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1 CELLO COLLECTION, UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT GREENSBORO INTERVIEWEE: Bernard Greenhouse (BG) INTERVIEWERS: William (Mac) Nelson (WN) Joanna Hay, Videographer (JH) PARTICIPANTS: Jou-Ann Hou (JAH) Debi Thompson (DT) DATES: July 13-14, 2009 WN: This is Mac Nelson on July 13th, 2009. I’m here at Casa Verdi in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, the home of Bernard Greenhouse, with whom I am conversing right now. My first question I want to ask you, Bernie, is back in 2005, it was my pleasure to meet you for the first time, in Greensboro, at a celebration in honor of your art and your legacy. And perhaps the most memorable moment, of many, was your performance of the “Song of the Birds” so I thought my first question to you today would be to tell me a little about just what that piece means to you. BG: When I finally got to Casals and worked with him for quite a long time—. It was over two years that I had spent in—with a little period where I came back to do some concerts. But while I was there, there was a program in Toulouse in the south of France and Casals asked me to come along with him. He was going to play the—I think he was going to play the Haydn Concerto and the Saint-Saëns Concerto with the orchestra in Toulouse and it was—I still remember—it was in a bullfight arena. [laughter] There was no backdrop and so the orchestra sounded enormous and every time Casals came in to play one of the phrases in the Haydn Concerto it was hard to hear him. And so I walked up to the stage and I whispered to Casals that it was hard to hear him over the orchestra. And so from that moment on Casals would play a few notes and then he would turn around and tell the orchestra [hand’s gesture] less, less, less, less, less until you could barely hear anything coming out of the orchestra. Well, came the performance and Casals sailed into the cello and you couldn’t hear the orchestra. [laughter] Only Casals—it was very exciting and very beautiful. But on that occasion, as an encore, he spoke with the audience in Catalan, not in Spanish, and he said he was going to play the most famous song of the Catalan nation. And it was called, “The Song of the Birds” and I listened to that performance and I heard Casals at his best. It was so moving and so beautiful and I made up my mind that I was going to learn how to play that piece. Maybe not the way he played it, but certainly as emotional reaching as I possibly could. WN: Yes. Well, you know I have spoken to many people who were at the performance in Greensboro 2 [Videographer, Hay, interrupts, asking Nelson to insert the date, which it turns out, he had already done.] OK, oh, OK, I’ll go ahead and put that in now. This is July 13, 2009. Now, back to “Song of the Birds.” You know in 2005, when you performed that piece in Greensboro, I spoke with many people for whom that was the great highlight. So I think you, for us, you certainly succeeded in coming up with a marvelous and moving interpretation of that music. BG: Well, the challenge with a short piece of that kind, which is three-four minutes long. The challenge is not to make up your mind how you’re going to play it in advance—. There is a communication between music and people. The performer who is able to reach the listener with the emotion of the composer’s wish, has reached a high degree of artistry, which is the important thing for every young artist to attain. It’s not enough to be a circus performer. By circus performer, I don’t mean to make too little of the fact that people can exploit the instrument—which instrument it is, whether it’s the violin or the flute or the cello, to the fullest extent, but there is something else that’s involved and that is an emotion, through the music, which reaches the listener to the point where he can’t even control his own emotions and joins in with the music and the performer. So that when you see people who have been affected by a fine performance take their handkerchiefs out and dry their eyes, that’s when you know you’re listening to an artist. And when you hear enthusiasm, great enthusiasm, for someone who has played an enormously difficult technical thing on the instrument and without a blemish, without any thing to disturb, then you know you’re listening to a consummate technician. So there are two things, there’s a technique for learning the instrument or the voice—and then there’s another technique which is a musical technique. Which one has to have—initially, as a born—a born—gift. WN: Right BG: Something that’s very hard to learn. But if you have it originally it’s there, waiting for you to use after you learn how to play the instrument extremely well. You do that and you come to a dead end with your studies and it’s at that point that you need direction, which goes beyond the circus performer. So that for the rest of your life you have something to really give you happiness and give the same to the listener. Now there, thinking of the “Song of the Birds,” there are ways in which one can change the expression. For instance, just playing the opening—. [he plays the opening phrase of “Song of the Birds”] Now, there’s a change in speed—it’s not—[he plays it again] nobody would be moved by that. But people can be moved by—[plays it again and adds another phrase. He utters slight vocal sounds and breaths.] You see, there’s something that happens that is actually trying to put into words the music which has been written. So—[plays and talks and breathes] and the sound— it’s not—and this time I don’t want—hear the difference between—instead of—You begin to see how artistry has its liberty to make change so that it becomes a language. If you play it straight, anyone, of my students, and they’re all tremendous talents, any one of them can do the [plays 3 straight]— see, I can’t play it that way because for me, that’s not, speech with emotion, it has to have a little bit more of what you’re born with to express the second part of the—. [plays] Do you begin to get the—? WN: I do, I do, in fact it makes me think of—I’ve watched you teach quite a few times now and I’m always so interested in the extent to which you work with students on the subtlety of their vibrato— BG: Right. WN: the variation in the speed of the vibatro. BG: You know, one of the things which I pride myself on, having learned from Casals, and taken away with me, and what I’m trying to get my young students to follow is that the bow is the master. The left hand has to follow what the bow does. So, if the bow does [plays]—the left hand has to do the vibrato the same way—[plays] it can’t be [plays] that kind of vibrato. You lose the whole point of the bow if you have a [plays] that kind of vibrato, which is not a bad sound [plays] if I were playing something different than the “Song of the Birds” I might use that same vibrato. But it has to match what I do with the bow. And that’s something that is lost to a great extent in teaching. Teachers spend a great deal of time phrasing the way they were taught. And thinking that if they are able to get a student to play the opening of the Arpeggione Sonata [plays it straight] like that—success— [shakes head] it isn’t for me. It has to have much more subtlety and a little bit more change of sound color. So it’s a [plays]—. I could put words to that—it sounds silly but there—I could talk— that way. [plays] WN: You remind me of one of your favorite quotations from Casals: The idea of the rainbow— BG: Oh, yes, that’s as he put it. You know his English was quite good, but he had an ability to speak even in Catalan or Spanish and one understood, because he always had the cello during lessons. And when he, even when he began to think that the student wasn’t aware of what he was trying to say, he would take the cello, and play, and one knew immediately—the student knew immediately. I usually have a cello when I teach. I find sometimes its easier to explain to a student with the instrument rather than just with words. With, I’m having such great fun, teaching, for the first time, a little girl, eleven years old, who plays the cello like a fully blown artist. Except, that the bow stays on the string and there’s very little time to breathe. The one thing she forgot about, or didn’t know about, was that in music, if you’re trying to make speech, there’s also time to breathe. And if you don’t, if you keep your bow going all the time, and without just a short moment for a breath, then you’re going to suffocate your entire audience. [laughter] WN: You know I remember one of the students you worked with at Wigmore Hall played the—I think it was the D-minor suite of Bach, and that’s the very observation you made, that she played it brilliantly and we were all with her, but that it had been three or four minutes since we had taken a breath because— 4 BG: That’s exactly right. One has to be aware of that. There has to be room if you’re playing the [plays and breathes at the end of phrases] you see, moments of pure relaxation where a breath becomes the way to continue. Not to stop, but a way to continue without—[plays Prelude to J.S. Bach’s Suite II in d minor (BWV 1008) for solo violoncello] You see—. [right hand gestures in circular motion] WN: Right, and in fact—you’re making me think of, you know I’ve been listening to many of your early LPs, those recordings, and I have told a number of the cellists at UNC Greensboro that we have very nice LPs of the fourth and second suites, your performances of those—it’s an old Renaissance recording, from I guess the 1950’s. BG: Oh that was way back in the fifties. The story about that, I must tell you—the company was the same beginning company which did the—Starker’s Kodály Sonata and they had great success with that. And then they asked me to record the Bach Suites. We, at that time, the Manhattan School was over on the east side of New York and there was not a good auditorium and I recorded it in the auditorium and the results were not terribly good because of the acoustics of the hall. And so they asked me to record it again. And this time they went to the Manhattan School auditorium and I did the two suites over again. Still didn’t like it so much. They wanted resonance, they wanted it to sound like a cathedral. So finally, I wound up recording those two suites in a large bathroom—on the west side of New York. A beautiful apartment with a large bathroom. And the resonance was fantastic. I put [plays note] and it sounded like five cellos playing at the same time. So that’s what came out of that recording. WN: Well, there are a great many cellists lined up to come and listen to it. Because I now have it in our catalog. BG: Well, I’m afraid to listen to it. Because so much has changed in my thinking of those two suites and it would be hard for me because I would be, I would be criticizing, I’m sure, my own playing. I have that privilege, fortunately. [laughter] So if it doesn’t sound what I would like it to sound like today, I have the option of criticizing or putting it aside and let somebody else either like it or criticize it. WN: Well, you know, discussion of your Bach recording brings up this busy solo career that you had prior to the Beaux Arts Trio years. From say, ’47- ’48— BG: Yes— WN: You made quite a few recordings, didn’t you? BG: I did. I did. I think it was not my ambition to become a great soloist. My love was for music, not for my career. Oh, I wanted to play concerts, surely, as many as I possibly could, and with the diversity that I could find for the instrument. So that I played, I had a piano quartet for a while, I had a string quartet for a while, I delved into music and I actually looked for diversity also in the solo repertoire. I found things like the VCello Concerti which had never been performed in America. Things—Victor Herbert had probably had one performance by Victor Herbert himself, who was a cellist. And I found 5 that it was a worthwhile concerto. We had so little repertoire and it might not have been the great work of Beethoven, but I found that the theme was very beautiful and challenging. So I brought that out with that recording in 1951, I believe it was. WN: Didn’t you locate it at the Library of Congress? The score? BG: Yes. Yes. You know the daughter of Admiral Nimitz lives in Wellfleet. She was the music librarian of the Library of—I’m not sure whether it was the Library of Congress or just the city library, music library. But she’s the one who put me on to many pieces, not only the Victor Herbert. She was, you know, she’s—here in Wellfleet, today. She’s older than I am. I won’t tell you how old. [laughter] But she’s still my friend. She comes to every concert my students give. And every concert I’ve played. She’s always there. WN: That’s terrific. And what is her name? BG: Nimitz. Today her name is Lay, because she married a naval officer by the name of Lay. And the offspring are here in Wellfleet also. One of them, Chuck is, he’s very much into, what’s the profession of dividing lots and making sure that, what is that— WN: Is he a surveyor? BG: Surveyor, yes, he’s a surveyor. WN: Interesting, very interesting. And so she helped you find, or— BG: Yes, she is responsible for my finding the Victor Herbert Cello Concerto. WN: I didn’t know that story. That’s a great— BG: Today, I think there are several recordings. I think Yo-Yo has recorded it. And I think that Lynn Harrell has recorded it. So there are fine recordings of it. WN: You had quite a number of pieces written for you. I mean, the Carter Sonata, I think is maybe the most famous. BG: That became world famous. Probably for the cello, the most significant new work of my generation. And that happened on an occasion where I was invited to—to—cocktails along with Ballanchine. I had a girlfriend at that time who was a ballet dancer. And through her I got to know the whole ballet crowd and I was part of it. And Ballanchine was going to see Elliott about a work which he had written for ballet. And I was invited to the occasion at Carter’s home. And during, it was a cocktail party, and during the cocktail period, I had a chance to talk to Elliott. I said, Mr. Carter, have you written anything for cello? And he said, no, I don’t know anything about the cello. I said supposing I come down, play a little bit for you, show you the possibilities of the instrument, would you then be interested in writing, for the cello? Well, I did that. I went to his apartment—any questions he asked about the instrument I tried to show him what was possible and what was not possible. And, about a month later, he called and said, I have a movement of a sonata, I’d like you to come down and play it for me and see whether it works for the cello. So I took my cello and went down, it was only one 6 movement. I have the—you have the manuscript, I believe. [Referring to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Special Collections and University Archives.] WN: Right, right, we sure do. BG: Just as he had handed it to me. Because, eventually, I had it published, after working out many things that were more accessible on the instrument. But that’s the way it went. A couple of months later he had a second movement for me and so on, until finally it was finished and I played the first performance of it at Town Hall in New York and he won every award for composer in the United States. And then I took it Europe, to BBC, played it there, played it in France, and it became a very important part of the cello repertoire. It was a feat for me because it took—it was something quite new in the way of writing because for instance, if there were, if he wanted a ritard, he didn’t write ritard he wrote it out with the music which he was writing. So it had to be done with great care. And I had, I would say, I had twenty-five to forty-five rehearsals with my pianist before we played it the first time in New York. And it was an enormous success and it still today, is an enormous success—. I am very proud of the fact that it was written for me. WN: It’s certainly—one, perhaps the most requested piece in your library, I think. There of course are many pieces that cellists are interested in, but I think you are very closely associated with it, and when I talk about your collection, it doesn’t take long for the cellists to say, ah, the Carter, the Carter Sonata, I’d like to have—. BG: Well, you see, the most difficult thing is when you get a composer’s work and there’s no editing of any kind, you just get notes, and you have to figure out the best way to put those notes together, with slurs and with fingering and with dynamics—. That’s what’s difficult with a new work. And, you get a slow movement which actually has no, when you look at it, it has no emotional content to it, but you have to bring that to the new work. That’s your job—is to make that slow movement, if it’s a slow movement, touching to the listener, it can’t be just reading off a piece of a contemporary music. It has to become a part of your emotions, part of your insight. And then, it becomes well known as a piece and becomes very important. There are other pieces which have been written to me, where I was not able to discern what the composer really had in mind. Played them, in New York. They received reviews which were not really very—discerning or— but they never went on to anything else. And you have manuscripts of some of them, I’m sure. [Interruption, phone rings] WN: Right, that’s um—[laughing – Nelson, as phone is answered, voices in background] BG: Well, that—. I’ve always been interested in contemporary music. The Trio had at least eight or ten works written for it. For the Trio. And the problem with the Trio was that we were so busy playing every night and rehearsing every day for that performance that there was very little time for study of new work. But we did. We had about ten works written for us. 7 WN: And you during that time, I guess it was when the Trio took off, that diminished, somewhat, your ability to perform as a soloist, didn’t it? BG: Well yes, but it didn’t, not completely, because, one of the memorable concerts I’ve had was with Pressler, with Menahem, where we played the complete Beethoven, in New York. We played all the Sonata’s and all the variations together. I didn’t have it recorded, unfortunately, but it was a great experience for me. And I think for Menahem also. And when I did some solo recording, it was with Pressler doing Italian Sonatas for instance, it was Pressler at the Piano, I would have no one else. So we had something very special to begin with. And well, I was with him for thirty-one years. That’s a lifetime of concert playing. And enjoyment. Because we felt as though we belonged together. Right from the start, with Guilet and Pressler and myself. We were together fourteen years, I believe, before Guilet retired, and Isidore Cohen stayed with us for twenty, I think. A little less than twenty, about eighteen years. And he fit right in, as well as Guilet. It was different, perhaps a little different, made a little bit of difference in the Trio, but not enough to change the general goal, musical goal of Pressler and myself. WN: Well, you know, I think it’s one of the great stories in music, in performance of the twentieth century, your establishment of the piano trio literature. Because it’s a marvelous body that was not so well known. BG: You know, we, I listened to the Million Dollar Trio before I even considered chamber music as a career, but I listened to Rubinstein and Heifetz and Piatigorsky, who got together and had maybe two rehearsals and I still remember the story of Mrs. Rubinstein after much effort to get an evenness between the three instruments, Mrs. Rubinstein, after the rehearsal was over, the test rehearsal was over, she went up and moved the microphone a little closer to Rubinstein. [laughter] That was a trio. Three soloists. Three wonderful performers, who weren’t giving up one idea of their own in order to make the others happy. And that’s the difference. Everything that Pressler did, which made me sound better, was wonderful for me. Everything I played to make Izzy Cohen or Guilet sound better, was my effort, and my position in the trio. Was to make all three of us better sounding. And that’s the way it worked. And that’s why we became a great trio. The amalgamation of three different music ideas, which became one music idea, musical idea, and made music much clearer to the