| Peter
Rosen: |
Can you talk a
little bit about the fun aspect of the whole Anderson repertoire, is it fluff? Is it music
that just people enjoy listening to and no more or is it very well crafted? |
| John
Williams |
Well as someone who
writes music I can never take light things other than seriously. It's like writers for the
theater or for film it's -maybe it's harder to write a good joke than it is to write a
monologue about a very serious subject that can be crafted by someone who's got the prose
style. The humorous thing in music-the light thing-the bon bon, I have abiding respect for
someone that can bring that off as deftly as Leroy Anderson did repeatedly-he was a master
of this miniature genre. Also it has a particular American quality in the harmonies and
the melodies and the rest of it that give that kind of -almost Rockwellian flavor if you
like. Its-the material's beautifully crafted-I mean the orchestration is set by the hand
of a true master-it sounds wonderful.. right off the page. A waltz for example, Belle of
the Ball, is as beautifully scored as any Strauss Waltz-absolutely. This is the work of a
really great artist-the fact that it's light would make it seem like it's just done like a
post card or an off-handed thing but there's as much craft in it as anything. |
| Peter
Rosen: |
Do some conductors
think that Anderson is a light-weight-that he's not accepted in the usual classical music
circles? |
| John
Williams: |
Well I suppose in
this country Leroy Anderson is regarded as something of a Strauss-like figure in Austria-I
mean you wouldn't equate Strauss with Brahms and this kind of thing except I believe my
musicology is enough close to say that I remember reading that Brahms had as much respect
for Strauss and his polkas and his waltzes as he did anything else written in the period
around Vienna. So to professionals this is highly regarded and respectable stuff it's hard
to make this stuff. And these things are beautifully made. They're especially treasured in
Boston because they were created here by Arthur Fiedler and Leroy Anderson came together
to do these things but I think they're played around the country probably less than they
ought to be--but who knows? A 100 years from now the New Year's Eve converts in the United
States and North American could be Strauss, Strauss polkas and Sambas, they also could be
featuring more strongly Leroy Anderson. My hunch is that that's probably going to be the
case. That over the years to come this great American mass of from earlier in this century
is going to be appreciated more by serious musicians than the he is now. |
| Peter
Rosen: |
Maybe he was the
original crossover artist in a way. Do you have to be either a classical or a popular
composer or can one successfully find an area for composing that really fits right in
between these? |
| John
Williams: |
Well that's a
marvelous question of course the question of crossover, which where the line should be
drawn between serious or art music and popular, vernacular music. I think that that line
is becoming more and more diffused and less discreet less distinct in our country to some
degree. I think that the vernacular music -the music of the people is a thing that you
wouldn't have Brahms without the gypsy fiddlers from Hungary that he heard and that gave
him the idea to make his art music. Leroy Anderson music was and is very popular but you
need a symphony orchestra to play it, you need conservatory graduates good enough to sit
in an orchestra and do that. So there the medium, which is the orchestra in this case is a
medium developed in the finer arts culture. The medium itself coming from Anderson's
developed more of a popular vernacular culture and the two things come together in a way
that's not all that common regretfully. Um, it's a very interesting .its a huge subject
particularly in our country where we don't have century-old tradition of church music and
symphonic music and where every school child knows all the Beethoven symphonies. But we're
a young country and we're growing and developing composers of all kinds every day-films
have a great impact of people's awareness of music of orchestral music and you will hear a
symphony orchestra playing in a film if they never go to a concert they will go to a local
cinema and hear and then maybe buy a record and become more and more interested. So I
think that these lines of demarcation between art and commerce are becoming a little less
distinct all the time and through my thinking that's a good thing. The Boston Pops, Arthur
Fiedler, Leroy Anderson were the earliest crossover people bringing an audience into
Symphony Hall that would otherwise not have gone there, but people who were lovers of
popular music could have a good time there and discover what a great thing the European
symphony orchestra has become and how useful it is for the development of American music. |
| Peter
Rosen: |
You know that he did
do one serious long piece, a piano concerto. Have you heard that? |
| John
Williams: |
No I haven't I think
it's been performed at the Pops recently-I didn't conduct it, but someone has done that.
And I'm sorry I haven't heard that but would be very interested in it of course. |
| Peter
Rosen: |
But I'd like to know
a little bit about what you think of obviously a composer of great talent having done
almost exclusively short pieces-is that a waste of a brilliant talent, could he not have
been expected to go into major symphonic repertoire like we have from so many other
composers? |
| John
Williams: |
It's a tantalizing
thought to conjecture to imagine what Leroy Anderson might have done if he'd been more
interested in serious music orchestra-more comfortable in expressing himself in ways that
we would say were serious. As far as I know other than the piano concerto there isn't
anything that I know about that he's done. I would just say that I think we have to think
of ourselves as being very fortunate that a master of that genre was there. Leroy is a
treasure - he's precious. He wouldn't be any less precious if he' d written three
symphonies at the level of Brahms. His contribution is colossal just as it is and it is
monumental in terms of composition and in this area, so he did, he clearly knew what was
right for him and did it better than anyone else, and for that we have to be all
enormously grateful. |
