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GUEST: Robert Harth

RECORDINGS:

Johann Sebastian Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, BWV 1050 Third Movement. James Levine, Harpsichord; Donald Peck, Flute; Samuel Magad, Violin. BMG Classics 60378-2.

Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68. Third Movement. Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Carlo Maria Giulini. Deutsche Grammophon 410 023-2

Eugene Ysaye Sonata for Violin, Op. 27, No. 3. Sidney Harth, Violin; Sonia Anschutz, Piano. Musical Heritage.

Brad Mehldau 29 Palms. Larry Grenadier, Bass; Jorge Rossy, Drums. Warner Bros. 9 47693-2.

Igor Stravinsky Le Sacre du printemps (1947 version). The Cleveland Orchestra. Pierre Boulez. Sony SMK 64 109.

Kaplan: For every musical artist anywhere in the world, there's a fundamental truth. Until you have performed on the stage at Carnegie Hall, you have not really made it. My guest today on "Mad About Music" is the impresario of that hall, Robert Harth.

TRANSCRIPT:

[Theme Music]

Kaplan: His parents were acclaimed violinists, so it was not surprising that he started down that path as well. But then he shifted to a career in the management of music, rapidly moving up the chain from the Ravinia Festival to becoming the General Manager of The Los Angeles Philharmonic, President of the Aspen Festival, and for more than a year now, Executive and Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall. Robert Harth, welcome to "Mad About Music."

Harth: Thank you. Delighted to be here.

Kaplan: Now what exactly does the Executive Director of Carnegie Hall do? After all, there is no resident orchestra here, and visiting orchestras, I suppose, plan their programs without too much input from Carnegie. Or do you influence those programs?

Harth: Oh, we absolutely influence the programs. And there is a lot of work in the care and feeding and the collaborations that we develop with artists. And that's, I think, one of the great strengths at Carnegie Hall, is the ability that we have to develop really meaningful and satisfying partnerships and collaborations with great artists. They come here with their best and their brightest and with their most challenging and, I think, innovative programs. It's always a work in progress and each relationship with each artist or orchestra is different; but each of them is developed over time. So you don't just pick up packaged programs, you work with the artists so that what happens at Carnegie Hall continues to be the best and the most special.

Kaplan: But how malleable are these institutions? They wanted to come and do the Jupiter Symphony by Mozart, and you've talked to some other orchestra about that? Who gets to do it?

Harth: Well, you know, playing musical traffic cop like that is pretty interesting. Sometimes that is determined by who asked first, and sometimes there are other, shall we say, reasons to make shifts, and sometimes we will repeat repertoire if it is not too close together within a season. I think, at a time when you have 120 concerts, it's virtually impossible not to have some duplication of repertoire, but we're very careful about it.

Kaplan: Normally, our guests on this show are not professional musicians or professional in the musical world, and therefore what interests them musically is simply what they like to listen to. You being the Artistic Director at Carnegie Hall, of course, I suppose, love most music and when we talk about your musical selections today, I understand you've chosen them because they have a connection not only to a work you love, but also with a professional relationship you've had with particular artists during your career. So we start with Bach.

Harth: That's one of the musical milestones for me. Um, that relates to my first professional career job, which was at the Ravinia Festival, I started out as a driver, production assistant, a glorified go-fer. And ended up being the Associate Manager there, over about a three or four year period. That was the first interaction I had with the Music Director. In that case, it was Jim Levine, and one of the projects that took place while I was at Ravinia was a wonderful series of recordings called "Music From Ravinia," with James Levine directing members of the Chicago Symphony. There's a stunning Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 -- that was one of the recordings that I'll always remember.

[Music]

Kaplan: The Third Movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, at the Ravinia Festival with James Levine conducting from the harpsichord, the first selection of my guest on today's edition of "Mad About Music," Carnegie Hall Executive Director, Robert Harth.

