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 2. Transcript of recorded interview: Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 2. From the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Yeah, and it was…I think the rehearsal was in a little church somewhere and I get there and they’re doing…they’re doing Wagner. And they’ve got…I think they did have one horn and they had, they had somebody playing the piano, they had about five violins, they had one cello, I think one bass. And the, the guy who was conducting, who was totally, totally lost from the moment he picked up the stick, said, “We’re going to start with The Ride of the Valkyrie.” Well I had never played this before, but I looked at it, and I knew I couldn’t play it, so I faked it. You know, so there’s this total mess of sound and there’s one violin in the back going [sings]. And he said, “You, up here,” you know, so I was moved up to the front seat. And fortunately there was an intermission about ten minutes later and I put my violin in the case and walked out. I didn’t even say anything to anybody. I just couldn’t take it anymore. It was amazing how many of those there were and still are, these little outfits around New York that - Gunther Schuller: Yeah, I was amazed to find out the Amato Company still exists. ETZ: Oh, it’s still there, yeah. GS: I mean, it must be the grandson by now, you know, directing. But… ETZ: Gunther, we were… Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 2. : http://www.loc.gov/item/ ihas.200218418 Library of Congress (Music Division) GS: But I must tell one more experience which antedates what we’re…the period we are talking about now, and it very much has to do with Carnegie Hall. I…As I mentioned, I had very little chance to hear my music. In Cincinnati, I got…I wrote some woodwind music, the famous blues movement that everybody plays nowadays. And I got to hear that. I had a few friends here, like Joseph Marx, the oboist, and I wrote an oboe sonata for him, so I got to hear that. There are a few pieces I got to hear, but most of the pieces that I wrote I didn't hear performances of it, and, of course, as we all know, a composer needs to hear his music in order to learn, to progress, to do, to try not do the bad things that he did the first time and to improve. So…and I was getting pretty frustrated, particularly since I had heard none of my orchestral music except the Horn Concerto in Cincinnati. And, in 1951, inspired by a performance of the Variations for Orchestra by Schoenberg, which Mitropoulos had done, I wrote an overture which is called Dramatic Overture, and, of course, again, I mean I had no prospects of a performance or anything, and I did the following. I, by that time, knew every good musician in New York City, you know, string players, woodwind players, whatever, and I literally stood, this is unbelievable, I stood on the corner of 56th Street and Seventh Avenue by the revolving door there, or by the stage door, for three days. I was working at the Met, so I probably was not there in the mornings 'cause I had rehearsal, but let's say every afternoon I stood there for three days. And based on this famous saying that all you have to do is stand on the corner of 57th Street and Seventh Avenue and sooner or later meet every great musician in the world, this literally turned out to be true. I mean, I picked up an entire orchestra, I also made a few phone calls, of course, in addition, by standing there on that corner, hiring an orchestra to play for me this new piece, Dramatic Overture, for free and to make a recording, a disc recording, at that time that's the only way. And I hired somebody, at great expense, an engineer who brought his equipment and we recorded it in the building kittycorner from Carnegie Hall, where the ballet, the Mecca Temple it used to be called. But in that Leon Barzan, who was a very important conductor in the New York scene at that time and who beloved by all the musicians, and many of them went through his training orchestra, half the New York Philharmonic came out of his orchestra, and all the musicians loved him, by that time he was conducting the ballet orchestra all the time, and when I said this recording would be conducted by Leon Barzan, everybody of course said “Yeah, we'll do it.” And, and as I say, there was no money exchanged, they all, and I said, “Look this’ll be two hours. You're all great musicians and this piece is only ten minutes long. We can make a recording of it, a good recording, in two hours, and you'll be out of there in two Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 2. : http://www.loc.gov/item/ ihas.200218418 Library of Congress (Music Division) hours, I promise you that, and you'll be doing this with Leon Barzan. And we did, and I still have that recording, and that was the first time that I had had to hear my orchestral music played well. Incidentally the recording is still fantastic. I still have it on acetate recording. And so that was, that was a very important moment for me, but, I mean, no other place in the world could you do that. Maybe, I don't know, maybe, in the Concertgebouw, you stand on the corner there in Amsterdam, you could do something like this. But, to literally hire an orchestra that way… ETZ: It's wonderful. Well it, it paid off in 1957 here with the performance with Mitropoulos and the Philharmonic. Schuller, Dramatic Overture opens the program. GS: Yeah. Incidentally, on that, as I mentioned, I was a little bit upset with Mitropoulos that he wasn't doing my music and I remember in 1952, after I made this recording, I sent him the recording, you know, and the score, and again there was no reaction. I want to look at this… ETZ: But that's quite an endorsement, '56 and '57. GS: Oh, of course, I say literally put me on the map. ETZ: Course you remember the long time in waiting for that to happen. GS: Well, sure, listen. ETZ: Istomin played the Beethoven. GS: Yeah, yeah. A lot of, a lot of musicians had a much harder time than I did, so. Oh yeah, here, Schuller, Dramatic Overture. Yeah. Well, you know what this means, by the way, Gunther Schuller interviewed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich at Carnegie Hall on April 21, 1998. Part 2. : http://www.loc.gov/item/ ihas.200218418 Library of Congress (Music Division) though it was in two different years, he literally did something totally unprecedented in the history of the New York Philharmonic, he played two pieces by an unknown composer in the same season. And that's really…there he really went out on a limb because I know that Zirato and Judson were saying to him “No, come on now, don’t overdo it, you know. This young composer, who's ever heard of him?” Two pieces in one season, that had never happened before, you know, and that sort of did it. ETZ: Yeah, that’s, that's amazing. You know, you were talking before about something that I, I sort of think of as finding your voice as a composer. And it seems to me it's kind of easy to repeat what you've been taught or to completely rebel, you know, against the past. That whole nexus of where the past meets the present, to me is such an interesting moment. Let's talk a little more about that, what it's like to be a composer. And you have this wonderful tradition that caused you and me to practice difficult instruments, you know, to be able to play the music. And yet there's this yearning for something that hasn't yet been written. GS: Well, I think, Ellen, you know that most of that is pretty inexplicable. I mean we don't really know how we get into that. I mean we can say we’re fascinated with the music and we're absorbed by it, and so we want to create something new, but beyond that it gets kind of vague, you know. And also, the whole mystery of creation, what is it that takes place and why does it take place, when we write a piece. I mean, where, where, for example, does the first germ of inspiration come? When you're sitting there, and let's say you've got to write a piece, you've either been commissioned or you want to write a piece, or whatever it is, and you sit there and you've got this blank piece of manuscript paper, now what? You know, I mean…yes, if we have a certain craft or skill or, you know, ability to, to compose, through compose a piece we can do that, but we first have to have some idea that, that starts that piece, right? I mean, whether it's three little notes or a chord or whatever it is, now, where does that come from? We don't know.

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