail you recall, and its just wonderful to be allowed a peek into your close relationship this way.
My own memories of Victor are much hazier, forged largely during the semester I spent as a 16-year-old in Eugene, taking lessons for which I was apparently notoriously late, as teenagers sometimes are. So Victor decided, as I know you also remember, to get my attention by scheduling the lessons to begin not on the hour, but at 2 minutes past: on the off-beat, so to speak. No wonder, I guess, that the ensuing lessons were spent on Chopin and Joplin: syncopation for the win!
And now I’m going to go hearse the Maple Leaf Rag that he taught me at a lesson that would have begun one spring afternoon in 1984 at his house in Eugene at 3:02pm. And if it doesn’t go well, I’ll remember what Victor told me about maintaining the steady bass, and re-hearse.
Your comments about Victor brought back wonderful memories of weeks spent in Eugene during the Bach Festival when my wife (Jane Levy) played viola in the modern and baroque orchestras. I often saw Victor in the lobby of the Hult prior to the concerts. I attended a recital that you played with Victor. One summer, friends from Pasadena joined us for the festivities. Helene and I had played the four-hand piano literature for many years. I called Victor and he graciously offered to let us use his studio for a few hours. I am so sorry to read of his passing.
Best wishes,
Daniel Levy
Pasadena Ca
Oh Arnold your brother’s music is so heartbreakingly beautiful, floating, painfully urgently on, impacted by your own words at the opening – (Today is my brother’s birthday …)Breathtaking!
Within your words, your brother is very much alive. Much love, Hava
I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your brother. Your writing is so poignant; he sounds like someone I would have wanted to know and spend time with. God bless you, Mr. Steinhardt.
Sincerely,
Nancy V
Thank you so much for introducing us to your dear brother and for offering a glimpse of your times together. May his memory be a blessing.
What a lovely tribute, Arnold. I have been thinking of Victor as I practice the Spring Sonata, which he performed also with me, and which I will dedicate to him when I perform it in May. I really miss him and all the qualities you describe so well.
Dear Arnold,
Thank you for sharing this intimate reflection of your family life and fond memories of making music with your brother. I look forward to saying hello in person at Marlboro this summer.
Harvey Traison
Victor Steinhardt and I were friends for 50 years. We
arrived in Eugene about the same time and shared ping
pong and pokers games, puns, and beer, and lots and
lots of music.
He was a terrific piano player, and over the years I had
the honor to conduct my various community ensembles with
Victor as our soloist. Bach in Ashland with the Northwest
Bach Ensemble, Dittersdorf with the Emerald
Chamber Players, Emperor early on at the WOW hall, and
years later again in the Wildish with the Riverside Chamber
Symphony.
We spent many hours assisting each other with our
compositions and preparations for upcoming performances.
I enjoyed his concerts with other artists especially brother
Arnold.
I particularly regret that due my own sequestration for
the pandemic, I was not even aware that he was in his final days,
and never had a final visit.
I will miss you Victor, and leave you with a question you posed
more than once:
“Would you rather ride your bicycle in the summer
or in the country?”
Thank you for that moving tribute. How fortunate for each of you to have that brother with whom a lifetime of so much pleasure was shared. And what a treat to have the opportunity to hear both of you on this recording of Arietta. Thank you for sharing it.
Victor Steinhardt and I were friends for 50 years. We
arrived in Eugene about the same time and shared ping
pong and pokers games, puns, and beer, and lots and
lots of music.
He was a terrific piano player, and over the years i had
the honor to conduct my various community ensembles with
Victor as our soloist. Bach in Ashland with the Northwest
Bach Ensemble, Dittersdorf with the Emerald
Chamber Players, Emperor early on at the WOW hall, and
years later again in the Wildish with the Riverside Chamber
Symphony.
We spent many hours assisting each other with our
compositions and preparations for upcoming performances.
I enjoyed his concerts with other artists especially brother
Arnold.
I particularly regret that due my own sequestration for
the pandemic, I was not even aware that he was in his final days,
and never had a final visit.
I will miss you Victor, and leave you with a question you posed
more than once:
“Would you rather ride your bicycle in the summer
or in the country?”
Philip Bayles
I really loved reading this and missed Victor very much. I was a student of Dr. Parker’s and when I came for my lessons, Victor sometimes opened the door and I was very little and he was very tall and he always smiled at me with twinkling eyes. Sometimes to help me gain confidence, Dr Parker would make me play for Victor and he would sit there and patiently listen to my baby pieces and clap cheerfully at the end. I also remember as I had my lesson I would hear Victor play in his studio — it was so beautiful and inspiring. And finally, my nickname is Momo and one day Victor said to me — you know what I realized your name backward reads owow!
Today is your birthday, dear Arnold, and all my thoughts and warm wishes whir across the big pond to you. Lovley, to listen to your and Victors Sonata Boogie over and over again, and sad to realize that Victor left us. The sense for witty wordgames passed on to your children: I remember writing a letter together with Natasha in Chatham once and she suggested that we use mostly words that have to be looked up in a dictionary. Thus, I learned a lot!
wonderful moving tribute that left me in tears at the end..such brilliant writing and deep feeling…I fell in love with your brother thru the punning..of course I, like so many,always had a crush on you. I was fortunate to be at Harpur College and SUNY at Buffalo when the Guarneri was in residence at both places and performed the complete cycle of Beethoven’s String Quartets. I never missed a performance, and bought the score and one of my peak experiences in life was to follow the scores while listening to your recordings..you have delivered so much bliss to so many, and it sounds like your brother did too..To say thank you is not enough but I do thank you
Can words bring a man back to life? Only a fraction of the man, in glimpses, when the words are well chosen, but there is pith even in the fraction. Your Victorious portrait is gay and luminous, and moved me as has for more than 40 years your music. Thank you for all of your violin dreams, and for the memories of your brother.
Dear Mr. Steinhardt,
I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your younger brother. What a beautiful tribute. I am sorry he suffered with Parkinsons. I used to play for patients- I did that for four years, and it was the Parkinsons’ patients I had the most compassion for. Them and their families.
Rachel
Somehow I missed this story when you first published it, Arnold. I wonder if you remember when I organized for you and Victor to visit Brigham Young Uni for a recital and masterclasses. I had a job there for a year. I enjoyed meeting Victor and I bought and have played the Sonataboogie and the Gedempta… a number of times. I have the Tango there so perhaps I’ll dig it out. The photograph commemorating that moment in time in Utah with the mountains as backdrop and my friends Claudine and Paul continues to grace my studio (and looking at it now really ages me!). I’m grateful for those few days and the students there were inspired by your visit.
Thank you Arnold, fun reading and my birthday is March 10, 1943.All the very best, you were our inspiration.
As an undergrad at UCLA (linguistics major, but semi-serious horn tooter), I encountered Victor as an energetic, very supportive, ‘older-brother-type’ mentor-pianist to would-be budding musicians around Schoenberg Hall. (This must have been very shortly before he departed for Oregon.) When we took “units” in “wind chamber music”, Victor was often the in-house accompanist, always ready to contribute to our student strivings, unobtrusively, even when there was a prominent, seasoned wind player the likes of Mitchell Lurie in charge of the “unit”.
I’d grown up in Cleveland, attended Severance Hall during my high-school years when brother Arnold sat next to Rafael Druian at the head of the first violins. Perhaps mentioning this to Victor might have earned me some special consideration? In any case, I had the privilege of performing the Brahms Horn Trio with Victor and violinist Carol Zeavin at a noon concert there at Schoenberg, date March 5, 1968 — perhaps the peak achievement of my (in the end amateur) musical career. Victor will always be very fondly remembered.
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