Born in New York City October 25, 1952, Kenneth Jean grew up in Hong Kong
and returned to the United States in 1967. After violin studies at San
Francisco State University, he entered the Julliard School at the age of
nineteen and was accepted into the conducting class of Jean Morel. The following
year he made his Carnegie Hall début with the Youth Symphony Orchestra
of New York and was immediately engaged as the orchestra’s music director.
In 1984 Jean won the prestigious Leopold Stokowski Conducting Award.
For two seasons, Jean was conducting assistant to Lorin Maazel of the Cleveland
Orchestra. From 1979 until 1985, he served as resident conductor of the
Detroit Symphony Orchestra, working with Antal Dorati. In 1990,
he was one of two recipients of the prestigious Seaver/National Endowment
for the Arts Conductor Award, which is given biannually to exceptional
American conductors.
Jean was the music director of the Florida Symphony Orchestra (1986–1992),
associate conductor of the Chicago Symphony (1986–1993), appointed by
Sir Georg Solti,
and working with him as well as his successor Daniel Barenboim, principal
guest conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic (1984–1993) and music director
of the Tulsa Philharmonic (1997–2001).
Jean recorded a number of works by Chinese composers, and among
them, the album Colourful Clouds [shown at left] achieved bestseller
status when it was first released in 1982. With Japanese violinist Takako
Nishizaki he recorded the violin concertos of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and
Tchaikovsky. Jean also recorded works by Da Falla, Ravel, Brahms, Massenet
and Berlioz.
In November of 1989, I had the pleasure of meeting with Kenneth Jean. Besides
all of his usual activities, he was very busy with preparations for an all-French
program with the Chicago Symphony.
He was clear when responding to my questions, but since he did not often
verbally speak to audiences, he noted that he hoped he would not embarrass
the radio listeners . . . . .
Bruce Duffie: Do you ever embarrass the audience
by what you conduct?
Kenneth Jean: That’s up for them to say.
I wouldn’t know! [Laughs]
BD: Obviously you try not to embarrass yourself
or the audience...
Jean: Oh, quite honestly, I don’t know.
These things are beyond my control.
BD: You’re the conductor of the symphony orchestra,
so what all is in your control?
Jean: A great deal, of course, starting with
the programming, from everything the audience gets to hear, to the way
every note that the last stand second violin gets to play.
BD: Not the notes they play but the way they
play them?
Jean: The way they play them, indeed.
Whether it’s together or not together, whether it’s soft or loud or
somewhere in between, all of that wide expanse is my job.
BD: Are you always correct in where you come
down in your judgment?
Jean: One always tries one’s best. One
hopes so. A lot of that is in the heat of the battle, and you really
can’t tell. Amazingly enough, especially here in Orchestra Hall,
where we have the famous podium problem, we don’t hear the true balance
that goes out into the audience.
BD: Actually, I would think that it would be
the worst place for you to hear.
Jean: It is the worst seat in the house.
People selling stereo systems say, “With this
stereo system you hear what the conductor hears!”
That’s not a good way to sell it. [Both laugh] We don’t have
the best seat in the house at all. One would gather from common
sense that you would hear so much string playing, because you’re close
to it. Here in Orchestra Hall there’s an exaggerated difference
between the woodwind and the brass balance as we hear it on the podium,
as opposed to what it is in the house.
BD: Where in Orchestra Hall is the best seat?
Jean: For me, in other normal halls as well,
the higher up you go the more you take in the volume of the hall.
That helps. I love sitting in the lower balcony because that’s a
good balance between what you can see and what you can hear.
BD: In your position, you’re forced to conduct
a number of programs that you didn’t select, and you’re also privileged
to be able to conduct a lot of programs that you do select. What
is the biggest difference?
Jean: Since you bring it up, I suppose what you’re
saying is absolutely dead-on true, but I don’t see it that way.
For example, the programs that I’m ‘forced’
to conduct are some of the greatest works in civilization. So ‘forced’
is hardly the right word. But you’re right, I sometimes don’t have
a choice if I inherit a program from Sir Georg, or someone like that.
