On Demand
Mad About Music
Sunday, August 01, 2004
-
Photo courtesy Hollywood Sign Trust"Hollywood"
"Hollywood," a summer special exploring the musical passions of four award-winning actors and directors: Mike Nichols (Strauss's Rosenkavalier "was just an out and out way of getting girls"); William Friedkin (Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was "a life-changing experience"); Alec Baldwin (Mahler's Ninth "is just so searing, so powerful") and Alan Alda (Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue "wasn't like eating vegetablesto me it was ice cream").
Igor Stravinsky Le Sacre du printemps . (Conclusion) The London Philharmonic. Kent Nagano. Virgin Classics VCK791511.
Hector Berlioz Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 . "March to the Scaffold". Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Paavo Järvi. Telarc 80578.
George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue . (Conclusion) Philadelphia Orchestra. Eugene Ormandy. Oscar Levant, Piano. CBS MK 42514.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Clarinet Quintet in A major K. 581 . (Excerpt from First Movement) The Elysium String Quartet; Stanley Drucker, Clarinet. Elysium Recordings GRK 716.
Johann Sebastian Bach Cantata No. 147, "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben," BWV 147. (Choral: "Jesu Bleibet Meine Freude" ["Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"]) Dinu Lipatti, piano. "Great Recordings of The Century". Angel Classics 67003.
Frédéric Chopin "Mazurka", Op. 17, No. 4 in A Minor . Artur Rubinstein, Piano. RCA Red Seal 7863-55614-2.
Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 9 . (Excerpt from "Rondo-burlesque" and Finale). Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Sir Georg Solti. London 430 804-2.
Richard Strauss Der Rosenkavalier. Act III, Final Trio. Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus. Herbert von Karajan. Teresa Stich-Randall, Sophie; Christa Ludwig, Octavian; Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Marschallin. EMI Classics 5 67609 2.
Kaplan Welcome to another "Mad About Music" Summer Special. Today, we focus on Hollywood , exploring the power of music in the lives of four award-winning actors and directors as we revisit earlier appearances of Mike Nichols, William Friedkin, Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda.
[Theme music]
So the subject is Hollywood and music, and we begin with a topic I always find fascinating – the defining moment when someone discovers their passion for music. Often it occurs in childhood, but for director William Friedkin who later would win the Academy Award for "The French Connection" and a nomination for "The Exorcist", that magical musical moment had to wait until his 20's and, as it happened – suddenly – in the wee hours of the morning on a deserted highway.
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, music that launched Hollywood Director William Friedkin into a lifelong passion for classical music. This is Gilbert Kaplan and on this Summer Special on Hollywood we're exploring the musical tastes of some leading actors and directors by revisiting their earlier appearances on the show. Just as the gripping power of The Rite of Spring forced William Friedkin to pull off the highway and listen, many different musical works caused actor Alec Baldwin, nominated this year for an Oscar for his performance in "The Cooler" to do the same thing and sometimes it got him in hot water.
Baldwin When I moved to Los Angeles , suddenly you're in a car and you're driving everywhere, as opposed to New York , where somebody else is always doing the driving. And that was at a time, I guess in the early 80s, when just about everything that was on popular radio was unappealing to me. I didn't really care about rap, and just all the music that was playing then had lost its luster for me. So I was putting on classical stations in L.A. and just got pulled in on this incredible level where I was pulling my car up to auditions and the classical piece had not finished, so I'd sit in the car and wait for the piece to finish and then write down the name of the composer, and the disc label, and the disc number and so forth, and the conductor, and the symphony, and I'd write all the pertinent details down. Then my agent was yelling at me, saying I was late for my auditions, so I put the program director of the radio station, his number, on speed dial on my car phone, back when we all had these car phones. And I would call them when I got out of the audition. I'd say, "Now what was that piece, that symphonic piece you had that was playing between 11:00 and 11:30 ?" And they would tell me the name, and I was writing these copious notes about things, and I started collecting classical discs and recordings.
Kaplan So how did you become hooked on classical music? Was there a defining moment for you?
Baldwin I was doing a television show, this soap opera, oddly enough, and I guess some of the more musically literate people who were producing the show were playing this classical score on the radio in my home as I was about to be murdered off the show. And they were playing this music, and I turned to the casting director, Roger Sturtevant, who was a very well educated guy, and I said, "What is this music, this very harrowing music?" And he kind of looked at me scornfully – he couldn't believe I didn't know what it was – and he said, "Well, that's," he said, "Come, come, I mean, that's Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique , the "March to the Scaffold". And I said, "God", and I was actually frustrated that I didn't know that. You know, I had no real education in classical music and I began then. I began this exploration of that kind of music.
