Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; Bizet, Prokofieff, Busoni, and Bruch, part 3

Now with our intermission feature here is Carolyn watts of the WGA use a staff. Sidney Fastow whom you have just heard in a performance of the backtalk Piano Concerto Number three and admission to being a concert artist is a member of the music faculty at the University of Indiana. Mr. Foster also has the distinction of being the first winner of the famous 7:49 award. And this from what I've been able to learn and metaphor to it is an extremely exacting competition as a matter of fact I learned just the other day that since 1940 there been only 13 awards given by the Levitt foundation. So I heard. The I tell you what it is the lemon tree that made me famous and Van Cliburn and I had 11 foot famous. And 11 track competition is about 25 years old that's true. I was the first winner. And it was very nice and sentimental to be a judge for the 11 trade this year went on you han wanted after these twenty five intervening years. I think that good manners have often wondered what is entailed in preparation for that are you

told to prepare certain things. Well some of the requirements for this competition I think vary as time goes by but it's the least rigid of all of them the contestants are expected to be able to be ready to play if I remember correctly now two programs and three can charity and the problems are entirely of their choice and so are the concerti. There are no fixed pieces do they ever suggest or do they ever required them to do any kind of sight reading that that sort of no. No but they're expected to be chamber music players as well. They expect to be musicians and virtual see who are ready to begin a career that is not so you say ready to establish but at least have a chance at it. Well if you know required to play a computer they have an orchestra they already play with a pianist or what. During the preliminary phases of the concerti you play with second piano and during some of the competitions which you have been open to the public the

New York Philharmonic has been the orchestra which played during the finals three or four finalists. Did you play with an octave. No I did my second piano. There was a. An article recently I think with the New York Times suggesting that with the tremendous sale of records today that more is said that as more and more records of good music are being sold that at by the at the same time that audiences are decreasing in number now whether that's cause or effect I don't know but do you think that the ministry of records is affecting attendance at concerts. Well I'm really not in position to say I shouldn't think so I think that the effect of records is to elevate the standards of performance. Nobody can perform like a record because nobody can edit his performance as he does it but you know one can spend 16 hours recording 15 minutes of music and the editor can spend 50 hours piecing together the tape and out comes the idea of

performance. Well the impact of that on on all of us is to elevate the standard of accuracy what we didn't hear once upon a time it's now jarring. But as for the impact of records on and diminishing the Saudis or increasing the size body as if I were to hazard what I would consider perhaps an educated guess would be that they increase rather than decrease the size of audiences. Tell me this is getting better but you are speaking of a minute ago about the Corning's and the editing do you believe this destroys the integrity of a thing to doctor and doctor and doctor to get the perfect performance. Well in some ways I would like to say yes that's true in other ways no. A record is a different thing than a performance it's not really any more a record on the performance it's a special thing in itself. It's a particular art to be

able to make a record is not to record a performance. And so I think if you assume that attitude is perfectly fair just as a person who writes a book is not expected to extemporize it it's not. His book is not a recording of the story which he's extemporizing but is rather the work over carefully edited and thoughtful setting forth of ideas which might have been related to a story. If if if one could say that. Then. Well let me say that you have said it that makes it valid but not interesting enough that's the first time I've heard anybody put forward this idea and I think at last it has been defended by you Mr Foster. You mean the idea that you have an article in The New York Times speaking of you said that you were not only a virtual so but a great interpreter of great music. Now. What are your criteria for that interpretation. Would it be interpreted as the composing method or

do you get inside of the music rather than that of the composer. It's a very hard question to answer because. One doesn't really fix himself so positively let me say this though the performer is in a sense an instrument and today's performer is probably quite different in his attitudes than the performer of even a decade ago but certainly a 50 or 100 years ago and so if I were to say to you that my sincere intention as a performer which I believe to be the intention of every performer to set forth the music for the benefit of the audience who wishes to hear what the composer wrote in a way I am doing it subject to all of the forces which have been brought to bear to make me have those prejudices and attitude which I have. So. Yes in answer to your question yes my

attitude is to try to do justice to the composer for the benefit of the audience but at the same time that I do that. I realize that it's only a point of view and it's only a personal opinion. It varies from everybody else's. I think I'm right I don't think they're wrong but I know that I'm different and they're different and they're all of us are different and we would have been if we were born 50 years earlier or 50 years later. Well then but by that token would you say that even within a period of years that sometimes your interpretation might undergo a sea change. Oh yes it does. I think it's dramatized by the fact that the recordings of all the Beethoven sonatas this novel which he did as a young man he found a necessity for doing entirely again in a more mature time in his life I think. I would be proud to look back and say I was 20 when I did that but I would be humiliated if someone pointed to that and said that's the way you do it because I did it and I'm happy that I was able at 20 to do that but not at nearly 50 now to do that.

I have another question in life might be a difficult answer but I know that fairly recently you played in Russia as I understand to packed houses. You know you I believe it was something like 16 concerts in 22 days and you have also played in Japan and all of the United States. Do you find that the demands of the audiences differences in Russia are different from those in Japan either in the demand or the reaction. Well the characteristic differences in the cultures of these countries which expressed themselves and the way the people express themselves in their enthusiasm. I wasn't here just anywhere Abood so I don't know what that's like and we never do it in this country but I do understand that other countries do that they still do that. Well I'm told that I'm not told by anybody to whom it's happened but I suppose that does happen. But the Russians for example are much more a Bulent are much more vocal in letting you know that they approved or enjoyed what you

did than the Americans. The Japanese are quite extraordinary. They've embraced Western music with a vengeance and just in short time I think some 20 years a little over 20 years they've come to the time when there are six active symphony orchestras in Tokyo alone and the whole country has gone western for music. That will give you some idea of what it means to the Japanese. But there are finally people are people whether they are Russians or Japanese or or whatever. And if you just close your eyes and listen to them after you finish playing. I don't think you could discriminate amongst them. Thank you so much you have been listening to an interview with Sidney Foster soloist in today's concert playing the Concerto Number three by Bartok with a Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. This is being Carolyn Watts. It's our animation

featuring soloist Sidney Foster talking with Carolyn watched the WG U.S. staff. We are now back at Music Hall for the completion of this program. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's performance of the Symphony Number two by honest Brahms. Brahms composed this work during the summer of 1877 at ports chalk on the verge of say a beauty spot which he found both restful and inspiring. The symphony is remarkable for its flood of melody. Brahms wrote to Hans lick from his retreat retreat at Port shock. So many melodies fly about that one must be careful not to. Tread on them. For all its orchestral complexity. Symphony seems at times an outpouring of pure joy. Yet. Since it is Brahms we're talking about exuberance is controlled and is made part of an elaborate tunnel and rhythmic pattern

with undertones of meditation even of melancholy. The first performance was by the Vienna Philharmonic under Hans waster. He's number 20 of 1877 and the first performance by the Cincinnati orchestra wasn't 1895. The scoring is for two floats 2 oboes two clarinets two best Solon's contrabass own four horns two trumpets three drum bones temp an A and string. Now conductor Max Rudolf prepares rides to the podium and there they had a symphony number two in D Major over 73. Your Highness Brahms. No

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