Wayne Barlow

Ruth Watanabe: [1] All right. We started to talk about your career as a church organist, and you said that you began at Immanuel Baptist Church?

Wayne Barlow: I grew up as youngster in the church, and having studies in organ later on, and about time I was in high school, and when I was a student at Eastman, then I also studied organ with the then-organist at Immanuel, who was Mrs. William Vaughn. [2]

RW: Oh, really?

WB: Yes. I’ve known the Vaughns a long time. They-they went to the church.

RW: I knew that you were very friendly with them.

WB: Yeah. When Elizabeth and Bill went down to Oak Ridge to—when Bill was associated with the Oak Ridge division of Kodak, I simply became the organist at Immanuel, having studied with Elizabeth anyway, and already familiar with the service. At that time, I was not directing the choir. I was only the organist. For several years I did that, until World War I—until World War II came along, and then I’d had to really drop everything, really.

RW: You went to work in some defense industry?

WB: I went to work at Stromberg-Carlson. [3]

RW: Oh, is that where you were?

WB: I kept teaching here, and I arranged my schedule so that I could do both.

RW: No, I remember when I was in your class in [AT], [4] you were going out to—you were working in the defense industry.

WB: Yeah. I’ve had several of those jobs—

RW: Oh, did you?

WB: - from Stromberg’s to—I did machinist work in their defense plans [laughter]. It was great fun. After that, I went back. The next job I had was out at one of the Methodist churches on Lake Avenue. [5] Can’t remember which one. Then I went to St. Thomas Episcopal Church. [6] My religious preference has always been towards the—shut it off [laughter].

[Recorder turned off and on.]

I was just saying that after my experience with the Baptist church and the Methodist church, I had some acquaintance with the more structured type of service represented by the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church. There was an opening for organist and choir director at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church on Highland Avenue, and I went over and talked to the director there, and he said I looked like a—certainly a possibility, and he also said that in that church, music committees were illegal, so he hired me on the spot.

I stayed at St. Thomas for 29 years as organist and choir director, and that was really an experience. It’s something I will never—cherish that experience all my life. It was such a joy to be able to conduct from the console, do exactly the kind of music I wanted to do and the choir wanted to do, and—

RW: Now, what about your own compositions for the church?

WB: Well, I was actually really involved with church activity, church music at St. Thomas. Concordia Publishing Company approached me along sometime in the ‘50 or the ‘60s, I guess, to do a complete series of what—choral voluntaries they called them, for the church year. I never finished the entire set, but I did four volumes of organ pieces for the church year for Concordia. They were lots of fun to do, and I think they’re rather widely used, not only in the Lutheran church, but other churches as well, still.

RW: Yes. You just answered my question. I was always of the opinion that Concordia was a Lutheran— [7]

WB: Yeah, yep.

RW: - publishing house.

WB: From St. Thomas, I went briefly to Christ Church in Rochester [8] for about three years. When I retired from Eastman, I decided on having where I could keep choirs together for 30 or more years, I would just retire from that, as well, although I had a substitute, in a sense, of course, but—

RW: Well, now, who succeeded you at Immanuel Baptist? Did Wallace Gray— [9]

WB: Wallace Gray, yes.

RW: - succeed you?

WB: Yes, Wallace Gray was there for many years, too. I think he succeeded, yeah. No, wait a minute. Wait a minute. The Vaughns came back from Oak Ridge—

RW: Oh, did they?

WB: - and then Mrs. Vaughn started playing there again. Then I think Wallace succeeded her after she—

RW: Oh, I see, after she—

WB: - retired.

RW: - retired?

WB: Yeah.

RW: I see. Well, Blair Cosman [10] also played—

WB: Blair?

RW: - at Christ Church didn’t he?

WB: He played at Christ Church too, and Lyndol Mitchell [11] for a time was choir director there.

RW: I didn’t know that.

WB: Yeah, yeah. One of my published pieces of service music was dedicated to Lyndol Mitchell. It was a community service, for the Episcopal service.

RW: Well, that’s very interesting.

WB: That’s a part of my musical activity that I have enjoyed very, very much, and I still keep in close touch with.

RW: All right. Now, you have been, for a long time, an active Rotarian?

WB: Yes, about 50 years by now, and—

RW: Is that so?

WB: - a couple years, back in the ‘30s. Dave Harvard, [12] who was one of the world’s greatest song leaders, got me to start playing. At that time, there was always a little singing after lunch for the Rotarians. I’ve stuck with that also all my life. I still go down every Tuesday and play tune or two with the singing.

RW: Oh, good.

WB: It’s something I always enjoyed, because it got me out of the relatively narrow environment of the music school, where nothing but music was talked about—

RW: Yes that’s true, yes, true, true.

WB: - so it was always nice to get out and—

RW: Yeah, that’s nice.

WB: - see what some of the other—rest of the world is doing.

RW: Now, we’ve mentioned, off and on, your compositions. Would you say something about some of your—let’s start with the very, very, very famous one that practically went out of print just a little while ago,—

[Laughter]

RW: - Winter’s Passed.

WB: No, that didn’t go out of print. I told you what happened in that.

RW: Well, what did happen?

WB: Well, somebody—Kilmer [13] told me that some friend of his in California, who’s an oboist, had wanted to get six copies of Winter’s Passed [14]—

RW: Oh, I see. Yes, you did say something.

WB: - and for some reason, he couldn’t lay hands on ‘em, because nobody could—they ordered them and they didn’t get them. I got—and he was concerned, and why he, this friend of his, couldn’t get the music, and I was concerned, so I had called Arthur Cohn [15] on the phone, they had published it. He said he’d see to it that I got some kind of answer. Well, I got answered the next day that it was not out of print, but they had run outta stock. They had somehow let their stock run too low, and they had to quick print some more. That’s all that happened to that.

That’s true, that piece has been—I think every oboist in the country—

RW: Every oboist in the country—

WB: - since I wrote the piece—

RW: - has played it.

WB: - knows that piece, and plus, played it.

RW: It’s interesting because that was one of the Eastman School publications.

WB: Yeah, it’s one of the early ones.

RW: One of the very early ones.

WB: I wrote that in California, when I was out there, [16] and my wife [17] was going to the University of California, Southern California.

