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I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Cali crossing show. You never know when or where revolutions will start. Or for that matter who will ignite them in 1939. Igor Stravinsky fired up a revolution when he debuted his composition The Rite of Spring. The performance dramatically challenge the way people thought about classical music and the performance has provoked an enduring musicological one that our guest Benjamin Zander took on in 1990 when he conducted the Boston Phil armonica orchestra's first performance this weekend. After 20 years of rethinking Stravinsky's work Benjamin Zander is reinterpreting his own take on the Rite of Spring. We'll talk to him about this latest undertaking. But first we're off to the Caribbean with writer Mark Kurlansky and his new book on how Dominican baseball is shaping an American pastime. Up next from the Stravinsky to San Pedro. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Curva Coleman Iceland's volcano I feel Yoko is fairly calm today but that's

not the case for airline passengers trying to get to or from Europe. NPR's Joe Palca reports from Reykjavik Iceland. If there were no wind or if the surface winds had been blowing in a different direction the world would have taken little notice of the volcano still erupting in Iceland. But because both the surface winds and the winds above 12000 feet have been blowing out of the north and northwest the ash has flown directly toward Europe. Now the surface winds are greatly diminished. The volcano has also calmed considerably. That means much less ash will blow into European airspace. Iceland's airport at Keflavik has remained open throughout the eruption because it is not in the path of the ash plume. Flights have not been interrupted between Iceland and North America. Joe Palca NPR News Reykjavik. A government report on global climate change says scientific evidence continues to show a warming planet. And as NPR's Christopher Joyce reports it predicts severe effects the Climate Action Report is the fifth issued by government scientists and it states that changes

are already happening due to warmer temperatures. These include disappearing glaciers shrinking sea ice in the Arctic thawing permafrost in the Far North and more heat waves. Based on numerous scientific observations and studies the report warns that the U.S. could see more droughts in some areas and more flooding in others. Agriculture forests and wildlife could also suffer. The report notes that energy use dipped and the rate of greenhouse gas emissions slowed during the economic recession. Overall however these emissions continue to rise and could be at least 4 percent higher in 10 years. The U.S. State Department issued the climate action report which is open for public comment. Christopher Joyce NPR News. The Supreme Court has overturned a federal law banning videos that show extreme violence against animals. The justices ruled it infringes free speech. This throws out the case against a Pennsylvania man who had put together videos of fights against pit bulls. Chief Justice John Roberts says the way the law was written could even block films about hunting the vote was eight to one. Justice Samuel Alito says the harm that animals

suffer is enough to retain the law. Some retired military officers say today school lunches are contributing to the nation's obesity problem. Retired Navy Rear Admiral James Barnett Jr. says the officers want Congress to write legislation dealing with child obesity. He says this is creating a problem for military recruitment. We're what we're asking for is for Congress to do an actor you know a bush trauma attrition bill that would would help get don't carry beverages out of our schools. Barnett says about nine million young adults or about 27 percent of Americans between the ages of 17 to 24 are too heavy to join the military. On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 30 points it's at eleven thousand one hundred twenty three. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show San Pedro is a small town in the Dominican Republic known for its sugar and its shortstops.

It's produced a staggering number of major league baseball talents from Sammy Sosa to Julio Franco. In his latest book my guest Mark Kurlansky takes a forensic look at how Dominican baseball has come to shape an American pastime. Mark Kurlansky is a journalist whose latest book is The Eastern Stars the story of baseball and sugar in a small town. Mark welcome. Nice to be here. Now I learned from your book that there are three towns that have produced a number of players. Santo Domingo Santiago and of course the one you write about San Pedro Santa Domingo as the the home or are two Red Sox players Danny or David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. So how did San Pedro white why your focus on San Pedro exactly then. Well it's kind of funny you know a senator may go is half the population of the Dominican Republic it's the capital and the second city of Santiago and Don Pedro's just the small town so it's completely out of proportion to

