Paying Tribute to Robert P. Commanday

Matthew Sedlar on September 8, 2015

UPDATED: 9/17/2015

We have received many kind words and tributes to Robert Commanday through emails, site comments, and social media. We've selected the best and posted them here.

Emails and Comments

Gathered by Janos Gereben and Michael Zwiebach

From cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han,

Robert Commanday's contribution to classical music is on a level with the greatest advocates of the venerated art form. His writings on music - from the perspective of an educated musician - were an invaluable source of authority and stability amidst much musical journalism of questionable integrity. And, his stepping up to the plate to create SFCV was a heroic move against the ubiquitous trimming of cultural coverage in the media worldwide. We mourn his passing, but we celebrate his life of service to music and remember him with admiration and gratitude.

From Leah Garchik, San Francisco Chronicle columnist:

I worked with Bob Commanday for so many years at The Chronicle, most often before I had a column and was editing the Review section. Bob was a regular contributor. As an editor, of course, one's job has to do with improving the grace of the writing.

There was little improvement needed for Bob's words. But what was even more
obvious was Bob's grace as a human being, day to day, and then later inthe horrendous circumstances of his stepson's death. He was a dignified man with a crackling sense of humor, and I treasure the opportunity I had to know him.

From Charles Barber, Artistic Director of City Opera Vancouver:

As a concert reviewer I was hired early on by Bob, and bore the pleasure and critique of his editorial pen. He always made it clear that he expected an honest and literate voice, one willing to move toward an ideal sound just there, just past the audible horizon.

He believed greatly in raising standards, and in honoring them. This he did all his life.

On one occasion he phoned to ask me to review a concert at Zellerbach. I asked who was on it. He told me, and I recognized the name of one of his great friends and donors. In fact, Bob was escorting his friend to the concert that very night, and so could not possibly do the review himself.

Tentatively, I asked if there might be any “issues”. He replied as if expecting the question: “Not at all. Just write what you hear. Don’t worry about anything else.”

I submitted what I heard, and Bob didn’t change a word of it. He had an extraordinary honesty, and expected the same of everybody. Today, there are hundreds of us who hope we did not disappoint him. Thank you, Bob. You raised the bar, wonderfully.

Charles Barber
MA, DMA Stanford

From Erich Wolf Stratmann:

Four years ago when we began SingforAmerica Foundation we rehearsed Monday night at the Marines Memorial on Sutter. Bob, at 89, was down at the BART station and walked up Mason to visit one of our first rehearsals and assure the singers that they were doing the right thing…helping others via singing.

For the dress of Les Troyans, Bob and Mary were kindly asked to attend and he had the energy, easily, to do just that. I was sort of a technical escort. The press people saw he was with oxygen and so took us to a box where we plugged in the machine. After six hours, there was no flagging of energy…just an ability to interchange the oxygen..the same as when we came in to the performance. He just was unable to walk more than perhaps ten steps.

The situation was the same when 20 of us met at our home on July 28th…but what a party it was. He wanted no speeches or thanks from those who had derived such benefits from his talent and generosity of spirit. We just had a super time for a couple of hours in the afternoon….folks from Narsi David to Monroe to Warner and Cheryl…all chosen by Bob.

I find it hard to believe that such energy flashed out so fast. And I admire hugely the attitude of Mary carrying through so beautifully this hardship. Unbelievable!

From Michael Tilson Thomas [on tour with the SF Symphony, now in Romania}:

Robert Commanday knew and loved music with enormous intensity. His tastes were patrician, but he also had great curiosity about new musical explorations. Particularly in the Bay Area he was an outspoken voice for excellence and continuity. He will be greatly missed.

From Olivia Stapp, soprano, stage director, arts administrator, voice teacher, and writer

For Mary and the Commanday family:

My heartfelt condolences to you. Throughout his many years as the Bay Area's major music editor and commentator, Bob brought us a level of exceptional expertise and sharp awarness. He helped elevate the entire San Francisco musical scene to world-class standards. His musical knowledge was firmly based on a wide breadth of cultural experience gained both here and abroad. This background, combined with his formidable writing skills made him a force to be reckoned with by the whole musical world. I very much enjoyed relating to him as a straight talking fellow New Yorker, and being guided by him as a fledgling reviewer for SFCV. I am sorry he is gone.

From Jerry Rosen:

In 1952 when I was 12-year-old violinist, I took a train from Detroit Michigan to Stockbridge MA to be a student in a just-established music workshop called Indian Hill. There were 36 of us, and a staff including Sidney Harth, Seymour Lipkin, and Robert Commanday (whose sister Irma was one of the founders of the place). In fact, it was in a battered station-wagon that Bob picked me and my older companion, Ruth Meckler (later Laredo) that first morning.

Bob was the chorus director (everyone, including the dancers, was required to participate) and as my voice had not changed, I sang alto. Up to that time, as a precocious violinist, I had usually played the top parts of everything - now I sang an inner part (the first piece was Bach's "Jesu, joy of man's desiring"), and that was the beginning of a journey into the heart of music that I have been on ever since, and will stay on until my final fermata. I will always remember Bob as the one who was my Virgil at the start of that journey. He was one of those to whom music was the equivalent of a religion - something around which a musician organizes his life no less than does a rabbi around the Talmud. 

Later, I would work with more such people: Rudolph Serkin, George Szell, Louis Krasner, and Pablo Casals himself...but Robert was the first , and in my mind's ear I "make a joyful noise" in his tribute in hope that the chords he struck in me and so many others will continue to resound.

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Matthew Sedlar oversees edits and posts content to SFCV and social media. He has worked on the copy desks of several publications including the Orange County Register and the Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report. He also served as deputy editor of Congressional Quarterly's Healthbeat and a music writer for the blog DCist. In his spare time, he writes about the intersection of statistics and various nerdy topics for Stats for Geeks.