Kaplan: Now you've had about a year and a few months on the job, and I remember at your first press conference, a question was asked of what your artistic vision was for the hall, and you said, "that's a question you really should ask me about a year from now," so on behalf of those journalists, I suppose, I should ask you that question. What have you learned from your experience in a year, which leads you to know what path you might take artistically in the future?

Harth: That's the $64,000 question, and perhaps with inflation, the $64 million question.

Kaplan: Well, you promised a year ago... !

Harth: Yes, I know, I know! And - well - and I'll tell you very candidly, it will continue to be a work in progress. Nothing should be ordinary there. What should be ordinary is that everything is extraordinary. And you take the wonderful gift we have, which is a remarkable hall, remarkable acoustics, a great tradition, a great history of the best artists in the world having performed there, you couple that with the fact that the great artists want to perform there, the great artists of today, and the great young artists who will be on our stage tomorrow in future years, and you add an audience that is discerning and receptive and hungry for great music and what you have is the ability to create memorable events, not just a concert.

Kaplan: Now this September, Carnegie will open up a new hall, Zankel Hall, which will seat about 700 people, I think. What will you be able to do artistically in that hall that you haven't been able to do in either the Isaac Stern auditorium, the big Carnegie Hall, or the Weill Recital Hall?

Harth: Well, it's a perfectly sized venue for chamber music, of course, it's really ideal for quartets, for piano recitalists that are at a level but certainly weren't, are not yet ready to fill the Stern auditorium. Same for vocal recitals, but will also give us an opportunity since it's so intimate and the connection between the performer and the artist is absolutely fabulous and there will be the ability to bring the artists who perform at Stern Auditorium to the Zankel Hall for different types of repertoire, for different programming, for more intimate programming than would be traditionally seen upstairs at the Stern auditorium. There will also be jazz, and world music, popular song, and musical theater and a whole variety of what I would consider to be very diverse programming to open up new audiences to the wonders of Carnegie Hall in all three stages that we have here.

Kaplan: All right, well, then, let's return to your career, which in turn brings us to your next selection in music, because after Ravinia you became General Manager at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and before you tell me about your next selection, I wanted to ask you a question about orchestras. As you know, in America we have this concept of the "big five." Biggest by budget, but also by reputation, and that includes New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Boston. I'm sure when you were in L.A. they didn't like that idea, that there was a "big five" and they weren't part of it. Do you think this idea of the "big five" is still valid, and if not, who would be some of the candidates to be included now in the premier orchestra category?

Harth: I think the "big five" has gone away. I think that's a notion that left us quite some time ago and you have a fantastic orchestra in Pittsburgh. The L.A. Philharmonic is terrific. The San Francisco Symphony is terrific. The St. Louis Symphony is marvelous. It goes on and on, there's - the accomplishments of orchestras is really remarkable and I think that - that "big five," I think it's very passé.

Kaplan: All right, well, you mentioned Brahms and we talked about your association with the L. A. Philharmonic, and I see your next selection is Brahms' First Symphony, played by L.A.

Harth: Yes, well, that's another musical milestone for me. Giulini, Carlo Maria Giulini was the music director when I arrived in Los Angeles. Extraordinary man, extraordinary conductor. And he really transformed the L.A. Philharmonic. And the Brahms First Symphony was a signature work of Giulini's. We took it on tour everywhere. All over Europe, all over America, and I must have heard that piece 150 times, including all the recording sessions! And, again, it was a very distinctive sound, his tempi a lot different than virtually any other conductor, a lot slower. Every single one of those performances were memorable for me.

[Music]

Kaplan: The Third Movement of Brahms' Symphony No.1, performed by The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Carlo Maria Giulini and a selection of my guest today on "Mad About Music," Executive Director of Carnegie Hall, Robert Harth.
You can learn more about Robert Harth, or listen to any of our earlier shows, where my guests have ranged from former President Jimmy Carter to actor Alan Alda, to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, by just logging on to our website, at WNYC.org.

