Filmmaking #8 - Pursuing Valery Gergiev

I first saw Valery Gergiev conduct in March, 1995, when he led the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center. The program included works of Liadov and Berlioz, and concluded with Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony. Gergiev's performance of this familiar piece gave it a dramatic shape I had not heard before. The virtuoso winds and brass played with an unusual variety of colors, and there was a newly acquired urgency and warmth in the sound of the strings.

Orchestra players will tell you of the rare conductor whose gestures and facial expressions convey a deep, personal involvement in the music. Somehow, the musicians understand what the conductor is showing them, and by an inexplicable kind of magic they embody it in their playing and convey it to the audience.

At the Lincoln Center concert in 1995 Gergiev's face was not visible from my seat in the side balcony. But once, when he turned his head in profile to ask for a crescendo from the viola section, I saw his expression, and the phrase he drew from the violas told me they had seen it too. 

I decided to make a film that would try to show how Gergiev connects with an orchestra.

* * * * 

I spent the next eight or nine years pursuing him. I went to several of his concerts but could not get backstage to be introduced. I wrote a couple of letters that were not answered. In the meantime I read about his career and watched many of the videos made about him, some biographical, some centered on a particular piece of music. His life was certainly well documented, but none of the films I saw dealt with his mesmerizing qualities as a conductor.

To be sure, I was busy during those years. I went to China to make a film about Zhao Jiping, a composer who wrote music for major Chinese movies. Among other documentaries I made “Small Wonders” (nominated for an Oscar), about violin teacher Roberta Tzavaras; “Fiddling for the Future,” with Itzhak Perlman; “The Turandot Project,” the Puccini opera staged in Beijing; and “Seven Beethoven Master Classes,” a TV series featuring Daniel Barenboim. All the while I kept trying to talk to Gergiev.

Finally I met someone who not only knew Gergiev but had made a film about him: Lisa Kirk Colburn. Her film, called “Sacred Stage,” featured Gergiev in his role as chief conductor and general director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Gergiev conducted symphonic and operatic excerpts in the film, and he also narrated it – in perfect English – but little of his musical character came through. When I told Colburn about my hope of making a film that focused on Gergiev's way of conducting, the idea of collaborating with me interested her.

Colburn had scheduled a screening of “Sacred Stage” at the Kennedy Center in early 2005, to coincide with a time when Gergiev was to be conducting there, and she thought we could find an occasion to talk to him. I arrived at the Kennedy Center a few minutes before the screening was to begin. As the lights dimmed, Gergiev entered along a side wall. For the first time I saw him close-up. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with thinning hair and the scruffy beginnings of a beard. He took a seat in the last row, with his overcoat collar turned up. I waited till the end of the film to approach him, but during the applause, as the house lights came up, he left the hall.
 
Colburn invited me to a gala dinner the next night, where she hoped for another chance to introduce me to Gergiev. About forty guests sat on both sides of a long table set with candles, flowers and a promising variety of wineglasses. Gergiev was seated at the center, and everyone nearby was trying to talk to him. I sat across the table, but too far down to manage more than a quick greeting. Once or twice I caught him looking at me. But we never spoke.

Lisa Kirk had married Richard D. Colburn in 2002. A Los Angeles business man, philanthropist, and amateur violist, he had become a friend and close advisor to Gergiev, helping him identify potential supporters of the Mariinsky Theater in the U.S. Gergiev called him the wisest man he had ever met. Richard Colburn died in June, 2004.

In July, 2005, Gergiev was to conduct Tchaikovsky's opera “Mazeppa” at the Salzburg Festival. As Richard Colburn had owned a large house outside Salzburg, now vacant, Lisa Colburn and about a dozen friends arranged to use it for a few days while waiting to see the opera, and they invited Gergiev to stay in a small annex on the property during his rehearsals and performances. Lisa Colburn arranged for me to be included – there would finally be an opportunity to meet Gergiev. 

Henry Segerstrom seemed to be the head of the group of guests. Rich, self-made, and shrewd, he was a successful business man from Orange County, California, and had built the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa. His contribution of $40 million went toward a concert hall which bore his name. Gergiev often performed there with his Mariinsky Orchestra, and soon brought Segerstrom into his circle. He became an important contributor to the White Nights Foundation, an American organization that raised money for the Mariinsky Theater. Segerstrom was totally devoted to Gergiev – he always called him “Valery,” as did the rest of the guests. Like all those who orbited around Gergiev, they were first attracted by his music making, and if they had a chance to get to know him, they soon joined those who helped support the Mariinsky. This conferred on them the right to use his first name, they felt, and Gergiev seemed perfectly comfortable with it. 

I arrived at the Colburn house a few days before the opening performance of “Mazeppa.” Gergiev was already in residence, but he never had time to meet with me. He traveled to Salzburg every day for rehearsals, and during the few hours he was at the house he was immersed in discussions with scenery and costume designers, in meetings with members of the Vienna Philharmonic to plan future concerts, or on the phone with his office in St. Petersburg. There was no way for me just to walk up to him and say, “I'd like to make a really interesting film about you – can we discuss it?” I did get to attend some of the rehearsals, however, and could observe Gergiev more from the front. He was completely focussed and said very little. He was able to show the orchestra everything he wanted.

I thought that maybe I'd have a chance to talk to him at one of the dinners held every evening after the rehearsals. The guests, usually numbering about twelve, were seated around a large oval table, making small talk, or participating in general discussions about politics and the history of Salzburg. Gergiev kept up with the conversation in a cordial way.

At one of these dinners someone finally asked me why I was there. I answered that I was exploring the possibility of making a film about Maestro Gergiev. “What kind of film?” someone else asked. “One that explores his special gifts as a conductor,” I answered. This produced blank looks and a change of subject. For the rest of the dinner I said almost nothing. But when Gergiev asked me if I had made “From Mao to Mozart,” I realized that he knew who I was and had begun slowly making up his mind about me. 
 
In the afternoons I strolled around the grounds of Colburn's estate. I also toured Salzburg and visited Mozart's house. In the room where Mozart worked, it occurred to me that after all these centuries, artists were still forced to spend time seeking patrons to support their work. 

After the performance of “Mazeppa,” which was thrilling, I was included in a small dinner party honoring Gergiev. The conversation was all about the exciting performance; it was definitely the wrong time to bring up the film.

The next day, as Gergiev was getting ready to leave for Russia, I met him in the driveway. I told him I hoped to see him soon in New York. He smiled and nodded yes, and his car pulled away. During these Salzburg days, I thought, I hadn't made much progress, but perhaps I had opened a door and left my calling card.

* * * *

During the next few months I waited for Doug Sheldon, Gergiev's manager, to arrange a New York meeting for me with Gergiev. For most of that time, Gergiev was conducting in St. Petersburg or guest-conducting outside the U.S. But when he finally came to New York, Sheldon still seemed in no hurry to get us together.

Meanwhile I was trying determine what the ambitious film I had in mind might cost. It would certainly be expensive, requiring shooting in St. Petersburg, possibly in New York, and in many European locations. The person to see was Margie Smilow, then Producer of Arts Documentaries at Channel Thirteen, WNET. Smilow and I had made several films together, and had become good friends. I asked her whether WNET might become one of the funders of a film about Gergiev, as well as the venue for a broadcast. Smilow was immediately enthusiastic. She said she'd make a draft budget and talk with her colleagues about the possible participation of WNET. 
 
