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Growing Up American
in Paris by Donald Harris
Early
last June I received an e-mail from
an English critic, John France, requesting
some background information on a Piano
Sonata I had composed while living
in Paris in 1956. France had heard
about the Sonata from a New
York-based pianist/theorist/composer,
Daniel Beliavsky, who has become somewhat
of champion of my music. Beliavsky
had sent him a recording of a concert
performance of the work along with
an analysis written for a graduate
theory seminar at New York University.
France sent me a rather extensive
list of questions about the piece
and about life in Paris in the fifties.
I replied as best I could, stretching
my memory to recall events that took
place fifty years ago, wondering all
the time what sort of a article would
be forthcoming. Was all of the effort
I put in worth the trouble? The answer
came in August when I was notified
by John France that his article
had appeared on a British website.
Needless to say, I was overwhelmed
by the attention that was suddenly
being paid to this composition, the
first that I completed in Paris. I
showed the review to a few people
including Graeme Boone, fellow Francophile
and animator of this lecture series.
Believing that it might hold some
interest for young musicians of today,
less informed on the subject of Parisian
musical life in the aftermath of the
Second World War, Graeme suggested
that I expand on what John France
had written in order to describe in
somewhat greater detail what it was
like to live in Paris fifty years
ago.
Now there is nothing
scholarly about the presentation I
am about to make. It is no more than
a memoir of an exciting and thought-provoking
time which I thoroughly enjoyed and
as such is more in the realm of what
the French would call petite histoire
as opposed to History with a capital
"H." If it helps to shed
some light on the musical climate
of the times, it may well have some
merit. It may however shed more light
on what it meant to be an American
in post-war Paris. I can tell you
that in my case, no matter how much
or how deeply I was affected by French
life and culture, living there helped
to reaffirm and reinforce my American
identity, thus the title: Growing
UpAmerican in Paris. As
my good friend, Marguerite Yourcenar
was wont to say and I paraphrase,
we can only be a guest or visitor
in someone else’s life. No matter
how much I reveled in the joys of
Paris, I came to realize that I could
only be a guest or visitor in its
cultural midst in spite of the fact
that by the time I left Paris in 1968,
my music was published by a French
publisher, I was a member of the SACEM
(the French equivalent of ASCAP),
and had a permanent carte de séjour
giving me the right to work. I had
become somewhat of a fixture in this
remarkably beautiful and inviting
city where I was at the time better
known than I was in my own country.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
In the early years
of my residency, I had the good fortune
of meeting and working with some very
important and significant musical
personalities, among then Nadia Boulanger,
Pierre Boulez, Max Deutsch, Andre
Jolivet, Henri Dutilleux and to a
lesser extent, Darius Milhaud, Francis
Poulenc and Georges Auric. But there
were also many others, such as Iannis
Xenakis, Michel Phillipot, Marius
Constant, or André Boucourechliev,
to name a few of the other composers
with whom I was in frequent contact.
This memoir will then attempt to describe
what it was like to interact with
many of the above during a critical
period when my adult musical personality
was in the process of being formed.
You may note that Messaien, perhaps
the most influential of postwar French
composers, is not at the top of my
list. I did meet him early on when
I had occasion to audit his class
in analysis at the Conservatoire,
the same seminar, by the way, that
had been frequented by the young European
avant-garde several years earlier,
among them Boulez and Stockhausen
during their student years. I did
not get to know Messaien well, however,
until the late sixties and early seventies
when I had returned to the US permanently
and he and his wife, pianist Yvonne
Loriod, visited on two separate occasions
Boston and Tanglewood.
II
In autumn 1954, following
completion of a Master of Music degree
from the University of Michigan the
previous spring, I began study in
the DMA program in composition. The
Doctor of Musical Arts was a newly
created degree program that had just
been approved at Michigan. It was
enrolling its first students. Its
objective, as explained then, was
to provide the composer with the requisite
tools and skills to be able to gain
employment in college teaching. This
still seems to be the case. I soon
found, however, that my mind was not
on further academic study nor was
it on college teaching. (Little did
I know or could I imagine that later
on I would spend thirty plus years
in teaching and academic administration.)
At the time, I longed instead to go
abroad and fulfill a lifelong dream,
to study composition in France with
Nadia Boulanger. Thus in September
1955, armed with a letter of acceptance
from the great French pedagogue and
a recommendation from my teacher at
Michigan, Ross Lee Finney, who had
been her student before the Second
World War, I sailed for France with
high expectations, eagerly expecting
to be inspired as I had never been
before.
I had formulated
a plan that I would spend a year or
two in Paris, as long as my funds
held out, and then return to Ann Arbor
to continue working on my DMA. As
everyone knew, composers in the US
were earning their living in the teaching
profession; there was no reason to
believe that my life would turn out
any different. But it was destined
to be very different as I fell in
love with Paris and French culture
and did not return to the US to live
permanently until 1968, without ever
having obtained the DMA. In the autumn
of 1955, however, my every thought
was about the prospect of living in
France, hardly about academic degrees
or how I would eventually earn my
living. Upon my arrival, I discovered
that I had about six weeks to myself
before Mademoiselle Boulanger was
set to resume teaching in her apartment
on the rue Ballu following
her summer session at Fontainbleau,
at least this is what I learned when
I phoned her apartment to inquire
when I could begin my lessons. So
after finding two rooms on the rue
de Passy where I could have a
piano, I set about to enjoy the city
and partake in its pleasures and attractions.
My most immediate
objective was to learn the language.
Even though I had studied French in
high school and college (I even won
the French medal when I graduated
from high school), I soon discovered
that although I could read fairly
well, I had considerable difficulty
understanding what was said to me
when addressed in French. Conversely
I found that those who were trying
to understand what I was trying to
say in my heavily American-accented
French were having just as much difficulty.
A female companion whom I had met
while looking for lodgings proved
to be an invaluable teacher. But I
devised another plan, which I anticipated
would satisfy both my need to be immersed
in French culture and my desire to
speak and converse properly. The Comédie
Française was in session
during September and October. I went
to every play that was being given.