[Station break]

Kaplan: This is Gilbert Kaplan with my guest, Carnegie Hall Executive Director Robert Harth. As I said in my introduction, you grew up as a child of two formidable musicians. I assume they started you off early on the violin, maybe at a very young age.

Harth: I think I was 3½, with a quarter-size violin.

Kaplan: And did you stay with that long?

Harth: Oh, yeah, I studied the violin until college. I actually was going to go to Oberlin and continue my violin studies, and I didn't. I chose to go to Northwestern University and study art history and English, do some minor work in electronic music and that was around the time that rock 'n roll was really in my blood and I was playing electric guitar in a rock band.

Kaplan: Ah, hah! Now, were your parents very disappointed that you abandoned a career as a violinist and went into the management of music?

Harth: I think there's a gap there, there was a period of time when I wasn't in the field of management of music yet, and I wasn't playing the violin, and I was playing rock 'n roll music. I don't think they were necessarily wild about it, but - the interesting thing was, what they wanted was me to continue to play a musical instrument. And I think it was the best advice and the best encouragement you could hope for. It's the discipline of taking out the instrument on a daily basis and practicing it, is a wonderful preparation for a lot of different things in life.

Kaplan: You had such an extraordinarily talented father and mother, and perhaps you thought, well, I just will not play as well as my father.

Harth: Well, yeah, absolutely, you hit the nail on the head, and when I got to the stage where I was playing the same concertos as my father, guess what? They didn't sound as good! And it was hard, you know, I studied with both of them as well. Studied with my mom, studied with my dad, and also some of my dad's master students. And it's just hard - I think - on one hand, it's a great gift to be able to play the violin when your parents are both professional violinists, and it has served me very, very well. It was really hard, those were huge shoes to fill, and I chose not to try to.

Kaplan: Well, we're going to get a glimpse of what you found in front of you, because I see in your next selection, we have an opportunity to hear your father, Sidney Harth, play a piece for solo violin.

Harth: Well, I'm an unabashedly big fan of my father's violin playing. I think he's a stupendous violinist. He's an amazing musician, a great conductor as well, and this is a recording that I think sort of shows exactly what a profoundly wonderful fiddle-player he was. And still is that, I might add!

Kaplan: Tell us what you've selected.

Harth: It's the Ysaye unaccompanied Sonata No. 3. Eugene Ysaye wrote a series of violin sonatas, six of them, I believe, all in one year. And they are showcase sonatas for great violinists.

[Music]

Kaplan: Eugene Ysaye's Sonata No. 3 for Solo Violin, performed by Sidney Harth, the father of my guest on "Mad About Music," Carnegie Hall Executive Director, Robert Harth.
Now, as Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall, you need to deal with all aspects of classical music. But I notice that on your list there are categories that aren't there. For example, there's no opera on the list. Is that something which you feel as passionate about as a listener as you do with symphonic music?

Harth: No, I don't. I am more passionate about symphonic music than opera music. On the other hand, great opera is spectacular and I love it. I really, really do. I have very little tolerance for anything but great opera, though.

Kaplan: All right, now, what about composers? Mainstream composers who you don't particularly care for, or at least, not as much.

Harth: Now, I'm going to get in trouble for revealing those kinds of things. There are a number of British composers that I'm not wild about. I wouldn't say that I hate them, I just wouldn't necessarily run to buy all the CDs of Vaughn Williams, or all the music of Elgar, and certainly -

Kaplan: But you like the Enigma?

Harth: And certainly none of the music of Delius! But you were going to ask me if I like the Enigma Variations? And I love them. Absolutely. And because I'm a fiddle-player, I'm a fan of the Elgar Violin Concerto, which a lot of other people would say, well, then you do like British music!

