Due to very special family constellations I happened to grow up in the Meng Family

experiencing a unique artistic atmosphere:

Marius Meng - one life - two worlds 

I would like to briefly highlight some images from the life and environment of my uncle Marius Meng, which come to mind especially now, as we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Zürcher Orchestergesellschaft, which he founded and led with enthusiasm for over 30 years.

The Origin

Marius's grandparents' roots lay in Alsace. In the small farming village of Bergholz-Zell, between Mulhouse and Colmar, Papa Hanauer owned and ran a Natural Healing Institute, the Kurhaus Hanauer, which was well-known far beyond the region at the time. He was a patriarch of the old school, first a village schoolteacher, then a dedicated and gifted naturopathic physician. During the First World War, he successfully cared for many wounded soldiers and later practiced primarily the Kneipp method.

 

Strict discipline and order prevailed in the spa hotel: the children were not allowed to speak at the "table d’hôte" where the spa guests also dined. They communicated with their feet under the table. No one would have dared to begin eating until Papa Hanauer gave the signal. Piano music, horses, and carriages were as much a part of the ambiance as the first automobiles would be later – I found some yellowed photos from that time.

 

Marius Meng and Mariette, his sister (and my mother), often spent their holidays in this area as children. My mother always recalled with a smile how the Polish servants of the house would report with a bow: "en voiture Monsieur, svp !", before handing Papa Hanauer his cane and his "chapeau claque". The patron was so respected that even trains waited for him when he arrived late at the station – however, he personally rewarded the steam locomotive drivers with chocolate .

 

The treatment at the spa was entirely holistic: in addition to cold water treatments, children and guests enjoyed excellent haute cuisine . The chamber music concerts at the spa served as a balm for the soul, and the neighboring Catholic pilgrimage site "Der Ölberg" ( d’r Ehlebärgg - The Mount of Olives) provided spiritual solace with its chapel and church services. In such surroundings, it was only natural that the daughter of Papa, Clothilde Hanauer, the mother of Marius and Mariette, was educated at the girls' boarding school of a convent school in Strasbourg. She almost remained in the convent as a nun—it's unthinkable what would have become of us all then. At the convent school, art, and especially music, played a prominent role alongside religion; but so did the more secular pursuit of the French, or—pardon me—Alsatian cuisine. Marius and Mariette always praised their mother's cooking to the skies. At the convent, she often sang solo in the gallery during Mass and, in my mother's usually strict and unbiased musical judgment, had a voice like "The Callas"! Later, she accompanied herself on the piano.

 

Mamama, as we called her in the family, met Charles Albert Meng, who had studied pharmacy in Colmar. We later called him Papapa . They married and, due to the political instability in Alsace, emigrated to Zurich to build a new life, essentially from scratch. Clothilde Ziegler—the second Clothilde—a daughter from the neighborhood of the spa hotel, came with them to Zurich as part of their dowry.

 

Mamama didn't want to give birth in a hospital, but at home: so in 1911 my uncle Marius and in 1913 my mother Mariette. Mamama must have screamed very loudly during the births, because Clothilde Ziegler, then a pretty and desirable daughter, swore solemnly never to marry after experiencing everything firsthand. Thus, Clothilde remained the heart and soul of Mamama and Papapa's family , Marius and Mariette, and finally also of mine, for 56 years until her death. Her earthy, down-to-earth wit was probably instilled in her from birth, Mamama taught her the art of cooking, and her inexhaustible supply of quotes and poems for every occasion before guests came from the treasure trove of her primary school in Bergholz-Zell. Her cheerful kitchen songs "in every language" were inspired by the musical surroundings and by Caruso's voice from the grooves of the gramophone's shellac records. She, too, contributed greatly to making all our friends and artists feel very comfortable in our home. Clothilde found her final resting place in our family grave. We also hold her memory in high esteem.