[Music]
Kaplan "March to the Scaffold" from Berlioz's S ymphonie fantastique, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by Paavo Järvi – actor Alec Baldwin's first encounter with classical music. This is Gilbert Kaplan and on this summer special of "Mad About Music", the focus is on Hollywood as we revisit appearances on this show by leading actors and directors. We've already revealed that William Friedkin and Alec Baldwin only discovered classical music after their careers were launched. But Alan Alda, who won countless awards for his role in the TV series "M*A*S*H," discovered music as a child through George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
Alda I think I was seven years old and the reason I heard it was that my father was playing the part of George Gershwin in the movie called "Rhapsody in Blue" which was the film biography of Gershwin. He didn't know how to play the piano but he had to train for weeks to be able to get the precise fingering of all the pieces that he would play in the movie. A recording made by Oscar Levant would be the music that was played and he would do the fingering that was appropriate to that and sometimes when they came in very tight on the hands it would be Oscar Levant's hands. But a real musician looking at my father would think he was actually playing the piano. And I had to do that years later for a movie called "Mephisto Waltz" and then I even got to do that just as my father had in the movie "Rhapsody in Blue". I sat down in a concert hall and played some – what was it? – I think Liszt, and there was the audience standing up cheering and it was some other guy playing the music but my fingers were on the keyboard. I had these vivid memories of lying on the carpet when I was seven, eight, nine years old, listening over and over again to the recordings from the movie itself. But the experience of hearing at that age, music that to me was just exciting music, it wasn't music that I was supposed to like. Nobody said to me, "Listen to this, it'll do you good." It wasn't like eating your vegetables – to me it was ice cream. I loved hearing it and I can still smell the rug as I lay on the floor. I can still smell the electronics in the big cabinet and see the vinyl record going around.
[Music]
Kaplan The conclusion of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra with pianist Oscar Levant, under the baton of Eugene Ormandy – the work that started Alan Alda on a lifelong love of classical music. When we return, we'll talk about how Alan Alda introduced Mozart to millions of people for the first time.
[Station Break]
This is Gilbert Kaplan and on "Mad About Music's" Summer Special on Hollywood , we're exploring the musical passions of leading actors and directors. If Gershwin turned Alan Alda on to music, it was through Alda's own efforts that millions of people may have heard Mozart for the first time – on of all places, the final episode of Alda's landmark television show "M*A*S*H."
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. Someone was quoted in The New York Times as saying that more people had heard that piece of music that night on "M*A*S*H" than had ever heard it since Mozart wrote it put together. On the other hand, you have to factor in the idea that they had never heard it played on traditional Chinese instruments before. It's ironic that the one time that all these millions of people heard it, they weren't hearing it the way Mozart would ever have imagined it being played.
[Music]
Kaplan The opening of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet , the Elysium String Quartet and Stanley Drucker on the clarinet, the work that Alan Alda included in the final episode of his TV show "M*A*S*H," resulting in millions of people experiencing Mozart for the first time. This is Gilbert Kaplan and on this summer special of "Mad About Music," we are exploring the role music plays in the lives of four leading actors and directors as we revisit their earlier appearances on this show. Now with guests like Alan Alda, Mike Nichols and William Friedkin – all outstanding film and television directors – and passionate music-lovers, it struck me that directing an opera would be a natural for them. Friedkin, in fact, has directed opera in Los Angeles and Florence . I had read that while he was highly regarded, he was not someone who insisted on bold new creative ideas for his productions. I asked him to describe his own philosophy.
Friedkin My approach to directing opera would be the surgeon's credo for performing surgery, which is “First, do no harm.” I don't approach these great operatic works with an idea to put my stamp on them, or to use them for some other purpose. I try to interpret them, hopefully as close to what I can discern the composer's intention to have been.
Kaplan In a few years, though, I understand, you're going to take on Wagner. This is an opera of which there is an enormous interpretation done already. Everyone will have an opinion about it; you'll be in the place of Wagner. Don't you feel you need to therefore, put your stamp on this one in some way lest it be felt you're just producing another Tannhäuser , in this case?
Friedkin Well, let's put it this way. I don't know what sources you're referring to, but what I've seen written about the operas I've done, there's no question that I've put a stamp on them. But the stamp is not one of having people hang nude upside down, you know, or do the whole thing with a flashing light, or some idiotic idea of just bringing in a hip, contemporary audience. I very definitely interpret the works and put my own stamp on them per se , but I try not to distort their intention. And I feel a lot of contemporary opera that I've seen; very clever, very interesting, but is often, a director's vision and not the composer's. I would like to think that I try to bring to the audience the composer's vision. But it's not going to be something in the case of Tannhäuser that they could have seen in Bayreuth , you know, 50 years ago.
