YEHUDI WYNER ORAL HISTORY

HANKUS NETSKY:So, it's June 14th, 2011, and we're here in Medford, Massachusetts, speaking with Yehudi Wyner about his own life in music and his father's life in music and also in Jewish culture. How about that? Is that okay?

YEHUDI WYNER: That covers the world. (laughter)

CHRISTA WHITNEY: And you're Hankus Netsky.

HN:Eight, nine hours later --

CW:What's your name?

HN:Oh, yeah. (laughter) I'm Hankus Netsky and I'll be conducting this interview.

YW:You're Hankus Netsky? (laughter)

HN:See, this is (UNCLEAR).

YW:I've been hearing about you all my life! As a matter of fact, the other day, when I mentioned that you were coming to the -- oh, I think -- was it Ellen Gold 1:00who I was talking to?

HN:Sounds familiar.

YW:Someone said, "Oh, Hankus Netsky! Oh, my gosh, do you know him," and all this. It went on like that. It didn't go into all the other areas of disease and --

HN:That's good. (laughter) I'm so glad. (laughter) So, how's the -- tie? There you go. There he goes. Notices the details, that's important, that's important, okay.

YW:Well, she's the visual --

HN:So, I'm wondering if you can tell us anything about your grandparents and their way of life and your father's early years?

YW:Yes, I can tell you a little. It was really almost never the central subject of concentration or narrative. But for one thing, I knew my grandparents -- my father's parents -- for many, many years because -- I mean, I think I was 2:00already thirty years old when my grandmother died. Both her husband, Shmuel, and she was Gussie, lived quite a long life. She lived into her nineties, I think. And when I was growing up, we would make, weekly or biweekly -- biweekly means every other week?

HN:No.

YW:Or is it twice a week?

HN:No, twice a week.

YW:No, it was semi-weekly. Bi-monthly. (laughter) In other words, now and then, we would take the long subway trip to Brooklyn, to President Street, and have a visit in their apartment, which was modest, to say the least, and very dreary. And the visits were -- for a child, were exceedingly dreary. They were not the kind of parents or grandparents who paid much attention to the grandchildren. At most, for example, when Hanukkah would come around, the matter of Hanukkah guilt 3:00might come up, and my grandfather would reach into his pocket and with great effort extract a penny, (laughter) and with great ceremony would give it to one of us. That wasn't because he was stingy; it was just because it was part of the ceremony. But my father's sisters would be there, Anna and Betty. Sometimes, some of the brothers, Ben or Hy, the younger, the older. And it was just really -- visits which had no particular character. And I concluded many, many years later that these were really extremely depressed people. I don't know what their life was like in Cherkasy when they finally left Russia under the threat of the Beilis Affair.

HN:Right.

YW:But it couldn't have been so unhappy and depressed and quiet and gray as it must have been in this country. I think part of that -- a major part of that -- was the fact that my grandfather, who was a boot and shoemaker in Russia, suffered a heart attack very early when he came to this country. And in those days -- talking, I guess, the '20s and '30s, the only treatment for heart condition --

HN:Right, no bypass.

YW:-- was -- no bypass; there was nothing but rest. You did nothing. And so, he was really unemployed until he died. This was a period of forty years, at least.

HN:Wow.

YW:And in that time, my grandmother cooked, and she -- and, of course, the language was exclusively Yiddish. But I don't even remember any kind of heated conversations, any kind of anecdotal things. So, they would talk and it all 5:00shlepped by and I couldn't wait to get home. And I couldn't wait for the next time that I would have to be put through that trial all over again. And it was never fun. Now, eventually, my grandparents moved to -- Upper West Side, right near Inwood Park. Another dreary apartment. And there, I was older, I got a slightly better sense of them, and I began to realize that there were really interesting things going on. My grandfather would cruise the neighborhood to the upholstery stores or the used shmate [rag] -- clothing stores and he would pick up remnants. And out of those, he would make little dolls.

HN:Oh, my God.

YW:Little dolls that would go into pockets: kangaroos, elephants, horses of incredible charm. He would handmake them all -- I mean, he knew how to sew -- he 6:00designed them all, and he would give them to the family. The little pieces here, he'd stuff them, and they were really imaginative and absolutely charming and full of fun. Now, they began to catch up at the very end of his life and the department stores wanted them. Yes, I mean, they began to sell, but he never went into an industrial production or anything like that. There were never enough. And then, he died. When he died, I can remember the funeral, because I was really dumbstruck at my father's behavior. The coffin was laid out in front, at the funeral home, and I can remember my father prostrating himself on it --

HN:Wow.

YW:-- completely hysterical, in tears, and saying, "I'm next."

HN:Oh!

YW:Now, you think about that and it's very revealing and very troubling in some 7:00ways, but also very sympathetic. Anyway, he was -- for a person like my father, who rarely -- in public, certainly not to the family -- would show external emotion, that was really an extraordinary explosion. It reminds me of that great Japanese film called "The Island," where there's a couple who drearily work and work and work their whole lives and their only relief is taking a rowboat to the mainland to buy some kind of special supplies. And they came back and there's nothing. There's nothing. There's no words said in the whole movie. And at the very end -- did you see that? Have you any recollection of that movie, Christa?

CW:I haven't seen it, no.

YW:It's many, many years ago and I'd love to see it again. At the end, something happens. Maybe she dies, he dies -- or (UNCLEAR) -- and suddenly the emotion explodes like an earthquake --

HN:Wow.

YW:-- like a tsunami.

HN:Wow.

YW:And it is so climactic and so horrifyingly emotional that you just are hit, like, with a --

HN:Amazing.

YW:-- brick wall. Anyway --

HN:Yeah, it was like that.

YW:-- following my grandfather's death, my grandmother came alive and she became the life of the party. She became the kind of troubadour and entertainer of the neighborhood. She'd go around, she made friends of all the neighbors, she would sing them songs, she would make up stories, she would -- it was really an extraordinary explosion of creative friendliness and exterior -- you know, you had the feeling from that that she had really been pushed down by her husband her whole life and --

HN:Amazing.

YW:-- lived in his shadow. But that shadow was a very dark shadow, because it wasn't like he was an imperious person.

HN:So, do you know much about the family's life in Cherkasy before they came to --

YW:No, very little.

HN:Very little.

YW:Very, very little.

HN:Like, your --

YW:I know the following, because my father found this a very significant fact. His father's mother -- my father's grandmother -- took it on herself to make an exception of my father. She said to his father -- she said to Shmuel, "This boy, you are not going to make a shoemaker out of him. There's something going on here. There's something special." And she took my father around and really gave him the fortification of approval and of being exceptional. And evidently, there was real musical talent there and she persuaded them to get him a little piano.

HN:Oh, wow!

YW:Et cetera, et cetera. That started the ball rolling. There were funny things about that. There were certain events in my father's early life that he would 10:00describe as being significant. One of them was that he had a girlfriend -- this was still in Russia -- and she gave him a love of reading, a love of literature. It was something that he was eternally grateful to this young lady -- he never described her, never described their relationship. All he said was, "I had this girlfriend and she really made it essential that I read." And he became a lifelong reader as a result. And of course, we know that self-education --

HN:Fascinating.

YW:-- is really the key. But aside from that and the fact that, evidently, his father was a good bootmaker, because Russian officers would come to the shop and have him make boots for them. Now, you figure that was -- must have been some prestigious quality goods of some sort.

HN:Yeah.

YW:You read, of course, in -- you know Judith Tischler's dissertation on my father --

HN:Yeah.

YW:-- the book about him, and she speaks about the fact that they wanted him to go and sing in church and that his parents refused. But when the offer came to sing in the synagogue at the Brodsky Synagogue in Kiev, they agreed to let him go to live -- I guess with a relative in Kiev and to sing at the Brodsky Synagogue. Then, after that, I don't really know very much about the story firsthand, only the sort of things that he told Judith Tischler that are down -- matter of record in the dissertation.

HN:Do you know anything about -- I mean, in the dissertation, there's a little bit about his religious background.

YW:Well, yeah, I mean, he went to kheyder [traditional religious school].

HN:Went to kheyder, and did all that.

YW:He had religious background.

HN:I mean, that's important -- that's significant, I --

YW:It is significant. He went, he studied. He said he starved a great deal of 12:00the time. There was very little food, almost, you know, nothing to take. And I think it's significant that it -- well, it must have been very oppressive and very taxing because, at the earliest opportunity, he threw it over.

HN:Yeah. (laughs)

YW:He gave it up.

HN:Yeah. Yeah. And then, comes to America when he's fourteen, I guess -- or fifteen?

YW:Comes to America when he's seventeen.

HN:Seventeen, right.

YW:Yeah --

HN:Seventeen.

YW:-- 1914. The last boat out of either Bremen or Danzig. The last boat before the first war. And --

HN:Did he talk about the -- I just wonder if he talked about the cantors in the Brodsky Synagogue or, like, about the music --

YW:I never heard a word from him --

HN:Yeah.

YW:-- about that. And I don't know how long he spent at the Brodsky. He was very devoted to Dzimitrovsky. Dzimitrovsky was a teacher, he must have been -- I met Dzimitrovsky a number of times --

HN:Wow.