 

Papapa was a linguistically gifted pharmacist and a kind-hearted—but choleric—man. His weakness was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. I owe my middle name, Peter, to him. The family's vicious Scotch Terrier was also named Ilyich. Whenever Mariette or Marius wanted to get something from their father, there was a foolproof magic trick: they would put a Tchaikovsky record on the turntable, and Papapa would melt away without a second thought. He worked for many years in a Zurich pharmacy until his untimely death.

 

Mamama was a warm-hearted, cheerful, proud, yet God-fearing person with unwavering faith in the Church and its saints. She was never afraid of people. I owe my third given name, Antonius, to her influence. Saint Anthony has helped me find things when I've misplaced them—when he wanted to. Mamama loved the company of religious dignitaries. She wasn't bothered by our remarks and could always laugh heartily at herself. She was proud of her Alsatian heritage, spoke French, Alsatian, and German, and never once in all those years, never a word of Swiss German.

 

Educational paths and professions

In order to pay for a first-class education for their children Marius and Mariette, so-called “paying Guests” were taken in. They were an inexhaustible source of very bizarre stories. The children, however, would have gladly done without the strangers in the apartment.

 

After primary school, both children were initially sent to a commercial school. Mariette completed her commercial diploma. Marius was deeply unhappy, as business subjects did not suit his temperament. Eventually, he was able to transfer to the upper grades of the cantonal school's gymnasium (academic high school) and passed his diploma in a relatively short time. He then enthusiastically threw himself into the study of medicine. He was a fast learner with a lightning-fast grasp of concepts and an excellent memory. He often learned a subject simultaneously and taught it to others—albeit impatiently, but with persuasive skill. His "professorial" passion went so far that he sometimes gave his "student-victim" twenty centimes if he was allowed to teach them something. We would love to have such teachers today. It was thanks to this approach that my mother later managed to acquire the Latin language skills, essential for the university entrance exam at the time, within only six months, with the help of Marius as a "private tutor" and through her own tremendous effort. As a "love of law and order," she subsequently studied jurisprudence and also art history, and at university she met her future husband Silvio Antes , who was also studying medicine as a colleague of Marius.

 

Silvio was an extremely gifted student who had already achieved the best Matura results "historically" up to that date at the cantonal gymnasium in Chur. He received the top mark 6 in all subjects: German, Greek, French , History, Geography , Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Natural History, and Drawing; only in Physical Education did he receive a 5! He also wrote a 600-page Matura thesis, albeit in his difficult-to-read slanted handwriting, which my mother was able to decipher. She later helped him with his dissertation related to brain surgery "On Ventricular Puncture in the Trepanned Skull" by retyping the text. Apparently, during his first semester at the University of Zurich, Silvio was a fellow student of a son of Albert Einstein and his first wife, Mileva Marić , who had lived in the house next door to ours. Some time ago, a librarian from Tel Aviv came to Zurich to give me me a correspondence between Eduard, Silvio, and Albert, in which Eduard also writes about my father's astonishing abilities and knowledge during his studies. Unfortunately, the sensitive Eduard was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and interned in the Burghölzli mental hospital of Zurich for the rest of his life, and Einstein no longer cared for him.

 

After completing his studies, Marius could have taken over the Kurhaus in Alsace as a "proper" doctor, but things turned out differently: Zurich was his permanent home. During active military service, he served as a Swiss officer and physician . He eventually specialized in surgery and gynecology. After several years as a resident at the Zurich Cantonal Hospital and as a senior physician at the Zurich Women's Clinic, the opportunity arose in 1944 to take over the practice of the recently deceased, renowned gynecologist Dr. Deucher at the Pfauen square in Zurich.

 

Around the same time, my father became self-employed in two senses: he opened a surgical practice and left his family—a traumatic event for my mother and me. This prompted my mother to dedicate herself even more actively to supporting her brother, Marius and me to grow up in my second “family-environment”. She was able to utilize her strengths in areas such as organization and business management. Marius, however, never showed any interest in administrative matters or long-term planning. My mother had witnessed how the once-thriving Kurhaus in Alsace ultimately went bankrupt due to poor management after Papa Hanauer's death and excessive exploitation by relatives. This remained a cautionary tale for her, one that she was determined never to let repeat.

