撸先生

Nach meinem Tod 
zu verbrennen. Bitte. 
[ Burn after my death. Please. ]

Could you follow those instructions without peeking in the box on which they were written?

The resurrection of the decades-old music manuscripts begins, appropriately enough, in the past. 

In 2008, jazz musician Leonhard 鈥淟ennie鈥� Cuje walked into 1752 Swann Street in Northwest Washington, D.C., and felt the years drop away. 

From the 1930s to the 1960s, the rowhome doubled as Lindsay鈥檚, an after-hours jazz club unlicensed to sell liquor after midnight. Patrons entered through a discreet staircase in the backyard, through the basement鈥檚 kitchen and into the lounge, where they heard the likes of Nat King Cole, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald鈥攁nd Cuje himself. 

Cuje, a vibraphonist, was there that night in 2008 at the invitation of the home鈥檚 new owner, who, after discovering his address鈥檚 place in jazz lore, threw a party feting the living musicians who had the club jumping from 2 to 7 a.m. nightly. 

It was there Cuje met 撸先生 piano professor Eva Mengelkoch.

The previous year, Cuje had descended the stairs to the basement of his aunt Lena Schoch鈥檚 home in Arlington, Virginia. The room is surrounded by wood paneling; covered in framed photos; lined with shelves of VHS tapes, audio equipment and stacks of CDs; and holds desks laden with documents. Cuje sifted through decades of possessions, unearthing a box containing dozens of poems and classical music manuscripts signed 鈥淢endelssohn.鈥�

Despite that famous name, Cuje couldn鈥檛 find anyone interested in his discovery. Until that night at the home formerly known as Lindsay鈥檚.

鈥淎t this jazz club reunion, Lennie said, 鈥榊ou know what? You are a classical pianist. You accompany a lot. You know about German literature. You know how to read this old script. Would you be interested in looking into this music and make it alive again?鈥欌�� says Mengelkoch, a native of western Germany.
  
That chance meeting began a more than decade-long journey to transcribe, translate and, in some cases, correct or finish manuscripts composed and dedicated 90 years before. It ended with an album released by Naxos in May called

---

Listen to 鈥淪ong from Arabian Nights鈥� from 鈥淪ongs for Lena鈥� (A Naxos recording listing of catalogue number 8.579093, courtesy of Naxos Records).

---

Mengelkoch, baritone Ryan de Ryke and soprano Julianne Baird recorded the songs in Kaplan Hall, with Mengelkoch playing on the university鈥檚 B枚sendorfer piano. She met de Ryke when he was an adjunct professor at 撸先生 in the early 2000s and Baird through Pro Musica Rara, then an artist-in-residence program hosted by the College of Fine Arts & Communication. They began performing the songs in 2012 but kept fine-tuning them over the next seven years.

鈥淵ou have to live with a piece for a long time just to find an interpretation that makes sense. And that鈥檚 what we did over the last 10, 12 years,鈥� Mengelkoch says. 鈥淚t's very exciting. At the same time, introducing newly discovered music to audiences comes with a great responsibility."

Cuje, now 88, first heard the songs performed at a lecture recital at Rutgers University, where he provided commentary to the pieces. 

鈥淚t was such a wonderful feeling,鈥� he recalls. 鈥淚 asked Lena, my aunt, to please forgive me. I heard that music and Eva playing and the singing, and it was a wonderful feeling of accomplishing a good deed. It was a feeling of a completion of a project of love.鈥�

Maria Magdalene 鈥淟ena鈥� Schoch was an extraordinary woman. Her intelligence and curiosity pushed her to the heights of her profession. Her strong sense of right and wrong shoved her into the footnotes of history for decades.

Born Feb. 15, 1897 in W眉rzburg, she grew up comfortably middle class, enjoying a rich experience in literature, theater, music, visual arts and architecture. She enrolled in the University of W眉rzburg in 1917 to study law, pursuing an educational track that had only opened to women a few years before. In an echo of her childhood steeped in the arts, Schoch took seven to eight courses a semester, including at least one on German, English or U.S. literature; philosophy; and/or art history, in addition to her law courses.
 
Her polymathic abilities and evident potential attracted law professor Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy鈥檚 attention. And admiration. 

Known as AMB to friends, he was the grandson of renowned composer Felix Mendelssohn and grew up amidst a glittering crowd of arts luminaries like Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann and Ethel Smyth, a composer and suffragist with whom he shared a strong belief in women鈥檚 rights.