listener. WN: You know, you played the Beethoven triple concerto regularly, didn’t you? BG: Innumerable times. [laughter] WN: I think I remember your saying that you loved the performance with Bernard Haitink. BG: Yes, yes, for me that was the absolutely the top performance and you know, the Beethoven triple concerto, much of it is up to the conductor, because really it’s an orchestral piece with three solo voices. But, if you don’t make the orchestral piece into something really, really great, no matter what the soloist does, it’s never going to be a great record. My feeling is that with Haitink, we had achieved the best orchestral 8 performance as well as the greatest help in making the solo parts transparent and a wonderful feeling of connection with the orchestral part. And I had, unfortunately, I did not have a good relationship with another conductor, who’s the Boston Symphony conductor. I had played it with him in San Francisco and I played it with him in Boston, and I hadn’t agreed with him on some of the tempos, and he insisted on his tempos. Until we came to the performance and then I played my tempo. And I didn’t care what happened with the orchestra at that point. I was, I had a musical idea, and I had done it perhaps a hundred times without the director—. Mr. Masur—. WN: That sounds like an exciting experience— BG: That was not a good relationship. Because of that I don’t think we could ever have gotten a decent recording with Masur. But the moment I left the trio and there was a new cellist and a new violinist—in the—the first thing Masur asked Philips Records was to do a recording of the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the new personnel. And of course to have two performances of the Beethoven Triple by the same company was impossible. So they took what I considered to be an unusual recording of the Beethoven— they took it off the list, and put the other one on. So if you buy the Beethoven Triple concerto today, you don’t get my recording or Izzy’s recording, you only get one which was, made, I think, by Mr. Masur, to satisfy his own musical taste. WN: Right, well you know, as a collaborative musician, this entire time, for a long stretch, you were with the Bach Aria Group. BG: [nodding] Twenty-eight years. WN: Twenty-eight years, starting in—.? When did that begin for you? BG: Oh, 1948—I think 1948 or ‘49. WN: So not long after your New York debut? BG: No, it was soon afterwards. And I did that just as a favor to the man who was the sponsor in this, of the Bach Aria Group, William Scheide. The original cellist of the Bach Aria Group was David Soyer. And David wasn’t happy because there was a division. See, Scheide was supporting each member of the Bach Aria Group and wasn’t doing it with some equality and when David found out that he as the continuo player was not getting the same as the oboist or the flutist, he dropped out. Didn’t want to play any more with the group. And they had a radio recording and no cellist to play continuo, and they called me and asked me if I would just step in for the occasion and I did. And it turned out to be enjoyable and when the time came they asked me to stay and I stayed for twenty-eight years. Because I felt, it gave me a great chance to be a soloist. Some of the arias are incredibly beautiful. Some of the arias for cello and voice, for instance, the one I did with Marian Anderson. That’s a memorable—a memorable—because of her voice and also the great depth of the piece itself. What’s in German—It is finished, it is—vollbracht—es is vollbracht,—it means that Christ on the cross is finished. [From the St. John Passion.] It’s an enormously emotional aria. And Marian Anderson did it beautifully, absolutely 9 beautifully. And I felt very much moved by her singing and I think we had quite an unusual record. WN: And when you toured, it was just with soloists, when you were with the Bach Aria Group? BG: Yes. We were each of us considered, well, I was the continuo player, along with the organ. I played continuously for each of the singers. It was piano and continuo. But at every performance I had to have my moment. So there were always opportunities for first class music making. WN: Well that was early music making long before the so-called early music movement started. BG: That’s right. WN: And I doubt, am I right that American audiences rarely heard—? BG: It was a first, wherever we went. We mostly traveled to large universities—setups where—and Carnegie Hall or Town Hall, where we had most of our concerts. And we had our own audience. I would come out on stage and sit down at the cello and look out over the audience and I’d see the same faces in the same seats year after year. They were there. They were interested in our Bach and our performances. And each of us had our friends in the audience. It was a family affair—. The Bach Aria Group. WN: You know, I knew it was important, I remember at the Greensboro celebration, Timothy Eddy and several others, I mean, of course, Eddy and Kalish played the Carter Sonata. But there was also , for Timothy Eddy, I think he was the soloist in a number of the Bach Arias. From— BG: There was always the question of who was going to succeed me—after I left the Bach Aria Group. Strangely enough, Varga Laszlo was one of the people I had chosen to succeed me. And somehow or other he didn’t join in with the group. He wasn’t terribly happy with it. And the next one they tried was Timothy Eddy. And so, Tim became the cellist of the Bach Aria Group. And a very sensitive one. So, my students have taken over, over the years. I can be very proud of some of the people who have worked with me, who are now teaching at the major institutions. People like Paul Katz, Steve Doane, I could go on and on with people who, at universities today, making their mark as chamber musicians, as orchestra players, first cello in many of the orchestras. WN: Paul Katz, of course, was at the celebration and they gave a terrific performance of the Dvorak, the Dumky trio. BG: Yes, yes, and I think it was first class. It was really wonderful. And you know that was our—practically our theme song. WN: That’s why I bring it up. I have your recording. 10 BG: We had, and I enjoyed it, I enjoyed it much more than I did at Tanglewood. When they surprised me, when the last concert of the Beaux Arts Trio, in Tanglewood? And they, Columbia had invited me to the occasion. WN: I see, I see— BG: And the trio played the Dvorak for me—as an encore. WN: Oh, did they play the entire trio as an encore? BG: No, just the one movement which I had probably played about 5,000 times! [laughing] WN: I remember you speaking at one point of trying, or finding something new every time. BG: It’s true, it’s true. I did. Tried, I wasn’t always successful. WN: Yeah, that’s—in fact it seems to me, in reflecting on your life of teaching, that one of the remarkable parts of your career is how extensive your own apprenticeship was. I mean, you started at Juilliard, but then, all the way through Casals, you spent many years perfecting your art. BG: Absolutely, you know, I was never—happy with just having had the effect of Felix Salmond’s playing and artistry. He was a fine musician and I think he was a fine teacher, up to a point. But I needed more than that. I still remember, when I think of it, much later, after one of my recitals, Salmond, Felix Salmond invited me to lunch at his home, just he and his wife and myself. And during the course of the luncheon he said, now tell me Bernard, what could you possibly have learned from Pablo Casals that you didn’t learn from me? [laughing] And then, I guess, at luncheon I was supposed to tell him the truth? [laughter] Well that was a difficult situation. And I finally said, well, there’s difference in style of teaching and through that difference of style, I gained a little bit more than I had at when I was a Juilliard student. And that’s all I could tell him. WN: Well, he put you on the spot, didn’t he! BG: Oh boy, he surely did. [laughter] WN: And then there was Feuermann as well. BG: Oh, Feuermann! Feuermann, he was a demon. [laughter] He played so easily. He made it seem so easy and if I couldn’t do it with the same ease that he could, he would smile and sort of laugh at me. He didn’t have the same regard for me as he did for other cellists. Because I didn’t have the ease of performance that Starker and Miller and other cellists had, who were very wonderful, adept—wonderfully adept at the instrument. I didn’t have that. I had, my, I found that my value as a player was that I didn’t have to play a concerto in order to gain the admiration of an audience. All I had to do is a beautiful phrase in the slow movement! I listen to my Dvorak today, my recording and it shows enough adeptness at the instrument to qualify as a decent cellist. But when it comes to the slow movement, I’d like to compare it to any of the other recordings—and I—even I am moved by it today. 11 WN: That’s terrific. I say that because I know that I have read, that— [Discussion of videotape and break redacted.] END OF TAPE 101_HDV START OF TAPE 102_HDV WN: I was probably in about the ninth grade—[Interruption] BG: —live in the cottage up here every summer. WN: Did she? BG: yes, she lived in my cottage and the two of us had a good summer together. She practiced all day long. And there were many times when we’d talk music and she was here for dinner almost every night. She’s a very good friend of mine. [NELSON recalls that this may be referring to cello student Zara Nelsova(?)] [interruption] WN: This is tape number two on July 13, 2009. I’m Mac Nelson, and I’m speaking at Casa Verdi with Bernard Greenhouse in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. And going back for just a minute to your—what you were just talking about. Sometimes you were a peacemaker in your ensembles, weren’t you? When the musicians had some fiery differences of opinion. BG: Yes—. Especially the first years. Pressler had come from Israel. And he had won the Debussy award, in San Francisco, I believe it was. And he was engaged immediately to play with, I think, he said it was, there were thirty performances with orchestra. With every orchestra in the country, because he was a sensation, as a youngster. Well, when he came—when we called him and asked him to, whether he would be interested in recording the Mozart trios with Daniel and myself, he said yes. He was in Israel, he’d just come in from shopping for his baby, who was just a couple, few months old. And so we, let’s see, we got a positive reply from him at that time. I was recording the Haydn Concerto at the time. And that was my first recording with Izler Solomon, the conductor of the Indianapolis Orchestra. And Daniel Guilet was the concertmaster and contractor of the orchestra. And Daniel lived two blocks away from me on Riverside Drive. He called me and said, Bernie, I’ll pick you up in the taxi and we’ll go down to the recording studio together. So, he called me and I got in the cab with him and on the way down, he said, you know, I played, made a record with a young Israeli who is fabulous, and I think he would make a wonderful chamber music player. I said, who is it? He said, well, it’s a young fellow from Israel, he’s in Israel now. His name is Pressler. I said, well, what are we going to do if he’s in Israel and we’re here, we’re never going to have a trio. He said, well, let’s call him up from the phone booth in the recording studio and see what he says. And so, before the recording started, we went into the recording booth and called him in Israel and asked whether he’d be interested in coming back to record the Mozart Trios. And he said yes. So, he came back and in working together to record the Mozart Trios, which we never did at that time, a call came through from Columbia Artists management, there was a trio at that time, with Benar Heifetz as the— Abineri Trio—Albeneri Trio— 12 Alexexander Schneider—the first initials from each name and they were supposed to play at Tanglewood. And for some reason or another, someone became ill, and they cancelled. And we had the call from Columbia Artists, whether we would be willing to play the evening. And we decided to do so. We’d only been together for about two weeks, or less. And it was a great success. The evening was a great success. And we were told, I forgot who was the conductor at that time, but he said, as long as I am director, we will have the trio every year. WN: Charles Munch? BG: Munch. Yes, he was the head of it, that’s right. So, that’s how it all began. And we, Daniel had several friends amongst the artists, one was Robert Casadesus, another was Zeno Francescatti, and they loved us. We had an evening together at one of—at Daniel’s home and did some playing together and they were very excited about our playing and loved it and why don’t you stay together and do some concerts? And then came the question of a name. And Daniel said, I’ve had the Guilet Quartet, which has been very successful, we made beautiful record(s) together. Why don’t you continue call it The Guilet Trio. And there were two objections. One was Menahem, the other was myself. [laughter] But we didn’t want to hurt him. Menahem and I got together and we said let’s think up a French name. And since he’s French, it’ll be a little gift to him. And so we got together and called it the Beaux Arts Trio. We got into a little trouble with Beaux Arts. They called it Bo Arts. [laughing] There were all kinds of pronunciations. They spelled it Bozart. [laughter] But that’s how we got our name. WN: You, as the trio, visited Toscanini in his later years, didn’t you, and performed for him. BG: Yes, we went to his home, for dinner. But also to play for him. And he wanted to hear the Ravel Trio and so we went to his home in Riverdale and played the trio for him. We were also there for dinner along with one of the famous Italian Singers. I can’t remember who it was. But after the performance, Toscanini was very pleased, you know he was very stern character. But he was quite pleased. And Daniel who was his concert master for a while, after Mischakoff had left the orchestra, Daniel said how do you like our cellist, our new cellist? [laughing] Que Bella Voce! [laughing] Que Bella Voce. WN: And he was a cellist himself, wasn’t he? BG: Yes, he was. WN: And your history with him started quite early, didn’t it? BG: Well, I had, yes. I had been first cellist of CBS and Frank Miller hurt his shoulder on one occasion and he couldn’t play. And they were looking—oh, what happened with poor Benar [Heifetz] on that occasion was awful. Benar became, he was assistant, and became first cello—[shakes head] and I don’t know really whether I should tell this story. But, Toscanini became, they were doing La Mer and there was a place in that for six cellos, player—little—some phrases together. And Benar couldn’t, as first cellist, couldn’t make it. And Toscanini wasn’t very happy with him. And he got angrier and angrier and 13 finally, he took his conductor’s stand and he threw it at Benar. And missed a magnificent Goffriller cello by inches. Would have smashed it to pieces. And he raged at Benar and said you, back of the section. It was either for Benar to walk out or to keep his job until Toscanini was out. So, he did, he took the terrible insult and went back into the section. And then they called me to come and be first cello for the Toscanini orchestra for a week or two. You can imagine [laughing] after hearing the story of him throwing his stand at Benar, how I felt. And I was debating whether it was worth my while to do it, just to have a week under Toscanini. Or two weeks. Finally, I agreed to do it, but I made up my mind if he threw the stand at me, I’d throw it back at him. Just like that, I just made up my mind—that would be it for my career, maybe, but I wasn’t going to take it. But it worked out, he was happy with my playing and I never had a word, and when I left after he came back, Miller came back, I received, I have downstairs a picture of Toscanini dedicated to me. So— WN: Wow, that’s a treasure, isn’t it. BG: It is a—you should have that too. WN: That would be lovely. [laughing] Yes. BG: It’s downstairs on the wall. See these things are all part of a career. I could go on and on and on—incidents that have happened to me—good and bad, but enjoyable. It was a life which couldn’t have been better musically. I’ve had my tragedies, but music has always helped to keep me on a course for enjoying life. And still, today, I can’t read music any more, because of my eyes. I’m legally blind, makes no difference. My ears are still good. And I still know how to teach. And so, life goes on! And I have a lot of students and wonderful students and they make my life a happy one. WN: Well, it’s wonderful to come here and see this house alive with young cellists thrilled to be working with you. Thrilled to take you up on, and I’ll quote you, it’s one of my favorites: you say, “The greatest gift that a performer or a performing artist can give to the young is his collected knowledge gained through association with generations of giants of the past.” Casals, perhaps the greatest of the giants, but—in carrying that out and watching the enthusiasm of these cellists who are here with you now, in this beautiful place, is really remarkable. BG: Well, I don’t remember saying it, but it’s a good quote. It’s honest, it’s the way I feel. Whatever I’ve learned from Felix Salmond, Feuermann, Diran Alexanian who was a great friend of Casals and actually one of the big helpers to get me to Casals. All of it comes together into what I am doing today with the students. The things, words of wisdom which came through many, many years of study myself and remain with me, those words go right from me to the student. And when I hear something which needs correcting, I know that I’m making a statement that not only comes from my mouth but that comes from Feuermann or possibly even my Juilliard teacher, Felix Salmond. I haven’t lost anything from being with them. And when I was thirty years and went to Casals, that’s not young, to continue working, and I still knew, at thirty and having had a 14 very successful debut, or recital, still knew there was something that he could give me that I didn’t have. And, but after I left him, I had finally, I found, now it’s up to what you take from each one and make something of your own. Which is what I’ve done. WN: Didn’t Alexanian comment on the extent to which you had absorbed Casals’ musicianship? BG: Yes, as a matter of fact, there’s an e-major sonata of Boccherini. I don’t know if you know it, it’s [plays cello]—that’s the way it goes and I had copied and actually recorded it, almost to a T like Casals playing. And when I came back from my first year of study and I went to Alexanian’s and played it for him. He said, he started laughing—because he said, you know, I can’t tell whether it’s you or Casals playing. It’s absolutely the same. Everything that he did, you’re doing. Now you have to learn how to do something of your own. And I began to see that he was absolutely right. And so I remade the recording and quite different from Casals’s recording, but the style remains—his influence. WN: Were you, with Alexanian, didn’t you go on a great tour, not a musical tour, but a tour— BG: A gastronomic tour— WN: A gastronomic tour [laughter]— BG: You can bet—you know, what happened was that with Alexanian, he never would accept any money for his work with me. So I would come to his home at 6 o’clock, 7 o’clock in the evening and I’d play for him for an hour, he’d make suggestions, and then 8 o’clock, 8:30, he said, now let’s go have dinner. And the dinner was always the most expensive, the most prestigious restaurant in all of New York. Every meal, it was about four times what my, if I were paying him, what I would have had to pay him for the lesson. But, we had a wonderful time. We’d get to the restaurant at 8 or 8:30, at 1 o’clock they would ask us—they’d like to close the restaurant. We had much discussion because I had different ideas on the technique on the instrument since I had worked with Feuermann—. And his was a very stiff approach. Especially with the bow—it bothered me and I didn’t like—and he was not much of a cellist, himself. But he was an enormously valuable pedagogue. And so I had great knowledge through Alexanian too, and he was always a help and I played for him before each New York recital and he made suggestions that were helpful and so, he was a part of my learning experience too. And—so, there were the four of them. There was Salmond, Felix Salmond, Feuermann, Alexanian, Casals. And in between were violinist friends of mine who had fantastic techniques and made suggestions that helped me. Someone like Oscar Shumsky, I don’t know if you remember that name— WN: I do. BG: But he was compared to the second Heifetz. He was an incredibly fine violinist. And I learned a great deal from him because we played together very often, we had a quartet together, in the Navy. The United States Navy String Quartet. 