YW:-- in New York. But, you know, for me, he was a grizzled old man, and I had no particular feeling for him. But my father really adored him and tried to help 13:00whatever he could in bringing him and in treating him right. But Dzimitrovsky must have been a great influence in cultivating my father's talent. I don't know where he learned to sing. I was under the impression that he was a boy soprano coloratura soloist when he was recruited by the Kiev Opera. But Judith's dissertation says that he was in the chorus. I don't know how to reconcile those things. From him, I always had the impression that he was a soloist and that one of his old, oldest friends, a cellist named [Morris Paskevich?], was playing in the orchestra, and they were all very jealous of my father. And when his voice started to crack, they laughed.

HN:Oh! (laughs)

YW:And they were really horrible about it. But also, there were the other things where he was supposed to be some sort of a bird and they put a big mask on him. And he was singing something like a third too high because he couldn't really hear the orchestra and it was --

HN:Oh, my!

YW:Anyway, little --

HN:Yeah, yeah.

YW:-- anecdotes like that, but not very much. And from what I understand -- what I understood then -- is that he did sing in productions of "Boris Godunov," for example, with Chaliapin. And he had, evidently, quite a good musical education. When his voice cracked and he had to leave the opera, he went to the conservatory. And he himself said he got a rather superficial theoretical background, but he evidently learned to be a good pianist. I mean, evidently -- we know he was a beautiful pianist.

HN:Right.

YW:Yeah. Very flexible, very beautiful, sensual sound. It was all just fine. And 15:00evidently, already, when he was still in Russia, he began to play for the movies.

HN:Oh, okay.

YW:I didn't know that until I, you know, really delved a little bit deeper into Judith's dissertation. I have to say, the dissertation covers a lot of ground in the --

HN:Yeah, yeah.

YW:-- biographical material.

HN:Yeah, I know.

YW:And where did she get that? She got it directly from him and from my mother.

HN:Yeah. And that's great --

YW:And sometimes --

HN:-- that there is such a document.

YW:Yeah. Yeah, it is great because it would have been lost otherwise. And then, there's some things that come up that are very puzzling to me, and that is -- differing stories from what I remember from my father and what my mother related.

HN:Ah-ha.

YW:But we can come to that later on.

HN:Sure. So, he comes to America and becomes --

YW:By the way, before that -- in Russia, he said he went to a concert, I guess with Dzimitrovsky, and this little boy in short pants came out and played the violin. It was Heifetz. (laughter) So, you know --

HN:That's amazing.

YW:It is amazing, yeah. We reach back to these figures who are not -- they're just icons in our consciousness.

HN:But it's so interesting -- again, in the dissertation and, you know, talking about the -- your father losing interest in the religious life, losing interest in what he learned in kheyder, obviously, having been in the synagogue choir, and there's some aesthetic part of that that he does identify with, I assume. But then, when he thinks back on it, he really refers to his love of music in childhood as really a love of classical music and that that's really what got him very excited, was --

YW:In the beginning, it's certainly true. More than losing interest in the religious aspect, I think there was a real revulsion, there was a real rejection.

HN:Yes.

YW:Yeah, as if it were a burden that he couldn't get rid of soon enough.

HN:Yes.

YW:Then, coming back -- I mean, his whole life -- it's clear to me his whole life was lived with -- above all, with the concern with the relation of man and God. You know, in generic terms, I don't know how you get closer to a profound religious expression than that. After that, you begin to become particular -- which religion, which branch of the religion, and so on and so forth. But that's the essence of religious thinking. There's not just the idea of God, but who is God in relation to you?

HN:We'll get back to that, 'cause there's --

YW:Yeah.

HN:-- a bunch of things to talk about about that, but I -- okay, so he becomes a vocal accompanist, working with the Mendelssohn Symphony, he learns conducting, he becomes -- Nahum Minkoff from the symphony, he gets him into the Yiddish 18:00poetry, 'cause he's a Yiddish poet, and he meets Di Yunge and these poets and this seemed to have been very transformative for him. I mean, can you talk about that a little bit?

YW:I don't know much about it.

HN:Okay.

YW:I really don't know.

HN:Yeah.

YW:Many of those poets I knew growing up. I didn't know their significance, but they would be around the house.

HN:Yeah. Well, that's cool.

YW:Minkoff, of course --

HN:What were they like?

YW:-- and Elkin and Hirschbein and Pinski and all of them. But that's already much later. I mean, the meeting with the --

HN:Nineteen twenty-nine is when he -- right, or is --

YW:Well, and that's when I was born --

HN:Yes, yes.

YW:-- in 1929. But in the meantime, it seems to me that this letter that he wrote -- to what's his name, the composer?

HN:Oh, Engel.

YW:To Engel was a kind of turning point.

HN:Can you talk about that a little bit? 'Cause he obviously talked about that. That's fascinating.

YW:He didn't talk about it.

HN:He didn't talk about it?

YW:No. No, he didn't talk about it. We know it from the stories he told about 19:00that to Judith and perhaps to others when he had to explain how he came back to Yiddish. But the story was that he sent off some of his songs to Engel, whom he greatly admired. I don't know how well he knew him; I don't know what he was expecting. And I think the combination of encouragement and rejection made a very deep impression.

HN:Yes.

YW:The rejection being, "Young man, you have talent but what are you doing? What is this? Why don't you" -- and the minute you say "why don't you," there's a rejective aspect to it. "Why not think about your heritage? Why not think about the sources of -- you know, that there is a very rich heritage that you can draw on to really make the foundation of your art." And I think that, suddenly, was a light that went on. And then, he began to concern himself with Yiddish.

HN:Yeah.

YW:I don't know exactly how -- whether it was one single individual who convinced him that Yiddish would be something important. I don't know, for example, whether it could have been the light of being in the presence of Peretz Hirschbein. Now, Peretz Hirschbein was married to Esther, who was my mother's sister -- at that time, a very close sister. And my father met my mother through the Hirschbeins. I think they were in a box at Carnegie Hall.

HN:Wow.

YW:And they were at a concert. Hirschbein was already married to Esther and they brought along their younger sister, who had come from Calgary. Now, Hirschbein was a Yiddishist of the highest quality -- not only a Yiddishist, but also a Yiddishist of the quality of the most elegant and aristocratic Yiddish. And I 21:00can't imagine that that was a neutral encounter. Well, you think about this as being in -- we don't know whether my father got married in 1920 or '21, but it's something like that, the beginning of the '20s. And that must have had an influence, an impact on his appetite for Yiddish.

HN:Sure.

YW:So, the years in the '20s are really more vague than most for me. First of all --

HN:Right, in that you weren't born yet. (laughs)

YW:-- I wasn't there. I wasn't born yet. Yeah, but even from a historical point of view, I don't know much of, really, what he was doing. I never knew much about the Mendelssohn Orchestra or about --

HN:Yeah, I mean, when your read a sequence about him where --

YW:Yeah.

HN:-- he is, for one thing -- well, he meets this poet through the Mendelssohn Symphony, and then he becomes aware of the St. Petersburg school of these people -- like Engel and like Milner --

YW:Right.

HN:-- at a concert hearing the Zemirot group in 1919, and then he becomes aware 22:00then that there is this new movement and he gets very excited about it. As you say, he sends his music to Engel, who rejects him and encourages him at the same time.

YW:Yes.

HN:And then, it seems as if he is also interested, however, for his background, in American composers of the time: Joseph Schillinger, Bennett. These people become his teachers.

YW:Well, that's a little bit later.

HN:And it's a little bit later. So, what's --

YW:It's a little bit later.

HN:Could you talk about that a little bit?

YW:Well, yeah, that's a little bit later. First of all, during the '20s, I think he devoted himself, from a professional point of view -- first of all, he was making an apprenticeship in various areas: choral conducting, orchestra work, and accompanying -- collaborating with singers. And that's when he was with -- was it [Moyselev?]?

HN:Yeah.

YW:Who is the vocal teacher in this Carnegie Hall studios that my father played 23:00for many years?

HN:Samoiloff.

YW:Samoiloff, Samoiloff.

HN:Yeah.

YW:Yeah, and that went on for a long time. And my father evidently became very, very successful and well-known as a vocal coach, was very much in demand. And, of course, that was a skill and a predilection that never left him. He was a wonderful coach and a wonderful player for singers. I mean, it was just uncanny the way he just knew every breath and nuance of the singing impulse. So, that enabled him to -- I mean, he had sufficient economic success so that he was no longer struggling in those days. And one of the things was that in 1927, he and my mother left for Europe and the target was to go to Russia. Now, how come? It was not so easy, evidently, to get into Russia in those days. Well, he was the 24:00conductor of the Freiheit's, and that was communist organization. It was a communist orchestra. My father was a leftist, without any question, but never a communist. He was a socialist with the very strong impulses about the justice of the labor movement and basically the politics and sympathies of the Left. Communism, at the time, did not seem like a terrible monster. It was a promise of something; it was an experiment. You know, we didn't know yet -- we didn't know yet what the horrors of that kind of autocratic regime -- what they would bring and how restr-- you know, I don't need to describe it. It was just one of the great tragedies of humanity, I think. So, my father went to Russia and they had a number of adventures. My mother got stuck somewhere -- in Vienna, I think 25:00-- she couldn't get the visa and he went alone and then she met him. He met Alban Berg, by the way, in Vienna while he was there. Don't know anything about the encounter, but he said he met him and that he was very tall and that's all I know. (laughter) And what I got from the story, when they -- from through the years -- was that suddenly it dawned on him what was really going on. Because nobody could talk in public -- with the family or with friends. There was hardly any family left.

HN:Sure.

