José Serebrier is one the premier conductors today. He burst on the scene at very young age as a protégée of Leopold Stokowski, who proclaimed him "the greatest master of orchestral balance." José Serebrier was 19 at the time. Born in Uruguay of Russian and Polish parents, Serebrier started composing music at the age of nine, shortly after he had begun with his first instrument, the violin. However, his renown as a conductor has eclipsed his reputation as a composer. Fortunately, more of his music has become available recently. Reference Recordings (RR-90CD) has issued a stunning recording of Serebrier's Partita (Second Symphony) with the LPO, Fantasia, and other works. In the May issue of Crisis, I reviewed the highly successful Naxos CD (8.559183) of his new Third Symphony, accompanied by other works for strings. Serebrier conducts on both CDs. Reference Records also offers examples of Serebrier's conducting prowess with two marvelous double CDs of music by Leos Janacek (RR-2103) and George Chadwick (RR-2104).

On July 9th, Serebrier came to Washington to conduct Beethoven's 9th Symphony and other works with the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolftrap, which gave me the opportunity of renewing our acquaintance and seeing him perform. The next day, we met to discuss his music, style of conducting, and the contemporary music scene.

BOB REILLY: There's a tradition of conductors who compose, like Wilhelm Furtwangler. Do you consider yourself in that tradition or, first, as a composer who conducts?

José SEREBRIER : I was very flattered when a very important music critic on a music website, Classicstoday.com, Dave Hurwitz, wrote a review of my Third Symphony (NAXOS CD). It said that I am a composer who conducts, not a conductor who composes. Even though I may not agree entirely, I was very flattered that he said it.

BOB: Early in your career, music critic Alfred Frankenstein said you were "the logical successor to the crown of Villa-Lobos and the South American to watch." Since then, you have added more than one hundred opus numbers. However, Heitor Villa Lobos wrote thousands of works. Do you regret that you didn't follow, not his style, which you don't have any relation to, but his path? Were you stopped by the tenor of the times from composing more?

José: I'm sure.

BOB: What was it about the times? Was it the domination of the 12-tone system?

José: That, and my heart wasn't really in that kind of purely intellectual music, which was the tendency of the times. I always felt that the composer had to communicate. They didn't write for themselves, or their colleagues, but for the public. But during the period I was composing in earnest it was academia time. There were composers in every university writing for themselves. And so unconsciously, even though I had every opportunity that any young composer could, I was already composing less because experimental music was what was expected.

BOB: You were composing even before you began to study music. What were you listening to? What did you hear that had an impact on you?

José: The first piece of music I ever heard, I am not embarrassed to say, when I realized - ah, I couldn't believe it was like the first time you taste a mango or the first time you taste something that you remember as a special fruit -- was Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. It was suddenly like life opened up and I became immediately interested in music.

BOB: Your music brings to mind a number of potential influences, but I'd rather hear from you what they are.

José: No, I'd rather hear from you. You tell me what the influences are.

BOB: I don't mean this in a stylistic sense, but you remind me of Morton Gould. First of all, because he was a first class conductor. And the other thing about Morton Gould that you remind me of was his total mastery of musical idioms, both popular and classical. He was kind of an American Malcolm Arnold in the sense that he had this mastery and, therefore, a sense of play in his music. He could intertwine these things. Your mastery of string music makes me think British. The Fantasia makes me think of British influences. Without knowing your Polish-Russian heritage, the steppes of Russia show up in certain places with Shostakovich as a possible influence (in Winterreise, on the Reference Recordings/Dorian label). And in something like the beginning of the Passacaglia, I think that you are headed for Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings territory. It's that beautiful. I don't know if Barber had any influence on you or not, because you're not quite that kind of Romantic. Also, you are certainly touched with something in terms of the character of your music that's meditative, ruminative, and a bit doleful.

José: It's a legitimate question. Influences? They are so totally unconscious. If there are influences in my music, they are not ones that I am conscious of.

BOB: I found it hilarious that one critic of your chamber music CD [on the Phoenix label] said that it's pure Pierre Boulez in places. If there is anyone who would never come to mind in your music it is Boulez, because you are not a hermetic composer and couldn't be more open or communicative. You are his antithesis.

José: Yes, I couldn't believe it. And those pieces in particular are far removed from the music of Boulez. So much for music critics (laughter) -- with great exceptions.
So I don't know any influences that I'm aware of other than the Slavic spirit that my music has. You can hear it in some pieces in particular, in the second movement of the Partita, the Second Symphony (on the Reference Recordings/Dorian label). That is Slavic in character. And my Third Symphony (Naxos label) has a Slavic character.

BOB: Because of your leadership of the Festival Miami, which you created, you have had the chance to commission some works of music, including Elliot Carter's Fourth String Quartet. I would be very interested in your appraisal of the contemporary music scene. If you were still commissioning, whom would you commission today?

José: That's very interesting because there are more composers now in America and in Europe than perhaps ever before because there is so much more new music being played now in concerts. Let me start with the top one, Elliott Carter. At the age of 96, he is at his best. Each piece of work is superior, and now his Piano Concerto in London was premiered by my friend Oliver Knussen. It's really audience friendly by Carter's standards, unlike the string quartets, for which you have to really concentrate. So he would be number one. A second would be a wonderful British Composer who should be played more, Simon Bainbridge. He won this great award in Louisville. He should be played more. And third, if you will accept another British composer, Oliver Knussen, who needs to be pushed to compose, a first class composer. He's one of the best composers today and has written relatively little.

BOB: You said something very significant about more composers today. This is a bit the opposite of the popular perception because the popular perception is behind the fact. I find it very interesting that the three composers whom you chose are not the neo-romantics. They're not the audience-friendly composers that have been drawing people back in and have now created the impression that it's safe to go back to the concert hall.

José: Yes, you're so right. That's interesting. I was going to add a fourth composer to the list, if he were still alive, Jacob Druckman, one of the greatest American composers, whose life was destroyed-literally destroyed-when the Metropolitan Opera commissioned him to write an opera and then took away the commission, after Jacob had already finished nearly half of the opera.

