Leonard Slatkin

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Hello Michael Shapiro. Great to be with you.

It is. I didn't know I had this many rooms in my house. Quite pleasant. Actually, you used an interesting word, the travails of the time. The ones that we used to have and the ones we have now. I think you just have to change what you are doing in terms of what you consider those travails. For me, it's actually not a negative word. It means that you have something to do, some obstacle that you have to overcome. So, for me, at my age, 76 almost, I've pretty much not spent this time dealing with aspects of conducting. I've more or less wrapped up my third book, which now I had time to do with a real concentrated period. That was rare. I've been keenly interested in how other people are handling this time, and on my website, I've been almost weekly, if not even more often than that, trying to think of what it's going to be like when we emerge from all this, which we will at some point, but we don't know how. I have been doing a lot of reading. All those books back there, I mostly had read before. They're all the ones I have that are about mostly musical subjects, biographies, commentaries, some fiction books about music. Uh, my other book library is downstairs, and my audio and video libraries, and all of my music is downstairs. That's something that was really different. For 43 years, when I was a music director, my entire musical output, the scores, piano music, all those kind of things were housed with the orchestras. So if I needed something, I would ask them to either bring it to me, give it to me when I was at Detroit, St. Louis, whatever it was. Now, for the first time in all those years, I actually have all the music. So a lot of time has been cataloging it, seeing what I have, deciding what needed to go to other places. My father's violin music, for example, I sent to the Curtis Institute because that's where he studied, and many of the markings in the music come from his teacher, Efrem Zimbalist. So the school now has a real history and connection with that. Much music that I had, I sent to my son, especially the music that was related more to the jazz and the pop fields, because my son is 26 and a composer in the film industry. A lot of music, music that I really realized I probably would never get around to conducting, or asking myself the question, what was I going to do with the five different complete editions of the Beethoven Symphonies? Not those. I passed on to the Manhattan School of Music where I do a couple weeks of teaching each year. So I pared down the scores and used some of this time, not much, but some, to look at scores of pieces that I've never conducted, that maybe I will at some point, but have never felt adequate enough to do them justice. Like the B minor, well, I've done the B minor mass, but the St. Matthew Passion, or Bruckner Nine, pieces that I've just not gotten around to, and I have to decide whether or not at some point I will do them.

Yeah. Never been.

People have said that, and that's I take as a great compliment. I try to write very much as I am. There's no ghostwriter. And here it is, there's a little bit of shadow coming on from the, actually lovely day we're having in St. Louis today. The new book is called Musical Chairs. Um, what's the subtitle? Something like, uh, the classical music in the 21st century. And I use the classical word very advisedly. I normally don't like to use that term because my essential being has been to more, be more inclusive of pretty much every genre, every style. I grew up that way. I was a sound stage brat. I was hanging around the Capitol Records Studios with Sinatra and all those people. And of course, with my parents being in all the phases of music in Los Angeles, folks like Stravinsky and Hindemith and Walton were popping around that you never knew when they were going to show up. So, the book, this one is a bit different than the first two, in that it does try to address issues that have changed and that the 21st century has to look at in a different way. So, for example, even though it was an issue previously, the question of diversity within the orchestras and administrations and within the soloists and within our audience. That's something that's very different now and amplified certainly by the scenes we've seen on streets in this country. It's kind of like living in the 1960s again, but perhaps worse.

Oh yeah.

East German Orchestra.

Yeah. This was, uh, a suggestion from Phillips, who I'd made one disc for prior. And I don't know why they wanted to do a highlights version, much less record it in East Germany. I was still relatively young in the profession, but I went there. We had Roberta Alexander and Simon Estes singing the majority of the two roles. But you had this East German orchestra and chorus.

And we all deal with Porgy now in very different ways in the 21st century. The question of sensibilities, how do we approach the language, the dialect, even some of the words, do we change them or don't we? Well, back then, trying to get an East German chorus to sing seven come 11, and it comes out something like,

But, everybody took it in stride. I, I haven't heard it in a long time. Um, interestingly, I'll probably be leading a production of it next season. Uh, the other problem that we've had, of course, is bringing specifically American dialect to European and Asian orchestras. It's changed, it's a little easier to do now. But 25 years ago, there are so many orchestras that I wouldn't have done Gershwin with and felt comfortable with. Now there are enough people who understand a little bit about the style. I'm connected to it through my own family. So I can pass some of this along.

And that's a very, that was one of the five strange recordings I've made.

Right.

It's also cut from the new production at the Metropolitan.

Which had the idea of trying to keep the length down. Right. Uh, even though I enjoyed the production, I thought it suffered from not having the two intermissions.

Uh, and if you have the break, then you're not dealing with the sameness of musical sound and idea as it goes through. So hopefully, when I get around to it, um, certainly the Jasbo Blues will be there. It if it's not in the body of the opera, I'm thinking about it's used as the music played as people come into the theater.

Assuming in this production that there's already milling about going on stage. That could be very effective. That would be nice. So there are always ways that I love that moment. And and the Buzzard Song is wonderful and, you know, this is such a masterpiece, but, you know, we have to deal with it in this 21st century time.

