THANK YOU, PROFESSOR MOORE

 

I am deeply grateful to Professor Clement Clark Moore. In 500 delicately crafted words he created one of my most cherished childhood memories, which begins, “Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house”. But a disparaging voice has recently been heard, claiming the professor was a fraud. Do not believe it. You can no more separate Clement from his words than you can a father from his children or an author from the world he lived in.

“...Fond parents swayed my every thought;

No blame I feared, no praise I sought,

But what their love bestowed....

The best thing that ever happened to Clement Moore was his father's massive stroke early in 1811, forcing the old man to gradually relinquish control over his 31 year old son's life. Despite having suffered a stroke myself, I feel no sympathy for the Episcopalian Bishop Benjamin Right Moore (above).  Six years earlier, when called to the bedside of the dying Alexander Hamilton, Bishop Moore (above) forced the great man to beg three times, before providing the comfort of absolution. Witnesses described the Bishop's behavior as “cruel and unjustifiable”. I agree. And it is unfair to demand that Clement (below) carry his father's sins.

,,,Whene’er night’s shadows called to rest,

I sought my father, to request

His benediction mild.

A mother’s love more loud would speak;

With kiss on kiss she’d print my cheek,

And bless her darling child....”

To A Lady (1804) signed - “Simplicicus”. (Clement Clarke Moore above).

The young adult Clement saved the poet, born a Jew and forced to convert to Catholicism, Lorenzo Da Ponte. Twenty years earlier Da Ponte had written the libretto for three of Mozart's operas - “The Marriage of Figaro”, “Don Giovanni” and “Così fan tutte”. In 1805, broke and desperate, Da Ponte arrived on American shores with his mistress and 4 children. Clement hired him as an Italian teacher, and even secured him a position as a Professor of Italian Literature at Columbia – at once the first Catholic and the first Jewish faculty member.

The dreams of Hope that round us play,

And lead along our early youth,

How soon, alas! they fade away

Before the sober rays of Truth...

In 1812 the 35 year old Clement fell in the love with the slight and strong 19 year old Catharine Elizabeth Taylor. They were married on 27 November of 1813.

And yet there are some joys in life

That Fancy’s pencil never drew;

For Fancy’s self, my own dear wife,

Ne’er dreamt the bliss I owe to you.

In preparation for the wedding, his parents had finally transferred control of the Moore family estates in Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey to Clement. And a third story was added to Chelsea, the mansion on a hill two miles north of Greenwich village. And in early 1815, a daughter, Margaret Elliot, was born to the happy couple.

...When cruel Palsy’s withering blow

Had left my father weak, forlorn,

He yet could weep for joy, to know

I had a wish’d-for infant born.

And, as he lay in death’s embrace,

You saw when last on earth he smil’d;

You saw the ray that lit his face

When he beheld our darling child.”

From a Husband to a Wife.  (Clement Clarke Moore 1816)

To my ear this dutiful verse rings hollow with convention. But the sanctimonious domineering hypocrite Bishop Moore died in late February of 1816.  His home schooling had trained Clement, like himself, for the clergy. But Clement rejected that career.  That same year, Clement and Catherine had a second daughter, Charity Elizabeth Moore, and in 1818, a son, Benjamin Moore. It was his children who changed Clement.

On a warm sunny day, in the midst of July,

A lazy young pig lay stretched out in his sty,
Like some of his betters, most solemnly thinking
That the best things on earth are good eating and drinking....

As they grew, the children found, as love does, the chinks and cracks in their father's armor. And unlike his own father, Clement found the courage to lower his defenses and embrace the assault.

...When, at last, he thought fit to arouse from his bath,

A conceited young rooster came just in his path:
A precious smart prig, full in vanity drest,
Who thought, of all creatures, himself far the best.

More children followed, as the man who was an only child built the large family he had always wanted, with his beloved Caroline. There was Mary “Lil Sis” Clarke Moore, born in 1819.

'Hey day! little grunter, why where in the world

Are you going so perfum'd, pomatum'd, and curl'd?
Such delicate odors my senses assail,
And I see such a sly looking twist in your tail,
That you, sure are intent on some elegant sporting;
Hurra! I believe, on my life, you are courting;

Clement Moore Jr. was born in 1821 with a birth impairment, perhaps cerebral palsy. Rather than isolate the child in an institution, Clement and Margaret kept the boy by their loving side for the rest of their lives.

'Well, said, master Dunghill,' cried Pig in a rage,

'You're doubtless, the prettiest beau of the age,
With those sweet modest eyes staring out of your head,
And those lumps of raw flesh, all so bloody and red.
Mighty graceful you look with those beautiful legs,
Like a squash or a pumpkin on two wooden pegs...

Like his father before him, Clement home schooled his children. But they were not forced to memorize Hebrew and Latin, as he had been. Instead the elder Clement set problems before them, such as the task to decide which life was to be preferred, that of a rooster or a pig. A fourth daughter, named Emily Moore, was born in 1822.