In the afternoon, I would read the
text, try to learn all of the unfamiliar
words, and then attend the performance
in the evening, hoping that as time
went by the language would become
second nature. Unfortunately the language
of Molière and Corneille was
hardly what one spoke in daily conversation,
thus the plan was only moderately
successful when it came to participating
in everyday life. But I was becoming
increasingly familiar with French
classical theatre and this gave me
immense pleasure.
Nadia Boulanger
When I began study
with Nadia Boulanger, however, there
was no need to know French. She only
taught her American students in English.
At first I was disappointed, as I
only wanted to speak French. After
all, I hadn’t journeyed all that way
to speak English. But I soon realized
that one did not contradict Mademoiselle.
She was a strong personality who always
had it her way, and I was in awe of
her musicianship as I was of the fact
that I was in the presence of one
of the world’s great pedagogues. She
was vitally concerned about craft,
about the tools that she felt a composer
needed in order to compose. This was
fundamental to her teaching philosophy,
so much so that she never ceased to
point out deficiencies in the musical
backgrounds of her American students.
She had designed devilish little tests,
if you will, to assess basic levels
of musicianship, one of which was
to ask a student to play a Bach chorale
at the piano, not very difficult in
and of itself, but to do it standing
up, again somewhat negotiable, with
as a final bit of torture the instruction
to simultaneously sing, not play,
either the tenor or the alto part,
in other words playing three of the
voices and singing the fourth. Try
it some time. Intimidated by her as
I was, I did not come through with
flying colors. But it is a good exercise
for the ear.
The height of cruel
and abusive punishment from my point
of view came when she asked me to
join her in playing a four-hand arrangement
of Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin.
She took off, magnificent keyboardist
as she was, at a furious pace. I could
not keep up. She then suggested that
I try playing one hand alone, "take
your pick, whichever hand you want,"
she said. Grinning at my failure or
rejoicing at having proven her point
(again take your pick), I was thoroughly
embarrassed, indeed humiliated, when
she suggested that I play with one
finger and I discovered that I still
lagged behind. I don’t believe that
she thought she was being excessively
cruel. It was merely her way of pointing
out the level of musicianship that
she expected from her students. For
my part, I realized that it would
have been futile had I protested that
this level of mastery was forever
beyond my capability, especially since
I was already in my mid twenties and
as skilled at the piano as I would
ever become.
She once admonished
me at a lesson by saying that if I
were a church organist and this were
a Thursday or Friday and a new cantata
would be needed for services on Sunday,
she would not be able to call upon
me. The reference to J.S. Bach was
obvious and not the least bit subtle.
Nor for that matter did I find it
a particularly appropriate request
to make of a composer three hundred
years removed from the Baroque since
such practices were no longer the
norm. I remember responding without
hesitation with a resounding and somewhat
triumphant, "No, you could not."
I knew that the French celebrated
such skills as witness the traditional
requirements for the Prix de Rome.
I had read about Debussy and Ravel
whose candidacies for the famous prize
were judged by their abilities to
write substantial cantatas or other
large forms in a few short days while
locked in a room, or as the French
would say, en loge. Mademoiselle
Boulanger would point to her one and
only French composition student of
note, Jean Francaix, as one who possessed
this type of craft. "You may
not like his music," she would
say, "but you have to admit that
every note is at its place."
I never bought into this way of thinking.
In my view, most of his pieces were
wholly predictable, rather boring,
somewhat rinky-dink and formula-driven,
or so I thought at the time. Of course,
her assumption was correct, I did
not like them. I have not changed
my opinion.
She also angered
me when speaking of culture in the
United States. She may have taught
legions of Americans, but she had,
in my opinion, a rather dismal view
of the art that was produced on this
side of the Atlantic. She referred
to American culture as the equivalent
of Roman culture, whereas European
culture, the old continent, was akin
to the culture of Athens. European
culture alone embodied the great traditions
of classical civilization. The best
we could hope for was to be viewed
as an epigone, like Rome, perceived
then as an inferior imitation of a
far greater culture. It is a statement
that still infuriates me. In all fairness,
if challenged, she may have wished
to temper her outrageous assertion
by the acknowledgement that we were
a young culture in transition whereas
Europe was old and tired out. This
would have been in keeping with the
thought process of Paul Valéry
whom she greatly admired and who wrote
to this effect in his brilliant essay
of 1919, La Crise de l’Esprit.
Many in post Second World War
Parisian society considered this essay
prophetic, written as it was following
the First World War. Valéry’s
son, incidentally, was an occasional
visitor to our weekly seminars which
most of her current students attended
on a regular basis. Paul Valéry
notwithstanding, however, she did
not temper her statement and it still
sticks in my craw.
She was a great believer
in the study of traditional harmony
and counterpoint. Even though I considered
myself adequately schooled in these
disciplines, I was not opposed to
further study. I would painstakingly
complete the harmony exercises in
Dubois or Vidal that she would assign,
and I must confess that I enjoyed
doing them. There was usually only
one solution to a given problem and
puzzle solving can be quite satisfying.
But disagreements soon crept into
our lessons. I was excited about new
developments in music. I remember
enthusiastically bringing her the
score of the Stravinsky Septet
(1953) that I had just purchased and
which had just been published, pointing
out Stravinsky’s embryonic use of
tone rows. Her response, that I shall
never forget, was to dismiss them
as an "old man playing with his
jewels." Concurrently I found
that she was less than interested
in what I was composing. And I soon
discovered that I was not composing
at all, that the will or desire to
do so was gone. The end result was
that in March, after a bout of jaundice
or infectious hepatitis that had sent
me to the American Hospital for a
week, I wrote her a letter explaining
that I needed to take some time off
and would not continue lessons for
the time being. During my recuperation
that was longer than anticipated,
both to recover my sense of perspective
and change my ideas or simply to get
out of the funk that I was in, I took
a motor trip through the Swiss Alps
and Italy, returning to Paris through
the south of France. It did the trick,
as I seemed to forget the trials and
tribulations of study with Nadia Boulanger.
I never went back for further lessons.
In retrospect there
were occasions when I felt that I
was being singled out for special
attention by Mademoiselle,
one of which was an invitation to
turn pages for her when she accompanied
a singer, Doda Conrad, at a lieder
recital held at an exclusive private
club, the Cercle Interallié.