Kaplan So you can see, William Friedkin is certainly clear on what the appropriate role is – and isn't – for an opera director. Mike Nichols, on the other hand, is leery to venture into the opera house, though he did flirt with the idea once.
Nichols It has come up. It came up partly because my grandmother, strangely, wrote the libretto for Strauss's Salome . That is to say, she translated, Oscar Wilde wrote Salome in French, and my grandmother, who is a poet, translated it from the French, into German, and worked with Strauss, and so among other things, Leonard Bernstein, who was a friend, asked me if I wanted to direct what he was going to conduct, Salome in Vienna, and I said, “Are you kidding?” To go into Vienna with their own opera, that's not going to be my debut in opera. That was just fear talking. And the whole thing of opera that those who are devoted to an opera, if Tosca enters from the right instead of the left, that's considered a revolution in the staging. I've always been very afraid of it – the main reason I haven't done it is, like Louis Malle, a friend of mine, was a film director first, and did direct an opera; he said that the entire thing that he had worked on was ruined because the conductor took it too fast on the night of the performance at this festival. I've always been scared, because it does belong to the conductor.
Kaplan Though he might seem hesitant, it does sound as though Mike Nichols may have left the door open for taking a stab at directing an opera in the future, but this is surely not the case with Alan Alda, who rules out the possibility of directing an opera for a far more fundamental reason, as you'll hear in response to my question: He finds what happens on the stage simply ridiculous.
Do you think you would be capable of directing an opera that would come off with the staging and the drama and the acting that you think it would need?
Alda I would find it very hard to find an opera that I would be interested in being involved, but first of all I should only do things that I love. I mean, I'm not trying to conquer new worlds. I remember seeing Traviata . I think Traviata was my first opera – and some of it delighted me, but the older I got, the more difficult it was for me to watch some of the acting and the staging. People would come out and wander around until their cue comes. I know what this sounds like to somebody who really knows it and loves it. I'm just giving you an outsider's view of it, which I hope is amusing to you. I saw Norma the other night and the libretto goes: "The Romans have defiled our altars (these are Druids singing) and we have to get rid of them and we have to stab them and kill them and make their blood flow like rivers." This is pretty strong stuff and the music goes "Yep ba ba da bump da bump da bump…." What is this? I wouldn't know how to direct that.
Kaplan All right, well then, let's turn to your next selection .... And so it went, during Alan Alda's earlier appearance on "Mad About Music." On this special summer edition, the focus is on Hollywood and so far we've explored how Mike Nichols, William Friedkin, Alan Alda and Alec Baldwin came to music as well as their interest in possibly trying their hand at directing opera. Now we turn to the music they each selected because of the emotional spell it casts over them. We start with William Friedkin and Bach.
Friedkin Well, certainly I don't think any selection of music is complete without something by Bach. This particular piece and the way it's played by Dinu Lipatti, who died very young, he died at about the age of 37 years old, but he had a simplicity of touch that I find to be very spiritual. And this piece is about as simple as you can get. It is simply a quiet, solo piano playing nothing but the notes, simply and with great reverence. Anyone who can read the simplest musical score can play this piece. But there is something in the way that he plays it that I find so emotional that it reduces me to tears.
[Music]
Kaplan An arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring , performed by Dinu Lipatti, a work so emotionally compelling to Hollywood director William Friedkin that it brings him to tears. When we return we'll explore the emotional impact of music on our other guests: Alan Alda, Alec Baldwin and Mike Nichols.
[Station Break]
This is Gilbert Kaplan and on "Mad About Music" today we're exploring the emotional impact of music on award-winning Hollywood actors and directors as part of a special summer show today during which we are revisiting appearances by William Friedkin, Mike Nichols, Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda. If as we just heard, Bach could bring William Friedkin to tears, I wondered if Alan Alda, who has sometimes been described as "everyone's ideal for the sensitive male," also cried when he heard music.
Alda I don't. For a long time I was like what's his name? The famous comedian who said that he was so emotional he cried at card tricks? But I don't cry that easily anymore and I also have never, as far as I know, I have never been that moved, or moved in that way, by music. And I always envied people who could be. For instance, I envied my wife Arlene who when she hears several pieces by Brahms she tears up. It really affects her deeply and I've always wondered what that was, how people can get that kind of contact with music. And then one day Arlene, who's first instrument was the piano – has gone back to practicing the piano almost every day; when she started to work on a "Mazurka" by Chopin, every time that music went through the house, I'd be in another room working on something, I'd turn away from the computer and just listen to it and it made me both sad and it filled me with images of longing and romance and introspection and I had a powerful emotional reaction to it, so much so that when she starts to play it, I think, oh, not now, I don't want to get sad now, wait a minute, but don't, just hold off for a few minutes.
