Concentric

Johann Wilhelm Crouse was born into a family of organists. And he loved it. From his earliest days he sat in the great cathedrals of Austria and Germany listening to his grandfather and father take turns mesmerizing congregations, lifting them to heavenly heights by their masterly delivery. Grandfather Hans last performed in Weimer at ninety-three, his hands still flexible, feet coordinated, and tempo as steady as when he was fifty. The old man died two weeks later, on the first day of Lent. Johann remembered because he turned the pages.

Johann was destined to follow the family tradition. While Grandfather Hans mastered a repertoire unequaled at his time, Father Herman mastered technique. No one came close to accomplishing the speed and dexterity of this famous virtuoso. He was the Paganini of the organ. The noble Crouse organists passed a great legacy to young Johann and all that would follow.

Johann was named after the great Bach whom every organist revered. And the fifth generation Crouse was no exception. If his repertoire was a third as complete as his grandfather's he would be overjoyed. If his technique was half as good as his father's he would be happy. And if he approached even one percent of Johann Sebastian's greatness he would consider himself accomplished. It was a foregone conclusion that Johann's son, Yoseph Vilhelm, would be next in line.

The only reason Johann left Weimer was to study under the great Gotfried Schlemmer in Mittendorf. His grandfather and father gone, he had no tutor worthy of his accumulated talents. It is an unfortunate rule that when one gains in X he sometimes loses in Y: while Johann perfected his organ skills under Herr Schlemmer, it left his son without an immediate model, the hereditary transmitter of the tradition. With only his mother to urge the boy to practice, Yoseph grew without the passion, the fire, the unquenchable desire of his forefathers. He preferred to play with and make model sail boats.

"Vas ?" asked Johann bouncing the boy on his knee. "Vas is das?"

"It's so difficult to get him to practice, Johann," exclaimed Frau Crouse. "Without you here all the time..."

But the accomplished organist would hear nothing. "He needs only to practice more. With or without me, Yoseph has the music in front of him. That is all a Crouse needs."

But the boy would never focus on the notes, the stops, the pedals. His mind was at the woodworking bench, kidding with the boys at the lake, and always perfecting the models that darted across Meister Pond.

"He is very good with his hands, Johann," mollified the boy's mother.

"Ofcourse, he is a Crouse. And those hands, they should be playing the organ like every other Crouse before him!"

But it was no use. Yoseph Vilhelm simply did not take to the instrument.

Johann faced a dilemma, a very embarrassing situation. He was not accustomed to dealing with people's behavior: his only field was mastering music. From Grandfather to Father to son to generations yet unborn the male heirs simply played music. There was never any doubt. Never any need for force or conniving. Male Crouses were born to play organ and it was their responsibility to continue the line. So when Yoseph Vilhelm turned his back on the towering organ pipes, he short-circuited the entire mental process of his ancestry. And when other musicians, and townspeople who had become accustomed to hearing a Crouse play at the cathedral, asked about the progress of the next-in-line, Johann stood mute. How could he comment on what he could not comprehend?

This was a time between great wars that dislocated and relocated the sound order of all things European. Traditions fell as quickly as munitions mounted. Established thought patterns diminished as easily as armies grew. And the prevailing mentality that dominated was the opposite of creating great art. What was once an atmosphere saturated by the harmonious sounds of great music now became an arena for political oratory, nationalistic fervor, the new Europe. Johann saw Yoseph's break from the Crouse tradition as part of this tidal wave of change.

"Bah!" spat the Master, and he played Bach alone in the cathedral, sensing that he, the organ, classical music, the past, were dinosaurs.

History has shown what became of the generation between the wars: early trauma built up until it became so marked that they ignored the present and hoped for the future. So many boys whose fathers had filled the music halls now sang in testosterone-filled choruses bedecked in brown uniforms the patriotic songs of the time. It was a time that noted

individualism surrendered to all-powerful mass psychology.

But though not a musician, Yoseph Vilhelm was from the old school: he did not go the way of hysteria. In his early teens his dexterity, his affinity to construction, his love of the water, directed him towards a career in marine architecture. Instead of carrying a rifle, marching the goose step, heralding the Aryan race, Yoseph apprenticed to a master shipbuilder. Instead of destroying like so many of his peers, Yoseph Crouse created sea-worthy vessels.

In time, old Johann died. Everyone sensed that the timing was propitious: he went before the tragic blitzkrieg against Poland that ugly September in 1939. He'd lived through the overture, the preparations for war and destruction, but he did not have to suffer the pervading themes and their demonic variations. But with his death, as with the holocaust the Reich brought, the majestic tradition of Crouse organ players died. But not all was lost: the inner qualities that had held the virtuosos in such great stead -- passion, dexterity, memory, desire to create and recreate grand balance -- these did not pass out of the Crouse line. Yoseph Vilhelm simply applied them in a different direction.

When the war dissipated and balance was restored, Yoseph, now a professional architect, established a company to cater to the yacht-minded, wealthy European. Of course he didn't cater to their desires but his own. For creating the perfect design was first cousin to composing a perfect piece for organ: its purpose was not to please the congregation but to create the perfect piece. So, too, Yoseph designed masterful hulls that cut through the water as frictionlessly as the fasted fish; developed rigging that maximized the use of the wind; that pleased the eye as the billowing sheets silhouetted the blue sky and blended in with the puffy white clouds. Yoseph had not strayedthatfar from his ancestors.

When Yoseph reached the age of his father just before the raping of Europe, he did what all parents do: observed his life and that of his children. He felt good about his own career, but was puzzled by Peter.

"Your grandparents and generations before," Yoseph explained to his son, "were all accomplished musicians. They all had passion. As you know, I followed my bent, but loved designing ships at least as much as they did composition. What, Peter, inspires you? What direction will your life take?"

"Fire? Passion? Inspire? Father, these are words from the past. We don't use them today. All such things have been burned out of our minds."

"What?" answered Yoseph, every bit as perplexed as his father had been when he first encountered his son ignoring music. "No passion?"

"Father, all those emotions are what led Germany and the world to war. They're part and parcel of patriotism/hate, nationalism/war, beauty/ugliness. We don't think that way anymore."

"You dismiss beauty as easily as a thoughtless school boy erases a composition of Bach? Beauty is no longer in your vocabulary? Inner desire to create is passé"?"

"Yes," said the young man flatly."

"Please tell me, Peter, what has taken the place of passion? What dominates the heart of youth now?"

"Money. Making money, spending money, economics with all its ramifications: international trading, megacorporations, it's all about profit, Father."

"The aging father shook his head. Truly I don't understand. And since I sense that you don't want to hear what I have to say, I speak to myself: in my day and the days of our ancestors we did things for the joy of doing them. To be part of the prevailing consciousness of creating beauty. I understand the profit motive, this economic paradigm, but I suspect it is as much a change from the present as my boat designing was from the past."

If the story ended on this note it would be nothing more than a variation of the age-old theme. Predictable because repetition of history is crystalline: nothing is new under the sun, the eternal sine wave like the ebb and flow of the tides, the day follows night like summer follows winter.

Yoseph realized like all perceptive humans that the common denominator was change. Sometimes going in unpredictable directions, sometimes coming full circle. It would surprise no one, then, if Peter's son made his fortune designing musical instruments and recording the revival of organ playing. Certainly that could have happened in the family Crouse. But this is a real story about real people and real events. Peter did not become a musician nor boat designer. He became a futures trader.

And so the concentric circles pulsating through the generations permeated the present and passed on to the future, circles never identical but similar in appearance. For Crouse intensity, passion for perfection, and love of doing things for the sake of doing them still exists.