TAMING the IMPOSSIBLE

It is the year 2000. Alex Klein, then 35 years old, is Principal Oboe with

the Chicago Symphony under Music Director Daniel Barenboim. He had

earned the First Prize in the Geneva International Competition, the top

prize awarded in the Sony Competition in Japan, the First Prize in the

Fernand Gillet International Oboe Competition and the First Prize in the

New York International Oboe Competition. By then he had also recorded

the Oboe Concerto by Richard Strauss with Barenboim and the CSO

which would soon earn a Grammy Award as "Best Instrumental Soloist

with Orchestra" - the only Grammy ever granted to a solo oboist. Klein's

most recent CDs, with music of Schubert, Bach/Telemann and of course

his recordings with the Chicago Symphony brought him accolades. In December of 2000 Klein recorded Paganini's Caprices n. 1, 5, 10 and 16 as part of a new recording project showcasing encores for oboe.

                                                                       And then everything changed.

Symptoms began already in 1997-98. By the year 2001 Klein had lost dexterity in two fingers of his left hand. Practicing wouldn't compensate for it. The first two diagnosis of Musician's Focal Dystonia came from Chicago's Rush Memorial Hospital, to be followed by Dr. Alice Branfonbrenner at Northwestern Memorial                                               Hospital also in Chicago, and Dr. Richard Lederman at The Cleveland Clinic. Dystonia                                         is the third most common movement disorder, affecting 300,000 people in the United                                           States alone. "Focal" dystonia affects a specific part of the body, in Klein's case his                                             middle and ring fingers from his left hand. Dystonia is a neurological condition where                                           the balance between muscles is affected, causing them to not respond properly. It made Klein's oboe playing impossible to sustain, and by 2004 he had resigned from the Principal Oboe position with the Chicago Symphony. The recording project of the Paganini Caprices took another form. The orchestra for Pasculli's Three Characteristic Studies was recorded by itself, without the soloist, with Klein adding his part only 15 to 20 years later.

                                                                          Giving up is not an option

Failure is practically a guarantee, as focal dystonia is incurable. It is located in the brain, more precisely in the basal ganglia, but abnormalities have been observed also in the cerebellum, prefrontal cortex,

midbrain, and thalamus. Even if failure is an obvious end to any attempt to undo or overcome

dystonia, "giving up" a search was not an option, because one never really knows what effort,

research, patience and constant re-thinking can lead to. Who knows? Maybe a cure is yet to be

              found, and there are those who say they have been "cured" of focal dystonia by

              applying different sets of muscles or different approaches to playing. Klein

              experimented with numerous treatments, Chinese medicine, acupuncture, massages of

              various types, Rolfing, chiropractors and psychologists. Klein received experimental   

              medicine for Parkinson's disease, had Novocain injected into his fingers, took steroids, received                         Botox injections and saw medical professionals all the way up to the National Institutes of Health in                   the United States. Klein experimented with external additions, adding finger braces, finger weights,                   prosthetic gloves, springs and threads attached to fingers to control and limit their movements.                         Similar work was done on redesigning the oboe, gluing coins and moving tone holes to different places so as to facilitate finger access to the keys. Similarly, different fingerings were applied so as to bypass or limit the contributions of the affected fingers. A distinct class of work was done by revisiting how the oboe is played, how the brain absorbs information and then retrieves it, and how one can successfully apply mental practicing skills to relearn how to play the oboe while still counting on the information already stored in Klein's memory and muscular memory. Traditional oboe learning methodology was critically analyzed and set aside, to be replaced by practicing techniques based on what had been learned from the research and exploration of how the brain works. In many cases Klein observes how the traditional methodology was not only inadequate to avoid dystonic movements but was also grossly misleading to non-dystonic oboists, leading to unnecessary strife when facing fast passages and lending the instrument its well known image as an instrument incapable of playing extreme works such as those displayed in this collection. Solutions were sought not "against" focal dystonia or in a way to counter it, but to adapt oboe performance to a physical situation that was accepted as immovable and unchangeable.
 

                                                                             Taming the Impossible

Alex Klein recorded and released numerous CDs in the last 24 years, most containing repertory which was achievable when the proper timing and preparation were taken into consideration. The present project - Taming the Impossible - is different because all of its musical works are unusual in their calls for extreme technical domain of the instrument, regardless of the presence of focal dystonia. What began as a project to explore exciting encores was transformed into a study in overcoming impossible odds. Various aspects of dystonia were revisited, minimizing its impact to specific circumstances when the affected fingers were most disturbed, and then further analyzing why they did so. Through this research a methodology was created that permitted learning to occur, and eventually performance and recording. Focal dystonia is not stable. It adapts to new circumstances, requiring constant adaptations from Klein to counter and keep up with its shenanigans. Klein's "solutions", therefore, do not amount to a "cure", but more to a "dance" with the brain, in a dialogue between what can and cannot be done, and why, and then how to overcome that which fell off the range of possibilities. Every few years a new collection of works would be recorded. Some, like Le Api, required two sessions (2006 and 2020) as the first did not attain the desired results. The last recording session was held in April, 2023, some 22,5 years after the first one. 