YW:They would go to a park to discuss things and he began to realize that this was a repressive regime. And I understood that he came back to America and said he didn't want anything more to do with the Freiheit's. What Judith says was that that's not really what happened. What happened was the Freiheit's chorus began to put restrictions on what Weiner -- what he could do and could not do 26:00and he said, in effect, "Screw you, I'm leaving." That's not -- but I think -- you know, I think there was already an excuse looked for to leave. And I don't think these things were quite as clear as they are, you know, later on, when we see the starvation of the -- what Stalin actually did and the show trials and the blah-blah-blah and the millions and millions and millions of people killed and sent to gulags and starved and one thing and another, almost as bad as Mao Zedong. In any case, that was the end of his alliance with the chorus. And it was the beginning, I think, where he began --

HN:Workmen's Circle.

YW:-- with the Arbeter Ring and then, a little later, the ILGWU -- which, again, was --

HN:Which is communist.

YW:-- I mean -- huh?

HN:Which was more communist, actually.

YW:No, no. No, no.

HN:No, not GW --

YW:Oh, no.

HN:Not IWO --

YW:I -- yeah, IW --

HN:I got them mixed up, okay.

YW:No, the ILGWU was not.

HN:Not, yeah.

YW:It was not at all. It was a labor -- it was the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union --

HN:Yeah, both of those.

YW:-- and they were simply union and they were left in politics. They were 27:00democratic, they -- you know. But, you know, as in sibling rivalry, things like that, there's no greater hatred than parallel tribes --

HN:Yes.

YW:-- or, you know -- I mean, that's -- between the communists and the socialists, that was -- they knew each other.

HN:Yeah, yeah.

YW:You know, and so they were killers.

HN:They had plenty to say.

YW:And -- yeah.

HN:Wow.

YW:So, those things took over. My father no longer was doing much in the way of accompanying. That was something he evidently left --

HN:Right. So conducting is --

YW:-- in '27, '28, whatever that -- and from '29 on, it was mostly conducting choruses. I don't remember exactly when the job at Central Synagogue began. Probably 1930, something of that kind.

HN:Yeah.

YW:And --

HN:So, Workmen's Circle Chorus is '31 --

YW:Thirty-one.

HN:-- and I think Central Synagogue is later, yeah.

YW:Okay. And the ILGWU is even later?

HN:Yeah, I think that's right.

YW:Okay, but --

HN:The --

YW:I know it was well-established when I was growing up. I mean, I remember going to the World's Fair in 1940, where he was conducting the ILGWU Chorus and the NBC Symphony -- members of the NBC Symphony.

HN:Fantastic. Wow.

YW:And there was -- oh, something I do remember quite well was -- I think it was an NBC broadcast for the Roosevelt inauguration, in the studios. And he was conducting chorus and a large contingent from the NBC Orchestra. And who was not there? My mother was constantly pushing me, "Get his autograph." "Okay." Thomas Mann. "All right." "Get his autograph." Maurice Maeterlinck. (laughter) "Get her autograph." Dorothy Parker. (laughter) I mean, it went on like this.

HN:Every figure.

YW:And what did I know? You think I know -- those autographs are lost. We have no idea --

HN:Oh, no!

YW:-- where they -- I mean, who cares? But they're lost. (laughter) But it happened.

HN:Yeah.

YW:And here's this little boy coming in, asking for Maurice -- by the way, we 29:00always say (pronounces with long "a") "Maeterlinck," don't we?

HN:(pronounces with long "a") Maeterlinck, yeah.

YW:(pronounces with short "a") Maeterlinck.

HN:Oh, it's really (pronounces with short "a")? Yeah.

YW:Yeah, I have a former student -- not a student, but a colleague from Harvard who's from Belgium. He says it's (pronounces with short "a") Maeterlinck.

HN:Wow, that's good to know.

YW:I thought so, yeah.

HN:I'll --

YW:So, I just heard --

HN:-- sound really educated next time I say --

YW:Well, listen, I just heard Cathy Fuller say (pronounces with accent on second syllable) "Janáček."

HN:Oh, my God, not Cathy! (laughs)

YW:Well, Cathy is -- she know, absolutely knows. And that's why the accent is there. (pronounces with accent on second syllable) "Janáček."

HN:(pronounces with accent on second syllable) Janáček.

YW:(pronounces with accent on second syllable) Janáček.

HN:Oh!

YW:I like it.

HN:So, there you go!

YW:I like (pronounces with accent on second syllable) "Janáček."

HN:That's fascinating. But all my Czech friends say (pronounces with accent on first syllable) "Janáček." (laughs)

YW:Well, we all -- I said (pronounces with accent on first syllable) "Janáček" all my life.

HN:Wow.

YW:And, for example, I said always -- all my life, I've said (pronounces with accent on second syllable) "Mussorgsky." Papa said, No, it's (pronounces with accent on first syllable) "Mussorgsky."

HN:Oh, my God. So much to learn! Can I ask you about one other musical figure in New York --

YW:Uh-oh.

HN:-- back then? I just wondered if you --

YW:Yeah, sure.

HN:-- knew about your father's relationship with him, which was Leo Lyov.

YW:Leo Lyov?

HN:Yeah, Lyov.

YW:Well, he enjoyed Leo Lyov. They were affable colleagues. (laughs) The one 30:00thing -- there was one remark. Papa said, "Yes, yes, Leo Lyov, er iz a guter [he is a good] --"

HN:Dirigent [Conductor]?

YW:-- "dirigent. Ober er klapt mit di fis [But he stomps his feet]." (laughter) It was really very funny. (laughter)

HN:Now, your father -- I've wondered whether he ever mentioned -- while he's doing all this, he was doing accompanying, but he also was recording with khazonim [synagogue cantors]. And he also, occasionally, was recording with klezmorim [klezmer musicians]. Which is very surprising, in a way, because he represented a kind of different musical milieu than either, in a way, and yet he did collaborate a little bit. I know that he, for example, is on Joseph Gegna's recordings. Joseph Gegna was a Leopold Auer student, who was a klezmer.

YW:Is that so?

HN:Yeah.

YW:See --

HN:I have --

YW:-- this is news to me.

HN:-- these recordings. I'd be happy to --

YW:Oh, fantastic!

HN:-- share them with you. So, I'm just wondering if you remember anything about your father's kind of -- you know, what did he respect, what did he not respect? Was there a line that he drew between high culture and low culture --

YW:Yeah.

HN:-- in Yiddish?

YW:Yes.

HN:Can you talk about that a little bit?

YW:Yeah, he was a snob.

HN:Ah-ha.

YW:He was truly an elitist. First of all, he refused to make categories. People say, Jewish music this and that, he says no. Yeah, there is such a thing as Jewish music, but basically there's not -- only good music and bad music. I mean, that -- but bad music for him was commercial music, music that was written specifically for commerce, for jingles. And he was very much, as I say, an elitist. The lower spectrum of music for basically the uneducated, the uncultured, unexposed to art music were -- that music was really dismissed and 32:00for the most part treated with contempt. So, it's -- he really was a person who felt that -- I think particularly in the inferiority complex that I think many Jews carried around with them -- not just about, you know, their status in the overall civilization and culture, but also from a point of view of the arts and their education and the rest of that. I mean, if they were educated in Talmud and Torah, that's one thing, but that didn't carry. And I think that he felt it was really necessary to raise the consciousness of standards, necessary to begin to understand that if you're going to write a song, you have to think -- I mean, 33:00in terms of Harold Bloom, "The Anxiety of Influence," you have to think that Schubert was there and Mozart was there and Bach was there before you. And you think you're writing this little ditty and you worship that, you think it's something wonderful? It isn't! And of course, it is, in a way, but you have to think about it very differently. But he was working, in a sense, against the grain. He was working to elevate taste, to improve, to refine a culture and really, to overcome the ghetto mentality. And that ghetto mentality, of course, is very narrow and -- what's the word I'm looking for? It doesn't matter.

HN:Provincial?

YW:Provincial. Yeah, yeah. And he, you know, was -- since he was educated in the classical tradition and knew much about it -- as well as the other, the 34:00khazonishe [Jewish liturgical music] -- he wanted to see if there was not some way to elevate, to refine, to transform these things into a higher realm. And that's really what his life was about from an artistic point of view. Now, I just want to say, you mentioned that he's got some -- he was working with some klezmorim and I have no idea of that. What is it, he was playing the piano for them?

HN:He played piano with -- there are two very, very famous recordings of Joseph Gegna, a wonderful violinist, as I say, who's kind of somewhere -- kind of a bridge between classical and klezmer violin and your father's the accompanist on those.

YW:Really?

HN:Yeah.

YW:Never heard of that.

HN:Yeah. Oh, I'll make sure you get them. (laughs)

YW:I think it's significant that my father never spoke about that --

HN:Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating.

YW:-- or revealed it. That's maybe -- I mean, certainly he did so many concerts 35:00of popular Yiddish songs. You know, the things like "Oyfn pripetshik [By the fireplace]" and "Viglid [Lullaby]" and various other things, which, you know, were the exemplifications of mame-loshn [mother tongue, i.e. Yiddish], in a way -- with Sidor, with Sidor Belarsky.

HN:Yes.

