No, that is not an introduction to an epithet, as it was for Judge Kavanaugh’s classmate. (That introduction was a feature of the recent Senate Judiciary hearing.) Those effs stand for “triple forte.” Bear with me.
I have a new Jaywalking, which starts with some buzzing around. In a concert hall the other night, an orchestra launched into an encore: “The Ride of the Valkyries.” A man muttered to his wife, “Flight of the Bumblebee.” Well, the “Ride” does have a buzzy beginning, as I illustrate (in this podcast).
At The New Criterion, I have a “Salzburg Chronicle.” It touches on a concert of Yuja Wang, the Chinese pianist, with the Percussive Planet Ensemble. At the door, they gave you earplugs. I had never seen this before, in a lifetime of concertgoing. And I immediately thought of George F. Will.
The column is from September 1984. Do you remember it? Have you ever read it? It’s a classic, at least in my book. It begins,
What I did on my summer vacation:
My friend Bruce Springsteen . . .
It continues,
Okay, he’s only my acquaintance, but my children now think I am a serious person. I met him because his colleague Max Weinberg and Max’s wife Rebecca invited me to enjoy Max’s work, which I did. He plays drums for Springsteen, who plays rock and roll for purists, of whom there are lots. . . .
This is rock for the United Steelworkers, accompanied by the opening barrage of the battle of the Somme. The saintly Rebecca met me with a small pouch of cotton — for my ears, she explained. She thinks I am a poor specimen, I thought. I made it three beats into the first number before packing my ears.
Ha, I bet. I never used my earplugs for Yuja and the Percussive Planet Ensemble. But I appreciated the gesture . . .
P.S. The loudest music I ever heard, I heard in this same hall — the hall in which Yuja Wang and the PPE played, the Grosses Festspielhaus, or Great Festival Hall, in Salzburg. This was during Das Rheingold, the first of Wagner’s Ring tetralogy. (You get “The Ride of the Valkyries” in the second.) Giants enter the scene. Then a couple of fellas descend into Nibelheim. The Berlin Philharmonic held nothing back, in either of these instances.
When the giants entered, the ground shook. And when Wotan and Loge descended, I thought the house would break apart. It was totally musical — loud as it was — and thrilling.
P.P.S. When I say “the loudest music I ever heard,” I mean unamplified. I once wrote an essay on this: “Down with Eleven.”