My pal Louie

Everyone knows a guy like my pal Louie. Intensely awkward, prone to say the wrong thing in delicate social situations, always falling for the wrong or unavailable girl...my pal Louie was one of those guys. A kind person would call him stocky, but no matter what, his clothes never fit right. More often than not you'd see him striding down the street with shirt misbuttoned, clothes not matching, hair untamed, muttering to himself. He existed in his own very rich inner world, with the frequent consequence of passionate outbursts that had no relation to the situation or topic at hand. Louie was slightly paranoid and when he was younger, prone to delusions of grandeur. Having had a difficult relationship with his alcoholic father (a dour, frustrated man who worked in a thankless government position) and highly protective of and devoted to his mother, at one point he became convinced that he was not his father's son; according to Louie, his mother must have conceived him with a better-bred, more intelligent man.

If Necessity is the mother of invention, then Hardship is the father of inspiration. Like many a genius -for make no mistake, Louie was a genius- his early life was shaped by tragedy and hardship. When he was 16 his mother died, followed shortly by his baby sister. Louie became the de facto head of the family, responsible for the welfare of his father and brothers. Having already exceeded his father's skills, he petitioned and got permission from his father's bosses to receive half of his father's salary. This would ensure that Louie would have the money to use in support of his family, rather than drunk away on a bar stool. The employer agreed to this on the one condition that his father retire immediately and perhaps even leave town; however, Louie never had the heart to rob his father of all dignity in this way, so he never went through with the petition.

So you see, for all his lack of social skills, paranoid fantasies and general irascibility, Louie had an awful lot of heart. And after the death of his burdensome father, Louie's early adulthood was marked by productivity and success. Though he tried to alienate them with his gruff manner and blunt honesty, he managed to flourish with the help and intervention of his friends, who discreetly did things like replace his old clothes with new, find him places to live and work undisturbed, take him on holidays in the country. All for the simple fact that when they were around him, they couldn't help but feel that they were in the presence of something like a higher genius, an incredible force that represented perhaps the best humanity could ever dare to offer.

Any psychologist will tell you that people who have experienced loss and responsibility such as Louie had in his teens, become wary of good fortune. They may feel like they don't deserve it; they may feel like nothing good can ever happen to them. It is like a superstition; and Louie remarked about it to one of his friends at the time: "Sometimes I feel that all this undeserved fame will drive me crazy; for once, good luck is seeking ME and because of that I dread a fresh disaster." Self-fulfilling prophecy or not, the worst tragedy was still to come. Louie, the genius musician, for whom the ability to hear, analyze and create sounds was of paramount importance, was slowly going deaf. "For almost two years," he wrote to a doctor friend, "I have ceased to attend any social functions, just because I find it impossible to say to people, 'I am deaf.' If I had any other profession I might be able to cope with this sickness, but in my profession it is a terrible handicap. And if my enemies, of whom I have a fair number, were to hear about it, what would they say?"

Poor Louie! Cut off from everything precious to him! Forced into seclusion to be even more misunderstood than he already was, just when life was becoming less of a hardship. This stunning development sent him into the most violent mood swings, and at age 28, he wrote a goodbye letter to his brothers: "..men who think I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly you wrong me... from childhood on, my heart and soul have been full of the tender feeling of goodwill, and I was inclined to accomplish great things...though born with a fiery, active temperament, susceptible to the diversions of society, I was soon compelled to withdraw myself...I must live alone, like one banished...if I approach near to people a hot terror seizes me, and I fear being exposed-that my condition might be noticed....driven to despair....I would have ended my life..it was only my ART that held me back."

I spent one crazy night in Vienna years ago, armed with a Sony Walkman (*gasp*, pre iPod!) full of his music. As I played it, I wandered to each place where Louie had written that particular piece. Though I could never know if what I heard through the headphones was what he heard in his own head, I wanted to see what he saw with his eyes, smelled the old cobblestone, brick, and musty corridors, touched the surfaces..I wanted to try to recreate his environment of creation, of all the senses, save one, cruelly left to perhaps the greatest musical mind of all time.

Our Louie.

for another Beethoven immersion experience, please attend our daylong Beethoven festival in Jones Hall this Saturday, March 8, from 10 am- 11 pm. Symphonies, quartets, trios, sonatas, dramatic works, a film and lectures will be presented, along with the presence of actual Louie DNA, a lock of the master's hair (and the analysis of that, boys and girls, we will save for another blog).