YW:Those recitals I remember well. And of course, then, in much later time, the Leon Lishner thing, which was -- with Lishner -- see, the difference was, with Lishner, my father could really count on Lishner understanding his position, and so they behaved as truly equal colleagues. With Sidor Belarsky -- Sidor Belarsky was sort of the Jewish Bing Crosby. He was a star. And you know, if you're going to do something with Sidor Belarsky, you've gotta do it his way. Frank Sinatra, the -- you don't say, "Frank," you know, "this is" -- you know, (UNCLEAR). "You've got to do this different. You've got to sing" -- you know, "you have to 36:00sing this Bach aria."

HN:Right.

YW:Never mind that. So (laughs) -- and so he would often do all these things with Sidor, and occasionally, they would throw in something a little bit more what my father would consider refined. But I have to tell you one funny -- one little anecdote about this that you'll -- you might enjoy this, too, Christa.

HN:We actually interviewed Isabel Belarsky about three weeks ago, so -- it was a lot of fun.

YW:You did? And she's alive?

HN:Oh, yeah. She's ninety. Anyhow, so tell us about (laughs) --

YW:Well, Sidor, at recitals, had a habit -- actually, it was a nervous habit of clearing his throat, blowing his nose before concerts, but onstage. And the Yiddish word for clearing your throat like that is called "khraken." It's an onomatopoetic word. It's probably Polish. "M'khraket [You clear your throat]" -- you know, (imitates clearing throat). So, my father and Sidor were doing a recital at Town Hall in New York. Papa says, "You know, Sidor, it's Town Hall. Don't khraket." He said, (laughter) "Don't worry." So, they get out on stage and 37:00Sidor takes out the handkerchief and he begins to -- (clears throat) and then, he goes around the back of the piano and you hear -- (clears throat) very subtly, comes back around, gets ready to sing, and my father beckons him. So, Sidor comes around. He says, "What is it, Weiner? I didn't khraket." He says, "No, but your fly is open." (laughter)

HN:God! (laughter)

YW:Did she tell you that story?

HN:That's incredible! No! (laughter) That's amazing. (laughter) Oh, my God.

YW:So, anyway. So, I mean, he continued playing for people, but no longer was it the basis of a profession in that way.

HN:Yeah.

YW:And of course, he didn't -- he no longer played for singers who were doing 38:00the basic literature. I never heard him play any Debussy or Wolf or Schubert.

HN:Oh, interesting.

YW:See, it was Yiddish at that point --

HN:Yeah. And Belarsky -- all kinds of things. Cantorials and folksongs and -- I mean, he's on a lot of those recordings.

YW:Yeah, but the khazonish would be sort of sentimentalized and made more like lidelekh [little songs] and so on.

HN:That's true, the way Belarsky did it.

YW:The way Belarsky did it.

HN:Yeah, that's a good point.

YW:And he was really quite adorable.

HN:Yes, yes, yes.

YW:He was a very, very charming man.

HN:Yeah, yeah.

YW:Very nice. Anyway --

HN:Wonderful.

YW:-- so, the things that were going -- now -- evidently, there isn't much music that my father was writing, that we know about, for several years in the '20s. And I didn't know about this, either. I mean, there --

HN:Yeah, there's that thing about he didn't write music for five years, yeah.

YW:For four years.

HN:Four years.

YW:Four or five years. And then, I guess, when he got back, he felt the need for further study and he went to Robert Russell Bennett. Well, he went to Jacobi 39:00first, I think. I didn't know much about Jacobi, but he was at Julliard and he was a well-thought-of musician. I don't have any idea what kind of composition work my father did with him or for how long he studied with him. No idea. With Robert Russell Bennett, I also don't know how long he studied with him, but he admired Bennett very, very much. Bennett was a very courtly, generous, beautiful guy. Imperturbable. He was one of those multitaskers who could sit, make a Broadway arrangement, listen to the ballgame, smoke, (laughter) and carry on a conversation.

HN:Yeah.

YW:And how do I know that? I saw it, because when I was fifteen or so, my father brought me to his old teacher to show off his son, because I'd written a song of some sort. I remember the song to this day. It's called -- it's to a poem by 40:00Sandburg called "O Brother Tree" that only an adolescent could love. (laughter) And it's a very heartfelt, tragic appeal for love, actually. And a nice song -- well done, in a way. And Robert Russell Bennett was very kind and good to me and complimented my father, complimented me, and that was sort of it. I didn't know anything about Robert Russell Bennett except the Broadway arrangements and I didn't know those well. But I also know that wonderful story, Billy Rose commissioning Stravinsky to do something -- was it the "Norwegian Moods" or the elephant's polka or whatever it was for a Broadway musical or Broadway revue, performance took place, and Rose telegraphed Stravinsky and said, "Dear Mr. Stravinsky" -- or "Dear Igor," or whatever it was -- "your 'Norwegian Moods,' great success. Could be sensational if you'd allow Robert Russell Bennett to 41:00orchestrate." To which Stravinsky answered, "I'm satisfied with great success." (laughter) Anyway, I don't know what papa got from Bennett, but I think he got -- he must have gotten something maybe more important than a few techniques here and there. I think he got support. I think he got, you know, the encouragement. "Yeah, you're a composer. Yeah, you're writing. Yes, you can do these things."

HN:I mean, I would wonder if he wouldn't have gone to him about arranging, I mean --

YW:No.

HN:No, it wasn't that.

YW:No, but, I mean, it may have been --

HN:I mean, he was a fine orchestral arranger.

YW:Well --

HN:But the --

YW:-- Russell Bennett was not a good composer but he was a fantastic --

HN:He was a great arranger, so I wondered why your father wouldn't have --

YW:I have no idea.

HN:Yeah.

YW:No idea why he did the --

HN:But it wasn't about arranging, 'cause he didn't -- your father didn't write a lot of orchestral arrangements.

YW:No, but he may have gone feeling that he would learn things about 42:00orchestration that would be very helpful to him later on.

HN:Yeah.

YW:Or maybe he had some orchestral sketches that he was interested in elaborating. But then, he went to Schillinger, I guess, in '30 or '31. And Schillinger was really quite a piece of work. You know, he was a terrible composer, but a very interesting thinker about the possibility --

HN:Mathematical mind. (laughs)

YW:Mathematical mind.

HN:Yes, yes.

YW:And, you know, it wasn't the first -- so you had Hauer and Schoenberg and other people making the relations --

HN:Right.

YW:-- between numbers and music and how those things could be somehow synthesized and combined. Schillinger did it in a more mechanical way, devoid of -- somehow, just subjecting notes to a system rather than seeing how notes could somehow produce numbers, which then could generate pieces. I think it's where -- with --

HN:It's very different. He didn't compose --

YW:-- the chicken and the egg --

HN:-- didn't compose --

YW:-- or the egg and the chicken.

HN:-- really.

YW:Right, right. (laughter) And he ran his -- he lived on Park Avenue and had 43:00his studio there, his office there. And it was set up like a psychiatrist's office. You went in one door and you left by another. There was a waiting room. And his various students would never see each other. And the student who had a lesson either exactly before my father or exactly after was George Gershwin. And they never met.

HN:Wow.

YW:And (laughter) --

HN:That's amazing.

YW:-- my father took me to a lesson once -- and I wasn't at the lesson, I was just in the waiting room -- and I just remember the place being so antiseptic. It just -- you know, it was like being in a laboratory, with a lobotomy. (laughter) But my father did get things from him. There were things that really -- he did a lot of hard work on sketches and with the permutations and working 44:00on real pieces. And one of the actual pieces that resulted from that study were the "Five Calculations for Piano." And those were published almost immediately, I think by Carl Fischer, and I don't believe ever played -- until, I think, in my teens I played them --

HN:Wow.

YW:-- at a concert at Carnegie -- at Town Hall. And they're diabolical. Some of them are very, very, very hard. But, you know, I found some of them appealed to me, of the five pieces, and some I thought, This is just --

HN:Exercises.

YW:-- note generating without any sense. And now, at a distance of thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years, there's no note generating. It's all composed and the pieces are wonderful. And people don't play them, but I have a recording of them that are --

HN:Wow.

YW:-- it's pretty stunning. I don't know who that pianist is, but it was me. (laughter)

HN:Wow.

YW:And --

HN:So, maybe we can go back to some of these -- yeah, we want to get to you pretty soon here.

YW:Nah.

HN:But go back to a little bit of these Yiddish -- the sort of milieu he was in. I mean, the collaborations with Heschel interested me very much.

YW:I don't know anything about that except --

HN:Oh, so that was early Heschel.

YW:I don't know anything about that except for the resultant Heschel songs, which I think are among the highest achievement of his life.

HN:They're incredible.

YW:The first three of them --

HN:Yeah.

YW:-- are masterpieces. And I really -- I respond to those big time.

HN:Yeah.

YW:They're wonderful.

HN:But he was not around the house, so --

YW:No, he was not around the house.

HN:-- it's possible that was from a book -- (laughs)

YW:It could --

HN:-- of poetry.

YW:-- it's very possible.

HN:Yeah.

YW:I just don't know.

HN:Uh-huh.

YW:Well, yeah, and I wonder why there was the commission from whatever that 46:00agency was.

HN:Exactly.

YW:Yeah, yeah, I don't know what the whole connection was and I didn't know anything about Heschel and I still don't really know about --

HN:Can you talk a little bit about the synagogue, his work --

YW:Yeah.

HN:-- then, in the synagogue --

YW:Yeah, yeah.

