Gerard Schwarz

Hi, Michael, nice to see you.

I wish I were the Koussevitzky of our time. What Koussevitzky accomplished with the Boston Symphony for American music was extraordinary. If you think that—

Well, when I was growing up, uh, my parents were medical doctors from Vienna. And when it became obvious that I wanted to be a musician and not a doctor, my father decided, "Well, I—I'd better be as highly educated a musician as possible." And as a youngster, I played the piano, of course, and the trumpet, and I composed, and so he said, "Well, I'm going to get you a composition teacher." Long story, which I won't go into now, he found Paul Creston for me, and he became my composition teacher from the time I was a freshman in high school.

And, uh—and then, of course, my emphasis was not in composition or in piano, but on the trumpet, and as—as a—a trumpet player, the repertoire you have, aside from orchestral repertoire—uh, solar repertoire you practice as a kid. Of course, I practiced all the excerpts and all of that, but the solo repertoire is Baroque music or new music. There's not much in between, a few pieces here and there. Um, and so, uh, I became very interested in, uh, new music. I had a wonderful teacher. My—my main teacher was William Vacchiano, who was the first trumpet of the New York Philharmonic.

Uh, but before that, I had a wonderful teacher named Ronald Anderson. And Ronnie was a member of the American Brass Quintet, and he was a champion of new music. And he—he could play this stuff—it's unbelievable what he could do on the trumpet. And so he was a great influence on me, again, when I was in junior high school into my, uh, uh, early—early high school years. And so I had all these influences, uh, and I—I mean, I really wasn't conscious of how, uh, unusual that might be. I wasn't even conscious of how, uh, some of these great Americans were not as well thought of, or well known, or properly represented as others. It was just, this is what I did, and so it became very natural for me.

Paul Creston.

Well, uh, I'll never forget my first—when I brought in a trumpet concerto I'd written for trumpet and band, and he sat there at the—at the piano, and then he—he went through it. And, uh, and then, when it was over, basically what he said to me is, "Okay, for next lesson, write 15 melodies." That was how it began, uh, and then it was 100 melodies, and then it was a discussion of harmony, then it was a discussion of fugue, then it was a discussion of form. I—and rhythm was a big deal for him. And, uh—and, and yes, he was extremely opinionated. He was certainly not a fan of the—the serial music that what had become in fashion. He wasn't even a fan of Gustav Mahler, who became very much in fashion.

And, and, uh—yes, his music was played by all of the great conductors of the time. He wasn't like David Diamond was. David Diamond was a warm and fuzzy guy. I mean, he was just, uh, heart on the sleeve, wonderful human being, and difficult at times, don't get me wrong. Creston was a much—much more austere kind of person. Not that he wasn't friendly, he was very friendly. But it was very much, "get the work done." I came into my lessons, it wasn't, "How are you today, Jerry?" You know, "What's going on in your life?" Nothing of that, it was all about—

Uh, three years.

Yeah. And Siegmeister's another composer, uh, you know, who wrote some wonderful—now, I remember recording a brass sextet of his that was just fabulous. And I knew him, of course, uh, and—a wonderful—

That's right. Never played—never played, I mean... I mean, okay, Siegmeister may not have been William Schuman or David Diamond, but he certainly wrote wonderful music.

Well, when I was writing the article for Gramophone, uh, they, I must say, are brilliant, and quite wonderful, and—and, and they said, "We'd like you to write an article about the forgotten American symphonists, but they didn't want a—a, a, an article where I would name every composer. Elie Siegmeister would—don't just name all—we don't, that's—that's not important to us. What's important to us is that you pick four or five pieces that you think are underrepresented or unknown, and talk about those pieces and those composers."And of course, how can you do that? On the one hand, you know, we got a lot of mail that said, "Well, what about this one? What about that one? What about Roy Harris? What about..." And, of course, naturally. Uh, this wasn't about—this wasn't a, uh, a—a hodgepodge of naming all the composers I could possibly think of, but rather five pieces that I thought should be played regularly by major orchestras.Again, even a piece of Alan Hovhaness that I had, uh, talked about, Mysterious Mountain, which is played a lot by high school and college groups, is almost never played by professional orchestras. I remember when I did it with the All-Stars, all these members of Boston and the— Right. And Philadelphia, they said, "How come we've never heard this piece?" And many of them had never even heard Hovhaness. I mean, it's really quite extraordinary.

And the All-Stars, mhm.