BD: In other words, when you’re given a program,
it would be something you would have selected perhaps another time?
Jean: Yes, exactly. My tastes are wide-ranging
as well, so that helps. But still, anything that Solti conducts
is not going be bad, so there’s never a problem there. [Much laughter]
To celebrate Sir Georg Solti’s seventy-fifth birthday in 1987, associate
conductor Kenneth Jean led the Orchestra in the world premiere of Campane
di Ravello. Written by John Corigliano while
on vacation in Ravello, Italy, the composer remarked, “On Sundays,
the multitude of churches in Ravello and the surrounding towns play their
bells, each in a different key and rhythm. The cacophony is gorgeous,
and uniquely festive. My tribute to Sir Georg attempts to make the sections
of the symphony orchestra sound like pealing bells: that tolling, filigreed
with birdcalls in the woodwinds, provides the backdrop for a theme
that grows more and more familiar as it is clarified. At the end, it
is clear and joyous—a tribute to a great man.” Jean also led the work
on the Centennial Gala concert on October 6, 1990, and current music
director Riccardo Muti conducted it on September 19, 2015, on the Symphony
Ball concert launching the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 125th season.
[Photo at right] To launch the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 100th season, an all-star cast of conductors
and soloists was assembled for a gala opening concert on October 6,
1990. Pictured from left to right, back row: Associate Conductor Kenneth
Jean, András Schiff, Lorin Maazel, Gary Lakes, Sylvia McNair, Samuel
Ramey; middle row: Music Director Designate Daniel Barenboim, Lady Valerie
Solti, Music Director Sir Georg Solti, Leonard Slatkin, Yo-Yo
Ma; front row: Isaac Stern,
Mstislav Rostropovich,
Susanne Mentzer,
and Murray Perahia.
Lady Solti served as host of the program.
BD: If Sir Georg has rehearsed a program for
two or three days, and then you have to conduct one of those concerts
in the series, then do you have to not only prepare your own interpretation,
but have them unlearn what he has shown them?
Jean: I wouldn’t be so bold. Both Michael Morgan and I have
had to do this trick. It is actually much less of a trick than
one would believe only because it involved the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
They are the most flexible orchestra I’ve ever seen in my life, and
it’s also to our credit that since we do so many children’s concerts
and other concerts with them, they know us very well. Therefore,
that’s such a wonderful experience that when we stand on the podium,
they know we are not exactly like the boss in temperament, and they will
give us everything we ask for, which is really wonderful. BD: If it’s the
same music, is it going to be completely different?
Jean: There are,
of course, things that you can only do after you’ve rehearsed, but I must
say, what we do with the Chicago Symphony without rehearsal really amazes
even ourselves, in that they are that flexible. They are such good
musicians that if you give just the hint of something that could be one
of four variants to the way a phrase could be, they immediately sense
what it could be. It’s their experience as well, and what comes out
is a combination of everything. It’s the combination of Solti, of
the orchestra and what they bring to it, as well as what we bring to it.
When I listen to Michael Morgan take over a program, I find it’s tremendous
fun to hear what is going on. What is the best is what live performance
is all about, and things that happen on the spur of the moment.
BD: Let’s come back to the concerts where you
have all of the rehearsals for a concert. Do you rehearse every
little detail, or do you leave something for that moment of performance?
Jean: Ah! Now that’s an interesting question.
There are certain of my colleagues that are in one or the other
camp. In my case at least, and I can only speak personally, I
don’t intentionally leave things for the performance. But at
the performance, I find that there are things that happen which we did
not discuss. I try to cover as much as I can in rehearsals.
Most of the time, and especially with modern scheduling, there is a minimum
of time anyway.
BD: Do you ever get too little time to rehearse?
Jean: Most people think that as a staff conductor,
one gets too little time to rehearse, but I don’t think that’s true either.
