Elliott Schwartz
with Ev Grimes
Brunswick, Maine
April 27, 28, 1986
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Side a: pp. 1-12
Early years--first musical memories--piano lessons at 6 years in Brooklyn neighborhood with Prof. Cordon, violinist--accompanying him--second teacher, Jenny Glickman at age 10--first training in composition--fascination with music notation and composers biographies--going to NYC concerts--fantasies of being a composer--parents' musical skills--piano lessons from Alton Jones of Juilliard--Lincoln High School in Brooklyn 'til '53--pre-med at Columbia College 'til '57--chemistry major--composition courses with Otto Leuning--influence of standard repertory--interest in Satie and WWI French School--British composers--social assets of playing piano--optimistic desire to pursue music career--20th century repertory learned from Alton Jones--impact of performance by Persichetti at Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium--positive experiences with Otto Leuning--listening exams--tape music performance of Leuning and Ussachevsky at Columbia "smoker".
Side b: pp. 12-22
The mid-50s in NYC--Bartók performed, Ives--began composing for other players in 1957--cellist Leoncavallo as neighbor--attended Cav and Pag shows annually at the Met--Macmillan Theater at Columbia, home of Composer's Forum--interviewed by Henry Brant for Bennington fellowship--attended Columbia Teacher's College--Masters in '58--continued private study--T.A. in theory and music literature for Howard Murphy while getting doctorate--change from Ivy league environment, combining music education and performance--able to compose for larger ensembles--works for brass choir, choral piece--string quartet--Ed. D. degree in theory--dissertation on analysis of Vaughan Williams symphonies--also worked with Paul Henry Lang and Paul Creston--courses in history of higher education in America--Paul Creston's interest in multiple rhythms and duration.
Side c: pp. 22-32
Quantitative aspects of music structure in composition--completed Ed. D. degree in 1960, got married--first college teaching job at University of Massachusetts--admiration for two Columbia teachers--Jack Beeson, composition teacher--piano teacher Thomas Richner--approach to analysis of Vaughan Williams symphonies--influence on his style--changes in composition style 1960-64 at U. Mass.--Bennington Composer's Conference of '61-'66--new language of east coast music in mid-60s--composed chamber music '60-'63--exploring levels of texture and use of ostinati.
Side d: pp. 32-42
More on the Bennington experience--exploring free notational devices--Interruptions for woodwind quintet and tape loop--Music for Oboe, Trumpet, and Cello--Four Studies for Two Clarinets--Henry Brant's influence--Barney Childs--chance and improvisation--ideas on musical aesthetics and variables in performance--the U. Mass. experience--"op art" and musical texture--introduction to John Cage philosophy through avant-garde art professor, John Goodyear--Cage's typewriter music--visual stimulus and musical texture--interest in controlled chance--left U. Mass. for Bowdoin in '64--integrated theatrical dimensions in compositions of '65-'67--taught seminar on new music, "Music in the Age of Zak"--the "isms" of '66-'67--Carl Ruggles Festival--Stuart Dempster--Bob Moran--Pauline Oliveros--elevator piece composed by seminar students--Dialogue for Solo String Bass for Bert Turetzky--Prince Albert--Napoleon and Beethoven--Magic Music--Island--Coney Island, Great Britain, Monhegan Island--London musical scene in '67-'69--integrating tonal and non-tonal musics--players doing extramusical things--collage of environmental sounds.
Side e: pp. 42-52
Experience as an actor--as an artist/painter--music as a branch of theatre--factors of performance, use of space and audience--ritual of performance--foreign language in operas--musical nationalism--direct involvement in music event--the abstract theatre of performance--family--married for 25 years--extremely productive stage of 1960-66--came to Bowdoin in '64--Nina born in '66--Jonathan born in '70--Texture, 1966 and Nina's early years--composing in chronological succession--children's musical taste--drawing ideas from Rocky Horror Picture Show--early Bowdoin and electronic music--level of ambiguity in performance--tactile sense of taped composition--U. Mass. tape compositions of natural sounds--Paul Thoreau--creating tape compositions in the Bowdoin language lab--Music for Orchestra in '65 with electronic tape--Rockefeller Foundation circuit.