 

Mamama and Clothilde also initially helped set up the practice: during the first week, they sat as "extras" in the two waiting rooms so that the first patients wouldn't feel like they were the only ones. Fortunately, this initial phase was short-lived, and thanks to Marius's medical talent and the unique symbiotic collaboration of the two siblings, the gynecological practice developed into a thriving "business" that, in cold, hard numbers, ultimately cared for 35,000 sick and, naturally, also healthy women.

 

Marius was a "curious" person. Professionally, he kept himself up-to-date by reading specialist literature daily. He also collaborated with pharmaceutical companies on studies, for example, on the efficacy and tolerability of newly developed contraceptive drugs.

 

His expertise, experience, and love of lecturing made it easy for him to regularly speak to large audiences at the adult education center of the University of Zurich on the topics of gynecology and preventive medicine, without extensive preparation. He captivated his listeners with his uncomplicated, spontaneous manner and his concise presentation of the subject matter, and he never failed to include humorous remarks.

 

It seems that the experience he accumulated during his studies and throughout his practical career was readily available in his associative memory: for example, he recalled analogous cases when dealing with patients with rare symptoms and developed an almost "sleepwalking" certainty in his diagnoses and surgeries. He also published many of his experiences in articles in medical journals.

 

In his long career, he never once had to claim on his professional liability insurance due to medical malpractice. He always avoided unnecessary operations. I remember the case of a woman he operated on years ago. He happened to hear her name during a hospital visit. She had since gone to another doctor, was already on the operating table, and was being prepared for a mastectomy due to cancer. Marius entered the room, stood in front of the surgical team, and said he would not leave until a biopsy and immediate tissue examination had been performed at the nearby pathology lab of the university hospital. The results, obtained just under an hour later, were indeed negative, as he had expected, and the woman was able to be discharged without surgery. The many letters of thanks Marius received from his patients also testify to his uncompromising professional dedication.

 

Marius now commuted between his office hours, the operating room, the university, and, as we shall see, music. I can't recall him ever taking a vacation after graduating. Clothilde, in turn, took care of the household, while Mamama lived in the same apartment, often answering the telephone , visiting the sick, and praying for them. My mother took care of "everything else"—for what ultimately became 36 years—as secretary, bookkeeper, legal advisor, personnel manager, property manager, and impresario. She provided for the family's retirement, which, however, dwindled over the years.

 

Now the magic word: MUSIC

You know it, or suspect it: Marius and Mariette led a "double life". Marius was public, while Mariette, less visible to outsiders, worked behind the scenes: both siblings had the incurable virus of musical talent in their blood. As children, they attended the conservatory and achieved great mastery of the piano—partly through self-study—especially in playing new pieces from sheet music.

 

At the age of 15, young Marius gave his first organ concert in the Liebfrauenkirche in Zurich.

 

Mariette also fondly recalled the silent film era, when Marius, for a bit of pocket money, would provide the obligatory piano accompaniment "live" from sheet music in several Zurich cinemas. If Marius was unavailable, Mariette would naturally step in for him, playing, for example, under the screen of the Piccadilly cinema, love songs or funeral marches from the melody recipe book, depending on the scene. The many musical scores I found in the attic paint a nostalgic picture of that time.

 

My mother also remembered the GRAND CAFE HUGUENIN on Bahnhofstrasse, which offered classical salon music with guessing games to boost business. Guests could win a nice prize if they guessed the composer and the piece. The team of Marius and Mariette became notorious back then, as they repeatedly guessed everything correctly. It got to the point where the organizer had to stop the event because the same people kept winning.