In the first week of March, 2006, almost eight months after our Salzburg meeting, Gergiev was to conduct another series of performances of “Mazeppa,” this time at the Metropolitan Opera. Lisa Colburn managed to arrange an intermission meeting with us in Gergiev's dressing room to discuss the film project. Also present would be Doug Sheldon and Margie Smilow, as well as David Horn and John Walker, producers from Channel 13. Our purpose was to assure Gergiev that we would make an exciting film, and that a major broadcast would be guaranteed. 

Gergiev was not the kind of conductor who liked to be alone at intermission time, contemplating the music that was to follow. During the breaks, his dressing room was usually filled with orchestra executives, potential funders, and famous musicians. His friends and colleagues also knew that they could pop in unannounced to say hello. 

Even before a performance Gergiev shunned solitude. He usually arrived at the hall very near performance time, and after adjusting his tie and combing his hair, go straight out to conduct. He would bow to the audience, step onto the podium, look around at the orchestra, and be immediately lost inside the music.

As our intermission meeting proceeded, Gergiev asked me a challenging question: “With so many films already made about me, why do you want to make another?” Everyone was looking at me. I couldn't really say that my film would be more interesting than all the others, so I was glad to be saved from the embarrassing silence by the sound of the orchestra warming up for the next act. The meeting was now over and I had barely said anything about the film; I felt the whole idea was doomed. But when Gergiev stood up to go, he told me to arrange another meeting with Doug Sheldon. I heard myself say that I had been trying to schedule such a meeting for a long time but that Sheldon had not been terribly cooperative in making it possible. Silence. I could see Sheldon was furious. At this point, the orchestra began tuning to the oboe A; Gergiev said goodbye to everyone and left. I got out of there fast.

The next morning I received a sharp email from Doug Sheldon, excoriating me for complaining about him in front of the others, especially Gergiev. I wrote back an apology, and waited. A week or so later I was surprised to be invited to meet again with Gergiev and Sheldon, this time in the apartment Gergiev stayed in near Lincoln Center. I remember walking up and down Central Park West. I had left much too much time before the meeting, and was experiencing maximum anxiety. Were things gong to be settled? I sat on a nearby bench and agonized.

Gergiev's apartment was on a high floor, with huge picture windows facing New York City in three directions, We sat at the dining room table. The view toward New Jersey reminded me of Steinberg's map of the American continent seen from Manhattan, and looking out past Gergiev, I thought I could see beyond San Francisco all the way to St. Petersburg.

Sheldon asked me if I had a written contract with Lisa Colburn. I said no, but I would feel bad if after all she had done to get the project going, she would not be allowed to continue. He made no reply to this and went on to ask me about Margie Smilow. Sheldon had apparently talked to her since the Met intermission meeting and was impressed with her. I said I was a big fan of Margie Smilow. Sheldon and Gergiev both seemed to like that.

The second question was from Gergiev - whether I could meet with him on April 5 in Miami, to discuss the film during a long afternoon. It was now mid-March. I said indeed I would. (I would have been free to go to Uruguay for such an afternoon.) 

The meeting was adjourned. There was no commitment, but things seemed to be moving forward; I wondered what Sheldon would say to Lisa Colburn. 

One month later, on April 5, 2006, my taxi pulled up to a large gated house in Miami. A servant let me in and a few minutes later I was greeted by M. Lee Pearce, a man of medium height in his late seventies or early eighties. I learned later that he had both medical and law degrees, and that an investment business he owned had earned him enough to endow hospitals, clinics, and several arts organizations. He was also a member of the Distinguished Board of International Advisors to the White Nights Foundation.

The house had many spacious, sunny rooms filled with sculptures and large paintings. Through a rear window I could see a canal, and I noticed a boat moored at a small dock. Pearce escorted me to the dining room where Doug Sheldon was already seated at a large table. 

A few minutes later Gergiev came in and greeted me. I sat at the side of the table, with Gergiev at the head and Sheldon at the foot. The first thing Gergiev did was to line up three cell phones in front of him. He explained that the first one was for his American concert and opera managers, and the second for administrative business at the Mariinsky. The third had a number known to only one person in the world. I guessed it was either a high Russian official, or his mother, who was ailing.

For the next ninety minutes, Gergiev talked non-stop. He began by telling me about the extraordinary growth of the Mariinsky Theater during his tenure, enabling him to raise salaries for the staff and the performers. Then he talked about the Russian economy: six years ago Russia had been one hundred years behind the US and Europe; the national budget was twenty-five billion. Today (2006) the budget was two hundred billion. He talked about oil prices, about Gorbachev, about Yeltsin (whom he called erratic). According to Gergiev, Yeltsin had fired some of the best Russian brains in the country, and sold the oil, gas, and aluminum industries to the oligarchs. In passing, Gergiev mentioned Putin's efforts to resurrect the country.

Barely taking a breath, he picked up the second phone and called someone in Moscow. When he hung up he said he had just told a television producer named Alexander Malinin to expect to hear from me, and gave me his number. 

A few minutes later the Russian phone rang and he talked for about ten minutes. When he hung up, he said he had just instructed his office to contact a ballet dancer who did not want to participate in an upcoming international tour. We waited a few minutes, and the phone rang – it was the dancer; I could hear her voice on the phone. When the brief conversation was over, Gergiev told us, with some satisfaction, that he had praised her lavishly while strongly hinting that by not going on tour, she might jeopardize her standing in the company. He was sure that now she would agree to travel with the troupe.

He then described a terrible fire in 2003 that destroyed a storage warehouse next to the Mariinsky theater. It contained all the company's sets and costumes: a disaster. Gergiev had gone the next day to Moscow, and had spoken to a meeting of six or seven rich men convened by his good friend the mayor. The mayor demanded that each of those present immediately pledge to contribute $1 million within a few days to replace the warehouse and its contents. Then Gergiev switched to another story about how he had raised money for a new concert hall, budgeted at $10 million, but in the end at a cost of $30 million – the first building in Russia ever financed by private funds, he said. He had quickly sold 13 million tickets – next season the figure would no doubt climb to 15 million. 

Gergiev never said anything about the film, but I supposed that filling me in with all the background material was his way of indicating that we were going forward. When the taxi arrived to take me back to the airport, he walked me to the door and we shook hands. Then he thought of something else to tell me. He mentioned the name of a television producer who was pursuing him. “Avoid him,” he said. “He's a born idiot.” 

* * * *

Later that month Margie Smilow negotiated contracts for a ninety-minute film with Gergiev, the White Nights Foundation, and Channel 13. Soon after, I signed my own contract.

Next chapter: the making of the Gergiev film.

Filmmaking #7 - ROBERTA TZAVARAS and the East Harlem Violin Program

On May 9, 1991, Itzhak Perlman saw a report on the 11 o'clock news that arts instruction in the New York public schools was being cut city-wide. The broadcast included a short piece about an elementary-school violin program run by Roberta Tzavaras, a teacher in one of the schools. Shown playing along with a class of about twenty students, Roberta scolded the kids and yelled at them by name, but she was unfailingly encouraging: “Jonathan, you're flat. More bow, Jose, more bow – watch Melissa. That's it!”

The fifth- and sixth-graders in Roberta's class were playing at a level beyond anything Perlman would have thought possible. When Roberta spoke to the camera, eloquently defending the value of teaching music in the schools, Perlman was hooked. He decided he had to help. 

Somehow he found Roberta's' phone number and the next day he called her. “Hello, Roberta Tzavaras? This is Itzhak Perlman.” “Sure it is,” she answered, and started to hang up. But something about that deep voice made her hesitate. 