15 WN: Oh, that’s where you had your great career as an oboist! BG: My great career [laughter]—I’m glad you remember that. My great career as an oboist which ended very abruptly, when we were, the United States Navy Band was playing a concert on the steps of the Capitol as we did every, during the summer, every Saturday night. And there was a solo passage for two oboes and the rest of the band. And the first oboist got sick. And they asked me to move up and play second oboe. To the first oboe. And God, I wasn’t ready to play for a big audience on the oboe and I took the position and then forgot where every hole was on the oboe. I didn’t know which hole to cover. And then nothing but squeaks came out of the instrument— [laughter] during the solo. So, I knew I was in trouble because Lt. Commander who was in charge of the band [he gestures with his finger]—want to see you Greenhouse. So, I went up during the intermission and I said, yes sir, here I am. He said to me, where are your reeds? I said, here sir, and I—he took them out of my hand and stuck them in his pocket and he said that from now on, you just hold the oboe, I don’t want to hear a note. [laughter] That was the end of my career and so— WN: But you got to play plenty of cello concertos in the Navy didn’t you? BG: Oh, yes, that was different, because we had a wonderful orchestra. And there were, there was, Oscar Shumsky was the concert master, Earl Wild was the pianist, Emanuel Vardi was the violist and I was the cellist of the orchestra, and we had the best people in New York and Philadelphia and Chicago—were in the orchestra. But we were the soloists. And every month I had to have another concerto to play. First week was Oscar, second week was Earl Wild, then Vardi, then, at the end of the month, I had to play. I think I played twenty-two concerti with the orchestra. Which was really difficult going, because I had to learn one every month. And I did. It was good for me. So the Navy experience was an interesting one. Because very often we were invited to come and play for a dinner party at the White House. Of course, we were not in attendance, but I still remember one occasion with Churchill when he came to see FDR. And we were playing in an ante-room, playing dinner music. You know, Strauss waltzes and light music. The whole evening. And then at the end of the evening, we were asked, each of us, to play a short piece, for the dinner party, after the dessert. Just a twenty minutes or half hour of music where we each had to play a solo. And then after that, Eleanor would come in and say, would you gentlemen care for a sandwich? [laughter] And she’d take me into, take us, into an ante-room where they had set up small sandwiches and coffee and, so, they were taking care of us, of the little band that came to play for them. [laughter] 27:10 WN: You know, something I want to go back to, you played a bit of the Boccherini Sonata, the one that was identical to the Casals performance. You recorded that on the flip slide of the Valentini Sonata. BG: Did I? WN: Yes, that’s where, it occurs to me, that’s where I have heard it. And I don’t know whether you remember, is that the pre- or post- Casals version? 16 BG: [shakes head] I really can’t tell you. WN: Yeah, we’d have to listen to it wouldn’t we. BG: I would—. I don’t, I really don’t remember it. WN: Well, it was not so long ago, but— BG: But I know I did the recording, memorable to me because young Bartok had a recording studio. The son of Bartok. And I was recording, I think I was recording the Boccherini Sonata and the Valentini Sonata. And the young boy who ran the, who was very excited about my playing. And he called is father and asked him to come to the studio to hear me play. So I met Bartok at that point. Which was for me a great thrill. And of course, I didn’t dare ask him for a cello sonata. But, uh, I should have, because he never wrote one for cello. But I think that’s what his son had in mind, when he called and asked him to come to the studio. So, these are the highlights, some of the highlights of a career. I could go on and on and on. WN: Fine with me if you do—[laughing] BG: But I think I’m getting a little tired now. I think. I—also have to hear a little bit of the cellists who are here. It must be after noon, now. WN: You know the time, I must say, I’m enjoying the conversation and I haven’t paid attention to the time. BG: I haven’t either. DT: It’s one o’clock 29:29 END OF TAPE 102_HDV START OF TAPE 103_HDV BG: —with Casals. WN: Ah, yes. BG: Those are the originals and eventually they’re going to go to the Casals Museum in Vendrell, Spain. But some of them have been translated into English. I don’t know what that is. Is that in English? WN: No, that’s in French. BG: Do you speak French? WN: Not very well. When I was visiting there a got a bit of fluency, but I haven’t had any use of it. 17 BG: Well, there are translations of each of these letters in this pile here. These are all just correspondence with him and some of them are very interesting about the political situation in Spain with Franco and the war and the exiles and the things that I think are interesting for the library, the Casals library. [Debi Thompson is speaking in the background.] WN: And where is the library there? BG: Vendrell, Vendrell, in Spain. But, there are English translations of all of the letters and that’s something that you might be interested in including with the— WN: Yes, I would be very keen on it. BG: I think that’s the one where, the introduction, where he says if you come on such and such a date, I’ll listen to you play. WN: Is that this one? Gosh. ‘46 BG: 1946 WN: Oh, it’s in English: “Thank you for your nice letter I shall be in Prades until sometime in July. You can come at your convenience. Yours Sincerely, Pablo Casals. What a stunning—.” BG: That’s how I started it, and I spent two years with him. Well, this is something you might want to look through. WN: Yes. BG: I have translations for each of the letters, which would be—unless we can get it scanned. Which would be even better and have them look like the originals, rather than just a type written translations. So.— WN: We would certainly do anything from our end to—. BG: Of course, outside of the museum, I don’t think in this country there’s any anything, that’s available that shows his writing, and some of his ideas. And so—it would be an addition I think to you. Now, we have if you can see, there are about two or three hundred pictures here. I don’t even recognize some of the people. Let’s close this up and keep it separate from the pictures. [They begin looking at photographs – large black and white images.] I don’t know how many of these would be valuable for you. You’ll something like this, I don’t know. These are just pictures of the Beaux Arts Trio. Some of them are of me, some of the are of Cohen, and some of them, I don’t see Pressler on this one. But I don’t know whether these would be valuable. But here’s a nice one of Pressler when he was a young man. And this is with John Lessard who is a composer. WN: Was this about the time he came to play Mozart with you? 18 BG: [laughing] Yes, maybe even a little later than that. He was even younger. And this is John Lessard. I see my original Stradivari. WN: Your original, now did it have—? BG: I had another one before this one and it had the herald of the Visconti da Madrona from Milano—painted on the back— WN: Is this the one that was a converted Viola da Gamba? BG: That’s the one. WN: That’s the one. BG: So, now, all of this, all of the photos, maybe if you want to take them and look through. And make choices for the ones which you would like to use in the—. I think it would be, there are so many, and I think a few of them I’d like to keep around. So, you— WN: How about this one? [picture of Greenhouse and Casals] BG: Oh, I like that one. [laughter] I like that one. WN: I’ve seen it reproduced—but I have— BG: So Have I. WN: I guess you have. BG: What’s in this envelope, do you know? [He asks Debi Thompson who is standing behind Mac.] DT: more pictures BG: Oh, pictures. DT: We have a whole drawer full. BG: That’s what I looked like in those days. And this is what Daniel looked like when we started the trio. WN: Guilet BG: Here’s a young one. And this is a funny one at the museum in Holland. [laughter] What is this? DT: That’s from—Arturo— BG: Toscanini. DT: This is all Toscanini . DT: —this is all Toscanini BG: Oh, this is all Toscanini. That, I don’t know how that fits into the.— This is master class. 19 WN: Ah, yes. I’ve seen that expression. BG: It’s original. WN: Oh, Yes. BG: If you could take some of this and look through it and I could do a little listening. WN: Yes, I’ll look through it and you tell me—. you want—and this is one you wish to keep with you— BG: Right WN: Sure, and any, what I’ll do, is show you any that I like and you feel free to say, uh, no, not that one, I can’t part with that. BG: You make your— DT: We can scan some if you need to. And there’s a whole drawer full of Bach Aria, I mean, mixed things, you may want to sit down in front of the drawer and look through it. WN: Yes. BG: Here’s more you can look through. DT: Old pictures of Bernie from all ages. You know.—I think they want to tape your lesson, or listen. If that’s okay. Do you want Ha Young now? BG: Yeah. DT: OK. BG: She wanted to hear, to play “Song of the Birds” and I’m going to show her, from note to note, what can be done with it. BG: “Song of the Birds?” JAH: Yes. BG: You play it the way you like to play. [talks to Jou-An at the piano] Make two repeats. OK? [Jou-An starts on the piano, HaYoung begins to play. Ha Young plays the entire piece.] BG: Bravo. Very Beautiful. Lovely. Now, just two suggestions. When you start. The left hand, it’s not—[plays] it’s [plays]—you hear the difference? And a little motion, movement at the top. [plays most of it, with piano] BG: Now, let’s play together, just the start. [plays] See what happens with the vibrato. Vibrato, has to go with the, [plays] I do a little crescendo with the bow, I also do a little movement in the—. Let’s play the first—[Ha Young plays] Too much—. You did [plays]—I did [plays]. [Ha young plays] a little more vibrato. Good. [He continues to do 20 demonstrate with the cello and few words.] [Ha young plays] Bravo—. I don’t like that fingering—. [plays] [Ha young plays] Bravo. Beautiful. [More playing]—. When you’ve reached the e, you can’t keep the same vibrato. [plays] See, the e, you have to do a little pleading. [plays] that’s it—you want to hear the change [plays] [HaYoung and he play back and forth.] See, you need this much bow for the—[plays] Good—. That’s too long—[plays] like somebody crying [plays, breathes weepily.] good. [plays] separate there—[Ha Young plays] Bravo. Good. Ah. Be careful here. Let it die, [plays] Do the diminuendo. Play separate— Not—. Good— See, I would love out—[breathes] You have to leave time for the handkerchief to come out. [breathes, plays]. It’s very beautiful. Your vibrato is e too slow at that point, there has to be a little more energy. [plays] [Ha Young plays] Good. That’s too fast. [plays] Bravo, bravo. [plays] A little more. Don’t wait with the downbeat. That’s finished. That’s all. That’s all. Don’t play the last chord. If you play it, it should be just, just, tiny tiny. From here. [plays] Oh, yes you’re doing it second time. First time is—Second time is—[Ha Young plays] Stay a little bit—On the g—. And the silence is more important than the sound. [plays] wait—finish—Bravo—. Wait—Vibrato—. Don’t need that. Over here, it’s too—. Short vibrato, like this. Good. OK. Want to do the whole piece now, once through? Okay, I’m going to sit and enjoy it. Before you start, I showed you one way of playing it. I might have been feeling it a little differently. There’s not only one way to play it. If you play it the same way, you lose the novelty of the sound. You might have—[plays]. Instead of—[plays] A little glissando. See, I’ve changed everything, but it’s still good. So you have to, the way you feel at the moment. So, now, forget about everything I’ve told you before. And see what you can do to make me happy with what you do. Change—do your own way now. [Jou-An, starts on the piano. Ha Young plays the entire piece again starting at before 38:00] Fantastic. Repeat that. Bravo. Not—that, that—. [plays] [Greenhouse then turns to the camera] I think, I think, when you play this next time you have a concert, and they ask you to play “Song of the Birds” as an encore, a piece, and when you finish playing, you will see all the, the whole audience with tears. [Ha Young laughs] You see, you have to take time. You must give your audience time to feel the emotion. When you do—. [plays] that’s wrong to begin with—[plays] OK. So now, have fun with it. Now, see what you can do. Okay? Good. Bravo to you. It’s fantastic to hear—eleven years old and is able to speak, already, speak with the cello. And if you want to hear cello playing. Just play a little bit of the—just a little bit of the—Pagannini. Just a few of the variations. It’s okay if you forget, it’s okay. Play a little bit. [laughing – Choi] Oh, I’m sure it’s fine. Go ahead. I want you to see what a fantastic naturally gifted cellist she is. [Ha Young plays Pagannini]. All right, Bravo. Very good. Beautiful. It’s not her own cello. She’s playing on a strange instrument but she overcomes most of those handicaps. She has—well—she’s born to the 21 cello. Can’t say more than that. It’s wonderful. And it’s a pleasure to have you here. And I hope that when you go to Liepzig, perhaps we can arrange for you to come to ( ) Bennicksons (?) castle where Debi and I will be staying for about three or four days before we go to Germany. And I’ll be able to hear you again. Debi, are you here? DT: Yes, dear. BG: I thought maybe we could call Robert— DT: That’s a great idea. BG: —and ask him to invite the two of them to come and stay for a day or two because they will be delighted to have her play “Song of the Birds.” DT: Definitely, I’ll write him immediately. BG: And ask that when we come—during the time that we’re there—we could have Ha Young and her father. DT: Absolutely. BG: Okay, sweetie. Good, Bravo. Don’t forget to take your time. Don’t be like all the other youngsters chewing gum and time and rush through their dancing, rush through everything else. Take your time. Okay? Ah, now, YOU. The young pianist, who didn’t tell me that she played the piano so well. JH: Can you stand together for a minute? BG: Another one on this side. BG: Now, we do a little work? JAH: Do I have to? BG: How far did we get with those pieces? Now, Jou-An has discovered a composer, before the arrival of Boccherini, who was a master cellist and left a tremendous amount of literature for those of us who are cellists. And I think before that we had no knowledge of the teacher of Boccherini or the person who really was responsible for teaching Boccherini. So, I think, what Jou-An has discovered and gotten her PhD in music for having discovered and worked on the teacher of Boccherini. And we never had that information up to now. And what she has is some of the sonatas which were written by this composer, and one hears it in the work of Boccherini. So it didn’t come out of the air with Boccherini, he had a master, who taught him a great deal and made him into one of the earliest of cello virtuousi. Jou-An? She disappeared. JH: She’s coming. She has her cello. And I’m just going to switch tapes. So, we’ll take a quick— END OF TAPE 103_HDV 22 START OF TAPE 104_HDV BG: Jou-An, play one of the earlier pieces that we revised, did a little work on. JAH: Okay. BG: I want to show, actually, how we take a bare piece of music that hasn’t been edited and how you work on it in order to get it to be your performance. JAH: This one? [plays] or this one? [plays] This piece? Or the first? BG: Good, and then show the Boccherini concerto [plays], how similar it is. JAH: I have to get one more music. BG: Do you want to get the? JAH: Another music. BG: I think I must have slept on my fourth finger. [laughter - Nelson] The joint is out of whack. WN: Bernie, here, I wrote down the name of the composer, if you‘d like BG: Oh, you write it nice and big—Now I can actually see it. Graziano! JAH: So, I’ll just play some excerpts from it. [plays] BG: Bravo, good. I see you’ve loosened up your elbow a little, which is good. It’s certainly made your movement, that movement much easier for you. You seem to have a penchant, a desire to make the up bow more important than the down bow. [plays] instead of [plays] not [plays]. The use of the bow going up bow, makes for an accentuation which is not in the music. Play the opening once, I’ll show you what I mean. [Jou-An plays]. BG: Bravo. Very good, excellent. Is this one of the pieces that we edited? JAH: Mmhmm. BG: It is. JAH: Yes, we edited two. BG: Where’s the one, one of them which has not been edited. Have you got one? JAH: We never edited before? BG: Didn’t you have several? JAH: Yes, I do have several. BG: And the others, where are they? You haven’t worked on it yet? JAH: Some of them, I did not work on, some of them, I did. 23 BG: You did. But—what I was wondering is whether we could show how editing is done. Where I feel that there is something which disturbs either the phrase or the way in which you handle the phrase and see if there’s, by editing, you can make the—whatever you’re playing, easier for you. Some of the fingerings which become almost impossible to play, become playable, if you have the right fingering for it. So editing because an important part of what you do. Changes whether you’re playing the regular repertoire of the cello or playing something new, or, there always has to be a great thought given to editing in order to make it easy for you. So if you just for instance, don’t follow an addition by Schirmer’s or what of the European editions, you don’t follow it as the—as the bible. You change, you change it in order to make it your own responsibility. And your own way of making music. It’s very good, Jou-An. I’ve heard you for the last few years and you’ve come along way. You, you have a tendency to exaggerate the pianissimo. JAH: Too soft, right? BG: It ‘s good, it’s good in some cases, but when I hear it exaggerated constantly throughout, so that the difference between your mezzo forte, for instance and mezzo piano is extreme, when the mezzo piano becomes pianississimo, then I have to really concentrate to hear the last few notes that are just barely touched. I think you have to think in terms of the auditorium that you’re playing in. If you were playing in Carnegie Hall, a big hall like that, some of the pianissimo would not be audible, so you have to judge to a great extent. I’m reminded of what I once, what I once was having lunch with Rostropovich at his hotel room, and I said, how, how in the world do you get such an enormous sound out of the cello. He didn’t have a—he called it a Storioni, It wasn’t, it was a loud cello and there was no label inside. And I said to him, but how in the world do you manage to get such a tremendous sound out of the instrument. He said to me, you know, ever since I was a child, my father was a cellist, and he used to say to me, Slava, people have paid good money to hear you play. They want to hear you. Play out, play out. And so he became accustomed to really setting into the instrument and making the most of the instrument’s ability to sing out. And that was one of the most amazing things about Slava’s sound. And I was always surprised by it, until I went specially to St. Petersburg, Russia to celebrate his birthday with him. And I was going to spend a week there, so I got the best hotel in Moscow—in St. Petersburg, it was, and I had nothing to practice and I never like to let my cello go for a whole week without practice, it was too