be up there with the three but it is it's produced 70 died in Major League Baseball players and with a lot more in the pipeline. Because of sugar because. Right from about 1880 to the night through the 1920s there was a boom in sugar in the Dominican Republic in Cuba which they called the dance of the millions as in millions of dollars. And the center of Dominican sugar was sent Pedro a place with flat fertile land and a good port which is exactly what you need for the sugar industry. And there were eight mills in this small town. And the people who ran the mills were either American or Cuban. At a time when Americans and Cubans were getting pretty obsessed with the sport of baseball and the sugar mill at best will run about half of the year and they got all this free

time. Yeah a lot of us a lot of free time yeah. And they brought in workers because they couldn't get enough Dominican workers they brought in workers from the eastern Caribbean what was then the British West Indies. And these guys played cricket so here were these baseball obsessed executives looking out in the fields at their idle workers swinging bats and I said Yeah well let's get some baseball going here they taught them baseball and they form teams and every male had a team and it became this league and they played each other. And they did this for decades and decades reportedly of very high level of baseball very competitively played in. It became you know this tradition in San Pedro. None of them ever went to the major leagues because they were all of color and there was the color line. And then in 1047 Jackie Robinson them. Larry Doby and the color line was gone and they started

Dominican started coming in and in 1963 Kennedy declared and cargo on Cuba had at that time there had been 90 Cuban players in the major league and there had been only 12 Dominican major leaguers. Yeah I want to you know one of the things about your book that I was that surprised me was that Branch Rickey. He was the guy that negotiated the breaking of the color line with Jackie Robinson first considered a Cuban to do so. Yeah I mean he was a very you know they were very aware that you know it was important who this guy wise and how he acted in stopping this this Cuban guy was a bit too wild. He was a he was a good player but he didn't have the kind of character that Jackie Robinson. But it's interesting that the first Dominican player known in the Dominican as born as a bald keel and known

in Major League Baseball as Virgil. I was sort of curious how the first Dominican was was received and so I looked up all the press clippings and it was barely mentioned that he was from the Dominican Republic. All the reporting was on the fact that he was black he was the first black player for the Detroit Tigers. And you know that that's that's what the story wise at the time. Well what it was seemed to propel really a lot of Dominican players coming from whatever town they came from was when baseball changed as you explained in your book. And I guess these contracts went away and now they're free agents and all of a sudden you know you can do more as a result of Curt Flood a black player who refused to be traded and went all the way to the Supreme Court and created this system of a draft and free agent so that American players were first drafted and then after they served out their contracts they became free agents and the teams are very constricted about how many

players they can draft and in what order they can you know in reverse order of your standings the previous year so if the Red Sox keep this up they'll get some great picks next year. OK. We don't want that. The. So they just went after Dominican players well because free agents you can hire as many as you want. Anybody can hire them it's just a question of how much money you have and all foreign players except Canadians and Puerto Ricans are free agents. So there became this hunger for foreign players and Cuba was no longer available. And there were a lot of Cuban scouts around especially the Dodgers and they said I know where we can get foreign players and they went to to the Dominican Republic. Cuban Cuba was no longer avail because of our sanctions against Cuba. Right I have to say when I visited Cuba everybody was playing baseball I mean that's all you would think you would get. They played great baseball and you know someday they're going to drop the U.S. is going to drop this in Bargo

and we are going to be awash with Cuban talent. Now what has happened as a result of these players coming the Dominican getting the chance and getting to be on some of the major league teams is it's really changed some of the dynamic I guess in the town of San Pedro these guys go back there they've got money they've got all this other stuff I wonder if you would read from your book about just a little bit of how that how that has happened. Once baseball players started going to the US and coming back with the money to buy mansions an SUV. Baseball was no longer about fun it was about salvation. The one option that could work. Of course most of the players around town had not made the major leagues but many had made enough money somewhere in the game to start a business or take some kind of a small step up. It was no great trick to pick out those big strong American trained and more important American fed ball players in the

