James Paul Interview with Bruce Duffie . . . . . . . . . .

Conductor James Paul

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie

James Paul (born October 17, 1940, in Forest Grove, Oregon) is an American conductor.

Paul studied voice at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, while conducting various student and professional organizations. Following his studies he was awarded the Serge Koussevitsky Memorial Conducting Prize presented by Erich Leinsdorf at the 1967 Tanglewood Music Festival.

Paul then served as conducting fellow with the St. Louis Symphony, and conductor of the Bach Society of St. Louis. He subsequently took posts as associate conductor of the Kansas City Philharmonic and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

In 1981 Paul was appointed music director of the Baton Rouge Symphony. During the fifteen years under his leadership, the orchestra became a well-disciplined, highly recognized artistic entity. The Symphony shared the 1983 American Symphony Orchestra League award for most innovative programming with the Brooklyn Philharmonic and was also the only regional orchestra featured on the WFMT Fine Arts Network's Music in America series. In 1984, Paul founded the Baton Rouge Symphony Chorus. A high point of his tenure was the orchestra's performance on October 22, 1988, at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The program included Chadwick's Jubilee from Symphonic Sketches, Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 and Beethoven's Piano Concerto Nr. 4 with soloist Abbey Simon. The concert received excellent reviews in both the New York and Louisiana newspapers. Following his final concerts in February 1998, Paul was named Conductor Emeritus, the only conductor so honored by the orchestra in its 50-year history.

Parallel to his tenure in Baton Rouge, Paul served for several years as music director of the Ohio Light Opera (conducting Gilbert and Sullivan and other light operas) and principal guest conductor of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra.

As a guest conductor he has led the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Symphonies of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, Seattle, San Diego, San Antonio, New Jersey, Oakland, Honolulu, Kansas City, Jacksonville and Detroit. Recent past engagements include the Houston Symphony, the Singapore Symphony, the National Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Calgary Philharmonic, Symphony Nova Scotia (Halifax), Vancouver Symphony, and the Utah Symphony.

In 1997, Paul recorded Paul Paray's Joan of Arc Mass and First Symphony with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus. This recording received a Grammy nomination for "Best Choral Performance."

Paul was the co-founder and classical music director and conductor of The Shedd Institute's Oregon Festival of American Music from 1997 to 2007, the artistic director of the Sewanee Summer Music Festival from 2006 to 2009, and served for six seasons as principal guest conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival.

== Names which are links in this box and below refer to my interviews elsewhere on my website. BD

In mid-July of 1990, James Paul was back in Chicago to conduct concerts with the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, and he was gracious enough to sit down with me for a wide-ranging conversation. Portions of this interview were used on WNIB, Classical 97, and now, in 2024, I am pleased to present our entire conversation on this webpage.

To see photos of the three Grant Park Band Shells used over the years, click HERE.

Being an outdoor festival, we began our conversation thinking about those surroundings . . . . .

Bruce Duffie:   Tell me the joys and sorrows of conducting outdoor concerts in the summertime.

James Paul:   The sorrows are you may get rained out, although actually that’s only happened to me on one half of one concert, and one half of another. You also have to be a little concerned about traffic noise, but generally it isn’t too bad. The joys are that this is a wonderful orchestra to work with. I have told them I would really like to conduct this orchestra inside a concert hall some time, because they’re really an outstanding group of players. Then, since I am a choral man, I lust after the chorus here, trained by Thomas Peck. Another joy is that there are a lot of people who really believe in the Grant Park concerts, and come rain or shine. [Laughs] Also, Steven Ovitsky, who runs the concerts, is willing to take a chance now and then on some out-of-the-way repertory. A good case in point is the Mass commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of Joan of Arc, by the late French conductor/composer, Paul Paray that we’re going to do Wednesday and Friday.

BD:   You come here each year. Do you find that the orchestra responds the same way each year, or do you build a closer rapport year after year after year?