I arrived at the appointed time, quite
nervous, as the surroundings were
very elegant. The Cercle was
located a short block from the Elysée
Palace, the residence of the President
of France, in one of the more fashionable
neighborhoods. Seeing how nervous
I felt and obviously looked, Mademoiselle
told me that it mattered naught when
I turned the page. She said that she
knew the music by heart, songs of
Duparc, Debussy and Fauré,
that she only needed to glance at
whether the notes went up or down
in order to refresh her memory. This
is not as surprising as one might
think given that her eyesight was
so very poor. And it was well known
that she had a prodigious memory.
Another rather amusing incident worth
recounting arose at the time of the
marriage of the Prince of Monaco to
Grace Kelly. Mademoiselle was
Maître de Chapelle to
the Prince, which meant that she was
in charge of selecting the music to
be performed at the wedding. I was
among the group of students invited
to her apartment one weekend afternoon
to copy parts for the selections she
had chosen. It was an offer that one
did not dare refuse. Students were
invited to another command performance,
the yearly mass in memory of Lili
Boulanger, her sister whom she revered
as a composer and whose memory she
felt it was her sacred duty to honor
and uphold. Lili Boulanger was but
twenty-five years old when she passed
away. Nadia Boulanger considered Lili
to have been an extraordinary talent.
The mass was held in March, as close
as possible to the anniversary of
her death, which occurred on March
15, 1918, at l’Église dela Trinité, Nadia Boulanger’s
neighborhood or parish church where
she regularly attended Sunday mass.
Everyone knew, however, she had little
use for the church organist, who was
none other than Olivier Messaien,
whose music and theories she distinctly
disliked. Obviously his improvisations
would also not be to her taste, but
as there was nothing she could do
about it, she seemed to make the best
of it. For the record let it be known
that I did copy parts for the wedding
but was no longer around at the time
of the memorial mass.
Several years later
I was to renew contact with Nadia
Boulanger when she was President of
the Jury of the Concours de Monaco
in which my Symphony in Two Movements
won a prize. It did not win a first
prize, as none was given that year,
1961. That was all right with me since
the version of the Symphony
that I submitted was an unfinished
version. Newly married, I needed money
so I took a risk and tacked on an
ending to the second movement in order
to submit it by the required deadline.
I was happy to receive the cash, however,
about the equivalent of $500, quite
a tidy sum for me at the time, following
which I leisurely went about the task
of writing the real ending. Anyway,
entries were submitted anonymously.
I remember that my pseudonym was C-Sharp
Minor. When the envelopes were opened
revealing the identity of contestants,
and upon learning that I was the laureate,
Mlle. Boulanger sent a request through
the Doda Conrad, a friend and long-standing
member of the Boulangerie,
that I stop by to see her. Years later
when I was living in Boston, Harold
Shapiro, the distinguished American
composer, who taught for many years
at Brandeis and who was a member of
the Monaco jury, told me how pleased
she was to learn that a student of
hers had won the prize.
My first wife and
I did pay her a visit in 1962, and
we had a pleasant conversation about
everything and nothing in particular
as they say, although my wife, pregnant
with our first child, was more than
a little taken aback when Mlle. Boulanger
questioned the wisdom of giving birth
in the conflicted and tormented world
in which we were living. On other
occasions she had been known to remark
that composers should not marry or
have children (she once said it to
me) so I felt that we had gotten off
rather easy, an opinion that my wife,
noticeably horrified, did not share
to say the least. Later I sent her
one of my first published scores,
my Fantasy for Violin and Piano.
She sent me a very encouraging reply
in return which I still treasure.
I did not see her again until four
years later in October 1966 when she
did me the honor of attending the
Paris premiere of my symphony. I was
very touched when I noticed she was
sitting in the box next to mine at
the Théâtre des Champs
Elysées. We spoke briefly
backstage following the concert. It
was the same theatre, by the way,
in which the premiere of Stravinsky’s
Rite of Spring as well as countless
other Diaghilev performances and premieres
had taken place.
My relationship with
MademoiselleBoulanger continued
intermittently until her death. In
1976, when I was teaching and administering
at the New England Conservatory, I
received a letter of recommendation
she wrote on behalf of a student applying
for a Fulbright. I can’t for the life
of me remember why this particular
letter was sent to my attention, but
I still have it in my files. In it,
she asks if I was the "same Donald
Harris whose works I have always followed
with such interest." I replied
that indeed I was and sent her news
of what I was doing. Today, with hindsight,
I do not regret the few months that
I studied with Nadia Boulanger. In
spite of the fact that we were frequently
at odds, I did learn from her, from
her flawless musicianship, her high
and uncompromising standards, and
from the strength of her convictions.
In the summer of 1954, before leaving
for Paris in September, I was a fellowship
student at Tanglewood. Aaron Copland
was on leave that year and the composition
teachers were Boris Blacher and Roger
Sessions. I studied with Blacher but
had ample opportunity to meet and
speak with Sessions. Just before the
end of summer and Tanglewood was about
to close for the season, I had a conversation
with Roger Sessions during which he
inquired about my plans for fall.
When I replied that I was going to
Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger,
his response was: "Good luck,
I hope she doesn’t ruin you."
I can’t say that she ruined me and
I can’t really say that she helped
me to any great extent. But letting
me understand who she was did help
me to understand who I was and who
I was becoming.
Letter from Nadia
Boulanger, 2/5/64
III
A few months following
my return to Paris from my motor trip
through Switzerland, Italy and the
south of France, having moved to larger,
more comfortable and less expensive
quarters on the rue la Boétie,
I began to compose my Piano Sonata,
the first work that I completed in
Paris. Now that I was composing and
starting to feel good about myself
again, I also began to re-immerse
myself into the city’s musical life.
Paris in the fifties was full of concerts
of varying degrees of quality, some
obviously more interesting than others.
I had decided from the moment I first
arrived, not knowing the performers
very well, to attend as many different
recitals, operas and ballets or concert
series as possible. But there were
not many concerts of new music. It
was, however, the period when Pierre
Boulez was first leading his Domaine
Musical concerts.