super market. There was urban con Tata age 27 a few years earlier he had been practicing in a send Pedro field when a scout noticed him. In 2003 he was signed to the Astros he played minor league ball until 2007 and then was released. Now he was playing with the ice today if a local Dominican team. Since he never made it into the majors his salary in the Dominican Lee was not very high but it was still a lot better than a salary in the Free Zone. Also and this seldom gets said it was a lot more fun. So you've got these players coming back and you know to their community and being able to really improve the lives of their community and their immediate family or family. Yeah it's really important. I mean you get a you get a ball player and your family and it makes a huge difference. Like this woman said I met this woman in her last name was Franco and I said any relation to Julio Franco she said Oh I wish. Yeah yeah that's what you need is a Julio for

your family. Now I wonder if this also sets up the kind of dynamic we often sometimes see with African-American kids in basketball where everybody thinks well I'll just get to be a big time baseball player and that'll be the end I don't have to do anything else and then there's a lot of disappointment because everybody can't be talented. Exactly 3 percent of players who are signed to major league contracts ever make it to the major league and outside of signing bonuses which are getting better and better. You don't really make much of any money till you get to the major leagues so most of them actually won't be in big money. And they like to get them at 16 and a half is the youngest age you can sign. So these are kids dropping out of school to pursue this career that they have a 3 percent chance of making it in. And and that is a problem. But you know it. If you're hungry your family doesn't have enough meat and you can't buy medicine for the people who are sick. You go for the Dream Three million

dollars is the average salary and you're like now I can understand that. Now we've been talking about race a little bit differently in this conversation but one of the things that's come up recently that even I as not a sports person was vaguely aware of was this tension between African-American players and Dominican players now. Yeah I've read a couple comments about that get speak to that. Talk to us about them. Well it's a tension that actually has some history to it because the original Dominican players who came during the height of the civil rights movement most of them you know in Dominican racism there's a big difference between being brown and being black. I know but that's all changed between Haiti and Dominican and the Dominican that's another story. Right but. And that's the whole root of Dominican racism right. If you look like a Haitian right. But even in the U.S. they go to some farm team in the south and they're considered black and they're you know subject to Jim Crow laws and

all that came as a big shock to them because they didn't consider themselves to be black and you know the early ones the ones that came over and right and understandably African-Americans kind of resented these guys for you know instead of showing some solidarity trying to make this distinction. And but this is so that you're kind of in the way of a background doing now though what's happened now is that the participation the number of African-American players in the major league has been for some time in perception is declining is now under 10 percent. And in the same period of time the number of Latino players has gone up and up. I just found the quote from outfielder Torii Hunter you described the Dominican replays as imposture as they hire people who as a cheap way of getting. If you know someone like African-Americans he's saying now don't go over very well as you can imagine.

Well yeah and there are several problems with this. You know putting aside the imposture thing which I don't understand at all there could ballplayers. But I think you meant from a racial standpoint. But go ahead. Oh because they're not. Yes yeah. So they hire black you know visibly looking black folks but they're not African-Americans Well I think you know the fact that Dominican have gone up and blacks have gone down does not mean that many consider taking jobs that blacks walk right. Major League Baseball is hungry for 750 top players and they will take them wherever they can get them. And the reason they've gone abroad is because they are not able to get them in the U.S. And I've talked to numerous people who are involved in inner city programs these programs are closing because there's so little interest in baseball in the inner city now. And it's not really true that they know that they're getting them for cheap these signing bonuses they're getting it from the top players. But you know for the ones that go

to the minor leagues and all that maybe I don't know it's cheaper to develop them in season or to develop a player in the end that's an argument for a lot of African members of the that kind of development is no longer happening in the inner city. But. Well but yeah I wanted to major league wants it too and they're not finding they're not finding people interested it in the way. The players who you know I mean look at the major leagues I mean I think people are stingy with money and they are willing to spend money. Well I think this tension is going to go on for a while. Well it is yeah it's kind of fortunate because I you know I kind of see it in the old fashioned way that there should be some solidarity here right now do you think the numbers of Dominican players will go up. Because San Pedro is still doing its thing in the short term in the short term yes in the long term I'm not sure. There's a number of things are happening I mean for one thing the embargo will end in Cuba someday

