Classical II: Ralph Gomberg Is Dead

The world of classical music has lost a legend. Ralph Gomberg is dead. Gomberg was the principal oboist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra for some 35 years between 1950 and 1987 when he retired. He was a master of his instrument but even more importantly, he was a consumate team player who understood that an orchestra is much greater than the sum of its very talented parts.

So what, you say, some geezer who tooted a stick for other geezers has bit the dust. What else is new? They're dying off in droves. Obit today, gone tomorrow.

Ah but as old orchestra players die off, their audience goes with them. Who will fill the seats in Orchestra Hall? For the first time in two years, my teaching schedule will allow me to attend the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's Friday morning concert series. Usually, the ratio of the very young to the very old is very disheartening. For every school bus idling outside The Max, there are a dozen towncars from which emerge legions of frail dames and their withered swains. As much as I look forward to taking my boy to the symphony on a regular basis, I wonder how many of his fellow tots will be in on the experience. What sort of community will there be for young classical musical enthusiasts, save for taking music lessons and progressing into the ranks of the prodigy? The DSO has a great youth outreach program but is it enough?

Classical music is a treasure. Like no other music, it brings to the fore the primal and essential relationship between math and music, between human physiology and sound. There are now research organizations that for a pretty penny will run pop songs through a black box capable of predicting whether said song will be a hit. How will it know? Because the alogorithms are programmed to dissect elements of harmonic and melodic felicity and compare those results to other songs. Nora Jones' first album had the thing smoking: 9 of the 13 songs scored very high on positive elements.

But who, pray tell, destroyed this little toy? Mozart. That's right. Wolfie was the guy who really did write the songs.

We know from history and anthropology that music is more than entertainment. The sad state of current music trends in the Western world suggests perhaps that people don't want to engage music on a profound level because they don't have time or patience or courage to take it on. Pity. At its best, classical music is a gateway into the mystical, fascinating, frightening order of the planet and the universe. Ralph Gomberg was one of the great emissaries and now he's gone.