BOB: What do you think of the American composers who dominate the musical scene today, whether it's John Adams or Lowell Liebermann?

José: Lowell Liebermann is completely audience-friendly. His music is immediately likable because of his clear tonal orientation, but there's always a touch of originality in everything he writes. And John Adams has managed to be accepted by both the intellectuals and the general public, which is a real accomplishment.

BOB: What about your assessment of his work?

José: I feel very attached to it. Can I say this immodestly? I kind of discovered him. Julliard asked me to do some festivals of contemporary music in New York. So I called John Adams and he sent me the score of his piece called Common Tones in Simple Time. It's a complicated name. It's a half hour piece and we played it. It's the first time a piece of his was played by an orchestra in New York. It was a premiere, and he couldn't afford the trip. So he never heard it that performance. It was a huge success.

BOB: Adams has said some very interesting things, that he learned in school that "tonality died around the same time that Nietzsche's god died, and I believed it." And it takes a real shock in your life to overcome that experience. And of course, he's spear-headed this return to tonality. Do you think that this musical recovery that we're so privileged to witness over the past years is in some way related to a spiritual recovery?

José: That's wonderful of you to put it that way. Let me interrupt a little bit before I get to that. John Adams may have spearheaded that movement towards tonality, but it was Jacob Druckman who gave it a name. When Jacob Druckman was the composer-in-residence of the New York Philharmonic, he was given carte blanche to do a festival. He had the nerve in the late 70s to call it the New Romanticism. I remember one composer, Ralph Shapey from Chicago, who accosted him in public with a program. He took the program, folded it, and hit him, "How dare you call this a New Romanticism?" It was still the height of the 12-tone era. Well, the movement was already sneaking in, but no one dared to say it. He was way ahead of his time. And then, before we realized it, it was acceptable to write quasi-tonal music or a combination of tonal music with old techniques.

BOB: When George Rochberg re-embraced tonality, someone confronted his sweet wife and said, "What's George writing beautiful music for? It's already been done."

José: I love it!

BOB: Watching you perform last night, I thought how rhythmically energized you are as a conductor, that any musician who could not follow your beat would have to be blind. I think that, aside from the innate musicality that you bring as a composer to your conducting, the one outstanding thing is the clarity, the clearness of everything in your music making.

When I was trying to characterize your performance, I put Rene Leibowitz and Toscanini at one end, and Bruno Walter at the other, saying you were more toward the Walter side in your approach to Beethoven. More pianissimo than power, when contrasted to Leibowitz whose interpretation is differentiated only by the varying intensity of the volcanic eruption he creates. You took the music out of the grip of that kind of unrelenting power and freed it in a way, allowing it to breathe more naturally and revealing countless felicitous details. I was astonished at parts of it. You showed me how beautiful Beethoven is. What conductors do you admire and which ones had an influence on you?

José: Obviously Stokowski, but I could never get him to teach me anything, physically speaking, in the sense of saying, "okay, do it this way." He never talked about it and, in the years I worked with him, I never approached him with technical questions. Yet I learned more from him than from some of my teachers, by osmosis and by watching him -- mostly rehearsal technique. He was businesslike in rehearsal, in the best sense. He was like the CEO of a company, giving everyone the right to control their own departments and yet managing the whole thing perfectly. And even though he appeared like a showman in public life and in performances, he was very methodical, pragmatic. So I learned from him how to run a rehearsal, which is about 90% of the secret to success. He never gave a speech in rehearsals. I heard later on of orchestras being particularly impressed by conductors that don't give speeches, that don't use the podium to lecture, but who talk through the music. So I was so lucky to have this mentor who knew how to rehearse an orchestra and didn't waste time. The worst thing a conductor can do -- and there are many famous ones and some so-called great ones who do it -- is to stop every few moments to correct things. Even though they are right and the correction is necessary, to interrupt an orchestra is a capital crime. Practical conductors save the corrections for the right moment. Psychology is a crucial element in conducting: keeping the musicians alert, enthusiastic and inspired. That's why it takes decades to become a "real" conductor; it's a life-time learning experience.

BOB: You can listen to Beethoven's 7th by either Toscanini or Furtwangler. Which one do you want to listen to?

José: You're talking about the North Pole and the South Pole. They're both great. How can you choose between them?

BOB: Because you have to.

José: I'll answer indirectly. If you listened to either today, they would be dismissed because they were so personal, which is what made them great.

BOB: What do you hear today as opposed to then?

José: Today, you hear Xerox performances. There is a piano competition sponsored by the Xerox Foundation. I was in the jury and I couldn't believe it. The poor guy or girl who wins will be the "Xerox pianist." And unfortunately, this has to do with most performances today, whether it's piano, violin, or conductor and orchestra.

BOB: What do you think led to that condition? Recordings?

José: I'll answer your question, again, indirectly. When I was about to record the Mendelssohn symphonies with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, I had to confess I had never conducted them in public. So a friend of mine, a very important musicologist and music critic, suggested that he would make tapes of every version ever made of the Mendelssohn Third Symphony. And I thought, "Well, fine. I will listen to a few of them." I was fascinated -- incredible versions that were broadcast from 1910, 1920 that had been kept, and other earlier versions. But then by the time you got to 1972, they all started to sound the same. You could interchange one for the other; there was little difference! Recently, a friend sent me an old LP of Furtwangler conducting Beethoven's 9th. I couldn't believe it. He was so unusual, but so convincing.

BOB: Between the North Pole and the South Pole, Toscanini and Furtwangler, where do you live?

José: I live in the middle, which is the best of both worlds, in the warm equator.

BOB: Let me give you another quiz. You can hear Edward Elgar's First Symphony either by Georg Solti or John Barbirolli. What would you choose?

José: I would choose both because there are things that are commendable in each.