and that will be a lot of Cubans but they're also developing players all over Latin America they're very excited about Nicaragua right now. And there's and there's the Asian players and there's an organization called Major League Baseball International that is looking almost everywhere in the world. Well yeah but we have Japanese players Red Sox. Yeah you know the Japanese have been playing baseball for a really long time but they're looking in England they haven't come up with an English Prospect yet. Well I mean they're just they're looking everywhere so it seems that in the long run it's going to become a much more. International sport and your opinion is that a good thing is that the take away from your book. I think it's a good thing. I'm in favor of an international anything wherever possible. OK. Do you know whether or not where in the spectrum of Dominican players Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz fall I confess not being a sports expert. Dominican Yes. Well you know the thing about Manny is that

he's pretty much an American I think he was born in the Dominican Republic but he grew up in New York by Alex Rodriguez. And guys like that you know the Dominican is claim them when they're doing well when they're not sort of like the Red Sox fans in general. Yeah yeah yeah David Ortiz's said it completely. Dominican year committed kids were big Red Sox fans but it's that sort of declining it. OK. Well there's much more to be learned and Mark Kurlansky book His book is The Eastern Stars the story of baseball and sugar in a small town about Dominican baseball an American pastime baseball. Catch him tonight at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge. He'll be doing a reading at 6 o'clock for more information visit Harvard dot com. Mark Kurlansky thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. And coming up conductor Benjamin Zander on the Rite of Spring. We'll be back after this break. Support for WGBH comes from you and from a Tyrian Theater in New

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Marathon today we're talking baseball you're like a sports guru y'all are killin me here. Everybody knows it's not my thing but I have to say these are some pretty interesting stories Well that's the thing about this show Kalyan about you in particular is that you know I'm sort of kidney here about you being a sports and U.S. sports isn't your thing but but that discussion wasn't what you typically thinking when you're talking about sports stories and that's the kind of coverage you do here with this show. Right that's why I like doing stories like that I'm always interested in the issues. That may be sports related. That's right. Oh that's that's that's what draws me in. Yeah I found all of my most recent sports related guests to be very fascinating. Yeah it's great and it's you know again it's the kind of program that you're only hearing here in eighty nine point seven re talking baseball today the national pastime and of course when we think baseball in public broadcasting we think Ken Burns the fantastic baseball film which in the fall we've got there is he's doing a little extra ad on this called The Tenth Inning and that's going to be on GBH television. And you know Ken Burns is done other films as well including National

Park which was his most recent one which we have right now as a thank you gift for an $80 contribution for folks who want to you know join the station at the $80 level do that as a sustainer. And that's you know less than $10 a month you could spread that out over the course of the year I'm going to thank you with the six part series which you aired just a few weeks ago months ago now on GBH to this is Ken Burns at his best. You can make a contribution at 8 8 8 8 9 7 9 4 2 4. You can also give securely online at WGBH dot org that's your $80 gift but of course it takes gifts in any amount. The important thing is that you make a gift if you believe in this kind of programming Calley local two hours between Emily Rooney and you every day on this station right. I'm I'm sure that can probably address the whole Dominican entrance into the American pastime of baseball. It's certainly something I was kind of vaguely aware of but didn't realize how much. How many players and how famous they were. And of course we have two right here on the Red Sox. Right. Which I learned that you may

remember there is a David Ortiz learning happening all the time on the air. It's like you're having a good time and bam all of a sudden you just realize you learned something you didn't even know it was happening because you were enjoying yourself and boom you're learning things and if you want to support that if you believe in that I know I believe in that Cali I know you believe in that I know that your upcoming guest Ben Zander the illustrious Ben Zander he believes in it and you can if you can make a contribution now. Again it's a gift in any amount $5 a month $10 a month a one time gift of one hundred seventeen dollars whatever you want pick an amount that works for you that's what works for us. The important thing is that you do it because you know what. This show doesn't happen without your support. Here's the number 8 8 8 8 9 7 9 4 2 4 you can always also give securely online at WGBH dot org we're going to get back to the show right now. Ben Zander coming up with Kelly Crossley. You get to the phones and make that gift. 8 8 8 8 9 7 9 4 2 4 and thanks. If this program is one of your favorites on eighty nine point seven