[Music]
Kaplan Chopin's Mazurka, Op 17, No. 4, Artur Rubinstein on the piano – one of the few pieces of music that produces a powerful emotional response in Alan Alda. This is Gilbert Kaplan on our special summer edition of "Mad About Music" where we are revisiting appearances of acclaimed actors and directors. So we've now discovered that Bach brings tears to William Friedkin and Chopin almost does to Alan Alda. In the case of Alec Baldwin, it struck me that the emotional makeup of his musical selection, Mahler's Ninth Symphony , might well match Baldwin 's own personality, at least as it has been described in the press. I put this idea to him this way:
It is very profound music, and continuing with my attempt to connect your musical selections with your personality, this symphony combines in an almost surreal way, two opposing personalities. The third movement, which Mahler called the "Rondo-burlesque", is really a demonic whirlwind charging ahead, almost out of control. Then, it turns into perhaps the most reflective, probing, sensuous music Mahler ever composed. Do you see anything of yourself in that description?
Baldwin You missed your calling! You should be a forensic psychiatrist with the police department. Well, I'm going to cop out here and say, these analyses of yours might apply maybe more to the characters I play than to me myself. I mean, I might have an appreciation of....
Kaplan You're a mild-mannered reporter of the Daily Planet …
Baldwin ... of a quaint metropolitan newspaper, who fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way.
Kaplan Well, tell me about your feelings about this Ninth .
Baldwin Well, the Ninth was probably, I would say, like many people, when you first hear this piece, it's just so searing, and so powerful. I like pieces that are very something, if it's going to be, vivacissimo, and it's going to be very upbeat, and so forth. I like Copland, and I like things that are very strong in a certain direction, and in terms if you are looking for something that's a little more brooding, and a little more sonorous, I can't think of anybody that affects me more than Mahler. This was the first Mahler piece I think I heard when I was in Los Angeles , during that time I was listening to classical music on the radio incessantly, and it just had this incredible effect on me. And it's one of the few symphonies, actually, where the whole piece, I could sit and listen to the whole piece in one run. Sometimes I'll take some certain symphonies and listen to movements, I don't really feel the need to listen to the whole piece in one meal. And this is one where you just almost have to play this whole thing, and Solti and the Chicago was the first again, back to that idea of the first, inaugural listening for me has always made the biggest impression.
Kaplan Well, I wish we could play it end to end, but of course in this show, it would take the whole show, so let's hear then that clash of personalities I talked about before as that whirlwind "Rondo-burlesque" dissolves into the dreamy opening of the Finale.
[Music]
Kaplan The conclusion of the demonic "Rondo-burlesque" from Mahler's Ninth Symphony , followed by the opening of the lush Finale – the Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by Sir Georg Solti, music that Alec Baldwin described during an earlier appearance on this show as simply "searing." If some of the musical selections from William Friedkin, Alan Alda and Alec Baldwin pulled on their emotions, it is fair to say that all the music chosen by Mike Nichols resonated with him emotionally – and romantically. I noticed that all of his choices were dreamy and slow – almost prayer-like in nature. I suggested this was a bit surprising coming from one of our foremost artists of comedy.
Nichols Well, I guess part of that is that when you're looking for your favorite, the high point of a great concerto or a great string quartet, or for that matter, a great opera, tends to be a slow movement, a slow aria. Even “Vissi d'arte” sort of takes its time. I love whipping along in Bach and hearing all the choruses and the ornaments and all of that, but if I'm looking for my absolute favorite, it's going to be basically something slow and sweet.
Kaplan Now, I've been trying to characterize you for our audience by your musical choices, so let me continue. They are all highly romantic, especially your final choice, the moving Trio and the concluding moments of Strauss's Rosenkavalier . Do you regard yourself as romantic?
Nichols I would say in the end, probably and ineradicably, I've tried to do things about it, but I end up romantic, no matter what! And the Trio from the Rosenkavalier was just out and out, a way of getting girls, you know, it was simply saying, have I got something to play for you, and sitting them down and playing them the Trio, which it has to be said, almost always worked. It just breaks your heart. It is sort of a definition of bittersweet, which means that you feel for all of the characters and that sort of sense of one of them giving something up, and two of them finding love is just touching and it's sexy, and Strauss had this thing that he did, that gets me every time, which is, he just makes you work quite hard for a long time, and then, finally, finally, at the end of the opera, comes through with this sea of music that transports you and puts girls in the right mood, and just makes you love life.
[Music]
Kaplan The trio from Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier , sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Christa Ludwig and Teresa Stich-Randall, the Philharmonia Orchestra led by Herbert von Karajan. A moment in music that Mike Nichols says "transports you, puts girls in the right mood and just makes you love life." It sure does. And, with that extraordinary music we conclude our Summer Special on Hollywood and the musical tastes of four award-winning actors and directors: Mike Nichols, William Friedkin, Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda. In September we return to our regular programming and my first guest will be another acclaimed actor: Patrick Stewart, praised for his roles in Shakespeare, but perhaps best known for the popular television series "Star Trek". Until then, enjoy the rest of the summer. This is Gilbert Kaplan for "Mad About Music."
