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Mad About Music
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Memorable Moments
There are pivotal moments in life that can become so memorable, they can stay with a person forever. In the two years that Mad About Music has been on the air, some of our guests' most significant, most personal moments connected with a musical experience. We feature "Memorable Moments" on this special edition of Mad About Music.
Igor Stravinsky Le Sacre du printemps [Excerpt]. The London Philharmonic, Kent Nagano. Virgin Classics VCK791511.
Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata No. 23, Op. 57 in F minor "Appassionata" [Third Movement]. Murray Perahia, piano. CBS Records / Masterworks MK39344.
Giacomo Puccini Tosca "Vissi d'arte". Maria Callas. Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala. Victor de Sabata, Conductor. Musical Heritage Society 524973H.
Johann Sebastian Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier. Book 1 [Prelude in C major]. Ralph Kirkpatrick, Clavichord. Deutsche Grammophon / Archiv Produktion 289 463 601-2.
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125 [Excerpt]. Leonard Bernstein. Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and members of following orchestras: Dresden Staatskapelle; Orchestra of the Kirov Theatre, Leningrad; London Symphony Orchestra; New York Philharmonic; Orchestre de Paris. Bavarian Radio Chorus; Members of the Berlin Radio Chorus; Dresden Philharmonic Children's Chorus. June Anderson, Soprano; Sarah Walker, Mezzo-soprano; Klaus König, Tenor; Jan-Hendrik Rootering, Bass. Deutsche Grammophon 429 861-2.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Clarinet Quintet in A major K. 581 [First Movement]. The Elysium String Quartet; Stanley Drucker, Clarinet. Elysium Recordings GRK 716.
Sigmund Romberg The Student Prince "Drinking Song." Philharmonia Orchestra. John Owen Edwards. Jay Master Works Edition CDJAY2 1252.
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Kaplan: There are pivotal moments in life that can become so memorable, they can stay with a person forever. In the two years that "Mad About Music" has been on the air, some of our guests' most significant, most personal moments connected with a musical experience. "Memorable Moments" on today's special edition of "Mad About Music."
[Theme Music]
Kaplan: This is Gilbert Kaplan. We're celebrating the second anniversary of "Mad About Music" and when we looked back we realized that many of the best moments on the show happened when a guest linked a piece of music directly to an important event in their life. We begin with a pivotal moment in the life of President Bush's National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who revealed on our show that at one time she seemed destined for a career as a concert pianist.
Rice: Music played a very important role in my childhood. My mother played, my grandmother and my great grandmother all played piano. A couple of them were church musicians, but my grandmother was also a piano teacher and I stayed at my grandmother's house during the day while my parents worked and I would go to the piano and bang at the piano when she taught her students trying to emulate what she was doing with her students. So she said to my mother, let's teach her to play. I was only about three. My mother thought I might be a little young, but my grandmother wanted to try it and as a result I learned to play very, very young. I could read music before I could read. I went through then the kind of normal childhood that with music very much at the center of it, always piano lessons, always the time to practice, and when I was ten, I went to the Birmingham Southern Conservatory of Music - I think I was the first black student to go to that newly-integrated conservatory in Birmingham - and I began to compete in piano at that point. It was then several years later, a couple of years later we moved to Denver and I won a competition there, a young artists' competition, regionally young artists' competition, playing the Mozart D-Minor Piano Concerto, a piece that I still love to this very day.
[Music]
Kaplan: The final movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, played by Artur Rubinstein with the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra led by Alfred Wallenstein, a selection of my guest, Condoleezza Rice, who actually won a piano competition playing that work at age 15.
This is Gilbert Kaplan and on this special edition of "Mad About Music" we're playing music selected by some of our guests that was part of a memorable moment in their lives. For Hollywood director William Friedkin, who won the Academy Award for "The French Connection", that magic moment was his first exposure to classical music. It came on him like a bolt of lightning as he was driving on an empty highway in the wee hours of the morning.
Friedkin: I sort of discovered classical music when I was in my early 20s, when I was in Chicago. I can remember the night, not the day, the date, but I used to work at WGN Television in Chicago, I was a director, I started as a floor manager, then became assistant director, and then a live television director. And I used to sign the station off. In those days, the station would sign off at 2 o'clock in the morning, now they go 24 hours. But we would sign the station off and then I would either go home or go to a jazz club or something, and I lived on the north side of Chicago, the television station was downtown and I used to go along the outer drive. I'd be virtually alone at night, along the beautiful outer drive next to Lake Michigan and I used to listen to jazz on the radio and one evening I turned past the jazz station and there was something very strange emanating from the radio that I had never heard before. It sounded otherworldly. It sounded like it was coming from the planets or somewhere else. And it was a performance of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. And it just completely captivated me. And I pulled over to the side, I stopped driving, I pulled over to the side and listened to this, and it was an absolutely life-changing experience.