then you might like what's coming up just as much. Eighty nine point seven lineup is stocked with a vast array of NPR News International report for P.R. eyes the world and important local issues with Emily Rooney and Kelly Crossley. If they do eighty nine point seven has you listening more often than please do your part right now. When every dollar you contribute goes right back into the programs you care about. Call 8 8 8 8 9 7 9 4 2 4. Or you can give securely online at WGBH God or Tennessee. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show and 1913 composer Igor Stravinsky changed the way people think about classical music. When he debuted The Rite of Spring nearly a century later my guest Benjamin Zander is bringing something new to our ears with an on coming performance of Stravinsky's revolutionary work. Benjamin Zander is a conductor of the Boston film monic orchestra. Benjamin Zander welcome.

Thank you it's have I'm really happy to be back and I endorse that message about supporting WGBH I do it myself as a local member. Oh well thank you and of course Boston provides. Whole station of classical music on ninety nine point seven in addition to the talking so it's a wonderfully rich palette now. Good. I have to ask you just to start off our conversation why have the Rite of Spring was so controversial when it debuted in 1913. Well it was like a volcano it was like this eruption that we're all experiencing it shook the world. And it wasn't just any piece it was this piece this piece really the landscape of music was never the same after this it turned everything upside down and it had partly to do with the rhythm in public to do with the harmony and the lack of melodies and it was just the most concentrated onslaught on to the era. And the first performance actually created a real riot.

I mean if you know that in the very first performance there was a there was a riot. It's described the audience in the audience. There was a pit. It's a pagan rite. And Stravinsky had this vision he said I had dreamed of a scene of pagan ritual in which a chosen sacrificial virgin dances herself to death. And this is the description of the eruption of string spring. He wrote about spring in Russia is quite different from spring here. He said it seemed to begin in one hour and was like the whole earth cracking. And that was the most wonderful event of every year of my childhood. And so he put an underselling this commotion that that night at people were throwing chairs and dancers could hear themselves I mean I was really quite a mess. It was a wild cat calls and hisses succeeded the playing of the first few bars and then ensued a battery of screams countered by a foil of applause reward over the art some of us thought it was and some thought it wasn't.

Some 40 of the protesters were forced out of the theater. It was it was of raw rampage histeria on the stage dimmed by the blazing lights and the complement of disjointed ravings of a mob of angry men and women. I mean an extraordinary scene which is of course well known Should we let our listeners hear what what was what people were upset about. Well the first thing we're going to hear is the final section the Sacrificial Dance which we performed in nineteen ninety at the tempo that we believe Stravinsky originally intended. Is this the piano roll. No this is the X-rated performance everything we did in 1900. OK let's take a listen. Now you say you performed it that way because you believed it was at the timbrel that

somebody had sent me a scholar and sent me one of the a piano roll of Stravinsky not actually playing this piece but supervising it and it was at this breakneck tempo and you can hear it if you hear the piano roll. You'll hear what I believe was Stravinsky's original idea. And of course it's describing a young virgin dancing herself to death. So we take a listen to yeah in a row. Now to my untrained ear that sounds very close to what you performed exactly 90.

Now if you listen this is a modern performance of the piece conducted by a very great conductor Pierre Boulez. And it's had a more traditional tempo and this is the tempo which Stravinsky actually wrote in his school. So now the question is why because here we hardly imagine these young ladies breaking a sweat let alone dancing herself to death. Yeah. So that. That's much slower much slower now what actually happened here. Well this music speaks to these hidden impulses in all of us that are forces that we keep at bay with our civilized

behavior. And I think what happened was fascinating Stravinsky wrote this piece in 1913 at the height of the romantic intensity that was in Europe and later on he wanted to get away from that to move away to it. Why did you want to. Well it's a very fascinating thing that vital romantic living breathing dramatic world became anathema. Nothing much to him. And when he later on his own performances he replaced it with a kind of unyielding metronomic precision. He didn't want that freedom and that power and that energy he referred to this piece as an abstract piece of musical spatial geography. He couldn't have been further from that. And the whole crushing strain and the intensity and the enactment of this ritual was. Sanitized and he moved away from it towards