[Credits]
Hector Berlioz Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 . "March to the Scaffold". Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Paavo Järvi. Telarc 80578.
George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue . (Conclusion) Philadelphia Orchestra. Eugene Ormandy. Oscar Levant, Piano. CBS MK 42514.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Clarinet Quintet in A major K. 581 . (Excerpt from First Movement) The Elysium String Quartet; Stanley Drucker, Clarinet. Elysium Recordings GRK 716.
Johann Sebastian Bach Cantata No. 147, "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben," BWV 147. (Choral: "Jesu Bleibet Meine Freude" ["Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"]) Dinu Lipatti, piano. "Great Recordings of The Century". Angel Classics 67003.
Frédéric Chopin "Mazurka", Op. 17, No. 4 in A Minor . Artur Rubinstein, Piano. RCA Red Seal 7863-55614-2.
Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 9 . (Excerpt from "Rondo-burlesque" and Finale). Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Sir Georg Solti. London 430 804-2.
Richard Strauss Der Rosenkavalier. Act III, Final Trio. Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus. Herbert von Karajan. Teresa Stich-Randall, Sophie; Christa Ludwig, Octavian; Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Marschallin. EMI Classics 5 67609 2.
Kaplan Welcome to another "Mad About Music" Summer Special. Today, we focus on Hollywood , exploring the power of music in the lives of four award-winning actors and directors as we revisit earlier appearances of Mike Nichols, William Friedkin, Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda.
[Theme music]
So the subject is Hollywood and music, and we begin with a topic I always find fascinating – the defining moment when someone discovers their passion for music. Often it occurs in childhood, but for director William Friedkin who later would win the Academy Award for "The French Connection" and a nomination for "The Exorcist", that magical musical moment had to wait until his 20's and, as it happened – suddenly – in the wee hours of the morning on a deserted highway.
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, music that launched Hollywood Director William Friedkin into a lifelong passion for classical music. This is Gilbert Kaplan and on this Summer Special on Hollywood we're exploring the musical tastes of some leading actors and directors by revisiting their earlier appearances on the show. Just as the gripping power of The Rite of Spring forced William Friedkin to pull off the highway and listen, many different musical works caused actor Alec Baldwin, nominated this year for an Oscar for his performance in "The Cooler" to do the same thing and sometimes it got him in hot water.
Baldwin When I moved to Los Angeles , suddenly you're in a car and you're driving everywhere, as opposed to New York , where somebody else is always doing the driving. And that was at a time, I guess in the early 80s, when just about everything that was on popular radio was unappealing to me. I didn't really care about rap, and just all the music that was playing then had lost its luster for me. So I was putting on classical stations in L.A. and just got pulled in on this incredible level where I was pulling my car up to auditions and the classical piece had not finished, so I'd sit in the car and wait for the piece to finish and then write down the name of the composer, and the disc label, and the disc number and so forth, and the conductor, and the symphony, and I'd write all the pertinent details down. Then my agent was yelling at me, saying I was late for my auditions, so I put the program director of the radio station, his number, on speed dial on my car phone, back when we all had these car phones. And I would call them when I got out of the audition. I'd say, "Now what was that piece, that symphonic piece you had that was playing between 11:00 and 11:30 ?" And they would tell me the name, and I was writing these copious notes about things, and I started collecting classical discs and recordings.
Kaplan So how did you become hooked on classical music? Was there a defining moment for you?
Baldwin I was doing a television show, this soap opera, oddly enough, and I guess some of the more musically literate people who were producing the show were playing this classical score on the radio in my home as I was about to be murdered off the show. And they were playing this music, and I turned to the casting director, Roger Sturtevant, who was a very well educated guy, and I said, "What is this music, this very harrowing music?" And he kind of looked at me scornfully – he couldn't believe I didn't know what it was – and he said, "Well, that's," he said, "Come, come, I mean, that's Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique , the "March to the Scaffold". And I said, "God", and I was actually frustrated that I didn't know that. You know, I had no real education in classical music and I began then. I began this exploration of that kind of music.