Well, uh, symphony was the most important form. It was, symphony and string quartet, whether it be Shostakovich or or or almost anyone else. Now, there were, you know, Puccini was an opera composer. Verdi was an opera composer, didn't mean that they weren't great—of course they were great composers. But during this time, the—the great statements you made were with symphonies and string quartets. And I mean, I remember, uh, being in our New York apartment with a bunch of composers, and David Diamond was there, and Stefan Wolpe was there, and David was giving Stefan a lecture about how he should write a string quartet, uh, because your craft is really clear in a string quartet. If you don't know how to get from one section to another in a string quartet, you're—you mean, you just have to stop and start over again, and that was—that was the disease of many composers of the '80s and '90s.But, um—it's—it's, um—it's—it's, uh—it is the most important musical form for us. Look—look at Beethoven. Look at Mozart. Look at Haydn. I mean, string quartets and symphonies, that was the great repertoire. Of course, then it changed by the end of the 20th century. Orchestras weren't so interested in doing big symphonies anymore, and it became ensemble music, right? It was, uh, the Group for Contemporary Music, it was, uh, Contemporary Music Ensemble, and we had all of those groups that then were writing conducted chamber music basically.

Oh, yeah. Oh, there's no question. The short pieces are the ones that get played. Uh, I—I mean, I don't know if I've said it in that article, but if you write a 5-minute piece, a lot of performances. 10, good. 15, uh. 20, uh. You get to be beyond 20 and (laughs) you get one performance. I mean, you know, you're—you're making a commitment. If you do the Diamond Second Symphony, which I think is one of the great masterworks—

—20th century symphonic music, it's 43 minutes. You're making a big commitment, the audience is making a big commitment. And, um, it's, i- i- i- it for a conductor can be dangerous because you're—you're—unless you're at the New York Philharmonic, where you're doing, you know, 35 weeks of subscription, whatever it is, and you can do that, and—and you can make a statement, and you can get it—except that if you're—if you're in Boise, Idaho, with the Boise Symphony, and you're doing six or eight performances a year, and then you do the Diamond Second, which represents 10% of the season, some, you know, someone in the audience is going to write, "Well, I—I come to the concerts, and 10% of it I didn't like," or something like that. It's very tricky.

Well, the wind ensemble that—there's a whole another world, because their repertoire is based on 20th-, 21st-century music. Right. It's based basically—now it's changed, but it was always American music. Uh, you go to a wind ensemble or a band concert, it was all American music, and it was all new music, and it still is. And people—but, let's—let's go the other side of that. Except for the military bands, mhm, name the—the repository bands that are playing weekly. Doesn't exist.

And how often do they play concerts?

Yeah, exactly. And they're not playing— But at Meyerson—at Meyerson, though, at the big hall.

You're very right. You're very right, but it's painful to us, because you know, part of it is, some of us believe—as an active composer, I believe in many ways that the symphony orchestras are glorified cover bands. Glorified—

Cover bands. Meaning like, you know, bands that do, you know, Tom Wai—Tom Waits or, you know, or Beatles tunes, or The Dead, you know. It's not The Dead, it's The Dead cover band. So, what—what is different about the great orchestras not being cover bands, you know, doing the same rep over and over again, because that's what fills these massive halls? It's an interesting thought.

Well, it's—it's also a problematic question, because—so let's assume now look—look at the band, all right, the—the wind ensemble, the band. They don't have Beethoven, they don't have Haydn, none of that. No. So, a wind—they have an octet, you know, but they—they don't have real major works by major composers of the 18th and 19th century, the occasional piece, okay. Uh, the symphony orchestra, on the other hand, has lots of Haydn, lots of Mozart, lots of Schuman, Schubert, and Mendelssohn, and Beethoven, you know, and the list goes on and on. And those pieces need to be played, and it's important that they get played. But it's also important that you play new music of the—of the new generation, like—like you, Michael, play your music. But then, it's also important to play music from the 1950s and the '60s. You see, the problem, as you know—

Orchestration book.

It's not out yet, but it'll be out soon.

I could have picked the Fourth. Those are my two favorites. But I like them all. I mean, Martinů is an interesting character, because if you ask most musicians, was Martinů an American citizen, they would all say, "No." But Martinů became an American citizen. Martinů wrote his six great symphonies here, uh, mostly in New York, Connecticut, and, uh—most of them were premiered in the United States. Koussevitzky was a big champion of Martinů's music. And Martinů is—yes, if you go to Prague, his music is played quite often. Uh, I'm sure in London, you know, if they—if Bela de Visser or someone like that, of course, um, would be playing his music, because they had composed—he, Martinů, had conductors who—who championed his work.Um, but the reality is that I—I mean, for I don't know when uh, any of our major orchestras have last played a Martinů symphony. Those symphonies are terrific, but also (laughs) they're not long. They're not 45 minutes. Uh, you know, what happened? And now, of course, what I say in the article is that he wrote so much music, that it's hard to—to say, "Oh, God, I want to play a piece of Martinů, a piece of chamber music," and you see 100 pieces, which one should I choose? But where the symphonies are concerned, he only wrote six, it's not so difficult, and they're all good. I mean, if I were music director of the New York Philharmonic, I would do one a year, every year.