Kaplan: All right, let's get away from British music, let's get away from classical music and opera, because we come to that moment in the show called the "wild card," where you have a chance to pick something outside the genre of classical music or opera, and I always like to tell our audience, remind them of some of the selections others have picked. We've had former President Jimmy Carter pick "Moonlight Serenade," ABC's Peter Jennings picked Ellington, William Buckley picked Elvis. So what wild card have you brought us today?

Harth: That was a hard one, because I listen to so many different types of music, but I brought a terrific jazz pianist, Brad Mehldau, as my wild card. And the Mehldau case is a wonderful story. My son Jeffrey, who's 23, jazz guitarist out in California, told me about Brad Mehldau. I started listening to him about two years ago. I saw last November, not this past November, a year ago November that he was playing the Village Vanguard. So I went down to hear the performance. And I walked in, and the first person I run into is Renee Fleming. I said, "What are you doing here?" She said, "Oh, you're a Brad fan, too?" I said, "absolutely." And it turns out, she's a wonderful supporter of his music, loves his music making. We'll go fast-forward, and we'll give you no information about the 2003-04 season in the Zankel Hall, but in the 2004-05 season at Zankel Hall, you'll hear a commission of Brad Mehldau writing to the poetry of Rilke for Renee Fleming. I think he's just terrific. I love his music making.

[Music]

Kaplan: Jazz composer and pianist Brad Mehldau performing 29 Palms, the "wild card" selection from my guest on "Mad About Music," Carnegie Hall Executive Director, Robert Harth.

[Station Break]

Kaplan: This is Gilbert Kaplan with my guest, Carnegie Hall Executive Director, Robert Harth. You know, listening to Brad Mehldau's music brings to mind a very classical style of jazz, and the opening to me, at least, is reminiscent of Dave Brubeck's opening of Take Five. What role do you see for jazz in the future of Carnegie Hall?

Harth: Well, I see a great big role, particularly in the new hall. I think you'll see a marked increase in the number of concerts that take place, both in Zankel Hall and in the Stern Auditorium. Jazz is a great art form, and it has a place in Carnegie Hall that's very, very important.

Kaplan: Your colleague at the Kennedy Center, Michael Kaiser, recently gave a speech in which he said that the problem with classical music today is that there is not enough risk-taking. And I wonder what you think about that, particularly from the point of view, is how much do you take into account that you can sell the house when you put a program on versus "it might be a bold idea, but maybe the audience won't be quite as big."

Harth: Well, look. Our job is not simply to fill the seats. I look at the job of, at Carnegie Hall, is to fill the house with great music. And the people will come. The question you have, I mean, if you have 2,000 people attending a solo violin recital of music by Shchedrin and Ysaye and Bach, and there are 800 empty seats because we have a 2,800 seat hall, personally speaking, I think that's a great success. And what I mean by that is you take your risks and you plan for them and you plan to move the organization forward by taking risks, by being adventuresome in your programming and not expecting to have abnormal-sized audiences. I think where you get into trouble is where you think everything will sell out. Or, if you set up an expectation that you must have everything sell out. One way you compromise your programming, the other way you compromise your budget. So the key is balance between those two.

Kaplan: Well, speaking of the future of music any place, one reads constant reports of the financial crisis in classical music. Every month it seems another orchestra reports it's in serious trouble. Record sales have dropped precipitously. I won't ask you about Carnegie Hall's financial health because as a member of the board, I know that it is in great shape. But are you concerned about what is always portrayed as a very scary trend?

Harth: I think we all have to be concerned that we stay vibrant, that we stay on our toes, that we stay nimble and that our programming is interesting and that we are constantly moving our organizations forward and yet watching our fiscal realities. You know, I think it's a defining time for music. I also think that music has a more important role than ever before, and we've seen that since the horrors of 9/11, we saw and we continue to see, how music provides comfort and it provides solace and it provides spiritual nourishment. And those are key to leading a happy life.

Kaplan: Well, it also provides an enormous wallop and that turns us to your final selection, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Aside from the music, what is that connection, because we've been dealing with your personal connection to these musics and musicians?

