wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

RECORDINGS:

Frédéric Chopin Preludes (24) for Piano, op. 28. [Nos. 8, 10, & 16] Martha Argerich, piano. Deutsche Grammophon 431 584-2.

Hector Berlioz Le Spectre de la rose. Songs for voice & piano or orchestra (Les Nuits d'eté), H. 83, Op. 7/2. New Philharmonia Orchestra. Sir John Barbirolli. Dame Janet Baker, mezzo. EMI Classics Double Fforte # 72640.

Luciano Berio Thema (Omaggio a Joyce).

Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, op. 37. [Second Movement] Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Sir Georg Solti. Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano. London 443723-2.

[Tango] "Madame Ivonne" Anibal Troilo and Roberto Grela. RCA Victor Argentina 74321 24418-2.

Johannes Brahms Trio for Violin, Horn & Piano in E flat major, op. 40. [Second Movement] Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano. Itzhak Perlman, violin. Barry Tuckwell, horn. DECCA 452 887-2.

[Theme music]

Kaplan: It would have been hard to open the cultural page of a newspaper recently without reading about architect Rafael Viñoly. His impressive designs showed up as a finalist in the competition to rebuild the World Trade Center, as a commission for two new buildings at Kennedy Center in Washington, a new concert hall for jazz programs of Lincoln Center, and the opening of his acclaimed Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, containing a new concert hall for the Philadelphia Orchestra. All very impressive, especially for a man who almost pursued a career as a concert pianist. Rafael Viñoly, welcome to "Mad About Music."

Viñoly: Hi. How are you?

Kaplan: Now, you actually join a distinguished "Mad About Music" club, designated of guests who went wrong in their careers. Gave up a possible career in music to pursue other fields. We've had former Prime Minister of England, Sir Edward Heath, who started out as an organ major at Oxford; National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who was on her way to becoming a concert pianist, and then we have you! Now, just how important was music a part of your early life?

Viñoly: It was incredibly important for me, as I concluded long after that. Because, essentially, it formed my sense of aesthetics from very early age; in a way, also formed my sense of ethics relative to concentration and dedication to practice and a feeling that none of what happens in art is just a result of spontaneous inspiration, but more the result of hard work.

Kaplan: But how extensive was your musical training?

Viñoly: Well, we - when I say "we," I'm saying, me and my two siblings, we started very, very early, I think, not as early as others, I mean I certainly wasn't a child prodigy or anything like that, but I started studying at age four.

Kaplan: Just take me through those early years. You went from age four until, when did you sort of turn to architecture?

Viñoly: I had what you would call a sort of typical, sort of kind of by-the-book vocational crisis at around 19 or 20 years old - when I guess I was clear enough to figure that I wasn't as good as others and that architecture, in a way, was a field in which you could actually really develop other skills at the same time. But it was a very gruesome and really wrenching period. I mean, it was - I remember it like as if it was yesterday. I mean, literally, it was a two-week period in which I locked myself in a room and didn't come up until I had made that decision, and I was literally 19 or so.

Kaplan: Then let's turn to music in a different way, and your selections today, and I'm not surprised that your first selection is for the piano, the Chopin Preludes. And I'm also not surprised that you, being a pianist, would have a definite opinion about who plays them the best.

Viñoly: I think this absolutely wonderful construction, which are the Chopin Preludes, has an enormous well of extraordinary interpreters in history. I remember catching a couple of recordings of Lipatti just recently, not long ago that are absolutely stunning. But for me, Martha Argerich is a sort, the epitome of this kind of interpretation for my taste, and I think that in my view, there is very rare occasion in which a pianist really appropriates the ownership of the music in a way that goes beyond interpretation, and I think that Martha plays these pieces as if she had composed them.

[Music]

Kaplan: A selection of Chopin's Preludes from Opus 28 - Numbers 8, 10, and 16, performed by Martha Argerich, the first selections of my guest on "Mad About Music" today, award-winning architect Rafael Viñoly. So, let's talk about architecture. Now, in designing concert halls, which you've done a lot, you're always faced with a problem quite different from other buildings. You have a partner imposed on you, an acoustician. And isn't it he who determines such things as the size of the hall, the shape of the hall, the materials that can be used? Isn't this a difficult relationship to work out?

Viñoly: Well, it is really one of these very publicized conflictive relationships between architects and consultants. Actually, in my experience, it has never been such. It may be because I'm sensitive to the other dimensions in architecture which aren't visual, something that we have lost as a society a long time ago, I mean, that you will feel that architecture just simply is a visual. My relationship with music has been able to bridge some of this prejudice that exists between architects and acousticians. For instance, in the Kimmel Center, I worked for several years together with Russell Johnson and it was the same in the Jazz Center at Lincoln Center. And it's been a pleasure to try to really kind of loosen up the tension.

