The following narrative encompasses the intersection of two threads, one dealing with pathological technology, and the other with the choice of art over science. And a third dimension is the autobiographical connection with those threads.
I never had a one-track mind. For much of my life, I’ve lived in multiple and often incompatible subcultures. In college, I was a chemistry major, 4-year varsity basketball starter, and in as much music as I could fit in, mostly piano and vocal. And I had very few friends that were also pursuant in all three; some of my basketball comrades were in STEM, but not in music, and there were also other friends in STEM and music, but not sports.
When I got to graduate school at Princeton, clearly my chemistry was #1, but I also played competitively (i.e., leagues) year-round in basketball, touch football and softball. I even played in a couple half-court games with Bill Bradley, when he was the biggest name in college basketball.
In music, I sang in a church choir, as well as undertaking some practice piano accompanying with a fellow student violinist, as well as recreational piano 4-hand duets of Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart Symphonies with the church Music Director (M.A. in piano performance; he was quite good!)
One of my fellow teammates on the Princeton Chemistry softball team was Denis Rousseau; he came my second year. He was an excellent athlete and also like me a Physical Chemist. However, Denis was from Derry, New Hampshire, and back then, my knee-jerk view of Northern New Englanders, especially those with an “accent”, was less than uplifting. Yes, I was quite naïve.
During my last two years in the Frick Chemistry Building on Washington Road in Princeton, my lab as next to the Men’s Room, and on the other side was the office (not a lab) for Quantum Chemist Lee Allen. What used to amuse me sometimes when I would go to the Men’s room — I had been trained as a chemist to ALWAYS wash my hands BEFORE taking care of business – is when I would see Lee Allen come in and make an exaggerated flourish of washing HIS hands first, I would nearly laugh out loud; he never touched chemicals!
Prof. Allen also had displayed similar exaggerated gestures during his lectures in the classroom; there were plenty of imitations of him from fellow students. However, admittedly he was an excellent instructor, and his Quantum Chemistry course was absolutely pivotal for the direction I would take within chemistry. Incidentally I might add that Allen wasn’t the only one mocked. Polymer chemist Arthur Tobolsky and Departmental chairman Don Hornig, both highly accomplished, got their share of mockery as well.
Ok, so I’ve now identified two of the players in this drama. It’s time to leave Princeton and head on down to University of Maryland, and my post-doctoral assignment with world-renowned vibrational spectroscopist Ellis Lippincott. He had a large research group of 25 or more grad students, post-docs and visiting professors. While my research was in the area of normal coordinate analysis – largely computer based – some in Lippincott’s group were involved in classical chemistry, using vibrational spectroscopy to identify molecules via infrared and Raman techniques; he was even an expert witness is some high-profile trials around the country.
One of the strangest areas that Lippincott pursued was investigation into the structure of “Polywater”, or as some called it, “anomalous water”. This phenomenon was first reported in the Russian literature, and raised the possibility that a 4th form of water existed; not only liquid, vapor and solid, but also apparently a polymeric version.
The crazy thing was that Lippincott’s people could not “create” the Polywater, even though they attempted to follow the directions reported in the literature by the Russians. He obtained samples of the substance from someone at the National Bureau of Standards in Gaithersburg, MD, about a 45-minute drive from College Park. He then obtained the infrared spectrum of the samples, and ultimately published the results.
As the hysteria around Polywater grew, Princeton’s Lee Allen got involved, and published a Quantum Mechanical theoretical paper proposing possible graphic-like structure with hexagonal rings of hydrogen-bonded oxygen atoms to explain the existence of Polywater.
I had left Lippincott’s group in 1967 for a chemistry faculty position at Boston University, although I continued to be aware of the process of the Polywater research from my Lippincott colleagues.
In that first year at BU I taught the undergraduate physical chemistry course, along with a graduate course in spectroscopy. There were approximately 75 students in the course, so it was difficult to get to know all of them, but one stood out: Don Palumbo. He was a 3rd-year chemistry major, and had received straight A’s in all courses he had taken at BU, as far as I knew. Needless to say, he was brilliant, and a leader.
At the time of the mid-term P-Chem exam in Spring 1968, he asked if he could be excused from taking it at the normal hour, and I easily agreed. But I asked him “why?” He told me he was selling tickets for a concert at symphony hall, and needed to be there at the time of the exam.
It turns out that he was helping out with one of Boston’s premier choral groups, Chorus pro Musica (CPM), which was performing that week with the Eric Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony. Note that this was three years before the formation of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. I informed him of my interest in choral music, and he encouraged me to audition for the group in the Fall.