HN:-- and how that came about and --

YW:Well, how it came about, I don't know. But he was appointed to the synagogue and they had a good choir of about twelve or sixteen professional singers who were perfectly good and an excellent, excellent, fluent organist named Richardson, who was one of those guys who could improvise anything. You know, you just put a theme in front of him and he would just improvise it -- that whole French manner. And he had fingers that would fly all over everything and he had absolutely no character whatsoever. (laughter) You know, I mean, the music was just -- it was like dishwater, but -- but fluent and correct and really wonderful. My father evidently undertook to -- as with the Yiddish 47:00situation -- to reform the practice of synagogue music in the Reform temple. And, you know, like when Bach went to Leipzig, his idea -- what he put forth was the idea of reforming the music to "a well-regulated church music" is what he -- I think the term he used. And papa wanted to really give this music some Jewish character, because he felt that the music was being done -- the best of it was Sulzer and Lewandowski. And he felt that that was really not Jewish music at all -- it happened to be done in Germany in the nineteenth century, but it was basically at -- the most Jewish it got was sort of Mendelssohn -- not at his most Jewish, but Mendelssohn, in his various choral pieces -- and that that 48:00music had no origin in language or Yiddish or Jewish melos. Not from the cantillations, not from the Hasidim, not from the nigunim [melodies], not from any source of Jewish life. And so, he sought to either find compositions which had some authentic Jewish background or to commission and begin to write the stuff. And a huge literature was actually achieved. And in the end, he really brought wide attention -- the Milhaud service, the Bloch service, the Schalit service --

HN:Freed.

YW:-- the Fromm services, the Freed services. He wasn't terribly high on Freed.

HN:Yeah.

YW:He was very, very respectful and just thought Fromm was wonderful.

HN:Oh, Fromm, okay.

YW:He loved Schalit, some of it, anyway, and he adored Achron. And he came to respect the Milhaud, although the Milhaud was not of any kind of Jewish cast that my father recognized.

HN:Well, Provence.

YW:Huh?

HN:Provence.

YW:Because it was Provençal. Right. By the way, we were in Provence about four or five years ago in the town of Milhaud. There's another town called Millau --

HN:Interesting.

YW:-- which is not the same. But there's a --

HN:Wow.

YW:-- town of Milhaud and --

HN:Wow.

YW:-- that's where that family went, I guess, after the Inquisition in Spain.

HN:Now --

YW:And --

HN:-- yeah?

YW:-- so, he did this for many, many years, and it was a tough sell. It was a tough sell because they had a rabbi who was basically a Presbyterian. Jonah B. Wise was, you know, as Jewish, I would say, as Newt Gingrich. (laughter) He was 50:00really not just a Presbyterian but an offensive Presbyterian. (speaks in English accent) And he spoke with a very pretentious kind of Anglican accent, as if, you know, he wanted to hide every trace of possible Judaism, and particularly any trace of Judaism which smacked of the East, the Ostenjuden [German: Jews from Eastern Europe, often pejorative]. You know, it had to be High German or nothing. And he was a real prick, this guy. He was nasty. And when he would read the prayers, you really felt that he had horns coming out of his head, you know? (laughter) Then, there was Frederick Lechner, with whom my father sort of got along. He was a fair musician with a nice voice, but he was basically -- he had the dynamic excitement of a hippo. (laughter) You know, it was always the same, 51:00it was always lugubrious, it was always shlepenish [plodding walk]. He would do these things with -- he would acquiesce to my father's proposals to do certain kinds of music. But it was -- there was never any excitement created there. The excitement came from the choir loft. I don't know if you know Central Synagogue, but it's a neo-Gothic --

HN:Yeah, I know it well, and we've --

YW:Yeah.

HN:-- played there. (laughs)

YW:What?

HN:We've actually played there.

YW:Have you?

HN:Yeah.

YW:Yeah. I had a very funny encounter once. I was having dinner at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York and I was very excited, because they put me next to another member named Ada Louise Huxtable.

HN:Oh my God.

YW:Yeah. (laughter) Now, Ada Louise Huxtable, do you know anything about her? She's the great architectural historian -- well, really, the -- and I had just adored her and I -- so, we sat and we talked. And dinner was okay and finally she said, "Well, tell me about you." So, I started talking a little about my 52:00father. And I said, "You know, for many years, he was music director of Central Synagogue." And she looked at me, she said, "Central Synagogue? Of course." She said, "I was a member there for years." Who knew? (laughter)

HN:Wow.

YW:It was my synagogue!

HN:It's not that kind of name, either. (laughs)

YW:Well, she married some --

HN:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

YW:-- I guess the writer -- or whatever it was -- Huxtable and --

HN:That's fascinating.

YW:Anyway, we've remained friends --

HN:That's great.

YW:-- since that. So, what you got was this -- you know, this sound coming from upstairs in the choir loft.

HN:Yeah.

YW:And the problem with that is remoteness --

HN:Yeah.

YW:-- you know? And those were the -- and anything that I knew about religion came from the feeling that you'd get in the very rare services that I would attend there. When I'd have to sit in the congregation, it was hell; when I was able to sit in the choir loft and watch papa work with these things, it was great.

HN:Oh, wow.

YW:It was inspiring. He was a very demanding, particular, and dynamic leader. His best work, I have to say, though, was with amateur choruses. 'Cause with professionals, he exhibited a kind of lack of patience and a kind of hard-edged discipline that was not really the most productive. I learned a lot from watching that and its effect. I learned in the negative way, that I swore I would never do things like that. But with amateur choruses, we're talking magic. You're talking about a person who had the charisma of a real demagogue. And he could have them peeing in their pants with laughter -- just hysterical laughter 54:00-- at something he had said, and then say, "Enough!" Upbeat, to the next thing.

HN:Yeah.

YW:And they would be -- (claps) just like that. It was just incredible. It was like a military operation, almost, (laughs) but for musical reasons.

HN:Yeah, yeah.

YW:It was --

HN:I'm thinking -- the recording, the original recording, "Legends of Toil," which I have --

YW:You do?

HN:-- just amazing.

YW:'Cause I don't have that.

HN:Oh, God, I can --

YW:I don't have any of those things!

HN:-- hook you up with some stuff.

YW:Listen, Hankus, I don't have any of those things!

HN:That's wild.

YW:No!

HN:Wow!

YW:I mean --

HN:We'll talk. (laughs) That's great.

YW:So --

HN:'Cause the chorus just is so good. I mean, it's just (laughs) -- it's amazing.

YW:Oh, it was an amazing phenomenon, the way he disciplined them. And I also have the Milhaud service here -- you know, on -- because it was reissued some years later. And then, of course, he did the Bloch service. The first performance in New York wasn't with orchestra; it was with the --

HN:Central Synagogue, yeah.

YW:Yeah. And one of the things I used to love was the theme song from the "Message of Israel," which was on every Sunday morning on -- what do they say? On broadcast, on NBC hookup -- "national hookup," they'd call it. "National hookup." (laughter)

HN:That would be something else now.

YW:"National hookup." (laughter) And the theme song was a beautiful piece by Achron that really got into my consciousness.

HN:That's fascinating. Wow.

YW:Just adored it.

HN:Wow.

YW:So, there were a great many pieces that he wrote -- he himself wrote for and then got colleagues to write and performed. And he was, you know, very generous with regenerating the field and trying to raise the standard. And, for a while, it certainly had an influence --

HN:Yeah.

YW:-- until demographics and suburbs and the whole aesthetic of religion going 56:00to the lowest common denominator became more and more a matter of mass appeal.

HN:Yeah. And he leaves that position in '74, right?

YW:Yeah.

HN:Yeah, '74.

YW:Yeah.

HN:And really -- now, there's a statement that Neil Levin makes that I wonder what you think of --

YW:Yeah, yeah.

HN:-- actually, in the collection of songs. He says that your father was neither a Yiddishist nor a Hebraist. He says that -- but that the fact that he wasn't a Hebraist was not a rejection of contemporary Israeli culture in any way. It was just that the particular group he was in was Yiddishist, so he was motivated to write, to set Yiddish music.

YW:Yeah.

HN:So, in other words, there wasn't any -- so, I wondered how that fit in with 57:00the --

YW:With the writing of the synagogue music in Hebrew?

HN:Yeah, well, not only -- well, the writing of the synagogue music in Hebrew -- I noticed, for example, that you were particular about Ashkenazic Hebrew.

YW:Um-hm.

HN:I think in his time, it also was Ashkenazic Hebrew.

YW:It was Ashkenazic, yeah. Oh, yes.

HN:But it seems -- I just wondered whether you could comment any -- whether your father had any feelings about the sort of modern Hebraist, kind of post-Israeli culture?

YW:No.

HN:Was he involved in that in any way?

YW:No. No, he wasn't. But, I mean, his Hebrew involvement was strictly on a liturgical basis of the service of writing for the synagogue. It didn't go into any -- I mean, occasionally, you had the "Shir hapalmach [Hebrew: Song of the Palmach]" or the "Ani ma'amin [Hebrew: I believe]" -- you know, a few pieces like that that were signature pieces of a certain culture. But aside from that, you know, he had devoted himself to Yiddish. It was his -- that's -- it was his 58:00province and his concentration. The lack of involvement with Hebrew, modern or otherwise, was not a rejection. It was simply, he didn't -- he wasn't interested in doing both.

HN:Yeah, yeah. And then, I guess the final question I wanted to ask about your father was, how do you think -- do you think he was successful, then, in having his music received in the Jewish community and through -- let me ask this question, I suppose: I don't know whether his target audience even was just the Jewish community, or was it everyone? And how do you feel the reception to your father's music was in the musical world?