RW: She was an English major, and did—

WB: English major.

RW: - her work under Dr. Alison Daw. [18]

WB: That’s right, that’s right. While she was out there, I was back in the apartment writing music. This is one of the pieces I wrote out there.

RW: Did you have a particular oboist in mind?

WB: No. Well, I wrote it actually for—to come back and to give something to Bob Sprenkle [19] to play, which he did. Of course, he played beautifully and later recorded it, too.

RW: Yes, and recorded it. [20]

WB: Kilmer, the present oboist, has played it all over.

RW: Oh, yes. Well, it got played in many, many different programs that I’ve attended.

WB: For awhile, when it was available on records, I think even as far back as 78 recordings, every once in awhile I’d hear it on the radio, commercial radio. Later on, I’d hear it as a background music for TV programs that are laid in Appalachia.

RW: In Appalachia?

WB: Appalachia, yeah [laughter], being based on two Appalachian folk songs. [21]

RW: Yes. Well, I can understand that.

WB: Yeah.

RW: Well, tell me some of the other things. You wrote a piece for Bob, your son? [22]

WB: Oh, yeah, “Images for Harp and Orchestra.” [23]

RW: Yeah, for harp and orchestra.

WB: I wrote this as a graduation present for him.

RW: Oh, was that what it was?

WB: Yeah. It was originally written for full orchestra. It seemed to me that with an instrument like the harp it might be a better way to slightly lighter accompaniment, so I reduced it. I made a version for chamber orchestra. I called it harp and instruments which can be done with single instruments over a little string section. In that form, it’s done rather well. We had a chance to appear together.

RW: Well, you appeared together here.

WB: Here, yes, at—he came down—Dick Bales [24] at the National Gallery of Art played it, and Bob came down to play the harp part, and I came down to listen [laughter].

RW: Dick Bales just retired not too long ago. Was he a classmate? He-he was in the ’30s—

WB: Yes, he was back there in ’30s too, yeah. Of course, the city of Washington just gave him this recognition for years of work there in the gallery. At the time Bob played that piece, I occupied with the harp piece I wrote, the chamber symphony that Dale Bales did also at the same program.

RW: Oh, yes. Oh, I didn’t realize.

WB: Sinfonia da Camera [25]

RW: All right. Now, tell us more about some of your other works.

WB: Well, as I said, I’ve written almost everything but opera. I like choral work. I’ve done a number of choral pieces.

RW: Yes, you have.

WB: Most of them in the religious category; a cantata; an oratorio; lots of chamber music, from piano pieces through trios, quartet. [26]

RW: You know you have a whole list of things that were played in the festivals?

WB: Yeah, I bet.

RW: Well, there really is one that I have here, the suite from the ballet False Faces.

WB: False Faces, right.

RW: That was done in 1936? [27]

WB: Thirty-six, yeah. I think that was my—that could have been my—

RW: Was that your Master’s thesis?

WB: - Master’s thesis, yeah. I think it was, as a matter of fact.

RW: Next one after that—no, it’s not the next one after that—they played the symphony, yeah, the same year, apparently?

WB: Mm-hmm.

RW: Next year after that, it was—oh, Zion in Exile. [28]

WB: That was my doctoral thesis.

RW: That was your doctoral thesis?

WB: Yeah, yeah, a choral piece.

RW: All right. Now, what gave you the inspiration for that?

WB: Well, it’s a sign of my—

RW: It’s a very strange kind of question to ask, but I get very curious about why people write things, and—

WB: Well, as I tell you it’s—

RW: - it comes from doing years and years of program notes [laughter].

WB: Well, it’s certainly because of my association with the church, from very early age, that I did the biblical literatures, always been a favorite of mine, yeah.

RW: It had been—yes.

WB: It’s so dramatic. It can be put together in very dramatic ways. That particular story has always appealed to me. It’s just been followed up with a commission from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester that, for the centennial, their anniversary celebration of the centennial year of the diocese here, I wrote a cantata for them there on the Pentecost story.

RW: I see. Good enough. Now, has that been published?

WB: That’s not been published, although it’s [inaudible] here and there.

RW: I see here that one year they did Winter’s Passed as a ballet?

WB: Yeah, Thelma Biracree put it— [29]

RW: Oh, Thelma Biracree did that?

WB: Choreographed it, yeah. [30]

RW: I see. All right, now tell me about the Madrigal for a Bright Morning. [31] I remember that—

WB: Well, the—

RW: - one with a great deal of joy.

WB: Really?

RW: Yes.

WB: This was published by J. Fischer, J. Fischer. I think I got that—this was written for the Morningside Choir college series. They got me to write that. The words were by the English—John R. Slater [32] at the U of R. The words are by John R. Slater, who was—

RW: Now, Slater really—

WB: Yeah.

RW: - did an awful lot of writing of texts for various and sundry composers.

WB: Yeah. Well, it’s a lovely poem, and I enjoyed it.

RW: Yes, I remember that.

WB: Yeah. It’s a—

RW: I remember that—

WB: - piece for acapella glee club.

RW: - because here, that was played during the festival season of 1943. Isn’t that strange? I keep thinking—I was talking with Burrill Phillips [33] yesterday, and I kept thinking that something happened in 1944 because I was so very much aware of that piece of music. Well, I think the same thing applies to the Madrigal for a Bright Morning because I was very much aware of it. In my memory, the first year I was here passed. I don’t really have great memories of that, except that the music must have made quite an impression upon me.

WB: Well, I’m glad it impressed you. [Laughter]

RW: Yeah. Well, I’m glad, too. All right. Now, tell me about the Nocturne for chamber orchestra. [34]

WB: That one, I don’t really remember. I don’t know. I wrote that for WHAM.

RW: Oh, did you?

WB: It was in their commission series, that they commissioned a number of us to write pieces for, when WHAM radio had its own orchestra. [35] I mean, this goes way back, you see.

RW: Who had that orchestra?

WB: Nobody had—no radio station has an orchestra anymore, but they actually had a live orchestra that played it, real live music.

RW: I remember when I first came, they did have a live orchestra.

WB: Yep.

RW: Who was the conductor of that? Was that [inaudible]?

WB: No, not [inaudible].