Let’s put it this way... if Sir Georg, or Günter Wand, or somebody
else comes in and has five rehearsals for a Bruckner symphony, for
me to have five rehearsals for a Bruckner symphony is not the point
at this stage. More often than not, I don’t request five rehearsals
for something like that because, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think
my ultimate interpretation of a Bruckner symphony, or whatever I’m going
to do, is going to be established right now at this age. So, beyond
that, as you mention, one rehearses a great deal of detail, and works on
the things that are different. After all, with the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, you don’t have to rehearse for competence anymore. You
worry much less about notes that are sour, or something like that here
and there.
BD: It’s just balance and interpretation?
Jean: Yes, essentially not to shock them.
With some works they know that I want this slower here, or I do that there.
As they are such an experienced orchestra, fifty per cent of the
conductors slow down at the end of this phrase, and the other fifty per
cent don’t. So, on the rehearsal they find out. They see that
Jean is one of those that doesn’t, or Jean is one of those that does. For
the first program I ever did with the Chicago Symphony, I had forty-four
minutes to rehearse ninety minutes of music. [Both laugh] But
it was all the war horses.
BD: Just play on a wing and a prayer!
Jean: [Laughs] Almost, yes, so you talk
through it all. That’s rehearsal, too, and it takes a lot less
time to talk through what I’m going to do here. By many standards
that’s not enough rehearsal time. On the other hand, from what
they know of me, and our work together, often that is just the right amount
of rehearsal time.
* *
* * *
BD: Let’s talk a little bit about programming.
You have this huge expanse of music to choose from. How do you select
what works will be on each program?
Jean: Curiously, when I’m programming for my own
orchestra in Florida, for example, there is a great deal of the repertoire
that hasn’t been played, and needs to be played, and the orchestra should
play. That’s not a problem, however, in Chicago. [Laughs]
This orchestra has played everything under the sun, so that no longer
needs to be a consideration. I must consider the balance of a season,
because every piece you can imagine in the repertoire has been played either
this year, or within the last five years.
BD: Wouldn’t it pique your interest to go back
through the annals, and find a specific Haydn symphony, or a specific
this or that, and be able to put the little star in the program to indicate
its first performance?
Jean: And how! If you notice, every program
I’ve ever conducted here in Chicago has at least one piece on it that
the Chicago Symphony has never played. As you say, maybe it will
be a Haydn symphony, and we have a list of pieces like that. For
example, it’s absolutely mind-boggling that Tapiola, the symphonic
poem of Sibelius has never been played by the Chicago Symphony.
BD: [Genuinely surprised] Really???
Jean: Yes. It’s a difficult piece to program
around. That’s why it has not been here nor at Ravinia that I know
of. That’s something that Philip Huscher, our program annotator,
had dug up exactly because I was making up programs. For example,
later on in this season I’m doing the world premiere of a Liszt concerto,
so all of that comes into it.
'LOST' FRANZ
LISZT CONCERTO MAKES WORLD DEBUT IN CHICAGO
By Deseret News
John von Rhein, Chicago
Tribune
Franz Liszt was a kind of Mephistopheles, Casanova, Byron and St.
Francis rolled into one singular musician. He single-handedly invented
the piano recital, and his staggering prowess at the keyboard had all of
mid-19th Century Europe's salong society at his feet.
Under his fingers, the piano thundered and purred with a seductive
power that had adoring women throwing their jewelry at him. Many did not
stop there: His liaisons were nearly as legendary as his piano playing.
One admirer observed that if his rival, Sigismond Thalberg, was the
best pianist in the world, Liszt was the only one. Musical poet, genius,
innovator and revolutionary, Liszt somehow found time to compose an
enormous amount of music. Some Liszt scores are nothing but gallumphing
bombast and tinselly glitter. But there is much else that ventured far
beyond the known formal and harmonic boundaries of the Romantic era,
uncannily anticipating the music of our own time.
For years, it was universally assumed that Liszt wrote only two
piano concertos, No. 1 in E-flat and No. 2 in A Major. Now, thanks to
some shrewd and persistent detective work by a University of Chicago student,
we know otherwise.
With Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska as
soloist, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of associate
conductor Kenneth Jean will present the world premiere of a third Liszt
concerto - in E-flat Major, Opus Posthumous - at subscription concerts
Thursday, Saturday and Tuesday nights in Orchestra Hall.
It's a commonplace that there are no undiscovered musical masterpieces.
Nevertheless, whenever any unknown work by a major composer is unearthed,
that is Big News. The news first broke in January of last year, when it
was announced that Jay Rosenblatt, a doctoral candidate in historical musicology
at the U. of C., had pieced together a forgotten and unheard Liszt composition
for piano and orchestra while researching materials for his dissertation
at archives in Central Europe. "It was this kind of moment . . . when
you know you're holding in your hand something significant to the music
world," the 34-year-old Rosenblatt told the Associated Press.
As is so often the case in musicology, making a positive identification
and reconstructing the lost score depended on long hard work, intimate
knowledge of the piano concertos - and pure luck.
How was it possible for the concerto to be overlooked for more than
a century? The confusion stemmed partly from the fact that both the "new"
work and the familiar Concerto No. 1 share the key of E-flat, thus leading
careless archivists to assume that the work was a rejected movement from
the latter concerto. Also, no complete version of the concerto had ever
been discovered: The manuscripts were dispersed in Weimar, East Germany;
Nuremberg, West Germany, and Leningrad.
"When I traveled to Central Europe in the winter of 1988 to gather
materials on Liszt's works for piano and orchestra, I did not expect to
unearth a new concerto," says Rosenblatt. "I must have spent several hundred
hours in the Weimar archive, and while I was there I came across a copyist's
manuscript identified as part of the First Piano Concerto but never published.
Like everyone else, I assumed it was a rejected movement from that concerto.
But as I worked with the manuscript, it became pretty clear that it was
a self-contained concerto in one movement, with nothing whatsoever to do
with the First Concerto."
There were, however, serious problems with the manuscript: A number
of measures were missing from the piano part, and errors abounded. Small
wonder that so many scholars had long dismissed it as an unusable sketch.
Moving on to Budapest to continue his research, Rosenblatt asked
to examine photocopies the archive had received from Leningrad of an early
version of the known E-flat concerto. The first page was readily identifiable
as the "quasi adagio" section of that work. Suspecting the pages were
out of order, Rosenblatt delved further in the stack of photocopies.
Surprise turned to astonishment. "What should I see staring me in
the face," he recalls, "but the music from this other concerto I had identified
in Weimar, this time in Liszt's hand." Here was the missing autograph, its
pages mixed together with the manuscript of the Concerto No. 1.
Closer examination revealed that the manuscript contained the solo
passages missing from the Weimar copy. Those measures had been struck
out by Liszt; evidently he had intended to revise them and instructed the
copyist to leave the staves blank. But the canceled notes were clearly decipherable.
Like a musicological Sherlock Holmes, Rosenblatt set off for Nuremberg,
where he managed to track down one of the missing autograph pages. Two
more turned up among loose scraps in Weimar. Even with those, gaps remained,
which he was able to fill by consulting the copyist's score. Among the
four sources, every note was accounted for.
That’s the fun about working with the Chicago Symphony is that you
can add to it. It’s not false modesty, but to hear Kenneth Jean
conduct Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is not so interesting right now.
It eventually may be if I grow in the right way, but it’s much more interesting
if I bring something that the audience hasn’t heard in twenty-something
years. Ironically, when I did Pines of Rome, it had not been
done in Orchestra Hall since 1963. So things like that make it very
interesting.
BD: You say ‘grow in
the right way’. Are you trying to grow in the
right way, or are you finding that you just grow whatever way you can?
Jean: One grows. It’s like how one grows
physically as a child. You cannot help it. One simply grows,
so I exercise a great deal of self-discipline, and I learn, and I watch.
It is unbelievable to be able to watch some of the world’s greatest conductors
come through and rehearse an orchestra that I know. That’s the side
of the equation that Michael Morgan and I have as a luxury. We know
this orchestra very, very well. BD: Do you learn from every man who stands in
front of the orchestra?