Side f: pp. 52-62
Rewarding colleagueship with John Rogers, composer and trombonist--working with computer-generated sound--computer studio at UNH--first trip abroad to Trinity College in '67--British experimental music--teaching experience at Trinity--Magic Music in '67--John Taverner's The Whale--returned to London in '69-'70--Island and the Gaudeamus Festival in Holland--theatrical gestures--founded electronic music studio in early 70's--co-authoring of book with Barney Childs, An Anthology of Writings by Composers--author of book on Electronic Music: a Listener's Guide--not focusing on technology, but aesthetic and historical.
Side g: pp.62-73
Compositions of late 60s--Voyage--devising a notation for particular performance response--experiment with large-scale graphic notation--collage of textures--Septet--for Barney Childs--two pieces of '69 celebrating birthday anniversaries, Prince Albert, a prolific composer, and Music for Napoleon and Beethoven--peaking of interest in theatrical possibilities--"loudspeaker theater"--interest in "musical nationalism"--beliefs about promoting American music.
Side h: pp. 74-83
More on defining "musical nationalism"--performing as a concert pianist and accompanist--visits to Holland's Gaudeamus Festival in late 60's--sense of internationalism at festival--Bowdoin ties to UCSB--guest professor at the College of Creative Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara in '70--politically intense period at UCSB--continued relationship with various West Coast universities--ideas about different lifestyle affecting musical perspective--continued interest in textural collage--more use of tonal/atonal in 70's--change direction with theatrical dimensions--working with non-tonal textural structures from '63-'68--different use of chord progressions in tape collage pieces after '69--conveying a sense of past--juxtaposing to present.
Side i: pp. 83-94
Compositions of the '70s--Island--touring as a pianist in early '70s--specializing in pieces for electronics and piano--Extended Piano--using a synthesized tape--Mirrors of '73--use of piano and loud speakers--Grand Concerto--Telly--creative use of TV sets--Eclipse--large concert band piece with non-traditional instruments--A Dream of Beats and Bells for piano soloist--somewhat minimalist--preference for using children's toys as instruments--"debunking" the ritual of performance--use of music boxes--visual sense of performance--Janus in '76--the Harmony of Maine in '75--commissioned from Portland Symphony Orchestra in Maine for 50th anniversary and bicentennial--themes by Supply Belcher--wrote tune book called Harmony of Maine--a concerto for live synthesizer and orchestra--elements of tonality--Janus to celebrate 40th birthday--integrates fragments of early tonal works into nontonal language--for piano (Dwight Beltzer) and orchestra--Eclipse I--Octet, a sequel to Septet--Dream Overture--less successful pieces composed in London in '71--Eclipse series spawning No. II and No. III--set a model in shape of piece--Eclipse III commissioned by New Hampshire Music Festival--Bicentennial Concert of Brooklyn Composers--a different format of late '70s music--chamber concerto series of '77--No. I premiered at Bennington with Bert Turetzky on string bass--No's II, III and IV--composing for specific performers at Bennington--pieces for Bert and Nancy Turetzky--The Travelogue.
Side j: pp. 94-105
Stuart Dempster' s performances at Bowdoin--piece for Dempster and Turetzky performed at Ives Center in Danbury--composing for specific instruments--clarinet pieces--Music for Audience and Soloist of early '70's--ambiguity and confusion of roles--audience sounds--use of surprise instrument--soloist cues and determines duration of piece--an educational piece for amateurs of 20th century music--controlling chance operations--mid-seventies pieces composed for organ and tape--invited to compose for Hartt College Organ Festival--invited as guest composer for three years--Prisms--Five Mobiles--Cycles and Gongs recorded on Orion label--residency at UC San Diego, Center for Music Experiment--California Games in '78--meant for amateurs--ostinati and minimalist processes--involves audience members, tape and instrumentalists--game pieces of late '70s--Puntaginal Mobile--premiered at Real Artways--Scatter of '79--antiphonal--commissioned for prep school in Virginia--performed at various universities--at Univ. of Kansas while resident guest composer--two recordings of music on Folkways and on Orion labels--Extended Clarinet--Souvenir--clarinet and piano--three pieces of '80--two composed at Bellagio, Italy--Bellagio Variations, string quartet--two more movements for Aria II--5 pieces in Aria series of duets for lyric and percussive instruments--Prelude, Aria and Variations.