[Music]
Kaplan: The riveting, concluding moments of Stravinsky's The Rite of
Spring, the London Philharmonic led by Kent Nagano, a selection of my guest
Academy Award-winning director, William Friedkin, when he appeared on "Mad
About Music."
On today's show, we're focusing on music that was selected by some of our guests,
because it had a direct connection to a memorable moment in their lives. And
it would be hard to imagine a circumstance more memorable -- or more personal
-- than a phone conversation about music between the former Prime Minister of
Israel, Ehud Barak, and his dying father.
Barak: My father was clearly the real engine behind my awareness of the beauty and sensation of listening or performing in music. He was the one that always escorted me to every, almost every training session on the piano and more than any other individual, was encouraging me to try never to be deterred by either technical or other obstacles in playing the piano. He passed away several months ago at the age of 92. But I believe that one of the most moving moments for him was when he was already lying in his dying bed. I remember that all along my life he tried to encourage me to play the "Appassionata." And I thought that I will never be able to perform the "Appassionata" just by listening to it and he insisted that I try. And in fact it happened that I tried in the last year and found it possible after all. I played it to him through the telephone. He could hardly talk, and when I ended he told me, "I told you all along your life, never be deterred from experiencing more in music."
[Music]
Kaplan: The Third Movement of Beethoven's "Appassionata" Sonata, Murray Perahia at the piano, a selection of my guest on "Mad About Music," former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak.
On this special edition of "Mad About Music" we're reviewing some of our earlier guests' memorable moments, when music played a pivotal role. Next we'll hear about a surprise encounter between a legendary opera diva and a star-struck Supreme Court Justice -- as soon as "Mad About Music" continues.
[Station break]
Kaplan: This is Gilbert Kaplan. On this special edition of "Mad About Music" we're revisiting some of the choices our guests made, where a musical work played a prominent role in a memorable moment in their lives. For Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a lifelong opera lover, that special moment occurred when she unexpectedly bumped into a legendary diva in an elevator.
Ginsburg: To my great sadness I never saw Callas perform although I did meet that great diva. I met her in an elevator at the Hay Adams Hotel. She was in town for a concert. I was in town to make an argument at the Court. I stepped into the elevator and there was Callas in white mink with her poodle with the same color as her coat. She looked every inch the diva that she was and I mumbled something about how much joy she had given me through her recordings and then I felt as if I had been touched by magic. Tosca was one of Callas' best roles and I believe that at the opening she sang Tosca with di Stefano. At any rate, she sang Tosca many times with di Stefano. She recorded it with him from La Scala with de Sabata as the conductor and her recording of Tosca has been described as perhaps the best recording of opera anyplace.
[Music]
Kaplan: The aria "Vissi d'arte" from Puccini's Tosca sung by Maria Callas with the Orchestra of La Scale led by Victor de Sabata, a selection of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she appeared earlier on "Mad About Music.
This is Gilbert Kaplan and on this special edition of "Mad About Music" we are revisiting some of the choices our guests made because of a unique connection between a musical work and a memorable moment in their lives. While most of these were private moments, for two of our guests their musical selections commemorated an important public event. Sir Edward Heath rose to be the Prime Minister of England, but he started out to be a musician and by the time he graduated from Oxford, he was already an accomplished organist and keyboard performer. So when the British Parliament finally voted to join the European Community - a major personal victory for the Prime Minister - he decided to celebrate in a musical way - a very private musical way.
Heath: Well, that was at the, just after the vote was taken in the House of Commons. We had ten full days of debate in Parliament: four before the summer break and then six after we got back and there has never been a debate like that in the House of Commons on a single subject before. It was a very emotional occasion. I wound up the whole debate and others went off and I knew their parties were all arranged, they all wanted me to go, but I said no, not so soon after the debate and I went back to No. 10 and there I sat down at the clavichord and started with the No. 1 of the Bach 48 Preludes and Fugues.
[Music]
Kaplan: The First Prelude from Book One of Bach's The Well Tempered Clavier. Performed by Ralph Kirkpatrick, a selection of my guest Former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Sir Edward Heath, when he appeared earlier on "Mad About Music".