his abstract art and the world has followed him now. What happened to me was in 1990 as I told you I did this first performance and incidentally it was such a shock to people that the New York Times called this recording. One of the 10 most important musical events of 1992 and it was a shock because you were performing it at the faster right at that faster tempo and many people said of course that's the way it should be with that driving for a Neti almost unbearable intensity. Well after the performance in 1990 I read an article by a scholar in California Robert Frank Fink who said yes yes it was a nice attempt it actually was a failure because what I didn't notice was that throughout the piece there were fluctuations of tempo and rubato as and freedom of spirit that I did not bring into the performance so in 2000 we did another performance which got a lot closer. And now in 2000 and 10 every 10

years we do the rite of spring. We're doing it again and this time we're exploring it with absolute full energy and without any holding back and restoring I think recreating the excitement and the passion and the intensity of this performance in 1013 which must have been a totally amazing event now it was. Not very well played in those days they couldn't play this music so well it was very complicated and very difficult and I think today that was the reason that Stravinsky reduced the temples are partly so that it was manageable by the way he couldn't even conduct it now here was so chaotic his recording of it is just absolutely chaotic. But even the performance of the great Pierre Monteux who was the conductor of the first performance and was the greatest conductor of his music in one thousand thirteen one hundred twenty nine he recorded it and although it's very poorly played you can at least hear that he's striving for that

fast driven tempo suggesting the frenetic quality of the young girl dancing herself to death. These were ballets of NDI AGA lef and Nugent ski and these were Nietzschean creatures with tremendous force a sense of danger and incidentally also of massive egotism of these musicians and so shall we take a listener here Lance and Pierre Mentos. It's night and he's not quite there but you can hear it striving towards that

fast. So for people who are familiar with this piece of music and familiar way that's being played. The old fashioned way if we can say that at the slower tempo. This is going to be quite. It's a shocking them spirits and the whole experience of the piece is going to be shocking because there's going to be so much freedom in rubato and changes from the traditional rather sterile abstract performance and this has become which I think is a great sadness. Well we're going to continue this conversation. We're talking about Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring with Benjamin Zander conductor for the Boston Fela Monaco orchestra. We'll be back after this break stay with us. The.

Support for WGBH comes from you and from the New England mobile book fair in Newton for 53 years. New England's independent bookstore. The New England mobile book fair find them online at any book fair dot com. That's an e-book fair dot com and from the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra Benjamin Zander conducts Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring April 22nd and Twenty fifth at Sanders Theatre and April 24th a Jordan Hall. Tickets at Boston fill dot org. And from Somerset Chrysler Jeep Dodge here for you here for life and online at Somerset auto group dot com. Bringing intelligent conversation to the radio every day with their support of the Emily Rooney show at noon.

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8 9 7 9 4 2 4 now for the uninitiated that's eighty eight which is toll free eight nine seven which is our frequency and then nine four to four is WGBH. You can always do this also online at WGBH dot org and when you do it now you are supposedly supporting live local radio with Cali Crosley isn't that right cowboy. Yes that's exactly right. So your show today is just you know an example of what happens here every single afternoon you know you were talking baseball for a while now you're breaking down music with one of the great music people in town. I heard the phrase that somebody dance themselves to death when it's my years I mean this is great it's all about the Rite of Spring. But you know it's interesting because you're really taking the time to sort of look into this you're talking about the music we're hearing it you're breaking it down this is the kind of coverage that only happens here on eighty nine point seven because you've got this time and the only reason we're able to have this kind of time to do this is when you make a gift with people support this and they say yes I want to have this on the radio.