Side k: pp. 105-116
Music, Ways of Listening in 80's--mainstream music appreciation book published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston--more attention given to music elements and 20th century music---reference to sociohistorical factors--impact of recording technology and radio on composers and audience--working on new college text surveying music since '45--spatial placement and Brant's music--concern with ritual and space--ideas about different functions of live and canned music--relationships between performers in concert--speaker theater--pieces for live performer and tape--chamber concerto for saxophone--bass concerto--the concerto as outgrowth of early opera--comments of performance opportunities for ensemble music.
Side l: pp. 116-127
Scatter, subtitled Five Concertos and a Chorale--Zebra--using the word "zebra" within composition--performed by various youth symphonies--Prelude, Aria and Variations--compositions of early 80's in form of set of variations as vehicle for eclecticism--Bellagio Variations for String Quartet in '80--Divertimento composed in Britain--Reading Session in '83--Dream Music with Variations--Four Ohio Portraits for chamber orchestra--Reading Session, performers speaking and playing instruments--use of twelve-tone rows for tonal purposes--use of famous John Cage phrase--Dream Music with Variations commissioned by the Engl Piano Quartet in 3 quartets with Gunther Schuller's and Karel Husa's works--use of dissonance in chords of Verklärte Nacht--banned from performance in Vienna--based later pieces of same chords--use of extended passages from Debussy and Schoenberg and juxtaposing in Dream Music with Variations--variations upon a tone row--harmonized with block triads--noted fewer formative influences on later pieces--discovery of electronic keyboard instruments--Second Thoughts of '84--quotes fragments drawn from earlier Sonata for Solo Oboe--chord progressions from Voyage reappearing from '70-'82--Second Thoughts--quotes from earlier material--piece for eight percussionists and radios.
Side m: pp. 127-138
Composition in summer of '85 premiered by Portland Symphony--to celebrate fiftieth birthday, 25th wedding anniversary and commemorate father's death--A Bowdoin Anthology--in '76 quoted Bowdoin figures--fragments of parlor song based on Longfellow text, My Lost Youth in Celebration/Reflections: A Time Warp--three tunes from three decades with a tone row--idea of "time warp" meaning outside of chronology and different context--uses chord progression from Rocky Horror Picture Show--associations with his children--Four Ohio Portraits in '86--homage to state of Ohio--set of variations based on names of Ohioans chosen from informal poll--drew fragments from Ohio State Rock Song, Hang On Sloopy--piece actually based on musical signatures of four composers--Jonathan Kramer, Tom Wells , Ed London, Don Erb--can be interpreted at multiple levels--comments on qualities of a "good" piece--an inner logic and integrity of its own--examples of good popular music groups--positive attitude toward audiences--involves audience as performers.
Side n: pp. 139-148
Selectivity of audiences--music composed with audience in mind--audience expectations--advantages of composing for string quartet rather than pick-up group of unfamiliar personnel--potential in composing for orchestra--challenges of writing music to be learned in short rehearsal time--comments on different types of audiences--inappropriate responses of audience--multileveled experiences of the arts not desired by music audiences--lack of acceptance of Ives and Mahler until recently--role of performer as communicator--limited experience of concert hall music--alternative spaces recommended for new music performances--options for performance contexts--music organizations--American Music Center--library as resource center--alternative kinds of notation and documentation--an advocacy organization for new music--tries to educate musical public about American music--member of Board of Directors and Vice President--the founding fathers of the American Society of University Composers (ASUC)--based on belief that university is composer's ideal patron--northeastern bias dominated--shift to strong Midwestern bias.
Side pp. 148-155
ASUC's eclecticism--gives sense of rich compositional life of communities as well as metropolitan areas--regional and national conferences--record series--radio broadcast series--College Music Society--board representative for composition--promotes subjects of professional interest to composers at conferences--media and music critics--lack of background--attitude towards music from American success motives--use of superlatives in commentary--non-commercial radio and television--decentralization of the act of composing and listening to new music, a positive direction.