RW: No?

WB: I remember him well, but I think I—I just can’t think of the name. Yeah. It was written for that group.

RW: It was written for that group?

WB: Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah.

RW: Siverson? [36]

WB: Siverson, Siverson, that’s the one. That’s the one.

RW: Siverson had a son who was in— [37]

WB: Yes.

RW: - one of my early classes.

WB: That’s right, yes.

RW: Yes. Now, The 23rd Psalm?

WB: 23rd Psalm was— [38]

RW: I remember that very well, too.

WB: This was done in Eastman, too. I think Genhart [39] conducted that.

RW: Yeah, Genhart did, and it—

WB: Yeah.

RW: - was given twice. My recollections come from the first time, which was 1947.

WB: This is the orchestral version of an anthem, of the church anthem, which I wrote for—again, for J. Fischer.

RW: Oh, really?

WB: It was published as a piece for organ and church choir. It was widely, widely used, but I decided to do an orchestral version for accompaniment, and then do the thing with chorus, and actually, it worked out pretty well.

RW: I should think so. Yeah. I remember a large presentation, so—

WB: It was.

RW: - it had to be the full orchestra.

WB: Yeah, it was. It’s a wonderful text.

RW: Yes, it is.

WB: [inaudible]

RW: It is. It’s a beautiful text. [40] Tell me about your compositions for organ.

WB: Well, these mainly constitute the work I did for Concordia. They’re almost all contained in that group, although from time to time—not only did I have these four volumes exclusively devoted to Barlow, from time to time—I’m still in their stable, but they—they’re still giving me assignments to do. They—

RW: Yeah, that’s great.

WB: They bring out little volumes of music for organists with limited technical skill, and a lot of us always contributing to these volumes they keep putting out for church use.

RW: I seem to remember some collections they did for manuals only.

WB: Yeah, yeah, sure.

RW: That was one of—

WB: One’s called “The Parish Organist,” I think.

RW: “The Parish Organist”?

WB: Yeah, yeah.

RW: That’s right. I was trying to think of that the other day.

WB: I’m still writing these things.

RW: Are you?

WB: Yeah, every so often.

RW: Yeah, good enough.

WB: I got a—

RW: What about the genesis of the Elegy—

WB: Well, this was—

RW: - for Viola and Orchestra”? [41]

WB: Okay. This was a piece for—I wrote for Francis Tursi. [42]

RW: Oh, did you? I wondered about that.

WB: It was originally for piano and viola. There’s a recording of that, been recorded, too. I thought that, well, here’s a piece which I wrote at—it’s not a bad piece. I’ll just write an orchestral accompaniment to go with it, and he played it here. That’s the second piece I’ve really transcribed from the original to orchestra.

RW: You do a lotta transcription of your own music, or do you—

WB: Not a lot.

RW: Not a lot?

WB: On occasion I do.

RW: I know Howard Hanson has so many different arrangements—

WB: Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s a temptation.

RW: - of one piece.

WB: Big temptation. Lately I—I’ve never been too much interested in band music; wasn’t. I was down at that visiting composer at the Brevard Music Center. [43] They had several bands down there, so I thought I might just as well try my hand at the band piece and ship them—

RW: You did?

WB: As long as I’m down there and they’re gonna play it, I might as well write one, which I did. I was really quite pleased with part of it. I didn’t really finish it all down there. They played part of it. I came home and then played the rest of it, and then the director, who’s conducting—or conduct the band at the University of Toledo, he did the complete piece after I made the complete—completed it for him.

Then he sent me a tape, and I realized that I don’t know quite as much about band as I thought I did, because a lot of it—or not a lot of it, but some of the parts were not as clear as they could be. The balance was false, and it was just something I have to get used to. I have, since that time—and as a matter of fact, I’m just finishing up now—I’ve made extensive revisions of this piece, and they’re gonna play it again in 1986 down there in Brevard for the 50^th anniversary of the camp, along with— [44]

RW: It’s-it’s been 50 years at—

WB: - other composers who have written—

RW: - Brevard?

WB: Yeah, yeah.

RW: Oh, my goodness.

WB: Yeah, 50 years, Brevard. He’s gonna have—

RW: Interesting.

WB: - a program around, this band director, of other pieces that we’ve all written for him. I’ll probably go down here.

RW: That’s very interesting. Very, very nice. All right. Now, do you have anything else that you wanna talk about while I start thinking about what else I’m going to ask you?

WB: Let me think. I have a list here of all the commissions I ever had. Well, I’ll skip those.

RW: Why don’t you—why don’t you read some of those over? What was the first commission that you got?

WB: Well, the first commission, I think it was probably the Nocturne for radio. [45] Well, here’s one by member of Edward Benjamin [46] and the “Quiet Music” Man.

RW: Yes, the Quiet Music Man.

WB: - music man.

RW: - music man.

WB: I wrote a piece for him.

RW: Oh, did you?

WB: Yeah, called Vistas. It was premiered by the Indianapolis Symphony back in 1968. The Rochester University—the University of Rochester Glee Club commissioned a piece for male chorus called “Diversify the Abyss.” [47] It was a poem by then-faculty member out there teaching poetry, Hyam Plutzik. [48]

RW: Oh, for Hyam Plutzik?

WB: Yeah.

RW: Oh, my goodness.

WB: It’s on a piece that I—

RW: That’s interesting.

WB: - piece by him. I wrote a fairly large piece for the combined choirs of Buffalo, New York, who needed a piece written for them. We took piece for a chorus and brass and organ called We All Believe in One True God, [49] which that’s been done around. Oh, I did a piece for—a piece for Yarbrough and Cowan, [50] the—

RW: Oh, yes, the two piano—

WB: - the dual pianists. They teach down in Alabama. [51] Did you know that—

RW: Well he was here—

WB: - that piece had never been done in Rochester? Just been done in—all over, but not in Rochester, some reason.

RW: No. Cowan was here.

WB: Yeah, but he was—they played out in Nazareth.

RW: Oh, did they play—that’s right, they did.

WB: Yeah.

RW: They did play at Nazareth.

WB: He was gonna do it out there, except they didn’t—he said they didn’t have time to work it up again. They premiered it out there, down in Alabama.