BOB: You're being very kind. If I were to offer an example of what a difference a conductor can make in a particular piece of music, I would give them the Elgar First by Solti, which kept me away from Elgar for years. I listened to this and thought, what the hell is going on in this piece? I don't understand the attraction. Then I heard the Barbirolli First and all of a sudden this music opened up in a most magnificent way and drew me into what has now been a life-long love.

José: Solti was highly overrated, but he had one great thing, his conducting enthusiasm. Love of music too, but technically nothing much there, not really.

BOB: You've made some 200 records. You conduct all sorts of music. I can't find a theme in here that this is José's repertoire. What's going on?

José: I don't believe in a specialization because I don't need it.

BOB: Your tastes are that catholic?

José: Yes, that's part of it. But it's also that, when my first record of Charles Ives, his Fourth Symphony, came out, I was being asked to do contemporary American music of that type. But in different parts of the world they think I'm a specialist in different things. In France, they think I specialize in French music, which is very flattering. Here in the States, they think its contemporary music, with exceptions. Last night (Beethoven's 9th) was an exception. But in South America, they think I'm a specialist in Tchaikovsky.

BOB: What if a record producer comes to you and says, "José, what do you want to record?"

José: Ah, I wish that would happen. There are several things that I would like to record that I never have recorded which are very close to my heart. First comes to mind Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony. It's one of the most difficult pieces ever written, technically and in every respect. I'd like to record Tchaikovsky's First Symphony. Then a complete Daphnis et Chloe by Ravel. I feel an affinity for Ravel's music and I feel that I can add something of my own, not better than the others, but my own personal version of that.

BOB: You need to guide our readers. Which CDs of your music would you point our readers to first?

José: The Third Symphony, on NAXOS. It's more approachable, and then I would say the Partita, which is also fun to listen to.

BOB: But please say the Fantasia, too, because it's gorgeous. What CDs with you conducting music by other composers would you suggest?

José: Most exciting projects are coming up: a CD of Stokowski transcriptions, for Naxos The Stokowski CD is a real challenge, since his own masterful recordings are so far unsurpassed.
 

Pregunta. Ud. ha dirigido varias orquestas en Madrid, entre ellas la  Orquesta sinfónica de RTVE, la Orquesta Nacional o la de la Comunidad de Madrid. ¿Cómo ve el panorama de las orquestas madrileñas y españolas en conjunto?

Respuesta. Suelo dirigir en Madrid pero con más frecuencia en Barcelona donde he dirigido a la sinfónica de Barcelona con la que he hecho grabaciones discográficas para Naxos de obras de Leonardo Balada, y para el sello BIS de mi sinfonía Carmen basada en la obra Carmen de Bizet. Ahora acaba de salir un nuevo disco de tangos sinfónicos en el que dirijo a la misma orquesta. Sobre el nivel de las orquestas españolas que ud. me preguntaba le respondo que ha cambiado mucho, sobre todo porque antes venía más a dirigir música contemporánea que gran repertorio a las orquestas de Madrid y Barcelona, pero la aparición de nuevas orquestas desde que España entró en la Unión Europea hace que crezca la calidad general. De hecho España tuvo que importar buenos músicos de otros países por el rápido crecimiento de sus orquestas; por eso  podemos encontrar gente de Estados Unidos, de Rusia o Polonia en las orquestas. Las orquestas españolas aparecen en todos los medios del mundo donde se premia su calidad.

P. En el concierto que ha dirigido a la Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, ha estrenado su Segunda Sinfonía, la cual si mal no recuerdo lleva una cita del Concierto para órgano de Poulenc en la fuga ¿verdad?

R. Sí, absolutamente. (se ríe) ¡Vaya, lo escuchó ud! Exacto es un “quote”, una cita indicada en la partitura. La sinfonía tiene temas de varios estilos y curiosamente encaja perfectamente con los ritmos latinos con los que trabajo con la cita de Poulenc.  Recuerdo que lo escuché por la radio y dije ¡Ah, esto es lo que estaba buscando!. Además conjunta perfectamente con la reexposición del tema de la marcha fúnebre del segundo movimiento y procuro que los mismos temas funcionen juntos y también separados. Sobre eso hay un ejemplo muy bueno que es el de los dos Cuartetos de Darius Milhaud, el 14 y el 15 creo que son, que se pueden tocar separados o juntos formando un octeto. ¿Verdad que es una idea maravillosa?

P. ¿Ha introducido más citas en otras obras suyas?

R.No. La verdad es que no he empleado más citas ni tampoco he hecho obras del estilo de, por ejemplo, las Variaciones sobre un tema de Frank Bridge de Britten donde se expone un tema y se van desarrollando las variaciones. Sólo lo he escrito en la sinfonía y como sólo aparece en el último movimiento tampoco lo indiqué en el título del movimiento como “Variaciones sobre un tema de Poulenc” porque me parecía demasiado pretencioso. Ya le dije, solo aparece en la partitura en el momento del “quote”.

P. ¿Qué le supone estrenar esta obra en Madrid cerca de 40 años después de su estreno absoluto?

R. Ah, vaya. Pues volver a estudiarla me trae gratos recuerdos de su estreno a cargo de Robert Whitney con la Orquesta de Louisville, donde la Fundación Rockefeller aportó fondos para grabar obras de 100 compositores contemporáneos. Así se emprendió una de las labores más importantes por la difusión de la música del siglo XX. Es una pena que actualmente en Estados Unidos nadie conozca a Robert Whitney, ese extraordinario músico, alabado por críticos como Harold Schonberg, quien me encargó esta sinfonía. Yo, que era muy joven, no me creía que el encargo además se fuera a grabar. Es más, me pidieron permiso para quitar el segundo movimiento porque no cabía en el LP y no tuve ningún problema. ¡Al contrario! Yo estaba todo encantado y por eso a mis 25 años les dije que sí. Curiosamente ese movimiento tuvo “su vida propia” y a propósito de ello, Stokowski me insinuó que no era un título muy adecuado para una obra que se estrenó de manera independiente al resto de la sinfonía, por eso cambié el título de “Marcha Fúnebre” por el de “Poema Elegíaco”.