Paul:   It was a wonderful experience with them the very first time I worked with them, but that’s also one of the joys. You do develop a relationship where they know how I work, and I know how they work. It’s a real partnership. One of the listeners the other night said to me, “It’s really evident that they enjoy working with you, and you enjoy working with them.” When that comes across the foot-lights, I’m happy! I really do like working with them. It’s something I treasure, and I must say the same thing is also true of the chorus.
robbin

BD: Does being outside alter your choice of repertoire?

Paul: Yes. On the third set of concerts this year, I originally wanted to do the Benjamin Britten Suite on English Folk Tunes, which is a piece of music that I really adore. It was the last work for full orchestra that he completed before he died, and it’s a stupendous piece of music. I think you could get away with parts of it, and maybe one day I’ll have the courage and do it, but the last movement really needs quiet. So after Steven and I talked about it a lot, we’ve decided to substitute a piece that just features the strings, the St. Paul Suite by Holst, which is charming, and which I’m happy to do. We’ve often thought of doing Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, which is one of my favorite works, and I’d love to do it here, but we’re just not convinced that it’s an outdoor piece. Last summer we did Les Nuits d’Été of Berlioz with Catherine Robbin [biography and photo shown at right]. I was concerned because the orchestra is very delicate at times. But it turned out to go over very well. Of course, you have a singer, and she’s the one who wants to do Gerontius so much. Maybe we’ll take courage in hand, but I suspect rather than Gerontius, we’re going to move more in the direction of Belshazzar’s Feast [laughs], which has double brass bands, and circuses. You get all the ancient gods and everything else. But being outdoors does dictate a bit, so you have to be careful.

BD:   Once you decide on doing a piece, does the idea of doing it outside change your interpretation at all, or would you do it the same outside as you would do it say, in Orchestra Hall?

Paul: Probably other conductors might think otherwise, and there might be a few adjustments that I would make, but basically no, I perform it the same way. I haven’t thought about it, so I must basically conduct it the way I feel it should go. You wouldn’t go necessarily faster or slower just because it’s inside or outside. You should do it the way you really believe it ought to go.

BD:   You don’t do it louder and brighter?

Paul: No, absolutely not. In fact, I remember a couple seasons back when there was one real soft part. I told the orchestra, “I don’t care if they can’t hear it! Let’s play it soft,” and they all cheered! Of course, you care if they hear it, but you simply try to do the very best, and realize that piece of music the very best you can. We have, I must say, excellent sound technicians here at Grant Park, and they do a superb job. Every once in a while you feel that you have to do something, but not very much.

BD:   You say that you care about the audience hearing everything.

Paul: Absolutely.

BD:   What else do you care about from the audience? What do you expect of them? What do you hope that they will get from a concert that you conduct?

Paul: You hope that they will get a number of things. One of the things is that they will get to hear a performance of a piece of music where the music has been realized. By that I don’t mean some self-effacing ‘Oh gosh, folks, I’m just trying to serve the composer’. By that I mean you are doing the best you can to realize the piece of music as imaginatively, directly, and intuitively as you can, and do it in a way in which your own handwriting comes through. You don’t have to worry about subjecting the piece to your interpretation or somebody else’s. Whatever you have to offer as an artist, as a recreator, it will be there, so you don’t have to worry about that. That’s all part of what you hope they’ll get. You also hope that they have the sense that they help to make that concert by their presence, and the attention they give to it. If it’s a knee-slapper, great! I will hope they get it. If it’s a piece that has deeper meaning, I hope they’ll get that. I’m a bit of a missionary. I’m an evangelist, and down very deep I believe that music has the intrinsic power to affect people very deeply. I don’t mean just on an artificial level, but rather on a pre-verbal basic Mother-Earth-Father-God level. I don’t want to get too involved in all of this, but I hope people are moved emotionally and intellectually. I hope they go away with something. Although I hope it’s not just been a good time, I hope that they’ve been through something; that the journey has been made; that something has occurred in their life which is a little bit out of the ordinary. I really mean that.

BD:   It speaks from your heart to their hearts.

