"I did not want to become less good, nor wanted to lose my staccato en my self-critisism"
Gys Karten, ex-clarinettist, belonged to the ábsolute top
When Adolf Hitler in 1933 became ‘Führer und Reichskanzler’ and in 1943 Germany’s government and state chief and commander of the army, many Jewish intellectuals understood they had to wake up to the notion that there was nothing good for them left in Europe. They fled to safer places like the USA, Britain and Palestine, rightly fearful of fascism.
In December 1936 Jewish musicians, primarily displaced from Germany, Hungary, Poland and Austria formed in Tel Aviv The Palestine Orchestra, the current Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
Gys Karten, born in Zaandam (Holland) joined in 1937 as a principal clarinetist, one year after the establishment of the orchestra by Bronislaw Huberman. Gys was the only ‘Christian’ amongst at approximately seventy of the best Jewish musicians. He would remain there until 1946.
Gys Karten: “Playing under Arturo Toscanini, I shall never forget. An experience beyond words. He often stood there directing with one hand and then, quite unnoticed, the other hand raised slowly and I gave everything. The maestro lifted me up as it were, let me play beyond my level. And so did the others. All the musicians in the orchestra, where German language was enshrined and not the obvious English and alongside Ivrit in Palestine, all the musicians were the absolute top. They were masters in concert. Those strings..! I never heard something like that, not even later on in the Concertgebouw Orchestra (Holland). When the legendary Huberman became ill and the request was who would replace him as solist all the violinists stood up, they all wanted to play as a substitute of Huberman’s Brahms. And one by one they could, there was not an ounce overconfidence in.”
“Ivriet!”
Gys Karten joined the Palestinian Orchestra because after the departure of Louis Staal late 1936, they could not find a Jewish first clarinetist. He applied for the job and after the audition in Zürich he was accepted and went by boat to Palestine, and left his pregnant wife behind in the Netherlands. Only after six weeks when the family reunited in Tel Aviv he saw his first son Rimsky, named after the Russian composer Nicolai Andreyevich Rimski-Korsakov. Rimsky grew up in Palestine, went to school, had Jewish friends spoke Ivrit. If Dutch was spoken at home the boy preferred the Hebrew and shouted angrily: “Rak Ivriet! Rak Ivriet!” And he insisted that Sabbath was held on every Friday night. Back in the Netherlands, 9 years old, he had to learn Dutch. Rimsky did not become a musician: he is looking for ‘luck and brooche’ in advertising world. As a boy he studied violin under his father while secretly reading a comic. Karten has two other sons, Ronald and Edward, no one in the music but successively in the PR and communication technology.Bomblet
According to Gys Karten the Jewish musicians of the Palestinian Orchestra never talked about the war. While they made music which they did brilliantly, the Jews in occupied Europe underwent a terrible fate. Karten: “Frankly, that war was rarely discussed. Sometimes an Italian airplane dropped a bomblet on Tel Aviv, only then you realized there was a war. We sent packages to relatives in Europe, which never arrived at its destination. If we took the orchestra on tour to Jerusalem or Haifa, or Egypt or Libanon we rode in armoured busses or groomed trains. The Arabs then were very friendly, they never molested us. The culture life in Tel Aviv was very plaisant in that time. At night when my wife and I took a walk in Tel Aviv we heard someone playing the violin or the piano from almost every house. There was a great respect for a member of an orchestre, a musician was somebody who was in high repute. For example, I got adressed as ‘Professor’ and was treated with all respect. There I was Mister Musician, in the Netherlands only just Johnny the Musician.”Filosemiet
About the technique of cutting ‘straws’ for his ES-clarinet: if Gys cut a reed it lasted for years; the straws bought in the shop he could throw away after three months. Over his 35-year as a broadcaster musician, there appear to be differences in character between brass and woodwinds, between strings and percussion.Many colleagues are deceased, Karten accompanied already many colleagues on his last journey. Gys Karten was indeed a conservatory classically trained professional who could spritually handle Mozart always managing to find the right leading, he managed flawlessly imitating Benny Goodman. He knew his way to Tyrolean music, ask him to play a sentimental Malando-like tune or somewhat kitschy waltz he knew how to do it. He worked with Jaap van Zweden of whom Karten thinks is an excellent violinist and with a number of talented musicians broadcasting, whose names he doesn’t mention, afraid he might forget someone.By his stay in Palestine Gys Karten became a filosemiet thoroughbred. Like no other he could perform work of Jewish composers such as Daniel Belifante, Sem Dresden, Marcel Lavrij, Darius Milhaud, Vittorio Rieti, Alexander Tansman, etc. etc. Thick scrapbooks full of rave reviews left at least yours truly perplexed.Hollywood
But… where is his clarinet? Does Gys Karten still plays? ”I had more clarinets,” he says. “Wurlitzers German and Swedish Warsjevski’s, now I have no instrument in the house. I don’t play and listen no more and I have no need for it. On my 63th I could have an early retirement at the broadcasting company.
My colleagues and my students - I also was a teacher - were surprised when I told them I was going to say goodbye to the music. But I put through, I did not want to become less good, did not want to lose my staccato and my self-criticism. When I stopped I was still in excellent condition and in shape. I sometimes feel that I would be able to play even now, although my hearing and my memory may be slightly degraded. It’s over, I could not have a better life as a musician. First played in Palestine with world-class musicians and toured, then worked happily as broadcasting soloist.I received many offers. After playing with Hugo de Groot in the Cinetone studio’s in Amsterdam I got a recommendation from my colleague out of the Palestine-time and the advice to go to Hollywood. He worked there and earned just fine. I was also able to go to South Afcica, at the last moment I refrained the offer because someone told me that ‘whites’ in Johannesburg had to sleep with a gun under their pillow. We are very shocked by it. Tickets for the trip were already in my possesion, because initially I wished to go. And for instance in Australia they wanted me in a radio band.”
I cried...
In retrospect, regrets? Karten: “No, it’s good. My family has always missed me because dad was always at work and could not be at home. During my early retirement I was a courier for my sons Edward and Rimsky, who work in the advertising business. I brought advertising material to their customers and waited for the corrections yo take back. So I became an eldery messenger waiting on the doorstep against whom could be said: “Wait in the hallway, you get the envelope back!”Karten: “That is what has happened. What does it matter?! I don’t care, did it for fun. eventually the faxmachine made my courier job redundant.”And... has there ever been a moment when ‘musician’ Gys Karten came into conflict with ‘courier’ Gys Karten? ‘Once,” he admits reluctantly, “I was driving the car back form Utrecht, I had to bring printingproofs to the Railway headquarters. Suddenly I heard on the radio playing the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. I put the car in a parking lot along the way and I cried...”
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