Harth: Well, first, let me say that I only own three scores of music. And one of them is The Rite of Spring. I love the piece. Always have. The connection is that I have enjoyed so many what I would call seminal performances of it by conductors that I've enjoyed close relationships with Boulez, who I've worked with in Los Angeles and now at Carnegie Hall and Michael Tilson Thomas, whom I worked with in Los Angeles, and now at Carnegie Hall; and Simon Rattle. These are all amazing performances, and I've had the opportunity to hear them and I just love the piece. So it seemed like the logical fifth piece to pick.

Kaplan: I'm sure you know that when it had its premiere in Paris, literal fistfights broke out in the audience, disagreeing whether this was music or good music, bad music. Would you be happy to see something like that happen in Carnegie Hall?

Harth: For The Rite of Spring? No. But for something - you know, no, I don't want to see fist-fights break out necessarily, but I think that the interesting thing is, fast-forward to today, from 1913, with the world premiere, 90 years later, it's a box-office piece! It's not just a well-received piece, it sells tickets. So, I mean, you know, to everybody who says that we shouldn't program contemporary music, hey, here's the perfect example of why we must.

[Music]

Kaplan: An excerpt from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. The Cleveland Symphony Orchestra with Pierre Boulez on the podium, the final selection of my guest on "Mad About Music," Carnegie Hall Executive Director, Robert Harth. Well, I hope it's too soon for you to have any regrets about your tenure at Carnegie Hall, but I bet I would be on target if I said that you must regret a missed opportunity to have been able to work side by side with Isaac Stern, who passed away just after you came on board.

Harth: There's no question about it. If I could say that I was cheated about anything, it would be not having the opportunity to work hand in hand with Isaac. I spent some wonderful time with him during the interview process, and it was so exciting to be with this man who just loved Carnegie Hall so much and had made such a difference, not just in the life of that wonderful institution but in the life of music for so many people; but we will continue his vision and his tradition and the Hall will continue to live and now he lives in the Hall, with the other ghosts of Carnegie.

Kaplan: All right. Robert Harth, may I thank you today for appearing on "Mad About Music." We wish you great success as you play a pivotal role in shaping what we listen to in New York City. This is Gilbert Kaplan for "Mad About Music."

[Theme Music]
[Credits]

About Robert Harth

Robert J. Harth was named Executive and Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall in March 2001 and assumed that position in September 2001. Mr. Harth oversees the management of all aspects of the world-renowned concert venue, including strategic and artistic planning, resource development, education, finance, and administration. Mr. Harth is also responsible for developing the artistic concept and the management of Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall’s new 650-seat state-of-the-art performance space, which will open in September 2003.

The son of conductor-violinist Sidney Harth and violinist Teresa Testa Harth, Mr. Harth is a trained violinist, flutist, and composer and holds a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University in English literature. He began his career at the Ravinia Festival in 1975 as production manager and was later named associate manager, a post he held until 1979. For the next 10 years, Mr. Harth served as vice president and general manager of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was also responsible for the management of the Hollywood Bowl.

He became president and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School in 1989 and during his 12-year tenure was credited with successfully mounting and completing two capital campaigns, executing two five-year plans, and overseeing the building of the Benedict Music Tent and Harris Concert Hall, one of the most highly acclaimed new concert halls built in the past 10 years. Mr. Harth’s many accomplishments there included the appointment of David Zinman as music director of the Aspen Music Festival and School and, with Mr. Zinman, the creation of the American Academy of Conducting, a training program for conductors. In 1999, Mr. Harth spearheaded Aspen’s 50th anniversary celebration, which generated international attention and resulted in the return of numerous notable alumni.

Mr. Harth is currently a board member of the American Symphony Orchestra League, an honorary trustee of the Aspen Music Festival and School, and a member of the European Concert Hall Organization (ECHO) and the advisory board of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Music; he also has served on the visiting committee for the University of Texas at Austin School of Music.