P. ¿Acerca de su labor como compositor, como desarrolla una obra? ¿Revisa sus obras?

R. Para mí, lo que me lleva menos tiempo es escribirla en el papel pautado. Primero tengo que pensar mucho el desarrollo de la obra para forjar todas las posibilidades de las ideas en las que se basa. Es cierto que mientras se escribe la obra surgen otras ideas sorprendentes, pero en el fondo siguen un esquema formal muy pensado previamente.  Acerca de revisar mis obras (sonríe), mire, tengo un defecto, y es que no sé revisar mis obras. Me parece una tarea muy difícil y prefiero dejarlas tal cual quedaron. Es más, tenga en cuenta que conforme pasan los años no se tienen las mismas ideas y así prefiero dejar cada obra conforme a su tiempo y vivencias durante las cuales fue compuesta.

P. De su labor como director, creo que hay una obra que ha marcado su vida. Me refiero a la Cuarta Sinfonía de Charles Ives, cuyo estreno previo se pospuso y donde Stokowski interpretó su 1º sinfonía. Después ud. la estrenó con Stokowski, y posteriormente la grabó para RCA. ¿Qué recuerdos nos trae acerca del estreno de esa obra tan espectacular?

R.Tengo muy buenos recuerdos con Stokowski de aquel estreno. En primer lugar tuvimos mucho tiempo de ensayo con la orquesta en Houston, ya que la Fundación Rockefeller financió 3 meses de ensayos en vista de su gran complejidad. Prácticamente estudiábamos la obra compás por compás, por eso el primer ensayo que realizó Stokowski tuvo gran expectación. Entre el público estaban todos los medios de prensa. Estaban Harold Schonberg, Leonard Bernstein, que entonces estaba dando a conocer mucha música de Ives. Más o menos unas cien personas que representaban la crème de la crème  de la vida musical de Estados Unidos en aquel auditorio. Aquel momento fue además uno de los más complicados de toda mi vida, porque recuerdo que Stokowski me llamó para que dirigiera el último movimiento, que hay que leer muy deprisa pasando las páginas a toda velocidad. Yo me había hecho cargo sólo del papel del segundo director, mucho más sencillo que el de director principal. No había preparado la parte de director principal y… ¡lo hice a primera vista! ¡Qué momento tan complicado! (se ríe). También recuerdo lo aburridos que eran los ensayos por secciones para los profesores de la orquesta que llenaron sus particellas con caricaturas de Stokowski o de Ives, que luego volvieron aparecer cuando grabé la obra. Al final, el disco fue un best seller en Estados Unidos. Es más, como curiosidad y ahora que lo recuerdo, va a salir en DVD una reedición del estreno.

Y es curioso que pese a su dificultad se haya grabado más veces…

Sí, exacto, como con La Consagración de la Primavera que al principio era una obra imposible y ahora se monta en 3 ó 4 ensayos. Resulta curioso que la grabación que hice siga todavía en el mercado. Después de que RCA la pasara a CD, la licenció por 5 años a Chandos, volviendo después a RCA y acoplándola con la 1º de Ives que grabara Ormandy.

Como anécdota le puedo comentar que estuve a punto de dirigir y grabar la 4º de Ives con Bernstein

¿De veras?

Sí, cuando Bernstein grabó la Segunda Sinfonía quería hacer un concierto con la Filarmónica de Nueva York con la Cuarta Sinfonía cuatro veces en Washington, otras cuatro en Nueva York y después grabarlo para Deutsche Grammophon. Me llamó por teléfono y me dijo que quería que fuera a trabajar con él sobre ello, porque recordaba aquel ensayo previo al estreno de la obra. Recuerdo además que casi no podía negarme porque aplicaba “psicología de niños”. Me decía: “Si no vienes tendré que llamar a Michael (Tilson Thomas) o a Seiji (Ozawa)”. Y, sabe, al final no pudo ser, no por desavenencias entre nosotros sino porque nuestros managers no se pusieron de acuerdo entre sí. La cuestión era la del papel de segundo director no tan importante como el del primero en el concierto, por eso se acordó que yo dirigiera en la primera parte Central Park in the Dark. Como al final no se hizo, Bernstein que tenía un gran respeto a la obra que casi rozaba el miedo, cambió la sinfonía de Ives por la Cuarta  de Schubert. Creo que debió haberla dirigido, para él no hubiera supuesto ninguna dificultad. Es más, ha estrenado y dirigido varias veces obras mucho más complicadas.

P.Ya que menciona la figura de Leonard Bernstein. ¿Cree que el director/compositor/pedagogo está en peligro de extinción?

R. Al igual que con Stokowski y Dorati, que eran capaces de abordar todo el repertorio, el problema reside una vez más en la especialización. Un músico es alguien integral capaz de acercarse a todos los repertorios.

P.Parece que actualmente el público prefiere más el repertorio clásico o romántico antes que la música contemporánea ¿Por qué cree que al público actual no le gusta tanto? ¿ Que opina como alumno de directores entregados a la música de su tiempo como Leopold Stokowski o Antal Dorati?

Desgraciadamente no tenemos ni a Dorati ni a Stokowski con nosotros, y pienso que ellos son el perfecto ejemplo de la dirección de orquesta, porque huían de cualquier tipo de especialización y explicaban las obras para que fueran comprensibles. Creo que ese es un problema actual en la dirección. Es difícil exponer, interpretar, emitir las ideas claves de una obra para que el público las comprenda. Así ocurre con la música contemporánea, que suele ser además la más difícil. Stokowski y Dorati eran capaces de dirigir repertorio de contrastes lejanos en el tiempo o de incentivar la composición contemporánea. Eran músicos completos, capaces de comprender obras nuevas con extraordinaria soltura.

P.Acerca de Stokowski. ¿Por qué cree que hizo su propia transcripción de los Cuadros de una Exposición de Mussorgski?

