There Is No Religion There

Abstract

I was born in 1930 in Amsterdam which was then and still is a flourishing center of culture. My serious education began at the Barlaeus Gymnasium, one of those almost legendary continental European ‘gymnasia’ where we were not naked (γυμυóς) gymnastics being kept firmly on the periphery but where the concentration was on learning. The foundation for my knowledge was laid there and I have continued to draw upon it throughout my life. My family background was in the arts. I was the only child of an architect father with children from other marriages and a mother whose occupation was haute couture; there were not only drawing-boards but a small atelier where girls were sewing clothes. My mother had played the piano, but that was before me. I took to the violin at five and played almost daily for the next 19 years first because I wanted it, then because my mother made me do it, finally doggedly and despite the obvious fact that I was never going to be good at it. My teacher was a violinist in the Concertgebouw Orchestra and took me along during rehearsals where I was allowed to sit on a podium chair. Before my legs could reach the floor I had heard and seen all the great conductors of Europe.