Alan Lichtin, MD
Staff hematologist/oncologist
Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center
Cleveland, Ohio
How did you get your start playing the violin?
I grew up in Cincinnati, and when I was about 3 years old, my parents started me on violin lessons. I think my parents thought I would grow up to be the world’s finest violinist, and they had me take lessons with the assistant concert master of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. After about three months, he fired me. I think he knew I did not have it in terms of musical talent.
So then I had lessons with other people, and when I was in high school, I joined the Cincinnati Youth Symphony Orchestra. We toured around the country, and I enjoyed it a lot. I was in the first violin section. When I was in 12th grade, I asked my violin teacher whether I had what it took to be a professional violinist, and he looked at me and said no. That was the best advice of my life. He could have said yes, and I would have had this terrible career of hacking away through lower-level echelon musical things, but instead I had the freedom to explore other opportunities.
Dr. Lichtin has played the violin since he was 3.
Did you continue playing in medical school?
Yes, I kept playing. In residency, we had this small music group that would get together and play chamber music. We had a piano player, cello player, and several violins. It was a lot of fun.
When I was a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, I played in an orchestra in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. I took a few years off when I lived in Kansas City, but when I got to Cleveland, I began playing in the Suburban Symphony Orchestra, where I’ve continued to play for about 30 years.
How would you describe the Suburban Symphony Orchestra?
Dr. Lichtin (circled) and the Suburban Symphony Orchestra
on stage at Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra.
It’s an avocational orchestra on the east side of Cleveland that has always seemed to attract medical professionals. We have a radiologist, biostatistician, an ophthalmologist, and then, of course, me as a hematologist.
As a symphony, we rehearse every Wednesday night and have about five concerts a year. We’ve done all the Beethoven symphonies, all the Brahms symphonies, and some great choral works. Some of my colleagues come and bring their kids. For many, it may be the first time a child will see an orchestra concert. Our concerts are free, so people don’t have to spend a lot of money. I never really publicize it with my patients, but sometimes they hear through the nurse and will come. Some have even been incredible philanthropic donors to the orchestra.
What memories have stood out for you during your time with the symphony?
There were two powerful pieces of music where I actually felt like I was levitating off my chair while I was playing them. One was in the middle of the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6. There’s a section where it’s just raw passion. I was sawing away, the whole orchestra was at high pitch, and I just felt, “Oh my God, this is like an out-of-body experience.”
The other one was the last page of Pines of Rome by Respighi. The Roman soldiers are marching down the Appian way, victorious in battle. It starts from this very, very quiet far-away sound and grows as the soldiers get closer and closer. It’s just a great piece, but every piece has something you can attach part of your brain to, hum in the hallway, and feel has made your life richer.
What do you feel draws you to playing the violin?
My dad was a composer and played violin. My dad and mom took my brother and me to every concert the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra held from the time we were 5 and 8. Each year we had a season subscription with four tickets, even though nobody at the time took their kids to concerts. I remember my mom pumping me up with candy and pretzels to be quiet during the concerts when I was really small, but I think that instilled in me a love of music.
For me, that’s where it started. Could I live without music? Sure, I guess I could, but I think it keeps me happier, and I have an outlet while running a very busy practice.
Has it been difficult to balance your commitment to the orchestra with your hematology career?
Our rehearsals are Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., so that means I have to end my day by 7 p.m. to make it to rehearsal.
On a concert weekend, we rehearse on Saturday morning and perform on Sunday afternoon. If I’m on service, I carry my beeper and hope it doesn’t go off. That has happened before, but I usually tell the fellow that I may not get back to them right away and will wait until the piece is done before I walk off stage to answer the call.
How has your love of music influenced your practice in hematology?
Béla Bartók wrote his Concerto
for Viola while suffering from fevers
from his myeloproliferative disorder.
He noted his temperatures above the
staves of music.
I’ve always believed medicine and music intersect on many levels. There’s a lot of commonality in trying to make people feel better and trying to make people’s lives better through music. I think it was Heinrich Heine who said, “When words leave off, music begins.” Music transcends the written word, and it touches people in profound ways that make your life better.
Interestingly, some of the great composers have had hematologic diseases, like Béla Bartók, a huge influence on 20th century music. It became a passion of mine to find out what happened to him from a hematologic standpoint. I even went to visit his son in Florida, where he runs a small museum in his father’s honor. Great musicians from all over the world have been there to look at Bartók’s original manuscript pages.
After digging through the archives of hospitals in New York, I learned that Bartók had a myeloproliferative disorder. I was able to track down just one index card that said he had thrombocytosis.
Although he was getting sicker and sicker, the conductor of the Boston Symphony commissioned a 45-minute orchestral work from him, which he wrote in the mountains of New York. The piece was called the Concerto for Orchestra.
He also wrote a final piece as a gift for his wife, who was an excellent pianist, his Piano Concerto No. 3. Just before finishing it, he got so sick his son rushed him to the hospital, where he died without completing the entire piano concerto. The last 17 bars of that piece were written by his protégé, Tibor Serly. You can imagine the chills that go up and down the spine when one can see the exact moment a music-writing career ends.
I think about my own relationship with my patients as they’re getting sicker and going into hospice, and yet the creative spark is still so profound. It makes me have great respect for the artistic impulse and the creative spirit.