difficult for me then, because I didn’t like the way I sounded when I came back. So, I always managed to get some work done every day. And I didn’t have a cello. And Slava was doing mostly conducting the orchestra, for other soloists, and so I said to him, Gee, I feel very badly because I don’t have a cello to play. He said, oh, use my cello! I’m not going to use it this week, so you can have it. And he gave me his cello to play and I put, I tuned it up and I was amazed with the sound that came out of the cello. I thought, I’m going to be keeping everyone in the hotel up with the sound of this cello, it was so loud. And I began to see that he had an instrument, chosen, and instrument to play which had an enormous sound, and when he actually became the owner of the Duport Stradivari, he had it adjusted so it sounded almost like the instrument, the Storioni, which he called the Storioni—it was a 24 loud instrument, it didn’t sound like Stradivari anymore, it was a loud, loud cello. For it was what he had learned to play as a young man. His father was a cellist. They had chosen to really play out on the instrument. As a wind player, a trumpet player. But, he had the ability to play as softly as you played, also, with a pianissimo which could barely be heard and with a tight vibrato which was very beautiful to listen to for some time. In the Dvorak, for instance. That kind of silvery sound, which you have, in the pianissimo. It’s a way of vibrating which is useful. When sound production is our tool for making music. And we have to use variations of sound, sound color, in order to keep the interest of people, listening. And you have that here in Graziana? JAH: Graziano BG: You have that ability, and it’s very good. There are times when I would want to see a little bit more energy in the forte places, “bebom bom” for instance the opening, have to be done with great spirit. There’s lots of time to do the more singing parts. There must be more beautiful slow movements than I hear in this. There’s nothing which approaches the beauty of the Bb concerto. [plays] Nothing that beautiful. [plays] The predecessor of Boccherini wasn’t that talented with melody. JAH: He has a slow movement—. BG: He was talented as far as the cello was concerned, jumping around the instrument a little bit, but Boccherini was the one who had a feeling for beautiful—slow movements. I don’t hear any of that in his work. JAH: There is a—. BG: —unless I haven’t heard a slow movement. JAH: [nods] BG: and the rest of the piece that you haven’t learned yet, or haven’t worked on. What you have done is prepared for a performance. That first part and it ‘s in very good shape. I would say, you’ll have a great success in recording it. You’re going to record it, aren’t you? JAH: Yes, BG: You have a company that’s going to do it? JAH: UT, Austin, the school. BG: Well, I think it will be interesting. I think especially if you get out a nice brochure which speaks a little bit about the composer and how he helped to make Boccherini into the great cello composer that he was. So, it should turn out to be a fine recording. I wish I could hear the rest of the piece. Maybe—you’re not leaving yet.— JAH: Wednesday. BG: Tomorrow, you can play some of the next movement, for me. 25 JAH: Slow movement. Love to. BG: OK. Alright, well thank you. JAH: Thank you so much. BG: Bravo. I’ll hear some more, tomorrow. I think I’ve had a day. WN: It’s been a day. BG: I think I’ll put this back in the case. I haven’t had a chance to play it much myself, but I only teach now. No more performances. JAH: We will be the audience. BG: Only for students. If I want to explain something that words won’t fulfill. Then I pick up the cello and it speaks better than many words. You’re doing beautifully! Very sensitive. You have something which I don’t find very often. I find cellists who play a lot better than I play. But I don’t find too many who are as sensitive as I’d like them to be. You happen to be a sensitive player. And I like it and I think you ought to now become a spectacular cellist to go along with the other qualities which are yours. So, my idea, for you, was to keep a record of your work. Set yourself a limit, which is a little bit beyond—ease for you. If you can manage to play four hours a day and not wear yourself out, then set a goal of four and a half hours. And if you can take the four and a half hours successfully, without making excuses for yourself, then try five. You have finished your degree, there’s nothing for you ahead unless you really settle down to become a really first class cellist. If you stay the same way, as sensitive as it is now, without being a spectacular cellist, you won’t have the same degree of success. You—to be a virtuoso today on the cello is an essential. I might have—might not have done as well if I had just used my natural talent, which I had, as a fifteen year old or a fourteen year old. And had stopped there. I don’t think I ever would have made any kind of reputation for myself. But there was a period of three years where I practiced six hours a day. I didn’t get off my chair, until I did my work. It was hard labor. But I never had to do it more than three years, to get what I wanted out of it. And it lasted me almost my whole life, because I still have a sound, I still, I can move my fingers if I have to. JAH: —great BG: I can play the repertoire. I can play the Dvorak concerto, I can play the Bach suites. I don’t have a bad sound, I have a good vibrato. It’s amazing for anyone my age – 93. I’m going to be 94 years old and I still pick up the cello, I love the feel of the neck. I love the feeling of the instrument. I know what it can do for me. And so all of the work that I put in, all of these years, is showing itself, now, at the age of 93. And even if I hear it in a student, I have pleasure. I have pleasure because I know how it was gotten. And I expect it of the students as well. When someone comes to work with me, then I want that same dedication, which I had to the instrument. And I hear the results, from week to week, when somebody’s on that kind of schedule. And that’s what I want out of you. That 26 constant pressure, keep that, keep that time for the instrument, becomes invaluable. You don’t miss your time at the instrument. And you’ll, I think you’ll find the love of the instrument will grow more and more, the easier it is to play the instrument. So, get busy! JAH: I will. JH: Joann tell me your whole name: JAH: Jou-An Hou [she spells it out] JH: Thanks. Beautiful. Thank you very much. BG: She’s good isn’t she? JH: Yes she is. WN: Lovely, yes. BG: And she can be better too, [laughter] END OF TAPE 104_HDV START OF TAPE 105_HDV (July 14, 2009) BG: All of my floors are dimpled. JH: I bet they are, permanently dimpled. [laughter] WN: But before we get started, Bernie, I just want to do two things: One is I’m going to just ask about you to reflect on your career in sort of summary. I’m going to mention that in music making and recording, many changes have occurred, during your professional career, but I‘d still love for you to comment on what you feel your best contributions have been. And what you, you know, just reflect on the significance of your career. Is that comfortable for you? BG: Yes. WN: Good. JH: Will you introduce the tape? WN: Oh, I didn’t realize that. OK. This is July 14, 2009, we’re here with Bernard Greenhouse—at his home in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. I’m Mac Nelson and it is my pleasure to be talking with Bernard Greenhouse now. My question for you right now, Bernie, is that in looking at your wonderful, long career, over which time so many changes have taken place in the world, I wondered if you could reflect for us a little bit not only on some of the changes you’ve seen, but on some of your contributions to music. BG: I think, for me, one of the great changes in my life and in my career came because I had heard of Pablo Casals. I’d heard his playing, I immediately was absolutely astounded at 27 the very, very moving way he affected the listener and I was a youngster. And it affected me enormously. And it was the starting of my great love for the cello. And I at that point decided that that was going to be my career if I could possibly do that. My father, who was really a business man, and thought that his son was going to starve to death playing weddings and social affairs with the cello. And he was not very happy about my wanting to play the cello for a career after I’d finished high school. And at that point, I still had in mind the great sound of Casals. I thought the best way of producing that kind of music making for myself was to go to the Juilliard. And I had four years of work with Felix Salmond. They were helpful, very helpful years frme. And then after that, for my career on the cello, I was, it was necessary for me to help my family which were in deep trouble during the terrible depression years. And I accepted a position at CBS as a cellist and became a commercial cellist. Successful one. But one which did not carry my career any further. Until the years where I went to, into the Navy and had the fortunate ability to further my cello career. I was first cellist of the United States Navy Symphony Orchestra. And I had to play as a soloist every month. A major part of the cello repertoire went through my hands at that point. But always, always in the back of my mind was my work with, the possibility of my work with Casals. And on one of my trips from Washington to New York on a pass from the navy, I met Schneider, who was the cellist of the Budapest quartet and he was having a lesson with Diran Alexanian, who had been Casals’s assistant at the Ecole Normale in Paris. And I was delighted to speak to him on the train going back to New York. He was on his way to have a lesson with Diran Alexanian. And invited me to come along. I enjoyed very much the lesson which he had and decided I would seek the man’s ability to teach me something which I had overlooked in my earlier training. And he accepted me as a student and then decided that what I needed more than my work with him was to work with Casals. Which was the best thing that ever happened. And he suggested that he write to Casals and ask whether he would teach me and he did that. And back came a letter which I still have from Casals saying that yes, he was very much involved with people who had given up Spain and come to a little village in Prades to live. But, as things worked out, eventually, I took a boat to Europe. Spoke to Casals again, through correspondence with him, and he finally agreed to hear me play and at that point, I was accepted as a student for the coming year. Which turned out to be two years. I think that was one of the highlights of my whole career. He taught me the language of music. He didn’t teach me how to play the cello, because he, very often, admitted, at that time, that I could play the cello better than he could. I didn’t see it that way. What I wanted from him was not easy to obtain. I decided to give up everything and stay with him in the village for the whole year and then I came back at one point, I came back, played some concerts, solo concerts, and then went back to study with him again. And at that point, of course, I had given up all of the commercial work, and I had a recital in New York every season, at least one. And then concerts around the country. So this was a part of my solo career. And I was very happy with that, as that was going, except that I didn’t have the large management which existed at that time. Hurok was one of the great agents, and CBS—Paley, who was head of CBS at the time had an agency also, the Columbia Artists Management. And after trying, after a very successful recital and 28 beautiful New York reviews, I tried for an agency that would help my career, and I was not successful with the large agencies. They already had their Piatigorsky and then finally they took the first cellist at the philharmonic at that time, who was Leonard Rose and started his career, and I was left at that time without management. And I did find a small management that was interested in my—helping. And it wasn’t adequate. It was a little bit of—not a little bit, it was a struggle to get concerts and to pursue my career. And while I was always interested in furthering my solo career, what was more important to me was my ability to make music and every aspect of great music making. String quartet, trio, or sonatas. So, I wanted the variety. And I gave up the idea of just having a management, just looking for the pleasure of making music. And when the opportunity came along for me to make some records with two other fine young artists of the time, Menahem Pressler, the pianist, and with Daniel Guilet. We decided we’d play some Mozart trios together and that’s how my career started with the trio. Which turned out to be an amazing career because what it did during that period of time we worked together, we established the trio as a viable chamber music group. Not just a group of three soloists getting together to perform. And the success of the group was really quite remarkable. And so that was one of the high points in my career. I would consider it that. All the time this was going on, I was teaching. I had a position at the Juilliard, I had a position at the Manhattan school. Eventually I became part of the New York University system at Stonybrook. And after that, after I retired from that, I taught at Rutgers University in New Jersey, for about five years. And during that time, I was getting on in years and I felt a great love for teaching. And I didn’t ever want to give up my playing, but I became much more interested in continuing my career as a teacher. And fortunately, and I still think I was fortunate, I had such a great love of seeing development in young people that it became the major point of my existence at that time. So, I had those points of interest which set me on a different course, always in making music, but always, different aspects of making music. So there are the changes that brought my life to this point, where, there’s no end. I want to continue teaching as long as I possibly can. I enjoy it, I enjoy the students and I hope they enjoy me. And I hope they learn something from me. And—I would say, my life has been a great success, as far as I’m concerned. It may not have made the great, greatcareer of an amazing soloist, but I’ve had, giving that up, I’ve had the most enjoyable life making music. And, I’m thankful for it. WN: Well, I can tell you, that visiting here in your lovely home, in Wellfleet and seeing and hearing the enthusiasm of the students. You’ve established something very special here. And I think, at least, in my few days here, it seems to me, that there’s a real passion to give back what your great teachers gave to you. BG: Yes, there is that. I’ve had students coming here for the last fifteen – twenty years. I invite them to my home. I used to do all the cooking for them. Today, they’ve taken away that—that chore away from me. I have the same pleasure out of teaching today that I had when I started at the Juilliard, I think it must have been in 1949—‘48 or ‘49. Time has gone quickly, and beautifully for me. I was, strange you know, I was at the doctor’s today, just for a check up and he spent a whole hour with me and he said, well, I don’t 29 know what doctors can do for a 93 year old man. [laughter] I said, well, why don’t you try to listen to some of my records, perhaps I can give you some pleasure that way. [laughter] So, life goes on, pretty much the same way for me. As long as my health holds up, I will be meeting with young, extremely talented people—sometimes with people with great problems—who need help. It’s not only the best talents in the world but I want people who have the love for music making, and I try my best to help those people too. So, it’s fun and it’s exciting and it always will be, as long as I have a young person come to me to say, will you teach me? WN: That’s terrific, that’s wonderful. JH: We’ve taken twenty minutes, so we should probably, are you ready to—we’ve taken about twenty minutes, did you have any other, last-minute— WN: No, I think that’s fine. We want to—The only questions I had, I was interested in identifying a few folks in some of the photographs. BG: You didn’t find? WN: No, I found them, but looking to see if might identify some people in the photographs. BG: Well, I can do that and you can just jot it down on the backs. Maybe we can do that—mmm—time’s getting short. Well, I’ll stay up late. [laughter] WN: Well, we’ll take a look at it a little bit later—. We’ll play it by ear. BG: If there a couple, particularly, there must be a photo of the Bach Aria Group, and I should identify them, the members of that group for you. Eileen Farrell and Norman Farrow. And Jan Pearce and Bill Scheide, who founded the Bach Aria Group—. People like that should be identified, I guess. JH: I have one question, can I ask it? WN: Oh, please do. JH: If you, you’ve had so many varied aspects to your cello career, throughout the 20th century, and here we are finishing up the first decade of the 21st century, you’re working every day with young students, but as you look back, what’s the single contribution to music or to the cello that you feel you have made—. If you had to pick what you feel your single greatest contribution to the music world is—is that? Are you able? BG: When I think of the greatest contribution, I think of the very successful students I have had. Students who are teaching now at the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School, every great music institution in this country and also in Europe. In Germany, in England, in France. The word, which I’ve learned about how to find a voice for myself, I’ve tried to pass on to these students. And I see that they’re successful and for me to have a wonderful young cellist play for me, who is not my student, but my student’s student. For me, that’s passing the, passing the baton on. From generation to another. So I’ve not only done something for my own generation, but for the future people who love the cello and 30 want to learn and find something, perhaps in a library, they’ve found, which will give them an idea of my work—. So it’s—it goes on. Generation to generation. And that’s for me, the best thing in the world. The best gift in the world is to know that my work has had some success. JH: Thank you. WN: Thank you so much BG: You’re welcome. You’re very welcome. Well, it’s a pleasure to do an interview who two people who really have the best questions for me and the best equipment for me and the best photographer for me. [laughter] JH: Hang on, sit there for one moment, if you don’t mind. You and I need to just stand in the picture with him. We’re going to have this—your tech, your technical crew is going to get into the photograph with you, because it’s rolling, so we can all. It’s July 14th, 2009. Good bye. [laughter] BG: OK WN: Very good. BG: OK. JH: so, now I can uplug you BG: Now, I’ll go back to giving a lesson. HAY: And we’ll leave you alone. BG: And my cardiologist has a daughter who’s coming to play cello for me. And we’ll all have a drink together—. JH: I’ll button you back up here, excuse me for getting personal. BG: Oh, it’s a pleasure. [laughter] JH: There we go, I’ve buttoned you back up. [laughter] [phone rings] JH: That was lucky. That’s mine, so I would have been the irresponsible videographer who didn’t turn her phone off. [camera is left rolling after the sound is cut off. We see, videographer moving around, Bernie walking, etc. The other cello is on the sofa, not the Strad.] TAPE 105_HDV ENDS END OF INTERVIEW
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Title | Oral history interview with Bernard Greenhouse, 2009 |
Date | 2009-07 |
Creator | Greenhouse, Bernard, 1916-2011 |
Contributors |
Nelson, William M. Hay, Joanna |
Subject headings | Greenhouse, Bernard, -- 1916-2011 -- Interviews |
Place | Wellfleet (Mass.) |
Description | Interview with Bernard Greenhouse conducted for the "Song of the Birds" documentary in 2009. Greenhouse discusses his life and career. In the final segment, two of his students are featured. |
Type | Text |
Original format | interviews |
Original publisher/note | Greensboro, N.C. : The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. University Libraries |
Language | en |