And people would get to know his voice, and it would be quite remarkable. And it's only—they're only 25 minutes, 20-25 minutes long, you're not committing, you know, 80% of the program to those pieces. Uh, he, as you know, was a close friend of David Diamond. I—I'm not sure if they'll use it in the article, but I have a couple of miniature scores here uh, where Martinů wrote a very beautiful salutation to David Diamond.

Yeah, he did. And, uh—

But what's interesting about that, of course, from David's point of view, is that Martinů was a success, right? He was a successful composer. Uh, and he, uh, would spend the summers in Connecticut or some other place, and then David would be allowed to live in his apartment. I don't think he actually paid any rent, but (laughs)—but he lived there, and I remember, as I mentioned in the article, when I was conducting the Third Symphony of, uh, Martinů with the Czech Philharmonic a few years ago, they asked me to also do the Fourth Symphony of David Diamond because they were written the same year, and they suspected, and they were probably right, that they were written in the same apartment.Uh, and here we have this great American who wrote his—one of his great symphonies, the Fourth, and Martinů, one of the great Czech-American, uh, who, uh—who wrote the Third Symphony the same time. I mean, it's—it's really marvelous to see great music, but also a little sad to realize that without conductors who have a platform, and who are willing to champion those great composers, they will not be known.

Well, I mean, the great thing about that is, when you talk to a conductor, let's say, and say, "You should think about doing the Diamond Third Symphony," which is also a wonderful symphony, not as long, right, it's 25 minutes. Uh, yes, they could get a perusal score, which isn't so simple to get. You think publishers would be better about it, but they're not.

Uh, and—but they can go on Spotify or on YouTube and listen to it, and say, "Oh, I'm interested." Now, the key there, and is to listen to—how can I say, a good performance. If you don't have a good performance—I remember when Horacio Gutiérrez, a wonderful pianist, great pianist, was asked by Bill Schuman to do his piano concerto. And Horacio came to me and said, "Jerry, Bill has asked me to do this. Can we do it?" And I said, "Sure." We did it in Vancouver, we did it in Seattle, we did it in New York. And, uh, I said, you know, "Horacio wants to do it, I have a great respect for him, sure." There was a recording out at the time, which I listened to then, and had I listened to that before I said yes, I would have said no.

Because the recording did not represent the piece as I believe it should be represented, and it didn't—it didn't make a case for it. When Horacio did it, boy, he made a case for it, and it was—

So sometimes, I'm not saying that my recordings were all great, let's leave that alone, but sometimes if the recording isn't good, it can actually hurt, uh, the—the life of a piece. There are those pieces that, (laughs) need—I shouldn't say need help, but need to be interpreted. You do the Beethoven Fifth—

When I was in high school, I played—there was a—a New York Mandolin Orchestra, and they'd play a yearly concert at Town Hall. And they would hire wind players, you know, $5 or whatever. So they contacted me, and I came and played first trumpet in this mandolin performance of the Beethoven Fifth. You know, it was good. It represented—the Beethoven sounded like the Beethoven Fifth. I mean, it was weird, (laughs) but it worked, because that piece, with its history and everybody knowing it, it, you know, mediocre performance, a performance by mandolins, a performance with the band, doesn't really matter. Yet your Second Symphony, if it—if it doesn't get a passionate, committed performance, (sighs) you know, it's—it's a—a harder sell.

You happen to be a good conductor. (Laughs)

That's why you should.

Wasn't his thing.

I'm not sure if he enjoyed it, but he didn't do it very well. (Laughs)

A German-American composer, Michael, I'm so sorry. (Laughs)

Well, you picked, you know, of course, three of my favorites. Uh, if—I know we're short of time now, but quickly, Berlinski was actually close to me in a bizarre way. His son was married to Julian's first, oh second, major cello teacher, Toby Saks. I mean, they divorced, but—

And—and, uh—and he—he wrote a piece for organ and, and, and, and trumpets for the opening of Temple de Sinai in, in Seattle. Uh, I mean, having him with us in Berlin, talking—the piece is in Hebrew and English—and, of course, his first language is German, he's from Leipzig—talking to this very young, a chorus, and telling them what it means, and to see these kids, and they were 20s, you know, on the edge of their chair, listening to every word of what Herman was saying. It was among the more touching experiences that I've ever had. Uh, Toch was another one of the really great composers. His symphonies are fantastic. I mean, he is really extraordinary. And this cantata for The Bitter Herbs is you know, among the most— I remember when I did it in Prague, a friend of mine from Vienna, who was working for Universal Publishing came, and, uh—and I really was curious, because we had a nice program, we did the Milhaud Sacred Service, I think, on that program, also.