Perlman went directly to the point: he wanted to help Roberta fight to keep the violin program. He was impressed that her students were learning to make music themselves. Unlike what usually happens in the public schools, they were not just listening to recordings, reading about composers, and once or twice a year filling into the auditorium to hear visiting chamber groups mix performance with pleasant chat about the music and demonstrations of their instruments. Imagine watching a visiting group of professional mathematicians adding and subtracting in front of you.

Roberta's program was available to first graders in three elementary schools in East Harlem. No special musical ability was required; the children were chosen by lottery, not by audition. Most of them had never seen a violin – it took them several weeks just to get used to a small beginner's model parked under their chins. They began with easy arrangements of children’s' songs and folk tunes. By fourth or fifth grade they were playing snappy versions of standard Baroque composers, even having a go at Bach. 

At the end of every school year, Roberta presented a gala concert in which students of every level took part. With all the parents cramming the school auditorium, it felt like a sports event – lots of noise, except during the music, when no one seemed to breathe. The grand finale was always the Suzuki “Allegro,” a piece with a dramatic moment of silence just before the end. “The kids love the pause to be as long as possible,” Roberta said. “I make it outrageously long. Sometimes I threaten to go out and get a coffee while they're waiting.” Since 1980, when the program started, no student has ever come in too early with the closing phrase. 

When the TV program asked about her teaching style, Roberta answered, “I'm tough but caring. To my students, the other kids say, 'Ooh, you're in violin, that's not easy.' And that's true. I send notes home, I make a lot of demands. I'm not tolerant of anyone fooling around in my class.” 

* * *

Some of the parents of Roberta's students believed that the only reason to study an instrument was to develop the kind of disciplined personality their child would need for future professional success. They had heard about business executives who claimed that learning music in childhood contributed to their career advancement. Roberta's young students themselves acknowledged that the discipline required to learn the violin helped them develop the ability to concentrate on other subjects. “It's for a good reason that she yells at us – to give us discipline and focus when we play,” said Omar, a seasoned fifth-grader. “It helps us in our schoolwork.” But Roberta was not interested in music as a pathway to later achievement. She believed in the experience of music for its own sake, for the joy and awakening that it can offer. 

“My love of music started with lessons in public school,” she says, “and that's why I'm so committed to kids who would otherwise never have the opportunity or means to take lessons like the ones we're providing.” 

Other parents supported the program for even different reasons; they didn't care whether or not their kids learned an instrument. They simply believed that kids benefited from exposure to the sound of classical music playing in the environment.

This point of view gained advocates fast. It was even discussed in university journals as the Mozart effect:

In 1993, researchers at UC Irvine published a study in the journal Nature showing that 36 undergrads temporarily improved their spatial-reasoning IQ scores after listening to part of Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major. The story got blown up and oversimplified in the mainstream media, which trumpeted the so-called Mozart effect, the notion that listening to classical music makes you smarter. - San Francisco Chronicle Jan 19, 2012

Zell Miller, former governor of Georgia, asked for money in the state budget so that every newborn baby could be sent a CD of classical music.

''No one questions that listening to music at a very early age affects the spatial, temporal reasoning that underlies math and engineering and even chess,'' the Governor said today. ''Having that infant listen to soothing music helps those trillions of brain connections to develop.'' - The New York Times, Jan 15, 1998

Clearly, no one – neither children nor adults – really listens to this kind of wall-paper music. They only hear it.  The only way to find any meaning in music, is to give it complete attention. Playing Mozart in the background is like looking at a Rembrandt painting with a Modigliani superimposed on it.

* * *

After considering various ways to help Roberta Tzavaras's public-school violin program, Itzhak Perlman embarked on an ambitious project – a public fund-raising concert to be performed by Roberta and her students, along with the addition of a roster of star violinists whom Perlman undertook to get in touch with.

First he enlisted the help of the violinist Arnold Steinhardt of the Guarneri String Quartet, and his wife Dorothea van Heften. After observing one of Roberta's classes, the Steinhardts immediately signed on. Together with Perlman, they rounded up a number of other well known violinists: Michael Tree, Ani and Ida Kavafian, and Midori. Roberta invited several country and jazz performers to join the group – Mark O'Connor, John Blake Jr., Karen Briggs, and Diane Monroe. The Steinhardts went so far as to set a date and reserve the 92nd Street Y for a benefit concert. All this fell apart when a few weeks later the Y told them that the their date was no longer available. That was when the Steinhardts decided to go to Walter Scheuer for help. 

They had become friendly with Wally, as he liked to be called, during the filming of “High Fidelity,” my 1989 documentary about the Guarneri String Quartet. Wally had been its Executive Producer. In 1980, after Wally and I had collaborated on “From Mao to Mozart," he had fallen in love with the whole process of making documentary films. From then on, if a project interested him, he would jump in. “Come on,” he'd say. “We'll have a great adventure.” 

During the first days of the 1989 Czech revolution, for example, Wally and I watched events unfold on a television set in his office. As the dissident Vaclav Havel addressed huge crowds in Wenceslas Square, forty years of Communism were dissolving in front of us. “We have to go and film it,” he said. I thought he was kidding. “That's a tough one,” I replied. “They're having a revolution, Wally. Anyway, we'd have to find a Czech crew, get visas – all those preparations that even in New York would take at least a couple of weeks. We probably couldn't even get into the country.” “Come on,” he said, and got up from his chair. “We have to go. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” 

A week or so later, we were in Prague filming the celebration of Vaclav Havel's election to the Presidency of the new Czechoslovakia.

* * *

When the Steinhardts visited Wally, they told him about Roberta, and reported that the Y had cancelled their benefit concert date. Wally went to a couple of Roberta's classes and immediately proposed another plan: “Let's have the concert at Carnegie Hall – I'm a board member there. I'll talk to Isaac Stern.”

Stern did not agree at first; he was wary of building such a big event around kids, but Wally's enthusiasm won him over. The concert was scheduled for late October. Though Wally had never embarked on anything like this before, in a couple of weeks he had formed a committee to organize the gala. By concert time almost every seat in the house had been sold. 

As the date of the concert approached and anticipation was building, one of Roberta's students asked to be excused from a rehearsal in order to attend an important soccer practice. Roberta explained to her parents, in front of the rest of the kids, that their daughter would not be able to play in the concert if she chose soccer over a violin rehearsal. When the parents held firm, Roberta told the girl she was out of the concert. The rehearsal that followed proceeded with crackling intensity. 

The kids loved playing in Carnegie Hall. They were all dressed up in their best outfits, and with Roberta leading from the center of the stage, they played with great flair. These were Roberta's best students, including some who had come back from high school and even college to play in this concert. The finale, the Bach double-violin concerto, with Perlman, Stern, Steinhardt and all the others playing alongside the students, was a sensation: all those kids holding their own with the pros. The students and the stars were spread out shoulder to shoulder: student-star-student-star. A girl in a green taffeta dress looked to her right and saw Itzhak Perlman; to her left, Isaac Stern. She tried to keep a straight face, but she smiled broadly each time she glimpsed one of her neighbors. At the end, the audience clapped and cheered and shouted. The concert had been a wild success. Here is what the New York Times reported the next day: 

The finale of the Fiddlefest concert at Carnegie Hall on Monday evening was a reminder that the professional music world, the parade of stars and contenders who tread the boards night after night, is only part of the picture...The real knockouts were the student performances. Ms. Guaspari-Tzavaras led 35 players in two Bach minuets, in a Telemann sinfonia and, with Mr. O'Connor, in “The Orange Blossom Special,” all played from memory and fully in tune. There was reason to marvel at the players' technical polish, but the impact of the performances went deeper. It was clear from the vigorous attacks and releases of the young musicians' bowing and from the concentrated passion with which they dug into their lines that Ms. Guaspari-Tzavaras has shown them how to experience the mixture of visceral and spiritual excitement that is the best part of making music. - Allan Kozinn, October 27, 1993

As a result, Roberta was able to form a foundation to perpetuate her violin program. She called it Opus 118, after the street she lives on, and she soon expanded it to offer music lessons to neighborhood kids, in school and out. It continues to this day. After facing the possibility of having her program eliminated, Roberta had not only survived: she had made the strongest possible demonstration that active participation was essential to building a love and understanding of music.