                                                                          The impossible oboe

This project does not offer insights only into overcoming the effects of focal dystonia. It was necessary to reinvent the oboe and revisit how it is played, and particularly how it is practiced, in just about the same amount of dedication as was carried out in the battle against the symptoms of focal dystonia. Unlike its woodwinds counterparts, the oboe appears to not have been designed for speed. Its reliance on a hand-made, carefully crafted reed limits its technical possibilities to that which may be produced by such a

reed. In many (most?) cases this process carries sad consequences, with the oboe having one of the

shortest useable ranges of all orchestral instruments and being unable to provide useful complementary support to its orchestral peers in many important areas, including fast passages, soft dynamics, blending

and chamber music skills. This CD demonstrates some of the ways the oboe can and should be

reinvented. Klein utilized instruments made by the famous and unsurpassable house of F. Lorée in Paris.

These instruments are notorious for their smoothness, equal height of key work, pitch reliability and a gorgeous, effortless, vibrant sound. After all, one cannot possibly consider extending an instrument's capabilities if the instrument itself works against the performers, requiring adjustments to pitch, changing colors along with dynamics and asking players to work twice as hard in order to obtain a legato. In the repertory presented in this collection there is no room left for this kind of energy, as all effort is obviously placed in the performance of the different tasks. New(er) techniques were applied to make this recording possible and bend the oboe into submission as each new piece required new skills. Among the more

common techniques utilized are circular breathing - inhaling and exhaling through the nose while

blowing the instrument through the mouth, putting teeth on the reed in order to obtain super high

notes, double trills, and of course the good use of a metronome. Among the more unusual ones are the

active throat pressure that makes it possible to quickly jump between high and low notes, the re-writing of the notes in order to fit how the brain sees the notes rather than how music writing norms do it, and "reflex technique", that is, our ability to play a long succession of notes at high speed bypassing the common thinking of dividing it into groups. The passage goes straight from brain to finalized performance, similarly to what occurs when our reflexes are utilized (the more common example being that our hand flies out of a place when it accidentally touches a hot surface, before we are consciously aware that there is a hot surface nearby). Reflex technique requires us to identify our performance tasks not by "notes" or "groups of notes", but by "thought units". A thought unit may contain a single note, or, as in the case of Pasculli's Le Api, up to 32. These are 32 notes that are performed with the same mental effort that is utilized for a single note. In the same proportion that a "group of notes" alters our perception away from single notes, reflex permits us to again alter our perception and visualize the performance of an exponential number of notes without detracting from the musical form because the effort necessary to play that many notes is akin to that required to perform a single note.

                                                                                       Why continue?

​

With focal dystonia being incurable and the effort to circumvent it being strenuous without any guarantee of success in overcoming the effects of the condition, many musicians with focal dystonia prefer to end their performing days and move on to something else. Some become teachers, others play minimally, many change careers or retire, and only in rare cases do they manage to return to their pre-dystonia careers. One remarkable example of success comes from guitarrist David Leisner (https://davidleisner.com/) who found "a cure" by altering his playing technique so as to utilize larger muscles further up his arm rather than relying on the smaller, dystonia-affected ones closer to his hand. Pianist Leon Fleischer famously maintained his performance career by performing only works written for the left hand. Twelve years after leaving Chicago Alex Klein successfully reauditioned for his old chair and was granted the title of Principal Oboe Emeritus of the Chicago Symphony, all while continuing to gradually record the works included in this album. During his convalescence, however, Klein diversified his professional work to other nearby fields, in case his return to oboe performance turned to be truly impossible. At first, Klein dedicated his efforts to the empowerment and education of young latin american musicians. As an administrator, Alex Klein founded

FEMUSC - Santa Catarina Music Festival which is now Latin America's largest

educational music festival, having served over 8500 students from 42 countries to

date. Klein also founded PRIMA - Program of Social Inclusion through Music and the

                                                   Arts, an "El Sistema"-inspired program which planted

                                                   full-size youth orchestras in challenged communities. As a conductor, Klein                                                         led orchestras in China, Italy, Portugal and the United States and was music                                                          director of two orchestras in Brazil. Klein also taught at the Oberlin                                                                       Conservatory of Music, OAcademy, DePaul University and gave master                                                               classes around the world. Music making is a calling, not a choice. In Alex Klein's case, music and oboe have been life-centering activities since he was 9 years old. It was not possible to simply walk away from it and learn a new trade.