After the diversions of the Napoli sojourn, George’s mother Connie visits him in Rome; evidently he was busy showing her around and had little energy to spare for journaling (or found all the touring rather tedious and had little to say about it). Shortly afterwards he took the train to Paris to visit his friend and future colleague Fred Lerdahl and take in some sights. There his notes are largely museum-oriented; in art and architecture, as in music, aesthetics were serious business for George. By late Spring the frequency and length of the entries pick up again. A sequence of brooding, self enquiries mark a period of depression that is to last for the better part of a couple of months. He first makes mention of the shift on May 7, 1974:
Struck by similarity of present situation and (to a lesser degree) symptoms with the period of my nervous crisis at Princeton: period of my father’s death, social, sexual + musical isolation, copying, rainy cold weather, conducting, feeling physically weak ---. Hopefully I’m more capable of dealing with it now.
K + Q [G’s piece Kreiz und Queer (sp?)] went worse than I thought, - perhaps half the piece went well, but everyone was lost at one time or another, and only the general idea came through - which was enough for many people. Very depressed immediately after, but cheered up today by knowing the players were disappointed, the audience generally content. A long day.
We get more insight into the nature of the “situation” on June 12th:
Period of intermittent angst, depression, broken by social events (Lee’s), concerts (Dachow’s group), people (Barbara Kolb, Olins, Classico Barbara), new places (little piazza behind Piazza Navona, finding Dackow concert), and small spurts of work on what appears to be a quintet. [margin note, added later: Exchange Misere]. The ingredients are familiar - dissatisfaction about my work -- can’t seem to find any new pitch relations, everything I try to write comes back to what I’ve done before; lack of really close friends, isolation from my friends in the States; feeling that I’m musically too isolated here, through lack of initiative, in part; sexual frustration, which continually makes me ripe for relationships with people I don’t want to be involved with; anxiety for my future both artistically and personally -- haven’t I settled rather too comfortably into my fuddy-duddy role as Neo somethingorother? If I don’t write “great” (?) music - am timid, conventional -- then what professional rewards (internal) will there be, also given that I’m largely denied the external rewards that I might get through pushiness, back-scratching, etc.? ... Obviously my music needs to escape my control, as it has every time I’ve done anything decent - and that requires hard work, but also a sense of adventure, neither of which I’m up for right now.
There are rays of light in this mostly dark period, giving his emotional life a sort of chiaroscuro effect. In a more upbeat, if not manic mode in late June, he writes:
Finished quasi diary-letter to J. Hoffman - how impossible to try to describe daily life here! Who would believe it? Yet my pessimism is less than that of the English-language press -- I just can’t see violence + revolutionary thought here as anything but a fringe activity given the “Italian temperament.” If I were Italian (not only contra-factual but inconceivable) I would almost certainly be a revolutionary -- but I’m a fairly bizarre foreigner.
This flash of wit and apparent self-confidence, however, is followed closely by
...Acute anxiety suddenly Thurs A.M. while in library looking at Journal of music theory Schenker bibliography - earlier had gotten official notice from Donald Harris of extension of leave of absence. Suggestive connections. Echoes thru next few days, in which I’m “serving time.” Much less severe than at Princeton, but an obvious relationship. No obvious solution; when I’m ready, work will go well, in the meantime the shit-work I have to do isn’t enough, people aren’t enough, recreation (tennis every day, chess w/ Laurie, poker at Millan-Liveseys) necessary but also not enough. Have still found no better solution to these periods of non-existence than waiting them out. Part of the depression is all the things that didn’t happen: no word from Rudi, who was planning to be in Rome now, ditto from Fritz, who was supposed to call me for a Wed. meeting. Reception Thurs. w. summer school kids -- very naive, probably think we are monstrous snobs. The one Paesa Sera which came is full of the postal scandals - tons of first class mail sold by the post office for paper - only a symptom of the postal crisis, but at least it’s nice to know that someone is concerned about it. Last lesson with Signorina Bolla, whose fate at the academy (forced retirement) is very sad. Sat. begin reading an Italian medieval history book -- if I’m not going to read anything worthwhile, it might as well be in Italian.
A few days later, he gets his head above water enough to put things in perspective, writing on SUnday June 30th:
...Too bad these periods of nothingness keep coming back, but I perhaps can learn something from them--what function do they serve?
The end of the dark spell is in sight. By the end of the weekend, his spirits are up:
Very pleasant trip to Frascati, etc. with the Olins, Liveseys, Frank, Charles Hope, Bill Hood, and Ann (?)...notice how important it is who you travel with! Got to convert Jean-Michel to a more frivolous attitude--one might well ask “why do I so easily take on the coloration of those I’m with?”--but perhaps my minimum requirements are that 1) I be able to eat and drink well, 2) that my chess-type intellect be stimulated by verbal games with outgoing + intellectual people. Or substitute for #2 that there be a spirit of improvisation (not so far #1!).
The question about “taking on the coloration” of those he’s with goes unanswered, seemingly. But the train of thought that follows it is interesting in its own right. This is the first written evidence that his earlier indifference to good food (remember Ann’s “he lived off bourbon, cigarettes and instant coffee”) has shifted and his tastes matured--“being able to eat and drink well” is now a non-negotiable requirement. This development was a permanent one; he was eventually to return from Italy with a nose for wine and the command of a small arsenal of pasta dishes (pesto, carbonara). He still liked bourbon and cigarettes (until his eventual switch to pipe-smoking), but they were now snacks and dessert, not his daily bread.