Wally not only organized the concert but also funded a documentary called “Small Wonders,” about Roberta's school violin program. Susan Kaplan, who had worked with me on many films, became Producer, and I directed. We followed Roberta and the kids from the lottery that selected the students, through the struggles of the beginners' classes, to their triumphs as fifth- and sixth-graders. Week by week, month by month, we filmed the kids learning to play the violin.

The June gala concert at school, with parents and siblings and friends cheering and stomping, was the culmination of the academic year. But nothing could top the excitement and dramatic achievement of the Carnegie Hall concert. So after following the program chronologically, we went back and ended the film with the October rehearsals and performance in Carnegie. 

In 1995 our documentary, “Small Wonders,” was nominated for an Academy Award. It later became the basis of a feature film called “Music of the Heart,” directed by Wes Craven (one of his rare non-horror flicks). Craven succeeded in getting Meryl Streep to play the part of Roberta. Streep even studied the violin for a few months, and at the climax of the movie, that's really her, next to Isaac Stern, fingering the right notes in the Bach Concerto for Two Violins in Carnegie Hall.

POSTSCRIPT

When “Music of the Heart,” the feature film based on our documentary was in production, Wally Scheuer and Susan Kaplan and I were given Associate Producer credit. That allowed us to visit the set and witness the filming. Whenever we showed up we were provided with special director's chairs that had “Associate Producer” embroidered on the cloth backing. We felt like Hollywood big-shots. But Associate Producer chairs were apparently meant only for people who had put money into the film. When the man in charge found out that we were just film makers, he removed the chairs. 

Filmmaking #6 - MEXICO CITY FESTIVAL

In the summer of 1976, I was invited by the Mexican government to direct a series of television broadcasts of the newly reorganized Casals Music Festival. Founded originally in Prades by the celebrated cellist, the festival had moved from France to Puerto Rico in 1956. Now three years after Casals' death, it was about to begin its first season in Mexico City under the direction of Casals' widow Marta Istomin and the conductor Eduardo Mata.

It had taken over a year of complicated scheduling to arrange for the National Orchestra of Mexico, Mata, and a roster of international stars to participate. I was there because the Ministry of Education, which had organized this project, had also allocated funds to for the entire festival to be televised nationally.

To facilitate this huge undertaking, a group of six government and private television stations agreed to create an umbrella broadcast company, in which each station would make a particular contribution: some provided the television crews, some the cameras, and others the sound and lighting equipment. 

Infighting, alas, proved inevitable. Cameramen from one station did not want to deal with equipment assigned to them from another, (though they soon discovered that the cameras were almost identical to the ones they were used to). Sound and lighting men did not always inform colleagues from other stations about the special features of their microphones and cable connections. Then, among the large production and office staff, which included executives from each station, there was much jockeying for position. Everyone finally came to understand that without cooperation the project would fail; no one wanted a share of the blame.
 
We soon settled into a routine – camera rehearsals with the performers in the afternoon, live transmissions at night. The concerts were sold out and the the press considered the national broadcasts a great gift to the cultural life of the country. Everyone did his job, but even with my limited Spanish, I could sense an uneasy, competitive atmosphere.

Just before an evening orchestral concert, we discovered that one of the cameramen had failed to show up. I was able to distribute most of his shots among the other cameras, and we managed somehow without him. The next morning, he acted surprised when I asked him where he had been. “Hey,” he said, “it was my wife's birthday.” 

On another occasion, the Guarneri Quartet arrived late from a delayed flight to find there were no music stands. Apparently, the stage hand in charge had locked them in a storage cage, put the keys in his pocket, and left for his dinner break. When he returned for the concert, no one said anything to him. He set up the music stands and the Guarneri gave a typically fine performance.

The concerts took place in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico's most important cultural center. One evening, about halfway through the festival, as Eduardo Mata was conducting the orchestra in a performance of Manuel de Falla's “El Amor Brujo,” things seemed to be moving along smoothly. The crew and I were seated outside the theater in a large van that had been converted into a television studio. As Mata led the musicians in a colorful performance, all eyes and ears in the van were following the transmission on the main broadcast television monitor. 

Mata turned to the strings – and the monitor went black. Almost immediately, a hand-written sign appeared on the monitor: “Temporary Interruption.” The nationwide telecast had been cut.

What happened? Equipment failure? A problem with the transmitter itself? No one wanted to think that it might have been sabotage. 

Whatever the problem, we obviously had to figure out quickly how to fix it. It could take many minutes, perhaps hours, to locate the cause, and an unpredictable amount of time to correct it. By then the concert would have long been over. With one stroke, a historic national event had been turned into a fiasco. We imagined everyone in the country fiddling with their TV knobs, banging the set, swearing at the Mexican government. 

We immediately sent a technician to the roof of the concert hall where the transmission tower had been set up. Meanwhile, we could see on the monitors in the van that the orchestra musicians were still playing and the audience was listening. The transmission had been interrupted, but not the concert. 

The “Temporary Interruption” sign had now been up for about six minutes – the technical personnel who had rushed into our van were testing all the connections; so far everything seemed to be working. The problem must be with the transmission tower on the roof. But who had put up the “Temporary Interruption” sign?

Without warning, the sign was taken away and the transmission resumed on the screen. I jumped ahead in the shooting script to catch up with the music and we proceeded with the rest of the broadcast, though we were terrified that there might be further breakdowns. 

Mata and the orchestra finished the concert in grand style and received a standing ovation. I wondered if the nationwide television audience had stayed with us through the blackout or had missed the exciting finale.

We still had not heard from the technician we had sent to the roof. Eventually we found him waiting outside the van. He had a strange look on his face, a mixture of shame and hilarity. Our technical director grabbed him by the shoulders. “Is the transmission equipment safe, is the technician up there OK? We thought he might have had a heart attack.” The messenger looked around at us and answered: 

“The transmission guy told me that he interrupted the broadcast because he wouldn't leave the equipment alone with an assistant he didn't trust – some guy from a different station. So he put up the sign because he had to go to the bathroom.”

Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City

FILMMAKING #5 - THE FILM INTERVIEW

On a warm Dublin afternoon in 1987, Beatrice Behan sat before our camera. The interview with the widow of the Irish writer Brendan Behan was to be an important part of a documentary on Behan's tumultuous life and his role in Irish literature.

Beatrice Behan still lived in the house she and Brendan had shared until his death as an alcoholic in 1964. There were posters of Behan's plays and other memorabilia on the walls. The furniture was worn and crowded together. Twenty-three years after his death Beatrice's memories of her brilliant but self-destructive husband were still raw.

