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Top of Page Interview Information--Different Title Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California HENRY BRANT: SPATIAL MUSIC TO EVOKE THE NEW STRESSES, LAYERED INSANITIES, AND MULTIDIRECTIONAL ASSAULTS OF CONTEMPORARY LIFE ON THE SPIRIT Henry Brant Interviews conducted by Caroline Crawford in 2006 Copyright © 2014 by The Regents of the University of California ii Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Henry Brant dated April 17, 2006. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Excerpts up to 1000 words from this interview may be quoted for publication without seeking permission as long as the use is non-commercial and properly cited. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to The Bancroft Library, Head of Public Services, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should follow instructions available online at http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/collections/cite.html It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Henry Brant “HENRY BRANT: Spatial Music to Evoke the New Stresses, Layered Insanities and Multidirectional Assaults of Contemporary Life on the Spirit” conducted by Caroline Crawford in 2006, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2014. iii << Henry Brant, May 1999 (courtesy of Kathy Wilkowski). iv v vi Table of Contents—Henry Brant Interview History vii Interview 1: April 18, 2006 Audio File 1 1 Early years in Montreal: 1913-1929 — A musical family: The Hart House Quartet, Bela Bartok, and meeting composers — A talent for sight-reading and a first composition at age twelve: “A minor infant prodigy” — Presenting Ravel with a piano sonata and Aaron Copland with a first orchestral score — A classical approach with Benny Goodman; composing during the Depression — Schooling by tutors and music at McGill University; building “junk instruments” — Moving to New York, becoming one of Copland’s “young geniuses”: Bernard Herrmann, Jerome Maross, Vivian Fine, Israel Citkowitz — Performing at Steinway Hall 1929 — Arranging for Benny Goodman and composing during the Depression — Writing in a variety of styles for Aaron Copland and others:: Neoclassicism and atonal music — Meeting with Copland’s “young geniuses” — Studying with George Antheil and writing for “junk instruments” — Studying at Juilliard, 1929-34 and composing in “oblique harmony” — Exploring polyphonic jazz styles: a one a.m. classroom Audio File 2 17 Henry Cowell and shape note music — Making a living as an unconventional composer — Writing for documentary film and other commercial enterprises — Studying with Reuben Goldmark and composing at Juilliard, 1929-34 — Teaching at Juilliard, 1947-56, and Columbia and teaching jazz composition — Postwar progressivism and WPA orchestras — The champions of new music: Stokowski, Koussevitsky, Reiner — Composing in the 1950s: The concept of spatial music Interview 2: April 19, 2006 Audio File 3 26 Ice Field (2001) for five orchestral ensembles — Teo Macero, Leonard Bernstein and spatial music for five jazz orchestras — Charles Amirkhanian and Other Minds— Working with David Bruckman and Andre Kostelanetz: an education — Thoughts on orchestral instruments: considering Charles Ives — Gabrieli and Palestrina: four choirs, four-part polyphony Audio File 4 39 Fire on the Amstel, barges, carillons and ladies of the night — Recording, acoustics, and electronic sound — Sixty different musics: The Pulitzer Prizewinning Ice Field — A Tsunami Requiem in the works [End of Interview] vii HENRY BRANT INTERVIEW HISTORY Henry Brant, 1913-2008, was a true maverick, a classical composer best known for bold works of spatial acoustic music in which performers, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, are placed on various levels of a concert hall or outside venue, even an entire city, as was the case in Fire on the Amstel, a work written for the canals of Amsterdam. For Brant, space was a musical dimension equal to pitch, time and timbre. The Pulitzer prizewinning Ice Field (2001) featured woodwinds, brass and steel drums placed on concert hall balconies with the composer simulating earthquake vibrations at the organ onstage. Fire in the Amstel (1984) called for four boatloads of twenty-five flutes, jazz drum set and conductor, three mixed choruses, four street organs, three concert bands and four church carillons. Early music composers had written spatial music, notably Gabrieli for St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Brant expanded the concept to include musics from disparate cultures. For example, Meteor Farm (1982) was written for symphony orchestra, jazz band, West African drums, Javanese Gamelan and South Indian trio, with three conductors. Brant began composing in this style in the 1950s, when he felt that traditional music “could no longer evoke the new stresses, layered insanities and multidirectional assaults on contemporary life of the spirit.” The more than one hundred spatial works are complex polyphonically, each with different spatial placement. He used no amplification or electronic materials. Born in Montreal, where his American father was on the conservatory faculty at McGill University, Brant began to compose at the age of eight. He moved to New York City in 1929 and joined Aaron Copland’s “geniuses” circle and other music societies, as he put it, “a young, unknown eccentric.” Encouraged by Henry Cowell, he wrote in many styles, conducted WPA orchestras that played his work and considered arranging music for Benny Goodman an education. He taught at Juilliard, Columbia and Bennington for many years. The interviews were conducted at Brant’s home in Santa Barbara and edited lightly. His wife, Kathy Wilkowski,, took part in the interview. At ninety-two Brant spoke as he composed, with great exuberance and wit. Asked about future plans, he said a large orchestral composition was in the works: It would be entitled Tsunami Requiem. The Regional Oral History office was established in 1954 to record autobiographical interviews with persons who have contributed significantly to California history. The office is under the administrative supervision of The Bancroft Library, Elaine Tennant, director. Caroline Cooley Crawford Music Historian The Regional Oral History Office The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2012 1 Interview #1: April 18, 2006 [Begin Audio File 1] Crawford: Let’s get started. Caroline Crawford interviewing Henry Brant for the Regional Oral History Office, UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. 01-00:00:24 Brant: I’m ninety-two. Crawford: I know you’re ninety-two. 1913, am I right? Let’s start by talking about music in this last century, because the New York Times said that the styles of music composed were so diverse that it was a battle of styles; and that, quote, “The din was dismaying.” What’s your comment about that battle of styles? 01-00:00:52 Brant: My reaction to that would be, except that it’s not polite, would be an inquiry into the musical background and experience of the people who wrote this. Crawford: They were talking about electronic music— 01-00:01:09 Brant: Yes. Crawford: —about academic music, about minimalism, about twelve-tone music. 01-00:01:16 Brant: Well— Crawford: Was it exceptionally diverse? 01-00:01:20 Brant: Not to me. Crawford: How so? 01-00:01:30 Brant: Well, you have to agree, first of all, that [twelve-tone] music is a great departure, a radical departure. Or that you have to take seriously all these other genres. [pause] I’ve never had anything to do with any of those ways of perceiving my music. I’ve never met Schoenberg, and I never wanted to. I’m an admirer of his music. And I was a friend of Cage. I think that he was interested in my music. But I never took seriously the premises on which he worked. And so it seems to me an arbitrary question of what is more diverse, because the premises are not great. Now, electronic music is another matter. Because although it is spoken of as a way of working which is entirely different from the past and has endless possibilities and an enormous range, I think its range is about from A to A. It’s based on recording. And well, recording has existed for at least a century. 2 I had records when I was little, that didn’t sound very much different from what comes out now. A real departure would be in, as I see it, the work of Harry Partch, that would be one. Crawford: You invented instruments when you were very, very young, of your own, didn’t you? In the same way that Harry Partch, perhaps, did. 01-00:04:02 Brant: Oh, he went much further, because he inquired into the basis of tone production itself.
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