R.Como bien dice es una trascripción no una orquestación y Stokowski la hizo porque la de Ravel, que el mismo estrenó en varios lugares y que consideraba excelente, hacía que sonara algo afrancesada la obra original. Stokowski admiraba mucho a Mussorgski, y de hecho fue quien estrenó Boris Godunov con su orquestación original.

P.Ya que Vd. no es el intérprete usual de sus propias obras, al menos en los auditorios, ¿qué director las entiende mejor según su criterio?

Por ejemplo, John Elliot Gardiner que ha grabado mi Concierto para percusión lo ha hecho muy bien. Es normal que actualmente haya “directores que compongan” y que no dirijan sus propias obras. Ahí está Lorin Maazel que aparte de director es un muy buen compositor y no se le ve mucho dirigiendo sus obras. Antes sí,  por ejemplo con los estrenos de las sinfonías de Mahler y los años posteriores salvo el propio Mahler había muy pocos directores que las interpretaran.

P. Ud fue también compositor residente de la Orquesta de Cleveland y trabajó con George Szell ¿Era tan duro como dicen?

R. Oh sí (sonríe) Szell era un músico extraordinario pero terriblemente exigente y sarcástico y de ahí su dureza y a la vez rudeza. Mire le puedo comentar al respecto una anécdota que tuvo con Glenn Gould. Gould tenía problemas en la espalda y pidió que se le cambiara la silla seis o siete veces. Al final parece que llegó Szell y le dijo varios improperios. Gould se marchó y el propio Szell hizo de solista en uno de los conciertos de Mozart que tenía que haber interpretado Gould.

P. ¿Cómo ha recibido las actuales nominaciones al Grammy latino por sus últimos discos?

R. Pues este año se ha vuelto a repetir la misma sorpresa que el año pasado cuando gané el Grammy por el disco de mi Sinfonía Carmen. La verdad es que dos nominaciones está bien pero es un problema porque los amigos que votan los discos eligen entre uno de los dos y se reparten las votaciones. (sonríe)

P. Tiene Vd. antecedentes musicales en su familia ¿Acaso sus padres fueron músicos?

R. No, no. Sólo un tío-abuelo mío que daba clases en Rusia y se llamaba Pavel Serebriakov. Llevaba el apellido original antes de que llegara mi padre a América y lo cambiara. Creo que es algo frecuente, que en familias donde no haya tradición en la profesión musical aparezcan buenos músicos.

P.Entonces sus comienzos debieron ser precoces, componiendo su primera sinfonía con 17 años. ¿Cuando eligió ud. la profesión de músico?

R.Recuerdo que con ocho años escuché la Obertura 1812 de Tchaikovsky por la radio y quedé fascinado con todo aquello, los cañones, las campanas… Entonces le pedí a mi padre que me compraran un violín y me llevaran a clases particulares.

P. ¿Qué planes futuros tiene como compositor a medio o largo plazo?

R.Pues tengo que atender un encargo de un violonchelista mexicano llamado Carlos Globert y todavía estoy deliberando la estructura de la pieza. No sé si combinaré chelo con piano, si dejaré el chelo solo o si haré una mezcla curiosa de chelo y narración.

P.¿Y qué proyectos tiene a corto plazo como director? ¿Seguirá grabando Glazunov?

R.Sí, voy a seguir grabando Glazunov, pero no todo el ciclo. Tengo previsto grabar la Cuarta Sinfonía y la Séptima. Después grabaré más obras de Shostakovich, entre ellas la banda sonora completa de “La Nueva Babilonia” que creo que es la mejor de las bandas sonoras que compuso.

Celebrated conductor and composer José Serebrier recently spoke with Naxos on the eve of his European and Latin American tour with the Toulouse National Chamber Orchestra. The maestro, known not only for his two-hundred-plus recordings but also for his notable associations with legends like Dorati, Stokowski, Monteux and Szell, and some of the greatest soloists of the day, created a sensation early in his career with his RCA recording of the Ives Fourth Symphony, once thought completely unplayable.
José Serebrier has also earned a strong reputation as a composer, receiving two Guggenheim Fellowships (as the youngest ever to receive them), the Koussevitzky Foundation Award, American Conductors Award, and a host of other accolades and awards for his over one hundred published compositions, most of them recorded by orchestras like the London Philharmonic with conductors like John Eliot Gardiner.
The maestro has recorded a number of works for Naxos including a disc of music by William Schuman with the Bournemouth Symphony (8.559083) which was nominated for two Grammy awards in 2002, a new recording of Ned Rorem symphonies (8.559149), which had five Grammy nominations in 2004. José Serebrier also did a disc of his own compositions (8.559183), which received three Grammy nominations in 2004, including "Best New Composition" for his 3rd Symphony, "Symphonie Mystique".
N: Having listened to quite a number of your recordings, I have to say that I find it remarkable that you can pull such inspired and technically impressive, passionate recordings out of the numerous orchestras with which you work. As I understand it, you probably only spend a few days with a given orchestra during the recording process. How do you accomplish such wonderful things in a very short amount of time?

JS: It's really very simple. It all has to do with preparation. The actual amount of time that I spend with an orchestra is only the cream on the coffee. If it is a success, what makes it so is the huge amount of time that it takes to prepare beforehand. The preparation includes not just my learning the music inside and out. It also involves preparing the music for the performance. The Ned Rorem symphonies recently released by Naxos are a good example. The actual recording time transpired over two days, but months, maybe a year beforehand, I began the preparations. The first symphony hadn't been played in almost fifty years, for example. I had to revise it note by note. My New York apartment was inundated with the orchestral parts for months, all over the floor, the couches, the piano, the beds, no space was spared...

N: I understand that two of the three had never been recorded prior to this project.

