John Bavicchi Interview with Bruce Duffie . . . . . . . . .

Composer / Conductor John Bavicchi

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie

John Alexander Bavicchi, born April 25, 1922, internationally renowned composer, conductor, and teacher, died quietly at home in Newton, MA on December 9, 2012 at age 90, following several months of deteriorating health. Mr. Bavicchi's initial training was as a civil engineer. A graduate of MIT with a degree in Civil Engineering, he saw combat action in the South Pacific during WW II as an officer in the United States Navy's Construction Battalion (Sea Bees). Returning to civilian life, he entered Boston's New England Conservatory of Music in 1948; after his graduation, he studied composition at the Harvard University Graduate School under Walter Piston, Archibald T. Davidson, and Otto Gombosi. As a young musician he played both the viola and the trombone. Mr.Bavicchi divided his time among composing, conducting, and teaching. Following various freelance teaching posts, he joined the faculty of Berklee College of Music in 1964 where he was made Professor Emeritus in 1997. He continued to work with students of composition until his death.

During the last six decades, John Bavicchi produced a diverse and impressive catalog of more than 160 compositions in a variety of creative instrumental and vocal combinations. He has been honored with awards from The National Institute of Arts and Letters, ASCAP, the American Symphony Orchestra League, and the Berklee College of Music. He has been commissioned by, among others, the Harvard Musical Association, the Cecilia [choral] Society, the Welsh Arts Council, the MIT Concert Band, the Concord Band, the Philharmonic Society of Arlington, and the Boston Civic Symphony. Much of Bavicchi's music has been published, most notably by the Oxford University Press. In 1955 he founded BKJ Publications, primarily as a way to help young composers become eligible to join The American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers (ASCAP.)

Mr. Bavicchi's music is performed internationally and a chamber music group in Birmingham, England named themselves The Bavicchi Ensemble in his honor. To say that Mr. Bavicchi was a fixture in the Boston music scene would be an understatement. Prior to his appointment to the faculty at Berklee College of Music in 1964, he taught at the Rivers School in Weston, MA and was also a regular lecturer at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education for many years. With his longtime friend, conductor and brass man John Corley, he founded Astor Concerts and, with Corley and Robert King, the Boston Brass Ensemble in 1953. He held a number of conducting posts over the years including the Sharon Orchestra, the Philharmonic Society of Arlington Orchestra and Chorus, the Belmont Chorus, and the Arlington-Belmont Chamber Chorus, of which he was the founder. He was a member of ASCAP and the American Symphony Orchestra League.

An active stamp collector and member of the American Philatelic Society, he specialized in pre-cancelled U.S. stamps. He was also an avid sports fan, particularly fond of his New England Patriots. He bought season tickets in 1960 when the team (then called the Boston Patriots) was created, and he attended home games until the mid-2000s when he could no longer travel to the stadium. He tracked their statistics game by game and could quote even the second- and third-string players' vital stats. He virtually never failed to attend or view a game in the Patriots' history. Mr. Bavicchi was a true Renaissance Man. He loved fine art, read avidly and was knowledgeable in countless fields, and was a gourmet and connoisseur of spirits and fine wines. But above all, teaching was the part of his professional life that gave him the most satisfaction. He was influential in the development of hundreds of young composers, many of whom had little or no experience with classical music until they met him. He was a lifelong friend and inspiring and loyal mentor to generations of musicians. Those who have heard and performed John's music know that his pieces are distinctly challenging. When asked about this, John referenced a comment in a Boston Transcript review of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1 when it was first performed: "Could anyone learn to love such music?" Regarding the difficulty characteristic of contemporary music, John said, "How it seems is largely dependent on the perception of the listener. I sometimes write according to the ability of the players for whom I am writing. But always my music is the compilation of everything I know -- beautiful, powerful, abstract, driving, placid, impassioned -- at the highest level I can manage."

