Mr. Schuyler Chapin—former general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, dean of Columbia University’s School of the Arts, and New York City Commissioner of Cultural Affairs—passed away yesterday, March 7. He had recently turned 86 and died peacefully at home in the arms of his wife Catia, whom he adored without bound.

The New York Times’ obituary, which does not do him justice, may be read here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/arts/music/08chapin.html?_r=1&hp

For the past four years, I have had the honor of serving as Mr. Chapin’s secretary, assisting him with his business affairs, letters, and writing projects. I want to say how personally important it was for me to know him, and to place on record what a special and great man he was.

What young person would not admire a man who had served both as a pilot in the Second World War, and as the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera? Who would not admire a man who would tell you, at lunch, a wide range of the most unbelievable and fantastic stories—which were absolutely true? He would tell you how he had been spared a recall to the military by meeting the dependents requirement—because his wife had unexpectedly had twins just before he was scheduled to report. He would tell you of speaking to Glenn Gould in his office when he received a phone call that resulted in Gould leaving absorbed in a plan to record Strauss’s unusual setting of Tennyson’s Enoch Arden. He would tell you of Horowitz and Bernstein, of exchanging “opera gossip” with then-new Mayor Giuliani; he would tell you of princesses, Presidents, and playing cards with Rachmaninoff.

Schuyler Chapin’s life was itself a history book.

When the world recently lost Beverly Sills, Luciano Pavarotti and Brooke Astor (three of Mr. Chapin’s many illustrious friends), I felt much the same as I do now: that their deaths represented a loss of the living links to the sensibilities of a prior era, to the values and culture of the pre-counterculture, pre-modernist world.

I wrote that Beverly Sills was “of a generation that had grown up at a time when the sense of life, and the standards of the nineteenth century were still strongly present in American culture, and she was the kind of person to take them up, propagate them further, and add her own artistry to the sum.”

I feel similarly about Schuyler Chapin.

I grew up in post-counterculture, post-60s America, and have never liked the nature or results of the counterculture upheavals or the ideas behind them. Rather, I have for a long time admired the art, manners, and many of the basic values of pre-WWII culture. The 19th century had nevertheless been distant for me; the era was something I learned about from books and film, not something I had had firsthand contact with.

Schuyler Chapin was for me a direct link and immediate manifestation of that world. I cannot tell you how important this was for me personally, particularly given the kind of music I write. Knowing Schuyler was a concretization and affirmation for me of a part of myself.

What I want to communicate is, simply, what kind of man he was.

It may seem strange to focus on his manner as something of great importance, but you must know what an unusual and strong impression Schuyler made on the people who knew him.

Schuyler Chapin was an aristocrat in the best possible sense of the term. He was a man of arts and letters (which fact came across immediately upon meeting him), and one of the most educated and erudite people I have ever known. He had become so on his own, he had had very little formal education (a fact which interestingly was the bit of common ground that led to Schuyler’s friendship with Peter Jennings).

For most of his retirement, Mr. Chapin read more books than I (and I read a lot of books). Keeping up with him became a good challenge—and, of course, he always had good books to recommend.

His letters are models of personal expression—of his unique blend of articulateness, directness, purposefulness, charm and politeness. In assisting Mr. Chapin with his letters and other writings, I learned a great deal about using the English language. Above all, I was impressed by his florid, fluid prose. When I first started working for Mr. Chapin, he had one bone to pick with my typing from dictation: “Too many commas.” That was quickly corrected.

I don’t think it was a coincidence that Mr. Chapin especially loved Wagner’s “endless melody”—his favorite opera was Tristan und Isolde.

Mr. Chapin published three books, all of which are fascinating reading:

his autobiography Musical Chairs: A Life in the Arts;

the story of his experiences with opera stars, Mezzos, Sopranos, Tenors, Bassos and Other Friends;

and the testament of his experiences with the great conductor, Leonard Bernstein: Notes from a Friend.

Schuyler could be piercingly direct, and one would sometimes see the merciless incisiveness of his wit (he was a fan of Oscar Wilde). Yet he had the irreproachable correctness and politeness of a genuine gentleman. When I discussed with him some of my students at the Mannes College, one of the first things he asked me, with a pointed tone, was: “Do they have any manners?”

He was a man of demanding standards; he was delightfully charming and lighthearted, and at the same time, beneath that, quite serious. He had a way of inclining his head to look at you with a direct (and I must say, riveting) gaze from below his brow—that simply made you pay attention. And what he said, you would not forget.

He was an unassuming but natural and formidable leader.

He had a brilliant dramatic flair (witness the storytelling in his books). He was utterly unpretentious, had no trace of pompousness or affectation, and hated any type of obsequiousness. I remember every once in a while Mr. Chapin would receive a visit from some person or other who was fawning or ingratiating, and I could see his manner change immediately. He got a little squirmy at first, became quieter and more withdrawn from conversation with the person, and after not too long would put an abrupt yet perfectly polite end to the visit.