YW:It was pretty exclusively Jewish -- to the Jewish audience. And the paradox is that, as time goes on, it is less and less to the Jewish audience, because 59:00the Jewish audience, in effect, has turned its back on that aspect of Yiddish culture and it has become something with -- as people have recognized a kind of universality and a kind of eloquence to his expression, more people are responding to that. I mean, I've taken that path, also, to an extent, because -- you know, I wrote about this in the introduction to my services, saying that when I realized that my services no longer had a -- was doing any service in the synagogue and that my fellow Jews were not the slightest bit interested in pursuing that path or in responding to it, but my experience had been that this was a music which was both very characteristically and deeply Jewish, and at the same time, having a universal appeal or thrust.

HN:Yes.

YW:And I found out on numerous occasions. One of the most exciting for me was when the Yale Glee Club undertook to do my Friday evening service. And, you know, there were almost no Jews in this large chorus. And they fell in love with the piece.

HN:Yeah.

YW:I mean, it really reached them as simply a piece of eloquent music with a spiritual thrust. And a similar thing happened with the Torah service, which is a somewhat different piece of work --

HN:Very much.

YW:-- a different aesthetic. And then, you know, in 1991, when Susan was taking -- what's his first name -- Olesen's -- she was serving as -- during a sabbatical at Brandeis with the chorus --

HN:Oh, yeah.

YW:-- and she wanted to do some Gabrieli, she wanted to do Bach, she wanted to do this and that, and she wanted to do my music; she wanted to do my service. 61:00But it was with organ --

HN:Right, right.

YW:-- so, she insisted on my --

HN:Your orchestration.

YW:-- orchestrating it.

HN:Yeah.

YW:And the orchestration is a little peculiar but it's the same -- it uses the instruments that would combine the Bach (phone rings) --

HN:(UNCLEAR) (laughs)

YW:-- oh, okay -- combine the Bach and the Gabrieli. (laughter)

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

YW:-- the second movement, with that tune, which is very folk-like.

HN:Yeah.

YW:And people ask me, you know, Where's it from? And it may be actually out there. I don't know. It may be a tune that was -- that preceded my consciousness, but I felt I made it up. But it's in a -- certainly circumscribed by tradition. And the rhythm of it is a polka mazurka.

HN:Yeah.

YW:(sings wordlessly) It's like the Chopin, isn't it?

HN:Um-hm.

YW:Yeah, or like one of the mazurkas.

HN:But the one you're singing is the (UNCLEAR) one. (sings wordlessly)

YW:Yeah, but the tradition -- not that one, but --

HN:That's not Chopin. (laughs)

YW:Anyway, it ends up being a series of semi-variations. And I don't know what to say about it. It just --

HN:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it just --

YW:-- it goes on and then it also ends in this very foggy -- something that a lot of my pieces would do, a kind of -- it ends up in a fog of both meditation and confusion and question. It's like -- you know, like the material in the cloud, in the ether. And it's very, very strange. And I don't know where that comes from or -- I know that -- we did a performance of it at the Jewish Theological Seminary, about five, six years ago. And Sam Adler came with Milton Babbitt. And they're sitting there during this performance of things. And afterwards, Milton gets ahold of me and says, "Yehudi, I didn't know you were the Jewish Brahms." (laughter) You know?

HN:Oh, my God. (laughs)

YW:I said, "Milton, thank you. (laughter) I would like nothing better."

HN:(laughs) That's not a bad person to be compared to. (laughs)

YW:But --

HN:Wow. That ending is amazing. I just wondered -- don't ever give me a score. I want to transcribe it. (laughs)

YW:Oh, listen, the --

HN:Pretty amazing.

YW:-- well, you can't, actually, because the things get out of phase in that. You know, they're just --

HN:I'd really -- I mean, it's just that they play it very well --

YW:Yeah.

HN:-- on that recording, the end of that piece. I just thought -- it's really extraordinary, yeah.

YW:And Bruce does that. I think it's Bruce Creditor who does the clarinet on that.

HN:It's Bruce on that, okay.

YW:Yeah, I think it's Bruce. But, you know, I got Dick to play klezmer in the other thing.

HN:Yeah, well, now he's been doing more of it.

YW:Yeah, he says he couldn't do it. He absolutely insisted he couldn't do it. I said, "Yeah, you can. You can do it. You got to do it."

HN:He's a funny guy.

YW:He -- Dick? Oh, he's so wonderful. What a wonderful colleague. (laughter)

HN:Oh, my God. And the "Shir hashirim [Hebrew: Song of songs]" --

YW:By the way --

HN:-- oh, yeah.

YW:-- about "Tants un maysele [A dance and a little song]," it was the last new piece of mine that papa heard before he died.

HN:Is that right?

YW:Yeah.

HN:Oh, I'll bet he liked that one. (laughs)

YW:You know, hard to know.

HN:Hard to know?

YW:He didn't express himself --

HN:He didn't say, huh?

YW:-- about that sort of thing. You know, he would say things like, "Oh, so dreamy" or "sensitive." But he would never -- can I tell you an incident?

HN:Sure.

YW:Near the end of his life, he came to visit us in the country. I was teaching at Tanglewood. We had a little house -- a farmhouse -- and he and mother came up. And at one point -- I don't know what it was that created this -- not a confrontation, but a discussion about something. I said to him, "You know, papa, in all the years that we have been together and doing things musically together, you have never once complimented me."

HN:Wow.

YW:And he looked aghast and he said, "I compliment you? You are so high above me."

HN:Oh, wow.

YW:I find that totally tragic --

HN:Wow.

YW:-- because it froze the possibility of a relationship for years and years and years before that. That was what he was thinking? 'Cause again, in a peculiarly reversed way, it's an Oedipal thing -- the idea of a competition or the idea of a superiority, of one over another? You know, I think of my father's music as utterly authentic. And what's more important than authentic? Complicated, 66:00intellectual -- you know, whatever -- but authentic is the final value. But he was so uncertain. And I thought that was a truly tragic moment.

HN:I think he must have been very proud of the education you had, then. My God.

YW:Oh, he was, I mean, he would not express it so much, but --

HN:He didn't have anything like that.

YW:-- I remember my mother saying -- they would have arguments early in their life. They'd argue and papa would say, "I'm going to throw myself in the river!" (laughter) They lived on 110th Street, so he'd go slam the door and he'd be gone for a couple of hours. Door would open quietly, he'd come back in, not a word. Next argument, "I'm going to the river!" He didn't say now he's going to throw himself in because that, of course -- (laughter) it was -- maybe he didn't do 67:00it, so, you know, he was a man -- he had to do what he said he was going to do. And mama said to me, "You know, he never would apologize. Tsurikgekumen in dem shtub, shtil vi a moyz [He'd come back into the house, quiet as a mouse]." You know? And she said, "But I knew when he was sorry." (laughter) It was so adorable! (laughter) "He would never -- shtil vi a moyz, arayngekrikht in shtub -- arayngekrokhn [quiet as a mouse, he'd creep into the house -- creep in]." (laughter)

HN:My God!

YW:Ah, gee.

HN:Yeah. There are, like, two more questions I'd like to ask you. I just wanted to ask you about the Bach Aria Group --

YW:Oh, gee.

HN:Because Robert Bloom once wrote me a letter that when he played -- everything 68:00he played on the oboe, he was thinking khazones [Jewish liturgical music]. He was thinking of it as if he were a cantor.

YW:Yeah.

HN:And I found that really amazing. (laughs) I used to listen to the broadcasts --

YW:Yeah.

HN:-- and I just wondered, you know, if you can kind of talk about just the joy of doing that for so many years and how that -- to me, that was one of the most spiritual things ever, that group. I don't know.

YW:Well, it was one of -- for me, it was the same. It was really -- from an artistic point of view and a spiritual point of view, the most concentrated dealing with other -- someone else's music and someone else's musical situation. Although it's hard to exaggerate. I mean, anytime I perform, whether it's Hayden, Bach, or Mozart, Brahms, I'm just in seventh heaven. It's just -- I'm transported to somewhere else. But the Bach thing, going year after year, having 69:00to work on those things so deeply -- especially me, because I had to do all the realizations.

HN:Yeah.

YW:Most of them were not printed. I had had to do them myself. And it brought me, really, into such a kind of intimate relationship with Bach's inner processes. Because very often I would start doing that and I'd say, Yeah, this is a kind of indifferent piece, not very dramatic themes, (laughter) not very dramatic themes. And then, he'd start to grind away and work out and suddenly I'd find myself totally farshnoshket [intoxicated] by the images and the process and everything. So, I was very close to that and I think it's one of the great foundations of whatever my education is and just a feeling for what's value -- what is value! Because Bach gives the highest value per square moment in all of civilization. I mean, more than anybody. Even more than Mozart, who's another angel. But more than Shakespeare. Even more than the Bible. 'Cause the Bible's 70:00inconsistent. (laughs)

HN:Yeah, that's right. (laughter)

YW:Anyway, the -- how was it? I mean, imagine being in the presence of a group of musicians who are supreme in their field -- whether it was Oscar Shumsky or Charles Traeger or Danny Phillips or Jamie Buswell -- I mean, they're all just sublime. Bernie Greenhouse, Bob Bloom. Sam Baron was no slouch -- wasn't my favorite instrumentalist but he was a great musical thinker. And then, Maureen Forrester, Lois Marshall, singers. So, there was -- and this -- you know, what can I say? It's like, ikh bin arayngefaln in a shmalts grub [I struck it rich, lit. "I fell into a tub of fat"].