So in September, I did audition, a two-part test: first time, sight-reading with some passages to mislead the inattentive. Then you were to come back with something that you had prepared, and get checked out a second time. Unbelievably, I got in, and began to stay in-town on Monday nights to attend the CPM rehearsals at Old South Church in the Back Bay.
Also in September, senior chemistry majors had to sign-up with faculty to take on their research project, and Don asked if I would be his supervisor. I agreed, and after some discussion, we decided that he would perform a literature search on Polywater. During that academic year, articles were beginning to come out which questioned the validity of Polywater as a reality, although nothing definitive. It didn’t take Don long to join with the doubters.
As the Fall semester proceeded, senior chemistry majors were laying plans for their future, and it was no different for Don. However, when I would talk with him about it, he would say that he was leaning towards going to Vienna to “take in the music scene”. Although I was first shocked about his intentions, I began to think that it might be a great idea, even though he could have gotten a full ride in chemistry at any university in the world with his straight-A record (including P-Chem!)
However, the chemistry faculty was exceedingly unhappy with Don’s intentions. This was their prized student. Why would he do something like this? I found myself coming down on Don’s side of this issue. I understood that no matter what he did, with both his academic and personal skills, he would excel. Further, as I was becoming immersed in the glorious music of CPM, and aware that at his young age he was already in a leadership role, it made more and more sense to me for him to move towards a music career.
I remember especially the Christmas parties, comparing Chemistry Department vs. Chorus pro Musica: “stuffy” and “unbearable”, vs. “a blast” and “do we have to leave now?” I was beginning the first stage of my withdrawal from the entire chemistry scene, with Don’s and CPM’s influence an important factor.
So, after Don’s Phi Beta Kappa induction and graduation, off he went to Vienna. I continued on at BU, and began to move more and more away from the laboratory and into computer-based theoretical work. I had a small research group which included a couple post-docs for whom I obtained grants. And it turned out that the few Black graduate students that came to the BU Chem Dept. all joined my group, ultimately gaining Master’s degrees.
I also pioneered an elective course in computer programming for Chem majors, and began spending much time in the BU computing center, sometimes submitting jobs on Friday afternoon which were still running when I returned on Monday morning. I also spent considerably more time than other faculty members associating with undergraduate students, playing basketball or volleyball, and hanging out at times in the student center with them.
These were very chaotic times at all universities, with anti-war demonstrations and some vandalism, especially after the 1970 Kent State shooting. While my interactions with students resulted in very high ratings for me in student guides – “one of the best profs at BU” – it was not pleasing to some of the senior faculty, who considered that I was “wasting my time” with the students in this manner. I was supposed to publish and get funding as #1 and #1 priorities.
In the Spring of 1970, I attended the Pittsburgh Conference on Spectroscopy which was held that year in Cleveland, because of strikes in Pittsburgh hotels. At this conference, Ellis Lippincott was to be awarded a prize for his research on Polywater. Some of my Lippincott friends were going to be there, and it was to be a great celebratory reunion.
On the day of Lippincott’s award and lecture, as I stepped into the elevator to go up to the Ballroom, there was Denis Rousseau. “Denis, great to see you! How are you doing? What are you doing here?” His response? “What kind of a guy is this Lippincott? Is he some kind of a jerk?” What in the world did that mean?
Anyway, instead of sitting up on the right front row with my Lippincott friends, I sat about 6 of 7 rows back, in the center, with Denis to my right. The session started with a corsage for Lippincott’s wife, followed by the formal presentation of the Coblentz award, with the good words, and his humble acceptance. And then his lecture, complete with pictures and graphs and everything he needed to tell the Polywater story.
Then came the Q&A.
The second question: Denis stands up and says, “We at Bell Labs have determined that there is no such thing as Polywater.” Everybody was stunned. Plus, the glare of anger and disbelief from my friends. I thought I could read their minds: “What’s Dick Mann doing with the enemy??” One of the more uncomfortable public situations of my life.
Over the next couple of years, the full exposure of this scientific folly would become manifest. Needless to say, once Don Palumbo returned from Vienna and rejoined CPM, I informed him of these events. It simply further confirmed to him the rightness of his decision two years earlier to leave chemistry for music.