I had heard of Boulez
when I was a student at Michigan so
I more or less knew what to expect.
Not only did I regularly attend his
Domaine Musical concerts, I
also went to the productions of the
Jean-Louis Barrault, Madeleine Renaud
Theatre Company for which he was musical
director. I remember, in 1955, being
most impressed by an unbelievably
elaborate and complex production of
Orestie by Aeschylus in a translation
of Claudel, in which Boulez composed
some highly intricate and difficult
music for actors, all of whom were
wearing masks. At the Domaine Musical,
I heard one of the earlier performances
of Le Marteau Sans Maître
in 1956, which Boulez conducted (I
still own the live concert recording
that was made), as well as performances
he would lead that same year of new
pieces by Messaien, Pousseur, Stockhausen,
Nono, Henze, Barraqué, and
in subsequent years Maderna, Berio
or Xenakis, and many others, as he
began to conduct the Domaine Musical
on a regular basis. As everyone knows,
Boulez was early on the champion of
Webern, whose music figured prominently
on his programs; some Schoenberg,
particularly the early pre-twelve
tone works like Pierrot Lunaire,
hardly ever works from his American
period which he considered retrogressive
and uninteresting; certain pieces
of Stravinsky like a memorable performance
of Les Noces at the Théâtre
des Champs Élysées that
I vividly remember; much Varèse
and Debussy, some Ravel, but infrequently
works of Alban Berg. This would come
later as his taste matured and developed.
I especially recall a brilliant performance
of Wozzeck that he conducted
in 1962 at the Opéra de
Paris. The cause of new music
in Paris in the fifties would have
been seriously deficient without the
presence of Boulez, but with him,
it was not only exciting and controversial,
it set a new or higher standard by
which new music performance would
be measured. His initiatives were
a wake-up call to virtually all other
organizations interested in new music.
They were obliged to stand up and
take notice.
It
was following a Domaine Musical
concert at the small Théâtre
Marigny that I decided that I
ought to meet this man. But how would
I go about doing it? I decided to
consult the Paris telephone directory
and sure enough, there was one entry
in the Quatrième Arrondissement
for a Boulez P., rue de Beautreillis.
I picked up the phone and called
him. To my great surprise, he invited
me over. He lived in a fifth or sixth
floor walk-up (I forget which) in
what was called at the time chambres
de bonnes or pigeonniers. His
accommodations,small but comfortable,
were simply decorated with only the
necessary including an upright piano.
After a few minutes of polite conversation,
I showed him my recently composed
Piano Sonata. He proceeded
to look it over, quite carefully I
might add, and then made some suggestions,
principally that my harmonic language
was based upon intervals that were
spaced too close together, in other
words that I ought to seek to widen
the space between the intervals I
was using so that thirds, sixths,
etc. would exploit different ends
of the spectrum and create more varied
sonorities and juxtapositions. "Ça
rappelle trop le passé,"
was the way in which he justified
his reservations. While this was an
admonition I was willing to consider
and could understand why it was a
concern for him, I did not follow
his advice to the extent that I believe
he intended. Some European composers
at the time wanted a clean break with
the past but I was not about to abandon
a more traditional harmonic language
with which I felt comfortable. This
has remained a concern of mine to
this day as my harmonic language continues
to develop. With respect to this Sonata,
I perceived then and continue to feel
now that one of its chief virtues
is in its deliberate attempt to provide
a link with the harmonic tradition
from which it sprang.
Boulez also showed
me his Structures for two pianos,
explained the different parameters
of its organization, and then analyzed
with a similar emphasis on structure
parts of the second cantata of Webern,
which I believe he was about to program.
I didn’t see him much after that.
For one thing, I had begun studying
with Max Deutsch, a student of Arnold
Schoenberg. For another, Boulez was
less and less often in Paris as his
career expanded internationally. We
had a chance encounter when I saw
him walking along the Rhine following
the performance a year or so later
in Cologne of his Troisième
Sonate pour Piano on the same
concert that saw the premiere of Stockhausen’s
Gruppen. Every few years following
our paths would cross and he always
seemed to recall our initial visit.
For some reason or other, I never
showed him a piece of my music again.
Maybe it was timidity or fear of rejection
or simply stupidity on my part, but
in the seventies when he was music
director of the New York Philharmonic,
I was ever so delighted and surprised
to receive a note from my publisher
telling me that he had programmed
a piece of mine, LUDUS II for
five instruments, on one of his Prospective
Encounter concerts. We continue to
stay in touch periodically. In 1991,
shortly after I had become dean at
Ohio State, he invited me to lunch
in Cleveland. We devised a plan to
bring his Ensemble InterContemporarin
to Columbus during their tour the
following year, a plan that unfortunately
was aborted for lack of funds. Uncharacteristically,
I have sent him one of my recent pieces.
He is without any doubt one of the
most remarkable and gifted musicians
that I have ever met.
Truthfully I can’t
recall why I decided to write a solo
work for piano when I returned to
Paris from my rather long vacation
in 1956, but the composition, begun
in October of that year, was completed
the following January. I do remember
that I hadn’t planned to write a sonata
at the outset. The first movement
I composed was the third, the Scherzo.
While composing this movement, initially
conceived to be a short piece for
piano, I discovered that I was playing
around with a twelve-tone row. I proceeded
to write down some row charts and
explore some of the possibilities
that they opened up for me. I then
wrote what is now the final movement,
Theme and Variations, and only
then did I think that I had the material
to write an entire sonata. But I was
thinking of a three movement sonata
in which this movement would be the
first, the Scherzo the second,
leaving only a final movement to compose.
The actual first movement, which I
then proceeded to write, was originally
thought to be the final movement.
Only after completing it did I discover
that it made a perfect first movement
and the entire structure began to
take shape. I knew then that I needed
to compose a slow movement to round
out the four-movement form. By the
time I completed the work, I realized
that from the outset I had been exploring
ways of combining extended concepts
of tonality with certain aspects,
albeit rudimentary, of twelve-tone
technique.
