Chapter Four
Loreen Stenke stuffed a handful of papers into her briefcase. She sighed, her eyes sweeping the room for a final time. Clearing out one’s desk wasn’t usually a lot of fun, she thought, but somehow there was something particularly painful about this occasion.
On one level, she was happy to be leaving the orchestra. Very little of the last year and a half had been memorable—at least in a pleasant way. The early months conducting the orchestra had been exciting enough, of course. She had met with some resistance—the mostly young musicians had been fiercely loyal to Maestro Hauptmann, whom many of them clearly saw as a father figure. But most of them had come around, and by the first concert of the season she felt that she had melded them into a tight-knit, well-coordinated unit. Those early concerts had actually been quite successful. The local critics had carped a bit about her repertoire— too modernist in their opinion— too many trendy new American composers. But what did they expect? She was young, probably the youngest American woman to lead a major-city orchestra, and she felt that the only way that American concert music was to survive—not be dismissed as a complete anachronism— was to embrace the present moment. The orchestra’s sixty year-old supporters would soon enough be seventy- and eighty-year olds and stop coming to the concerts. If a modern orchestra couldn’t stir up some interest among the younger intelligentsia, well, there was simply not going to be much hope for the future. Nothing in the world was clearer to her than that.
But, try as she might, she couldn’t ever convince the orchestra’s Board of that. It didn’t help that the Philadelphia critics had piled on her, even if some of the more sophisticated New York critics seemed to value what she was doing. And—much worse—attendance among the older audience members had started to decline even after the second concert. Many of those opting to stay home, or migrate back to the more famous Philadelphia orchestra with which they were always competing, were also the biggest donors to the young Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra.
The decline in attendance and donations wasn’t steep, at least not initially, but it was noticeable by the third concert. It was then that the first murmurs appeared—bring back Maestro Hauptmann—they suggested. Save the young orchestra from a fate worse than death.
At that point, the honorable thing for Hauptmann to do would have been to declare his support for her and insist that he had no interest whatsoever in returning to conduct the orchestra. But when asked—by some members of the Board and some from the press—he said very little. He occasionally offered some half-hearted words of support, but usually he simply declined to say anything. She could just imagine the smug look on his face as he smiled and said that it would be “inappropriate for him to comment.” The right sort of response from Hauptmann could have nipped many of her problems in the bud. But he remained all but silent, and the calls for her to step down increased in number and urgency.
It wasn’t long after that when she became pregnant. God knows that was a surprise. She had always wanted to be a mother…someday. Nothing wrong with becoming a mom in your late thirties. But she had not expected to find herself pregnant at that point. Not in the middle of a concert season when she had her hands full keeping the orchestra committed to her and fending off her critics, both on the Board and off of it.
But she never considered for a moment not keeping the baby. And in fact, it was in some ways a Godsend. It gave her something else to concentrate on...other thoughts to turn to late at night after a particular difficult meeting with members of the Board, who seemed to take the declining concert attendance as a personal affront.
And of course they were all businessmen…all managers who felt it was her personal responsibility to somehow “manage” her way out of these difficulties. About music, they understood nothing. But really…what had she expected?
Well, for the time being it was over. Or at least it would be over soon. The baby would arrive and she could retire from the public’s eye, at least for a time. But she still had the reception to go through, and she certainly wasn’t looking forward to that. But at least her husband would be there to support her.
She knew her husband would be understanding, would help her through it. She had counted on it from the beginning of the pregnancy and knew she wouldn't be disappointed.
He had been supportive every step of the way, for years now—going back to their time together in graduate school. He had studied musicology, although not in her opinion with much enthusiasm. Of the two of them, she was the one who seemed to exude passionate intensity. At least that's what their friends would have said.
She had been a flutist in her undergraduate days. A typical woman's instrument of course, and she had bridled at that thought. She had played in concert bands and orchestras, even flute ensembles, although the high-pitched sonorities—all those overtones piling up—tended to drive her a bit crazy.
What she really craved were the full sonorities of the whole orchestra, especially in the later nineteenth-century Romantic works—the larger works that required the massive, powerful sounds of eighty or more musicians all contributing to a breathtaking intensity of sound.
So when it came to graduate school—and she knew all along it would come to that—she sought a master’s degree in conducting at the state university where she met Greg, her future husband. She was not taken very seriously at first. It wasn't just because she was a woman. Increasing numbers of women had been taking up the baton for years now. But her personality—or at least the way many of her fellow students would have described it— was simply not forceful enough. At first her teachers would tell her that she had to become more assertive, even when standing up in front of the rest of the students in class, or in front of one of the university's lowlier ensembles that the graduate students were occasionally allowed to conduct.