No, I didn't know. Sorry. You look okay.

Excellent.

Well, I have been thinking and reading about what this is like for musicians, composers, and others. And the first thing we have to do is remember it's not going to be the same, and it's not going to be when you think you're going to be coming back. Not only does the vaccine have to be developed, the overwhelming majority of people have to have taken it. More than likely, just like the flu and all the various vaccines we have for regular flu, there will still be cases of COVID. It's, it's bound to happen. So we're never going to be free of it. It will always be here. The other thing, of course, is that there are going to be people that are frightened to come back, whether they're performers or whether they are members of the audience. I'm not a huge fan of these socially distant concerts I've been looking at once in a while. It seems bizarrely dispassionate, even though the performances are good. But from the point of view of someone like yourself, I've wondered why more composers haven't, if they can, taken advantage of this situation. And I'll give you an example, it's not meant to be critical here. But the New York Philharmonic had an interesting project that it was undergoing with, well, I believe it was 19 pieces by female composers. So what happens to those pieces? I assume they're all or mostly for full orchestra, so it'll be a while before we hear them. If I had been in the Philharmonic's shoes, I would have gone back to those composers and say, would you mind writing a piece, a solo piece for different individuals in our orchestra and we will present them in whatever format we have to do it. So, I'm looking for a little more creativity from the creative end in this time. What I'm seeing primarily is, uh, you know, a rehash of all of our standard, which are there for a reason.

And a lot of the programs I've done in Detroit and other places get replayed, and I try to participate in watch parties and things like that, commenting on the music, maybe give it a different perspective. But I'm sort of looking for the new. I, I, I want to be understanding of what is out there now. And it's how we're going to plan for the future.

Excellent.

That's right.

Right, I remember.

[laughs] Occupational hazard.

Internet broadcasting.

I see.

Oh, for that festival, yes.

It's a very important question. And now that I no longer am a music director anywhere, I have more freedom and flexibility in what I do. There are times when I've looked back and say, how did I actually manage to do that? I've been very lucky. I have one of these brains that absorbs and retains music readily. So going back and restudying a score for me, in the earlier and middle phases was always not so difficult. It always came back quickly. And I learned early on how to truly read a score, knowing all the transpositions, all the clefs, and then after, actually after not very long while, the technical part I, I, I don't even remember the last time I thought about, well, how am I going to conduct this? I just do it. But the travel itself became wearisome. Three years ago, I had triple bypass surgery. And already I knew, having had a heart attack in 2009, I said, I've got to stop doing this. So the first thing I did was eliminate the majority of conducting in the summer. Take two and a half, three months off. That was the first part. The second thing was even though the traveling may be still about 36, 38 weeks a year, something like that. I will repeat a lot of the repertoire this season. That's something I didn't like to do before. I always wanted to go on to the next thing, keep learning, keep growing. Obviously, again, not being a music director, I don't have very many new pieces to learn. Uh, unless somebody asks me if there's a premiere I'd be interested to give, something like that. But I'm not in a position now of really commissioning anything. All those things as a music director I love to do. I do know that there is a long-term goal. Uh, it's not finite, but it has to do with realizing when the time will come to stop. My mother knew that. I think at age 60, she called me and she said, okay, I'm doing two more weeks with John Williams, and then I'm quitting. What, what do you mean you're quitting? She says, I'm not going to play the cello anymore. I went, Mom, you play just as well now as you did when you were 30, I suppose. What, why do this now? And she had a word of wisdom, which is really important. She said, because I never want people to say, I knew Eleanor Slatkin when she played well. Now, I know I have my detractors out there certainly, but I will know the moment I begin to lose any degree of whatever it is I've accumulated. When that starts, I'm out of this business. But what do I have? I have all these fallbacks. I can write the books. I can write music. I've been writing a little more. It's been getting in touch with my creative end has been really, really interesting. I have a couple pieces that are played by other conductors now. That's kind of nice. I have taken on a little more responsibility in thinking about the future of our business. How, as much as we may be concerned for our colleagues in orchestras and all that, where are the young people going to get their inspiration? You can't get it this way when you're a musician.

If any profession needed that personal experience because of the sound, because of what we can do, it is this one. What's going to happen when inevitably more musicians are going to start retiring because of the virus? They're going to say, I've accrued enough years, I've got my pension, I have seniority benefits, I'm going to be okay, I'm stopping. I'm guessing 15% of musicians when this is over are not going to return. So we have a lot of creative thinking that needs to be done. And this is in conjunction primarily, not just with orchestras, but with educators.

Oh, no question. We've got to really work on the educational system from the ground up. It starts with our public school systems. It starts with getting politicians, not all, don't ever go to the people who you know you're not going to convince, but get some of them to really fight for what maybe you had, certainly I had. In my life, in public schools, all of it, in high school, three bands, three choruses, two bands.

Copland was the composer in residence.

We believed in what the arts represent. So this is something I'm going to be working on.