Paul: Absolutely, and your responsibility as a conductor with orchestra members who play so many concerts a year, is to help them do something which they all want to do, which is to turn on and start to really make some music, and not just hack through it. This is not to say that they just hack through things, but they’re human beings. If you can help them cross that barrier and get them to come alive, that’s part of what you should be trying to do as a conductor.

BD:   Do you always succeed?

Paul: You always try. I don’t know how to say how I succeed, but I always do try. In the end, it’s not that you make them do something. Rather, it becomes a unified thing, and in the very best performances, it’s like you are making the music anew. You just help each performance to blossom on its own.

* * * * *

BD:   Now you spend quite a bit of time in rehearsal training the orchestra and getting them to play the way you expect in each particular piece...

Paul: No, that’s not true! We don’t have a lot of time. Two rehearsals is not a lot of time. You spend as much time as you have to, and you do what you can. Rehearsals cost money. In the case of this orchestra, it relates back to what you were saying before. We do know each other well, and there are not a lot of things that you have to stop and talk about. You conduct, and they’ll do it. They’re very quick. They’ve very fast that way. They remind me a lot of the London Symphony that way.

BD:   Then is all your work done in rehearsal, or do you purposely leave some bits for that spark in the performance?

Paul: Now you’re hitting on a question which is very much coming to the fore again because of the reissue of the Toscanini tapes and videos. It seems to me that there are two kinds of basic areas of approach.   One is exemplified by people like Toscanini and Karajan, which is that you absolutely rehearse the dickens out of everything, until everybody knows exactly what to do. Then your job largely in the performance is a heightened psychological button-pushing, and you can get marvelous performances that way. I would be the last person to deny that. You cannot help but see that the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Karajan, who prepared them within an inch of their teeth, would give stupendous performances. But that isn’t my way. I believe that you should prepare meticulously, of course, and it’s not that you leave something undone, but you prepare in such a way that it becomes a springboard for the performance to really take off. I adore and respect Fritz Reiner immensely, as well as Toscanini, but sometimes they would say, “The performance was great, but you should have heard the dress rehearsal!” [Laughs] Unfortunately, we weren’t there at the dress rehearsal. The audience isn’t at the dress rehearsal, and it’s a tragedy when that occurs.

BD:   The audience missed the best because the orchestra peaked too early?

Paul: Yes. The performance is not for the performers. It’s become something both more and less. I take the view that you prepare meticulously. That’s a part of your job as conductor, but at the performance, not only do you remind them of what we all agreed to do, but you perform. You help them to recreate. You help to make something happen then that hasn’t happened before. If you do other than that, in my judgment, it’s not enough. It’s like what the Grand Duchess said in The Gondoliers of Gilbert & Sullivan, “It’s all very well, but it’s not enough!” [Both laugh]

BD:   Can there ever be a time when you give too much?

Paul: I don’t know if it’s possible to give too much. We’re all human, and we all misjudge. Often one wishes to have gone farther and done more, but if you really are in there trying, sometimes that’s all you can do. But you just keep working at it.

BD:   This week you’re doing the Mass by Paul Paray [CD recording shown at right]. He was most noted as a conductor, but also was a fine composer. Do you find that his scores are perhaps set out a little differently, or notated just a little bit differently, with items that only a conductor would do, rather than a pure composer who never conducts?

Paul: No! His writing is very clear, and unlike a lot of French music, it sounds exactly the way it looks on the page. It’s really funny... when you pick up a piece by Vincent d’Indy, it never sounds the way it looks. The page always looks different.

BD:   Really??? Why?