 

Marius began conducting at the age of 17: he gathered a choir in the Catholic youth association and performed with it in the “Gesellenhaus Wolfbach”.

 

When traveling, Mariette always had to beg for the organ keys of the churches they visited, at the behest of Marius, who was rather "shy" in these matters.

 

Marius learned to play other instruments with ease, achieving mastery: trombone, clarinet, saxophone , bassoon. When Mr. Burger, the legendary bassoonist of the Tonhalle Orchestra , was unavailable, Marius played in his place.

 

As a young Student he founded the jazz quintet "Swiss Academians" at the university, with which he performed in many cities and spa towns. The earnings as a "working student" allowed him to partially finance his studies. He played piano, and my mother also remembered his virtuoso clarinet playing, where he enchanted audiences with his gliding notes.

 

At the same time, he learned to play the somewhat larger instrument, the symphony orchestra: during his studies, he read about a professional conducting course with the renowned conductor and classical composer Felix Weingartner in Basel. He applied, passed the entrance exam, and then traveled to Basel every week. He completed his conducting diploma and medical state examination practically simultaneously in 1933: musically, with a performance of Euryanthe - Overture by Carl Maria von Weber, medically with the dissertation "Hyperemesis and Pyelitis Gravidarum". Weingartner tried to persuade Marius to pursue a purely musical career. For Marius, however, his priorities always remained clear: his first love was medicine, his second, concurrent love was music. However, Marius remained a bachelor throughout his life.

 

After a brief stint conducting the small, ten-member amateur orchestra in Küsnacht, a large amateur symphony orchestra, the Orchestergesellscaft Zürich, was eventually founded. Over time, up to eighty music-obsessed idealists rehearsed every Friday evening – without pay or government subsidies – purely for the joy of making music. Marius and his orchestra performed regularly at the Zurich Tonhalle and many other venues.

 

Thanks to Mariette's assistance, Marius was able to fully dedicate himself to his great passion, music. In the music room of his apartment and practice near the Pfauen sqare stood two Steinway grand pianos. While the patients changed clothes in the examination room, he used the waiting time for a short piano interlude. In the evenings, they often played four-handed pieces on two pianos: usually Mariette on the lower keys on the left, and Marius on the higher keys on the right, either alone or for guests. In this way, they also practiced the piano reductions of many orchestral works and operas.

 

The artistic side of Mariette's life was initially focused on chamber music. I remember the house concerts on Moussonstrasse, where she always played the piano part. Thanks to her gift for connecting with people, she built a large network of social, personal, and artistic contacts with her warm personality. This meant that many young, as well as established, artists frequented the house or even lived there for a time. At the same time, she did everything she could to ensure that Marius could also conduct renowned professional orchestras in Switzerland and abroad. She could rightly have been called a true impresario. With her characteristic intuition, she often discovered young, talented soloists and invited them to their first concert performance under Marius's direction, without a concert agency having to bear the risk of failure. She was proud when, after some time, it became clear that artists had achieved their "breakthrough."

 

Although Marius Meng concentrated primarily on his work with his Orchestergesellschaft in later years , he performed quite frequently with Swiss and international professional orchestras. These included the Winterthur City Orchestra, often the augmented Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, with which he also toured other cities, the Sinfonieorchester Innsbruck, and the Utrecht Stedelijk Orchest, the Concertgebouw Orchest Amsterdam and with the Stuttgarter Philharmonikern.

 

Marius performed with these orchestras alongside renowned soloists such as the singer Maria Stader, the violinists Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Nathan Milstein, Arthur Grumiaux, Ida Haendel, the pianists Alfred Cortot, Friedrich Gulda, Alexis Weissenberg and Shura Cherkassky  and the seemingly extravagant Arthuro Michelangeli Benedetti, whom the audience repeatedly forgave for often canceling his concerts at the very last minute. However, he didn't do that with "us" and felt extremely comfortable under the "maternal" care of our dear Clothilde.