Jean: Oh, absolutely. Sometimes it is
what not to do, and sometimes it is what to do. In Chicago, more
often than not, it’s what to do. My days in other orchestras can
be the other way, but it’s still very valuable.
BD: Is it at all frustrating to be up here one
week, and then be in conducting in Florida the next week, where they are
perhaps more interested, but obviously less polished?
Jean: It is different. When you stand in
front of the Chicago Symphony and we do Beethoven together, they’ve played
it more times than I’ve heard it. What I bring is a great deal
of respect for what they do. I also learn from this, and what comes
out as an interpretation is like with other conductors, but in my case
it would be a little larger percentage of what the orchestra gives me.
They’ve heard me say, “I had it in my mind to do it this other way,
but what you had was so wonderful, so why don’t we just keep it that way.”
It’s not my orchestra, so it is my job to push the right buttons, and
we get, I hope, very good performances, and occasionally revolutionary
performances as well. I have a great deal of respect for my senior
colleagues here, as opposed to the other part of the learning process
when it’s ‘my orchestra’ in Florida. But the approach is different,
and everybody who understands me will agree that it is much more fun
to shape an orchestra into your own performance in your own image.
This is far more challenging and more fun. I usually ask for five
or six rehearsals in Florida for those reasons, and nothing escapes scrutiny,
even to the way a pizzicato should sound. This is what I try
to do with them. Here in Chicago, I don’t need to do that kind of
work, quite frankly.
BD: Are there ever times in Chicago where you either
bring a strange idea to them, or experiment with them?
Jean: Oh, very often. Much more often,
in fact, than anywhere else where I conduct, because here in Chicago I am
the Associate Conductor, so I can take chances. That is, for me,
a tremendous luxury.
BD: You can experiment and see what works and
what doesn’t work?
Jean: Exactly. For example, when we do
children’s concerts, and we do a certain piece ten times in a row, I can
find out a lot about what I can do, what sounds good and what doesn’t.
It’s a great laboratory for us.
BD: Is this what keeps the back-stand string
players interested — to do a piece
ten times in a row, each one a little different? [Note that the
Chicago Symphony utilizes a rotating seating arrangement for the strings,
so none of the players remain near the back (or near the front) very long.
Every two weeks the players behind the first desk (first two desks in
the violin sections) change position.]
Jean: I don’t manipulate it that way, but you’re
right, it is very difficult to sustain that kind of interest. I don’t
do it to make them interested, and sometimes they don’t even notice the subtle
differences. They go along with it, and when asked, they will probably
say, “Yes, it was a little different.” They may not even notice a
little bit slower tempo to set up the climax in a certain way, but that’s
part of the learning process. It’s refined to that degree, so that’s
all part of it. But with my own orchestra, that’s different, and
is actually much more satisfying. I know that every note that came
off the stage on a given night I put there with intent, whereas here in
Chicago, every note that comes off the stage I admire, because it’s unbelievable
that an orchestra is that good.
BD: [With a gentle nudge] You don’t admire
your performances in Florida?
Jean: Yes, but in a different way. It
is an accomplishment, whereas here it’s what Maazel used to say when
he had assistants conducting his orchestra in Cleveland, “He doesn’t
deserve it going so well!” [Much laughter] This is a little
bit of what I feel when I am in awe of what goes back to Theodore Thomas
[who founded what would become the Chicago Symphony in 1891].
For every beat I give, I am inheriting the work that has been done before.
BD: Do you deserve it?
Jean: That’s for someone else to judge!
[More laughter]
* * *
* *
BD: Let me ask a big philosophical question.
What’s the purpose of music in society?
Jean: I was just reading about this.
It is, shall we say, a mirror of the soul in a way that the other performing
arts are not — directly, that is.
It frees itself from the limitation of language. It is a language
all its own, and communicates on a completely different level. The
ultimate compliment that one hears as a performing musician was when a
doctor actually did to come up to me and said, “If I could get more of my
patients to attend these concerts, I would have such an easier job.”
