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Gunther Schuller Interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998

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Gunther Schuller Interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998 Library of Congress (Music Division) Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 1. Transcript of recorded interview: Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 1. From the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Hi, Gunther. How are you? Gunther Schuller: Don’t tell me you’re taking a picture of an old man creeping up the stairs. Hi Ellen. ETZ: Good to see you. GS: Thank you, yeah, good to see you. Hello. So… ETZ: So you… GS: …this is where I can rediscover most of my Carnegie hall life. ETZ: Practically your whole life here. You weren’t born in the trunk in the back were you, or anything? [Both laugh] GS: Yeah, that’s what it used to look like So… Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 1. : http://www.loc.gov/item/ ihas.200217617 Library of Congress (Music Division) ETZ: …archives here. GS: Yeah, let me see that Carnegie Hall . that NBC program. I mean the Shostakovich Seventh. ETZ: The…here it is. Go ahead. GS: Oh. ETZ: I always find these so interesting for the ads and the… GS: So how did you come upon this? I mean, you read that I had done this somewhere or? ETZ: I must have, yes. And…I mean it seems incredibly early for you, but then… GS: No, no. [ETZ laughs] I was just trying to recall, I did a concert even before this one, where there was - I just thought of this this morning in the car with Robert – in which I believe we did the American premiere of the Ives’s Fourth, First Symphony. And it was, it was an orchestra that played maybe four or five times a year and I don’t know what it was called. ETZ: This was in the early ‘40s? GS: In ’42. Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 1. : http://www.loc.gov/item/ ihas.200217617 Library of Congress (Music Division) ETZ: My goodness. GS: Yeah, Ives’s First Symphony. I believe, if it wasn’t the first performance, it must have been the second performance. And I was…the regular horn player was not available and I was hired. And I remember it was Ives’s First. So two important premieres when I was sixteen. ETZ: Yeah. That’s a heavy experience. Being a sixteen-year-old, although I bet you took it right in stride. GS: Oh yeah. I was so busy, because primarily, of course, I was composing. The new opera company, look at this. My god. Boy. It…this is all a little…or it’s been confusing in my mind because Toscanini did it twice. I mean, I think he did it again…I don’t know, I don’t know whether this is actually the performance, because he…I think he first did it with the NBC Symphony and then he did it with the Philharmonic. ETZ: Wasn’t there like a… GS: But it was in Carnegie Hall, nonetheless, so there might be one earlier than this. Is that possible? ETZ: It certainly is, we just really looked for the Philharmonic. As I understand it, Shostakovich became something of a folk hero, that his picture was on Time Magazine with a fireman’s hat following the siege of Leningrad and…that there was a great struggle to get the first performance of the symphony here. GS: Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 1. : http://www.loc.gov/item/ ihas.200217617 Library of Congress (Music Division) Oh, between Stokowski and Koussevitzky, they fought over this. No, I know that story, yeah, but the question is whether this is the actual first performance. ETZ: Doesn’t it say? GS: And I once talked to Howard Shanet about it and he seemed to know the details of it and I’ve never had time in my hectic life to check this out, but obviously I will. You know, I’m writing my autobiography, so I have to check all this stuff. Here it is. [reading]…requests the audience to join in singing of…Zirato, Jesus. Yeah. No one has indexed this yet, I assume, [laughs] these books. ETZ: They’re…not, not completely, no, but they’re working on all kinds of things yeah. GS: At least for the programs, maybe. ETZ: There’s a lot of work to be done and a lot being done. GS: I can imagine. ETZ: For the record, I’m Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Today is… GS: [To Bruce] Hey, Bruce. ETZ: …April 21st, 1998 and Bruce must have just walked in. Hi, Bruce. How are you doing? B: Hey, how are you. Hi, Gunther. Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 1. : http://www.loc.gov/item/ ihas.200217617 Library of Congress (Music Division) GS: Hi. B: How are you? GS: This guy always disappears just when I get someplace…[ETZ laughs]…like St., like St. Lou[is], but this time you didn’t. B: …stuck around. GS: Listen, you were right about Tony’s. Just fantastic. B: Isn’t it good? GS: I went there I think, four – [Break in tape] B: You look well. GS: Yeah, thank you. I feel well con-, well I mean, I shouldn’t because I’ve been traveling incessantly since last October. I, I figured out I’ve been home cumulatively only 17 days since last October. B: Wow. GS: And that was like one day between trips, or two days. I must never do this again. ETZ: It’s deadly. GS: Not, not…you know I love traveling, but airlines are such a pain in the ass. ETZ: And airports are worse. Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 1. : http://www.loc.gov/item/ ihas.200217617 Library of Congress (Music Division) GS: Yeah, I mean, it’s ridiculous. B: I had two planes cancelled yesterday getting back from the Midwest. ETZ: Oh, that’s nice. GS: Yeah, no, it’s no fun. And I started flying in 1943, so I know what it was like in the old days, you know, and it’s just no fun anymore. ETZ: It used to be civilized. GS: Even if you go… B: You have to get Gunther to tell you about the concert that the ragtime band played. Remember Eubie Blake… GS: Yeah. B: …waving from… GS: The center box, sure. B: …who did the orchestration of, gosh, Charleston Rag. GS: Charleston Rag. B: Charleston Rag. There was Eubie Blake, he must have been 95 or 96 at the time. GS: Well, we could figure it out, but, let’s see. I think he was a little…maybe he was in his upper 80s or something, but… Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 1. : http://www.loc.gov/item/ ihas.200217617 Library of Congress (Music Division) ETZ: A mere child. GS: But…and…yeah, that was a nice occasion. ETZ: He lived into his hundreds, didn’t he? GS: But, I…don’t remember what year that would have been. Was I still president? B: Oh yeah, it would have been seventy… GS: Four. Five. B: …five or ’76. ETZ: This was the New England Ragtime Ensemble when Gunther was president of the New England Conservatory. Somebody who’s watching this years from now… B: So where he got me through graduate school by, by letting me play ragtime band. [ETZ laughs] We had a good time. It was a great time. Well, listen, I’ll let you get to it. So, I’ll see you later. GS: Alright, good to see you. ETZ: Bye, Bruce. Back to the record. Today is April 21st, 1998. We’re in the archives of Carnegie Hall and we’re here today with Gunther Schuller. Check me out on this list, Gunther. Composer, conductor, author, educator, administrator, publisher, record producer, did I forget something? GS: Jazz historian. Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 1. : http://www.loc.gov/item/ ihas.200217617 Library of Congress (Music Division) ETZ: Jazz, well, okay. Under author, jazz historian. Your honors include a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur Genius Award, the Max Rudolf Award of the Conductors Guild, Down Beat Hall of Fame for contributions to jazz. Gunther Schuller is someone who’s composed an absolutely remarkable life in music. As a composer, I would say, first of all. GS: Yeah, sure. ETZ: But, a conductor who’s conducted all the major orchestras of our time and…a musical thinker, a music citizen. It’s really…it’s been a wonderful life in music and you’ve got a lot more to go. Gunther, let’s race all the way back. You were practically born at Carnegie Hall… GS: [laughs] Yes. ETZ: …born in 1925 and your father had been a member of the New York Philharmonic violin section for a couple of years, I think. GS: Yeah. Well I’m sure I was here in my mother’s womb. ETZ: I…absolutely. You must have been… GS: …absorbing Tchaikovsky. ETZ: What was it like to be a child of a member of the Philharmonic? What was it like for you father in the orchestra in those days? Making a living basically? Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998.
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