Following my meeting
with Boulez, I put the sonata in a
drawer and didn’t think too much about
it. I really didn’t know many people
in Paris and had no idea how to get
a piece performed. I had been wandering
about somewhat aimlessly since leaving
the class of Nadia Boulanger, trying
to decide where or with whom I wished
to continue to study. The Piano
Sonata was the first piece I wrote
entirely on my own without having
shown it to a teacher of composition.
Although I was not unhappy with the
result, I was after all in Paris to
complete my education. It seemed to
me that I really ought to take advantage
of what educational opportunities
the city offered to the young composer.
The next step I took with this in
mind was to enroll in a stage
or short training course at the studios
of Musique Concrète which
were located on the rue de l’Université
on the left bank.I had heard
a lecture on musique concrète
as a student at Michigan, and had
thought that it might be interesting
to learn more about it at its source
so to speak. Phillipe Arthuis was
in charge of teaching the stagiaires,
and I worked briefly with him. Pierre
Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, the founders
and prime instigators, were still
around but we had no personal contact
with either. Technology was a far
cry from what it has become, however,
and using it was not without its dangers.
After recording different sounds or
noises, the basic materials of musique
concrète, we would manipulate
or transform them through a lot of
cutting and splicing of tape with
razor blades, causing more than a
few cuts, luckily minor, on our fingers.
We were working with large, bulky
reel-to-reel Ampex machines, by today’s
standards rather primitive recording
equipment but highly sophisticated
then. I never completed a piece while
there, probably because I didn’t have
the patience. I also didn’t stay long
enough, only a few weeks. But while
there, I met an Italian composer,
Girolamo Arrigo, who totally out of
the blue introduced me to Max Deutsch,
about whom I knew absolutely nothing
and with whom I would study regularly
until some time in 1958 and on an
irregular basis in succeeding years.
Deutsch’s class was quite small at
the time. There were five of us, myself
and Arrigo, the German critic, Heinz
Klaus Metzger, the American composer,
Eugene Kurtz, and another Italian
composer, Sylvano Bussotti. In future
years Deutsch’s class would become
quite large as his reputation grew
and more and more students were referred
to him.
Max Deutsch
Max Deutsch is a
difficult man to describe. He was
Viennese. He had begun his studies
with Schoenberg in Vienna before the
First World War but studied with him
primarily in Mödling and Amsterdam
in the years following. He was contemporary
with Steuermann and Kolisch, both
of whom expressed admiration for Deutsch,
but he was never included in the inner
circle as they were. That Schoenberg
had a real affection for him can be
shown from the few letters that have
survived. But it is also known that
he was banished at one point and their
relationship was badly in need of
repair for many years. The incident
that caused the rupture seemed to
have taken place in Amsterdam and
probably involved Schoenberg’s daughter.
I never found out what actually happened,
and I will leave further explanation
to conjecture, but immediately following
the break-up, Deutsch left for France
where he lived for most of the remainder
of his life.
Deutsch was a composer.
I have some of his scores in my library.
They are quite romantic; even fin
de siècle if you will,
hardly hard core twelve-tone. In fact
in all of the years I knew him, we
rarely, if ever, discussed twelve-tone
theory. We spent a lot of time musing
on the pre-twelve-tone works of Schoenberg
especially the First Chamber Symphony,
the Book of theHanging
Gardens, and the Five Pieces
for Orchestra. He did have a particular
fondness for one early twelve-tone
work, however, the Suite, opus
29, which he recorded in 1950 and
sent to Schoenberg for his approval.
It provided the occasion for a lively
exchange of letters, which led to
their reconciliation. But Deutsch
was definitely a product of the late
19th and early 20th
centuries. I enjoyed very much the
fact that he would discuss and analyze
Wagner with me as well as other operas
such as Bizet’s Carmen, a favorite
of Mahler, or Tosca, a favorite
of his. As a composer, this was not
music to which I had paid much attention
before.
He was destined to
be a conductor but things never quite
worked out as he wished. But he did
make several recordings of Schoenberg’s
music, including the Five Pieces
for Orchestra and the Variations
for Orchestra, opus 31, both of
which along with the Suite
have been reissued on a CD. He was
a superb pianist, or so it has been
recounted to me. I hosted a party
one night in Paris when Ross Finney
was in town. Ross sang American folk
songs, accompanying himself on his
guitar (I have a tape recording of
that) and Max improvised wonderful
waltzes in a schmaltzy Viennese or
café concert style,
which unfortunately I did not record.
If anyone has influenced
my own way of teaching composition
it would be Max Deutsch, although
I also owe a lot in this respect to
Ross Finney. But Deutsch saw the larger
picture more than anyone else with
whom I have studied. He would approach
a piece globally, leaving us, his
students to work out the details.
None of his students were alike. He
brought out the best in all of us,
encouraged us to find our own ways.
I can say without the slightest hesitation
that as much as Nadia Boulanger seemed
to have stifled my will to compose,
Deutsch’s way of teaching had the
exact opposite effect. One of his
favorite sayings, which he often cited,
went as follows: "La jeunesse
a toujours raison." (Youth
is always right.) Though cryptic and
easily subject to multiple interpretations,
it was intended to be a confidence
builder. I thought it was a real tribute
to Max Deutsch, as he advanced in
age, when Henri Dutilleux retired
from teaching the popular and well-known
class in composition at the École
Normale de Musique, heavily frequented
by foreign students, and turned it
over to Deutsch. It was a class that
had a distinguished list of incumbents
and was previously taught by Arthur
Honegger.
He
had an unpredictable side as well.
One year he asked me to pay for several
months worth of lessons in advance.
He was hoping to develop a pool of
funds in order to raise a lost galleon
from the bottom of the Seine. He was
certain there was a wealth of gold
to be found in the alleged shipwreck.
I obliged as best I could but never
heard what became of his plan. More
than likely it was a wild goose chase.
He was an inveterate ladies man who
cut a very elegant old-world figure
when dressed up to go out to a concert
or other event. When greeting someone
of the opposite sex, he always employed
the baisemain, although by
this time hand kissing had distinctly
gone out of fashion in France. I recall
conversations with Yvonne de Casa
Fuerte, an old friend of his who was
in charge of the music program at
the Embassy in which she would always
ask: "Commentva Max? Il était si beau."