It’s all related to the soul, and that helps everything else. This
is what we keep saying, and here in Chicago, one does not have to preach
that it is not merely show business, and it’s not merely entertainment.
In places like Florida and elsewhere in the Mid-West, one has to be very
careful about that, because most people think that it’s like going a Broadway
show, or watching a comedy on television, that it merely is to entertain.
It is not! If it were, we’re doing it all wrong. [Both laugh] BD: Is there a balance between this artistic
achievement and the entertainment value?
Jean: Yes, because in any performance, everyone
gets what they can out of it. I do not mean to give the false impression
that it is not entertaining at all. On the contrary, it is extremely
entertaining, but that is a by-product. It entertains in a higher
level because it doesn’t merely aim to entertain, and that is what we
are very proud of. Beyond that, we have very lucky jobs. We
do this for a living, and we get to touch so many things that most people
forget. Between nine and five, they worry about the profit margin,
which, thank goodness, they do because if it were left to us, we would
starve to death. [Both laugh] So, it’s the balance in society
that we serve that function.
BD: Is every concert that you give fit for the
guy who’s been beating his brains out at the office every day?
Jean: Oh, yes. We insist! But part of
art is that the audience must bring something to it as well, as a participant,
as a listener. If one comes in and just sits in one’s seat, merely
expecting to understand everything without ever doing the homework, they
will get so much less out of it. This is not just for music, it’s
everything else as well. Life should not be so simple. The idea
is that every concert, when you come to Orchestra Hall, we expect that it
is for everyone. Even the most abstract, or the highest-brow, or the
most avant-garde piece is designed for everyone. Somewhere along the
line, in the last twenty years we have gotten off the track, and there has
been a lot of what we call ‘angry’
music written, and that may be what turned people off. But the intent
is still that you come away from the evening feeling nourished somewhere
inside.
BD: Do you also come away nourished?
Jean: Yes, most certainly. That’s why
conductors live so long! [Both laugh] There must be something
to it.
BD: You’ve made some recordings. Do you conduct
differently in the recording studio than you do in a live concert?
Jean: I’m learning that. It’s funny you should
ask, because I observed Sir Georg, and Lorin Maazel when I worked for
him in Cleveland, and noticed that it was a little different. I
had the audacity to ask these people, and they, of course, denied it. But
they did admit it is different in one sense. When one records in
a dry studio, where we are only human beings, you need to recreate the
excitement of a performance — if
not doubly so — because the person
hearing this recording will be in his living room, not in a concert hall
where there would be that sense of excitement. So, it’s a double whammy.
It’s very difficult, and, very honestly, I don’t do it well yet. It’s
a kind of discipline. You have to know when you are working in a studio,
that it will come out all right after it gets spliced, and cleaned up,
and finally released.
BD: Once you’ve got this thing that’s been assembled,
when you give a live performance of the same piece, do you feel that you’re
competing against that record, or any other record that’s been made?
Jean: It would be natural to think that, but I don’t
know why. No, I don’t feel that, because when I have a live performance,
that’s what you think about. I am not plotting the whole performance,
thinking, “Now this is what’s going to happen.” I certainly react
very much to an audience behind me. I’m not the only who does that.
Most performers will say that’s true. Especially with our back to
the audience, we conductors can tell whether it’s a restless audience,
or whether somebody is opening the crankily candy, etc. It all adds
to this sense of communication. You know whether or not you have
them in the palm of your hand. This is why one of the major ad campaigns
I have in Florida is that there’s nothing that beats a live performance.
There is that sense of occasion, and certainly we feel it from the stage,
and much to everyone’s credit in the audience, they sense it first. The
proof of the pudding is that then when one goes home and listens to the
broadcast, it sometimes isn’t nearly what you thought it was. That
is more often the case for me as a listen. I will attend a concert
and think this it is the best thing since buttered toast. Then I
wait and wait for the broadcast, and when the broadcast comes, I feel,
well it was okay... [Laughter] It wasn’t bad, and I’ll be fair
enough now, since I know that phenomenon, I can analyze it, and sit and
understand what it was that made me so excited, even though I’m not ultra-excited
now. But I treasure those performances for that.