Bavicchi is survived by his life partner of more than 60 years, Beverly Lewis of Newton, by his daughter, Janet Bavicchi of New London, New Hampshire, by her mother, Dorothy Bavicchi of Brookline, MA, and by his brother Robert Iafolla, of Rye, New Hampshire. Donations can be made to the Lewis/Bavicchi Endowed Fund, Berklee College of Music, Attention: Marjorie O'Malley, 1140 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02215 or to the Bavicchi Fund, Philharmonic Society of Arlington, c/o Christine Bird, 995 Mass Avenue, #305, Arlington, MA 02476, both of which support aspiring young composers. Online guestbook at www.gfdoherty. com. Â George F. Doherty & Sons Wellesley 781-235-4100

== Text (only) from the Boston Globe (with slight changes)
== Photo from Faculty Notes of Berklee College of Music

I had the pleasure of meeting with John Bavicchi at his hotel in January of 1987, when he was in Chicago for performances of his music. We discussed many musical topics, and there was, as expected, much insight, and also quite a bit of laughter.

Bruce Duffie:   You have a 65th birthday coming up...

John Bavicchi:   I have indeed, yes.

BD:   You say that with a little trepidation... Do you not look forward to a 65th birthday?

Bavicchi:   No, I wouldn’t say that. It’s sort of amazing. When you’re twenty, you think that 65 is the end of the world, and suddenly here I am at 65, and I don’t feel any different.

BD:   I trust it’s good that you don’t feel different.

Bavicchi:   Well, I suppose I do feel different in some ways. Physically, obviously, I can’t do a lot of the same things, but musically I’m working better than I ever did, [laughs] so that’s some compensation.

BD:   What is it about your music that is better now than ten, twenty, thirty, forty years ago?

Bavicchi:   Better? That’s a very difficult term! What I like about it more is the fact that I write so much more surely, and without any question about things. I’ve been through the process so many times that everything seems natural and comes easily. I’ve never had to search for ideas, because they’re always there.

BD:   I hope it never becomes routine.

Bavicchi:   No! [Both laugh] If it were routine, I wouldn’t have kept doing it for so long.

BD:   In composing music, where is the balance between inspiration and technique? [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interviews with Milton Babbitt, and Daniel Pinkham.]

Bavicchi:   The famous saying is ninety per cent perspiration, and ten per cent inspiration! I have a feeling that inspiration is something that is very difficult to pin-point, and very difficult to define. As far as my own ethic, or my own credo, I’ve always felt that every one of the great composers has had technique to burn. There is no question about the fact that he could write anything he wanted, and then after that there’s something else. There are many composers who have had technique to burn, yet who really are not composers. Think of someone like Busoni (1886-1924), for instance. He had such a magnificent technique, and yet probably was not a great composer... although who am I to say?

BD:   No earth-shattering ideas to put into that technique?

Bavicchi:   Perhaps that’s it. Certainly, someone like him who wrote a great deal of music would be Raff (1822-82)! You couldn’t have more technique than Raff.

BD:   Is there a place in the concert or operatic repertoire for works by great technicians that are not very inspired?

Bavicchi:   Oh, yes! For a given symphony orchestra that does a season-long series of programs, they should cover everything. This includes unknown composers, and little-known composers, and little-known works of great composers, and, of course, the standard repertoire. Unfortunately, I’ve never been fortunate to be in charge of picking programs. [Both laugh]

BD:   If you had your druthers, would you want your music on an all-John Bavicchi program, or an all-contemporary program, or a mixed program?

Bavicchi:   I’ve never been an advocate of all-contemporary programs. I feel that that defeats the purpose. A contemporary piece can be best displayed by contrast with other pieces. I conduct a Civic Symphony, and in my own programming I have always tried to combine classic, baroque, romantic, and contemporary so that they enhance each other, rather than having everything all from one period.

BD:   Do you feel that you are part of a line of composers, a lineage?

Bavicchi:   Is that the same as asking me where my influences lie? [Laughs]

BD:   Perhaps...

Bavicchi:   Yes, I’m very fond of certain composers, and study their music very much. Bach, of course, and Beethoven, and Schumann, Richard Strauss, and Bartók are my intellectual favorites.

BD:   That’s basically the big German romantic tradition.

Bavicchi:   That’s correct, yes. I think of my music as romantic, although some people have recoiled in horror in the past! [Both laugh] But as things go today, it’s a very conservative style. Again, it depends on who is listening.

BD:   For whom do you write?