HN:Yeah.

YW:You know? It's so sweet to see you understanding those things, 'cause -- (laughter) you know, I think my Yiddish probably would be completely lost 71:00without having to deal with my father's songs.

HN:That's interesting. And you really do, because the folks like -- you know, obviously like Lynn or even Josh, they don't know any Yiddish. So, it's like, otherwise, they don't have any clue --

YW:No.

HN:-- as to what that would be, so (UNCLEAR) --

YW:Well, Josh Jacobson, you mean?

HN:Yeah.

YW:Well, that's only one of the clues -- (laughter)

HN:Sweet!

YW:Yeah.

HN:Okay.

YW:Oy, iz dos a balegole [Oh, what a taskmaster]. (laughter)

HN:We've got to have a beer next.

YW:Oh, my mother -- I would go to some of the cantors' conventions with her and she had such a sharp tongue. "Oh, ot, der ferd geyt. Oy, un itst vet er mekenen bekn! [Look, there goes a horse. And pretty soon he'll be throwing up his breakfast!]" (laughter)

HN:See, that's important! (laughter) Oh, my God.

YW:"Ot, der ferd geyt." (laughter) There's gonna be -- you know, there's supposed to be this cantors' convention here.

HN:Yeah.

YW:In a week, two weeks?

HN:I don't know about it.

YW:Well, I don't know about it either. (laughter) Everybody's telling me --

HN:I haven't heard a thing about it.

YW:That's why the book is coming out, because they want to sell it -- they want to, you know, to have it for sale at that thing. They think they'll --

HN:I haven't heard a word about a cantors' anything, but --

YW:There's a cantors' convention here from the yesh--

HN:What kind of cantor? I mean, like, who's putting (UNCLEAR) --

YW:Any cantor -- you know, there'll be the cantor prevention month, there'll be a Sloan Kettering cantor. (laughter) I don't know. They don't -- they keep saying, "We'll send you the -- all the material about it," and (UNCLEAR) --

HN:Okay, fine.

YW:-- I'm out of the loop. (laughter) Listen, I have no cachet with the Jews, believe me.

HN:(laughs) That's awesome. (laughs)

YW:You know, I'm amazed, Hankus, that you know this music of mine. I have no way of knowing that you're acquainted with it and I can't tell you how pleased I am.

HN:Oh, thank you! Thank you.

YW:Yeah! I mean, how would I know? You didn't call, you didn't write!

HN:(laughs) What am I going to do? Oh, you know, I was busy. (laughs)

YW:They all say that! (laughter)

HN:Now it's summer, but --

YW:John Harbison and I find ourselves at a great many composers' concerts here in Boston, wherever, whether it's Sanders or at the Dinosaur or whether it's at the Conservatory. And we talk to -- we see each other all the time, yeah. "Where are they?" "Oh, they're busy."

HN:(laughs) The other composers, right. (laughs)

YW:They're not there. We don't have a community.

HN:It's absolutely true. It's absolutely true. I mean, I have a community, I 74:00have to say. But it's a little bit different than that community -- you know, I would say -- but I know that's true in the composer world in Boston. I remember it being that way way back, even. And it has to do with -- well, it's --

YW:Now wait a minute, it's very easy. They're busy.

HN:(laughs) They're busy.

YW:I mean, it's very simple. They're busy.

HN:Yeah.

YW:And it's true, people are busy. But also, it's as if they don't recognize the fact that it's their own suicide.

HN:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Boston's complicated in other ways, too.

YW:Yeah.

HN:I mean, there's a way that people are here but they're not here, in a sense. It's like they're really from New York or they're really from somewhere else --

YW:Oh.

HN:-- or they're really -- there's a lot of that. And I feel like, in some way, that the musical community never really congeals because of that. I always find it transitional here. And you've been here for a long time, too, and I wonder if you --

YW:Not that long. I mean, not my origins.

HN:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

YW:I've been here only twenty years now, but that doesn't --

HN:Well, I've been here probably almost forty, I guess, at this point.

YW:Well, you're --

HN:I'm from Philadelphia. Philadelphia's very different than that. I think there's a community.

YW:Is that right?

HN:I think there is. I think -- I just always get the impression, when I would get together with, you know, I don't know, the conductors or composers or -- they seemed to all know each other. (laughs) So, I know what you're saying.

YW:Well, it's very, very disturbing. But you remember, about fifteen years ago, there was a photograph in "The New York Times," "The New York Composers," and they show them around a spiral staircase, and everybody was there --

HN:Yeah, yeah.

YW:-- including some people from Boston. (laughter) So, the people in Boston --

HN:You think of them as New Yorkers.

YW:-- said, We've got to do that. We've got to have a picture like that with all the composers in Boston. So, they set up a date for the stage at Jordan and 76:00every fucking composer from the area showed up, a couple hundred composers --

HN:Wow!

YW:-- on the stage, in order to have a photo shoot. (laughter) You know? And not only that, the amount of pushing and shoving to be up in the front row, (laughter) you wouldn't believe. And then, you never saw them again.

HN:There you go. They go back into their little world.

YW:They're busy.

HN:Yeah, they're busy. (laughs)

YW:They're very busy. Well, I mean, for those of us -- some of us are lucky enough to have some leisure time that we feel -- it's not a matter of sparing it; it's just a matter of the -- the texture of our life.

HN:Yeah. No, it's -- absolutely.

YW:And papa was like that. He went to concerts all the time, contemporary music concerts. And he never saw Freed, Binder, any of the boytshiklakh [guys] there. Never.

HN:Yeah.

YW:And then, they would say to him, Weiner, vos krigst af glaykhe vint [how's success going, lit. "how do you get the windfall"]? What are you doing?

HN:Wow, yeah.

YW:So --

HN:That's interesting. Yeah. In this er-- have you heard new composers emerging that you're very excited about around here?

YW:Oh, some, yeah. Sure.

HN:Yeah.

YW:There's one at Brandeis -- well, I mean, there's David Rakowski, who is just amazing.

HN:He was in my class.

YW:Davey?

HN:Yeah. At NEC -- I mean, we were in the same -- in grad school.

YW:Davey is phenomenal. Phenomenal composer. Yu-Hui -- Yu-Hui Chang. Now she's teaching at Brandeis. She was a student of ours at Brandeis. Wonderful composer.

HN:Fantastic.

YW:Wonderful. Really a comer.

HN:Did she do undergrad in China?

YW:I think so.

HN:'Cause, I mean, I -- for my money, the composers I'm hearing coming out of 78:00China these days -- for grad school -- the daughter of the president of Beijing Conservatory just was going to go to NEC for grad school and we got this portfolio of music -- I couldn't believe it. It was on such a high level. It's kind of ama-- I'm very impressed with what they get as an undergraduate education there. Anyhow, I just wondered whether she was the product --

YW:Well, I wonder. I mean, we were just in Shanghai and I met with young composers there. And they're doing something that does encourage me, because they're not trying to write imitations of the "Yellow River Concerto" anymore.

HN:Right. (laughs) That's over.

YW:Thank God. And they are trying to develop some sort of language, something having to do with their own gestural language and linguistically --

HN:I was so impressed with this stuff.

YW:-- but I wasn't impressed, I must say.

HN:You weren't impressed with the stuff?

YW:Not what I was seeing and hearing in Shanghai.

HN:This was Beijing. This is definitely Beijing.

YW:Well, it's a very different place.

HN:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

YW:And the Shanghai thing -- I also went to a concert of prizewinners -- international prizewinners -- one of them even winning a prize from -- the Henri Dutilleux Prize in Switzerland, which should be wonderfully judged, and it was a piece of crap.

HN:Interesting.

YW:It was just awful.

HN:Interesting.

YW:Awful. But you know, you're there for a few days and a few sessions, you don't get a complete picture.

HN:Yeah.

YW:And we found it very tough going -- and with all the best will in the world, people being very kind and forthcoming and solicitous. Nevertheless, the cultural gulf is so huge. And it comes from not political factors but linguistic ones, and the traditional ways of gesturing and emotional response. And I found that -- I find that harmony means nothing to them. Chords, yeah.

HN:Yeah.

YW:But harmony's not chords.

HN:But harmony's not -- well, it's interesting -- yeah, but, well, Beijing's 80:00different, I think, because --

YW:I think it is different.

HN:-- I think they're getting a complete -- I mean, what I was impressed with was that they still seem to be getting that complete, traditional education that everybody seems to have given up on in composition --

YW:Well --

HN:-- a while ago here.

YW:-- yeah, and to our great loss.

HN:Yeah, yeah.

YW:But I think it may be, really, that it's more -- much more international, and still holding onto those values.

HN:Yeah.

YW:I don't know. I didn't feel that that was -- I felt that whatever traditional harmony and things like they got was just sort of by the numbers.

HN:Shanghai's a funny scene, though, because it's really kind of a commercial place. It's kind of -- I don't know, it's more like -- I guess it's more like LA than New York or something, I don't know. (laughs)

YW:I don't really know. I don't get --

HN:Yeah, anyhow, I just wondered. But yeah, no, you're definitely right about that --

YW:I mean, no comm--

HN:-- sense of community --

YW:-- that sense of community here for us --

HN:-- yes --

YW:-- it's bad news.

HN:-- it's difficult.

YW:But it's always, it really has been --

HN:Yeah.