JS: Correct! They had been performed very little, as well. The First Symphony had been played several times, the Second, perhaps once. The composer had not heard the Second Symphony performed prior to these sessions. The individual parts, the music from which the musicians perform, were unreadable. The manuscripts were fifty years old. At one time Ned had been a copyist for Virgil Thomson so he had copied his own music. The copying was good but because of the time lapse the music had become dark, brown and abused; it was unusable. I had to redo the whole thing, and that's what really took the most time. When that was completed, I made sure the orchestra got it ahead of time and I pointed out to the solo players the many difficult solos in the work. I gave them about two months time to prepare by giving them the music in advance. By the time I got there they had actually looked at it, which is very unusual. These days, most orchestra musicians don't have the time to study their parts that far ahead. Although they try to set aside the time, often they only have enough time to look at the music for the next weeks performances. Because of this, I was very impressed that the first cellist, for example, almost had the work memorized. The percussionist practically had to memorize it as well. The xylophone part in one of the symphonies by Rorem is not unplayable, but very nearly so. Playing the xylophone is not like playing the piano, you know; one has to skip all over the place and so the performer practically has to memorize it in order to play it. The Rorem Symphonies are only one example; I could give you a hundred others. I've made over two hundred records, and each one has been a labor of love.

N: That is very evident. When I say that, I don't want to boil it down merely to precision. I'm talking about passion as well. You seem to burst with it!

JS: Well, passion is certainly the most important aspect. Precision comes only as the servant of passion. I aim not merely to follow literally what is on the score, which of course is very important, but also to make it pleasant. I was just listening yesterday to someone else's recording of a work I need to prepare. The recording is by a very famous orchestra and a very famous conductor. It is an extremely great orchestra, but I was sad to hear so much imprecision. There were so many notes that were out of tune. I know why that happens; people just don't have the time. They don't have the time and they leave it up to the producer to fix things. I don't have the time either, but I make it!

N: Exactly!

JS: It's essential that the final product be of the highest possible quality, so technical perfection is only the first step. Inspiration, or passion, which is a much nicer word, is the crucial element and in a recording that is more difficult than in a performance. In a performance you have the public . . .

N: To energize you, perhaps?

JS: Yes, that's exactly what it is. In a performance, you are playing for several thousand people. I've learned over the course of many recording sessions to automatically imagine, without even thinking about it, that I'm playing for a much larger audience. In reality, you're not playing merely for yourselves; you're playing for the many people who will be listening to the recording. Without this mindset, a recording can become boring. Some great artists have discovered, because of that phenomenon, that their live recordings are better. Toward the end of his career, Leonard Bernstein would only record live. He told me that he had discovered his live recordings had something extra. After capturing a set of live recordings they usually go back to the studio for an hour or so to fix any technical problems.

N: In my days in the record business, we would call those punch ins

JS: Yes! [chuckles] In my case I have made a few live recordings. One of my earliest recordings, about twenty years ago, was the Dvorak Symphony No. 8 for RCA with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It was not intended to be a recording for release; we just made a tape of the performance. When I got back to New York I gave a copy to Tom Shepard, who was at that time the head of RCA Records. I didnt mean for him to consider it for release on RCA; I just wanted him to hear how good the orchestra in Sydney was. He said theres no way we can release this recording, we just recorded it with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and its already scheduled for release six months from now. So I left the office and headed home. By the time I arrived at home ten minutes later, however, my phone was ringing. It was Tom. He said, We are releasing your recording right away and delaying the Ormandy/Philadelphia recording for a couple of years. I couldn't believe it! Mine was a live performance and it had an extra dose of enthusiasm, which comes across from the first moments. They were quite interested in releasing it also, I think, because they had been very successful with my recording of the Ives Fourth Symphony.

N: Yes, a momentous, historic recording indeed. As we just now discussed your approach to recording in general, that helped me understand your success with the Ives, when so many others had difficulty putting their arms around that work.

JS: Yes, thats an extreme case!

N: Oh, my goodness yes!

JS: I learned the process of recording in general through my preparations for that recording in specific. In general, I prefer studio recording. However, I treat it like a concert.

N: Is it true that you sometimes have extra time left over in your recording sessions?

JS: Oh yes, often! Its because I plan the recording sessions the way a general would plan a war. You have to plan to win, and with something left over, a few men to battle with, so to speak. So if my plans work right, I always have time left over. I never run overtime, which is a crime, of course. [chuckles]

N: The interview you gave to Gramophone about your amazing experiences as an assistant to Leopold Stokowski was such a delight to read. It was apparent in your reminiscences about the great master that he obviously had a great deal of interest in young musicians. It wasnt a surprise to find that young classical musicians speak glowingly about their experiences with you in the various ensembles youve conducted, but finding that so many heavy metal musicians listed some of your recordings among their favorites was a treat, I must say.

JS: Heavy metal musicians? [laughs] I was very surprised, but delighted to hear about it! I often listen to heavy metal..it's a lot of fun!

N: Evidently youve had more influence than you even realized! Was Stokowskis example part of the inspiration in your working so extensively with young musicians? I realize that you started your career very early in your life [Interviewers note: Serebrier began conducting before he was 11 years old, and also composingl.] Was that an influence as well?

JS: At the very beginning of my musical career, I had no choice! [laughs]. When I was nine, I wanted to conduct the National Symphony of Uruguay but they wouldnt consider me. The only ones I could convince were my contemporaries, so I had to start my own orchestra. They were slightly older than metwelve, thirteen, and fifteenbut at that age the difference in age makes a big, big difference. Presently, my interest in youth orchestras remains. I just conducted this year, with great pleasure, the National Honors Youth Orchestra in Columbus, Ohio. Yes, I do work with young musicians regularly. Stokowski worked with young musicians all the time, but never directly teaching them. I myself never studied with him. He was either not interested in teaching, or the opportunity never arose. But, of course, I learned enormously from watching him, as his assistant.

N: Im sure many of our readers would enjoy knowing what was it like conducting for a television audience of a billion people at last years Grammy Awards. You did the only classical segment in the Grammy telecast.