BD: Does that make each following performance
a little more exciting?
Jean: Absolutely.
* * *
* *
BD: What advice do you have for young conductors
coming along who want to conduct orchestras either in Florida or Chicago?
Jean: I’m a young conductor myself [he was
thirty-seven at the time of this interview] and I’m not so arrogant
as to pontificate, but all I can say is that it is a lonely profession.
Ironically, it is the one profession that you work with a hundred musicians
every day of your life, but it’s very lonely. One has to learn the
balance between the humility and the arrogance of what you do. I
see so many colleagues — and I include
myself in this through part of the growing process
— that either think everything
they do is great, which of course cannot be true, or everything they do
is terrible, which also cannot be true. Both are forms of self-indulgence.
It is more often that I see, especially in young conductors, that there is
great deal of self-indulgence going on, and that’s only natural.
You don’t need to emphasize that. The idea that a hundred people are
going to play for you, and every time you wiggle the stick there is enough
self-indulgence. Beyond that, everything else is the balance. That
is what is so difficult. You can always be self-critical, or self-indulgent,
but it’s the balance. I’m fond of saying that because you will always
get well-meaning compliments and criticisms from all corners, and if you
don’t have that balance in yourself, then you will take too much of it
too literally. Orchestra players are especially very sweet. Most
of the time they will compliment you, and then constructive criticism is
so difficult to give that they would rather just not say it. They’d
say it was all right. As a conductor, it’s very easy to just see your
compliments and nothing else, and think that you’re great. Well, that
cannot be! [Laughs] BD: Do you feel
that when you’re conducting an orchestra, you’re a colleague, or are you
a dictator, or where in between do you fit?
Jean: I’m a colleague in Chicago, and I’m a
dictator in Florida. [Laughs] I’m also a dictator when I
lead the Civic Orchestra [training program for young professional musicians],
for example, or something like that. Of course, when you say that,
I am still a colleague. They bring to rehearsal something that
I respect. As a conductor, I’m one who likes to exploit what is
there sitting in front of me. Why not? When we work together,
you get the best possible performances out of a group.
BD: But with orchestras like Florida or the
Civic, are you more than just Head Colleague?
Jean: Indeed! It’s more than that, of course.
I insist on something going my way because I know that it’s better in
the long run for the group, or for the interpretation of the music.
In fact, that is the difference sometimes. Whether it’s something
good for the long run of the health and musical growth of the group, or
something that is merely for the one performance that we’re about to give.
That is something which comes when you get the responsibility. To
me, what is fascinating about the business is that you are constantly
working with people with reactions and egos of their own, and to know how
to play that is much more than knowing how to play an organ, or something
that’s mechanical.
BD: You’re playing an orchestra.
Jean: Right, one is playing an orchestra, which is
an instrument that consists of one hundred egos. Jean Morel, my
teacher, liked to say that out of those hundred people, if you’re very
good then only maybe thirty percent of them think they can do a better
job than you can! Then, out of that thirty, probably ten people will
actually conduct better than you, [laughs] but that is not the point.
If they happen to be good conductors, that’s fine, but if you are the
one, you do what needs to be done at that time.
BD: Is it possible that for this piece one of those
people would conduct it better, but then another person would conduct a
different piece better?
Jean: Yes! Absolutely!
BD: So, you’re contending with different people
all the time?
Jean: Yes, and patience is everything, especially
when one is growing. This is not just advice for conductors.
You read reviews, and if they’re very upsetting one has to really understand
that the bottom line is posterity. Time is the only judge.
It’s not by choice, but it simply is, and there are very few people who
have fooled that across a twenty-five career. There are very few
people that can fool everyone for twenty-five years, and one needs to understand
those things. The balance of it is that sometimes you give a better
performance, or they give a better performance, and so forth and so on.