This is Gilbert Kaplan, and on today's edition of "Mad About Music" we're exploring the fascinating way that music and memorable experiences of many of our guests intersected. Like Prime Minister Heath, another head of government, former Chancellor of West Germany, Helmut Schmidt, connected one of the most important moments in 20th Century political history with music. In this case it was the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the music?: the chorus from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Schmidt: But I must tell you that the moment in which the Wall came down or to be more correct, the moment at which the Wall became perforated, and symbolically, Brandenburg Gate was opened up, was one of very very few moments in my lifetime when I couldn't avoid to shed tears. I was overwhelmed. The chorus in a way is the incarnation of German solemnity. It is also good music. I never understood the Ninth Symphony as a whole because the first three parts is orchestra and then all of a sudden you have chorus against any classical concept of a symphony. But the chorus in the Ninth Symphony is something almost holy to the Germans.
[Music]
Kaplan: The concluding moments of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Leonard
Bernstein conducting a live concert in Berlin with an ensemble that drew on
musicians from five orchestras and three choruses in celebration of the fall
of the Berlin Wall. A selection by West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt when
he appeared on "Mad About Music."
We'll have another pivotal moment linked to music -- an instant from television
history that rocketed one piece of classical music into unimagined popularity
when "Mad About Music" continues.
[Station Break]
Kaplan: This is Gilbert Kaplan and on this special edition of "Mad About Music" we're reviewing some of the music that has played a particularly important part in the lives of our guests. Alan Alda became an icon of pop culture when he played the part of Hawkeye Pierce on the long-running television series M*A*S*H. But Alda did more than act in that series. He also directed and wrote many of the episodes, often managing to work classical music into the script. Perhaps the most memorable of those scripts, at least from the point of view of music, was the one he wrote for M*A*S*H's final episode.
Alda: When I would write the show, I would often think of it in musical terms and when we got to the last episode the story I wanted to tell about the Winchester character who loved music and that was his deepest love, I thought that the deepest wound he could suffer would be one related to music; and when a group of Chinese musicians is captured and they're in the stockade by the M*A*S*H unit, he can't resist going over and teaching them how to play the Mozart Clarinet Quintet, but of course there isn't a clarinet among them, you know, it's all on traditional Chinese instruments. But he devotes himself to this and it brings a little bit of joy to these horrible wartime conditions that he's living under. And then when they leave the camp and they're being taken someplace else, their truck is hit by a shell and they're all killed and it just tears the heart out of him. And that story alone interested me and it touched me, but what touched me even more - it was kind of a private joke, nobody really knew how much the piece meant to me - because the night I meet Arlene, my wife, she was already a professional musician and I was invited to hear chamber music at somebody's apartment; and then they start to play and the young woman who's playing clarinet in the Mozart Quintet is, I just fell in love with her, and I fell in love with her in a way through the music. That piece has always had a special place in my heart.
[Music]
Kaplan: The First Movement of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet with The Elysium String Quartet and Stanley Drucker on the clarinet, a selection of Alan Alda on "Mad About Music". Playing the Clarinet Quintet on M*A*S*H produced unimagined popularity. The New York Times said that more people heard the piece that night than had ever heard it since Mozart wrote it.
Now I've saved for last what I'm sure will go down in the history of "Mad About Music" as the most riveting, most romantic connection between music and a memorable moment. The tale was told on our very first show by former President Jimmy Carter as he explained his reason for selecting Sigmund Romberg's operetta The Student Prince.
Carter: Well, when Rosalynn and I were in the Navy in my earliest days of married life, we made a total of $300 a month and we spent over $150 on food and lodging which only left us a little bit. But I was assigned to go to Philadelphia to learn about handling new radar equipment and one night we decided to splurge and went out to an actual restaurant and afterwards we went to Sigmund Romberg's performance of The Student Prince. It was so overwhelming to us to hear this music in live that I guess became a little more romantic than usual and that night we decided to have our first child, so our oldest son Jack was conceived that night after we heard The Student Prince.
[Music]
Kaplan: The rollicking "Drinking Song" from Sigmund Romberg's The Student Prince with the Philharmonia Orchestra, a selection by former President Jimmy Carter on the very first show of "Mad About Music" and testimony to the romantic power of music.
Indeed the power of music in our lives is the dominant theme of "Mad About Music" and I hope you enjoyed this special summer edition featuring our guests' wonderful stories on how music crisscrossed with some of the memorable moments in their lives. This is Gilbert Kaplan for "Mad About Music."
[Credits]