I'll do a bit more teaching than I've done in the past, trying to pass on whatever I've learned that could be helpful for others.

And the other area that I think is very important in this country, and you'll know this, what ever happened to all of those great composers from about 1925 through 1940s?

Okay, ask it.

Yeah.

I knew him in California. My mother knew him quite well.

Persichetti was the single best teacher I ever had.

Yeah, but the best.

I never worked with Ellie, so.

And we could hear all the New York broadcasts.

So we had some of you as well.

Ives Four.

I was in it.

The first one.

Don't remember.

Yes.

Oh.

They do bad performances.

Trilogy.

National.

Not, not a lot. Um, there was actually no opera company. So that's one reason that accounts for my, uh, slightly smaller repertoire in that field. We just didn't have exposure to it. It wasn't there. But on the other hand, I had a resident string quartet in my house. So when you have, you know, Opus 130 of Beethoven, who, who needs, uh, Pearl Fishers or whatever it happens to be.

Uh, we had that. We had Carl Stalling and all, my mom's playing on all those things. You know that's the one form that John Williams says he can't write for, cartoons. And he's right, it's the hardest. It's really tough stuff. Uh, my models were Fritz Reiner who came to LA at, at the time in the late fifties, made that orchestra actually sound good. They, they weren't that hot. Uh, Bernstein of course just because he was our first international star. I saw and heard Toscanini live in 1952. Came with the NBC Symphony. I remember that, so I was eight years old. Pictures in next edition, you know, just made such an impression. I never heard that sound before. Carlo Maria Giulini because I got to know him really well and began to understand the relationship of how your life and music come together. And if you cannot have a joyous life, your music making is not going to be good. Uh, these are the kind of things that influenced me. And, you know, you talked about that generation, Bill Schuman, Harris, all these that are sadly off the map. There are only a few of us, you included, who really grew up with this music. But there's an even more interesting crisis, in that the generation that followed has now disappeared. Last year, I had a Jake Druckman piece. What a wonderful composer. Original thinking. Gone. Donald Erb, so forth and so on. So much American music that if I was a young conductor starting now, I would say, go back and explore this. Yes, of course, develop relationships with composers today. You must do that.

But you have to go back.

And distribute, distribute, distribute. Get that information out there.

But part of the responsibility, at least in this country, is to get the fee rates down to allow us to do that. Do you know that if I said, okay, I, I recorded the last 12 Haydn Symphonies in London. Now I'd like to do the Paris Symphonies, but I want to do it in the states, and I want to do it with an orchestra that I know. It's not that. If you do that and say you're using 45 players, you still have to pay everybody else in the whole orchestra who didn't do anything.

Uh, and not just in England and Wales. You can record in so many places, New Zealand. Great place for recording. There's so many possibilities. But I would, there's a case where I would say, if we can find a way to get these jobs back to the states, the only way to do it is to get the rates down. Coming out of this virus, everybody's going to take a hit. They're taking it now, and they're going to take it for years afterwards. Don't be fooled. It's not coming back the way it was. It can't.

I miss you too.

I miss you too.

Oh. Fortunately, I had the occasion in Los Angeles to play when I was a young person. I played viola.

Mmm, I've conducted it a couple times. Uh, it is another one of those mountains, but and a piece that audiences are a little bit so-so about, but the masterwork in all this in this Beethoven year, I would hope that pieces like this that are not on everybody's radar are the ones we turn to. I just did a seven-part radio series looking at the nine symphonies but putting them in the context of other pieces that Beethoven is writing at the time, uh, and going back, having recorded a Beethoven cycle, having done it four times in my life. And looking at this man as being that person that stands so, he represents what came before and influences everybody who comes after. That's just how it is.

Integrity and honesty. He, he left us with what he felt. I look upon his deafness as being a plus for us. I'm not sure that he might not have thought about the advanced ideas in in the Missa, certainly. If he'd been able to really hear it.

Well, it's very difficult choral writing, no matter what. But that's, that's how Beethoven was. Uh, you know, you, you get, I, I remember doing it in LA as a violist with a man named Roger Wagner. Great choral conductor. He used to say in in the, uh, what section is that, in Christ rises. And Wagner said, imagine Christ is ascending on a jet. And he brought this energy, but also the lyricism. And I had the great fortune to attend a performance and then have dinner with Robert Shaw afterwards. This is connecting with people who understood what traditions were, but also moved the bar forward. That's what music is about.

Oh, absolutely. Thank you. I thought of it very much as understanding what the conditions of the composition were about emotionally, the structure, somebody with complete command of the orchestra, but there's still a message in there. And there still is today. We still have to do that. I've had the pleasure of doing this piece many, many times. And I guess we can step away a little bit now and see does it just work as an abstract piece of music? The answer is yes. It works better if you know why it exists.

Rage.

Rage and joy. Maybe not so much rage.

Thank you. Did you take your title from the Morton Gould piece?

Great piece.

Michael, thank you. And keep sending me your stuff. I'm fascinated. I love what you're doing, and I'll be really anxious to see the next work.