Paul: I don’t know how to explain it, but when you actually get around to playing, it sounds quite different from what it looks like. This Mass is the only piece of Paray I’ve ever done. I did it a little over a year ago. It’s a unique piece. I went to school at Oberlin, and in those days I could see George Szell and the Cleveland orchestra, and go up to Detroit with my roommate, who came from Grosse Pointe Woods, and see Paul Paray and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and they were terrific. He was a very impressive conductor, and some years earlier I had gotten the recording he had made of the Joan of Arc Mass, and loved the piece from the first time I heard it. He used it to open the Ford Auditorium when that became Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s new hall in 1956. When I finally got the go-ahead to do this piece in New Orleans, I did some research on Paray because, of course, he was mostly famous as a conductor. This guy really put the Detroit Symphony on the map. He was a great conductor. I had almost all those old Mercury recordings, and I found out some amazing things about him. In his own country, he was extremely highly regarded as a conductor, and also as a composer. At the age of eight or nine, he entered the Rouen choir school, and at the age of twelve, it’s reported he could play all of Bach’s solo organ pieces by memory. In 1911, he received the Grand Prix de Rome in composition [with a piece called Yanitza], and on the panel that awarded him the prize, were Saint-Saëns, Massenet, Fauré, and Théodore Dubois. That’s pretty solid! In 1931 came the 500th anniversary of the death of Joan of Arc, and he wrote this extraordinarily beautiful Mass, and first performed it. The composer Florent Schmitt went berserk over it. I’ve heard a couple of other Paray pieces, a symphony and a set of orchestral songs, which are charming, and I understand that Pierre Boulez has said that if you want to hear really outstanding first-rate French composition of the earlier part of this [twentieth] century, you should listen to the music of Paul Paray.

BD:   High praise indeed!

Paul: It is high praise! I will say that when we did it in New Orleans, everybody loved it. The audience immediately took to it, and the chorus went berserk over it. They just thought it was wonderful. The orchestra liked it, and the critics liked it. Everyone wondered why the work wasn’t done more often. I hope the same thing will happen here. I can’t tell you why it isn’t done more. There are just some pieces that seem to fall through the cracks.

BD:   Obviously, it needs a champion such as yourself.

Paul: You can hear the musical antecedence that Paray comes from. He’s part of a tradition, but it’s really a unique voice. You can hear a real composer there. It’s like how Carl Nielsen is different from Jean Sibelius. There is a different and unique way of handling the musical material, and it’s absolutely sensational. He does wonderful things throughout it, and I hope the folks will like it a lot. It’s an immediate and gripping piece. It’s also a very heartfelt piece.

BD:   Are there some composers of the later generation who learned from Paray?

Paul: I don’t know whether he taught composition or not.

BD:   Perhaps just knowing his style and technique?

Paul: If there are, I don’t know of them. The question I’ve been asked most is whether it is like the Duruflé Requiem, and the answer is no. Perhaps the last movement is a little bit like the Duruflé, but it’s a much more active and dramatic piece. There’s a tremendous fugal-type thing that goes on in the end of the Gloria, that is absolutely sensational. But there are all kinds of genius. The opening of the Gloria is handled almost like an Islamic Muezzin Calling the Faithful to Prayer.

BD:   I hope it goes well.

Paul: I hope it doesn’t rain! [Both have a huge laugh] I’m also going to do it with my own orchestra and chorus in Baton Rouge this coming year. I will do it whenever I can, because I really believe in it.

* * * * *

BD:   You’re the Music Director in Baton Rouge?

Paul: Yes, and Principal Guest Conductor in New Orleans.

BD:   Do you like the life of a wandering minstrel?

Paul: Well, I’m not wandering that much anymore, but the answer is if I were, yes! [Both laugh]

BD:   When you come to each different orchestra, do you have preconceived ideas, or do you mold the sound as they respond?
jochum

Paul: [Thinks a moment] If I’m coming to an orchestra for the first time, my general process is to say hello, that I’m happy to be working with them, and I’ve looked forward to it, which I have. When you go to one of the really big orchestras, like the London Symphony, for the first time, André Previn used to say, “You’re a little nervous when leading the big ones, but the first thing to do is take one of the pieces, and go through it with them. They get used to you; you get used to them. Give them a chance to play and get a feeling for it. Then go ahead and do some rehearsal.” I found that works very well.

BD:   Are the really big orchestras different in major ways from the lesser orchestras?

Paul: They can be, in the sense that the great orchestras do have a real sense of personality about them.

BD:   And they don’t want you to touch that?