Another piece. And so I said—I said, uh, "So what did you think?" "Oh, you know, didn't like the Toch." I said, "Oh, really? Why?" He said, "Well, sounds like Richard Strauss." It does. (Laughs) Doesn't bother me. I love Richard Strauss, one of my favorites. And Ernest Bloch is among the most interesting of them all, because he was such— a such a giant, uh, in the '20s and '30s and '40s. His Schelomo for cello and orchestra is very well known and often played. Little else. America, I—I used to think wasn't liked because he used American folk music, folk tunes. And, you know, you can use Austrian folk music or German folk or French, you're fine. Use American— Yankee Doodle, Hail Columbia, really? Do you want to—do you really want to do that in a symphony? And—but, you know, when I've re-listened to that piece, uh, recently before I wrote the article, I was struck by how powerful it is and how wonderful it is. And what a great— I mean, you know, the— (sighs) my— my— my favorite story and the last thing, and I know, the time is that, the piece has a chorale at the end, uh, uh, that he wanted to be the— an anthem. He wanted to be the— the next Star-Spangled Banner. Oh, okay, that's maybe a little far-fetched, but anyway, it was on— I was doing three concerts of it in Seattle, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. And his idea was, you should have the audience sing this, uh— this, uh, anthem. So, Sunday was a Talk Concert, where I talked to the audience, called Musically Speaking, and so we talked about Bloch, we— we talked about the piece. I put the music of this anthem in the— in the programs. Everyone, "Oh, people don't read music anymore." You know, it's big— my big argument about program notes. I think they need musical examples. If you say the first theme, you know, write it out for us, would you? Anyway, so they give— and I— and I explain to them what's going on, and I said, the piece takes 45 minutes, and you'll hear this theme over and over again, and it'll be in your ear. And then members of our Seattle Symphony Chorus are going to be standing all around you, and they'll help. And then I'm going to turn around, I'm going to ask you all to stand up, and then I'm going to cue you, and then let's see what happens. 3,000 people were there. They sang. I mean, did everybody sing? I don't know.

But wow, what a sound. It was extraordinary. Monday and Tuesday, it was not a Talk Concert. I didn't speak to the audience. I inserted the music with a description of what was going on to happen.

They all stood, they all sang. It was, uh— I mean, it was one of the miracles of— of life that— that worked.

Well, uh, uh, you know, of course, you know, I'm supposed to say, oh, it's impossible to say, and uh, got to wait 100 years, and all— it's— it's not true. Uh, it has to do with, is it memorable? Does it have a memorable theme? Does it have a memorable harmony? Does it have something that the audience can take away, even after one performance? Now, it doesn't mean they have to know it exactly, but I remember as a youngster, people would talk about Schoenberg and, "Oh, you know," and I— I'm a great Schoenberg lover. Talk about Schoenberg and say, "Oh, the— the people just don't understand it yet." Well, you know, how many people, audience lovers like The Five Pieces? I love it, you probably do too, Michael. But an audience—

Not, okay. An audience will not— it's not— there's very little to take— I mean, I can take away from it. I mean, even if you don't— if it's not your favorite piece, you can take stuff away from it, and the Farben, you, you know, you can take a lot of things away. An audience, they don't get it, and they never will. And is it because—

—sophisticated? No. Is it because they're not educated? No. It's because in its essence, it's not memorable. Memorable music is melody, harmony, rhythm, structure, but especially melody and harmony. If you're lacking that, it's hard. Now, you can— you, it can be effect, you know, it can be—

—The Toch— The Toch uh, uh, piece that he did just with words, you know, the, the, the—

Right. Yeah. So, there's no melody, there's no harmony. There's only rhythm and words, but it's amusing. And as— as— as, is it a masterpiece? No. Is it a great work of art? No. Is it entertaining? Yes. Now, what we try to do in the world of music, we're not entertainers. We are artists and we're trying to create music uh, on a high artistic level, and it doesn't mean you can't write entertaining music. And it doesn't mean that it's not wonderful music. But on the highest level, w- w- w- w- w- the composers are trying to write things of significance. Uh, we can have a an hour-long discussion about that word. But, that's, anyway that's—

Uh, what do you think, Michael? Do— do you do you concur with—

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to hear it played a lot, too.

Hear it more than once.

Well, Michael, it's so good of you, and I can also concur that you are a great composer, and and deserve all the fame that you're— that you're getting now.

And I look forward to your new opera, which sounds incredible.

Great being with you. Thanks for inviting me.