In 1939, when Brendan Behan was sixteen, and already a member of the IRA, he decided, without authorization, to blow up the docks at the British port of Liverpool. He was arrested as he stepped off the boat from Ireland with a suitcase of explosives, and sentenced to three years in an English reform school, or Borstal. He later wrote about his experiences in Borstal Boy, a vivid account of life with his fellow inmates and the friendships he made with these sworn enemies.

I began the interview with Beatrice wedged into a chair in a corner of her small sitting room. Her short, gray hair, brushed up above her forehead, gave her long face a somewhat military look. I sat facing her, next to the camera. Directly behind me sat Don Lenzer, the cameraman, his eye pressed against the viewfinder.

After asking about her early life with Brendan, I brought up a difficult subject: the possibility of Brendan's attraction to the boys in the Borstal. Ireland had outlawed homosexuality as far back as 1861, and up to the time of this interview, the powerful Catholic Church had banned all forms of gay behavior - at least officially. Biographers had written about Behan's possible gay experiences with the borstal boys without conclusive evidence, and we hoped that Mrs. Behan would help us resolve the issue.

Beatrice's first reaction to my question was to look away and say nothing. When she finally spoke, it was with a few hesitant words, followed by a silence that was uncomfortable for both of us. I decided to shift to an easier topic and shuffled through my notes. Lenzer coughed. “Let’s take a break,” he whispered. I was a little miffed: why was he interrupting?

Lenzer pulled me aside. “If you ask a question she doesn’t like,” he said, “just wait. Don't change the subject. You may not even need her spoken answer. It will be in her face. This is film, remember. So don't break the tension. It may prove valuable.” I nodded OK. “Sometimes,” he continued, “The silence may be so painful for her, she'll have to say something – anything – to ease her discomfort, and she'll suddenly give you the answer she's been trying to hold back. Your job is to keep that uncomfortable silence – don’t try to help her.”

We arranged ourselves again for the interview. The camera rolled. Beatrice looked uneasy, as her mouth tightened. I tried not to be aggressive: “In a reform school for teenage boys, Brendan must have made some close friendships,” I began. She replied almost in a whisper. I think he did.” I continued: “Is it possible he might have had physical experiences with some of those boys?” Her face froze...a long silence ensued, painful for both of us. I just had to help. As I shifted towards her in my seat, I felt a whoompf – Lenzer had grabbed my shoulder. I didn't move. Two more breathless moments, then Beatrice: “Well I suppose he...I imagine boys... thrown together at that age...are open, don't you know, to some kinds of – experiences, and I guess...” She went on for a almost a minute, during which neither Lenzer nor I dared to move. When she stopped she seemed relieved –­­ she had gotten past the subject.

The rest of the interview proceeded smoothly, no more tough questions, just stories about life with her famous husband – memories of good times and sorrows that flowed easily in the Dublin afternoon.

* * * * * 

One afternoon I discussed interview techniques with the writer Janet Malcolm. I told her how interviews on film can be nerve-racking for the subject: the presence of a camera and sound equipment, plus a crew of four or five, create the tense atmosphere of a public performance. “It must be different in print journalism, I said.”

She agreed. Even with a tape recorder between herself and the subject, a writer is not faced with the kind of hectic atmosphere created by the requirements of filming . The two of them can sit in comfortable chairs, chatting amiably, as, all the while, the interviewer uses her practiced skill to draw the subject out. Back at the writer's desk, the real work takes place. Here she has the freedom to choose the material that best reveals her subject, weaving it together with her own commentary to produce a portrait that may be sympathetic or not, depending completely on her judgment.

* * * * *

It is striking that no matter how uncomfortable interviewees may be on camera, they usually judge themselves favorably when they watch their performance on the finished film.

In the mid-1960s, I was asked to make a film portrait of the composer William Schuman, who was also the president of Lincoln Center. In interviews made for the program, several of Schuman's colleagues had suggested that his talents as a composer suffered because of the complicated demands of running Lincoln Center. I asked him if he agreed. In his filmed answer, Schuman appeared overconfident, vigorously defending his two lives. It had the effect of confirming the accusations made against him. When he watched himself in the finished film, however, he was delighted with what he saw. He considered it a fine performance, one that portrayed a high level of success in both his careers. 

Soon afterwards I made “USA Music,” for Channel 13 in New York. I invited two composers who represented widely divergent approaches to music, John Cage and Charles Wuorinen. I did not tell them that both of them would appear in the same film.

Cage's music is based on chance procedures such as the roll of dice. According to him, these techniques free the mind from the bias of previous experience, allowing one to become aware of nature in its endless unpredictability. In one of his famous quotes he says:

“Our Intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and one's desires out of the way, and lets it act of its own accord.”

Charles Wuorinen, on the other hand, maintains that music must be rigorously organized - that its beauty is found in carefully built structures. He believes that the rules governing composition can be derived from predetermined mathematical principles. About Wuorinen's “Times Encomium (For Synthesized & Processed Synthesized Sound),” which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969, the composer wrote:

“The basic materials are the twelve tempered pitch classes, and pitch-derived time relations, (composed) with a view to the proportions among absolute lengths of events.”

My idea was to show the contrast between these two diametrically opposed methods of composition. But it was a real risk not to tell them they would be in the same film.  

Appearing with Cage were the video artist Nam June Paik and the cellist Charlotte Moorman. Paik's delightfully outrageous work is featured in museums around the world. He is known for his towers of television sets and for a performance in which he burns a small piano. Charlotte Moorman had gained notoriety by performing topless.

In Paik's cluttered studio on Canal Street, I filmed him and Moorman performing Cage's “26' 1.1499” for a String Player,” a piece in which Moorman played the cello (not topless), banged on various kitchen objects, knocked over mechanical toys, shattered a sheet of glass, and drew her bow across a cello string stretched over Paik's naked back.

The Wuorinen segments, together with pieces by his composer-colleague Harvey Sollberger, were filmed in Miller Hall at Columbia University, where both composers taught. They had recently founded the Group for Contemporary Music.

While exploring Cage's and Wuorinen's music with them, I managed to ask the composers and their associates their opinions of each other's music. Their answers were uninhibited. According to Cage, Wuorinen was free to construct his compositions as rigorously as he dared, but the finished products were simply formulas in sound and had nothing to do with music. “But let them go their way,” he added. Wuorinen was withering in his description of Cage's methods. Random samples of traffic noise, baskets of junk emptied on a cement floor, or a rubber duck whistle blown into a tub of water – assembled in no particular order – belonged to no known musical category; they were simply the result of theatrical self-indulgence.

Back in the editing room I put together their separate statements, weaving them in with the musical performances. Out of this I constructed a spirited back-and-forth debate in which Cage and Wuorinen seemed to be launching their scathing criticisms at each other face to face.

But how was I to use this extraordinary material, obtained so unethically? I decided to put myself in their hands. I went to see each one and admitted that I had drawn statements from them without either knowing of the other's participation.

They were not pleased. But I had thought of a possible solution: I would screen the completed film for each side privately, and each would be free to decide whether or not I could broadcast it. The agreement would have to be unanimous. The film would be dead if one side gave permission and the other did not. They were both so eager to see what I had done that they accepted my proposal.

The screenings took place on separate days in different studios. Each brought five or six musician friends to watch the film with him. I sat outside, nervously awaiting the verdicts. During the half-hour sessions, I heard lots of laughter, which terrified me.

At the end of each screening, I was called in to hear their decisions. Each group told me that they loved the film – that I absolutely must show it just as it was, because each was certain that they had clearly triumphed over the other.