Contributing institution | Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries |
Source collection | SC007.2 Bernard Greenhouse Personal Papers, 1916-2011 |
Finding aid link | http://libapps.uncg.edu/archon/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=568 |
Rights statement | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/ |
Copyright and usage | NO COPYRIGHT - UNITED STATES. This item has been determined to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. The user is responsible for determining actual copyright status for any reuse of the material. |
Object ID | SC007.2.998 |
Digital publisher | The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University Libraries, PO Box 26170, Greensboro NC 27402-6170, 336.334.5304 |
Full Text | 1 CELLO COLLECTION, UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT GREENSBORO INTERVIEWEE: Bernard Greenhouse (BG) INTERVIEWERS: William (Mac) Nelson (WN) Joanna Hay, Videographer (JH) PARTICIPANTS: Jou-Ann Hou (JAH) Debi Thompson (DT) DATES: July 13-14, 2009 WN: This is Mac Nelson on July 13th, 2009. I’m here at Casa Verdi in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, the home of Bernard Greenhouse, with whom I am conversing right now. My first question I want to ask you, Bernie, is back in 2005, it was my pleasure to meet you for the first time, in Greensboro, at a celebration in honor of your art and your legacy. And perhaps the most memorable moment, of many, was your performance of the “Song of the Birds” so I thought my first question to you today would be to tell me a little about just what that piece means to you. BG: When I finally got to Casals and worked with him for quite a long time—. It was over two years that I had spent in—with a little period where I came back to do some concerts. But while I was there, there was a program in Toulouse in the south of France and Casals asked me to come along with him. He was going to play the—I think he was going to play the Haydn Concerto and the Saint-Saëns Concerto with the orchestra in Toulouse and it was—I still remember—it was in a bullfight arena. [laughter] There was no backdrop and so the orchestra sounded enormous and every time Casals came in to play one of the phrases in the Haydn Concerto it was hard to hear him. And so I walked up to the stage and I whispered to Casals that it was hard to hear him over the orchestra. And so from that moment on Casals would play a few notes and then he would turn around and tell the orchestra [hand’s gesture] less, less, less, less, less until you could barely hear anything coming out of the orchestra. Well, came the performance and Casals sailed into the cello and you couldn’t hear the orchestra. [laughter] Only Casals—it was very exciting and very beautiful. But on that occasion, as an encore, he spoke with the audience in Catalan, not in Spanish, and he said he was going to play the most famous song of the Catalan nation. And it was called, “The Song of the Birds” and I listened to that performance and I heard Casals at his best. It was so moving and so beautiful and I made up my mind that I was going to learn how to play that piece. Maybe not the way he played it, but certainly as emotional reaching as I possibly could. WN: Yes. Well, you know I have spoken to many people who were at the performance in Greensboro 2 [Videographer, Hay, interrupts, asking Nelson to insert the date, which it turns out, he had already done.] OK, oh, OK, I’ll go ahead and put that in now. This is July 13, 2009. Now, back to “Song of the Birds.” You know in 2005, when you performed that piece in Greensboro, I spoke with many people for whom that was the great highlight. So I think you, for us, you certainly succeeded in coming up with a marvelous and moving interpretation of that music. BG: Well, the challenge with a short piece of that kind, which is three-four minutes long. The challenge is not to make up your mind how you’re going to play it in advance—. There is a communication between music and people. The performer who is able to reach the listener with the emotion of the composer’s wish, has reached a high degree of artistry, which is the important thing for every young artist to attain. It’s not enough to be a circus performer. By circus performer, I don’t mean to make too little of the fact that people can exploit the instrument—which instrument it is, whether it’s the violin or the flute or the cello, to the fullest extent, but there is something else that’s involved and that is an emotion, through the music, which reaches the listener to the point where he can’t even control his own emotions and joins in with the music and the performer. So that when you see people who have been affected by a fine performance take their handkerchiefs out and dry their eyes, that’s when you know you’re listening to an artist. And when you hear enthusiasm, great enthusiasm, for someone who has played an enormously difficult technical thing on the instrument and without a blemish, without any thing to disturb, then you know you’re listening to a consummate technician. So there are two things, there’s a technique for learning the instrument or the voice—and then there’s another technique which is a musical technique. Which one has to have—initially, as a born—a born—gift. WN: Right BG: Something that’s very hard to learn. But if you have it originally it’s there, waiting for you to use after you learn how to play the instrument extremely well. You do that and you come to a dead end with your studies and it’s at that point that you need direction, which goes beyond the circus performer. So that for the rest of your life you have something to really give you happiness and give the same to the listener. Now there, thinking of the “Song of the Birds,” there are ways in which one can change the expression. For instance, just playing the opening—. [he plays the opening phrase of “Song of the Birds”] Now, there’s a change in speed—it’s not—[he plays it again] nobody would be moved by that. But people can be moved by—[plays it again and adds another phrase. He utters slight vocal sounds and breaths.] You see, there’s something that happens that is actually trying to put into words the music which has been written. So—[plays and talks and breathes] and the sound— it’s not—and this time I don’t want—hear the difference between—instead of—You begin to see how artistry has its liberty to make change so that it becomes a language. If you play it straight, anyone, of my students, and they’re all tremendous talents, any one of them can do the [plays 3 straight]— see, I can’t play it that way because for me, that’s not, speech with emotion, it has to have a little bit more of what you’re born with to express the second part of the—. [plays] Do you begin to get the—? WN: I do, I do, in fact it makes me think of—I’ve watched you teach quite a few times now and I’m always so interested in the extent to which you work with students on the subtlety of their vibrato— BG: Right. WN: the variation in the speed of the vibatro. BG: You know, one of the things which I pride myself on, having learned from Casals, and taken away with me, and what I’m trying to get my young students to follow is that the bow is the master. The left hand has to follow what the bow does. So, if the bow does [plays]—the left hand has to do the vibrato the same way—[plays] it can’t be [plays] that kind of vibrato. You lose the whole point of the bow if you have a [plays] that kind of vibrato, which is not a bad sound [plays] if I were playing something different than the “Song of the Birds” I might use that same vibrato. But it has to match what I do with the bow. And that’s something that is lost to a great extent in teaching. Teachers spend a great deal of time phrasing the way they were taught. And thinking that if they are able to get a student to play the opening of the Arpeggione Sonata [plays it straight] like that—success— [shakes head] it isn’t for me. It has to have much more subtlety and a little bit more change of sound color. So it’s a [plays]—. I could put words to that—it sounds silly but there—I could talk— that way. [plays] WN: You remind me of one of your favorite quotations from Casals: The idea of the rainbow— BG: Oh, yes, that’s as he put it. You know his English was quite good, but he had an ability to speak even in Catalan or Spanish and one understood, because he always had the cello during lessons. And when he, even when he began to think that the student wasn’t aware of what he was trying to say, he would take the cello, and play, and one knew immediately—the student knew immediately. I usually have a cello when I teach. I find sometimes its easier to explain to a student with the instrument rather than just with words. With, I’m having such great fun, teaching, for the first time, a little girl, eleven years old, who plays the cello like a fully blown artist. Except, that the bow stays on the string and there’s very little time to breathe. The one thing she forgot about, or didn’t know about, was that in music, if you’re trying to make speech, there’s also time to breathe. And if you don’t, if you keep your bow going all the time, and without just a short moment for a breath, then you’re going to suffocate your entire audience. [laughter] WN: You know I remember one of the students you worked with at Wigmore Hall played the—I think it was the D-minor suite of Bach, and that’s the very observation you made, that she played it brilliantly and we were all with her, but that it had been three or four minutes since we had taken a breath because— 4 BG: That’s exactly right. One has to be aware of that. There has to be room if you’re playing the [plays and breathes at the end of phrases] you see, moments of pure relaxation where a breath becomes the way to continue. Not to stop, but a way to continue without—[plays Prelude to J.S. Bach’s Suite II in d minor (BWV 1008) for solo violoncello] You see—. [right hand gestures in circular motion] WN: Right, and in fact—you’re making me think of, you know I’ve been listening to many of your early LPs, those recordings, and I have told a number of the cellists at UNC Greensboro that we have very nice LPs of the fourth and second suites, your performances of those—it’s an old Renaissance recording, from I guess the 1950’s. BG: Oh that was way back in the fifties. The story about that, I must tell you—the company was the same beginning company which did the—Starker’s Kodály Sonata and they had great success with that. And then they asked me to record the Bach Suites. We, at that time, the Manhattan School was over on the east side of New York and there was not a good auditorium and I recorded it in the auditorium and the results were not terribly good because of the acoustics of the hall. And so they asked me to record it again. And this time they went to the Manhattan School auditorium and I did the two suites over again. Still didn’t like it so much. They wanted resonance, they wanted it to sound like a cathedral. So finally, I wound up recording those two suites in a large bathroom—on the west side of New York. A beautiful apartment with a large bathroom. And the resonance was fantastic. I put [plays note] and it sounded like five cellos playing at the same time. So that’s what came out of that recording. WN: Well, there are a great many cellists lined up to come and listen to it. Because I now have it in our catalog. BG: Well, I’m afraid to listen to it. Because so much has changed in my thinking of those two suites and it would be hard for me because I would be, I would be criticizing, I’m sure, my own playing. I have that privilege, fortunately. [laughter] So if it doesn’t sound what I would like it to sound like today, I have the option of criticizing or putting it aside and let somebody else either like it or criticize it. WN: Well, you know, discussion of your Bach recording brings up this busy solo career that you had prior to the Beaux Arts Trio years. From say, ’47- ’48— BG: Yes— WN: You made quite a few recordings, didn’t you? BG: I did. I did. I think it was not my ambition to become a great soloist. My love was for music, not for my career. Oh, I wanted to play concerts, surely, as many as I possibly could, and with the diversity that I could find for the instrument. So that I played, I had a piano quartet for a while, I had a string quartet for a while, I delved into music and I actually looked for diversity also in the solo repertoire. I found things like the VCello Concerti which had never been performed in America. Things—Victor Herbert had probably had one performance by Victor Herbert himself, who was a cellist. And I found 5 that it was a worthwhile concerto. We had so little repertoire and it might not have been the great work of Beethoven, but I found that the theme was very beautiful and challenging. So I brought that out with that recording in 1951, I believe it was. WN: Didn’t you locate it at the Library of Congress? The score? BG: Yes. Yes. You know the daughter of Admiral Nimitz lives in Wellfleet. She was the music librarian of the Library of—I’m not sure whether it was the Library of Congress or just the city library, music library. But she’s the one who put me on to many pieces, not only the Victor Herbert. She was, you know, she’s—here in Wellfleet, today. She’s older than I am. I won’t tell you how old. [laughter] But she’s still my friend. She comes to every concert my students give. And every concert I’ve played. She’s always there. WN: That’s terrific. And what is her name? BG: Nimitz. Today her name is Lay, because she married a naval officer by the name of Lay. And the offspring are here in Wellfleet also. One of them, Chuck is, he’s very much into, what’s the profession of dividing lots and making sure that, what is that— WN: Is he a surveyor? BG: Surveyor, yes, he’s a surveyor. WN: Interesting, very interesting. And so she helped you find, or— BG: Yes, she is responsible for my finding the Victor Herbert Cello Concerto. WN: I didn’t know that story. That’s a great— BG: Today, I think there are several recordings. I think Yo-Yo has recorded it. And I think that Lynn Harrell has recorded it. So there are fine recordings of it. WN: You had quite a number of pieces written for you. I mean, the Carter Sonata, I think is maybe the most famous. BG: That became world famous. Probably for the cello, the most significant new work of my generation. And that happened on an occasion where I was invited to—to—cocktails along with Ballanchine. I had a girlfriend at that time who was a ballet dancer. And through her I got to know the whole ballet crowd and I was part of it. And Ballanchine was going to see Elliott about a work which he had written for ballet. And I was invited to the occasion at Carter’s home. And during, it was a cocktail party, and during the cocktail period, I had a chance to talk to Elliott. I said, Mr. Carter, have you written anything for cello? And he said, no, I don’t know anything about the cello. I said supposing I come down, play a little bit for you, show you the possibilities of the instrument, would you then be interested in writing, for the cello? Well, I did that. I went to his apartment—any questions he asked about the instrument I tried to show him what was possible and what was not possible. And, about a month later, he called and said, I have a movement of a sonata, I’d like you to come down and play it for me and see whether it works for the cello. So I took my cello and went down, it was only one 6 movement. I have the—you have the manuscript, I believe. [Referring to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Special Collections and University Archives.] WN: Right, right, we sure do. BG: Just as he had handed it to me. Because, eventually, I had it published, after working out many things that were more accessible on the instrument. But that’s the way it went. A couple of months later he had a second movement for me and so on, until finally it was finished and I played the first performance of it at Town Hall in New York and he won every award for composer in the United States. And then I took it Europe, to BBC, played it there, played it in France, and it became a very important part of the cello repertoire. It was a feat for me because it took—it was something quite new in the way of writing because for instance, if there were, if he wanted a ritard, he didn’t write ritard he wrote it out with the music which he was writing. So it had to be done with great care. And I had, I would say, I had twenty-five to forty-five rehearsals with my pianist before we played it the first time in New York. And it was an enormous success and it still today, is an enormous success—. I am very proud of the fact that it was written for me. WN: It’s certainly—one, perhaps the most requested piece in your library, I think. There of course are many pieces that cellists are interested in, but I think you are very closely associated with it, and when I talk about your collection, it doesn’t take long for the cellists to say, ah, the Carter, the Carter Sonata, I’d like to have—. BG: Well, you see, the most difficult thing is when you get a composer’s work and there’s no editing of any kind, you just get notes, and you have to figure out the best way to put those notes together, with slurs and with fingering and with dynamics—. That’s what’s difficult with a new work. And, you get a slow movement which actually has no, when you look at it, it has no emotional content to it, but you have to bring that to the new work. That’s your job—is to make that slow movement, if it’s a slow movement, touching to the listener, it can’t be just reading off a piece of a contemporary music. It has to become a part of your emotions, part of your insight. And then, it becomes well known as a piece and becomes very important. There are other pieces which have been written to me, where I was not able to discern what the composer really had in mind. Played them, in New York. They received reviews which were not really very—discerning or— but they never went on to anything else. And you have manuscripts of some of them, I’m sure. [Interruption, phone rings] WN: Right, that’s um—[laughing – Nelson, as phone is answered, voices in background] BG: Well, that—. I’ve always been interested in contemporary music. The Trio had at least eight or ten works written for it. For the Trio. And the problem with the Trio was that we were so busy playing every night and rehearsing every day for that performance that there was very little time for study of new work. But we did. We had about ten works written for us. 7 WN: And you during that time, I guess it was when the Trio took off, that diminished, somewhat, your ability to perform as a soloist, didn’t it? BG: Well yes, but it didn’t, not completely, because, one of the memorable concerts I’ve had was with Pressler, with Menahem, where we played the complete Beethoven, in New York. We played all the Sonata’s and all the variations together. I didn’t have it recorded, unfortunately, but it was a great experience for me. And I think for Menahem also. And when I did some solo recording, it was with Pressler doing Italian Sonatas for instance, it was Pressler at the Piano, I would have no one else. So we had something very special to begin with. And well, I was with him for thirty-one years. That’s a lifetime of concert playing. And enjoyment. Because we felt as though we belonged together. Right from the start, with Guilet and Pressler and myself. We were together fourteen years, I believe, before Guilet retired, and Isidore Cohen stayed with us for twenty, I think. A little less than twenty, about eighteen years. And he fit right in, as well as Guilet. It was different, perhaps a little different, made a little bit of difference in the Trio, but not enough to change the general goal, musical goal of Pressler and myself. WN: Well, you know, I think it’s one of the great stories in music, in performance of the twentieth century, your establishment of the piano trio literature. Because it’s a marvelous body that was not so well known. BG: You know, we, I listened to the Million Dollar Trio before I even considered chamber music as a career, but I listened to Rubinstein and Heifetz and Piatigorsky, who got together and had maybe two rehearsals and I still remember the story of Mrs. Rubinstein after much effort to get an evenness between the three instruments, Mrs. Rubinstein, after the rehearsal was over, the test rehearsal