It's so wonderful you know the motto of WGBH is produced in Boston and shared with the world in this this conversation about Rite of Spring I think is great we have one of our local treasures here Benjamin Zander and we're talking about another local treasure the Boston filler monic orchestra. And we're talking about a piece that is worldwide known worldwide. So it's amazing and you can support it right now here's how you do it. 8 8 8 8 9 7 9 4 2 4 again you can always do it online at WGBH dot org. We're looking for gifts in any amount but it's spring. We're talking about the Rite of Spring. And you know spring is you think of gardening the food started to come a little deliciousness coming your way fresh foods and we've got a great thing for food lovers I know you are you're big into food can I well I have food. A Food and Wine contributor to my show regular you guys eating and drinking wine down there I show it's great the fabulous Sheryl Julian from the bus and go Globe and the fabulous Jonathan also from The Boston. One school which is great and if you make a contribution now of $60 which as a sustainer if you become a sustainer that's just five dollars a month low impact for you we can thank you with this great

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Stravinsky's groundbreaking work the Rite of Spring with Benjamin Zander. He's a conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. They'll be performing the Rite of Spring this Thursday and Sunday at Sander cedar and this Saturday at Jordan Hall. You can visit Boston filled org for more information. I have to add to that we're performing it on Friday in was to in the most extraordinary hole they have the mechanics hole. And I want to say to people you know there's a lot of people who look at modern music and they say Stravinsky and revel Well tell us. And they say oh I don't want to have anything to do about this is the most exciting most powerful most alluring music imaginable and if you have children anybody age of 12 13 14 15 who out of school right now because they're in vacation we bring them to this concert because it will turn them on to classical music for the rest of their lives. Yes I want to quote you you said this is more exciting than any hip hop ever written right. Absolutely I mean they will. The variety of the rhythms the power of the rhythms This is music

which speaks to a very. Powerful part of us is dangerous feeling it seems to loom out of a distant past you know scary threatening. It's speaks from a primitive paced place which is not normally tapped into and Stravinsky and river Welters this other piece into my it's also a sacrificed piece of a sacrifice of a snake. The killing of a snake by a tribal community with all the African rhythms and South American rhythms it's absolutely thrilling. That's an obvious that you'll be performing your own concert and then. That's right we move on to that. Yeah I just want to ask you we've talked about this being the single most influential piece written in the 20th century and I want you to explain why it was so. Well nothing was the same after the Rite of Spring every piece of music I mean even these two pieces the other two pieces of music on the program the genius Erhard concerto and the sense of Maya couldn't have been written without the Stravinsky there actually quotes rhythm from the rhythm from the instrumentation from the color of

this music. Every piece of music was influenced after the Rite of Spring moved into or into a different kind of sense of harmony a different it would no longer Beethoven development of themes. So it it had a profound effect on everybody. Whenever you say quotes is that like hip hop sampling. They take from all music and kind of sample and reward them for actually what I mean it just goes into the language comes part of the soundscape of music you can hear just in the hopper ahead of the other day we were rehearsing and some of this little quotation for the Rite of Spring. Amazingly enough and the other piece the sense of my are is full of Stravinsky and rhythms instrumentation. We have 35 percussion instruments and six because players I mean this is wild rhythmic stuff. I also want to tell you about how hard it is because you know talking about the volcano at the beginning of course she couldn't get from Europe because Holland where she comes from she's the greatest harp player of her generation and

she couldn't leave because there were no planes so she drove from Amsterdam to Madrid for two days and just got on a plane and she's arriving this afternoon having a very exciting experience anyway this is a concert I want to track so many young people already were very full here in Boston but I but in Worcester where they have the most magnificent hole they still haven't got the message yet and I want them to be sure that everybody is listening from was to just make sure you go there with your kids and come to the concert on Friday evening. Now you say this is the versions and you'll be playing the more fluid romantic version but driving toward that very important race in the English actually. It's really vital less you say versus geometrics X-Plane what you mean well the Vitalist is passionate is intense as romantic as dramatic is full of individuality and responding to the drama dramatic moment of the music and the geometric

