THE PRESIDENTIAL EAR
Farber, Anne
A little while ago Time Magazine reported President Jimmy Carter to have said, "I listen to classical music eight to ten hours a day." Eight to ten hours a day? Astounding. Obviously a...
...Mozart, String Quintet in G Minor, K. 516, he learns...
...But no, he doesn't fit the sound track to the occasion...
...On the other hand, his reverence certainly has its practical limits...
...But no, a later story, again in Time, cleared that up...
...Could he—should he—fit the sound track to the occasion...
...Then, if he is still listening, it will inevitably speak to him about itself...
...Of course, Jimmy Carter would be properly outraged by the suggestion that he perform his duties to the accompaniment of the Melachrino Strings...
...And he would explain that his favorite passages of poetry were printed on wallpaper, and he—wellsat in their presence, so to speak...
...Even imagining what others might have done offers little help...
...Was it a gesture of extravagant generosity inspired perhaps by Mozart's meditations on grief and yearning...
...The background music plays all day...
...He meant that he hears it...
...Well, no, I'm not actually reading it all the time, you see," he might assure us...
...But since it is there, and he is hearing it, something may occasionally catch his attention and he will listen...
...Their aim is to help you along but leave you alone...
...That is, he thinks highly of his ability, in their presence, to stay in command of his own attention...
...Still, this is clearly a risky business...
...And what will it say to him...
...Serious people here...
...So, of course, he did not mean that he "listens" to classical music eight to ten hours a day...
...Nixon, of course, was not much interested in the musical possibilities of the audio technology at his disposal...
...Surely, he misjudges the masters...
...How can he be so confident of his capacity to respond only on his own terms...
...And a dangerous way to live...
...For myself, I would vastly prefer to be left alone in silence and trusted to help myself along, but I recognize that while I experience the product as so much annoying aural litter, it is its intention to make no claims...
...He leans back in his chair briefly, his eyes closed, and notices a lovely tune coming from the speaker...
...That is, of his capacity not to respond...
...It is there, very much like auditory wallpaper...
...A mighty boast, that...
...Perhaps it would be profitable for him now to enroll in a speed-listening program, so that his daily dose of music could be run through the loudspeakers doubletime for, say, four or five hours a day, assuring him at least another four or five hours of the random rustlings of an imperfect silence, in which his thoughts—on matters large and small—might be shaped by nothing more or less than their own content, where their lyricism or profundity or munificence would issue from the mind of the thinker himself, not from his sound system...
...First of all, it will remind him of its presence, and that will tell him something about himself—that he is a man of serious tastes, a man at home in a cultural community that includes the likes of Beethoven, Bach, and so on...
...There is no precedent to serve the President here...
...But before pondering that mysterious moment, let us raise a procedural question...
...The mere presence of the masters he reveres is what matters...
...he reveres, but he is not unduly awed...
...Wonderful...
...There is no way to tell, and undoubtedly the extra zero will be spotted—and deleted—in another office along the way, so that no tarnish will collect on the good name of Mozart...
...Will he buzz Susan to have plenty of Wagner on hand, or should it be Satie, that splendid wit on the uses of economy...
...He listens with interest for a moment, then reaches for Susan's pile of cards...
...Who is to understand what happened here...
...An important meeting on the energy crisis is impending...
...He will tune in and out at will—as his thoughts and activities require...
...Obviously a misprint...
...Probably he misjudges himself...
...Order, clarity, depth...
...The compilers of Musak, in their wisdom, know exactly what to use and what not to use in their assemblages of organized sound crudely—but shrewdly—got up to resemble actual music...
...It's on the wall...
...Facing a conference with Sadat, LBJ, unrepentant low-brow that he was, would probably have pressed the button for some belly-dance music—to get them both in the mood...
...136...
...that he is a man with historical connections...
...Then suddenly it will spring, snatching its host into its own realm, where it will speak to him of its own concerns, and he will, for the moment, forget everything else he knows...
...What to play...
...The danger, however, is not that he won't listen but that he will...
...The Shah arrives to confer...
...CARTER, all on his own now, a pioneer of the presidential aural wraparound, chooses a Brandenburg...
...He seeks to improve himself—and to adorn himself—by keeping their company...
...Clough types the musical program on a tidy series of yellow 3x5 cards and places them on the President's desk so that he can make mental notes of what he is hearing...
...Great art is splendid company, but it is unreliable, too...
...If he had said, "I read romantic poetry eight to ten hours a day," one might feel some concern about the amount of state business being neglected...
...Mozart, the thinking man's best musical friend...
...No nonsense...
...This is why you will never, in your dentist's waiting room, or at the supermarket, or in an office-building elevator, hear snippets from the Brahms Double, or Schubert's Death and the Maiden or a refrain from the Berlioz Requiem...
...Let us imagine him toward the end of the day, sitting alone in his office, musing over his meeting with the Shah, and turning the pages of a document that will authorize the shipment to Iran of the 10,000 pieces of hardware that the Shah has requested...
...The fact is that Mozart, in the G Minor Quintet, has considerably more than order and clarity on his mind, and whatever that poignant more is he pours it out to Jimmy Carter, and Jimmy Carter hears it, and his eyes mist, his soul stirs, his heart contracts, and then expands—and, as the third movement Adagio concludes, he signs the document for the Shah's tanks, rifles, radar equipment, whatever, having changed the number of pieces from 10,000 to 100,000...
...He has no reservations at all as he gives himself to Mozart, for whatever Mozart has in mind...
...Susan Clough, Carter's personal secretary, is in charge of "feeding the President's Panasonic phonograph with classical LPs...
...Or simply a clerical mistake—who can count zeros at a time like this...
...It may sit quietly in the background for a while, permitting itself to be glimpsed, pointed at, ignored— according to the whims and dictates of the people present...
...That is, of his incapacity to respond...
...On the other hand, he has chosen to surround himself with a form of sound that makes serious claims on the attention and sensibilities of (continued on page 136) 97 NOTEBOOK (continued from page 97) its hearers...
...Lyndon Johnson...
...Carter has recently completed a speedreading course, enabling him to process, much more rapidly than before, the many documents that require his attention...
Vol. 25 • January 1978 • No. 1