was over, she went up and moved the microphone a little closer to Rubinstein. [laughter] That was a trio. Three soloists. Three wonderful performers, who weren’t giving up one idea of their own in order to make the others happy. And that’s the difference. Everything that Pressler did, which made me sound better, was wonderful for me. Everything I played to make Izzy Cohen or Guilet sound better, was my effort, and my position in the trio. Was to make all three of us better sounding. And that’s the way it worked. And that’s why we became a great trio. The amalgamation of three different music ideas, which became one music idea, musical idea, and made music much clearer to the listener. WN: You know, you played the Beethoven triple concerto regularly, didn’t you? BG: Innumerable times. [laughter] WN: I think I remember your saying that you loved the performance with Bernard Haitink. BG: Yes, yes, for me that was the absolutely the top performance and you know, the Beethoven triple concerto, much of it is up to the conductor, because really it’s an orchestral piece with three solo voices. But, if you don’t make the orchestral piece into something really, really great, no matter what the soloist does, it’s never going to be a great record. My feeling is that with Haitink, we had achieved the best orchestral 8 performance as well as the greatest help in making the solo parts transparent and a wonderful feeling of connection with the orchestral part. And I had, unfortunately, I did not have a good relationship with another conductor, who’s the Boston Symphony conductor. I had played it with him in San Francisco and I played it with him in Boston, and I hadn’t agreed with him on some of the tempos, and he insisted on his tempos. Until we came to the performance and then I played my tempo. And I didn’t care what happened with the orchestra at that point. I was, I had a musical idea, and I had done it perhaps a hundred times without the director—. Mr. Masur—. WN: That sounds like an exciting experience— BG: That was not a good relationship. Because of that I don’t think we could ever have gotten a decent recording with Masur. But the moment I left the trio and there was a new cellist and a new violinist—in the—the first thing Masur asked Philips Records was to do a recording of the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the new personnel. And of course to have two performances of the Beethoven Triple by the same company was impossible. So they took what I considered to be an unusual recording of the Beethoven— they took it off the list, and put the other one on. So if you buy the Beethoven Triple concerto today, you don’t get my recording or Izzy’s recording, you only get one which was, made, I think, by Mr. Masur, to satisfy his own musical taste. WN: Right, well you know, as a collaborative musician, this entire time, for a long stretch, you were with the Bach Aria Group. BG: [nodding] Twenty-eight years. WN: Twenty-eight years, starting in—.? When did that begin for you? BG: Oh, 1948—I think 1948 or ‘49. WN: So not long after your New York debut? BG: No, it was soon afterwards. And I did that just as a favor to the man who was the sponsor in this, of the Bach Aria Group, William Scheide. The original cellist of the Bach Aria Group was David Soyer. And David wasn’t happy because there was a division. See, Scheide was supporting each member of the Bach Aria Group and wasn’t doing it with some equality and when David found out that he as the continuo player was not getting the same as the oboist or the flutist, he dropped out. Didn’t want to play any more with the group. And they had a radio recording and no cellist to play continuo, and they called me and asked me if I would just step in for the occasion and I did. And it turned out to be enjoyable and when the time came they asked me to stay and I stayed for twenty-eight years. Because I felt, it gave me a great chance to be a soloist. Some of the arias are incredibly beautiful. Some of the arias for cello and voice, for instance, the one I did with Marian Anderson. That’s a memorable—a memorable—because of her voice and also the great depth of the piece itself. What’s in German—It is finished, it is—vollbracht—es is vollbracht,—it means that Christ on the cross is finished. [From the St. John Passion.] It’s an enormously emotional aria. And Marian Anderson did it beautifully, absolutely 9 beautifully. And I felt very much moved by her singing and I think we had quite an unusual record. WN: And when you toured, it was just with soloists, when you were with the Bach Aria Group? BG: Yes. We were each of us considered, well, I was the continuo player, along with the organ. I played continuously for each of the singers. It was piano and continuo. But at every performance I had to have my moment. So there were always opportunities for first class music making. WN: Well that was early music making long before the so-called early music movement started. BG: That’s right. WN: And I doubt, am I right that American audiences rarely heard—? BG: It was a first, wherever we went. We mostly traveled to large universities—setups where—and Carnegie Hall or Town Hall, where we had most of our concerts. And we had our own audience. I would come out on stage and sit down at the cello and look out over the audience and I’d see the same faces in the same seats year after year. They were there. They were interested in our Bach and our performances. And each of us had our friends in the audience. It was a family affair—. The Bach Aria Group. WN: You know, I knew it was important, I remember at the Greensboro celebration, Timothy Eddy and several others, I mean, of course, Eddy and Kalish played the Carter Sonata. But there was also , for Timothy Eddy, I think he was the soloist in a number of the Bach Arias. From— BG: There was always the question of who was going to succeed me—after I left the Bach Aria Group. Strangely enough, Varga Laszlo was one of the people I had chosen to succeed me. And somehow or other he didn’t join in with the group. He wasn’t terribly happy with it. And the next one they tried was Timothy Eddy. And so, Tim became the cellist of the Bach Aria Group. And a very sensitive one. So, my students have taken over, over the years. I can be very proud of some of the people who have worked with me, who are now teaching at the major institutions. People like Paul Katz, Steve Doane, I could go on and on with people who, at universities today, making their mark as chamber musicians, as orchestra players, first cello in many of the orchestras. WN: Paul Katz, of course, was at the celebration and they gave a terrific performance of the Dvorak, the Dumky trio. BG: Yes, yes, and I think it was first class. It was really wonderful. And you know that was our—practically our theme song. WN: That’s why I bring it up. I have your recording. 10 BG: We had, and I enjoyed it, I enjoyed it much more than I did at Tanglewood. When they surprised me, when the last concert of the Beaux Arts Trio, in Tanglewood? And they, Columbia had invited me to the occasion. WN: I see, I see— BG: And the trio played the Dvorak for me—as an encore. WN: Oh, did they play the entire trio as an encore? BG: No, just the one movement which I had probably played about 5,000 times! [laughing] WN: I remember you speaking at one point of trying, or finding something new every time. BG: It’s true, it’s true. I did. Tried, I wasn’t always successful. WN: Yeah, that’s—in fact it seems to me, in reflecting on your life of teaching, that one of the remarkable parts of your career is how extensive your own apprenticeship was. I mean, you started at Juilliard, but then, all the way through Casals, you spent many years perfecting your art. BG: Absolutely, you know, I was never—happy with just having had the effect of Felix Salmond’s playing and artistry. He was a fine musician and I think he was a fine teacher, up to a point. But I needed more than that. I still remember, when I think of it, much later, after one of my recitals, Salmond, Felix Salmond invited me to lunch at his home, just he and his wife and myself. And during the course of the luncheon he said, now tell me Bernard, what could you possibly have learned from Pablo Casals that you didn’t learn from me? [laughing] And then, I guess, at luncheon I was supposed to tell him the truth? [laughter] Well that was a difficult situation. And I finally said, well, there’s difference in style of teaching and through that difference of style, I gained a little bit more than I had at when I was a Juilliard student. And that’s all I could tell him. WN: Well, he put you on the spot, didn’t he! BG: Oh boy, he surely did. [laughter] WN: And then there was Feuermann as well. BG: Oh, Feuermann! Feuermann, he was a demon. [laughter] He played so easily. He made it seem so easy and if I couldn’t do it with the same ease that he could, he would smile and sort of laugh at me. He didn’t have the same regard for me as he did for other cellists. Because I didn’t have the ease of performance that Starker and Miller and other cellists had, who were very wonderful, adept—wonderfully adept at the instrument. I didn’t have that. I had, my, I found that my value as a player was that I didn’t have to play a concerto in order to gain the admiration of an audience. All I had to do is a beautiful phrase in the slow movement! I listen to my Dvorak today, my recording and it shows enough adeptness at the instrument to qualify as a decent cellist. But when it comes to the slow movement, I’d like to compare it to any of the other recordings—and I—even I am moved by it today. 11 WN: That’s terrific. I say that because I know that I have read, that— [Discussion of videotape and break redacted.] END OF TAPE 101_HDV START OF TAPE 102_HDV WN: I was probably in about the ninth grade—[Interruption] BG: —live in the cottage up here every summer. WN: Did she? BG: yes, she lived in my cottage and the two of us had a good summer together. She practiced all day long. And there were many times when we’d talk music and she was here for dinner almost every night. She’s a very good friend of mine. [NELSON recalls that this may be referring to cello student Zara Nelsova(?)] [interruption] WN: This is tape number two on July 13, 2009. I’m Mac Nelson, and I’m speaking at Casa Verdi with Bernard Greenhouse in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. And going back for just a minute to your—what you were just talking about. Sometimes you were a peacemaker in your ensembles, weren’t you? When the musicians had some fiery differences of opinion. BG: Yes—. Especially the first years. Pressler had come from Israel. And he had won the Debussy award, in San Francisco, I believe it was. And he was engaged immediately to play with, I think, he said it was, there were thirty performances with orchestra. With every orchestra in the country, because he was a sensation, as a youngster. Well, when he came—when we called him and asked him to, whether he would be interested in recording the Mozart trios with Daniel and myself, he said yes. He was in Israel, he’d just come in from shopping for his baby, who was just a couple, few months old. And so we, let’s see, we got a positive reply from him at that time. I was recording the Haydn Concerto at the time. And that was my first recording with Izler Solomon, the conductor of the Indianapolis Orchestra. And Daniel Guilet was the concertmaster and contractor of the orchestra. And Daniel lived two blocks away from me on Riverside Drive. He called me and said, Bernie, I’ll pick you up in the taxi and we’ll go down to the recording studio together. So, he called me and I got in the cab with him and on the way down, he said, you know, I played, made a record with a young Israeli who is fabulous, and I think he would make a wonderful chamber music player. I said, who is it? He said, well, it’s a young fellow from Israel, he’s in Israel now. His name is Pressler. I said, well, what are we going to do if he’s in Israel and we’re here, we’re never going to have a trio. He said, well, let’s call him up from the phone booth in the recording studio and see what he says. And so, before the recording started, we went into the recording booth and called him in Israel and asked whether he’d be interested in coming back to record the Mozart Trios. And he said yes. So, he came back and in working together to record the Mozart Trios, which we never did at that time, a call came through from Columbia Artists management, there was a trio at that time, with Benar Heifetz as the— Abineri Trio—Albeneri Trio— 12 Alexexander Schneider—the first initials from each name and they were supposed to play at Tanglewood. And for some reason or another, someone became ill, and they cancelled. And we had the call from Columbia Artists, whether we would be willing to play the evening. And we decided to do so. We’d only been together for about two weeks, or less. And it was a great success. The evening was a great success. And we were told, I forgot who was the conductor at that time, but he said, as long as I am director, we will have the trio every year. WN: Charles Munch? BG: Munch. Yes, he was the head of it, that’s right. So, that’s how it all began. And we, Daniel had several friends amongst the artists, one was Robert Casadesus, another was Zeno Francescatti, and they loved us. We had an evening together at one of—at Daniel’s home and did some playing together and they were very excited about our playing and loved it and why don’t you stay together and do some concerts? And then came the question of a name. And Daniel said, I’ve had the Guilet Quartet, which has been very successful, we made beautiful record(s) together. Why don’t you continue call it The Guilet Trio. And there were two objections. One was Menahem, the other was myself. [laughter] But we didn’t want to hurt him. Menahem and I got together and we said let’s think up a French name. And since he’s French, it’ll be a little gift to him. And so we got together and called it the Beaux Arts Trio. We got into a little trouble with Beaux Arts. They called it Bo Arts. [laughing] There were all kinds of pronunciations. They spelled it Bozart. [laughter] But that’s how we got our name. WN: You, as the trio, visited Toscanini in his later years, didn’t you, and performed for him. BG: Yes, we went to his home, for dinner. But also to play for him. And he wanted to hear the Ravel Trio and so we went to his home in Riverdale and played the trio for him. We were also there for dinner along with one of the famous Italian Singers. I can’t remember who it was. But after the performance, Toscanini was very pleased, you know he was very stern character. But he was quite pleased. And Daniel who was his concert master for a while, after Mischakoff had left the orchestra, Daniel said how do you like our cellist, our new cellist? [laughing] Que Bella Voce! [laughing] Que Bella Voce. WN: And he was a cellist himself, wasn’t he? BG: Yes, he was. WN: And your history with him started quite early, didn’t it? BG: Well, I had, yes. I had been first cellist of CBS and Frank Miller hurt his shoulder on one occasion and he couldn’t play. And they were looking—oh, what happened with poor Benar [Heifetz] on that occasion was awful. Benar became, he was assistant, and became first cello—[shakes head] and I don’t know really whether I should tell this story. But, Toscanini became, they were doing La Mer and there was a place in that for six cellos, player—little—some phrases together. And Benar couldn’t, as first cellist, couldn’t make it. And Toscanini wasn’t very happy with him. And he got angrier and angrier and 13 finally, he took his conductor’s stand and he threw it at Benar. And missed a magnificent Goffriller cello by inches. Would have smashed it to pieces. And he raged at Benar and said you, back of the section. It was either for Benar to walk out or to keep his job until Toscanini was out. So, he did, he took the terrible insult and went back into the section. And then they called me to come and be first cello for the Toscanini orchestra for a week or two. You can imagine [laughing] after hearing the story of him throwing his stand at Benar, how I felt. And I was debating whether it was worth my while to do it, just to have a week under Toscanini. Or two weeks. Finally, I agreed to do it, but I made up my mind if he threw the stand at me, I’d throw it back at him. Just like that, I just made up my mind—that would be it for my career, maybe, but I wasn’t going to take it. But it worked out, he was happy with my playing and I never had a word, and when I left after he came back, Miller came back, I received, I have downstairs a picture of Toscanini dedicated to me. So— WN: Wow, that’s a treasure, isn’t it. BG: It is a—you should have that too. WN: That would be lovely. [laughing] Yes. BG: It’s downstairs on the wall. See these things are all part of a career. I could go on and on and on—incidents that have happened to me—good and bad, but enjoyable. It was a life which couldn’t have been better musically. I’ve had my tragedies, but music has always helped to keep me on a course for enjoying life. And still, today, I can’t read music any more, because of my eyes. I’m legally blind, makes no difference. My ears are still good. And I still know how to teach. And so, life goes on! And I have a lot of students and wonderful students and they make my life a happy one. WN: Well, it’s wonderful to come here and see this house alive with young cellists thrilled to be working with you. Thrilled to take you up on, and I’ll quote you, it’s one of my favorites: you say, “The greatest gift that a performer or a performing artist can give to the young is his collected knowledge gained through association with generations of giants of the past.” Casals, perhaps the greatest of the giants, but—in carrying that out and watching the enthusiasm of these cellists who are here with you now, in this beautiful place, is really remarkable. BG: Well, I don’t remember saying it, but it’s a good quote. It’s honest, it’s the way I feel. Whatever I’ve learned from Felix Salmond, Feuermann, Diran Alexanian who was a great friend of Casals and actually one of the big helpers to get me to Casals. All of it comes together into what I am doing today with the students. The things, words of wisdom which came through many, many years of study myself and remain with me, those words go right from me to the student. And when I hear something which needs correcting, I know that I’m making a statement that not only comes from my mouth but that comes from Feuermann or possibly even my Juilliard teacher, Felix Salmond. I haven’t lost anything from being with them. And when I was thirty years and went to Casals, that’s not young, to continue working, and I still knew, at thirty and having had a 14 very successful debut, or recital, still knew there was something that he could give me that I didn’t have. And, but after I left him, I had finally, I found, now it’s up to what you take from each one and make something of your own. Which is what I’ve done. WN: Didn’t Alexanian comment on the extent to which you had absorbed Casals’ musicianship? BG: Yes, as a matter of fact, there’s an e-major sonata of Boccherini. I don’t know if you know it, it’s [plays cello]—that’s the way it goes and I had copied and actually recorded it, almost to a T like Casals playing. And when I came back from my first year of study and I went to Alexanian’s and played it for him. He said, he started laughing—because he said, you know, I can’t tell whether it’s you or Casals playing. It’s absolutely the same. Everything that he did, you’re doing. Now you have to learn how to do something of your own. And I began to see that he was absolutely right. And so I remade the recording and quite different from Casals’s recording, but the style remains—his influence. WN: Were you, with Alexanian, didn’t you go on a great tour, not a musical tour, but a tour— BG: A gastronomic tour— WN: A gastronomic tour [laughter]— BG: You can bet—you know, what happened was that with Alexanian, he never would accept any money for his work with me. So I would come to his home at 6 o’clock, 7 o’clock in the evening and I’d play for him for an hour, he’d make suggestions, and then 8 o’clock, 8:30, he said, now let’s go have dinner. And the dinner was always the most expensive, the most prestigious restaurant in all of New York. Every meal, it was about four times what my, if I were paying him, what I would have had to pay him for the lesson. But, we had a wonderful time. We’d get to the restaurant at 8 or 8:30, at 1 o’clock they would ask us—they’d like to close the restaurant. We had much discussion because I had different ideas on the technique on the instrument since I had worked with Feuermann—. And his was a very stiff approach. Especially with the bow—it bothered me and I didn’t like—and he was not much of a cellist, himself. But he was an enormously valuable pedagogue. And so I had great knowledge through Alexanian too, and he was always a help and I played for him before each New York recital and he made suggestions that were helpful and so, he was a part of my learning experience too. And—so, there were the four of them. There was Salmond, Felix Salmond, Feuermann, Alexanian, Casals. And in between were violinist friends of mine who had fantastic techniques and made suggestions that helped me. Someone like Oscar Shumsky, I don’t know if you remember that name— WN: I do. BG: But he was compared to the second Heifetz. He was an incredibly fine violinist. And I learned a great deal from him because we played together very often, we had a quartet together, in the Navy. The United States Navy String Quartet. 