YW:-- even, I remember, as undergraduate, graduate --

HN:I think it's been forever.

YW:-- yeah.

HN:I mean, that's what I'm saying. I just remember, I don't know, when Martino was our teacher at the Conservatory -- or McKinley and Peyton -- and these guys didn't go to hear each other's music. (laughs) They weren't that interested in each other. You know, so it's like, if you don't have people acting like colleagues --

YW:No, if you don't set the model, there's no --

HN:Yeah.

YW:-- that's --

HN:Mac is good. I think Mac --

YW:Mac is --

HN:I think Mac is still good. I mean, you know what, he's -- God bless him, you know -- he was my teacher -- main teacher, and I still love him. I think he's -- yeah.

YW:He's a sweetheart and I've --

HN:A wonderful guy --

YW:-- been encouraged --

HN:-- and, yeah --

YW:-- how there's been a real development in the music.

HN:-- yeah, yeah. I think that's right. Yeah.

YW:So, I'm very fond of him. We know each other for so many years -- for at least forty, fifty years.

HN:Well, you know, Mac is my -- was a great inspiration for me. But so, I think -- was there anything else we were supposed to do besides, like, take some 82:00pictures of some --

CW:Some pictures, yeah.

HN:-- covers.

CW:Only the things --

HN:And is there anything we didn't cover? Like -- that's beautiful. I love that poster. (laughs)

CW:Only if there was something -- I know that you -- that are certain things that you wanted to talk about like --

HN:Things. What's a thing? (laughs)

CW:I don't know, like --

YW:Like, cooking?

HN:Oh, to talk about the record, to talk about -- oh, I don't know if you have a minute to do that, but --

CW:Yeah.

HN:-- is that all right? Like, what's that over there, with -- who's Bianca Sauler, and why is she on this record? (laughs)

YW:She was a wonderful singer.

HN:I know, yeah.

YW:She was at City Opera, I think --

HN:Yeah, yeah.

YW:-- for a while, and --

HN:She was at --

YW:-- she was really -- her Yiddish was gorgeous.

HN:I know.

YW:And she and --

HN:I love this record design.

YW:-- yeah, and she (UNCLEAR) -- really, it's as good as they got. A really wonderful collaboration.

HN:Yeah.

YW:So, I haven't heard it in years because of my -- I don't know, there's so much dust on my turntable. (laughter) And I think the rubber has already turned into I don't know what.

HN:I use mine every day. That's one thing. I'm not a CD person.

YW:No?

HN:I'll use that turntable.

YW:Well, CDs have -- you know, when talking to Klaus Heymann -- you know, the guy at Naxos -- he says, "Forget about it. There's no more CDs."

HN:Yeah, they're over. (laughs)

YW:Over. And I just ordered a bunch of -- fifty blanks.

HN:Oh, well, I mean --

YW:So, I'm still sending out.

HN:-- blanks -- I mean, we still attempt to use them with our students and --

YW:Yeah, yeah, right, right.

HN:And then they'll tell us what the next format is and --

YW:The next format? It's not the little -- what -- you know, the chip or whatever?

HN:Darn, I was hoping they'd go back to cassettes. (laughs) So --

CW:Yeah, I love my cassettes. (laughter)

HN:So --

YW:Well, no --

HN:-- were there any --

YW:-- there's that. I mean, Bianca was wonderful and the -- Leon Lishner, of course, you know, who was a wonderful bass and very sympathetic to my father's music. And he had a kind of nobility. And his Yiddish, of course, was perfectly natural.

HN:Mm. I love the cover.

YW:And they did --

HN:"Dos lebn iz biter [Life is bitter]" --

YW:Dos lebn iz bit--

HN:-- "un zis iz dos lidl [but the song is sweet]."

YW:That's on my father's gravestone.

HN:Yeah -- oh, really?

YW:Yeah.

HN:Oh, wow. (laughs)

YW:Yeah, that's what he wanted on his gravestone, anyway.

HN:Wow.

YW:Yeah. It's interesting to say --

HN:That says a lot.

YW:"Dos lebn iz biter" -- I mean, that's really still ghetto thinking or Holocaust thinking, you know? I mean, would you say that your life is bitter?

HN:Well, the idea is the song making it better. I think that's what it's trying to say. (laughs)

YW:Well, okay, all right, but that begs the question, in a way -- it's true, but, I mean, starting out with -- that life is bitter, I mean --

HN:Sounds like Glatstein. (laughs)

YW:Yeah, like Glatstein -- you know what it sounds like to me? You give a new piece to a player and he says, "Oy! Is that difficult!" (laughter) You know, it's the first thing. "Oh, that's so hard!" And then, he plays the shit out of it.

HN:Exactly! (laughs)

YW:And what heroism, what accomplishment! (laughter)

HN:Right.

YW:Let's see, what's here besides this? These. Oh, no --

HN:Oh, no! (laughs)

YW:Then, there's this.

HN:Ah, Paulina, yeah.

YW:I did a recital with her, too. And did I do this recording?

HN:I don't think so.

YW:No, it was with Nadine, Nadine Shank --

HN:Yeah.

YW:-- who plays okay, and Pauline was all right. I did some recitals with Pauline.

HN:Now, that's a nice record, here.

YW:This one?

HN:Yeah, but I -- you know, it's funny, Greisdorf -- it's interesting, he's not that -- he wasn't that great at this.

YW:No.

HN:He loved doing it --

YW:Yeah.

HN:-- but he's really not that good at doing it.

YW:I know.

HN:I'm just saying the music itself is good.

YW:Yeah. (laughter) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

HN:But he's the cantor at Belmont, you know --

YW:He was in Belmont?

HN:Yeah, yeah.

YW:Yeah, yeah.

HN:He was the cantor at the shul in Belmont for years.

YW:Is she alive still? Fern? No, I mean -- what's her name?

HN:His daughter, is that what you're saying?

YW:Well, this was from --

HN:(UNCLEAR)

YW:-- Phyllis. Who's Phyllis?

HN:Oh, Phyllis, yeah. Phyllis is still around. That's Phyllis -- wait a minute, I can tell you.

YW:Greisdorf, no?

HN:Yeah, Greisdorf. Yeah, that's right. Of course.

YW:Is that the wife or the daughter?

HN:It's his daughter --

YW:Oh, I see.

HN:-- I'm pretty sure.

YW:Okay, 'cause I don't really recognize them.

HN:Yeah, yeah. No, but he was -- as a singer, nah.

YW:No. (laughter) No, no, no, it's very --

HN:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but it's just that -- at least there's a recording of the songs. But the other -- what was I going to mention? With this -- oh, I can't remember. It's not important, actually. (laughs)

YW:Oh, but you -- somebody, a singer, what?

HN:Yeah, no, it was another singer.

YW:Not --

HN:I saw your father -- oh, I know what I was gonna ask you. I was gonna ask you, on the recording -- so one of the things on the Milken recording of your father's songs is, they don't say what you play on and they don't say what the other guy plays on.

YW:Yes, they do. Yes, they do.

HN:Do they?

YW:Yeah, yeah, they said they --

HN:I couldn't find the code.

YW:No, the code is numbers. And it's on the back cover.

HN:Ah, good. Okay.

YW:Yeah.

HN:I'll look for that.

YW:Yeah, and he plays beautifully.

HN:Yeah, he's good.

YW:Oh, he's very good.

HN:I mean, they're all good, so -- (laughs)

YW:He's very --

HN:-- I'm just like --

YW:-- no, he's very, very good. I complimented him. He's at Eastman and he's a very, very good player. Really outstanding. I was out there, I don't know, three years ago, in residence -- the Howard Hanson residency. And he -- I complimented 87:00him and it just went by.

HN:Oh.

YW:Didn't matter at all.

HN:You know, it's a funny thing with these songs. I mean, you know them so well and you know the Yiddish so well -- and, I mean, do you ever feel like they're out there, sort of at the mercy of people who have no idea what the Yiddish is and the feeling, you know --

YW:I never thought about it very much, but I haven't heard any of that. I've heard a couple of girls from NEC sing with Terry Decima.

HN:I wonder who they are. That's interesting.

YW:Well, Donna -- whatever --

HN:Donna Fortunata?

YW:No, no, no, not Donna Fortunata, no.

HN:No, it can't be her.

YW:No, it wasn't Donna. She was a graduate. She did this on her master's recital or graduate recital, and Terry played for her -- Terry Decima. And she married Breitzer.

HN:Oh, Breitzer, the cantor.

YW:Josh Breitzer, yeah.

HN:He was --

YW:Who was on my recording.

HN:-- on your record, yeah.

YW:Yeah, who was recommended to me and I just -- I love him. He's a really --

HN:Yeah, he's a good singer.

YW:He's a pretty good singer. He's a -- but his -- his enthusiasm (UNCLEAR) --

HN:He's nice. He's obviously totally into it.

YW:Yeah, yeah. So that's good.

HN:Yeah.

YW:You know, it's not a -- not a great voice, but he's very young. But he sure knows a lot of stuff.

HN:Well, it's -- it's out -- you know, the great thing is that it's back in circulation and this music is -- you know, that this -- the new book coming out and all that, that's just so great.

YW:I think so. I'm really, really --

HN:That's very exciting.

YW:-- so thrilled by the -- and not having to look for roaches (laughter) in the proofreading, which makes you crazy after a while.

HN:Yeah, yeah.

YW:Right.

HN:That's great, that's great.

[END OF INTERVIEW]