Listen!; Nicolas Nabokov

this is albert their direct music director of wypr my guest this evening as the known american composer of russian descent mr nicholas novel golf with or nabokov has recently returned to this country after having spent the past fifteen years in paris and in berlin is the composer of a large body of compositions including three symphonies for five ballets including one that was famous in the early thirties called union pacific in this country much chamber music many piano compositions many works for voice and orchestra and one opera the holy devil mr nabokov what was your purpose in returning to the united states this time where you engage to produce a work of your own party part but mainly i was invited by the city university of new york too teacher course which i'm teaching here that i just enter and forty fifth street itself course court of music and arts in history and it's one semester course and then i heard other engagements or the

next year in another state college right next to new york which would lead me to holding up bags and come back home from paris where i resided good to him clearly i can say i was added maureen end homes and in turn those men in paris itself because those engaged in owen as interest of those directing conferences and meetings all over the world including the eastern won't india japan or europe and i was director and still an advisor with the mayor of berlin and director of that billion mr lucien and prose style have to combine all of those things with my composition with the other reason home upcoming was that there was off to

write that piece it had commissioned to write a piece for the hundred and twenty fifth anniversary oh the new yorker a moment i think a dozen or so composers were commissioned to attract pieces mine was performed here in general and the title fits symphony and on the title of credit it's a piece inspired by a prayer appropriate join the treaty saved hoards of jewels and there dedicated to his and robert oppenheimer's memory i have been close friend robert oppenheimer's and indeed spend a half we had last year at the institute for advanced studies as his guest in a princeton where he was really shaken and dying the other reason for coming was the dmv winter and welcome george balanchine resumes the performance of

muffled length of evening parlette done quick so which is a ballet is all such a long cold evening molly is are there that is it changes in modern times itself in the right numbers in to get all the numbers out it's just an actor well my cousin was indirectly and jensen returned states or russia works into english and has so there's some changes that in translating from these remedies will not actual coming up and tell us if you will serve out your earlier life in this country before you went to paris or some fifteen years ago you were a resident of this country and for what period of time all i was resident in citizen i came here in nineteen

fifty three i was invited by a cord albert barnes who is it dr land commission of fictional head fortunately he died he was he invited me to give vick shows at his establishment in after the death in a new program in his mom's collection of pictures and he assembled with monet end where there are lectures from liberal were invited to lecture on how i came into that very distinguished law permits chavez mocked use that showed that the congressional action that and everyone of them ended by having a fight mr barnes so do i but i must say that i'm grateful to bond because he brought me here for the cities of lectures and intimate option of the shooting i knew the fluid in the phones before bed and the

charming couple now did an unscientific and the macleish and the murphys got me interested in writing about in their own american scenes at core union pacific indeed an al copeland talks about the history of american barley always as the first american band and an american thing and when american musical material was written by a veteran i have produced better food and a company called the russian parliament a color which is cure his name was coming stemming from violence and because congress feared that don't mean messing also russian so in fact russians can give it to the start of the mission beyond that it was it was a duck target for thirty four thirty five the most successful ballot in the united states where the company was

run by a gentleman corn <unk> to dubai's even for some reason he was a criminal and what players have to do with the body but by living as maybe a bit with bartlett have given the company that as his own kitchen and pocketed all the money and never paid monthly show me until the family hit your suit and got a little bit of money from him but it was too late and the hard about the foreman says in thirty years ago there were about seven hundred homes is over but then it petered out that obama is the new book last long and jerk but arguably china meeting said you know we should try to think about having it produced a game and so does my scene and so does occasionally as the hero who says why a dozen bunching to union pacific at this and i think one should never go back to old things which

funded so that was my first thing then i came to new york and that was practically meeting right which are in to what they call college exile i was i invited to become head of the music department of a college upstate new york or wells college with celebration which celebrates the spirit something that i towards the airport five years on the schwarzenegger or up in what i thought to be there and i felt to be liked or the chinese goods and the fourteenth or fifteenth century must have felt where the exiled from court that he is a small community that it has selected on the force only which in the winter thanks to humans with record and big snow storms coming it never freezes i understand

is only freeze is one of the original graduates from college this is a thing of the cars an adult it's another polish rather famous college st john's college in annapolis maryland the date looks college i put their foot three or four years and then around nineteen forty four i started working for the government in exchange organization called the strategic bombings says that whew that was an organ suggest that to me because he was also drawing by them and we went to europe to assess the effect of mourning and division of moral illusion we print galbraith who was one of the thing enter from nevada i wanted to come

back i was already teaching part time at composition and music history that the big conservatory besides jones i want to come back gregory i wanted to make it with was held back in germany by the un ambassador murphy to be advisor for cultural affairs and protected for music films cinema and so on in germany were when we were sort of trying to pasteurize pasteurize the germans made its pastoral people and to bring back to them would music and then the nas if i had some of the germans and put others in the breakfast and that was then i stayed and forty seven then it came back to the

united states and state here and to approximately fifty one when i was invited to europe as secretary general of an organization called the congress were called to freedom which i which had its headquarters in paris but was american sponsored and sponsored american foundations and so i didn't start it mainly concerning missile with the arts aspect of the work of this organization more organizing christos how on earth have you had time in all this busy schedule to compose well i've composed are indeed some of the pages of the sports in random these and all flights that are very long across the pope it indeed they're going to get a jet plane because it's too fast and not fast enough

i love these old flat plains which book we all took fourteen hours to cross the atlantic and had lots of time to work two seemed to read you to sleep and but demanded it in our grabbing some time here and there a month or two to work very hard and they flashed the piece i wrote for many bins things orchestra i was in princeton last year and it did in one wants another piece are on plans baum the motto which is going to be produced now in germany and even lit up or worse and orchestra i have bid in two weeks last year in normandy and now i'm in the midst of writing the autobiography or athenaeum and i'm also working at fact and have to do when mubarak or a bunch of fantastic wonderful schedule

i guess this evening as minister nicholas nabokov american composer russian descent who has spoken very wittily and delightfully i think of aspects of his busy and colorful career mr nabokov is durable ballet done quick sought is currently being performed at the new york state theater at lincoln center riverside radio will present mr nabokov as the holy devil in our regularly scheduled upper in the twentieth century in march this is albert their track for listening as bell