Tale: the Tuba Player of Mainz

 The first thing one notices about Mainz is its Dom, officially named St. Martin's Cathedral. (If you look carefully at the roof of the cathedral, you will see a statue of the generous Roman officer riding his horse away from the Rhine--in the photo below, the statue is hidden, but it lies to the right of the central tower.)

Mainz was the birthplace of Christianity in Germany. An English missionary, St. Boniface, arrived in the early 8th Century, to christianize the peoples beyond the Rhine. His efforts were successful, and Mainz became Germany's first archbishopric, eventually becoming the center of German Christianity similar to the position of England's archbishops of Canterbury -- with one important difference: as Germany grew to an empire, the Archbishop of Mainz held one of seven key electoral votes in the choosing of the emperor.

Begun in 975, the cathedral is a chaotic mishmash of architectural styles that emerged over the centuries it took to complete the thing. There are romanesque elements as well as renaissance touches, both in the exterior and the interior. When I walk inside, I don't get the same sense of reverent awe that I find in simpler gothic cathedrals or the shock-and-awe amazement found in baroque churches. The Dom is huge, and its interior has many side chapels with elaborate monuments to former archbishops as well as to wealthy Germans who hedged their bets for eternity by decorating the chapels.

The tale I have adapted for this blog is called the "Tuba Player of Mainz" and it comes from the book, Legends of the Rhine, by Wilhelm Rutland.

In Rutland's tale, the musician is a fiddler. I changed him to a tuba player in honor of one of the first students I visited Mainz with, a boy named Ethan, who played in my school's band.

I will include photos of different reliefs I found, which hang on the pillars of the cathedral. Most of them honor archbishops. I found no life-size reliefs of the Virgin Mary as described in the story, nor did I find any statues with golden slippers.

Here's the tale:

There was once a poor tuba-player who found himself in Mainz after several days of travel and many days without food. He played his tuba in the Dom Platz all day, but every "oom" his tuba uttered brought only suspicious looks, and the "pa-pas" it belched found not tips. Not a single coin!

Finally, in desperation, the tuba-player went into Mainz Cathedral. A wealthy man had erected a statue of Mary on one of the columns, and he had put on the statue's feet slippers of pure gold. The tuba-player stood below this statue, said a prayer, and began to play. His heart was broken, he feared that he might starve, and he hoped that Mary might rescue him.

Imagine the bleats and groans that bellowed from the tuba. Life had been hard. He had spent his last Pfennig days ago. Now imagine the tuba-player's surprise when the statue behind him moved. Mary reached down, removed one of her golden slippers, and dropped it at his feet.

He didn't know what to do. His mind couldn't accept it, but his hungry belly drove him to a local Goldsmith just down the street from the cathedral. 

We all can imagine what happened next. 

The goldsmith, like any citizen of Mainz, recognized the priceless slipper and reported the tuba-player to the constable, who dragged the tuba player to prison. A few hours later a judge sentenced the tuba-player to death for the sacrilege he had committed against the holy mother's statue.

No one believed the tuba player's story. He begged for mercy, but people only scoffed. When he mentioned Mary, they hissed in outrage.

He begged for a chance to show them what the statue had done. Mercifully, a constable agreed to stop by the cathedral on his way to the noose which hung from the Holzturm. The player's tuba was provided. The tuba player was no longer playing for his supper, he was playing for his life!

At the base of the statue once again, the tuba farted and waamped a sad, desperate tune. At the statue, once again, came to life, reached down, removed the 2nd golden slipper, and dropped it at the feet of the tuba player. He was saved.

The tuba-player was freed. In exchange for the golden slippers, he was given a monthly allowance for life.

The slippers were not returned to the statue, however.

Why?

Because the city fathers now feared the blessed mother would try to give them to someone else!

And if you go to Mainz Cathedral, you will see two beautiful organs, perhaps even a chamber orchestra. But I know of no tubas that have been allowed to play there, not ever (or since the time of my tale).