Nathaniel came and we talked for about 20 minutes. He described to me his experience with the conducting competition in Bucharest organized and directed by John Axelrod. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Axelrod I told Nathaniel that I interpreted the social violence with which he was rebuffed and humiliated by John Axelrod as conclusive evidence that he, Nathaniel, was a conductor much superior to Axelrod himself and that he, Nathaniel, had in fact won the competition. The issue is now, not who has won, but how Nathaniel should react to the trauma of his experience. Certainly not by submitting to and validating Axelrod's spiritual brutality. Axelrod himself seems very vulnerable to me. At age 57, he appears to have had appointments with diverse orchestras, engagements which were only transient, and none of which he was able to solemnize. His stint at Bucharest is less than one year old. 

My advice to Nathaniel is 

a) that he begin by drafting with or without my assistance detailed and extensive memoranda describing and analysing his experiences in Bucharest. Nathaniel might then use these memoranda:

b) as basis for further correspondence with John Axelrod who, one must assume is trapped in a spiritual predicament of his own, a predicament from which Axelrod might hypothetically try to escape by promoting Nathaniel's career. Remember that Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Thus Nathaniel might give John Axelrod the opportunity to demonstrate the quality of his, Axelrod's mind, by providing Nathaniel with pertinent and appropriate recommendations.

c) If John Axelrod failed to provide Nathaniel with the requested recommendations, then Nathaniel has the option of adopting the style of Albert Einstein whose motto was: Es lebe die Unverfrorenheit!  (Long live impertinence!) by forwarding copies of his correspondence with Axelrod to any or all of the musical institutions with which Axelrod had been associated and from which he had separated.  One of them might then avail itself of Nathaniel's help in recovering from the Post Traumatic Distress Syndrome that ensued from its association with Axelrod. 

d) Nathaniel might make the memoranda cited in a) the basis of
d1) further literary composition, such as essay, elegy, ballad, story, novel, play, comedy, farce, tragedy
d2) musical composition, such as sonata, symphony, 
d3) operetta or opera. I would suggest considering as prototype Hofmannsthal-Strauß Ariadne of Naxos where a lengthy prologue tells the back-stage shenanigans which occur before the curtain rises.

My concern about b) and c) is that, if sucessful, Nathaniel and Sabine might move to a city far away from Boston where we could not give them the same support as if they had continued to live in Belmont.