[Music]
Kaplan "March to the Scaffold" from Berlioz's S ymphonie fantastique, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by Paavo Järvi – actor Alec Baldwin's first encounter with classical music. This is Gilbert Kaplan and on this summer special of "Mad About Music", the focus is on Hollywood as we revisit appearances on this show by leading actors and directors. We've already revealed that William Friedkin and Alec Baldwin only discovered classical music after their careers were launched. But Alan Alda, who won countless awards for his role in the TV series "M*A*S*H," discovered music as a child through George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
Alda I think I was seven years old and the reason I heard it was that my father was playing the part of George Gershwin in the movie called "Rhapsody in Blue" which was the film biography of Gershwin. He didn't know how to play the piano but he had to train for weeks to be able to get the precise fingering of all the pieces that he would play in the movie. A recording made by Oscar Levant would be the music that was played and he would do the fingering that was appropriate to that and sometimes when they came in very tight on the hands it would be Oscar Levant's hands. But a real musician looking at my father would think he was actually playing the piano. And I had to do that years later for a movie called "Mephisto Waltz" and then I even got to do that just as my father had in the movie "Rhapsody in Blue". I sat down in a concert hall and played some – what was it? – I think Liszt, and there was the audience standing up cheering and it was some other guy playing the music but my fingers were on the keyboard. I had these vivid memories of lying on the carpet when I was seven, eight, nine years old, listening over and over again to the recordings from the movie itself. But the experience of hearing at that age, music that to me was just exciting music, it wasn't music that I was supposed to like. Nobody said to me, "Listen to this, it'll do you good." It wasn't like eating your vegetables – to me it was ice cream. I loved hearing it and I can still smell the rug as I lay on the floor. I can still smell the electronics in the big cabinet and see the vinyl record going around.
[Music]
Kaplan The conclusion of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra with pianist Oscar Levant, under the baton of Eugene Ormandy – the work that started Alan Alda on a lifelong love of classical music. When we return, we'll talk about how Alan Alda introduced Mozart to millions of people for the first time.
[Station Break]
This is Gilbert Kaplan and on "Mad About Music's" Summer Special on Hollywood , we're exploring the musical passions of leading actors and directors. If Gershwin turned Alan Alda on to music, it was through Alda's own efforts that millions of people may have heard Mozart for the first time – on of all places, the final episode of Alda's landmark television show "M*A*S*H."
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. Someone was quoted in The New York Times as saying that more people had heard that piece of music that night on "M*A*S*H" than had ever heard it since Mozart wrote it put together. On the other hand, you have to factor in the idea that they had never heard it played on traditional Chinese instruments before. It's ironic that the one time that all these millions of people heard it, they weren't hearing it the way Mozart would ever have imagined it being played.
[Music]
Kaplan The opening of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet , the Elysium String Quartet and Stanley Drucker on the clarinet, the work that Alan Alda included in the final episode of his TV show "M*A*S*H," resulting in millions of people experiencing Mozart for the first time. This is Gilbert Kaplan and on this summer special of "Mad About Music," we are exploring the role music plays in the lives of four leading actors and directors as we revisit their earlier appearances on this show. Now with guests like Alan Alda, Mike Nichols and William Friedkin – all outstanding film and television directors – and passionate music-lovers, it struck me that directing an opera would be a natural for them. Friedkin, in fact, has directed opera in Los Angeles and Florence . I had read that while he was highly regarded, he was not someone who insisted on bold new creative ideas for his productions. I asked him to describe his own philosophy.
Friedkin My approach to directing opera would be the surgeon's credo for performing surgery, which is “First, do no harm.” I don't approach these great operatic works with an idea to put my stamp on them, or to use them for some other purpose. I try to interpret them, hopefully as close to what I can discern the composer's intention to have been.
Kaplan In a few years, though, I understand, you're going to take on Wagner. This is an opera of which there is an enormous interpretation done already. Everyone will have an opinion about it; you'll be in the place of Wagner. Don't you feel you need to therefore, put your stamp on this one in some way lest it be felt you're just producing another Tannhäuser , in this case?
Friedkin Well, let's put it this way. I don't know what sources you're referring to, but what I've seen written about the operas I've done, there's no question that I've put a stamp on them. But the stamp is not one of having people hang nude upside down, you know, or do the whole thing with a flashing light, or some idiotic idea of just bringing in a hip, contemporary audience. I very definitely interpret the works and put my own stamp on them per se , but I try not to distort their intention. And I feel a lot of contemporary opera that I've seen; very clever, very interesting, but is often, a director's vision and not the composer's. I would like to think that I try to bring to the audience the composer's vision. But it's not going to be something in the case of Tannhäuser that they could have seen in Bayreuth , you know, 50 years ago.
Kaplan So you can see, William Friedkin is certainly clear on what the appropriate role is – and isn't – for an opera director. Mike Nichols, on the other hand, is leery to venture into the opera house, though he did flirt with the idea once.