Schuyler Chapin was a consummate hero-worshipper, a lover of human competence who was impatient with anything less. He loved art, which he repeatedly dubbed “the signature of man”—a concept that he had seen inscribed on a new arts building and which he attributed importance to—and he loved artists.

If I had to sum up Mr. Chapin in a word I would say that he conveyed, quite unmistakably but totally unselfconsciously, that mark of moral greatness which is personal dignity.

Looking back over his life, Schuyler was able to make a statement rare, beautiful, and the very proof of a life well-lived: he told his family that he had done in life everything he had ever wanted to do.

Schuyler was a prolific and skillful letter writer, a man of the age of letters who had mastered the form; when he faced the task of writing a letter of condolences he was fond of referencing a line from Thomas Campbell’s beautiful poem “Hallowed Ground.” It is with a heavy heart that I quote that stanza now, in memory of Mr. Chapin himself:

“But strew his ashes to the wind
Whose sword or voice has served mankind,—
And is he dead, whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?—
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.”

During these past years of his retirement, I was Schuyler Chapin’s secretary.
He was my hero.
I consider having known him to be one of the great honors of my life.

Sincerely,

Matthew Zachary Johnson
Secretary to Schuyler Chapin



with Mr. and Mrs. Chapin at Steinway Hall in 2005.

P.S. The Mayor ordered that flags in New York be flown at half mast this week in honor of Schuyler.

P.P.S. Schuyler Chapin as impressario knew the art of getting a packed house. I think he would have been pleased to know that even his funeral was "standing room only."

I'm pleased to announce that our new album, Serenade: Music for Saxophone & Piano has gotten a lovely little review with Midwestrecord. The reviewer writes that the CD "will be grandly enjoyed by listeners looking for some music with depth that isn’t impenetrable."

Read the review at:

http://www.midwestrecord.com/2009/01/18/011809/
(It's down the page under "Sound Artist Records, Brian Horner - Elizabeth Avery.")

Purchase Serenade: Music for Saxophone & Piano at

http://cdbaby.com/cd/horneravery

It is also available at amazon.com, borders.com, iTunes and at many other online retailers.

I just discovered that Patrick Ross, the prolific and insightful writer at the Copyright Alliance, wrote commentary on my article about the PRO-IP Law and the moral basis of copyright.

http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2008/11/rights-education-and-morality/

President Bush recently signed into law the "PRO-IP" bill, an act for "Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property." The purpose of the bill is to enhance remedies for violations of intellectual property laws.

The law creates a copyright protection office in the executive branch of government and provides for more extreme penalties for pirates. The level of the penalties is a secondary issue; the most important thing about this law is the creation of a proper authority for protecting intellectual property—and the fact that this law makes a much-needed moral statement.

Antagonism to the PRO-IP Act has focused in part on the fact that it was backed by "big content," including the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association, thus portraying the issue as a war between pressure groups, with large corporations as the ones who happen to have won. But this misses the principle of the matter, that the creator of a piece of intellectual property owns the product of his work.

If a baker bakes a loaf of bread, he therefore owns it, and anyone who wishes to acquire the bread must do so by meeting the baker's terms. The baker may set any price he wishes for it—even a high price if he so chooses. It is also within his rights to give it away for free, which he might do for promotional purposes. But in all cases, it is the baker who sets the terms for acquiring his creation. No one has the right to acquire the bread in disregard of the baker's wishes.

The same is true of music, movies, software. The fact that it is easier to copy these things does not eliminate the creator's sovereignty over his own product. The price of his work, even if it is $0, is his to set.

A major root of the opposition to copyright is the altruist morality—the premise that self-interest is evil and that sacrificial service to others is the moral ideal. This premise makes people antagonistic toward selfish rights. And it gives them a rationalization for piracy: according to the premise of sacrifice, it is morally good for creators to give things away for the benefit of others—and if sacrifice is the imperative, the question of complying with a creator's terms doesn't even enter one's mind.

Think for instance of the way in which the press vilified the RIAA when it brought lawsuits against file-sharers, and threw a pity-party for the defendants. The "greedy," self-interested, profit-seeking businessmen were regarded as inherently suspicious even though they were defending the rights of music creators whom they lawfully represent, while some destitute single mother in middle America (who was not "greedy"?) was portrayed as a helpless victim, with no mention made of the fact that she engaged in theft.

What is needed is a stern reminder that the Constitution protects not the Robin Hood type of theft, but the right of the individual to pursue his own happiness by means of his own work.

In order to grasp the concept "property rights"—the idea of ownership, which is a matter of moral justice—one must function conceptually. The same toaster has a different moral and legal status in the hands of a man who paid for it, versus the hands of a thief as he runs away. Possession is not everything, since the thief possesses it wrongly. Rights are not a matter of the physical position of the object, but of ownership—of moral status.