AMERICAN MUSIC SERIES 175 r-t OHV
Elliott Schwartz
With Libby Van Cleve
New Haven, CT
June 26, 2007
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Side r pp. 1-18
Track 1
Concert celebrating his fiftieth birthday—Reading Session—other pieces on fiftieth birthday concert—Celebrations/Reflections: A Time Warp—teaching at Ohio State—sixtieth birthday concert: pieces on the concert—seventieth birthday concert—his papers at the Library of Congress—pieces on the seventieth birthday concert—his presence in England—premiere of John Tavener’s The Whale—being drawn to extreme dissonance via Cage—first exposure to twentieth century music via French composers such as Poulenc and Satie—doctoral degree—twentieth century English music: the best of all possible worlds—English music using fragments of other people’s music—English composers studying in the U.S., some with Milton Babbitt: interchange between English and American composers—reception for his music on the European continent—Celebrations/Reflections—exile and rootlessness among certain composers—more on Celebrations/Reflections: earlier pieces he drew on, including The Rocky Horror Picture Show—material superimposed on this material: A Bowdoin Anthology.
Side r 18-40
Track 2
Use of Victorian Parlor song set to Longfellow in Celebrations/Reflections—how he chooses his pre-existing tunes—Timepiece 1794--Dream Music with Variations—
taking brief motives from the pre-existing fragments and fashioning a new melody that is basically a twelve tone row from them—use of tune “Hang on, Sloopy,” in Four American Portraits—influence of Ives on Schwartz’s music—Ives’s music Schwartz heard—effect of quotations on listeners—Bolcom’s Whisper Moon and Black Host—humor in Schwartz’s music: Reading Session—Spectrum—Reflections—breaking free of serialism in the sixties and seventies—advocacy of serialism on the part of many composers teaching at institutions in the sixties and seventies—Babbitt’s pleas to audiences not to listen to one of his pieces played by the NY Philharmonic but to wait until the recording appeared—“Who Cares If You Listen” article”—mind-set accompanying attitude to technique—Perspectives of New Music—American Society of University Composers—“Institute” at Bowdoin on Carl Ruggles for his ninetieth birthday—Henry Brant—Bowdoin faculty member Gerry Kamber meets Carl Ruggles—Schwartz meets Ruggles—the Ruggles “Institute.”
Side s pp. 41-49
Track 1
American Society of University Composers—why undergraduates are unaware of contemporary art music—lack of music education in high schools—students’ different attitude towards music—music courses developed in response to this problem—lack of musical literacy—association of classical music with snobbery—difficulties students have in appreciating classical music.
Side s pp. 49-66
Track 2
Relationship between composers and food—what stimulates and motivates certain composers: models—first model: restaurant menus—second model: puzzles—third model: maps—Downtown Crossing—Rows Garden—composing as a “slow improvisation”—notation for a piece composed this way called Texture—his compositional process—Jonathan Kramer’s thoughts on musical form: the funnel—more on compositional process: the “frozen improvisation”—pieces using this technique—more on Rows Garden—his definition of American music—how his own music fits into that definition: multiple exposure of two levels proceeding simultaneously—dramatic/cinematic quality in his music—influence of his wife’s work as a visual artist—mapping out the form of a piece of music—imagining performers playing and then just “turning the sound up”—Cambridge Mosaic.
Side s pp. 67-82
Track 3
Pre-compositional approaches—building a piece around a single critical moment—varying a sonata form or a variation structure—composing one layer of a piece first and then adding the second layer—violin concerto in progress—working with Sibelius computer program—economic crisis facing symphony orchestras—few opportunities for performance of symphonic music—Equinox—frustrations of composing opera—limited rehearsal time for orchestral pieces—attraction to the orchestra—Tapestry—original piano piece that was the basis of Tapestry—pre-existing material used for Tapestry—
World War II—his Jewishness.
Side t pp. 82-93
Teaching at Bowdoin—effect of e-mail on teaching—musical tributes to Mr. Schwartz—teaching at conservatories compared to teaching at Bowdoin—some Bowdoin students—composing at the keyboard vs. composing away from the keyboard—how he has accomplished composition, writing, etc.—future writing projects—violin concerto—string quartet commission from Borromeo Quartet—forthcoming piece--idea based on Louise Nevelson’s sculptures—forthcoming duos for trombone and bass trombone—promotion as the composer’s responsibility—influence of Otto Luening.