 

Anyone who assumes that Marius only felt at home in the realms of music or medicine is very much mistaken: one of his more down-to-earth passions as a student was cycling. Shortly after the war ended, he and a colleague rode a tandem over the Gotthard Pass to Genova. As a resident physician, he cycled to orchestra rehearsals and often raced to the hospital for births . Later, he was also fascinated by cycling races at the Oerlikon open velodrome. He knew all the greats of cycling. I was often allowed to accompany him to the then-popular motor-paced cycling races.

 

He was even more enthusiastic about football and ice hockey. I can still picture him now as a "fan" at a match on the Dolder ice rink, with a runny nose, red face, and hoarse voice.

 

He shared another fascination with the composer Arthur Honegger: his enthusiasm for railways and locomotives. For example, he spoke enthusiastically about his experience of riding in the driver's cab of a locomotive through the Gotthard Tunnel.

 

With his Orchestergesellschaft Zürich Marius performed with prominent established or unknown young, talented artists once or twice a year in the Great Hall of the Tonhalle Zurich and additionally in many locations throughout Switzerland, including the Arena of Avenches or regularly in the Knights' Hall at Lenzburg Castle, but also in countless community centers, churches, theaters, festival halls and gymnasiums of villages located outside the major urban concert scene .

 

Unforgettable are the Verdi Requiem and the oratorios, performed in collaboration with choirs such as the Zurich Bach Choir or the Heinrich Schütz Choir in the Tonhalle, the Grossmünster, or other churches. Equally memorable are the opera concerts with singers from the Zurich Opera House or the Parma Opera Chorus. Joint performances with the Zurich City Band at youth citizenship ceremonies and charity concerts were also a tradition, for example, for the relief organization of the Alsatian, cosmopolitan, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer, or as part of the Swiss Red Cross during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. A television broadcast in 1963, in collaboration with Professor Kurt Pahlen. commemorated Richard Wagner's 150th birthday. Despite the limited availability of amateur musicians, occasional performances abroad were also organized, for example, in Germany or on Mallorca.

 

Among the many artists who performed with Marius—some for the first time in Switzerland—were Daniel Barenboim, who made his debut as a pianist in Zurich at the age of eleven, wearing shorts, and who, along with his parents, found temporary shelter with our family after emigrating from Argentina to Israel; Maurizio Pollini, who first played in Zurich at the age of sixteen and, like me, was still preparing for his university entrance exams. I also think of the phenomenal Dan Grigore, about whom, on the eve before the concert, it was still uncertain whether he would receive permission to leave communist Romania. I think of Paul Badura Skoda, Clara Haskil, Andor Foldes, Ricardo Odnoposoff, Hans-Heinz Schneeberger, Peter Lucas Graf, Ingrid Haebler, Nikita Magaloff, Alexander Brailowsky, Maria Stader, and Aldo Ciccolini. I think of the elderly pianist Elly Ney, who gave her last, and then her very last, concert. I think of the pianist Shura Cherkassky. He performed with Marius countless times and, until his death, maintained contact with me as one of my most loyal artistic friends. We had a swim together in a pool of his appartment "The White House" in London.

 

In the apartment next to the practice at Rämistrasse 38, a vibrant and diverse life pulsed even after work hours. In this commercial building surrounded by traffic, music could be played late into the night without disturbing less music-loving neighbors. Many young artists came to audition, hoping for their first concert appearance. Others came simply for chamber music evenings or stimulating discussions in small groups, for pre-concert meetings, to rest after demanding performances, or simply to practice, like Shura Cherkassky, who meticulously refined every detail of his performance using his painstaking "slow-motion" method.