Filmmaking #4 - “FROM MAO TO MOZART - Isaac Stern in China”

Spring, 1979. The phone rang in the small back office of the former Symphony movie theater on 95th Street and Broadway. It was a little over a year into its new incarnation as a neighborhood performing arts center, now renamed Symphony Space. On January 8, 1978, more than 5,000 people had come through the doors to hear West Side neighbors Pinchas Zukerman, Eugenia Zukerman, Jaime Laredo, Claude Frank and Lilian Kallir, along with many others, perform works of Bach from 11 A.M. to 11 P.M – free to the public. We called the day "Wall to Wall Bach." The event so excited the neighborhood that my partner Isaiah Sheffer and I decided we couldn't stop there.

Now, a year and a half later, Symphony Space had been launched, with an enthusiastic board of directors and a small professional staff. Our mission: to attract new audiences with innovative formats like the "Wall to Wall" marathons and the soon-to-be-added "Selected Shorts" – readings of short stories by well-known actors.

I picked up the phone in the small Symphony Space office where torn-up movie tickets had once been stored. A voice I didn't recognize asked me if I would be free that summer to go with a crew to China to make a film about Isaac Stern's forthcoming visit. I was not to be the director, I was told, but would act as a kind of musical advisor.

Why musical advisor – it was clearly a meaningless title. Stern must have felt uneasy about the director and wanted a watchdog. Being put in the middle like that would be very uncomfortable, especially since both Stern and the director could easily vent their anger on me. Imagine the crew setting up for a concert: For some reason, Stern is not happy; he asks me what I think. I tell him one of the cameras will not cover the wind instruments as intended. Stern complains to the director, quoting me. The director seethes, the crew grumbles, the Chinese stagehands are confused, and at the end of every day, I sleep with a scimitar under my pillow. Fortunately I was able to diplomatically decline the offer, as I had made a commitment to direct a film in Germany.

They went to China without me, and in fact, Stern did have difficulties with the director. When they returned, he had decided to get rid of him before the crucial editing stage of the film began. Walter Scheuer, the Executive Producer, asked me to take charge. The only restriction on me was that Stern was to have approval of the final edited version. I resisted the offer at first, but I was excited at the chance to work with Isaac Stern on a project of this scope. So I accepted the offer. Tom Haneke, the editor, and Donald Klocek, the assistant editor, had already been hired and they agreed to stay on.

We began to look at the footage. The filming had only been organized at the last minute – there was no outline or shooting script – so the three camera men had been told to film Stern and everything else that moved. They brought back more than 125,000 feet of 16 millimeter film, about 60 hours worth. It took weeks just to screen it all.

Though the footage was completely disorganized, it was spectacular. The government had invited Stern and his family to see the sights, meet with musicians, and listen to violin students. They traveled throughout the country, through mountain ranges and river valleys, to farmlands and small towns. At the last minute, Stern was asked to give two recitals, one in Shanghai, one in Beijing, yet in spite of these impromptu arrangements the halls were filled. Everyone wanted to see and hear this famous Western musician, one of the first to be invited to China after the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976.

The fact that we hadn't been present during the filming turned out to be an editorial advantage. We could judge what we saw on the screen without the memory of being present at exciting events. We saw only how everything looked on an editing machine on 9th Avenue and 44th Street. For example, after protracted government negotiations, permission had finally been granted to shoot in Tienanmen Square, in Beijing. As the camera, fastened to a giant crane, slowly rose through the early morning mist, high over the day's first traffic, the producers and the crew were thrilled. It was a fabulous shot. But the excitement never made it through the camera lens – it was just a nice touristy view. We cut it.

Isaac Stern's concerts in Shanghai and Beijing were attended by overflowing crowds. But the most important time he spent in China that summer may not have been as a performer, but as a teacher. Isaac Stern was perhaps our most articulate exponent of the mysterious ways in which Western music works its magic. The Chinese students had been taught that to compete for good jobs they must learn to play fast and loud. Stern stressed that in order to find the music behind the notes they needed to be more personally involved. Easy to say, but it seemed impossible that in these brief sessions, Stern could get the young Chinese musicians to undo years of almost military training. Yet that was his goal.

When he spoke to the students onstage, in front of an auditorium filled with teachers and other young musicians, Stern was direct, clear, eloquent, sometimes flirtatious, often profound. At first the students froze in front of him. But he didn't just talk. He played their pieces for them, looking directly into their eyes, making personal contact. It clearly embarrassed them, but he persisted, conveying what he wanted from them so dramatically that some of the students began to play with the beginnings of free expression right in front of him. They surprised everyone, especially themselves, as they slowly opened up in ways that are still talked about in those conservatory classrooms. Isaac Stern was his own Cultural Revolution. And for us his triumph was right there on the screen.

It took us almost a year to complete the film. But we were happy with the result. One of the most valuable techniques I learned was how to make a single extended scene out of short musical fragments that are unrelated to each other. You might think that the music of composers of such different character as Bach, Ravel, and Sibelius would be impossible to edit together. But we found pauses in the music, similar endings and beginnings of phrases, and useful harmonic relationships that made these connections possible. The drama of these assemblies was heightened by retaining the visual images associated with each of the musical fragments: Stern playing; a student playing alone; Stern and student playing together; Stern again. The result was a number of musical ribbons, thirty to forty seconds long, that we could use as transitions from one scene to another, or as climactic endings to Stern's teaching sessions.

The day finally arrived when Stern was to approve the edited film. Together with him and his wife, we all crammed together into our 9th Avenue editing room. The screening went well until towards the end of the film a scene came up that showed preparations for a performance in Shanghai. During the rehearsal with his accompanist David Golub, Stern was seen to vehemently reject the concert piano, a damp and moldy instrument, impossibly out of tune. When the Chinese insisted that it was the best piano in the city, he startled everyone by walking offstage and telephoning directly to the US Embassy in Beijing. He demanded that the embassy send a good piano to Shanghai immediately, by Army air freight if necessary. Surely, the officials in Beijing would not want to disappoint their important guest. As he continued to press hard, he began to look a little foolish. The cameras were rolling the whole time. Eventually the Shanghai people did find a better piano. It was in a nearby broadcasting studio. Stern had his new instrument after all. But watching the events on our editing screen, Stern was visibly embarrassed and wanted the whole scene removed. So did his wife. I resisted, but the Sterns remained adamant. 

The next day I came to the editing room and found Stern and his wife already waiting to see if the scene had been removed. But I had thought of an argument. I explained that the rest of the film showed him almost miraculously transforming the attitudes of many young Chinese students toward western music. His accomplishments were heroic. But no one believes in heroes. Viewers of the film would think we had cut out all the scenes that showed any failures with other students. Precisely because the Shanghai piano scene showed a less than perfect Isaac Stern – an Isaac Stern being overbearing and even a little silly but recognizably human, including the scene would enable the audience to accept his extraordinary successes in the rest of the film. 

He looked around the room. He looked at his wife. Then he looked at me, prolonging the suspense – a performer in every situation. "OK," he said.

"FROM MAO TO MOZART – Isaac Stern in China" won an Academy award in 1980 for best feature-length documentary.