Paul: It’s not that they don’t want you to touch it; it’s just there. They have worked together for so long, and know each so well that they have their ways. You wouldn’t tell them how to do certain things, and that’s not your concern anyway. Your concern is to do the music, and if you’re really doing it convincingly, they will respond. I have never yet found an orchestra that didn’t want to play well, and if you gave them a sense of knowing the score, and listening to them, and really conducting, if you believe in the piece, they’re going to do it. That’s just the way it is. I have never had the experience of an orchestra going off... at least so far, fingers crossed. [Laughs] Some orchestras are quicker than others, and some orchestras have specific strong points. Maybe the strings section is just fabulous but the winds are a little weak. Maybe you have to compensate a little for this or that, but it all comes back to a very basic issue. I learned this all over again a few years ago from the great German conductor, Eugen Jochum [biography and photo shown at left], whom I absolutely adored and worship. He, and Eduard van Beinum who was head of the Concertgebouw for many years, were my two mentors. I actually got to know Jochum, and spend some time with him. Not too long before he died, he returned to the United States and guest conducted in Philadelphia. He did the Bruckner Ninth, and at 83 years old, all you had was Jochum, and Bruckner, and the orchestra, and the music. There was no sense of falseness, or vanity, or false ego, or anything. It was just this old man who loved this music. It was fabulous watching this go on. There was no veil, and no separation between him and the musicians. There was no sense of, “You’re slaves and I’m God!” It was simply music-making! If you go to an orchestra with that intention in mind, and assuming you know what you’re doing, it’s going to work... at least that has been my experience.

BD:   You say, “Assuming you know what you’re doing.” Is this something you can learn in a conservatory, or must you learn it by doing it?

Paul: There’s a lot you learn by doing. You couldn’t learn to play the clarinet unless you played the clarinet! There are a lot of aspects of conducting that can be taught, but there are a couple of aspects of conducting that cannot be taught. You cannot teach a person to have innate musicianship. It’s either there or it isn’t. There is also some funny kind of area that has to do with leadership. Something is generated that makes the players want to play. It is not euphoria, but they are convinced. There is some aspect of personality that cannot be learned. Some people call it authority, but whatever it is, there is something there that enables you to bring the musicians along. [Laughs] Some people would say it’s raving egotism, but there was just no question that the Philadelphia Orchestra was going to play for Eugen Jochum. It was just there. There was no question that this was a person who knew what he was doing, and that was it. That also cannot be taught.

BD:   What advice do you have for aspiring young conductors? [Vis-à-vis the biography shown at left, see my interview with Bernard Haitink.]

Paul: [Thinks a moment] Gosh! I guess the short answer is that you have to really have self-knowledge. You must know what your strengths and weaknesses are. You need to continue to work to develop your strengths, and reduce your weaknesses. I mean that very seriously. Then, you have to have a good pair of ears, and a good memory. You’re much better off if you have what I call a natural arm, where the conducting is clear and easy. Know where you are in your life, and you’d better love music more than anything else, because if you don’t, you’ll be miserable when the lean times come along... and there will be lean times. You don’t have to go to New York initially to become a conductor. Start right where you are, and if that’s in Timbuktu or Greenville, Alabama, that’s where you start. You also have to accept the fact that you’re in for a lifetime of study. You’re also in for a lifetime of great beauty, of joy, and happiness. You’ll meet some wonderful people, and probably have some wonderful opportunities. Never be afraid to ask questions. If you don’t understand something, ask the player who knows. Go find out how he did something you heard. False egotism will only stand in your way. You also must be strong.

BD:   Outer strength or inner strength, or both?

Paul: Mostly inner, because there are certain aspects of the music world that are really nasty and painful.

BD:   Can you try to minimize those, and deal with them as little as possible?

Paul: No, you can’t. Sometimes you have to deal with them. Just know what you’re dealing with. Don’t be shocked when you find that things are not all perfection. Not everybody adores Schubert. [Both laugh] They should but they don’t!

BD:   Is concert music for everyone?