Kaplan: Well, for example, in the Verizon Hall in Philadelphia, the shape has been described as the shape of a cello. Now, was this your idea, and did you have to get permission from Russell Johnson that this could work acoustically?

Viñoly: No, actually precisely because of that type of interaction, Russell sort of learned to trust that he was talking to somebody that knew who would go to as many concerts as he does, and - it was a curious situation just in short - you know he is a staunch defender of the so-called sort of "shoebox" scheme. And just in trying to understand the limits of that concept, which in my view are completely associated with, again, preconceptions of what a "shoebox" should be. I happened to have my cello at the office, and in one of these sort of initial discussions, and I said to Russell, "But, Russell, after all, isn't this a box, too? It's just that it's not a shoebox."

Kaplan: Now, to what extent does architecture show up in your taste for music? Are you drawn to music where structure is a particularly important element?

Viñoly: That's an interesting question, and the answer probably is no. I am not really necessarily - you see, there's been a culture over years since Goethe of this sort of notion of architecture as being "frozen music," and all of that. I have always been extraordinarily cynical about that comparison. I don't think they are the same thing. I don't think that they're not even close to being the same thing, process though - frozen or not - I mean, architecture is all about the concrete world, whereas in music, for me the experience is completely abstract -- not even in the cases in which structure is perhaps the most important aspect of the composition.

Kaplan: All right, well then, you would be different say from other architects who speak about music who find this connection architecturally between the works they love.

Viñoly No, but I think that's an important thing, is clearly in my view, and this is not a pedantic response to that. I believe it is because they know nothing! Those are simplistic associations, I think.

Kaplan: All right, well then, let's turn to your next selection, and in this case, we bring voice into the picture. And it's Berlioz's Nuits d'eté.

Viñoly This is an extraordinary piece in which the more you try to find a rationale for it, the less you find it. It is a moment, one of these completely extraordinary moments in the life of an artist that is not a titanic figure in the history of music, and yet has produced perhaps if every so often I mean, an extraordinary and unbelievable, poignant beauty. I think that in this piece, I think that perhaps what it is in many other composers, including Schubert for that matter, a theatricalization of a poem. This is really a work in which the poems and the music, although composed in completely different environments and for completely different purposes are completely the same thing. You know, you couldn't aspire for a better description of what is a summer night than listening to these pieces.

[Music]

Kaplan:"The Spectre of the Rose" from Berlioz's Nuit d'eté, sung by Janet Baker, with the New Philharmonia Orchestra, led by Sir John Barbirolli. A selection of my guest on "Mad About Music," architect Rafael Viñoly. Now, I'd like to follow up something which you said about Berlioz, in expressing your admiration for this particular work, that you don't regard him as one of the foremost composers. He's usually lumped in with the heavyweights, shall we say?

Viñoly: It's certainly probably is too fast of a characterization, and it's also sort of unfair and sounds uncultivated. I do think that at the end of the day, when you really try to make these exercises in which you try to reduce the transforming moments in any art, you probably wouldn't mention Berlioz.

Kaplan: All right, well then we'll soon be discussing more about the music of Rafael Viñoly, but if you want to learn more about him, or read a transcript of any of our prior shows, log on to our website at WNYC.org. When we return, we'll explore 1958, a year when architect Rafael Viñoly's next selection was composed, and the year Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum was built.

[Station break]

Kaplan: This is Gilbert Kaplan with my guest on "Mad About Music," architect Rafael Viñoly. Now, you were saying just before how you were drawn to Berlioz's artful mingling of text and music. In the next selection, Homage to James Joyce by Luciano Berio, this mingling takes on a whole new dimension, doesn't it?

Viñoly: It does, actually. It's not about composition, but it's about language, more than anything; and it is this, again, very intellectual, very sort of a kind of pre-60s idea of how you deal with material, in a way which transcends the purpose, the original purpose, and transforms itself into a piece of art that I still consider absolutely astonishing. I mean, I remember listening to this thing in 1960 in a tape that we got directly from him and I still find it absolutely phenomenal.

[Music]

Kaplan: An excerpt from Luciano Berio's Thema, Omaggio a Joyce, an homage to James Joyce. A selection of my guest today on "Mad About Music," architect Rafael Viñoly.

Kaplan: How often do you go to listen to music? Live music?

Viñoly: Well, that's a problem, and I guess is a financial problem for me, that I take with great pleasure, because I come to Carnegie almost, and to other music centers also, almost every time I can. Which is relatively frequently. It would not be one week in which I am not at Carnegie one night, or two, or three nights in a row, for instance.

Kaplan: Now I understand you own eight pianos, two of which you keep in your office. Do you actually play music in your office?

Viñoly Yah, I have a practically secluded part of the office, which is isolated from the rest of it, so they don't listen to how badly I play. I do play every noon or in the early hours at night, when I finish. Yah, it is more an obsession than anything else. I do like the instrument, also, visually a lot.