Back at BU after the big confrontation, I needed to obtain a grant to fully equip my lab by the end of my 4th year, or I wouldn’t gain tenure. By this time, when I needed to run some “experiments”, I would use an infrared spectrometer at a lab in MIT, or Raman measurements from a lab at Brown, in Providence. I worked overtime for months putting together my big proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF); it was largely to support computer-based, theoretical research in an area that I knew a lot about, but apparently my NSF reviewers did not. When the results came back, I got a combined score of 3.2 out of 5, and I needed at least 3.3; thus, no NSF money. I told the departmental chairman Lowell Coulter about it, and he was crestfallen; he didn’t want to lose me. But he couldn’t defend me either.
However, that 0.1 factor was one of the greatest gifts I could have received at that point in my life. I was free at age 31 to decide who I really was, and to do what I really wanted to do. And I had 2 years still remaining on my contract with BU to figure it all out. To show my state of mind, that first year I looked only for Chemistry faculty openings at schools nearby a city with good choral groups to join. In other words, CPM-duplication was the driving force, rather than chemistry.
Then in my final year, I had a further thought. What would I do for fun? Chemistry? No way. I never actually LIKED chemistry. But computers? Programming? Oh my, yes, I’d do that every time. So I switched my approach and looked for a computer-related position for someone with training in science.
What I ultimately landed was a start-up consulting firm, contracting with the Defense Intelligence Agency to design a computer system to aid in the tasking of intelligence assets. No actual science. Just systems design, with some programming. But instead of working on the equilibrium geometry of Beryllium Borohydride, I was working the design of a highly-classified information management system for the Directorate of Collection within DIA. And right after the 1973 Yom Kippur war in the middle-east. Some difference!
I began weekly trips to DC, usually for 2 or 3 days, and that began to take its toll in terms of my affiliation with CPM. By 1975, I needed to drop out, although at the same time, I took on the volunteer task of choir director at the church I attended. And before I left CPM, I had become chairman of their auditions committee, and helped out with the actual auditions for several years.
Even after leaving BU in 1973, I had one PhD graduate student that I continued to support, and participated in her final oral exam. She was from a wealthy Japanese family, and called home to her mother every night. Remember, this is the early 1970s. Additionally she was both a figure skater and a musician, piano and vocal. She was gifted enough athletically to have tried out for the Olympics in skating. And she auditioned for and joined CPM. One of those rare people who pursued academics, aesthetics and athletics. She published one paper from her dissertation.
Then in 1979, Alfred Nash (Bud) Patterson, founder of CPM passed away. The funeral was held at the Church of the Advent at the base of Beacon Hill in Boston. The attendees were given scores to the Mozart Requiem, and we sang that in his memory, with Don Palumbo directing. For me, one of the most poignant moments was the organist playing “Nimrod” from Elgar’s Enigma Variations, and me and my friends nearby in tears.
Don took over as director of CPM, and continued into the late 1980s, when he took a position as choral director of the Chicago Lyric Opera (CLO). In the early 80s, Don would toggle between the Dallas Opera and CPM, requiring two rehearsals a week in the month or so leading up to a performance when he was in Boston.
He also assembled a collaboration with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) and Ben Zander during that time. Back in the late 1960s, the Boston Symphony had offered the position of its primary chorus to CPM, but Patterson had turned it down, because of the loss of control, and the lessened ability to do its own music. Thus the formation of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus instead.
I was able to come back to sing with CPM twice in the 1980s, doing Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in 1987 with the BPO, with Don preparing the chorus. He was very demanding, in a way more so than Bud Patterson had been. Note that my last contact with Don was at the time of that concert.
I also sang with CPM and the BPO doing Mahler 2 (Resurrection) in either 1988 or 1989, but by this time Don had either already moved on to Chicago, or simply wasn’t available.
Note incidentally that in addition to his position with the CLO for 16 years, he was the chorus director for the Salzburg Festival from 1999-2001.
Finally, in 2007 Don left Chicago to become the choral director for the Metropolitan Opera, where they billed him as the greatest choral conductor in the world. As of 2019, he continues in that role, while also serving on the faculty of Julliard.
Several years ago, I came across a couple recent videos of Don, and it was amazing to hear that same voice and image after 30 years! The same ability to pay attention to details, and to deal with complex technical issues, as well as clearly articulate are all visible in these videos:
Die Meistersinger Seminar: Donald Palumbo, Chorus Master (39:48)
Conversation with Donald Palumbo (1:06:57)
Another interview with Don Palumbo concerning the Met Opera chorus.
The Met Chorus in Rehearsal (01:12)
Brief example of Don Palumbo conducting Met Opera chorus rehearsal.
Reference material:
The Curious Case of Polywater (2013)
Chorus pro Musica History – 50th Anniversary
Analysis of Missa Solemnis performance with CPM and BPO – March 15, 1987