15 WN: Oh, that’s where you had your great career as an oboist! BG: My great career [laughter]—I’m glad you remember that. My great career as an oboist which ended very abruptly, when we were, the United States Navy Band was playing a concert on the steps of the Capitol as we did every, during the summer, every Saturday night. And there was a solo passage for two oboes and the rest of the band. And the first oboist got sick. And they asked me to move up and play second oboe. To the first oboe. And God, I wasn’t ready to play for a big audience on the oboe and I took the position and then forgot where every hole was on the oboe. I didn’t know which hole to cover. And then nothing but squeaks came out of the instrument— [laughter] during the solo. So, I knew I was in trouble because Lt. Commander who was in charge of the band [he gestures with his finger]—want to see you Greenhouse. So, I went up during the intermission and I said, yes sir, here I am. He said to me, where are your reeds? I said, here sir, and I—he took them out of my hand and stuck them in his pocket and he said that from now on, you just hold the oboe, I don’t want to hear a note. [laughter] That was the end of my career and so— WN: But you got to play plenty of cello concertos in the Navy didn’t you? BG: Oh, yes, that was different, because we had a wonderful orchestra. And there were, there was, Oscar Shumsky was the concert master, Earl Wild was the pianist, Emanuel Vardi was the violist and I was the cellist of the orchestra, and we had the best people in New York and Philadelphia and Chicago—were in the orchestra. But we were the soloists. And every month I had to have another concerto to play. First week was Oscar, second week was Earl Wild, then Vardi, then, at the end of the month, I had to play. I think I played twenty-two concerti with the orchestra. Which was really difficult going, because I had to learn one every month. And I did. It was good for me. So the Navy experience was an interesting one. Because very often we were invited to come and play for a dinner party at the White House. Of course, we were not in attendance, but I still remember one occasion with Churchill when he came to see FDR. And we were playing in an ante-room, playing dinner music. You know, Strauss waltzes and light music. The whole evening. And then at the end of the evening, we were asked, each of us, to play a short piece, for the dinner party, after the dessert. Just a twenty minutes or half hour of music where we each had to play a solo. And then after that, Eleanor would come in and say, would you gentlemen care for a sandwich? [laughter] And she’d take me into, take us, into an ante-room where they had set up small sandwiches and coffee and, so, they were taking care of us, of the little band that came to play for them. [laughter] 27:10 WN: You know, something I want to go back to, you played a bit of the Boccherini Sonata, the one that was identical to the Casals performance. You recorded that on the flip slide of the Valentini Sonata. BG: Did I? WN: Yes, that’s where, it occurs to me, that’s where I have heard it. And I don’t know whether you remember, is that the pre- or post- Casals version? 16 BG: [shakes head] I really can’t tell you. WN: Yeah, we’d have to listen to it wouldn’t we. BG: I would—. I don’t, I really don’t remember it. WN: Well, it was not so long ago, but— BG: But I know I did the recording, memorable to me because young Bartok had a recording studio. The son of Bartok. And I was recording, I think I was recording the Boccherini Sonata and the Valentini Sonata. And the young boy who ran the, who was very excited about my playing. And he called is father and asked him to come to the studio to hear me play. So I met Bartok at that point. Which was for me a great thrill. And of course, I didn’t dare ask him for a cello sonata. But, uh, I should have, because he never wrote one for cello. But I think that’s what his son had in mind, when he called and asked him to come to the studio. So, these are the highlights, some of the highlights of a career. I could go on and on and on. WN: Fine with me if you do—[laughing] BG: But I think I’m getting a little tired now. I think. I—also have to hear a little bit of the cellists who are here. It must be after noon, now. WN: You know the time, I must say, I’m enjoying the conversation and I haven’t paid attention to the time. BG: I haven’t either. DT: It’s one o’clock 29:29 END OF TAPE 102_HDV START OF TAPE 103_HDV BG: —with Casals. WN: Ah, yes. BG: Those are the originals and eventually they’re going to go to the Casals Museum in Vendrell, Spain. But some of them have been translated into English. I don’t know what that is. Is that in English? WN: No, that’s in French. BG: Do you speak French? WN: Not very well. When I was visiting there a got a bit of fluency, but I haven’t had any use of it. 17 BG: Well, there are translations of each of these letters in this pile here. These are all just correspondence with him and some of them are very interesting about the political situation in Spain with Franco and the war and the exiles and the things that I think are interesting for the library, the Casals library. [Debi Thompson is speaking in the background.] WN: And where is the library there? BG: Vendrell, Vendrell, in Spain. But, there are English translations of all of the letters and that’s something that you might be interested in including with the— WN: Yes, I would be very keen on it. BG: I think that’s the one where, the introduction, where he says if you come on such and such a date, I’ll listen to you play. WN: Is that this one? Gosh. ‘46 BG: 1946 WN: Oh, it’s in English: “Thank you for your nice letter I shall be in Prades until sometime in July. You can come at your convenience. Yours Sincerely, Pablo Casals. What a stunning—.” BG: That’s how I started it, and I spent two years with him. Well, this is something you might want to look through. WN: Yes. BG: I have translations for each of the letters, which would be—unless we can get it scanned. Which would be even better and have them look like the originals, rather than just a type written translations. So.— WN: We would certainly do anything from our end to—. BG: Of course, outside of the museum, I don’t think in this country there’s any anything, that’s available that shows his writing, and some of his ideas. And so—it would be an addition I think to you. Now, we have if you can see, there are about two or three hundred pictures here. I don’t even recognize some of the people. Let’s close this up and keep it separate from the pictures. [They begin looking at photographs – large black and white images.] I don’t know how many of these would be valuable for you. You’ll something like this, I don’t know. These are just pictures of the Beaux Arts Trio. Some of them are of me, some of the are of Cohen, and some of them, I don’t see Pressler on this one. But I don’t know whether these would be valuable. But here’s a nice one of Pressler when he was a young man. And this is with John Lessard who is a composer. WN: Was this about the time he came to play Mozart with you? 18 BG: [laughing] Yes, maybe even a little later than that. He was even younger. And this is John Lessard. I see my original Stradivari. WN: Your original, now did it have—? BG: I had another one before this one and it had the herald of the Visconti da Madrona from Milano—painted on the back— WN: Is this the one that was a converted Viola da Gamba? BG: That’s the one. WN: That’s the one. BG: So, now, all of this, all of the photos, maybe if you want to take them and look through. And make choices for the ones which you would like to use in the—. I think it would be, there are so many, and I think a few of them I’d like to keep around. So, you— WN: How about this one? [picture of Greenhouse and Casals] BG: Oh, I like that one. [laughter] I like that one. WN: I’ve seen it reproduced—but I have— BG: So Have I. WN: I guess you have. BG: What’s in this envelope, do you know? [He asks Debi Thompson who is standing behind Mac.] DT: more pictures BG: Oh, pictures. DT: We have a whole drawer full. BG: That’s what I looked like in those days. And this is what Daniel looked like when we started the trio. WN: Guilet BG: Here’s a young one. And this is a funny one at the museum in Holland. [laughter] What is this? DT: That’s from—Arturo— BG: Toscanini. DT: This is all Toscanini . DT: —this is all Toscanini BG: Oh, this is all Toscanini. That, I don’t know how that fits into the.— This is master class. 19 WN: Ah, yes. I’ve seen that expression. BG: It’s original. WN: Oh, Yes. BG: If you could take some of this and look through it and I could do a little listening. WN: Yes, I’ll look through it and you tell me—. you want—and this is one you wish to keep with you— BG: Right WN: Sure, and any, what I’ll do, is show you any that I like and you feel free to say, uh, no, not that one, I can’t part with that. BG: You make your— DT: We can scan some if you need to. And there’s a whole drawer full of Bach Aria, I mean, mixed things, you may want to sit down in front of the drawer and look through it. WN: Yes. BG: Here’s more you can look through. DT: Old pictures of Bernie from all ages. You know.—I think they want to tape your lesson, or listen. If that’s okay. Do you want Ha Young now? BG: Yeah. DT: OK. BG: She wanted to hear, to play “Song of the Birds” and I’m going to show her, from note to note, what can be done with it. BG: “Song of the Birds?” JAH: Yes. BG: You play it the way you like to play. [talks to Jou-An at the piano] Make two repeats. OK? [Jou-An starts on the piano, HaYoung begins to play. Ha Young plays the entire piece.] BG: Bravo. Very Beautiful. Lovely. Now, just two suggestions. When you start. The left hand, it’s not—[plays] it’s [plays]—you hear the difference? And a little motion, movement at the top. [plays most of it, with piano] BG: Now, let’s play together, just the start. [plays] See what happens with the vibrato. Vibrato, has to go with the, [plays] I do a little crescendo with the bow, I also do a little movement in the—. Let’s play the first—[Ha Young plays] Too much—. You did [plays]—I did [plays]. [Ha young plays] a little more vibrato. Good. [He continues to do 20 demonstrate with the cello and few words.] [Ha young plays] Bravo—. I don’t like that fingering—. [plays] [Ha young plays] Bravo. Beautiful. [More playing]—. When you’ve reached the e, you can’t keep the same vibrato. [plays] See, the e, you have to do a little pleading. [plays] that’s it—you want to hear the change [plays] [HaYoung and he play back and forth.] See, you need this much bow for the—[plays] Good—. That’s too long—[plays] like somebody crying [plays, breathes weepily.] good. [plays] separate there—[Ha Young plays] Bravo. Good. Ah. Be careful here. Let it die, [plays] Do the diminuendo. Play separate— Not—. Good— See, I would love out—[breathes] You have to leave time for the handkerchief to come out. [breathes, plays]. It’s very beautiful. Your vibrato is e too slow at that point, there has to be a little more energy. [plays] [Ha Young plays] Good. That’s too fast. [plays] Bravo, bravo. [plays] A little more. Don’t wait with the downbeat. That’s finished. That’s all. That’s all. Don’t play the last chord. If you play it, it should be just, just, tiny tiny. From here. [plays] Oh, yes you’re doing it second time. First time is—Second time is—[Ha Young plays] Stay a little bit—On the g—. And the silence is more important than the sound. [plays] wait—finish—Bravo—. Wait—Vibrato—. Don’t need that. Over here, it’s too—. Short vibrato, like this. Good. OK. Want to do the whole piece now, once through? Okay, I’m going to sit and enjoy it. Before you start, I showed you one way of playing it. I might have been feeling it a little differently. There’s not only one way to play it. If you play it the same way, you lose the novelty of the sound. You might have—[plays]. Instead of—[plays] A little glissando. See, I’ve changed everything, but it’s still good. So you have to, the way you feel at the moment. So, now, forget about everything I’ve told you before. And see what you can do to make me happy with what you do. Change—do your own way now. [Jou-An, starts on the piano. Ha Young plays the entire piece again starting at before 38:00] Fantastic. Repeat that. Bravo. Not—that, that—. [plays] [Greenhouse then turns to the camera] I think, I think, when you play this next time you have a concert, and they ask you to play “Song of the Birds” as an encore, a piece, and when you finish playing, you will see all the, the whole audience with tears. [Ha Young laughs] You see, you have to take time. You must give your audience time to feel the emotion. When you do—. [plays] that’s wrong to begin with—[plays] OK. So now, have fun with it. Now, see what you can do. Okay? Good. Bravo to you. It’s fantastic to hear—eleven years old and is able to speak, already, speak with the cello. And if you want to hear cello playing. Just play a little bit of the—just a little bit of the—Pagannini. Just a few of the variations. It’s okay if you forget, it’s okay. Play a little bit. [laughing – Choi] Oh, I’m sure it’s fine. Go ahead. I want you to see what a fantastic naturally gifted cellist she is. [Ha Young plays Pagannini]. All right, Bravo. Very good. Beautiful. It’s not her own cello. She’s playing on a strange instrument but she overcomes most of those handicaps. She has—well—she’s born to the 21 cello. Can’t say more than that. It’s wonderful. And it’s a pleasure to have you here. And I hope that when you go to Liepzig, perhaps we can arrange for you to come to ( ) Bennicksons (?) castle where Debi and I will be staying for about three or four days before we go to Germany. And I’ll be able to hear you again. Debi, are you here? DT: Yes, dear. BG: I thought maybe we could call Robert— DT: That’s a great idea. BG: —and ask him to invite the two of them to come and stay for a day or two because they will be delighted to have her play “Song of the Birds.” DT: Definitely, I’ll write him immediately. BG: And ask that when we come—during the time that we’re there—we could have Ha Young and her father. DT: Absolutely. BG: Okay, sweetie. Good, Bravo. Don’t forget to take your time. Don’t be like all the other youngsters chewing gum and time and rush through their dancing, rush through everything else. Take your time. Okay? Ah, now, YOU. The young pianist, who didn’t tell me that she played the piano so well. JH: Can you stand together for a minute? BG: Another one on this side. BG: Now, we do a little work? JAH: Do I have to? BG: How far did we get with those pieces? Now, Jou-An has discovered a composer, before the arrival of Boccherini, who was a master cellist and left a tremendous amount of literature for those of us who are cellists. And I think before that we had no knowledge of the teacher of Boccherini or the person who really was responsible for teaching Boccherini. So, I think, what Jou-An has discovered and gotten her PhD in music for having discovered and worked on the teacher of Boccherini. And we never had that information up to now. And what she has is some of the sonatas which were written by this composer, and one hears it in the work of Boccherini. So it didn’t come out of the air with Boccherini, he had a master, who taught him a great deal and made him into one of the earliest of cello virtuousi. Jou-An? She disappeared. JH: She’s coming. She has her cello. And I’m just going to switch tapes. So, we’ll take a quick— END OF TAPE 103_HDV 22 START OF TAPE 104_HDV BG: Jou-An, play one of the earlier pieces that we revised, did a little work on. JAH: Okay. BG: I want to show, actually, how we take a bare piece of music that hasn’t been edited and how you work on it in order to get it to be your performance. JAH: This one? [plays] or this one? [plays] This piece? Or the first? BG: Good, and then show the Boccherini concerto [plays], how similar it is. JAH: I have to get one more music. BG: Do you want to get the? JAH: Another music. BG: I think I must have slept on my fourth finger. [laughter - Nelson] The joint is out of whack. WN: Bernie, here, I wrote down the name of the composer, if you‘d like BG: Oh, you write it nice and big—Now I can actually see it. Graziano! JAH: So, I’ll just play some excerpts from it. [plays] BG: Bravo, good. I see you’ve loosened up your elbow a little, which is good. It’s certainly made your movement, that movement much easier for you. You seem to have a penchant, a desire to make the up bow more important than the down bow. [plays] instead of [plays] not [plays]. The use of the bow going up bow, makes for an accentuation which is not in the music. Play the opening once, I’ll show you what I mean. [Jou-An plays]. BG: Bravo. Very good, excellent. Is this one of the pieces that we edited? JAH: Mmhmm. BG: It is. JAH: Yes, we edited two. BG: Where’s the one, one of them which has not been edited. Have you got one? JAH: We never edited before? BG: Didn’t you have several? JAH: Yes, I do have several. BG: And the others, where are they? You haven’t worked on it yet? JAH: Some of them, I did not work on, some of them, I did. 23 BG: You did. But—what I was wondering is whether we could show how editing is done. Where I feel that there is something which disturbs either the phrase or the way in which you handle the phrase and see if there’s, by editing, you can make the—whatever you’re playing, easier for you. Some of the fingerings which become almost impossible to play, become playable, if you have the right fingering for it. So editing because an important part of what you do. Changes whether you’re playing the regular repertoire of the cello or playing something new, or, there always has to be a great thought given to editing in order to make it easy for you. So if you just for instance, don’t follow an addition by Schirmer’s or what of the European editions, you don’t follow it as the—as the bible. You change, you change it in order to make it your own responsibility. And your own way of making music. It’s very good, Jou-An. I’ve heard you for the last few years and you’ve come along way. You, you have a tendency to exaggerate the pianissimo. JAH: Too soft, right? BG: It ‘s good, it’s good in some cases, but when I hear it exaggerated constantly throughout, so that the difference between your mezzo forte, for instance and mezzo piano is extreme, when the mezzo piano becomes pianississimo, then I have to really concentrate to hear the last few notes that are just barely touched. I think you have to think in terms of the auditorium that you’re playing in. If you were playing in Carnegie Hall, a big hall like that, some of the pianissimo would not be audible, so you have to judge to a great extent. I’m reminded of what I once, what I once was having lunch with Rostropovich at his hotel room, and I said, how, how in the world do you get such an enormous sound out of the cello. He didn’t have a—he called it a Storioni, It wasn’t, it was a loud cello and there was no label inside. And I said to him, but how in the world do you manage to get such a tremendous sound out of the instrument. He said to me, you know, ever