Bavicchi:   That’s a hell of a question, too. I write what pleases me, and what I think is a logical extension of all the music that I know, which every serious sincere composer has done. That’s why I like the music of some of the composers I mentioned more than others, because I feel that they were completely sincere about what they were doing.

BD:   Your music is not frivolous in any way?

Bavicchi:   No. I am really died-in-the-wool serious minded! [Laughs]

BD:   Another balance question... in music in general, or in your music particularly, where is the balance between art and entertainment?

Bavicchi:   My own feeling is that if something is good, then it’s entertaining. I have never written, nor will I ever write, music for a show or anything like that. I’m not interested in that, and I suppose that makes me very narrow-minded. But on the other hand, I don’t know that it’s necessary to be able to write a Broadway-type show, or movie music, and I’ve never had any inclination to do that.

* * * * *

BD:   Do you write mostly on commission, or is it just music that you feel should be written?

Bavicchi:   Mostly these days it’s on commission. Sometimes the commissions are a performance or a recording, but most always these days I’m working on something that I know is going to be played, and for which eventually I will get some money.

BD:   How do you decide which commissions you will accept and which you will decline?

Bavicchi:   I sort of put them in a line, in a queue, and I take them as they come. Sometimes I have as many as six or seven that I write in succession, and then sometimes I only have two or three.

BD:   Are there certain combinations that you’re more comfortable writing for?

Bavicchi:   No. It’s very important for me just that somebody has given me the media in which they wish the piece to be written, and from there on I just think about that. For instance, right now I’m writing a string orchestra piece, and I’m very happy with that. I don’t feel the need for flutes or anything else.

BD:   You just concentrate on that particular work?

Bavicchi:   Yes. In the past I tried to work on two pieces at once, but I found it confusing. So now I only work on one piece at a time. When I first started out, I thought I ought to be able to do that, but I found that I couldn’t.

BD:   [With a gentle nudge] You can’t be schizophrenic at all?

Bavicchi:   No! [Both laugh] I have to think about the one I’m on.

BD:   When you’re writing the one piece, you’re obviously doing other things. You’re conducting other music, and you’re teaching, and you’re just living life.

Bavicchi:   Oh, yes.

BD:   Do you separate all of that, or is the music always going on in your head?

Bavicchi:   I’m very fond of telling people who ask me this, that I do a lot of composing while driving from one place to another, because I’m always thinking of the piece that I’m writing. Even subconsciously, sometimes in a room full of people, it’s in the back of my head. It isn’t that I drift off in a dream world or anything like that. I’m aware of things, but if I’m just sitting at a party, I often will think about the piece that I’m working on.

BD:   With good ideas or bad ideas?

Bavicchi:   If I didn’t think they were good, I wouldn’t use them! [Both laugh] That’s another thing... I’ve never gone back and revised a piece after I’ve worked on it. I do plenty of revising, and cutting, and discarding, and everything else while I’m working on it. But after I’ve finished it, I feel it’s a mistake to go back and change it. A piece like the Brahms Trio Op 8 has stopped me from doing that, because I think the original version is far superior to the second version. I really do feel he made a mistake going back and changing it.

BD:   You’d rather start something fresh, and write something new, and not revise?

Bavicchi:   Right, exactly. The Schumann Fourth Symphony is the same. The two versions are not that different, but the first one has a lot of things in it that the second doesn’t, and, of course, there were many years in between. But it’s fascinating.

BD:   Are you basically pleased with the performances of your works that are given?

Bavicchi:   My own personal credo is that any performance is a good performance. [Both laugh] I have to take that attitude because very often performances are not particularly good, and yet it’s unfair to ask even very good players to understand everything that’s in a piece of music. They’ve rehearsed it for a while, but they haven’t lived with it for a long time the way I have. Sometimes the performances are pretty good, and once in a while they’re excellent, but it’s not very common. Usually, it’s because of lack of rehearsal time.

BD:   Another couple of rehearsals would make them considerably better?

Bavicchi:   Yes, especially when you get into a professional situation. The rehearsal time is grievously limited, and they put in perhaps more proportionately on the contemporary piece, but on the other hand, it’s nowhere near enough.

BD:   [Genuinely surprised] Really??? More on the contemporary piece?