Hereupon, a debate, like a whirlwind arose,

Which seem'd fast approaching to bitings and blows;
'Mid squeaking and grunting, Pig's arguments flowing;
And Chick venting fury 'twixt screaming and crowing.
At length, to decide the affair, 'twas agreed
That to counselor Owl they should straightway proceed...

Catharine Van Cortalandt Moore was born in 1825.

...It seem'd to the judge a strange cause to be put on,

To tell which was better, a fop or a glutton;
Yet, like a good lawyer, he kept a calm face,
And proceeded, by rule, to examine the case;
With both his round eyes gave a deep-meaning wink,
And, extending one talon, he set him to think.

And finally there was Maria Thersea Barrington Moore, who was born in 1826.

“...Were each on the table serv'd up, and well dress'd,

I could easily tell which I fancied the best;
But while both here before me, so lively I see,
This cause is, in truth, too important for me;
Without trouble, however, among human kind,
Many dealers in questions like this you may find.
Yet, one sober truth, ere we part, I would teach --
That the life you each lead is best fitted for each.

Nine children in all, each an individual personality to be discovered, enjoyed and entertained. You can never lie to your children without lying to yourself'.

Thus ended the strife, as does many a fight;

Each thought his foe wrong, and his own notions right.
Pig turn'd, with a grunt, to his mire anew,
And He-biddy, laughing, cried -- cock-a-doodle-doo.

The Rooster and the Pig, Clement Clarke Moore

There is no question Clement Moore wrote the Rooster and the Pig.  But did it precede or follow 1823's  “A visit from St. Nicholas”?   Moore did not initially claim authorship of either, but that was not unusual for the man. And neither did Major John Livingston, the nominated challenger. for authorship of the Night Before Christmas.  However, no friends of Livingston ever claimed he wrote the greatest Christmas poem ever written. It would be a generation removed from that Knickerbocker Christmas before there was any attempt to reassign authorship to Livingston. Whereas, from the beginning there was a chorus naming Clement Moore as the author, beginning almost on Boxing Day, 1823. And with what you now know of the oft demeaned Clement Clarke Moore, can there still be doubt?  He is the hero of everyone who loves Christmas.

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A NUTCRACKER CHRISTMAS

 

I find it curious that Ernst Theodore Hoffman (above) is considered a romantic. I think of him as a manic depressive, and justified as one considering that Napoleon spent most of Ernest’s life turning Europe into a slaughterhouse. As a young adult Ernst did fall in love, but the lady was married. And when she turned up pregnant Ernest’s family shipped him off to Poland, where he labored as a petty bureaucrat.  But he spent his free time composing classical music and writing vaguely creepy stories. 

One of his more successful tales was a sort of 19^th century “Jaws”, except instead of a 25 foot Great White Shark, Ernest’s villain was a mouse bent upon revenge. In Hoffman's story seven year old Maria receives a mechanical doll as a Christmas present, which her older brother Fritz promptly breaks. She sits up late trying to repair the toy, until an army of mice attack her doll.  She saves the toy by throwing her shoe at the rodents.  Now, maybe I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I think this idea has ballet written all over it.  Interestingly, that idea never occurred to Ernst.

Nor did it occur to Alexander Dumas (above), the vulgar and prolific son of a French nobleman and a Haitian slave woman. See, Alex liked the Parisian good life a lot more than he liked writing. He had at least 40 mistresses, but he made enough to afford his profligate lifestyle by out doing Andy Warhol at marketing his art. Alex kept a warehouse full of writers who ground out stories under his direction, such as “The Count of Monte Cristo” and “The Three Musketeers”, and its sequels. 

And one of his minor best sellers was a direct steal of Ernst's hallucination, which Dumas changed just enough to avoid a lawsuit – like changing Maria's name to Clara.

Then, seventy years after Ernst died of syphilis (the ultimate romance disease), and 12 years after Dumas died of a stroke in 1870, the ballet idea finally did occur to Marius Petpa (above), celebrated head of the Bolshoi Ballet Company in Russia. 

In 1882 the Imperial Theaters hired Marius and Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky (above) to create the “Sleeping Beauty” ballet. This was such a critical and financial success that it established the Bolshoi as the world's premier ballet company, and Marius as a world class genius. 

And then like a modern Hollywood studio looking for a project to fit it's marquee talent, in 1890, the theatre brought the pair together again.  But this time, having over inflated these two monumental egos, the management merely suggested a sort of theatrical sandwich – a double header, both a serious but short opera and a light, meaning short,  ballet staged on the same night.. Marius would script the story for both, and Pyotr would put them both to music. 

The one act opera was clearly intended to be the meat in this theatrical happy meal, and being the foremost Russian composer of the day, Pyotr (above) got first choice of subject matter. He decided on a Danish story of a blind princess named Iolanta.. 

But then, early in February of 1891, in Saint Petersburg (above), Marius handed Pyotr a detailed synopsis and bar-by-musical bar outline for a two act classical ballet based on the story Dumas had filched.

Pyotr was appalled. He though it childish and unworthy of serious application. But, if it meant he got paid to write another opera, he would somehow make this silly ballet work. After struggling for a month he tried to remain optimistic. He wrote to one of his brothers, “I am working with all my strength and reconciling myself to the subject of the ballet.” But he also admitted “I am experiencing a kind of crisis.” This was good, since Pyotr had a lot of experience with those.