Nichols It has come up. It came up partly because my grandmother, strangely, wrote the libretto for Strauss's Salome . That is to say, she translated, Oscar Wilde wrote Salome in French, and my grandmother, who is a poet, translated it from the French, into German, and worked with Strauss, and so among other things, Leonard Bernstein, who was a friend, asked me if I wanted to direct what he was going to conduct, Salome in Vienna, and I said, “Are you kidding?” To go into Vienna with their own opera, that's not going to be my debut in opera. That was just fear talking. And the whole thing of opera that those who are devoted to an opera, if Tosca enters from the right instead of the left, that's considered a revolution in the staging. I've always been very afraid of it – the main reason I haven't done it is, like Louis Malle, a friend of mine, was a film director first, and did direct an opera; he said that the entire thing that he had worked on was ruined because the conductor took it too fast on the night of the performance at this festival. I've always been scared, because it does belong to the conductor.
Kaplan Though he might seem hesitant, it does sound as though Mike Nichols may have left the door open for taking a stab at directing an opera in the future, but this is surely not the case with Alan Alda, who rules out the possibility of directing an opera for a far more fundamental reason, as you'll hear in response to my question: He finds what happens on the stage simply ridiculous.
Do you think you would be capable of directing an opera that would come off with the staging and the drama and the acting that you think it would need?
Alda I would find it very hard to find an opera that I would be interested in being involved, but first of all I should only do things that I love. I mean, I'm not trying to conquer new worlds. I remember seeing Traviata . I think Traviata was my first opera – and some of it delighted me, but the older I got, the more difficult it was for me to watch some of the acting and the staging. People would come out and wander around until their cue comes. I know what this sounds like to somebody who really knows it and loves it. I'm just giving you an outsider's view of it, which I hope is amusing to you. I saw Norma the other night and the libretto goes: "The Romans have defiled our altars (these are Druids singing) and we have to get rid of them and we have to stab them and kill them and make their blood flow like rivers." This is pretty strong stuff and the music goes "Yep ba ba da bump da bump da bump…." What is this? I wouldn't know how to direct that.
Kaplan All right, well then, let's turn to your next selection .... And so it went, during Alan Alda's earlier appearance on "Mad About Music." On this special summer edition, the focus is on Hollywood and so far we've explored how Mike Nichols, William Friedkin, Alan Alda and Alec Baldwin came to music as well as their interest in possibly trying their hand at directing opera. Now we turn to the music they each selected because of the emotional spell it casts over them. We start with William Friedkin and Bach.
Friedkin Well, certainly I don't think any selection of music is complete without something by Bach. This particular piece and the way it's played by Dinu Lipatti, who died very young, he died at about the age of 37 years old, but he had a simplicity of touch that I find to be very spiritual. And this piece is about as simple as you can get. It is simply a quiet, solo piano playing nothing but the notes, simply and with great reverence. Anyone who can read the simplest musical score can play this piece. But there is something in the way that he plays it that I find so emotional that it reduces me to tears.
[Music]
Kaplan An arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring , performed by Dinu Lipatti, a work so emotionally compelling to Hollywood director William Friedkin that it brings him to tears. When we return we'll explore the emotional impact of music on our other guests: Alan Alda, Alec Baldwin and Mike Nichols.
[Station Break]
This is Gilbert Kaplan and on "Mad About Music" today we're exploring the emotional impact of music on award-winning Hollywood actors and directors as part of a special summer show today during which we are revisiting appearances by William Friedkin, Mike Nichols, Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda. If as we just heard, Bach could bring William Friedkin to tears, I wondered if Alan Alda, who has sometimes been described as "everyone's ideal for the sensitive male," also cried when he heard music.
Alda I don't. For a long time I was like what's his name? The famous comedian who said that he was so emotional he cried at card tricks? But I don't cry that easily anymore and I also have never, as far as I know, I have never been that moved, or moved in that way, by music. And I always envied people who could be. For instance, I envied my wife Arlene who when she hears several pieces by Brahms she tears up. It really affects her deeply and I've always wondered what that was, how people can get that kind of contact with music. And then one day Arlene, who's first instrument was the piano – has gone back to practicing the piano almost every day; when she started to work on a "Mazurka" by Chopin, every time that music went through the house, I'd be in another room working on something, I'd turn away from the computer and just listen to it and it made me both sad and it filled me with images of longing and romance and introspection and I had a powerful emotional reaction to it, so much so that when she starts to play it, I think, oh, not now, I don't want to get sad now, wait a minute, but don't, just hold off for a few minutes.