RW: Now, Yarbrough never did come here, did she?

WB: No. I think he did, but not she.

RW: He did, but not she?

WB: Not she, yeah. I got to know them quite well down there in Brevard, [52] because they have a summer home right there in [inaudible].

RW: Oh, I see. Oh, that’s nice.

WB: Oh, yes, I wrote a saxophone concerto for the East Stroudsburg Pennsylvania High School band, [53] and then the Eastman School for its 50^th anniversary. I commissioned Soundscapes for Orchestra and Tape, which was done in ’71. I wrote an overture for Alfred University called Hampton Beach. [54] It was the opening of one of their buildings down in there. The Augusta, Georgia Symphony commissioned a piece for chorus, soloist and orchestra for the bicentennial of the United States; piece called Voices of Faith, [55] the text of which was taken from revolutionary literature and poetry.

RW: Well, there are quite a few that have never been played here, that they’ve been played—

WB: Yeah, that’s true. They’re actually—

RW: - many other places.

WB: Yeah, yeah. MTNA [56] commissioned an electronic music piece called Soundprints in Concrete. [57] One of the last was the New York State Music Teachers Association; [58] I wrote a piece for harp and viola called Intermezzo. [59] It was done down there at one of the conventions. That’s been played around, too.

RW: Now, in all of your teaching, you must have had a lot of talented people. Would you care to name some of them? Did Jean Ivey [60] study electronic music with you?

WB: Yes, she did, yeah. Well, not much—

RW: She’s done very, very well.

WB: She didn’t study here. She took her PhD at the University of Toronto.

RW: Yes, she took her PhD at the University of—

WB: Then worked at—

RW: - Toronto.

WB: [inaudible]

RW: I know that she worked at—

WB: She had been here summers since—

RW: Yeah, she—

WB: - and I wrote one of her pieces using our facility. Forget what piece that was.

RW: I think she considers herself to be an Eastman person. She’s constantly writing to us and letting us know when her works are being performed, and occasionally she comes up here to visit—

WB: She took her Master’s degree here.

RW: - here. Yes. Now, what were some of the other students that you had? That’s an impossible question.

WB: It really is, I mean [laughter] I need overnight to think about all this. I’ll come back and answer that someday.

RW: All right. You can come back and—

WB: [Laughter]

RW: - answer that one someday. What I would like to do sometime is to trace what Mac [61] used to call the teacher-pupil lineage, to find out which of our outstanding composers have studied what with whom. It makes it a very, very—it makes an interesting study.

WB: Yeah.

RW: The Europeans seem to be so much more conscious of that than we are. For instance, when I was talking with Dora Landow, [62] she was tracing the lineage of a tradition of piano-playing that her father enjoyed through his teacher, who was a friend and pupil of Franz Liszt, [63] and so on. It’s very interesting to trace certain stylistic tendencies on the part of a performer, but even more so, what would be stylistic inheritances, wouldn’t there, from one composer to another?

WB: Well, certainly, the Hanson influence on his pupils, I think, is fairly strong.

RW: Yes, I think so, too, but a number of our young composers have named you as one of their mentors.

WB: Yeah.

RW: And so, I would be very much interested in whom you taught, and how you influenced the younger composers.

WB: Give me some time to think about that, and then I will.

RW: Yes, I wish you would think about that, and then we can fill that in.

WB: My bio has a section here called “Other Activities.” It’s amazing.

RW: Oh, yes. I was reading those other activity.

WB: Well, I wrote a textbook, you know, once; Foundations of Music. [64]

RW: Foundations of Music.

WB: That went far and wide, that book; used, I think, pretty widely. I find myself taught at class out there at the U of R,—

RW: Yes, I remember. I remember that.

WB: - an evening class for a long time. This was the outgrowth of that experience. I have made my—I have occasionally written articles that appear in the various journals, music journal. Had a couple on the state of music composition and choral [cross talk 0:27:34].

RW: I remember one that you wrote about the problem of vanguardism, and you said something to the effect that, were these contemporary composers writing for other people like themselves— [65]

WB: [Laughter] Yeah, yeah. I’m not the first one to suggest that. [Laughter]

RW: No. Yeah, I thought that was a good article.

WB: Yeah, I had a—

RW: I thought that was a good article. I remember reading it to one of my classes, but I don’t remember to what class I was reading it.

WB: I wrote to two people—two articles on the state of music composition for the music journal, and then I wrote a piece for the choral journal on church music, [66] and the MENC journal on electronic music. [67] I’ve been a consultant on rebuilding a pipe organ somewhere. [Laughter]

RW: Oh, where?

WB: It’s St. John’s Church in Sodus, New York. [68] Oh, yeah. There are two music encyclopedias that have articles by me. One is on church music, but which I wrote in conjunction with Al Bixel, Dr. Bixel. [69]

RW: Yes, I remember that. Was that for—

WB: That was for—

RW: - the new group?

WB: - the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Music, the Dutton Book. [70]

RW: Oh, that’s the encyclopedia?

WB: - book.

RW: Yes, all right.

WB: Then the other one is Musical Acoustics for the revision of Thompson’s International Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians. [71] I’ve mentioned my—the Exxon Foundation Project, I guess. I was named Musician of the Year by Rochester Alumni Chapter Mu Phi Epsilon. [72]

RW: Oh, I remember that very well, because I had to write the citation.

WB: [Laughter] That’s right, you did.

RW: [Laughter]

WB: It’s hanging on my wall.

RW: Yes, exactly.

WB: Yeah, yeah.

RW: Well, Dr. Hanson wrote my citation.

WB: Really?

RW: It’s not hanging on my wall, but it’s right behind that picture there.

WB: The only other thing that occurs to me is I was made an honorary member of Iota Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. [73]

RW: Phi Beta Kappa?

WB: Yeah, and I was—

RW: You were president?

WB: - chapter of a—president of the chapter, local chapter, for a year. That was fun. That’s about all I can think of.

RW: Well, that’s very, very nice. Thank you very much. I’m going to—I’m going to listen to these tapes, and I’m sure that after you’ve gone, I’ll think of other questions that I should have asked you, but I’m particularly anxious in having you come back and letting us know about some of your students—

WB: Yeah. I will do that.