(How is Max? He was so handsome.)
There were, I am told, many other
old acquaintances of a certain age
who felt the same way and who would
surface from time to time.
I have a trove of
letters he wrote to me either during
brief visits home or when I had returned
to the U.S. permanently. He did not
own a fountain pen. Nor had he acquired
one of the new ballpoint pens that
had just been released on the market.
All of his letters were written longhand
in large broad strokes with an old-fashioned
pen point that he would carefully
dip into an open ink well every other
word or so as if he were still living
in a bygone era.
He
was not without strong political sentiments.
And they were more than just words
to him. He spent some of the years
immediately preceding the Second World
War in Spain, where he fought against
Franco, and then most of the war itself
in central France where he had joined
the Résistance. I was
very touched a year ago when I was
on leave in the south of France at
the Camargo Foundation and received
a call from his stepdaughter, Josephine
de Yznaga, who took great pains to
remain in contact with his former
students wherever they were. She asked
me to have a coffee with her when
I was in Paris and then informed me
that she wanted to send me something.
In the mail a week or so later I received
a registered package in which was
placed Schoenberg’s original 1950
edition of Style and Idea with
a dedication in French, "pour
mon ami Max Deutsch, cordialement
Arnold Schoenberg, mai 1950."
Schoenberg died one year later. I
had a tear in my eye as I opened the
volume and saw the dedication. Of
all of Max Deutsch’s students, and
there were many, I don’t know why
Josephine signaled me out for this
special attention. It made me happy,
however, to possess this further proof
that his relationship with Schoenberg
had finally been repaired, and this
fact gives the volume an even more
special meaning. Max Deutsch passed
away in 1982 at the age of ninety.
Style & Idea,
Schoenberg dedication
There
were on occasion visitors to Deutsch’s
weekly classes, a supplement to our
private lessons. One of them was a
young British pianist, Susan Bradshaw
who subsequently enjoyed quite a distinguished
career in Great Britain performing
new music. I cannot recall how it
came about, but in early October 1958
there was a private concert at the
residence of a Parisian patron of
the arts involving some of Deutsch’s
students where Susan Bradshaw played
the actual premiere of my Piano
Sonata. It was, as I recall,
a fine performance though view the
circumstances, somewhat unnoticed.
The public premiere took place three
years later, in January 1961,
by noted French pianist, Geneviève
Joy, at a concert presented at the
Centre Culturel Américain
on the rue du Dragon. Geneviève
Joy is the wife of composer, Henri
Dutilleux, who had earlier championed
the sonata by arranging a recording
for the French Radio. This recording
was selected that same year to represent
the United States at the Deuxième
Biennale de Paris. As I wrote
in a program note to the sonata, these
several events in 1961 were a "most
welcome opportunity that fortuitously
but rather auspiciously launched my
career in Paris." Thanks to fellow
Deutsch student, Eugene Kurtz, I was
introduced to the publisher, Denise
Jobert-Georges. The Editions Jobert
published the sonata in 1965,
as well as subsequently all of the
works I composed in Paris.
One day in 1960,
Max Deutsch asked me if I wanted to
spend part of the summer in Aix-en-Provence,
an incredibly attractive and picturesque
city in the heart of Provence and
home to a summer music festival of
great renown. Deutsch explained that
the composer, André Jolivet,
was about to inaugurate the first
season of a summer course of study
for composers with the lofty and rather
pretentious title of Centre Français
d’Humanisme Musical (The French
Center for Musical Humanism-whatever
that means)that was to be
marginally linked to the festival.
In order to qualify for a government
subsidy, Jolivet needed a handful
of students from foreign countries
ostensibly to demonstrate that his
center would further contribute to
the dissemination of French culture
abroad and thereby further enhance
its prestige. My wife and I would
be able to attend at no cost, which
meant tuition, board and room, and
tickets for festival concerts. To
put it mildly, for a newlywed, it
was an offer not to be refused. Jolivet,
whose music was often performed in
Paris, especially at the French Radio,
and who was someone in whom I was
interested ever since my arrival five
years earlier, intrigued me for another
reason. He had been music director
of the Comédie Française,
thus frequently in the pit at the
Salle Richelieu, its principal
home, where I attended plays during
my first few weeks in Paris. He would
be conducting scores of Lully, Rameau
or others, often in his own arrangements,
which served as incidental music for
productions of Molière, Racine
and other French classics that comprised
the national theater’s traditional
repertory.
When I first arrived
in Paris, Jolivet and Boulez seemed
to follow similar career paths, Boulez,
as I have said, as music director
for Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine
Renaud, Jolivet then for the Comédie
Française. What a neat
way for a composer to earn a living,
I thought, and I looked forward to
hearing Jolivet speak about his experiences.
It turned out that my rather romantic
notion of these two jobs seemed ill
founded. Boulez soon left the Compagnie
Renaud-Barrault to spend more
time conducting, a career choice that
led to the international career we
all know. Jolivet left the Comédie
Française as soon as his
finances allowed. After several purely
administrative positions, he became
a professor of composition at the
Conservatoire, a position more
to his liking, which left more time
for composing and kept him evenings
at home.
Even though they
may have held similar jobs at least
for a time, Jolivet and Boulez were
very different people, rivals to be
frank. One might almost say enemies.
I am not certain how it all started
but I remember clearly how their relationship
degenerated. By 1960, due to their
increasing success, Boulez had moved
his Domaine Musical concerts
from the smaller Thèâtre
Marigny to the larger Salle
Gaveau. I remember the first
concert in the new venue. David Tudor
played some John Cage; the concert
also included the Paris premiere of
Stockhausen’s Zeitmasse. In
the program book, however, Boulez,
always outspoken, complained bitterly
at the way his concerts were treated
by the "authorities," lashing
out at the government for not according
him a subsidy, blaming the whole thing
on Jolivet. He referred to Jolivet
as Monsieur Joli Navet, an
amusing play on words. A navet
in French is a turnip, but in French
slang it is a bad piece of art. For
instance a bad play or a bad composition
might be referred to as a navet.