[Music]
Kaplan Chopin's Mazurka, Op 17, No. 4, Artur Rubinstein on the piano – one of the few pieces of music that produces a powerful emotional response in Alan Alda. This is Gilbert Kaplan on our special summer edition of "Mad About Music" where we are revisiting appearances of acclaimed actors and directors. So we've now discovered that Bach brings tears to William Friedkin and Chopin almost does to Alan Alda. In the case of Alec Baldwin, it struck me that the emotional makeup of his musical selection, Mahler's Ninth Symphony , might well match Baldwin 's own personality, at least as it has been described in the press. I put this idea to him this way:
It is very profound music, and continuing with my attempt to connect your musical selections with your personality, this symphony combines in an almost surreal way, two opposing personalities. The third movement, which Mahler called the "Rondo-burlesque", is really a demonic whirlwind charging ahead, almost out of control. Then, it turns into perhaps the most reflective, probing, sensuous music Mahler ever composed. Do you see anything of yourself in that description?
Baldwin You missed your calling! You should be a forensic psychiatrist with the police department. Well, I'm going to cop out here and say, these analyses of yours might apply maybe more to the characters I play than to me myself. I mean, I might have an appreciation of....
Kaplan You're a mild-mannered reporter of the Daily Planet …
Baldwin ... of a quaint metropolitan newspaper, who fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way.
Kaplan Well, tell me about your feelings about this Ninth .
Baldwin Well, the Ninth was probably, I would say, like many people, when you first hear this piece, it's just so searing, and so powerful. I like pieces that are very something, if it's going to be, vivacissimo, and it's going to be very upbeat, and so forth. I like Copland, and I like things that are very strong in a certain direction, and in terms if you are looking for something that's a little more brooding, and a little more sonorous, I can't think of anybody that affects me more than Mahler. This was the first Mahler piece I think I heard when I was in Los Angeles , during that time I was listening to classical music on the radio incessantly, and it just had this incredible effect on me. And it's one of the few symphonies, actually, where the whole piece, I could sit and listen to the whole piece in one run. Sometimes I'll take some certain symphonies and listen to movements, I don't really feel the need to listen to the whole piece in one meal. And this is one where you just almost have to play this whole thing, and Solti and the Chicago was the first again, back to that idea of the first, inaugural listening for me has always made the biggest impression.
Kaplan Well, I wish we could play it end to end, but of course in this show, it would take the whole show, so let's hear then that clash of personalities I talked about before as that whirlwind "Rondo-burlesque" dissolves into the dreamy opening of the Finale.
[Music]
Kaplan The conclusion of the demonic "Rondo-burlesque" from Mahler's Ninth Symphony , followed by the opening of the lush Finale – the Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by Sir Georg Solti, music that Alec Baldwin described during an earlier appearance on this show as simply "searing." If some of the musical selections from William Friedkin, Alan Alda and Alec Baldwin pulled on their emotions, it is fair to say that all the music chosen by Mike Nichols resonated with him emotionally – and romantically. I noticed that all of his choices were dreamy and slow – almost prayer-like in nature. I suggested this was a bit surprising coming from one of our foremost artists of comedy.
Nichols Well, I guess part of that is that when you're looking for your favorite, the high point of a great concerto or a great string quartet, or for that matter, a great opera, tends to be a slow movement, a slow aria. Even “Vissi d'arte” sort of takes its time. I love whipping along in Bach and hearing all the choruses and the ornaments and all of that, but if I'm looking for my absolute favorite, it's going to be basically something slow and sweet.
Kaplan Now, I've been trying to characterize you for our audience by your musical choices, so let me continue. They are all highly romantic, especially your final choice, the moving Trio and the concluding moments of Strauss's Rosenkavalier . Do you regard yourself as romantic?
Nichols I would say in the end, probably and ineradicably, I've tried to do things about it, but I end up romantic, no matter what! And the Trio from the Rosenkavalier was just out and out, a way of getting girls, you know, it was simply saying, have I got something to play for you, and sitting them down and playing them the Trio, which it has to be said, almost always worked. It just breaks your heart. It is sort of a definition of bittersweet, which means that you feel for all of the characters and that sort of sense of one of them giving something up, and two of them finding love is just touching and it's sexy, and Strauss had this thing that he did, that gets me every time, which is, he just makes you work quite hard for a long time, and then, finally, finally, at the end of the opera, comes through with this sea of music that transports you and puts girls in the right mood, and just makes you love life.
[Music]
Kaplan The trio from Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier , sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Christa Ludwig and Teresa Stich-Randall, the Philharmonia Orchestra led by Herbert von Karajan. A moment in music that Mike Nichols says "transports you, puts girls in the right mood and just makes you love life." It sure does. And, with that extraordinary music we conclude our Summer Special on Hollywood and the musical tastes of four award-winning actors and directors: Mike Nichols, William Friedkin, Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda. In September we return to our regular programming and my first guest will be another acclaimed actor: Patrick Stewart, praised for his roles in Shakespeare, but perhaps best known for the popular television series "Star Trek". Until then, enjoy the rest of the summer. This is Gilbert Kaplan for "Mad About Music."
[Credits]