See, Pyotr had a secret which held the potential to turn every problem in his life into a crises. He was approaching fifty, and had reached an uneasy equilibrium with his homosexuality. 

He had tried to go straight but his marriage to Antonina Ivanova (above) had blown up after little more than a month. This raised again the threat of exposure by envious and bigoted Czarist court and church officials, who at any moment could end his career.  Each contract, including this one, could be his last. 

What little stability existed in his life was supplied by his younger sister Aleksandra (above, left) and her seven children with Lev Davydov (above, right). Pyotr wrote many of his 11 operas, six symphonies and three ballets on their Ukrainian estate near Kamenka. And now, in March, while on his way to a concert tour of America, and still trying to come up with something presentable for Marius's ballet, he learned of Aleksandra's death.

He had just seen Aleksandra (above) over the Christmas holidays, so he must have known how ill she was. Still, Pyotr was hysterical. And then, pausing in Rouen, France, he managed his grief  by putting it to work.  

His genius was always his ability to combine the Russian musical themes with Western ones, and to subjugate his true identity into the restraints of his art. And in the “grand pas de deux” for the lead dance character of Clara, he weaved in threads from the Russian Orthodox funeral service  The musical themes of the entire ballet became darker and more nuanced. As one critic has put it, “In Clara, he found a parallel for his sister.”  A ballet about wealthy Victorian children, became, with the talent of Pyotr's genius, a work for people of all ages and for all time.

When Pyotr returned from his wildly successful 25 day American tour (he inaugurated Carnegie Hall in Manhattan) he delivered his musical score to Marius in St. Petersburg, to be animated.  

But as the opportunity approached, the world renown genius, Marius (above), suffered his own crises of self confidence. The primary symptom of this understandable panic was an attack of Pemphigus vulgaris, a debilitating skin disease, usually afflicting Ashkebazi Jews – of which Marius was one. Scratching his itching skin produced open sours, which made it impossible for Marius to concentrate on the ballet. So his assistant, Lev Ivanov, took over.

Lev (above) had been with the Bolshoi since he was eight, and had a natural talent as a musician, as well as being an excellent dancer. But where Marius was a classical ballet master, Lev was, like poor Ernest, a romantic. He followed Marius's general guidelines. He had to, the music had already been composed based on them.  But Lev also arranged his dancers like an impressionist painter, throwing patterns of sugar plumb fairies and swirling lines of snowflakes on point, about the stage. 

It was the shape and flow of the dance that interested Lev, and somehow the combination of all these hearts and souls, the romantic Ernst Hoffman and the hedonist Alexander Duma , the classicist Marius and the dark Pyotr, and now that other romantic Lev, they all gave birth, on 15 January, 1890, to the premier of “The Nutcracker” ballet at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The audiences seem to have been enthusiastic, giving five curtain calls to the Sugar Plum Fairy. The next morning Pyotr wrote to his brother, “The opera in particular was to everyone’s liking ... The productions of both...were superb” But it was a very long evening, with the Nutcracker not ending until well after midnight. 

The weary critics took it out on the dancers, calling the lead ballerina (above) corpulent and pudgy. The battle scene between the mice and the nutcracker confused them: “Disorderly pushing about from corner to corner and running backwards and forwards – quite amateurish,” complained one. 

The Grand Pas de Deux, so inspiring to the composer, was labeled ponderous and “completely insipid”. A week later Pyotr wrote to another brother, “Once again I am not embittered by such criticism. Nevertheless, I have been in a loathsome spirit, as I usually am...in such circumstances.” After just 11 performances the double bill was closed.

Less than a year later, in October 1893 Pyotr would die during a cholera outbreak, his secret still secure. Although many have suggested he committed suicide, he did not. Lev Ivanov followed nine years later. Finances forced him to work until his death “in harness”, in December of 1901. About the same time the Bolshoi brought in the upstart Alexander Gorsky to replace the aging Marius (above) as director. While watching his intended replacement rehearsing on his stage, Marius was heard to shout, “Will someone tell that young man that I am not yet dead?!.” Within a year it did not matter; Marius was quietly retired. He did die in 1910, at the age of 92.

A year after its premier the opera Iolanta would be preformed by itself in Hamburg, Germany. But although still performed occasionally, it is now largely forgotten. The Nutcracker, on the other hand, had to wait almost 20 years before it would be performed again, staged this time by the Bolshoi's new director Alexander Gorsky, in Moscow. 

He saved it.  Alexander savaged Marius choices, paring away minor roles, replacing the children cast as Clara and the prince, with adults, thus adding a romantic story line for them.  Standing alone, the ballet was now far better received, and short enough for modern attention spans. And after the Second World War, it became the classical Christmas season production for every ballet company in the world, responsible for up to 40% of their income.

It just goes to show you – those silly romantics may be naive simpletons, but their ideas grow stronger with time because they are positive and simple, and keep being reinvented. When in doubt, we are always inspired by the romantics within us.

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