Bavicchi:   Most conductors who will do a contemporary piece tend to try and have more space for it. Many conductors won’t touch a contemporary piece, but the ones that do will give it more time.

BD:   That’s interesting, because some composers lament that conductors never give it enough time. They always have to spend time on the standard works.

Bavicchi:   That’s true, they never give it enough time, but they also have the rest of the program to do, and that’s why I say a couple more rehearsals would be wonderful. But that’s not feasible, and I recognize that.

BD:   Can your music, or any music, get over-rehearsed?

Bavicchi:   Sure! You can over-rehearse anything, but I don’t think a contemporary piece would ever be in that situation. [Both laugh] I can’t imagine a situation where that would happen.

BD:   You’re also a teacher of music?

Bavicchi:   Yes, I’m professor of composition at Berklee College of Music.

BD:   Is musical composition something that really can be taught?

Bavicchi:   [Smiles] You ask very hard questions! [Pauses a moment] The fact is that you can’t teach someone to be a composer. You can teach them the techniques of composition, and that’s what I try to do. I also try to stimulate my pupils to write by providing performances, but no, you can’t teach someone to be a composer.

BD: Are there perhaps too many young composers coming along?

Bavicchi:   I don’t know the answer to that. I see so many people graduating from music school, and there aren’t any jobs for them. I often wonder what happens to most of them.

BD:   What advice do you have for someone entering the market place?

Bavicchi:   If it’s a composer, I’m convinced inwardly that if he’s going to write music, he’s going to write music, and it doesn’t matter what else he does. He’ll write music, and if he’s not a composer, then they’ll find out that they can’t make it in music, which is what happens to a lot of them. I’ve had people come back after five years, or call me and ask for letters of recommendation to a Law School, for instance, or even engineering! I suppose that happens a lot because music is a very difficult business.
bavicchi

BD:   Is it too difficult?

Bavicchi:   It’s a rotten profession, but it’s a wonderful life. [Both laugh]

BD:   Is the act of composing fun?

Bavicchi:   Oh, I enjoy it hugely, otherwise I wouldn’t have kept at it! [Laughs] As you say, I’m 65 and I’ve written without a stop ever since I went out. The first piece I wrote when I guess I was only about 12 years old, and it was terrible. But I wrote it!

BD:   What if someone does a huge retrospective, and pulls out pieces you wrote when you were 12? [Note the cartoon at right which illustrates this topic.]

Bavicchi:   What I’d like to do is find out three days before I die, so I can get rid of them! [Both laugh] I haven’t got the heart to get rid of them right now...

BD:   Is it a mistake on the part of the musicological community now to be digging through composers’ waste baskets for first versions, and ideas, and discards?

Bavicchi:   I don’t know if we can call it a mistake, but it may not enhance anything or improve anything. I suppose it is fascinating. Musicologists have a way of digging everything up. I remember reading about a trunk-full of Haydn music that they found in London probably thirty years ago. That must have been a golden find.

BD:   But those are complete treasures that had been misplaced. They’re not discards.

Bavicchi:   Yes. I’ve often thought about what in the world we would do if we found the last two movements of the [Schubert] Unfinished Symphony? [Both laugh] Where are we then? It’s a piece that’s gotten so famous.

BD:   We might realize that the ideas we have had about it all along have been wrong.

Bavicchi:   Right! [More laughter] But I don’t think there’s a pat answer to whether the musicologists should dig or not. I don’t think you can stop them.

BD:   Should the musicologist and the composer be comrades or adversaries?

Bavicchi:   [Smiles] All the musicologists that I know are very friendly. When I went to the Harvard Graduate School, they had only musicology degrees. Most of them are sincere people, and they’re doing something which interests them very much. I don’t see anything wrong with them.

BD:   What do you expect from the audience that comes to hear performances of your music?

Bavicchi:   I don’t put myself in the position to expect anything. I assume that if they’re there, they’re interested in music. I also realize that a large percentage of any audience has already turned off a piece they’ve never heard before, and I don’t expect to reach those people. Theoretically, I would like to reach people who have listened to a lot of music, and like different periods. They don’t generally close their minds to a contemporary piece.

BD:   I assume that you don’t write music to shock?

Bavicchi:   No, I have no interest in that. Iconoclasm in music is of no function as far as I’m concerned.