 

I remember conductors such as the Slavic-warm-hearted Raffaël Kubelik, who stayed with us with his wife and son after his escape from communist Czechoslovakia, and the ascetic-looking but sharply humorous long-time conductor of the Tonhalle Orchestra Hans Rosbaud, who masterfully navigated even the most complex contemporary compositions; the rather "intellectual" composer Vladimir Vogel; the energetic music teacher and composer Armin Schibler —one of whose works was premiered by Marius. Then the spirited composer Heinrich Sutermeister. Among the rich trove of musical reminiscences, I also found photos of Marius in conversation with his highly revered Wilhelm Furtwängler. I also remember how we all traveled together to Baden to visit Richard Strauss, who was taking the waters there. My uncle held him in extremely high esteem as the "last great symphonist". The image of the elderly, sympathetically distinguished, yet powerful master-composer in his wicker chair remains vivid in my memory. He had dedicated a few lines of music to my uncle. Rumor had it that his wife Pauline often locked him in his room so that he could compose diligently and undisturbed and not think about anything else.

 

To mark the twentieth anniversary of the Zurich Orchestra Society, Alfred Baum composed the lively and pleasing "Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments and Double Bass”, which subsequently premiered. For the thirtieth anniversary, Albert Moeschinger created the original "Entrée and Scherzo ingénue " (dedicated to Dr. Marius Meng and his Orchestra Society). Marius delivered the laudatory speech at the Zurich Opera House for the presentation of the "City of Zurich Art Prize" to the composer and artistic director Rolf Libermann, whom Marius and Mariette admired.  For twelve years Marius also played a significant role in shaping Zurich's musical life as a member of the Music Commission's board .

 

***

 

It wasn't easy for me at first to find my place in such an "elitist," art-filled atmosphere. My initial attempts to convert myself to actively making music failed, as I would lock myself in my room before my violin teacher's visit. My attempt at piano at the conservatory was somewhat more successful, but limited to about three weeks. The didactically ambitious teacher had his own "coloring book" method for teaching music to young children. All ended after I had practiced the sweet melodies for a while, and my mother took over coloring the notes, figures, and flowers with crayons. This spared the teacher's professional pride, but my enjoyment was limited. This isn't meant to be an excuse for why I ultimately became "only" a physicist and not a great musician. Perhaps the reason was the all-too-precocious realization that, unlike those around me, I was still miles away from the pinnacle of the arts. Only recently has the active musical virus overwhelmed me, and I have started doing what my uncle mastered at the age of fifteen: playing the organ - see and hear menu item "GA Plays Bach".

 

My first regular contribution to the success of the Zurich Orchestra Society's concerts was limited to transporting the two or three gigantic double basses and the bulky timpani from the conservatory to the Tonhalle concert hall and back again after the concerts. This only worked smoothly in good weather, however: in my uncle's big, elegant yellow Buick Cabriolet car (eight cylinder engine) I was allowed to drive, the instruments became passengers on the seats, while the timpani disappeared into the open trunk as much as possible. I always noticed the wide-eyed stares of passersby on these journeys, and I couldn't help but smile.

 

My second contribution was substituting as a musician playing the double bass for the orchestra's anniversary photograph in the Tonhalle, as the original musician was late.

 

Finally, I found a way to usefully combine my probably innate love of music and my fascination with physics and technology: I documented most of my uncle's concerts with tape recorder equipment and loudspeakers, which I had perfected over the years - partly through self-construction.

 

I made some of the first “artificial head” recordings in the Tonhalle. For each rehearsal and performance, I would crawl around above the dusty suspended ceiling of the hall, above the painted and gilded angels of the stucco work, and lower the microphones through the holes in the ceiling into the correct recording position. My good friends Dr. Franz Tomamichel  and Dr. Werner Madritsch, who both have since passed away, tirelessly assisted me.

 

Over the years, more than two hundred recordings have been realized, which I cherish like a treasure from bygone days, occasionally revealing a few gems in the light of day, but speaking for itself through sound - directly connected to our hearts. Thus, these "golden" times remain alive even after the deaths of Mariette and Marius, and I can still hear him calling out with delight at rehearsals:

"... Chinder, isch das e herrlichi Musig!!!".

 

Gregor Antes