With a little bit of help from my friends - and mom and maybe dad, as well

Philippe Jaroussky

I've been listening to one great musical artist after another for some time now, not just making lemonade out of the lockdown, but really getting into the fact that one of the greatest of benefits of the computer age is that we now have access to the top of the line, the very best singers, dancers, instrumentalists and others of exceptional talent.

As I was listening this morning to Philippe Jaroussky whose purity of voice puts me into a meditative state, I found my mind wandering to the question of how much effort he must have put in to get where he is today. It's clearly not enough to be born with talent. That talent must be cultivated. And although I'd never want to take anything away from these people who make you wonder where they get their superhuman abilities from, I know that in most cases it takes a parent or two and in some cases a village. Whether it's a mother who ties you to the piano bench, a teacher who spots you early on and gives you the grounding you need, a good friend wise enough to give you the kind of encouragement you need to keep going when things get tough, you almost certainly can't do it on your own.

If you're one of the lucky ones, born with talent into an environment that knows how to nurture it, good on you! We can only wish we were all so lucky.

Unfortunately, for all those who succeed, there are many more who don't. One way to work myself into a deep funk is to reflect on how bad parenting or bad schooling can mess up a kid. I'm furious with the American way of paying for schooling by taxing locals to pay for the schools their kids attend and then redlining and otherwise assigning poor people to poor neighborhoods where their kids have to make do with poorly funded schools. I want us to treat health and education as a national responsibility. I hate it that we can't make that happen, that a critical mass of people go along with the Republican way of keeping the wealth the nation generates in the hands of a limited few, that we cannot do right by kids and get them out of poverty by exposing them to the best schools the nation can provide.

I love excellence, and I love it each time I come across a musician who seems to have been dealt a marvelous hand of cards to play the game of life with, a child prodigy, or a musician with the personal discipline to train and bring out of the talent they were born with. 

This applies to lots of things besides music of course - I've been obsessed with the British diver Tom Daley, for example, and have shared my excitement over his winning a gold medal with his diving partner, Matty Lee, in the Tokyo Olympics this week. But music is my mainstay, and I know from personal experience what is involved in rising to the top in the world of musical performance. I had great prospects and raised a lot of expectations as a kid, as a boy soprano, and later as a church organist at the age of sixteen. I decided early on I didn't have what it takes to work the talent I had into something greater, and I have no regrets. It was the right decision and I am grateful that I at least have the ability to appreciate talent when I see it, and to feel the joy that comes from watching it grow, as I have watching Alexander Malofeev over the years. And the Jussen Brothers, to name just a couple examples.

After listening to this performance by the counter tenor Philippe Jaroussky, I looked into his background. His is a great story and he's still got miles to go and could well become even better over time, even though he's already good enough to have earned the right to the adjective "exquisite" when describing his singing.

I have a book on the Jews that managed to escape Nazi Germany who contributed their talents to the U.S. and other countries. Jaroussky's family left Russia because of its hostility to Jews, as well, and you can't help wondering how profoundly stupid and self-destructive people can be to let talent escape like this. Their loss illustrates the metaphor of shooting oneself in the foot. Not only do tyrants and genocidal killers perform horrors on their immediate victims; they remove chances of greatness from their own people as well. If their victims manage to escape, the talent is not lost and may even, ironically, get cultivated better for having been tested so severely. Not that that should be used as an argument for oppression, but it does illustrate the folly of mankind.

I just wanted to share what was going through my mind as I listened to this pure voice. It comes in a package that was roughly bounced around before it was delivered. Like Tom Daley, Jaroussky is a gay man, and it hasn't been all that long since gay people got out from under the heel of religious bigots. And not that long since Jews got out from under the boots of thugs, as well.

The battle isn't over. Tucker Carlson, the prime spokesman for America's white supremacist network supporting the destruction of American democracy, just paid a visit to Hungary to sing the praises of its authoritarian leader who is doing to Hungary what Trump tried to do to the United States. As Carlson kisses thuggish ass, the news comes that the LGBT community is out in force in the streets of Budapest protesting the recent attempt to cut back on the rights of lesbians and gays and transgender folk. So there are still many battles to be fought. 

Meanwhile, if you don't want to fuss with me over all this bad news, just sit back and enjoy the beauty of Tom Daley and Matty Lee's beautiful dive. And listen to Philippe Jaroussky singing Vivaldi with that wonderful baroque orchestra, the Ensemble Matheus.

But don't overlook how they got there. I like to wish the mothers of my friends well on my friends' birthdays, since they did all the work.

So listen to Philippe Jaroussky. And raise a toast to his mama.

Once again, that link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zQX2XqAE8c

Photo credit