Post script 

In 1978 I directed a film about a trip to Japan made by the Philadelphia Orchestra under its longtime conductor Eugene Ormandy. The tour started in the southern port city of Fukuoka, continued north along the coast, and arrived in Tokyo for the final performance. The program included "Don Juan," by Richard Strauss, a flashy, dramatic work, perfect for this virtuoso orchestra. In the early moments of the piece there is a huge crash on the cymbal. I wanted a close-up showing the cymbal player getting ready. Then, at the exact moment of impact, the camera was to quickly pull back and reveal the whole orchestra. It would make a sensational shot. But without perfect timing it would be a flop, and the glaring error could make the entire piece unusable. Language difficulties with the Japanese crew made for limited progress during the rest of the rehearsal. I kept shouting "pan left – no, not that left, the other left." So I never had time to work on the cymbal shot. An interpreter told me later that the cameraman understood what it was supposed to look like, but warned that to attempt it for the first time in a live concert could be disastrous. 

May he flourish forever: the camera man did risk it in the performance and caught it perfectly. It looked spectacular – people were cheering in the recording booth. Eventually the shot made its way into a demonstration tape that a producer friend showed to Isaac Stern. A few months later I received that telephone call at Symphony Space.

Filmmaking #3 - “THE SECRET LIFE OF AN ORCHESTRA”

In 1975, to further explore the relationship between orchestra and conductor, I assembled a crew to film a rehearsal of Wagner’s “Prelude to Die Meistersinger.” Brian Priestman, the Music Director of the Denver Symphony Orchestra, conducted. The Prelude is a bright, one-movement work, full of open harmonies and grand climaxes. It was perfect for Priestman, a large, balding, red-bearded Englishman in his mid-forties, with a hearty conducting style. 

I had been leading children's concerts for the Baltimore Symphony several years earlier, when Priestman arrived as a guest conductor. We became friends, and when he was appointed Music Director in Denver, he took me along as his Associate Conductor.

An Associate Conductor has many responsibilities. I attended all rehearsals and had to be ready to take over in case the Music Director or a guest conductor became ill. (This never happened.) In addition, I was given a pair of regular subscription concerts to conduct each of the five seasons I was there. Those were wonderful opportunities. I conducted major works by Mahler, Beethoven, Bartók, Debussy, and Stravinsky.

I was also in charge of an education program that consisted of thirty or more school concerts a season. These usually took place in school auditoriums at 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning. The musicians did not like these concerts, especially if there had been an evening performance the night before. To help keep the students and teachers -- and the orchestra -- awake, I told stories about the pieces and the composers. Occasionally I chose students to come to the podium and conduct a Sousa march. I would start them off at the right tempo, but they were so excited that they would start waving the baton faster and faster. The orchestra stayed right with them, in perfect ensemble. If the student conductors realized their mistake and slowed down, the orchestra, too, got gradually slower and slower, like a phonograph losing power. The players followed the wayward young student perfectly - faster, slower, slower, suddenly faster, faster. It was hilarious. The audience loved it. It was also instructive for me to see how responsive the orchestra could be.

As a special treat, two or three times a year the student concerts were performed in the orchestra's main concert hall. The buses that delivered some twelve hundred children to each of these concerts were invariably late; the kids were still filing in noisily after the music had started. The teachers contributed to the chaotic atmosphere by walking up and down the aisles, demanding in full-throated stage whispers that the kids quiet down. The orchestra resented having to play under these conditions. I made several appeals to the school administration, and the buses began to arrive on schedule. The first time the auditorium was completely quiet when I walked on stage, the orchestra stood up as a gesture of thanks.

Then there were the Pop Concerts. Here my job was to accompany established luminaries in arrangements that made little or no use of the symphonic forces available. We used to call these concerts “white-note concerts,” because an entire string section would play nothing but long-held whole notes in a kind of hymn-like background while the soloist was pouring his heart out. Among others stars, I accompanied Dave Brubeck, who in fact had written some interesting orchestra pieces to accompany his jazz group, and Phyllis Diller, who sang a little, but mostly joked about life with her husband Fang. I also conducted a complete performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar” in the Denver Nuggets professional basketball arena. That was fun! 

Though the Pop Concerts generally sold out, they didn't accomplish the goal, which was to build audiences for the Denver Symphony. They did, however, help the management identify new potential donors for the orchestra's fund-raising drives. 

A word about the title -- Associate Conductor. If you are not the Music Director of an orchestra, you are not in charge, whatever they call you. Consequently the players feel free to take advantage of your subordinate status. When I was on the podium the players did not always play their best. They were masters at communicating a mild air of condescension, smiling to each other at some of my requests, as if to say, “Does he really want that?” If I asked for something a little louder, they would blast it out and look at me blankly. More than once, with five or ten minutes still left in the rehearsal, they stood up at the end of a piece, assuming that I would let them go early. They would groan good naturedly when I asked them to sit down and finish the rehearsal. Sometimes, to score points with them, I did end the rehearsal early. 

From time to time, Brian would attend my rehearsals, and I couldn't help noticing that his presence had a marked effect on the musicians’ behavior. We always accomplished a great deal when he was there.

In retrospect I believe the orchestra's behavior was not entirely directed at me. It was also a way to release the players' pent-up resistance to the authority of the Music Director. And I always knew that in spite of these tensions, the orchestra would play well in our concerts together - if not for my sake, then at least for their own professional self-respect.

One result of my subordinate position was that I learned more about the inner workings of the Denver Symphony than the Manager, or the board members, or even the Music Director himself would ever hear about. By attending all the rehearsals, hanging around during breaks, riding the bus with the players on tours, I heard the musicians speaking freely about things they liked and didn’t like. They would openly talk to me about the conductor, the schedule, the repertoire, the union rules, their favorite board members, and quite often about each other. I was one of a very few to hear about a management plot to get rid of a player, or a new love affair in the orchestra. With a number of the players, I formed real friendships, and was invited to dinners and holiday parties at their homes. For me, these insights and friendships - and of course the chance to conduct great music – helped make up for the difficulties that go with the job of Associate Conductor.

* * * * *

Though the silent communication between conductor and orchestra will always remain a mystery, some of it becomes clear during a rehearsal. After all, during a concert the conductor communicates only through his baton and body language: in a rehearsal he is forced to use words to explain what he wants.

Before we filmed Brian's rehearsals of the “Meistersinger” Prelude, we recorded interviews with him and the players. He discussed his ideas about the piece as a whole, and explained what he hoped to achieve in each section. Then we filmed several rehearsals showing him working with the orchestra, and included the musicians' responses to his requests. We were particularly happy with the players' outspoken comments - about the music, the conductor, and each other.

Generally an orchestra does not like to hear a conductor talk during rehearsals. The momentum of an orchestra, like that of a locomotive, is hard to bring to a halt. It's difficult for a hundred musicians to interrupt their combined musical involvement and focus on the conductor’s words. Sometimes in a rehearsal, Brian stopped the musicians to correct a mistake, but he often let them continue, knowing that they would play the passage correctly the next time around. If he felt that the orchestra really did need another chance at a thorny passage, or if he wanted to rebalance some of the instruments, he stopped them, described succinctly what he wanted, and had them try it. Often he illustrated what he wanted by singing, and the musicians understood immediately. When he started the orchestra again, we all noted that his gestures conveyed what he had asked for. 

If a conductor feels particularly confident in a rehearsal, and the orchestra has been working very hard, he might take a minute to lighten the atmosphere with a joke or anecdote. But he will never, ever, no matter how sincerely, try to describe in words the mood he thinks the music should achieve. He will keep in mind the story that has made the rounds of conducting classes for half a century: when a celebrated conductor could not achieve what he wanted in a particularly expressive passage, he began to rhapsodize poetically on the composer's ideas about “destiny” and “ultimate human achievement.” After too much of this, a musician in the back of the second violin section stood up and asked, “Maestro - do you want it louder or softer?”

