George Cleve is a fake, a phony, a
fraud.
For as long as I've known him,
Cleve – the founder, conductor and guiding light of the Midsummer Mozart
Festival, which just completed its 41st season – has been masquerading
as a grumpy old man.
But I have bad news for him: Nobody
is fooled. Nobody has ever been fooled. I mean, if he's such a grouch, how come
so many people love him so much?
Before he even raised his baton to conduct
the first piece at this year's festival, people in the audience were giving him
a standing O. Not to be outdone, the musicians in the orchestra stomped their
feet so loudly, it sounded like thunder was rolling through the beautiful First
Congregational Church of Berkeley, where the concert was held.
Partly, the applause was a tribute
to the consistently high quality of his musicianship. As the Mercury News said about
his rendition of Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony, "He struck an
excellent balance between drama and tenderness, with the kind of alluring
interplay between the orchestra's sections that Mozart lovers look forward to
all year."
But people also love him because they
see his curmudgeon act for what it is – an act. Under that grumpy façade is a
total pussycat who is generous to a fault.
Just ask the folks at the Berkeley
Humane Society, for whom he has, without fanfare, organized chamber music concerts
as fundraisers.
Or the many young musicians he has
quietly nurtured and encouraged over the years, including those who came up
through the Mozart Youth Camerata, which he founded in 2009, and are now
professionals in their own right.
Or the high school seniors and
college students currently in the festival's new internship program, whose musical
education is being greatly enhanced by rehearsing and performing side-by-side with
the professional musicians in the orchestra, who have been playing Mozart
together for years.
For me, his sweetness with young
people is best exemplified by his friendship with the amazingly multitalented
19-year-old pianist/violinist/composer Audrey Vardanega, who made her debut
with the Midsummer Mozart Festival at age 14, making her the youngest soloist
in the festival's history.
He's become a surrogate grandfather to her. They hang out and
watch old movies and play with his cats, Winston and Alfie. And although he has
the highest admiration for her musical ability, that's not what he mentions
when he talks about her. Instead, he brags about what a great, unspoiled,
unaffected kid she is.
And that's music to Audrey's ears
because she has fought all her life against being defined by her talent. As she
once told me, "I want people to judge me by my personality, not how well I
play the piano."
At 79, Cleve's health has been
fragile lately. But as soon as the old lion picked up the baton, the years fell
away; and he conducted with a power and majesty that would be the envy of a man
half his age.
Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti said,
"Maestro George Cleve is one of the great Mozart interpreters of our time
and place," but Ferlinghetti is wrong. Cleve is one of the great Mozart
interpreters of ANY time and ANY place. He's a great man.
And, as I hope I've demonstrated,
he's a good man, too.
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