But she knew what she wanted. And her tastes eventually changed, tipping her in the direction of a more modernist repertoire. There was a distinctive sound already formulated in her mind very time she stepped in front of an ensemble. Nobody prepared scores in advance as thoroughly as she had, and no one had a more fully realized concept of the sound she was after. Now, she thought, if she could only communicate that concept to an orchestra.
And Greg had been helpful. He had attached himself to her in her first year as a grad student and was nothing but encouraging. And he had always been her biggest supporter, urging her to continue on for her doctorate and, after that, to apply for the assistant conductor position in Minneapolis when she finished graduate school.
It was a long shot, but she had gotten the job and, from that time on, the musical fates seemed to smile upon her as she rose to the position of associate conductor at a couple of medium-sized Midwestern orchestras. And then the position with the Philadelphia Philharmonic came up and she had applied to that. No one was more surprised than she and Greg when she was accepted for the position. Still, at that point in her career, she felt as confident as she had ever felt in her life. It was as if nothing could stand in her way.
Loreen Stenke sighed deeply.
“Well, Maestro,” said Alan Winston as he walked up to her desk.” It’s not going to seem the same without you.”
She smiled. “I think we can drop the ‘maestro’ tag at this point, Alan.”
Alan shook his head. “I know this is your choice but…”
“Alan, you know it’s not completely my choice. Could I have held on through the rest of the season? Of course, although I have to admit I don’t’ actually relish being on my feet and waving my arms around these days.”
“I think you should have stayed to the end of the season, Maestro. The orchestra needs you.”
“I’m fairly certain that would depend on whom you talk to,” she said, a tight smile crossing her face.
“Nonsense,” protested Alan. “Most of the orchestra adores you.”
“Some of them,” she said. “Certainly not all of them. And a sizeable share of our audience might not agree.”
>
“That’s just a question of education, Maestro. The audience simply has to grow into the repertoire you’ve conducted. I can’t help but think you were making progress.”
She chuckled. “As to that point, I believe our business manager, Mr. Clemens, would have raised some objections.”
“Art can’t be measured by a spreadsheet,” Alan demanded earnestly.
“Oh, Alan! How wonderfully naïve you are. How long have you worked for the orchestra?”
“For almost five years. I started when Maestro Hauptmann was still here.”
“Ah yes, but those were the halcyon days for the orchestra. It was considered young and fresh. For a brief while, supporting the new orchestra was apparently the ‘in’ thing to do.”
“I believe it still is, Maestro.”
“Alan, your loyalty is truly heart-warming. But facts are facts and we both have to face them. The orchestra has not been doing well at the box office for the last few months and I’m partially to blame for that. We all know it. So it’s just as well that the baby came along when he did. It gives me a graceful exit…or at least not an overly awkward one.”
“But surely you’ll be returning next year?”
“A great deal can happen between now and then, Alan. Time will tell. In the meantime, I daresay the orchestra will survive under the guidance of Herr Hauptmann.”
“If you say so, Maestro.”
“And now I think there’s a visitor sitting in the outer office with whom I have an appointment. Perhaps you could show him in?”
“Of course, Maestro.”
Sean McGill walked briskly into Loreen Stenke’s office, now almost completely barren of furniture. “How do you do, Ms. Stenke? I’m Detective Sean McGill and I’d like to ask you a few questions about the robbery last night. It looks like I’ve caught you at a bad time, but I promise I’ll be brief.”
She smiled. “This is no worse a time than any other, Detective McGill, but I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help. I wasn’t in at all yesterday. As you can see, I’ve pretty much cleared out my office in preparation for my maternity leave.”
“Of course. I’ve just been to see Mr. Hauptmann and he warned me that you might not know any more than he does about this matter.”
She smiled. “How gracious of him. But the fact is that I don’t. My understanding is that a few music stands were thrown around and a few old violins were taken. Nothing of great value.”
“And a few older scores as well?”
“Yes, apparently so. I’d forgotten them. Again, nothing of great importance.”
“So you have no idea who might…”
“Detective McGill, I’ll admit that I’m weary and I want to go home, but the main reason I have no ideas at all about this matter is that the orchestra is, quite frankly, the last thing on my mind right now. I certainly have not the faintest glimmer of an idea about how to help you do your job.”
McGill smiled. “I understand perfectly, Ms. Stenke. So I’ll leave you to it. I don’t suppose that you can suggest anyone else I might speak to who might have any information about the robbery?”
“I have no ideas whatsoever, but I’ll tell you what, Detective. There’s a reception coming up tomorrow night—you’ve probably heard about it—where everybody who’s anyone in this organization will be in attendance. You should probably come and perhaps there you can make more connections.”
“Wonderful idea,” said McGill cheerfully. “I’ll make it a point to be there.”