Kaplan: Now, when you are designing, do you keep music on in the background?

Viñoly: No, that's one of the things that for me is sort of really quite important. I remember once we had had dinner together with Itzhak Perlman, and in the background, partly because it was in the changer of the CD player in my home, there was a Beethoven quartet. And he said to me, how could you put this thing as background music? And I couldn't agree more. I just don't think that you do these two things together; I mean, you know, when I work in the office, I work in the office, and when I listen to music, I do listen to music.

Kaplan: And when you listen to music, do you rely on it at moments say of personal anguish of anguish, or enthusiasm, do you turn to music at these moments?

Viñoly: In a difficult moment, what I turn to is to playing, not to listening. And that is really almost a therapeutical moment for me. I can really get out of almost anything that has any kind of connection not only with the work but with immediacy of, you know, day to day life, if you will. So it really pushes you outside of the immediacy of tension or sadness in a way which is incomparable to any other thing.

Kaplan: All right, then let's return to your instrument, the piano, for your next selection, and it's Beethoven, played by another one of your favorite artists, Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Viñoly: Yah, this is a wonderful, I mean an extraordinary artist, and I'm talking about Ashkenazy, of course, everybody knows the other guy; but it is a piece that I really thought that to me, still, and in a certain way, as I discovered for him, too, for Ashkenazy himself, is the second movement of the Third Piano Concerto, which is not again one of these sort of kind of totally transforming moments in the series of five concertos. But still, it's one of these points of perfection and intensity and depth, which I think is really again clearing up all the aspects of technique, historical framing, I mean, you know, how this particular piece informed, the whole development of the form, or not, it's just simply pure beauty.

[Music]

Kaplan: The second movement of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, with soloist Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by Sir George Solti. A selection of my guest architect Rafael Viñoly, on today's edition of "Mad About Music." We'll return shortly with Rafael Viñoly's "wild card" selection, music from a genre other than classical or opera; but meanwhile, you should mark your calendar now for Sunday, June 1st, when my next guest will be conductor Valery Gergiev.

[Station Break]

Kaplan: This is Gilbert Kaplan with my guest on "Mad About Music" today, architect Rafael Viñoly. We now come to the "wild card" portion of our show, which, as our listeners know, is a place where guests can stray from classical music. Some of our guests have chosen Glenn Miller, Elvis, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, and recently, "The Girl From Ipanema". So what wild card have you brought us today?

Viñoly: Well, I think it would be really interesting to really go back to some of the music that is originated in South America, in Argentina and in Uruguay, which is connected to really popular music, not only just tango, but also milonga and other kinds of forms. But in particular because I think that these two interpreters are the absolute, paramount of the interpretation of both their instruments, the bandoneon which as you know is an instrument that was originated in Germany, and the guitar. They are complete exaggerations if you ask me. Two very simple instruments making music and sound that is not very often heard, and that it has a ductility and an emotional content, which is really comparable with any of the other kinds of pieces that we heard before.

[Music]

Kaplan:"Madame Ivonne", a tango played by Anibal Troilo and Roberto Grela. A selection of my guest on "Mad About Music" today, architect Rafael Viñoly. So, with all those years living in South America, I assume you must be a superb dancer of the tango.

Viñoly: You touch on the only subject in my life which is really a complete embarrassment. I don't dance, which is really not good for anyone that can tell that, or say that likes music, and that's really an extraordinary defect, I think.

Kaplan: Well, there has to be some area where you don't have maximum talent. Now, one talent you do have, I understand, is you make friends rather easily, and I suppose that among the artists you love, the performers today, you must have some, you count as your friends.

Viñoly: I like to call them my friends. For me I'm very simplistic about this thing. I think people that are capable of making these kinds of sounds are heroes, I mean, gods and goddesses and, you know, of course I have been following the career of the sort of most relevant pianists today. I know Martha quite well, but I know Daniel Barenboim also, and Maurizio Pollini, and Ashkenazy also, laterally but, a person like Manny Ax or Yo-Yo Ma, or Itzhak, they're all people for me that I wish they thought I was their friend ... I mean.

Kaplan: Well, you say you've been following their careers, but I was told that you actually once, physically followed Vladimir Ashkenazy down the street for about an hour in order to meet him. Is that true?

Viñoly: Correct. It wasn't an hour, but it was close - thanks to his enormous generosity. I was in my office on 53rd Street at the time, and I had gone to Carnegie to hear him play Schubert, and he was walking after the concert in the following morning with his wife, and I was coming out of the office, and I saw him, and it was completely automatic, I just started walking behind him, and at a certain point, he just turned around and I said, Maestro, of course, I am a great admirer. And he was fantastic, I mean, he invited me for a cup of tea at the hotel and we talked for some time, and he really is a wonderful person.