since I was a child, my father was a cellist, and he used to say to me, Slava, people have paid good money to hear you play. They want to hear you. Play out, play out. And so he became accustomed to really setting into the instrument and making the most of the instrument’s ability to sing out. And that was one of the most amazing things about Slava’s sound. And I was always surprised by it, until I went specially to St. Petersburg, Russia to celebrate his birthday with him. And I was going to spend a week there, so I got the best hotel in Moscow—in St. Petersburg, it was, and I had nothing to practice and I never like to let my cello go for a whole week without practice, it was too difficult for me then, because I didn’t like the way I sounded when I came back. So, I always managed to get some work done every day. And I didn’t have a cello. And Slava was doing mostly conducting the orchestra, for other soloists, and so I said to him, Gee, I feel very badly because I don’t have a cello to play. He said, oh, use my cello! I’m not going to use it this week, so you can have it. And he gave me his cello to play and I put, I tuned it up and I was amazed with the sound that came out of the cello. I thought, I’m going to be keeping everyone in the hotel up with the sound of this cello, it was so loud. And I began to see that he had an instrument, chosen, and instrument to play which had an enormous sound, and when he actually became the owner of the Duport Stradivari, he had it adjusted so it sounded almost like the instrument, the Storioni, which he called the Storioni—it was a 24 loud instrument, it didn’t sound like Stradivari anymore, it was a loud, loud cello. For it was what he had learned to play as a young man. His father was a cellist. They had chosen to really play out on the instrument. As a wind player, a trumpet player. But, he had the ability to play as softly as you played, also, with a pianissimo which could barely be heard and with a tight vibrato which was very beautiful to listen to for some time. In the Dvorak, for instance. That kind of silvery sound, which you have, in the pianissimo. It’s a way of vibrating which is useful. When sound production is our tool for making music. And we have to use variations of sound, sound color, in order to keep the interest of people, listening. And you have that here in Graziana? JAH: Graziano BG: You have that ability, and it’s very good. There are times when I would want to see a little bit more energy in the forte places, “bebom bom” for instance the opening, have to be done with great spirit. There’s lots of time to do the more singing parts. There must be more beautiful slow movements than I hear in this. There’s nothing which approaches the beauty of the Bb concerto. [plays] Nothing that beautiful. [plays] The predecessor of Boccherini wasn’t that talented with melody. JAH: He has a slow movement—. BG: He was talented as far as the cello was concerned, jumping around the instrument a little bit, but Boccherini was the one who had a feeling for beautiful—slow movements. I don’t hear any of that in his work. JAH: There is a—. BG: —unless I haven’t heard a slow movement. JAH: [nods] BG: and the rest of the piece that you haven’t learned yet, or haven’t worked on. What you have done is prepared for a performance. That first part and it ‘s in very good shape. I would say, you’ll have a great success in recording it. You’re going to record it, aren’t you? JAH: Yes, BG: You have a company that’s going to do it? JAH: UT, Austin, the school. BG: Well, I think it will be interesting. I think especially if you get out a nice brochure which speaks a little bit about the composer and how he helped to make Boccherini into the great cello composer that he was. So, it should turn out to be a fine recording. I wish I could hear the rest of the piece. Maybe—you’re not leaving yet.— JAH: Wednesday. BG: Tomorrow, you can play some of the next movement, for me. 25 JAH: Slow movement. Love to. BG: OK. Alright, well thank you. JAH: Thank you so much. BG: Bravo. I’ll hear some more, tomorrow. I think I’ve had a day. WN: It’s been a day. BG: I think I’ll put this back in the case. I haven’t had a chance to play it much myself, but I only teach now. No more performances. JAH: We will be the audience. BG: Only for students. If I want to explain something that words won’t fulfill. Then I pick up the cello and it speaks better than many words. You’re doing beautifully! Very sensitive. You have something which I don’t find very often. I find cellists who play a lot better than I play. But I don’t find too many who are as sensitive as I’d like them to be. You happen to be a sensitive player. And I like it and I think you ought to now become a spectacular cellist to go along with the other qualities which are yours. So, my idea, for you, was to keep a record of your work. Set yourself a limit, which is a little bit beyond—ease for you. If you can manage to play four hours a day and not wear yourself out, then set a goal of four and a half hours. And if you can take the four and a half hours successfully, without making excuses for yourself, then try five. You have finished your degree, there’s nothing for you ahead unless you really settle down to become a really first class cellist. If you stay the same way, as sensitive as it is now, without being a spectacular cellist, you won’t have the same degree of success. You—to be a virtuoso today on the cello is an essential. I might have—might not have done as well if I had just used my natural talent, which I had, as a fifteen year old or a fourteen year old. And had stopped there. I don’t think I ever would have made any kind of reputation for myself. But there was a period of three years where I practiced six hours a day. I didn’t get off my chair, until I did my work. It was hard labor. But I never had to do it more than three years, to get what I wanted out of it. And it lasted me almost my whole life, because I still have a sound, I still, I can move my fingers if I have to. JAH: —great BG: I can play the repertoire. I can play the Dvorak concerto, I can play the Bach suites. I don’t have a bad sound, I have a good vibrato. It’s amazing for anyone my age – 93. I’m going to be 94 years old and I still pick up the cello, I love the feel of the neck. I love the feeling of the instrument. I know what it can do for me. And so all of the work that I put in, all of these years, is showing itself, now, at the age of 93. And even if I hear it in a student, I have pleasure. I have pleasure because I know how it was gotten. And I expect it of the students as well. When someone comes to work with me, then I want that same dedication, which I had to the instrument. And I hear the results, from week to week, when somebody’s on that kind of schedule. And that’s what I want out of you. That 26 constant pressure, keep that, keep that time for the instrument, becomes invaluable. You don’t miss your time at the instrument. And you’ll, I think you’ll find the love of the instrument will grow more and more, the easier it is to play the instrument. So, get busy! JAH: I will. JH: Joann tell me your whole name: JAH: Jou-An Hou [she spells it out] JH: Thanks. Beautiful. Thank you very much. BG: She’s good isn’t she? JH: Yes she is. WN: Lovely, yes. BG: And she can be better too, [laughter] END OF TAPE 104_HDV START OF TAPE 105_HDV (July 14, 2009) BG: All of my floors are dimpled. JH: I bet they are, permanently dimpled. [laughter] WN: But before we get started, Bernie, I just want to do two things: One is I’m going to just ask about you to reflect on your career in sort of summary. I’m going to mention that in music making and recording, many changes have occurred, during your professional career, but I‘d still love for you to comment on what you feel your best contributions have been. And what you, you know, just reflect on the significance of your career. Is that comfortable for you? BG: Yes. WN: Good. JH: Will you introduce the tape? WN: Oh, I didn’t realize that. OK. This is July 14, 2009, we’re here with Bernard Greenhouse—at his home in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. I’m Mac Nelson and it is my pleasure to be talking with Bernard Greenhouse now. My question for you right now, Bernie, is that in looking at your wonderful, long career, over which time so many changes have taken place in the world, I wondered if you could reflect for us a little bit not only on some of the changes you’ve seen, but on some of your contributions to music. BG: I think, for me, one of the great changes in my life and in my career came because I had heard of Pablo Casals. I’d heard his playing, I immediately was absolutely astounded at 27 the very, very moving way he affected the listener and I was a youngster. And it affected me enormously. And it was the starting of my great love for the cello. And I at that point decided that that was going to be my career if I could possibly do that. My father, who was really a business man, and thought that his son was going to starve to death playing weddings and social affairs with the cello. And he was not very happy about my wanting to play the cello for a career after I’d finished high school. And at that point, I still had in mind the great sound of Casals. I thought the best way of producing that kind of music making for myself was to go to the Juilliard. And I had four years of work with Felix Salmond. They were helpful, very helpful years frme. And then after that, for my career on the cello, I was, it was necessary for me to help my family which were in deep trouble during the terrible depression years. And I accepted a position at CBS as a cellist and became a commercial cellist. Successful one. But one which did not carry my career any further. Until the years where I went to, into the Navy and had the fortunate ability to further my cello career. I was first cellist of the United States Navy Symphony Orchestra. And I had to play as a soloist every month. A major part of the cello repertoire went through my hands at that point. But always, always in the back of my mind was my work with, the possibility of my work with Casals. And on one of my trips from Washington to New York on a pass from the navy, I met Schneider, who was the cellist of the Budapest quartet and he was having a lesson with Diran Alexanian, who had been Casals’s assistant at the Ecole Normale in Paris. And I was delighted to speak to him on the train going back to New York. He was on his way to have a lesson with Diran Alexanian. And invited me to come along. I enjoyed very much the lesson which he had and decided I would seek the man’s ability to teach me something which I had overlooked in my earlier training. And he accepted me as a student and then decided that what I needed more than my work with him was to work with Casals. Which was the best thing that ever happened. And he suggested that he write to Casals and ask whether he would teach me and he did that. And back came a letter which I still have from Casals saying that yes, he was very much involved with people who had given up Spain and come to a little village in Prades to live. But, as things worked out, eventually, I took a boat to Europe. Spoke to Casals again, through correspondence with him, and he finally agreed to hear me play and at that point, I was accepted as a student for the coming year. Which turned out to be two years. I think that was one of the highlights of my whole career. He taught me the language of music. He didn’t teach me how to play the cello, because he, very often, admitted, at that time, that I could play the cello better than he could. I didn’t see it that way. What I wanted from him was not easy to obtain. I decided to give up everything and stay with him in the village for the whole year and then I came back at one point, I came back, played some concerts, solo concerts, and then went back to study with him again. And at that point, of course, I had given up all of the commercial work, and I had a recital in New York every season, at least one. And then concerts around the country. So this was a part of my solo career. And I was very happy with that, as that was going, except that I didn’t have the large management which existed at that time. Hurok was one of the great agents, and CBS—Paley, who was head of CBS at the time had an agency also, the Columbia Artists Management. And after trying, after a very successful recital and 28 beautiful New York reviews, I tried for an agency that would help my career, and I was not successful with the large agencies. They already had their Piatigorsky and then finally they took the first cellist at the philharmonic at that time, who was Leonard Rose and started his career, and I was left at that time without management. And I did find a small management that was interested in my—helping. And it wasn’t adequate. It was a little bit of—not a little bit, it was a struggle to get concerts and to pursue my career. And while I was always interested in furthering my solo career, what was more important to me was my ability to make music and every aspect of great music making. String quartet, trio, or sonatas. So, I wanted the variety. And I gave up the idea of just having a management, just looking for the pleasure of making music. And when the opportunity came along for me to make some records with two other fine young artists of the time, Menahem Pressler, the pianist, and with Daniel Guilet. We decided we’d play some Mozart trios together and that’s how my career started with the trio. Which turned out to be an amazing career because what it did during that period of time we worked together, we established the trio as a viable chamber music group. Not just a group of three soloists getting together to perform. And the success of the group was really quite remarkable. And so that was one of the high points in my career. I would consider it that. All the time this was going on, I was teaching. I had a position at the Juilliard, I had a position at the Manhattan school. Eventually I became part of the New York University system at Stonybrook. And after that, after I retired from that, I taught at Rutgers University in New Jersey, for about five years. And during that time, I was getting on in years and I felt a great love for teaching. And I didn’t ever want to give up my playing, but I became much more interested in continuing my career as a teacher. And fortunately, and I still think I was fortunate, I had such a great love of seeing development in young people that it became the major point of my existence at that time. So, I had those points of interest which set me on a different course, always in making music, but always, different aspects of making music. So there are the changes that brought my life to this point, where, there’s no end. I want to continue teaching as long as I possibly can. I enjoy it, I enjoy the students and I hope they enjoy me. And I hope they learn something from me. And—I would say, my life has been a great success, as far as I’m concerned. It may not have made the great, greatcareer of an amazing soloist, but I’ve had, giving that up, I’ve had the most enjoyable life making music. And, I’m thankful for it. WN: Well, I can tell you, that visiting here in your lovely home, in Wellfleet and seeing and hearing the enthusiasm of the students. You’ve established something very special here. And I think, at least, in my few days here, it seems to me, that there’s a real passion to give back what your great teachers gave to you. BG: Yes, there is that. I’ve had students coming here for the last fifteen – twenty years. I invite them to my home. I used to do all the cooking for them. Today, they’ve taken away that—that chore away from me. I have the same pleasure out of teaching today that I had when I started at the Juilliard, I think it must have been in 1949—‘48 or ‘49. Time has gone quickly, and beautifully for me. I was, strange you know, I was at the doctor’s today, just for a check up and he spent a whole hour with me and he said, well, I don’t 29 know what doctors can do for a 93 year old man. [laughter] I said, well, why don’t you try to listen to some of my records, perhaps I can give you some pleasure that way. [laughter] So, life goes on, pretty much the same way for me. As long as my health holds up, I will be meeting with young, extremely talented people—sometimes with people with great problems—who need help. It’s not only the best talents in the world but I want people who have the love for music making, and I try my best to help those people too. So, it’s fun and it’s exciting and it always will be, as long as I have a young person come to me to say, will you teach me? WN: That’s terrific, that’s wonderful. JH: We’ve taken twenty minutes, so we should probably, are you ready to—we’ve taken about twenty minutes, did you have any other, last-minute— WN: No, I think that’s fine. We want to—The only questions I had, I was interested in identifying a few folks in some of the photographs. BG: You didn’t find? WN: No, I found them, but looking to see if might identify some people in the photographs. BG: Well, I can do that and you can just jot it down on the backs. Maybe we can do that—mmm—time’s getting short. Well, I’ll stay up late. [laughter] WN: Well, we’ll take a look at it a little bit later—. We’ll play it by ear. BG: If there a couple, particularly, there must be a photo of the Bach Aria Group, and I should identify them, the members of that group for you. Eileen Farrell and Norman Farrow. And Jan Pearce and Bill Scheide, who founded the Bach Aria Group—. People like that should be identified, I guess. JH: I have one question, can I ask it? WN: Oh, please do. JH: If you, you’ve had so many varied aspects to your cello career, throughout the 20th century, and here we are finishing up the first decade of the 21st century, you’re working every day with young students, but as you look back, what’s the single contribution to music or to the cello that you feel you have made—. If you had to pick what you feel your single greatest contribution to the music world is—is that? Are you able? BG: When I think of the greatest contribution, I think of the very successful students I have had. Students who are teaching now at the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School, every great music institution in this country and also in Europe. In Germany, in England, in France. The word, which I’ve learned about how to find a voice for myself, I’ve tried to pass on to these students. And I see that they’re successful and for me to have a wonderful young cellist play for me, who is not my student, but my student’s student. For me, that’s passing the, passing the baton on. From generation to another. So I’ve not only done something for my own generation, but for the future people who love the cello and 30 want to learn and find something, perhaps in a library, they’ve found, which will give them an idea of my work—. So it’s—it goes on. Generation to generation. And that’s for me, the best thing in the world. The best gift in the world is to know that my work has had some success. JH: Thank you. WN: Thank you so much BG: You’re welcome. You’re very welcome. Well, it’s a pleasure to do an interview who two people who really have the best questions for me and the best equipment for me and the best photographer for me. [laughter] JH: Hang on, sit there for one moment, if you don’t mind. You and I need to just stand in the picture with him. We’re going to have this—your tech, your technical crew is going to get into the photograph with you, because it’s rolling, so we can all. It’s July 14th, 2009. Good bye. [laughter] BG: OK WN: Very good. BG: OK. JH: so, now I can uplug you BG: Now, I’ll go back to giving a lesson. HAY: And we’ll leave you alone. BG: And my cardiologist has a daughter who’s coming to play cello for me. And we’ll all have a drink together—. JH: I’ll button you back up here, excuse me for getting personal. BG: Oh, it’s a pleasure. [laughter] JH: There we go, I’ve buttoned you back up. [laughter] [phone rings] JH: That was lucky. That’s mine, so I would have been the irresponsible videographer who didn’t turn her phone off. [camera is left rolling after the sound is cut off. We see, videographer moving around, Bernie walking, etc. The other cello is on the sofa, not the Strad.] TAPE 105_HDV ENDS END OF INTERVIEW |
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