RW: - because I think that’s rather important in the history of a school like this.

WB: Yeah, suppose it is.

RW: In the Leipzig Conservatory [74] and some of the other conservatories, you can certainly trace where one teacher has influenced a student who has gone out to influence someone else, and so on and so on through the generations. We haven’t been in existence long enough to have generations and generations of composers influenced. I think Hanson’s influence on young composers was so very visible, but there certainly were other people who influenced the students to a great, great degree. I would be interested in what your perception is of that [inaudible].

WB: Yeah. Well, I’ll come up with some names, I’m sure.

RW: Yes, all right. I’m gonna turn this off because there are still many, many feet of tape left, and then perhaps we could finish off this—

WB: Good.

RW: - reel then.

WB: Great.

RW: Thank you very much.

[Recorder turned off and on]

The beginnings of Graduate Studies, the Eastman School.

WB: I became, actually, actively involved with graduate work at the school in 1947. I was appointed Executive Secretary of the Graduate Committee, which was exactly what the word entailed, in that it was an active administrative type of control over graduate [inaudible] committee, and I once—

RW: Was that at the Eastman School, or was that the all-University committee?

WB: Well, of course, as soon as that happened, I was automatically a member of the Graduate Committee of the University. Then I went through two more titles: Director of Graduate Studies, and Dean for Graduate Research and Associate Dean for Graduate Research Studies.

RW: Yes, I remember that title.

WB: Yeah, yeah. Before I was formally settling down as Dean of Graduate Studies in 1973, which I—post I held since I was retired in ’78. For the entire period from ’47 to ’78, I was also a member of the University graduate committee, representing the Eastman School of Music. I was always grateful for this opportunity to operate both in the teaching aspect of this work of the school and the administration. [75]

I spent—as I say, this time from ’47 to ’78 as a member of the University Graduate Committee, and spent my share of time putting out grassfires, I think, that erupted every time some new member of the University faculty came on the University Graduate Committee and then would wonder out loud what on Earth he was doing down here accepting a musical piece as a—

RW: As a dissertation?

WB: - as a dissertation for the PhD degree. That never did die down. It—cuz always somebody who’d come on to the committee that heard about this before. [76]

RW: Yes. Now, if you began as early as 1947 to be active in the Graduate Studies, you must have been in on the ground floor in initiating the Doctor of Musical Arts—

WB: Yeah.

RW: - program?

WB: That’s the next thing I was gonna say. As I say, we put out grassfires, but when this came along, that was a conflagration out there, and then that—

RW: I’m sure it was. Paul Henry Lang [77] and Dr. Hanson carried on a—

WB: Yeah, yeah.

RW: - an argument by way of the New York press.

WB: Yeah. Those were interesting times. Then, we must say that Howard Hanson is an immensely persuasive man.

RW: Yes, he is.

WB: Of course, he carried the thing.

RW: Well, where—how did the concept of the Doctor of Musical Arts begin? Were you in on the formulating the concept? [78]

WB: Not really. I think—

RW: - concept?

WB: - that this was Hanson’s ideas, Hanson’s—

RW: It was Hanson’s idea?

WB: - concept, yeah. I don’t think it was anybody else’s idea.

RW: Really?

WB: No.

RW: It was very interesting, because I know that Eastman was one of the very first schools to have—

WB: Yeah.

RW: - that degree.

WB: Yeah. Yeah. It turned out to be an amazingly—I dunno—perceptive jump into the future, I think—

RW: Yes, it really was.

WB: - in musical education, and certainly, obviously filled a niche that was needed, because they were all the time getting a shoe on the wrong foot and trying to make academic people out of performers.

RW: Yes, indeed.

WB: It certainly took some persuasion.

RW: I’m sure it took a lot of persuasion. I remember Dr. Hanson saying that there should be a top degree, a top-level degree, for a practicing musician,—

WB: Right, right.

RW: - either a composer or a performer or conductor or whatever. I think that he used the analogy of people in science who took their doctorates in their own particular field, and there was no reason why the musician could not take a degree in his particular field.

WB: Yeah. The stumbling block for these people, these academic types on the University graduate council is the fact that there is nothing in their immediate environment out there which even remotely resembles what a pianist or violinist or a singer does now.

RW: That’s right. That’s right.

WB: Even though, frequently, in Chemistry, the area of concentration would be just as narrow as anything that happens down here—

RW: Yes, of course, of course.

WB: - but they could never quite see that.

RW: No. I know that they couldn’t see that. What were some of the arguments that were presented to you by these new members of the Graduate Committee in—?

WB: Well, it was just—I don’t—I have a fuzzy history, fuzzy memory, about most of this, but, in general, it was just simply a matter of something that they had never heard of, and if they had never heard of this, it couldn’t be good. I mean, that’s the impression I had. There was simply something just was done that hadn’t been done before, and there we were doing it. It certainly couldn’t be right.

RW: That’s very interesting, because when the DMA program was proposed here, I remember the big furor that went up on the part of certain members of the faculty even here. I remember people with PhDs who said that they would never countenance a DMA as being a degree that would be equivalent to theirs.

WB: Oh, yeah, I know there’s a lotta people.

RW: There were a lotta—

WB: Even here, that’s—you’re right. You’re right.

RW: Oh, they were a lot of people.

WB: Yeah.

RW: There were a lot of people, and a lot of people here were on the faculty for a long, long time.

WB: The way we reacted to that was to impose some requirements that were kind of like the PhD. We required a written paper equivalent to a dissertation, so just give it some kind of academic respectability.

RW: Yes, I remember that, too. Well, the DMA has evolved into something—

WB: Along with some languages, I remember too, at the beginning.

RW: In the beginning, yes, but I doubt very much whether a language requirement is important right now.

WB: No, it is—

RW: - right now.

WB: - is no longer, right.

RW: Course, trying to pass the language exams and passing the qualifyings were the two big hurdles in getting a doctorate, but I think the PhDs among the faculty members resented the fact that somebody who was going to be called a doctor didn’t have to go through all that. Of course, lots of people took years and years to generate their dissertations.

WB: Oh, absolutely, sure, yeah.