Kaplan: Well, I see that he shows up in your final selection, which is the Brahms Horn Trio.

Viñoly: Yah, and again, a fantastic piece, a combination that has a lot more literature that people think, particularly in Brahms. Again, mid-career work in which to my taste, I mean, the composer is in absolute form, completely detached from conflicts of originality or conflicts of production - a rather pure music in an unbelievable dimension of beauty. And this particular interpretation is absolutely extraordinary, I think.

[Music]

Kaplan: The second movement of Brahms Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano, with Barry Tuckwell on the horn, Itzhak Perlman, violin and Vladimir Ashkenazy on piano. The final selection of my guest on "Mad About Music," architect Rafael Viñoly.

Before we conclude, I feel bound to ask you, since I introduced you as a man who went "wrong" in his career, whether you regret not following your original path toward music?

Viñoly: No I don't. I do regret a sort of kind of by-product of that, which was my lack of intelligence to really see that I did not need to really stop practicing for such a long time. And I felt that in order to do architecture, I had to forget music. It was a single-minded approach to architecture in a way, which probably needed it, but it certainly wasn't fair for my other attention, which was essentially, you know, that I could continue playing music, and I would be much better off today than I am, I guess.

Kaplan: All right, now if you had continued and the day came for your Carnegie Hall debut, what would be a piece you might have picked for that? Either a sonata or a concerto, or, whatever.

Viñoly: No, I think I would, if it was a recital, I would probably do the A Minor Sonata of Mozart; I would do probably something like the Schumann Fantasie, which I'm starting to come back to, the first Chopin Ballade; and then I would do some of these pieces that I wanted to exemplify tonight, also, which are connected to what people still call contemporary music, that for me are not. I mean, Schoenberg's, Opus 19, which I did many times, Webern and so on.

Kaplan: Well, you know you may have "gone wrong" and left music, but it can't be a bad thing to have a genuine musician's sensibility creating the design of our concert halls today.

Rafael Viñoly, thank you for appearing today. This is Gilbert Kaplan for today's edition of "Mad About Music."

[Credits]

About Rafael Viñoly

In Rafael Viñoly's nearly forty years of practice in the United States, Latin America, East Asia, and Europe his work has always been driven by the belief that architecture's essential responsibility is to elevate the public realm. As in his much-publicized World Cultural Center proposal for the World Trade Center site, his deepest focus is on maximizing the opportunity for real civic investment that every construction project brings.

Viñoly was born in Uruguay in 1944 and by the age of 20 was a founding partner in what would become one of the largest design studios in all of Latin America. His celebrated early work transformed the landscape of Argentina where that practice, the Estudio de Arquitectura, was based. In 1978 Viñoly abruptly relocated his family to the United States after realizing the ethical contradictions of remaining in Argentina under the rule of a repressive military regime. For a brief period he served as a guest lecturer at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and in 1979 he settled permanently in New York City.

In 1982, Viñoly founded Rafael Viñoly Architects PC, a New York City-based firm that now has offices in Lower Manhattan and London and employs over 170 people. Through this highly developed entity Viñoly has completed many critically acclaimed public sector buildings as well as private and institutional commissions. His first major New York project was the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which was completed in 1988. In 1989, he won an open international competition to design the largest and most important cultural complex in all of Japan, the Tokyo International Forum. Completed in 1996, this design secured Viñoly's reputation as an architect of great imagination and immense professional rigor with a proven capacity to create beloved civic and cultural spaces. The opening of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia in 2001 marked a similar success here in the United States. The building, which is home to the Philadelphia Orchestra, one the country's oldest and most cherished cultural institutions, has already established itself as a favorite civic gathering space in the heart of the city.

Viñoly's work has a sustained structural originality, which transcends the passing fads of architectural movements. At home with both large and small projects, his recent work ranges from university buildings like the Chicago University Graduate School of Business and the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University to leading edge biomedical and nanosystems research facilities such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm Research Campus in Virginia, the Porter Neuroscience Research Center at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, and the UCLA Nanosystems Research Institute in California. His work also encompasses other research laboratories, courthouses, private residences, athletic facilities, and performing arts venues like the new home for Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York and the Leicester City Performing Arts Center in the UK. Among Viñoly's museum projects are the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Tampa Museum of Art, the Nasher Museum at Duke University, and the Brooklyn Children's Museum. Currently nearing completion are two innovative convention centers in Boston and Pittsburgh.

In addition to his many successes in competitions, most recently his selection for the expansion of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, Viñoly's work has been recognized in the world's leading design publications and by numerous design excellence awards including the AIA Medal of Honor. Viñoly became a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1993 and is a member of the Japan Institute of Architects. He continues to lecture widely in the United States and abroad.