* * * * *

There is a moment in the “Meistersinger Prelude” when the orchestra quiets down, in preparation for a steady rise to the final climax. This is marked by a single ding on the triangle – a clear solo that emerges from a soft orchestral background. In our filmed interview the triangle player described the tension he felt as he waited eight or ten minutes for this crucial entry. At last the moment arrived and he produced a perfect, bell-like sound. He showed no emotion, but after the cameras left him he grinned, and his neighbors in the brass section gave him a big thumbs up. I wish we had caught that. In many screenings of the finished film the audience often laughs at this place, not necessarily because it’s amusing but because of a kind of nervous relief they share with the triangle player.

Here is a selection of statements made by Brian Priestman and the players of the Denver Symphony, in “THE SECRET LIFE OF AN ORCHESTRA,” my 1975 film of Wagner's “Prelude to Die Meistersinger.”

“THE SECRET LIFE OF AN ORCHESTRA”

Transcript - Selections

NARRATOR: Every rehearsal is a performance and every performance is a rehearsal for a better performance next time.

PRIESTMAN: (voice-over) It’s very difficult to start off that music in exactly the right tempo for the march that is going to come and to make it perfectly clear to the orchestra as to what the beat is and how the music is moving forward.

VIOLIN: What we want is a very strong rhythmic beat.

VIOLIN: No flamboyance. We’ll do that.

BRIAN PRIESTMAN: Fine. We have to be able to hear it across now from cellos across to the winds with the...the rhythm clicks very well with (sings).

CELLO: The most ideal conductor would be the one who can really do everything with his hands.

CELLO: If he told everybody how to play every little phrase, the rehearsal would last days for a single piece.

CELLO: If he just talks at us, it’s not enough because we don’t know what he’s going to actually do when he has to finally do it.

VIOLIN: I do feel that perhaps it’s not possible to show everything with the beat and this is why there must be verbal discussion in a rehearsal so that the conductor can convey his wishes.

BASS: Most of the time the conductors just give them a little quiet indication of what you want, and if you really know your stuff, they’ll pick it up.

 PRIESTMAN: It’s forte in the flute. You should be forte in the clarinet part too, can you...can you get that in there? Because there needs to be just a little more clarinet to balance in there so that she also, so that she hears you.

FLUTE: Playing in tune with the clarinet, is the first thing one has to worry about. Usually the pitch is pretty good and if it isn’t then we work that out. If it turns out that we weren’t close in pitch, then we discuss it, and then we try and compromise. That’s the best thing to do, compromise. There isn’t any one person who is right.

CLARINET: No, I don't think there's such a thing as being right.

FRENCH HORN: The more a person studies and tries and works on pitch the more thin skinned that person could become.

CLARINET: Some people in the orchestra don’t tune at all. You know, they play on instruments tuned at the factory.

PRIESTMAN: And the tremolo now.

TIMPANI: It’s only two notes, G-natural, C-natural. That’s all there is. I get a lot of mileage out of those two bloody notes, you know?

TROMBONE: I think the problem for a brass player is one of pacing oneself. You can’t just shoot all the cannons in the first sixteen bars of this piece.

TROMBONE: Well, I’m sure for most string players this is a very boring piece. For a brass player it’s not.

VIOLA: I don’t care if my own viola isn’t heard. I just like being a part of that whole big total sound.

VIOLIN: It’s like asking a 155 millimeter cannon to reduce the charge and what’s the point?

TROMBONE: That entrance brings back the whole hero theme of this, you know the Meistersingers with their robes and the pageantry

FRENCH HORN: You have to know when to carry the ball and when to block. There are some sections in the Meistersinger where you’re given the ball and say go. Go get it.

PRIESTMAN: Bill, I see you poised. I see you poised with your triangle, and then I hardly hear it at all.

PRIESTMAN: I suppose it’s the most magical triangle stroke in all music. To stand up in your place and with the utmost delicatesse strike one note, piano, on your triangle.

TRIANGLE: After many hundreds of bars rest, I have one note. Even though it’s one triangle it’s a beauty. And I would imagine if I would miss that one note I would be fired.

PRIESTMAN: It’s the spot of glue that really holds everything together at this point, that triangle stroke.

TRIANGLE: I know that’s an important note and I doubt if I’ll ever miss it. I doubt if I’ll ever miss that note. I might miss something else, but not that one.

PRIESTMAN: Now can we put together the two outsides. The bass of the texture and the top of the texture please. Figure eighteen. Espressivo. Feel it. Feel the line. Long line. Just the upbeat into the tempo primo. The upbeat is the tempo primo. But you’ve got a chance, the seconds here, all right? Three, four. And one....

FLUTE: Well, sometimes I think rehearsal is, you know I wish I weren’t here doing this. I have a piece that I find easy, you know whole notes and half notes, my goodness, you know, like I tend to daydream a lot.

VIOLA: The fact that we’ve played it so many times means that you kind of have to work a little bit harder each time you play it.

VIOLIN: Well, it means coming in each morning and of course doing your best regardless of how you feel.

CLARINET: The job is entirely too difficult. It requires entirely too much concentration, too much effort, not to want to do it well.

VIOLIN: It takes a bit of character. Strength of character.

VIOLA: If you get caught up in this ho-hum attitude, here we go again, you can get your head handed to you by a conductor.

PRIESTMAN: As we get to the tie now, in the second bar of figure three, can we come off it just a little earlier please? (SINGS)

FLUTE: Sometimes the conductor can instill that vitality, that excitement, that’s necessary, and make you do something that maybe you didn’t feel like doing in the first place. And then it’s twice as good.

PRIESTMAN: Seconds, the second violins - really you can let your hair down here you know. You can really let it go...with the firsts. What? Bald is beautiful, I know.

2nd VIOLIN: We have a lot of people in this orchestra who feel that playing in the second violin is below playing in the first violin.

1st VIOLIN: Well, it’s nice to have melody. I know the poor second violins always feel left out, occasionally I think of them when I’m playing the melody and they’re not.

2nd VIOLIN: I think sometimes the second violin can be a little dullsville.

2nd VIOLIN: I do like being a second. In fact I enjoy it much more than playing first violin. Whatever we play, we hear the inner voices as well and to me this is much more fun. But we feel that there are many people in the first violin section, not all of them by any means, but there are many who have no awareness of what’s going on around them, and even if they do, they just go their merry way anyway.

1st VIOLIN: The prima-donna type just can’t help but stick out like a sore thumb. How can they forget that they are a part of a group that has to sound as a unit?

PRIESTMAN: Broad, broad line (voice-over) Oh yes, it is an enormous exhilaration conducting the end.

PRIESTMAN: And now all of us please. Just backing up a little so we can get in the triangle stroke again. Two bars before eighteen. Three, four...

BASSOON: You have this whole orchestra around you, all the heavy breaths and the entire orchestra playing and building up. It feels good to be part of it.

BASS: Oh, it’s phenomenal. You get...you get a sense of triumph if you’ve made it without faltering.

PRIESTMAN: And it’s a crescendo.

VIOLIN: Those are the gravy times. And I enjoy them.

VIOLA: It happens sometimes and it’s just beautiful when it does.

PICCOLO: It’s just there. It really is just there.

BASS: Well, I’ve been in it a long time and I wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world.

VIOLA: It’s one of those moments when I’m very happy I’m a symphony musician.

VIOLIN: (sings) I feel like dragging that out and saying hey baby, I got it now, just relax.