RW: You don’t have too many ABDs [79] when it comes to DMA people. You have mostly—

WB: No, no, that’s right, that’s right, yeah, yeah. [Laughter]

RW: You have a lot of ABDs in theory and musicology, and music education. I suppose it was a certain amount of resentment on their part. DMA seemed to be a much easier degree to get. What they didn’t realize is that it was not—it was easier in some ways, but getting a DMA here now, for example, requires a tremendous amount of talent that just had to be—

WB: Course it does.

RW: - developed over years and years and years.

WB: Course it does.

RW: You take the DMA candidate in organ, for example. Those students have been playing for years, and they have to do all these recitals and so on. The number of hours and days and weeks spent in getting a lecture recital ready, or a DMA type of recital ready, cannot be equated on the same terms as writing a dissertation. I think that, mostly, that is accepted right now, but I still remember the terrific furor that was—now, what kind of difficulty, if any, did Eastman School have in selling this program, or was it such a natural thing that people seemed to gravitate towards—

WB: Well, of course, in all these years I was involved, I was actively chairing the Eastman School Graduate Committee, and of course, this is where the exploratory discussions took place, so then I—Howard Hanson frequently came in and joined the discussion on all this. It seemed very natural at the time, but this was something which I remember encouraged me to question the thing, since it seemed such a natural development, and ought to happen.

RW: It seemed to me to be a natural development, also. I was not one of the people who protested it. Some of my very good friends certainly protested it.

WB: I don’t recall any real opposition in the Eastman Graduate Committee. There may have been some on the faculty. Yeah, I know there were on the faculty.

RW: These were not people who were on the Graduate Committee at all, but there were a number of people who had earned PhDs, and they were extremely resentful.

WB: Yeah.

RW: Now, when you received your doctorate, it was a PhD?

WB: It was a PhD, right.

RW: What did you have to do in the way of fulfilling requirements for the PhD in that case?

WB: Well, you know—

RW: You had to write a composition?

WB: Yeah, I wrote a composition. That was an oratorio, as a matter of fact. Harold Gleason [80] took care of the research requirements in things like Musicology, although I didn’t take a formal Musicology course, but he put me—he wrote out a series of projects that I had to fulfill—

RW: That you had to fulfill? I see.

WB: - as in a kind of private way. Then, of course, I had to stand the qualifying examination on all these things, and then write the dissertation. That happened in ’37.

RW: Suppose that a DMA had been available at that time.

WB: That would not have been for me.

RW: It would not have been for you?

WB: No.

RW: Now, why?

WB: Because I was not interested in performing. I’m really not a performer, although I’ve played organ all my life. I’ve been a church organist, choir director, but—

RW: You know they have been giving DMAs in composition, haven’t they?

WB: Yes, that’s true. That’s true. At some point—

RW: I think that was what I meant,—

WB: Ah, yeah, yeah.

RW: - that somewhere along the line we’ve had some fine composers getting DMAs.

WB: That’s right. You’re absolutely right, yeah. I forget—as a matter of fact, my memory is such that I can’t even remember when that development took place, but sometime along, but, certainly after, I guess—after the DMA concept took hold, it was recognized that this might be an appropriate degree for a composer, as well, yeah.

RW: Yes. I remember that. I remember Dr. Hanson saying something about that, but I don’t remember when it was, either.

WB: Well, you—

RW: I can’t really pinpoint that.

WB: All you have to do is sit down with all the catalogs and [laughter] find—

RW: Well, yes, yes, that’s true. I remember, also, there were a certain number of schools who simultaneously were supposed to start the DMA program, and my recollection is that Ray Kendall [81] was one of the ones in NASM who were in favor of that. I think Michigan was the first university that started that, because we jumped the gun. I understand that five or six schools, all members of NASM, [82] had agreed to offer the DMA simultaneously, but Ray Kendall was—

WB: [Laughter]

RW: - the impatient type.

WB: Chafing at the bit.

RW: He apparently jumped the gun on that. I don’t remember that Dr. Hanson was particularly perturbed about that. He laughed about it and said, “Oh, well.” It was very funny, but Will Gay Bottje was the first one to have gotten a DMA, as I recall. I think his degree was in 1956. I may be wrong, but— [83]

WB: Yeah. No, you’re right—

RW: - I’ll have to check that out.

WB: - because I’ve been trying to think of his name since yesterday when I knew I was coming down here, because Will Gay Bottje appreciated me as a holder of the fellowship in—at the University of Utrecht. He was there the year before I was, yeah, doing the same thing I was in the electronic music studio. I came along in ’55. He was there in ’54, ’55. [84]

RW: I think a daughter of his graduated from here. [85]

WB: I mean, excuse me, ’64.

RW: Sixty-four? I see.

WB: ’63, ’64 he was there. I was there ’64, ’65.

RW: Now, would you explain how the Graduate Committee University-wide functioned, and how the Eastman School Graduate Committee functioned? What was the University committee? What went on? Not individual cases, but—

WB: Well, the—

RW: - was there a decision about—

WB: All the departments at that—would have to have their lists of graduates for advanced degrees approved by the University Graduate Committee. Now, there was actually very little direct supervision on the part of the University Graduate Committee of what any of the schools were doing in their various departments.

RW: Oh, I see. This was more like a council, then?

WB: Just a rubber stamp.

RW: I see. That’s the reason why—

WB: What was interesting, that there always had to be an outside examiner on finals and on qualifying examinations. We always had somebody come down.

RW: Come down? Then some of you people went up there?

WB: Then we always would send people to it—for their finals, and particularly in Chemistry or Physics or whatever. That was fun, too.

RW: Yes, that would be fun.

WB: Except I can remember one occasion when we—we were in a finals in either composition or theory—I think it was theory--final PhD. We got some—one of the members from the University mathematics department, it seems to me—I could be wrong—but this man decided that he would take exception to the use of the word “theory,” cuz he said, “This is not theory. This isn’t—a theory is a postulate which you make, and then you have to go ahead and prove. Now, what you’re doing here is not theory, but”—well, he kept this guy waiting out in the hall while he expounded on this aspect.

RW: Isn’t that interesting?

WB: Then we the poor guy—I mean [inaudible] he was a saint. [Laughter]

RW: He was just about ready to faint. I should say so.