stamp sowed any trace of this vital form and reduces it to something abstract and cool. I mean cool in another sense and sanitized and I think we've lost a tremendous amount and in fact the idea is that this is actually influenced interpretation of all music of Beethoven and other people this kind of fleet precision athletic virtuosity for its own sake stamping out any trace of this passionate vital crushing intensity which we're hoping to restore by bringing 1913 made 29 back to life. Not there will create a riot because no longer we respond to music in that way but it does a little bit more open where yes and also but it does speak to those primitive forces that we all have in us which we keep at bay. But this music. Keeps digs deep into our psyche and creates an amazing reaction and this can really cause a transformation in people's lives that is

overwhelming and if somebody is young I think of a 14 or 15 year old coming to this and being really knocked out by it. Now how has it knocked out the musicians because this is very different then the way they might play it absolutely right there through the very inside is very difficult because to play the music in this free way first of all its you second of all it's very demanding and difficult to play. But they're doing it fantastically well and they love all the pieces on the on the program including the sense of my art which is a phenomenally exciting piece from rhythmically with all the South American rhythms and with all the characters of South America that you hear and the harp concerto too. I mean it's full of Argentina and dance and song and all the things it's a great program it's one of the best programs we've ever put together. I'm interested in what some of the musicians might be saying who have played it. They write this. Was there somebody in the group who played it and I know you know Andy and you know what their response to the death Well they've been watching this development with tremendous interest because in

1990 all we were concerned about was getting that temp of the SEC visual dance like the piano roll but now we're playing this such much more fire and more drummer and more intensity and more freedom. There's a moment for instance where there's a great rush up in the in the orchestra and then 11 hammer blows and Stravinsky had them play quite fast dum bum bum and we're playing them slower and more powerful and it's almost like 11 hammer blows just on the head. It was almost unbearable intensity of this music. So incredibly thrilling. Well that essence of The Rite of Spring is that you know one has this Sacrificial Dance at the end and that leads us to spring a rebirth. Yeah right so it's it makes sense then to sort of it's a rebirth in a way you know that is there's also something quite tragic about the Rite of Spring because there is so much about death in the piece and because the end is about the death of this girl in the sense of my hour with the snake is killed. That is a really new world a

rebirth. And in fact the snake becomes part of the community because the snake has magic powers and once destroyed it can become It Can Renew. This is the in The Rite of Spring remember one year later was the first world war. And I think there was a sense of doom and of. Of impending disaster which is brought out in this piece it's quite a terrifying experience but also a thrilling one. Now we all know that you love to conduct but if this is a difficult piece for the musicians are you like exhausted at the end of this and it's exhausting it's challenging it's about as difficult a piece to conduct as you can imagine. Mr. Prince can do it. Never have said in dog well it's a test for every conductor everybody knows the right spring particularly the Sacrificial Dance where changes to tempo and meter in every single bar and it's going at breakneck speed and when you get to the end of it you could hear the excitement of the audience. Maybe we should play that last minute one more time of the for number one the very first

1990 performance in your get a sense of this thrill and this excitement. All right here we go it's the Boston feel of Monaco orchestras 1990 version of the Sacrificial Dance in the Rite of Spring. When. One last question is Dr. Fink the scholar who got you on the road to rethinking this is he pleased he's very pleased and I gather he's teaching his class in California all

about this and get all the correspondence back and forth and all the letters and the blog and so I have a blog on my website on Benjamin Zander dot com and he's getting all the students to read it and tremendous excitement and exchanges almost every day we speak. Will he be able to get out copy. Yeah we'll make a tape and he'll definitely get in and I'm sure it'll go out in the well maybe I'll come back and play it. Or one more example that's a scholarship and artistry can go hand in hand absolutely happily. Well we're going out on a dance of the earth Benjamin Zander thank you so much for joining us. Benjamin Zander is a conductor of the Boston Fela monocoque Istra. They will be performing the Rite of Spring this Thursday and Saturday at Sanders Theater and this Saturday at Jordan Hall and Friday in Wester. You can visit Boston fill dot org for more information. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show by visiting our website WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley where a production of WGBH radio Boston's NPR station for news and culture. Nine point seven you know that you love public radio but that doesn't mean you can't

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