BD:   What about in performance?

Bavicchi:   If you’re talking about conductors that hop up six feet, I’m not involved with that very much.

BD:   But you do quite a bit of conducting.

Bavicchi:   Yes.

BD:   Are you the ideal interpreter of your music?

Bavicchi:   No! When you conduct your own music, you’re too close to it, and you’re probably satisfied with less. I’m sure that’s true. You think that things are fine because it’s more or less what you tried, and yet you don’t give them as hard a time... at least I don’t. [Laughs] I’ve done very few of my pieces with my amateur groups but when I do, in retrospect I don’t drive them anywhere nearly as hard.

BD:   Do you find that some conductors or performers find things in your music that you didn’t know were there?

Bavicchi:   No. I would say that’s categorically impossible. [Both laugh] They might make a more dramatic effect than I thought might be possible, but generally speaking, I don’t think so.

* * * * *

BD: Over your career, you’ve watched the huge impact of recordings on the public. Has this basically been a good thing or a bad thing?

Bavicchi: Again, it’s a two-side coin. If there are recordings of contemporary pieces, then people have a chance to hear them over and over again, and that’s obviously beneficial. The thing that isn’t good is that they get a recording of the Beethoven Fourth Symphony, and that’s all they want to hear. They want to hear the pieces that they like, and therefore they’re not interested in investigating new music, because they’re very comfortable with the things that they know so well. A lot of people forget that they didn’t like the Beethoven Fourth at all the first time they heard it.
bavicchi

BD:   Does hearing the same performance over and over create a false sense of expectation when they hear that same music in the concert hall?

Bavicchi:   Yes, I think that’s true.   Also, the concert hall has a marvelous ability to compensate for that by being real, and by the presence it creates. I recently heard Klaus Tennstedt conduct the Boston Symphony, and I don’t think you can duplicate the magnetism of a concert on a CD.

BD:   Are records too technically perfect?

Bavicchi:   I have speakers that were designed by one of my former pupils who has gone into designing speakers, and when he asked me what I didn’t like about contemporary speakers, I told him that I’d never heard an orchestra with so many highs or so many lows, and so little in the middle. The middle range is much neglected in most audio systems. They’re so involved in whether you can get a certain number of cycles up and down, and you never really hear them. As I’m getting older, I certainly hear less of the high tones anyway!

BD:   Is that where the heart of the orchestra is, in the mid-range?

Bavicchi:   Oh, sure! Listen to Beethoven.

BD:   Maybe you should write a symphony for contemporary speakers with all highs and lows and nothing in the middle! [Both laugh]

Bavicchi:   No, that’s not the direction my mind goes. [More laughter]

BD:   Have you used electronics in your music at all?

Bavicchi:   Never, no, though I recognize that it may be very valuable. When my pupils want to use it, that’s fine with me. Richard Strauss is a perfect example. He lived far into the twentieth century [1949], long after some incredible things had been done. But he wasn’t about to change his style. It wasn’t that he was narrow-minded. It’s that he knew what he was doing, and he was satisfied with his technique, and wanted to continue it. I don’t feel that he lost anything by doing that. As to electronics, if music is something which takes such a change in my thinking, I’m not sure why I have to do it, and so I don’t.

BD:   You don’t feel that it just simply adds a few more colors to your palette?

Bavicchi:   I don’t feel that I have investigated all the colors that are available sufficiently, to have need of anymore!

BD:   You’re still working that out?

Bavicchi:   I’m working on that very hard in every piece. I often tell my pupils that the easiest thing is to write for the symphony orchestra because you have so many things to use, and the hardest thing to write is for a solo instrument because you have so little. There you have to depend on other things like actual technique, and understanding of texture. I don’t need to enlarge the palette. There’s plenty there.

* * * * *

BD: Let me ask about another realm that we seem to be getting into these days, namely the whole Minimalist School. Is this a valid direction for music?

Bavicchi: I think it’s very boring. The pieces I’ve heard seem to use two or three chords ad nauseam, and that’s all. There’s hardly any contrast. Compared to all of the great music of the past, they’re doing something which would have been anti-music! I don’t get anything out of it.

BD:   Then where is music going today?