WB: Things like that would happen and so forth.

RW: When you became the head of the Graduate Department and became an administrator as well as a member of the teaching faculty, you took over after Dr. Larson, [86] Wayne Larson?

WB: Yeah, Will Larson, yeah.

RW: Now, how long had he been the Director of Graduate Studies? Was he the first director—?

WB: I believe he must have been the first one, because I cannot remember any other individual that had that responsibility.

RW: When I came in 1942, he was the head of the Graduate Department, and all the—

WB: Right.

RW: - dissertations and theses had to be turned into his office.

WB: That’s right.

RW: He was the one person who did that?

WB: That’s right. I succeeded him in 1947.

RW: In ’47?

WB: Mm-hmm.

RW: As I remember, though—as I remember, when you took over the administration and the Graduate Department, a lot of things were changed for the better. Let me elucidate a little bit. When I started typing dissertations and theses, I always had to deal with Dr. Larson’s office, and he had a certain set method by which you were supposed to put the dissertation on paper.

WB: Yeah, he had his own orthodoxy. [Laughter]

RW: He had his own orthodoxy, and any number of times the students would come back in horror. They had typed—many of the students then were trying to type their own theses because they thought it was going to be a saving of money. Perhaps it was, but lots of them got bounced back, because there was not enough room left on the left-hand margin,—

WB: Yeah, yeah.

RW: - not enough room left on the right-hand margin, the footnotes were not numbered correctly, or the form was not correct, or whatever. Now, do you recall when the thesis manual came into being? Was that already there at the time that you came? Because, see, by the time you took over the Graduate Department, the musicologists had one kind of a style manual, and the theorists, because of the nature of their dissertations, had another. Music Education always had a style manual of its own, and that was the style manual that everybody had to follow, clear back in 1942.

WB: I’ve seen it. This is hazy in my memory, but I do believe that there was this confusion about style for the dissertations that you mentioned. I think it was after I became Executive Secretary of the Committee that we tried to pull this all together. I think it did improve.

RW: Oh, there was a decided improvement.

WB: Yeah.

RW: That there really was a decided improvement. Now, what did you do first when you became the Secretary of Graduate—?

WB: [Laughter] What’d I do first?

RW: Yes. I wondered. I—

WB: I think I probably sat down and I read the minutes.

[Laughter]

RW: Well, that’s good. As I recall, though, it was while—during your tenure that there was a distinction made between graduate research studies and graduate applied studies.

WB: I wish I could give you the date on this. It can be ferreted out easily enough. All I remember was that it was after Dr. Selhorst [87] had come, and I’m sorry that I cannot really fill you in, in any great detail, about this, but all of—I do know that all of a sudden, Howard Hanson was quite adamant in believing that graduate work at the Eastman School of Music should be divided on a rather rigid basis between what he called performance and—what was the other one?

RW: Research?

WB: Research, research, yeah.

RW: I remember that you—when—after you stopped being secretary, you became an associate dean before you became dean.

WB: That’s right, that’s right. It was—

RW: You were associate dean in charge of graduate research—

WB: For graduate research, research studies, that’s right.

RW: - studies.

WB: Now, this was the avenue that took you through the Master Arts degree and the—

RW: The PhD?

WB: - PhD degree. That’s right.

RW: Then the associate dean for applied—no. I don’t remember exactly what the terminology was.

WB: Graduate—isn’t that funny? That was Selhorst, of course, dean of—associate dean for—associate dean for—What was it? Professional studies? No?

RW: No, because it wasn’t professional. I’ve been trying to think of this, and eventually, when I get back to looking at the catalogs, we’ll be able—

WB: Yeah, we’ll have to fill this in.

RW: - to ferret that out.

WB: Isn’t that funny, now?

RW: Am I correct in assuming that it was after the DMA came in that this distinction was made? Because I remember distinctly that Gene Selhorst was in charge of the DMA candidates—

WB: Right, right.

RW: - and you had all the PhD candidates.

WB: Right.

RW: At the faculty meetings when the degrees were voted on at the end of the year, you did the presentation for the PhDs, and Gene did the presentation for the DMAs and—

WB: Yep.

RW: - the MMs. I suppose that’s where the division came. [88]

WB: It seems to me that he was graduate dean for—associate dean for graduate professional studies, but I could be wrong about that.

RW: Yes, maybe you’re right. That sounds right the way you say it now.

WB: Yeah.

RW: I remember your title very well because I was working in your department.

WB: Yeah. Well, it always seemed to some of us, and frankly, to me too, that this was a very artificial division in musical studies. I would think that the composer any less professional than a singer or a pianist or a musicologist is any less professional. [Laughter] Then I was—

RW: Yes, that’s right.

WB: - kinda fought with that—we thought was a kind of artificial division.

RW: There might be the same concept now, that it is an artificial division, because—I don’t think we want the vacuum cleaner.

WB: [Laughter] No.

RW: At least we have an audible proof that things get vacuumed. I don’t think that there is this feeling of division anymore, because Jon Engberg [89] now is in charge of—

WB: Yeah.

RW: - Graduate Studies, however—

WB: Now, when I became Dean of Graduate Studies, it seems to me that that division just—

RW: That became—just disappeared.

WB: - ended at that time, right, right.

RW: That must have been after the death of Gene Selhorst. [90]

WB: Yeah, it was.

RW: What was Verne Thompson’s position then? For a while he was Secretary. [91]

WB: He was tied up with the Music Literature Department.

RW: He had a title as secretary. You were associate dean, and Gene was associate dean, and I think Verne—didn’t Verne serve as a secretary to the Graduate Committee, to both of you?

WB: Yes, he did, as a matter of fact. That’s right, that’s right.

RW: Then, after Selhorst’s death, he remained on the Graduate Committee, and then things started to evolve, and that’s about the time that I lost track of which way the Graduate Department was going, because then, very soon thereafter, you became dean.

WB: I would have to go back then and then read the minutes of the Graduate Committee to really remember what went on. I don’t—you’d think I would remember, but [laughter] I really don’t.

RW: No, I don’t see how people can remember all these things. With regard to the library, I could not tell you during which years such-and-such a position was created.

WB: Sure, sure.