A few weeks later, at a concert at
the École Normale, in
which works of both Boulez and Jolivet
were performed, Boulez was accosted
backstage by Madame Jolivet, commonly
known to all as Hilda. I was at the
concert but I was not backstage. However
the incident that transpired was well
reported in the press. Evidently Hilda
Jolivet approached Boulez, saying
words to this effect: "Monsieur,
we have a score to settle." Boulez
is said to have replied, "Madame,
is that a hat you are wearing or have
you put your brain in the deep freeze."
Whereupon Hilda Jolivet slapped him
and a lawsuit followed. Boulez was
eventually condemned to damages and
interest of one franc, less than a
penny, but a moral victory nonetheless
for Hilda Jolivet. Jolivet protested
that he had nothing to do with the
fact that Boulez did not receive a
subsidy, something I could readily
believe. Boulez had powerful adversaries
in high places, far more powerful
than Jolivet.
I did ask Jolivet
about the incident when we were together
in Aix. His reply was an eye opener,
to me more interesting than the incident
itself. "Boulez treats me like
Milhaud treated Ravel," was Jolivet’s
response. To put the phrase in perspective,
you have to understand the subtleties
of French musical opinion among composers
around 1960. Milhaud was not always
well considered. His star had fallen,
whereas Ravel was of course already
elevated to sainthood. So Jolivet,
by comparing himself to Ravel and
Boulez to Milhaud, was in fact saying
that he was the greater artist. But
there is always an element of truth
to these seemingly apocryphal statements.
It was true that Cocteau and Les Six,
inspired by Satie, were critical of
the delicacy and refinement of Ravel,
his high-brow approach to art if you
will, preferring the more rough-edged
popular culture of daily life like
the circus or the music hall. You
have only to compare Le Boeuf sur
le Toit with Daphnis et Chloé
to see the point.
All of this notwithstanding,
I really liked Jolivet. There was
nothing ostentatious or affected about
him in spite of the pretentious title
of his Center for Musical Humanism,
on the contrary he was down to earth,
someone with whom it was delightful
to have a nuts and bolts conversation,
composer talk if you will where we
would exchange ideas and information
about instrumentation, rhythm or whatever
happened to be of interest for the
moment. It was a bit different with
Hilda who acted the role of the busy
bodying composer’s wife to the hilt.
My wife remarked to me one conversation
she had with Hilda when the subject
of my musical welfare was broached.
Hilda suggested that if I wanted to
really become a maître,
I should study with her husband. Needless
to say, I didn’t follow her advice.
I was perfectly happy with Max Deutsch.
Jolivet was the first teacher I had,
however, who really knew something
about non-pitched percussion. A student
of Varèse, his music also employed
an extraordinary array of unusual
percussion instruments. He was also
a master of orchestration. I didn’t
realize it at the time but the greater
than customary use of percussion in
my Symphony in Two Movements,
the next piece I was to write, as
well as some of its instrumental colors
were a direct result of my contact
with Jolivet during that summer. I
don’t recall if the Center lasted
for more than one summer, but Jolivet
continued to show interest in his
students after we had all returned
to Paris. There were occasional reunions
at his home to which I was invited
even though I continued to study with
Max Deutsch, a fact that Hilda would
not hesitate to point out. Nonetheless
Jolivet generously introduced me to
the performers who premiered my Fantasy
for Violin and Piano, a work that
I had written with Deutsch. And in
July of 1962, Jolivet sponsored a
concert of his students with the Radio
Orchestra of Marseille, now defunct,
and he asked me to make an orchestral
version of my Fantasy so that
it could be included.
I always felt that
Jolivet was under-appreciated in France.
Maybe it was his spat with Boulez,
which continued to plague him and
caused him the wrath of the avant-garde,
or maybe it was the personality of
Hilda – even loyal friends would sometimes
flee when she approached, or maybe
he was simply eclipsed by his colleague
Messaien who could claim Boulez and
Stockhausen as students and whose
stock in trade continued to soar as
they gained in popularity. But whatever
it was, Jolivet was never given his
due during his lifetime and I am always
pleased when I see his music appear
on concert programs of today. In my
opinion there is more than a passing
debt to Varèse in his music,
particularly in some of his earlier
work like his collection of piano
pieces, Mana, written in 1946.
Perhaps the link between these two
proponents of a vigorous non-repetitive
rhythmic style in which varying harmonic
densities collide and intermingle
has never been properly evaluated
or understood. I think it would be
worth looking into. Hilda Jolivet,
by the way, published a biography
of Varèse in 1973 and three
years ago in 2002, Christine Jolivet-Erlih,
their daughter, edited a volume of
correspondence between Jolivet and
Varèse, spanning over thirty
years, which further illuminates their
relationship.
My
summer in Aix also saw my first encounter
with Francis Poulenc. A staged version
of Poulenc’s Voix Humaine with
Denise Duval in the title role was
being performed at the Festival and
Poulenc would appear at our Center,
actually a lovely 18th
century hôtel particulier,
from time to time. I had seen Poulenc
in Paris at various concerts but never
spoke with him. He was always seen
at the Domaine Musical concerts,
an indication of the breadth of his
interests for one could hardly imagine
that he was into the avant-garde
fare that Boulez was promoting. One
special occasion where he was present
was at a concert in honor of Darius
Milhaud’s seventieth birthday at the
Abbey of Royaumont, just north or
Paris. Poulenc was the speaker and
his remarks were designed to please
Milhaud. "Darius,"
he said,"toi, tu étais
toujours le représentant de
l’avant-garde parminous."
(Darius, you always represented the
avant-garde in our group.) Everyone
seemed to enjoy being in Poulenc’s
presence. He had an air of joie
de vivre about him just like his
music. He was also kind and deferential.
I remember the last time that I saw
him. It was at a reception in honor
of Marius Constant at the Hôtel
de Ville (City Hall). I left early
as I was leaving on a trip back to
the States the next morning and needed
to pack. I was literally running down
a huge flight of stairs, the escalier
d’honneur, when I almost knocked
over a gentleman climbing up to attend
the reception. When I turned around
to see whom I had practically run
into, mortified I shouted an embarrassed,
"Excusez-moi,
Maître," whereupon
Poulenc smiled and bowed slightly
toward me to acknowledge my presence,
hopefully to forgive my clumsy behavior.