Bavicchi:   I don’t know. I wonder if in a hundred years that electronic music will be the only kind written, and with the way computers are so flexible, it’s frightening. Who knows? Maybe they’ll just feed something into the computer and see what comes out!

BD:   Wouldn’t you then lose the whole human element?

Bavicchi:   Well, of course, and that’s why I basically am not interested in anything electronic.

BD:   I’ve asked about composition, so how have performers changed over the last twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years?

Bavicchi:   Performers can handle contemporary music much better than thirty-five or forty years ago, because they’ve been exposed to it, and they have gotten better at it. I would say especially string players are better at it. The wind and brass players were always more curious. I don’t want to offend anybody, but it’s simpler to play a wind and brass instrument than a stringed instrument. But now, the string players have gotten so that they can control it much better, and they don’t recoil with so much horror when they have to play a contemporary piece. They just didn’t want to play it, and if they could avoid it, they would. They tried to avoid any contact with it because it didn’t fit the finger patterns that they were used to.

BD:   Is there any way to get more of a clamor on the part of either performers or the public for contemporary music?

Bavicchi:   I don’t know. [Thinks a moment] All music, when it was written, was contemporary. Schubert was contemporary! Bach was contemporary!

BD:   But in those days, everyone was anxious for the next Schubert symphony, and for the next Bach cantata.

Bavicchi:   No, they weren’t! [Has a huge laugh] Bach just did the cantatas as his work for Sunday, and, as far as Schubert was concerned, he did his work for himself as far as I can tell! I wouldn’t say that the people have leaped at the music which was written at a given time. The possible exceptions would be in nineteenth-century Germany, and the Italian operatic works of the same. There are enough people writing contemporary music. Some of it will stay around, and some of it won’t. I don’t think there’s any need to have any more. People who want to write it will write it. I’m convinced of that.

BD:   Have you written an opera?

Bavicchi:   No, I’ve never written an opera because I’ve never had the guaranteed performance or recording. If I did, I would!

BD:   You have no hesitation about working with a libretto and a stage manager?

Bavicchi:   No! I’ve been involved in too many performances of too many things to be worried about that. An opera is a commitment. It would take me certainly over a year. I am teaching all the time, and with conducting as much as I do, the summers are golden, and it would take more than a summer to write an opera. I do get quite a lot of work done during the winter, but nothing like I do in the summer, and that would be a bit commitment. I’d have to know the practical results from it.

BD:   Is there a competition amongst composers?

Bavicchi:   Oh, I’m sure there is, yes. There’s often the same kind of competition as with people in the same profession all over the world. Some composers are very opportunistic, and back-biting, and difficult with their friends, and two-faced, but there are others who are not. It’s like any other profession. The difference with this profession is that this one doesn’t pay any money, relatively speaking.

BD:   If you won the lottery, and all of a sudden you had $6 million, would you continue teaching, continue composing, continue performing?

Bavicchi:   I think I’d do everything that I’m doing now in about the same proportion. I might want to cut down the teaching a little, but I don’t know if they’d allow that. After all these years, I could teach less and be happy with it, but I’d hate to give up. I get some good pupils, and I know that I have a strong effect on their work. It’s very satisfying to be able influence young composers like that, and when I say influence, they don’t sound like me, believe me! But I can stimulate them into writing, and it’s fun. I think I could give up some of the conducting classes. I’m fortunate not to have to teach music history anymore, and I wouldn’t really miss teaching orchestration. I would like to teach composition, and I have some beautiful courses which I’d hate to give up, like analysis of the Beethoven String Quartets. I also have a course on the Bartók chamber music. Things like that, I wouldn’t want to give up.

BD:   Now you say you’d like to have influence on your students. When you compose, are trying to have influence on the audience?

Bavicchi:   [Sighs] Boy, that’s a hard question! I don’t know... I suppose so. The thing is an audience is so inconstant, or inconsistent, or maybe both! You don’t know what kind of an audience you’re going to get, and if so, it’s completely unconscious.

BD:   Are you optimistic about the future of music?

Bavicchi:   I’ve always felt that I’m fighting a rear-guard action, and losing the battle, but yes, I remain optimistic. I feel that music will be around as long as humans are... but maybe I’m being idealistic! [Both laugh]

* * * * *

BD:   Music being a purely aural medium, do you feel that it works well on television and videos?