RW: I can remember distinctly whom we chose to take certain positions, but I couldn’t tell you in chronological order, and yet I was very much involved, and fighting like crazy, and all this sort of thing, and we were just so full of enthusiasm and energy about that time, but I think once a thing is accomplished, you don’t remember.

WB: It seemed to me—all I can remember is that after the creation of the post of graduate dean—dean of graduate studies—that everything was pulled together, and then—which, to me, was the proper way to do things without this artificial division.

RW: Well, that’s very, very interesting. Now, you had a secretary, Shirley, Shirley Kurtz.

WB: Shirley Kurtz, yeah. She was with me for a couple of decades, and I—

RW: That’s interesting, because I don’t remember any other secretary.

WB: No? Well, there was an assortment of pretty young things [laughter] before—

RW: Oh, were there?

WB: - Shirley, but Shirley was a professional if there ever was one. I just would like to go on record as saying that she’s just—was the greatest of secretaries as far as I’m concerned.

RW: Any time I wanted to know anything about what went on with the Graduate Committee or whatever, or what the deadlines were, I would call Shirley and—

WB: Yeah.

RW: - she would always give me this information. When we started Pi Kappa Lambda, [92] she was the one that got the list of the PhD candidates and so on. She was a big help.

WB: Yeah. If you asked her something, she almost always knew the answer.

RW: Yes, and he—she did.

WB: If she didn’t know it, she could find it out in two minutes. It was just amazing.

RW: Yeah, that’s really amazing.

WB: She was the real liaison between graduate work at Eastman and the Graduate Department at the University. She was always on the phone with Hilda Porter, who held a job as a secretary to the Graduate Dean, whoever it happened to be out there. Shirley Spragg, [93] of course for many years, so she was always on the phone to Hilda keeping things straight.

RW: Now, when you were the Dean, it was Spragg, wasn’t it?

WB: Spragg, right, right, although I outlived a lot of Graduate Deans, my word. Don’t ask me to recite all their names, but, my gosh, maybe I’ll sit down and tell you who they were when [laughter] I can—

RW: Riker became head of Graduate Studies up there for awhile.

WB: Paul Gross [94] was one of the Graduate Deans. He—

RW: I don’t remember what Dr. Riker’s name was. Remember there were two Rikers on the university—

WB: Yes, I remember, yeah.

RW: - with Charles [95] and a Riker [96] up at the campus. Well, I think the—that’s—that gives a good idea of what went on in Graduate Studies. I wanted to ask you something else, and it goes as follows: You have gone to a lot of other college campuses, and you went to Denmark to talk about contemporary music and so on. What sort of thing did you do when you went on these junkets?

WB: Well, I’m gonna leave you my latest bio, which lists in detail absolutely every place I’ve ever been—

RW: Oh, my.

WB: - as a visiting composer, as a clinician, as a lecturer, and a member of a panel talking about this and that and the other thing. For example, I was once on a panel down in the Poconos, talking with a convention of Jewish cantors, talking about contemporary music.

RW: How interesting.

WB: [Laughter] That was great fun.

RW: Yes. Now, what would you talk about under those circumstances?

WB: Well, what kind of music was appropriate for the church. It didn’t make a difference really whether it’s Jewish or Catholic or Protestant, whatever. There were two of us on that. The two of us talked back and forth.

RW: Oh, did you?

WB: We had lots of fun. We got wonderful meals down there—

RW: Yes, indeed. I suppose you did, yeah.

WB: - in the Catskills. I had said Poconos. It was in the Catskills. Well, along about—as a matter of fact, my career as a lecturer and visiting composer and [inaudible], they started really back in 1952, and then there are entries right up here to after I retired. I mean, I’m still doing this—

RW: Yes, I imagine so.

WB: - to some extent, but I remember—I mean, the 1973 was a banner year. I had lectures or visiting composer jobs at Baylor University, Northern Arizona State University, Mary Washington College in Virginia,—

RW: Ooh, Virginia?

WB: - Augusta College, where I was called a visiting scholar, Winthrop College in South Carolina, University of South Alabama, Pensacola Junior College, Convention—I was a National Association of Schools in Music in Denver, Mars Hill College in North Carolina, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Texas Christian University, Texas Tech University, East Texas State University, where I was a guest composer, lecturer and clinician. That covers 1973. [Laughter].

RW: Now, what do you mean by being a clinician?

WB: Well, this involves talking to students, partly, who have—composers or theory major or something of the sort, but it’s to get at the nitty-gritty of the business of producing music, as well as teaching, problems like that.

RW: Now, what would the students do? Would they come to you and—

WB: They come—well, it’s a mass meeting, question-and-answer kind of thing.

RW: Oh, is that it?

WB: Yeah, yeah, panel discussions and—they’re lots of fun to carry these on, because the students always have lots of questions. They’re never very shy—

RW: They’re full of—yeah, so that’s a good thing.

WB: - [laughter] asking questions.

RW: Now, through the years, have you noticed a difference in the student attitude or in talent or numbers?

WB: Are you talking about the Eastman School—

RW: No, about—

WB: - or generally? In general?

RW: Generally, as you’ve gone from one—

WB: Yeah, yeah.

RW: - institution to another.

WB: I’ve always been impressed with the general attitude of the students, wherever I’ve been. Now, my experience has been all kinds of different college, as you got by that list. I mean, some of them were pure and simple arts colleges with very tiny music departments, perhaps, and no really—no degree in music perhaps, even, to real music departments of important types.

It’s interesting that even the small schools provided a—without a musical—without a degree in music, if they had competent music instructors, and most of them did—these instructors were able to instill in these Arts majors—I mean, there were always Arts majors, double-Arts majors—that some of the kinds of information and attitudes and ambitions that even music majors have in larger departments. I’ve always been very impressed with what a wonderful job the music teachers over the country are doing, regardless of the setting that they’re in.

Many, many of the schools I went to, of course, are—we had alumni teaching. I mean, you can hardly go anywhere, of course, without running into alumni, but—and this is certainly due partly to the wonderful job, the preparation, that we do here at the Eastman School.

RW: Yes. I was looking through a compilation of 1963 last night, and it gave a list of schools of music, and the departments of music.

WB: Oh, yes, yes, yes.

RW: There was not a—

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