Sometimes you get a good review and you didn’t deserve it, and sometimes
you get a bad review and you didn’t deserve it. But somehow it all
evens out at the end. I say this not because I am an optimist.
It’s because I’m the ultimate cynic, which is to say you never get away
with anything! [Both laugh]
BD: Are you optimistic about the future of music?
Jean: When the question is put that way, yes.
If you asked me if I’m optimistic about the future of orchestras, I would
say I’m less optimistic, because it requires that we now grow and change
as a society does, and nobody has shown the way. There are many, many
articles about how orchestras are in trouble.
BD: Is there any chance that there is no way,
and that we’re looking for a way, and it’s not there?
Jean: I don’t think so because, as we discussed
earlier, there will always be a need for music in an organized manner,
even if it is to be exclusively rock, which I doubt, quite frankly, because
throughout music history, it was never exclusively anything. That’s
the point. It is somehow the formula. It may involve television
and radio much more, because this is what technology has brought us,
and there are those of us who sit and pout, and say how horrible it all
is, but that’s nonsense. You can use a cash card and get money out
of a machine. You cannot argue that anymore, and so it’s best that
you join, and figure out how best to serve that. After all, with millions
and millions of cable channels there must be possibilities there for performing
arts in general, and music in particular.
BD: Then you have to hope that people will select
that channel.
Jean: Yes, that’s part of the growth, and figuring
out how to do that in a way that expands viewership. A&E is
a very good example. Nobody thought that kind of a channel would ever
work. [Remember, this interview was held in 1989, and the box below
shows what might be called The Artistic Rise and Fall of A&E.]
A&E is an American basic cable network,
the flagship television property of A&E Networks. The network was originally
founded in 1984 as the Arts & Entertainment Network, initially focusing
on fine arts, documentaries, dramas, and educational entertainment. Today,
the network deals primarily in non-fiction programming, including reality
docusoaps, true crime, documentaries, and miniseries.
In May 1995, the channel's name officially changed to the A&E
Network, to reflect its declining focus on arts and entertainment. The
following year, the network had branded itself as simply A&E, using the
slogans "Time Well Spent" and "Escape the Ordinary." Whitney Goit,
executive vice president for sales and marketing, stated, "The
word 'arts,' in regard to television, has associations such as 'sometimes
elitist,' 'sometimes boring,' 'sometimes overly refined' and 'doesn't translate
well to TV,'" He continued, "Even the arts patron often finds arts
on TV not as satisfying as it should be ... And the word 'entertainment'
is too vague. Therefore, much like ESPN uses its letters rather than what
they stand for – Entertainment Sports (Programming) Network – we decided
to go to just A&E." Of the network's tagline, Goit said, "Intellectually,
'Time well spent' defines a comparison between those who view a lot of
television as a wasteland, and their acknowledgment that there are good
things on TV and that they'd like to watch more thought-provoking TV."
On December 11, 2013, A&E unveiled a new on-air brand identity built
around the slogan "Be Original", emphasizing the network's lineup of original
productions and positioning it as a "much lighter, more fun place to come
and spend time"
BD: And now it sells wonderfully!
Jean: It does very well! [Both laugh]
It is a combination of things, and then one understands that.
BD: Is that the secret
— to have both A and E?
Jean: I think so. They must be part
of that, and to me when you say A&E, when there is more A than E, nobody
notices. [Laughs]
BD: But you don’t look for it to get more E
than A?
Jean: Indeed not! That’s why, with public stations,
one realizes that a lot of the apprehension comes from thinking that
we’re about to take medicine. If you tell someone that they’re just
having candy, and it turns out that it is medicine as well, nobody ever
complains. [Much laughter]
BD: Good to meet you. Thank
you for the conversation.
This conversation was recorded in Chicago on November 11, 1989.
Portions were broadcast on WNIB three days later, and again the following
year, and in 1997. This transcription was
made in 2022, 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.
To celebrate Sir Georg Solti’s seventy-fifth birthday in 1987, associate
conductor Kenneth Jean led the Orchestra in the world premiere of Campane
di Ravello. Written by 