During his youth, he produced drawings, poetry, theater pieces, libretti, piano transcriptions and songs; appeared in piano duets with his cousin Nini Volz; and sang folksongs accompanied by his aunt on piano. Along with a friend, AMB published Schmetterlinge (Butterflies), nearly 200 pages of poetry about unrequited love and musings on nature. The volume horrified his relatives, who felt he had disrespected the Mendelssohn reputation by not using a pen name. 

His uncle Adolph Wach, a top jurist in Germany at the turn of the century, encouraged AMB to take up a law career. Despite wanting to follow in his famous grandfather鈥檚 footsteps, AMB heeded his uncle鈥檚 advice: 鈥淚f you become a musician, you will always be compared with your famous grandfather and never judged on your own merits.鈥� AMB eventually became a law professor, first at the University of Leipzig and then at the University of W眉rzburg.

After just eight semesters, Schoch earned a doctorate in 1920 with her thesis on English war legislation and joined AMB at the University of Hamburg. Colleague Fritz Morstein Marx later described their relationship as having an intuitive sense for one another. Schoch was involved in nearly all AMB鈥檚 professional plans and projects, including the Institut f眉r Ausw盲rtige Politik (Institute of Foreign Politics), the first institute dedicated to international peace studies worldwide. 

Schoch鈥檚 work there was largely done in her free time since she was not an official employee. She had her own career achievements to keep her busy. 

In 1927, Schoch was designated an official observer to the proceedings dealing with Germany鈥檚 World War I reparations at the International Court in De Hague鈥攚here AMB served as a judge鈥攊n what later became known as the Dawes Plan. Her four-volume, annotated translation of the court鈥檚 decisions soon followed, a document of which she once said, 鈥淚 can only warn non-lawyers against reading [it].鈥�

Schoch was also a member of the editorial team of the journal Europ盲ische Dialog, in which she published and supervised many essays, reviews and bibliographies; a board member of the Society of Friends of the United States and editor of the Hamburg-Amerika-Post (after 1931, the Amerika-Post); and head of the new America-Bibliothek (American Library).

In 1931, Schoch founded and presided over Hamburg鈥檚 first 10 Zonta clubs鈥攁 women鈥檚 leadership organization much like the Rotary Club. A year later, she made history as the first German woman to complete a postdoctoral thesis and qualify to teach university-level law, after a unanimous vote of the faculty.

Despite the looming shadow of Nazi rule, his burgeoning law career and the fact his feelings for Schoch were unrequited, AMB continued to produce poetry and love songs that he dedicated to his protegee. Roughly one-third of his surviving, completed songs were created鈥攁nd gifted to Schoch鈥攆rom 1930鈥�34.

AMB began lecturing across the United States in 1927, and, on his last tour in 1933, surprised his audiences by urging them not to jump to conclusions about Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, saying Germany didn鈥檛 want another war so soon. But just months after returning to Hamburg, he lost his position and his pension under the 鈥淟aw for the Restoration of Professional Civil Service,鈥� which stripped anyone with Jewish ancestry of jobs, money and status. 

That same year Schoch鈥檚 nephew and godson Lennie Cuje was born. She attended his birth in Giessen on Jan. 1, and insisted he be baptized immediately, 鈥溾�榖efore,鈥� as she said, 鈥榯he Browns catch me,鈥欌�� he remembers. The Brown Shirts was the colloquial name of the Sturmabteilung, the National Socialist German Works鈥� party鈥檚 paramilitary arm that played a large role in Adolph Hitler鈥檚 rise to power.

Cuje remembers Schoch visiting several more times, including once after the family had moved to Frankfurt. 

鈥淚 still have a very clear memory of that visit. We arranged chairs to make a 鈥榮teamer.鈥� She was the stoker, and I was the captain on our way to America.鈥�

About 3 or 4 years old at the time, he had no idea how prescient the make-believe was.

A year after Cuje鈥檚 birth, AMB, his wife and their two adopted daughters emigrated to England, where he took a senior fellowship at Oxford University鈥檚 Balliol College.

Schoch remained in contact with her mentor, even as other friends and colleagues disavowed him to ingratiate themselves with the increasingly powerful Nazi party. She even dedicated a series of publications to AMB in 1934, when many others were erasing Jewish colleagues from their articles.
 
But Schoch quickly realized her position at the university was tenuous. She faced a direct threat from the university administration because of her steadfast refusal to abandon AMB even after he died of stomach cancer in 1936, devastating her.

