Much of the problem, as far as Palmer himself was concerned, stemmed from the quality of his talent. How much talent did he possess? Still more basic, how could talent be measured?
In the seminary attended by Koesler and Groendal had been a young man of great athletic ability. Of all the sports in which he participated, clearly he was most outstanding at hockey. Consensus had it that he was of professional caliber, not merely big-league but superstar. In time, the young man dropped out of the seminary and later won a tryout with the Detroit Red Wings. By his own admission, the Wings, led at that time by Sid Abel, Ted Lindsay, and Gordie Howe, had skated circles around him. Thus was the young man’s talent measured: not against fair-to-middling amateurs, but in the league of gifted professionals.
In some such way were Dave Palmer’s musical abilities weighed.
In the setting of a parochial grade school, little David Palmer was looked on as a child prodigy. And perhaps he was. But he was being measured against mediocre-to-good musical students. For the final concert of his primary school presentation, Palmer was paired with Ridley Groendal. The billing alone created the impression there was some element of equality between the two. That simply was not true. Groendal was paired with Palmer solely because Ridley was a good pianist, not because he was a gifted musician destined, as was Dave, to become a professional.
So, when it came to oneupmanship, Palmer left Groendal in the dust—an inevitability that everyone but Groendal would have recognized. However, no one told Groendal. No one could have. And there was the rub.
Groendal believed—as it turned out, to his dying day—that he might have had a magnificent musical career had it not been for Palmer’s “cheap trick.” Thus, Palmer went on to get his specialized musical training and Groendal did not.
No one, with the exception of Ridley and his parents, in any way expected Groendal to attend a school such as Interlochen. People were not at all surprised when Ridley went off to the seminary. He was a religious young lad and lots of religious young lads of that vintage routinely at least gave seminary a try.
Few besides Ridley knew that the seminary was his second choice. Even Groendal did not know at that time that his hatred for Palmer would endure to the very end of Ridley’s life.
Dave Palmer went blithely off to Interlochen and immediately suffered a severe case of specialized culture shock. Though his talent was considerable, it no longer placed him head-and-shoulders above his campmates. He was now merely one of many gifted young people.
Nonetheless he was good, very good. And he worked hard. A combination that won him honors and predictions by at least a few of his teachers that he would achieve great things.
Then he left academe. Like all who do so, Palmer found a cold, challenging world that dared him to find his place in it.
The first place he wanted was a chair in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
That was understandable. If he had been an athlete it would have been quite natural for him to have wanted to play for the Detroit Tigers, or Lions, or Red Wings. Of course, if he’d been an athlete he would most likely have been subjected to a draft or a bidding war between teams. As a musician, he didn’t have to worry about anything like that. So long as there was a vacancy and he qualified for an audition, he could try for his boyhood dream: to become a member of the DSO.
As luck would have it, shortly after graduation, there was a vacancy; he qualified, auditioned, and was chosen.
That was about the last bit of unmixed good luck he was to have for many, many years.
A few months before graduation, Palmer had married Anna Krause, an art student he’d met at Interlochen. Anna was not nearly as talented an artist as Dave. But they did share at least two qualities: Both were extremely fertile and both were—for that day—exemplary Catholics, which led to a family of formidable proportions.
A few of their nine children were baptized by Father Koesler. The Palmers and Koesler kept in contact only sporadically. When not distracted by his family, Palmer was kept busy at the DSO. He had time for little else.
Even though they saw each other infrequently, Koesler was proud of his former classmate and bragged to anyone who seemed interested about his friend—his one and only acquaintance in the DSO.
Koesler was not particularly surprised at the number of children produced by Dave and Anna. Those were the days when faithful Catholics were grateful Pope Pius XII had discovered the rhythm system of family planning . . . even though it didn’t work for some— among that number, Dave and Anna.
Anna, like so many other wives of that era, hardly ever got out of her “eternity” clothes.
The peculiar fact that Dave was both a musician and father of a considerable number of children reminded Koesler of a true story then passing through clerical circles. It involved a suburban parish’s music director who was father to thirteen children. At a parish meeting, the music director complained about the quality of instrument he was forced to use, and he pleaded for a new and better organ. This prompted one of the ladies of the Altar Society to comment rather loudly that he seemed to be doing pretty well with the organ he had.
In any case, upon acceptance, Dave Palmer was assigned a seat in the second violin section. As far as Dave was concerned, this was a satisfactory beginning. But he had plans.
In that, he was not alone. While many members of symphony orchestras are content to remain at that professional level for the length of their professional lives—occasionally making lateral arabesques from one orchestra to another—some considered their orchestras mere springboards to further musical heights. Among the latter was Dave Palmer.
Palmer’s plan, not infeasible, considering his talent and education, was to move up: to the first violin section, to concertmaster, to featured soloist, to director of his own orchestra. Eventually, like Toscanini, Stokowski, Beecham, Koussevitsky, von Karajan, Munch, Bernstein, Solti, Reiner, Leinsdorf, Giulini, and Dorati, to become a household word. At least in the better houses.
However, he had not counted on Ridley C. Groendal. Palmer had no reason to do so. He should have.
Realistically, Groendal had no way of blocking Palmer’s entry to the DSO. That had happened much too early in Ridley’s career, long before his power had emerged to any degree. Besides, there really was little argument that Palmer was good enough to be a member of a major symphony orchestra. The only question was how far his talent might take him. It was to this question that Groendal effectively addressed himself.
In a sense, it was Ridley’s easiest victory. Groendal was powerfully motivated to make Palmer a victim. As far as Groendal was concerned, Dave ranked first, at least chronologically, as an instrument that had changed and ruined Ridley’s life.
Further, Palmer existed for the world of music, the strongest of Ridley’s critical fields and the one for which he would become best known.
Once Groendal was completely established at the
Added to all of this was Ridley’s enormous sway with not a few other critics. All in all, Groendal enjoyed being able to keep much of his clout in reserve and still make Palmer run in tight frustrating circles within the DSO’s structure.
A few weeks before Ridley’s death, Koesler had been invited to the Palmers’ for dinner. It was not the sort of invitation that Koesler welcomed. He’d been through it occasionally and invariably had endured an evening of the couple’s petty bickering, recriminations, arguments, and sullenness.
From time to time he wondered why the Palmers did not simply divorce. Their brood had grown up and moved away. The two were left grousing and generally dissecting each other. He wondered if they might be the embodiment of that fictional couple who filed for a divorce in their nineties. The judge, at a loss, asked how long they’d been married. Seventy-five years, they said. Then why had they waited so long for this action? They had been waiting, they replied, for their children to die.
If the Palmers were waiting to bury their nine children, they had many years of connubial misery ahead of them.
“Would Father like more spaghetti and meatballs?” Anna Palmer asked Koesler, preparatory to clearing the table for dessert.
“No, no, that’s fine, Anna.” Koesler was grateful he’d gotten through the single serving Anna had heaped on his plate. The overcooked spaghetti had been dry. He knew he would have trouble digesting it. And the meatballs