JS: Very scary! [chuckles] I was scared that I might trip over the podium or knock over a music stand. We had a suitable amount of rehearsal time, but very little on the actual stage where we performed. They had a tiny stage for about sixty musicians, and they had it arranged so a number of them were on very tall risers. When I looked back at the timpanist, she was so high up in the air and so far back that I really had to strain to see her. She similarly had to look towards her feet to see me. I must have looked like a postage stamp to her; she looked like a dot in the sky from my angle. It was scary indeed that something could possibly go wrong. Fortunately, not only did everything go well, but we also received a standing ovation, the only one in the three hour show. We were given a place of honor on the program, appearing just before the announcement of the Record of the Year at the very close of the broadcast. It was a long program, so many of my friends in Europe set their alarm clocks for four in the morning so they could watch that segment. [chuckles] It was a great experience, and to this day I dont know why I was chosen

N: Well, so many Grammy nominations for your recordings could have something to do with it! [laughs]

JS: Well, it was great fun. I should mention that they had our dressing rooms organized alphabetically, so Britney Spears was in the dressing room next to mine. We shared the same bodyguard and security detail [chuckles]. No door between our dressing rooms. She was a lot of fun.

N: You have such a large discography and conduct orchestras all over the world, and somehow you have found time to compose a great deal of music as well. How do you keep these things happening so beautifully? When I look at all the things you have done, I am just amazed.

JS: Well, I am not that organized, either, so I amaze myself! My biggest problem at the moment, looking around my office right now, is finding where things are. [chuckles] I have so many projects going on at once and no matter how many cabinets there are and places to put each one of them, its always a challenge. It is an even greater challenge when I am about to travel. I have to make sure to take all of the music I need with me, which is usually about two suitcases worth.

N: I know you have more travels on the horizon. What is planned for your next trip?

JS: I am about to embark on an international tour with the Toulouse National Chamber Orchestra. We will first tour in France, and then throughout all of Latin America. We will be playing much of the repertoire of the Naxos recording of my compositions, and works by Britten, Elgar, Grieg, Bartok,

N: The recording of your music features early works as well as some fairly recent compositions, even some from the last few years?

JS: Actually, even more recently than that! One of the pieces slated for the recording was a work for accordion and orchestra, which I wrote while I was working with Stokowski. During those years I had a commission from the American Accordionists Association. Its a great organization and they have commissioned everyone: Hindemith; Creston; Tcherepnin; and David Diamond, for examples. For some reason they took a chance on a very young composer like myself, and I wrote a concerto for them. In Europe, where this recording was being made, I had difficulty finding a real virtuoso accordionist. Finally, at the Royal Academy of Music, I found a wonderful musician, and he fell in love with the score. Two weeks before the recording he called me to say that he was very sorry, but his wife was dying of cancer and he needed to spend time with her. He referred me to a young Chinese student of his, a twenty-one year old girl. I went to London to audition her and I told him Im sorry, but this wont do. I told him that she was a very talented young student, also a very pretty girl, and I wanted to give her a chance, but that she would be ready to do it perhaps a year from now. So I returned to New York and realized to my horror that the recording would be too short without that work. It was too late, and I had no other option than to write another piece!

N: You do write many of your works quickly, dont you?

JS: Well, sometimes I have no choice! I really love my Third Symphony, which I didnt know was going to be a symphony. I just started writing something, and my wife didnt even know I was writing it. One week later I told her I had just finished a symphony. My publisher was amazed. I amazed myself! At any rate, the Chinese girl contacted me again and said, Please, Maestro, I have studied it and I am ready to play it. I told her it was too late for it to be included, but she came over and played it practically from memory. Two weeks later she memorized it, and it was absolutely incredible; she was so talented. Thats how we ended up doing both pieces. As a result, one of the works on the recording was written in January of this year, just before we recorded it. The record also includes my very earliest orchestral work, the Elegy for Strings, which I wrote when I was fourteen.

N: I thought it was very interesting that you were also including a work on this recording that included a double bass soloist and chorus!

JS: Oh, that work has an interesting story as well. For five years I headed Festival Miami, a music festival that I organized. There is a great double bass player there named Lucas Drew who for many years taught at the University of Miami. He came up with this idea that we ought to commission twenty or thirty composers, of all styles, to write short pieces. I thought it was a great idea but he also wanted me to write one of the compositions. When he asked me, I hadnt written music for perhaps ten, maybe fifteen years so I was reluctant to do so. But I agreed, and fulfilled my agreement. That broke the ice. Thanks to that piece, Ive been writing sporadically ever since. I didnt want to write a piece like the other composers just for bass, so I added an ensemble that backs him up, but is hidden from the audience so everyone wonders where all these sounds are coming from. They are behind the audience. It is a very evocative piece, and is entitled George and Muriel.

N: Is there a story behind the title as well?

JS: George Marek was the president of RCA Records during the golden years of the recording industry. He signed Toscanini, Stokowski, Artur Rubenstein, Jascha Heifetz and many others. By the time I met him, he had been retired for ten years. I met him walking on the beach. He recognized me and introduced himself. I had never heard of him before. He invited me into his home, and we became very good friends for the last few years of his life. I met some great people through him, and read many letters Toscanini had written to him.

N: Talk about serendipity!

JS: It was incredible! Anyway, the story relating to my composing a work for Festival Miami happened to transpire in the year he and his wife Muriel celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary. I composed this work as a wedding present. That brief piece took much longer to write than the Third Symphony because, you know, writing music is like exercise. If you havent gone to the gym in months, things take time! [chuckles] It takes time to get back into shape, so to speak. By the time I wrote the Third Symphony I couldnt write it fast enough. I wrote as fast as my pencil would go!

N: Would you like to share any stories about the great conductors with whom you have worked?

JS: With pleasure! First of all, my first mentor was Antal Dorati. I spent two years with him when he was music director of what in those days was the Minneapolis Symphony. I just wish I had been more ready for him in those days; I was very, very young [Interviewers Note: Serebrier was just seventeen when he held his first job, with the Minneapolis Symphony,now known as the Minnesota Orchestra].

N: Your audition with Dorati was the audition where you had no music at all, no piano or recorded music? I understand you had to project the music to Dorati merely by conducting in silence.