In the case of intellectual property, the need for conceptual thought is particularly acute. An author's right to his novel, a composer's right to his composition, a filmmaker’s right to his movie—these rights are more abstract still. If you buy a copy of Joe Smith's novel, you own that copy. But Joe Smith owns the particular sequence of words that are printed in that novel. So you have the right to use your copy as you wish, but you do not have the right to create a new copy of that sequence of words.

Suppose you own a copy of the novel "The Grapes of Wrath" and also an audio-book version on CD. You own both of those physical objects, and can give the book to your mother and the CD to your brother if you wish. The author, on the other hand, owns what is common to both of those. He owns the particular sequence of words embodied in the book and the audio-book. The forms of these two things are different: one form you look at, the other you hear. But both of them are instances of the same piece of intellectual property, the same novel, "The Grapes of Wrath."

Copyright is a matter not of what a monkey sees looking at a page full of words, but of what a human mind sees. Unlike a monkey, a man is able to grasp the particular meaning expressed in particular language.

So a creator's right is not per se to the particular physical instance, but to the creative content that is embodied in these objects. And the only practical way for a creator to control and profit from his work is for him to hold by right the power to decide when, where, how and under what conditions new physical instances of his creation may be made and distributed. That is the meaning of the right to copy.

These facts and distinctions have no reality for, and are completely unconvincing to, a person who does not think. Unfortunately, that category includes a very large number of Americans today. The anti-thought mentality comes about as a combination of personal lethargy and evasion, and an educational system that stultifies the mind.

A large portion of the guilt for the piracy problem lies with the American educational system. This is not primarily a matter of the content of education, but the method. For decades the dominant approach to teaching in America has been Progressive Education, which holds emotion and socialization as primary, and facts and logic as secondary—or even denounces facts and logic as repressive. Americans have been taught to be driven by emotion and to cast off thinking as a restrictive straightjacket. That is where the hippies came from.

Combine that with a lot of personal immorality—meaning refusal to think—and the result is a widespread practice of operating by whim. The practice of controlling one's own choices and behavior by reference to moral principle is completely alien to the hippie mentality. This mentality's automatized method—as a result of his own shortsighted laziness and as a result of years of schooling that encouraged shortsighted laziness—is to see something, desire it, grab it. It is the same method as that of a spoiled child or a pre-civilized savage.

It costs the creator nothing, these types argue, to copy one piece of software or music. What harm does it do? First of all, the very question evades the existence of anything other than that which immediately stares into the pirate's passive face: in a few mouse clicks he is able to have the content he wants. He is at best ignorant of the actual costs involved in creating the content. What about the cost of the musician's years of training, the income he forewent in order to spend the time developing his skills and creating his music, the cost of music paper, his instrument, the recording expenses? And let's not forget the cost of marketing, without which the pirate could hardly know about the content he so nonchalantly expects to take for free.

What harm does it do, at root? Man lives by the productive work of his mind. He creates and he trades his product. Trade is by mutual voluntary agreement. A unilateral taking is the opposite of a fair trade. The pirate deprives the creator not only of the relatively small amount of money to be paid for the product. He deprives the creator of his very means of living, his ability to control, trade and profit from the work of his mind. That is a crime legally, morally, and on the deepest philosophical level, metaphysically. It is a matter of the creator's ability to maintain his own existence.

What the pirate fails to grasp is that to take or "share" copyrighted content in disregard of the creator's wishes is to kill the creator's capacity to live.

The pirate's desire for the content makes him act to destroy its source.

The PRO-IP Act is one much-needed remedy. As Tom Donohue, President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, stated: "By becoming law, the PRO-IP Act sends the message to [intellectual property] criminals everywhere that the U.S. will go the extra mile to protect American innovation." It is a welcome law and a welcome message.

During the proposal of the PRO-IP Act and continuing after it passed into law, commentators have been referring to the new head of the copyright department under the president as a copyright "czar." This is an improper and prejudicial term.

It is true that the given name, Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative (USIPER), is hardly useful. It is not surprising that people have had to fish for their own term.

But the term "czar" obviously implies a totalitarian overlord--when in fact the purpose of the position is to protect the rights of content creators. It is a very insidious reversal.

This is once again a result of the altruist morality--the view that selfish rights are evil and that working to help others is morally good. Because of altruism, people's sympathies lie with pirates, not with creators.

Notice that no one is calling Paulson or Bernanke an economic "czar"--even though, with their sweeping new powers, that is what they are. Here, the totalitarian implication would be completely right and justified. But why doesn't anybody want to call them dictators?

Thinkers today have it all backwards. They smear the protector of rights and treat rights-trampling overlords with deferential respect. Why? People's political concepts are all screwed up because their moral concepts are all screwed up. Americans need to learn that individual rights in the George Washington Thomas Jefferson definition are good, while "rights" in the FDR/Marx definition are wrong. The fundamental basis for straightening this out must be an acceptance that to work for one's own benefit is morally good. That is what makes rights right.