I never saw him again. He died a few
weeks later, news that I received
during a broadcast of the New York
Philharmonic with Leonard Bernstein.
Darius Milhaud was
a horse of an entirely different color.
Although I knew him better than I
knew Poulenc, I never felt completely
comfortable in his presence. I first
met him in Aspen during a trip home
in the summer of 1961. Having been
introduced by a friend that told him
that I was a student of Nadia Boulanger,
which of course was no longer the
case, he invited me to attend his
seminar where, much to my dismay,
he played up the Boulanger connection,
as if to tell his students that her
doctrinaire approach was the only
true path to becoming a composer.
I was only in Aspen for a few days
but long enough to realize that he
had the typically French habit of
treating his students condescendingly.
Though I was treated respectfully,
I was glad to get away, but not before
he asked me to be a judge of the annual
summer composition contest of his
students, an invitation that I found
somewhat embarrassing as I considered
myself only slightly distanced, if
at all, from still being one of them.
Since the end of the war, Milhaud
had divided his time between Paris
and California, teaching alternate
years at Mills College, outside of
San Francisco, and the Paris Conservatory,
but always spending summers teaching
in Aspen.
While in Paris he
resided in a tiny walk-up apartment
in a nondescript building located
midway between the Place Blanche
and the Place Pigalle, in the
same neighborhood as the Moulin
Rouge and other salacious nightspots,
a quartier that was frequented
chiefly by prostitutes, hordes of
tourists looking for cheap thrills,
pickpockets and other low lifes. For
a man paralyzed from the waist down,
obliged to spend his waking hours
in a wheel chair, it was not an ideal
location. Absolutely nothing was handicap
accessible. Each time he left his
apartment, he needed to call a service.
For a composer who might have required
silence or at least an atmosphere
of calm and tranquility, it was a
neighborhood that was one of the noisiest
in Paris at any given time of the
day or night. But his apartment was
not without charm, and on the walls
were paintings or drawings by Derain,
Cocteau, Léger, Dufy and others,
as well as some posters from his earlier
years. In May, 1966, following the
Festival of Contemporary American
Music that I had just produced, the
Milhauds hosted a reception in their
apartment for Festival artists and
composers. Milhaud would be sitting
in his wheel chair by his desk, as
guests would approach to enjoy a few
moments of conversation. This was
at the time of his 75th
birthday, and as I took my turn to
exchange greetings, I told him how
wonderful it must be to reach the
grand old age of seventy-five and
be treated to so many concerts in
his honor. I will never forget how
astonished I was at his reply. "Harris,"
he said, "Ma musique est beaucoup
negligée." (My music
is much neglected.) I never knew if
he was referring to his lack of performances
in France or in the world at large.
But it was clear that he had become
a bitter man, or so it appeared, and
I felt sorry for him.
The only other member
of Les Six I knew was Georges
Auric, although when I arrived in
Paris, I had a letter of introduction
from Leslie Bassett to meet Arthur
Honegger. Leslie had studied with
Honegger several years earlier. Unfortunately
Honegger passed away in November 1955,
so I decided to do the next best thing
and attend his funeral, which was
held at a Protestant cathedral in
Paris. As I entered the Temple
de l’Oratoire, I remember seeing
Jean Cocteau just a few feet away
from where I was standing, dressed
in the full regalia of the Académie
Francaise, wearing the traditional
bicorne hat with the academician’s
sword at his side. How incongruous,
I thought, to see this great iconoclast
looking like a character out of an
operetta, but I was just getting to
know the French. I hadn’t yet understood
why the non-conventional Cocteau wished
to become a member of the so very
conservative French Academy. I was
soon to learn how much the French
were attached to these institutions,
however. Titles and honors were of
such consequence that they often would
flaunt them. Olivier Messaien gave
me his carte de visite (business
card) once. It reads like a CV and
includes his principal honors. I have
kept it to this day.
Messaien Carte de
Visite
One who rose to great
positions of power and prestige was
Georges Auric. As President of the
SACEM and later general director of
the Paris Opera, he was a very imposing
and intimidating figure. He also had
an austere or severe look about him.
As much as I had no problem calling
a Boulez on the telephone, or speaking
with a Milhaud or a Poulenc, I was
timid when it came to addressing Georges
Auric. Young people seem to believe
that those in high places can sit
in judgment on their careers or hand
out favors. This may be true in some
instances but more often than not,
it is not the case. As President of
the SACEM, Auric was probably not
in a position to do anything for anyone,
much less for young composers. Be
that as it may, I didn’t appreciate
that fact then and although I frequently
ran into Auric at concerts or receptions,
rarely did I do more than nod in his
direction, much to my regret today.
Years later when I was a dean, I would
think back on Georges Auric wondering
if I was having the same intimidating
effect on the young people I would
meet, hoping that it was not the case
but fearing that it was.
In the interest of
time I shall interrupt these memoirs
here. Perhaps, if you find them of
interest, I can present a second installment
at a later date. I have yet to comment
on some of the other composers like
Berio or Xenakis with whom I interacted,
and who have been mentioned in passing.
Nor have I discussed the program of
American music sponsored by United
States Information Service (USIS)
that I began in 1965 when I became
music consultant to the Centre
Culturel Américain and
which led to the previously mentioned
Festival of Contemporary American
Music that I produced in 1966 in collaboration
with the French Radio. This
Festival, a series of four concerts,
one of which was with the Philharmonic
Orchestra of the French Radio, another
with the Ars Nova, a French
Radio Chamber Orchestra, showcased
twenty-one different American composers,
ranging from Charles Ives to Milton
Babbitt, Samuel Barber to Elliott
Carter, and Stefan Wolpe to George
Crumb. With one possible exception,
every piece selected was being given
its first performance in France. It
was not only the first manifestation
of its kind in Paris since the Second
World War and the first festival I
ever produced; it became the singular
most important event that precipitated
my return home permanently. But that
story will remain for another day.
Perhaps in the time remaining, however,
we can hear a bit of the Piano
Sonata, which was the catalyst
that set these memoirs in motion,
or I can simply answer any questions
you might have.
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