Bavicchi:   Certainly operas do. It’s wonderful to be able to see them on television, and I suppose the performances of orchestral works are interesting, too. But I don’t think they’re superior to just listening to it myself. I don’t need the visual in order to enjoy it, but I’m not sure that chamber music is helped any by the visual. When you’re in the hall, the visual is one thing because then you have the actual sound. But I’m not sure that on TV it makes any difference. The record would be just as good, especially since the TV sound isn’t great. Unless you have very expensive equipment, it doesn’t compare to the audio equipment, at least to me. [Remember, this interview was held in January of 1987...]

BD:   Of course, they’re always making improvements...

Bavicchi:   Oh yes, I know that. They talk about stereo TV now, and maybe the sound will get just as good.

BD:   Should live music performance ever be confrontational between the audience and the performers?

Bavicchi:   I don’t know what you mean.

BD:   Do you ever feel that the audience is just waiting for the tenor to sing a high C, or for a violinist to get to a great cadenza?

Bavicchi:   If you’re talking about a piece that the audience knows already, I don’t know if it’s adversarial. If I hear a performance of a piece of mine where the soprano has a high C, I’ll be curious how she does it, and I don’t want her to miss it.

BD:   So, you’re not curious if you she does it, but you’re curious how she does it?

Bavicchi:   Yes, and I feel the same about any other piece. The solo parts in the Beethoven Ninth are so difficult, and I don’t want them to have trouble. I want them to do as well as they can.

BD:   Do you write your pieces so that the performers will not have technical troubles?

Bavicchi:   I try to write to the limit of the instrument, but I’m not trying to stretch the technical limits. I feel as if any decent professional can play the music that I write... unless I’m writing for a civic orchestra, or a children’s chorus, or something like that. Then I adapt completely.

BD:   You tailor it to whomever you’re writing for?

Bavicchi:   Oh yes. I recently completed a piece for a civic symphony in the Boston suburbs, and I went over every instrument with the conductor. I just kept the parts within the range that he asked. For instance, for the violas I never used the treble clef because they were uncomfortable with it, and I didn’t go above certain notes for the second violins. Also, the second bassoon part is much easier than the first bassoon. I did everything that he needed, and I’m very happy to do that. I don’t mind those restrictions if I write a piece.

BD:   But then if a professional orchestra takes that piece, you wouldn’t make any alterations?

Bavicchi:   No, I wouldn’t, but I would think a professional orchestra might not be interested in a piece like that. But I wrote the piece for that purpose, for a civic symphony, and there are plenty of civic symphonies around.

BD:   Was that a challenge to you, to write something that is inspired using more simplistic techniques?

Bavicchi:   Yes. I try to write something that is as good as I can do, whether it’s inspired or not.

BD:   What’s next on the calendar for you?

Bavicchi:   I’m writing a string piece because of a projected recording with a string orchestra. They’re good players with a lot of subdivision allowable. It’ll be a lot of fun. After that I’m going to write a piece for multiple French horns, either six or eight. I haven’t made up my mind yet. I wish he’d tell me, but he said six or eight! I’ll find out from him the next time we talk about it whether I’d get more performances with six or with eight, and I’ll probably write the one that might mean more performances! I’m being purely practical! It’s all at the formative stage, except that it seems to be something that is going to happen. Some of the best freelance players in the city might be involved, but I don’t know much about it, really. A former pupil of mine started all this, and we’ll see if it happens. [Both laugh]

BD:   Thank you for being a composer!

Bavicchi:   Well, thank you for being interested in the composer!

This conversation was recorded in Chicago on January 24, 1987. Portions were broadcast on WNIB three months later, and again in 1992, and 1997; and on WNUR in 2006, and 2013 . This transcription was made in 2024, and posted on this website at that time. My thanks to British soprano Una Barry for her help in preparing this website presentation.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here. To read my thoughts on editing these interviews for print, as well as a few other interesting observations, click here.

* * * * *

Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001. His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.

You are invited to visit his website for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests. He would also like to call your attention to the photos and information about his grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a century ago. You may also send him E-Mail with comments, questions and suggestions.