Харуки Мураками - Absolutely on Music

MURAKAMI: What does it mean to “change the bar lines”?

OZAWA: Hmm, let’s see, how can I explain this to you? [ He mulls it over for a while. ] It means completely changing how you count the beats. Say you’ve got 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3, and you change it to 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2 … like that.

MURAKAMI: So he changed irregular meters into regular ones?

OZAWA: Stravinsky said he “streamlined” it—he simplified it. He had an assistant named Robert Craft who was himself a conductor and composer. The score was changed so that if Craft conducted it, even a student orchestra would be able to play it.

MURAKAMI: In other words, it ceased to be a difficult piece.

OZAWA: And that’s the version that Stravinsky asked me to record. So I did.

MURAKAMI: You mean, this recording we’re listening to is of the revised version?

OZAWA: Well, I did perform the revised version with Stravinsky and Craft in the audience, and I recorded it for RCA. I recorded both the original version and the revised version with the Chicago Symphony.

MURAKAMI: I had no idea. I’ve never seen any recording of The Rite of Spring you did with the Chicago Symphony other than this one. I’ve always listened to this one on the assumption it was the same Rite of Spring I knew.

OZAWA: I’m not sure what happened, but the revised version was probably never released.

MURAKAMI: You mean they shelved it?

OZAWA: I knew it was no good when we played it, and the musicians knew it, too. Lenny said I was the biggest victim. He was furious. He was sure Stravinsky must have revised it to extend the copyright. I had studied the old version like crazy, I had conducted it any number of times, and I had pretty much mastered it. Now I was having the rug pulled out from under me. Conducting the revised version required a totally different approach. This record we’ve got here, though, is the original version.

MURAKAMI: I’ve read the liner notes very closely, and it doesn’t say a word about which version it is. They do mention that the composer had revised the work, but they don’t say that that is the version being performed on the record. It seems to be deliberately vague. You’d think it would be a good selling point to stress that the record contained the very latest version.

Murakami note: According to the testimony of Robert Craft, who had cooperated with the revision, the main reason Stravinsky revised the work was that he himself had trouble conducting the parts with the irregular meter.

I put the record on the turntable.

OZAWA: Is it okay if I eat this o-nigiri rice ball?

MURAKAMI: Please do. I’ll make tea.

I make tea.

OZAWA: I was still in London at the time of the 1968 recording. That was the year Robert Kennedy was killed.

MURAKAMI: Was this recording of Rite of Spring something you did because you wanted to do it?

OZAWA: Yes, very much so. For one thing, I had already performed it everywhere.

MURAKAMI: So at that point in your career, you were able to take on the works that you wanted to record—not just what the record companies brought you?

OZAWA: Yes, that was more and more the case.

The quiet introduction ends, and the famous wild bam bam bam bam of the first scene, “Harbingers of Spring (Dances of the Young Girls),” takes over.

MURAKAMI: What an intense, edgy sound!

OZAWA: Yes, the Chicago Symphony was at its peak in those days, and I was young and energetic.

MURAKAMI: Let’s listen to this same passage with you and the Boston Symphony. It was recorded about ten years later.

I change records, and the introduction begins again.

MURAKAMI: Very different mood …

OZAWA: Really, a much softer sound.

The bassoon plays the theme.

OZAWA: This bassoonist died, you know. In a traffic accident. Sherman Walt. He played with the Saito Kinen, too.

We listen to the music, drinking tea and eating o-nigiri.

MURAKAMI: If I may be permitted to express my personal opinion as a music lover, when I hear you performing with the Chicago or Toronto symphonies in the sixties, it sounds as if you’ve got the music doing a lively dance on the palms of your hands. There’s a kind of reckless audacity.

OZAWA: Reckless may be the best way to go sometimes.

MURAKAMI: Then you’re with the Boston Symphony in the seventies, and it feels as if you’re cupping your hands a little, more enfolding the music. It’s easy to tell the difference, listening to all the recordings.

OZAWA: Yes, I see what you mean. The later ones may be a little more subdued.

MURAKAMI: More mature, musically? I’m not sure putting it that way can account for everything that’s going on …

OZAWA: Well, when you become music director, you get very concerned about the quality of the orchestra.

MURAKAMI: After this 1973 recording with the Boston, you never did another studio recording of The Rite of Spring, did you?

OZAWA: No, I never did, though I was asked to any number of times.

Again comes the bam bam bam bam of “Harbingers of Spring (Dances of the Young Girls).”

OZAWA: Not so raw, is it? Interesting, this one.

MURAKAMI: The feel of the music is a little different from standard performances of The Rite of Spring, though.

Three Seiji Ozawa Recordings

of Symphonie fantastique

MURAKAMI: Now I’m going to put on the recording of the Berlioz Symphonie fantastique you did with the Toronto Symphony. It’s from 1966.

I begin with the fourth movement, “Marche au supplice” (March to the Scaffold).

MURAKAMI: What would you say about the level of playing you found in the Toronto Symphony when you first arrived?

OZAWA: It was not very good, to tell you the truth. I made a lot of changes in the orchestra’s lineup, which didn’t win me too many friends. I even changed the concertmaster. The old one came and knocked on my door to complain. But the new people I hired are still there today.

MURAKAMI: The sound is a little hard, wouldn’t you say?

OZAWA: Yes, it is. We did this recording in Toronto’s Massey Hall. It was famous for its bad sound. People used to call it “Messy Hall.”

MURAKAMI: Charlie Parker did a famous live recording there. You just have to say “Massey Hall” and jazz fans know what you mean. But in this recording of your performance, the music itself is tremendously lively. It dances.

OZAWA: Yes, it’s very free. You can see the music. It’s much better than I expected. The recorded sound is not very good, though.

I lift the needle at the end of the movement.

MURAKAMI: I agree, it’s a very good performance. Just listening to this one, I’m convinced it’s the only performance of the piece you’d ever need. But then again, when I listen to the Boston Symphony performance, my opinion changes. The two are so totally different.

OZAWA: They were recorded at such different times, though. The Boston must have been fifteen years later.

MURAKAMI: No, not that much later. Let’s see … the Boston one is 1973, just seven years after the Toronto.

I put on the Boston recording, again the “March to the Scaffold.” The difference in tempo is almost shocking. It is so much heavier.

OZAWA: The orchestra itself is much better here, of course.

MURAKAMI: The sound it produces is very different, isn’t it?

OZAWA: Listen to this bassoon passage: it’s the Boston at its best. I couldn’t have done that with the Toronto. And the timpani—it sounds completely different. In that sense, the Toronto Symphony was a collection of young musicians.