Authors, German -- 19th century -- Biography; May, Karl Friedrich, 1842-1912
The name of the watchman of this room, or this "visitation" as it
was called there, was Göhler. I mention his name with great,
honest gratitude. He had to observe me and, though he did not
know the slightest thing about psychology, just on account of his
humanity and his rich experience, he tracked down the innermost
part of nature so well, that his reports about me, as it turned
out later, almost reached the truth. He had, as I guess all of
these watchman had, previously served in the military, in his case
it had been the band where he had played the first piston [a].
Therefore he had been put in charge of the musical corps and
brass-band of the prisoners. On Sundays, he had concerts in the
visitations and prison-yards, which he conducted very well. He
also had to accompany the singers with his instrumental music
during the religious services. But unfortunately, neither he nor
the Bible teacher, who was in charge of the church corps,
possessed the necessary theoretical knowledge, to rework, or to
arrange, which is the technical term, the pieces, which were
supposed to be performed, for the available personnel. Therefore,
both gentlemen had already for a long time been looking for a
prisoner, who might be able to fill this void; but there had not
been any.
[a] Piston (French): A special kind of cornet, one octave above
a trumpet; a.k.a. key-bugle or keyed bugle or Kent bugle.
At this point, watchman Göhler, due to his observation of my
psychological condition, got the idea to take me into his
brass-band, to see, if this might have a good effect on me. He
asked the warden's office and received the permission. Then, he
asked me, and quite naturally, I also did not say no. I joined
the band. At that time, only the althorn happened to be
available. I had never held an althorn in my hands before, but
soon I joined in the best I could. The watchman was happy about
this. He was even more happy, when he found out that I had learnt
about compositions and was able to arrange musical pieces.
Immediately, he reported this to the Bible teacher, and the latter
made me one of the church singers. So I was now a member of both
the brass-band and the church corps and was busy in going through
the available pieces of music and to arrange new ones. The
concerts and the performances in church received, from now on, an
entirely different character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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