JS: Yes. I had two great years there. We mostly reviewed the scores together. Dorati really didnt have a conducting technique to speak of. He was left-handed, which is difficult since conductors are expected to conduct with the right hand. However, he taught himself to write with the right hand, so he learned to be ambidextrous. Still, the right hand always felt awkward to him, and his movements were unorthodox, to say the least. What I learned from him was not movement. Primarily what I gained was rehearsal technique, at which he was very skilled, in addition to the study of scores. He taught me many traditions that he learned from the great masters. I was very, very fortunate to study with that great master. Today, people dont realize what a great conductor Dorati was. He really was one of the greatest conductors of the twentieth century. Then I attended classes by Pierre Monteux. While I had studied privately with Dorati, Monteux had a class of about eighty students. He ran a school for conductors in Maine, in the most beautiful little town. All of the conductors in the school had to play in the orchestra in order to qualify for the class. Every half-hour, one of them stood up and conducted, while Monteux made fun of us! That was his greatest joy; he just laughed his head off watching us conduct. There was always something that we learned, as well. I learned that the trick is to know the score, as simple as that. Finally after three years we convinced him to conduct, and he was actually worried to conduct in front of then-ninety conductors, after criticizing and laughing at us. When we saw him do it, we learned that there was nothing to it. It was the simplest thing in the world, and the essence of it was knowing the music intimately. The other part of the equation was something he couldnt teach us, which was experience: doing it over and over. Its an old clich: conducting is like wine; it takes time. By the way, that is why I, and many of my colleagues, reject this notion of many orchestras engaging beginner conductors for very important, very exposed positions. They are doing this before the conductors have had any chance to really learn the material. You know, one of the most successful conductors today is Simon Rattle. He, of course, was recently named conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. The New York Times interviewed him, and his most memorable quote was that no conductor below the age of sixty should be taken seriously. He said this at the age of forty-eight! It is an exaggeration, perhaps, because Mahler was a great conductor of his time who died before the age of sixty. Of course, there were many others as well, but what Rattle meant in principle makes a great deal of sense. It takes forever to learn all there is to know about orchestras: psychology; rehearsal technique; all the extra things beyond just music making that make up such a strange profession as conducting. I believe these orchestras are misguided when they engage conductors just out of music school, and they are doing a disservice to these conductors as well.

N: Well, I would certainly agree if they are hiring them as music directors, instead of perhaps as an assistant conductor.

JS: It used to be that conductors like Monteux came through the ranks as opera coaches and the like. Dorati was a ballet conductor. In America while I was growing up, conductors matured by conducting amateur orchestras. I had the good fortune of arriving in the States just at the end of an era, to have the opportunity to work with Monteux, Dorati, Stokowski, and Szell. I began conducting youth orchestras as a child, and then later on moved to amateur orchestras or semi-professional orchestras. It was difficult, but a great learning experience.

N: How did you become associated with George Szell?

JS: Szell was in the jury of a conductors competition I won, together with James Levine. He invited us both to become assistant conductors in Cleveland. Levine accepted; I didnt because I was working with Stokowski and I thought that was too great an opportunity to leave behind. In addition, I was being practical. I looked at the list of Szells assistant conductors and it reminded me of looking at the telephone book! He had two associates and four assistants, and I knew I wouldnt get the chance to conduct often.

N: My goodness! I certainly can see your point.

JS: The following year he came back to me and invited me to be composer-in-residence. He knew that my main interest at that point was conducting rather than composing, so to entice me he also offered me the position of conductor of the Cleveland Philharmonic, an excellent semi-professional orchestra. I accepted immediately, especially because Stokowski was already mentioning that he might go back to England, which he did two years later, to spend the last years of his life. He was already in his late eighties.

N: What an orchestra Szell had!

JS: Yes, a very great orchestra, and to watch him rehearse for what would be the last two years of his life was a fantastic experience. I learned a great deal by watching him. He left me his piano, the one I keep in my New York apartment. I was so surprised.

N: Surely. I dont know how you could possibly have many non-musical pursuits, considering your hectic schedule, but when you do get an opportunity to spend time away from your career, what activities do you enjoy?

JS: Long walks and jogging. I love nothing more than to walk or jog on the beach.

N: It has obviously been very good for your work in the past!

JS: [chuckles] Yes, I get many of my ideas on my walks. The whole Festival Miami, which was very ambitious, was organized during walks on the beach. The University of Miami sponsored it. Their original idea was to do what most university festivals do: utilize students and faculty members. While walking on the beach, I thought, Why not do it in a big way? We commissioned great composers like Elliot Carter, and brought in big orchestras like the Philharmonia from London and the Pittsburgh Symphony. The calm and the peacefulness of walking by the ocean, and the sun, if its not too hot, [chuckles] can be very conducive. I also love to read, and I read many books, usually in airplanes.

N: Given your schedule, thats not surprising in the least!

JS: When I have time, I go to the gym and exercise. My wife does it faithfully every day, no matter where she is in the world. I, on the other hand, feel guilty if I dont first do the other things that first have to be accomplished. When they are completed, Ill go to the gym if there is time left over. Usually when I am in hotels, which is about seventy percent of the time, its easier, because they all have gyms and I dont have to travel elsewhere to exercise. I also love to swim. I used to play a lot of soccer. We call it football in the rest of the world. [chuckles].

N: Yes, I think we Americans have probably named our game incorrectly. Our game of football has so little to do with the foot! [chuckles]

JS: In Uruguay, where I was born, soccer is played with anything that falls to the ground [chuckles]. The moment you are able to walk, you are playing soccer. I still play from time to time, and sometimes the orchestras with which I collaborate will organize a team. I love movies as well, when I have time; and art films in particular. Sometimes movies abroad are played, fortunately, months later than in America, so I get to see things that I missed in the States.

N: That all sounds quite wonderful indeed. Thank you for your time, Maestro. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to speak with you, and all the best on your upcoming tour!

JS: Thank you. It has been a pleasure for me as well.

Lorrell Holtz-Oxley