In an undated family history, Schoch reflected, 鈥淥ne Friday morning in 1936, I received a wire notifying me that Professor Mendelssohn had suddenly died in Oxford. I鈥檓 not going to dwell on my feelings at this blow. I called the head of the faculty, told him the fact and that I could not attend the faculty meeting the next day because I was going to England for the funeral. 鈥℉e was practically speechless. 鈥楧o you think this is wise? I鈥檒l have to notify the university.鈥� Which he did and was told that this trip might have serious consequences for me. I told him I was not interested and asked him to cancel my lectures for the following week. 

鈥淚 rushed to England by the night boat and caught a train in time to attend the funeral and spend a day with AMB鈥檚 family. I found out that not one of his German colleagues nor his former university had sent even a token of sympathy.鈥�  

Although Schoch received no direct punishment upon her return, her professional life became increasingly isolated. 

In the same family history, Schoch wrote, 鈥淚 cut off my connection with the Institut f眉r Ausw盲rtige Politik and restricted myself to teaching 鈥榥on-political鈥� subjects. My office was a small annex to the university, where I could avoid contact with the Nazi administration. But one day we received a notice from the administration 鈥榩ermitting鈥� every teacher and employee to apply for membership in the party. 

鈥淭he professor who was my superior at that time called me into his office in great agitation. He was not a Nazi but a remnant of the conservative party, and he was quite upset. 鈥楳y God, what shall I do? What are you doing, Dr. Schoch?鈥� 鈥楳e,鈥� I said, 鈥業鈥檝e thrown the notice in my waste basket.鈥� 鈥楤ut what about our future? I cannot live if I鈥檓 not permitted to teach!鈥� 鈥榃ell, professor, that鈥檚 your problem.鈥� So he signed on the dotted line. I, of course, did not, and strange to say, nothing happened to me.鈥�

Her refusal to join the party was, as she noted, 鈥減rofessional suicide,鈥� and on June 28, 1937, Schoch submitted her resignation and began thinking of emigrating at the age of 40. She sold her household goods and had her life insurance paid out, giving the proceeds to her mother, who had lived with her since 1930, and set sail for America. 

After five years at Harvard, Schoch moved to Washington, D.C., in 1943 to work as an expert on German law for the Office of Economic Warfare, where she contributed to the legal preparation of the U.S. post-war occupation policy. When that office disbanded in 1946, she began a 20-year career as an expert on international and foreign law in the U.S. Department of Justice. Numerous large cases are associated with her name, and in 1952, she was admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court bar.

In 1950, she brought her then-teenage nephew Cuje to the U.S. In the later part of that decade, he began a 60-year career as a jazz musician. 

Nicknamed Snowflake, he was one of the few white musicians who played U Street in Washington, D.C., and on the 鈥淐hitlin Circuit鈥� throughout the South. He also played in clubs like the Blue Note and the One Step Down Lounge as well as at the Kennedy Center and inaugurations and campaign concerts for George H.W. Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton and 鈥˙arack Obama. He recorded an album with the U.S. Navy Commodores, played with his inspiration Lionel Hampton and lived next door to Miles Davis in New York.

鈥淗is backyard touched into my backyard,鈥� Cuje says. 鈥淎nd I would go over to Miles' place and play over there. And he would show me how he liked to make gumbo and what stuff he liked to cook.鈥�

After Schoch鈥檚 death in 1987, Cuje had no idea that what he calls 鈥渢he treasures in the basement鈥� were there. Schoch never said a word to her relatives about her connection to one of music鈥檚 greatest families.

Cuje, thankfully, spoke at length to Mengelkoch as she worked her way through the manuscripts.

鈥淚 spent a lot of time in the Mendelssohn archives in Berlin and saw that the majority of those manuscripts that were found by Lennie in his basement were unique,鈥� Mengelkoch says. 鈥淪o this was actually quite a treasure, then, that you have completed compositions in fair copy that are unique and that nobody has ever heard about.

鈥淸Lena] packed up all this, all the manuscripts [when she emigrated]. There are other things that she brought along: photos of their professional life together, their personal life together, sketches and lithographs of the Mendelssohns, then also some poetry collections that Albrecht Mendelssohn had hand copied, and that he had meant to put to music.

鈥淚 think it is exciting to have found these pieces of music that nobody has heard before and that even relatives of Albrecht Mendelssohn didn鈥檛 know existed,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd performing Albrecht鈥檚 songs in spaces connected to the Mendelssohn family鈥檚 history, such as the Berlin Mendelssohn Remise, really inspired me. I feel so honored that Lennie asked me to do this.鈥� 

Cuje is elated at how the album turned out.
 
Mengelkoch, he says, 鈥渂rought Lena back to life.鈥