Paul: [Thinks again] I would say for most, yes. Unfortunately, we live in a time [1990] where people grow up so conditioned towards certain things, that they don’t give themselves a chance. For instance, my great love is what we call ‘classical music’, but I’ve spent a lot of time in my life listening to jazz, and bluegrass, and all the rest, to see what’s there from the point of view of finding out if I like it or not. At least give it a chance. So often, kids that grow up today are not even given a chance. It’s just assumed that classical music is dull, and boring, and long, and you’ve got to listen to rock. That’s the way we’re brought up. Look at newscasts... we get news, weather, and sports. We never get news, weather, and arts. Life is so structured against classical music in our country. On the other hand, there are more people going to symphony concerts, and opera, and ballet than ever before in our country. People tend to forget that when President Ronald Reagan came to office, the government organization that suffered the most with cuts was the National Endowment for the Arts. It was cut in half at the beginning of the Reagan administration. No other governmental sponsored agency received that kind of cut.

Fact Check: Upon entering office in 1981, the incoming Reagan administration intended to push Congress to abolish the NEA completely over a three-year period. Another proposal would have halved the arts endowment budget. However, these plans were abandoned when the President's special task force on the arts and humanities discovered ‘the needs involved and benefits of past assistance,’ concluding that continued federal support was important. While the department's budget decreased from $158.8 million in 1981 to $143.5 million, by 1989 (the end of Reagan’s second term) it was $169.1 million, the highest it had ever been. Also of note: After being created by an act of Congress and signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in September of 1965, Richard Nixon’s early endorsement of the arts benefited the National Endowment in several ways. The budget not only increased, but more federal funding became available for numerous programs within the agency. Between 1965 and 2008, the agency made in excess of 128,000 grants, totaling more than $5 billion.

[Continuing] The fact that we’ve survived as well as we have means that a lot of people must want to hear what we’re doing. But it’s an expensive business. Some orchestras have failed, and other performing organizations have gone out of business. But it’s really hard to imagine a life that doesn’t have really fine music and art in it. What a dreadful idea!

BD:   Can I assume you are confident that music will never go out of business?

Paul: I find that inconceivable. I can’t imagine it.

BD: Living here in Chicago, where we have a couple of great orchestras, a great opera company, and lots of chamber music, I admit to be spoiled!

Paul: I would say that there is more awareness on a number of levels within the business communities and the legal profession today about the importance of arts in people’s lives than there’s ever been. It’s wonderful to go up to a bank president when you’re going to ask them to make a donation, and have them tell you why the orchestra is important to the community. That happens more and more now. Some of them will have really gotten into music and are really excited about it, while others are just kind of interested, and realize strictly on a baseline-bucks-level, that people come into town and want to know if you have a museum and a good orchestra. It means there’s something going on in your city. Then many of them have to come to realize that the members of the orchestra are the same people who are sending their kids to school, and are going to the grocery store, and paying their taxes! It’s all a community thing. But the idea of life without the Beethoven Violin Concerto, or The Chairman Dances by John Adams, would be tragic.

BD:   I’m glad to see you’re putting a piece by a living American composer along with one of the acknowledged giants.

Paul: Sure, why not?

BD:   So, you feel that music is continuing to grow?

Paul: Oh, yes. Where would we be without Copland’s Appalachian Spring, or Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten? The tragedy is that, for one reason or another, many people never get a shot at it. That’s why the educational programs that the symphony orchestras have — playing for school kids — are so absolutely vital and important... IF they’re handled right, and that’s a big IF.
james paul

BD:   [With a wink] You can’t just play Tubby the Tuba, and let it go at that???

Paul: [Laughs] In fact, Tubby the Tuba is a very charming item. However, other terrible mistakes are made. There’s the old feeling that, “By God, they’re going to listen to this whole symphony and like it!” which is ridiculous. It’s absolutely and utterly ridiculous.

BD:   So maybe Tubby the Tuba is right?

Paul: Sometimes! In order to entice the kids to come to the concert hall, we will do everything except draw their attention to music. We have people drawing things on papers for them, or we have films of this or that, or we have a clown... Maybe we have to do a little of that once in a long while for the little kids, but we had better find a way to interest the kids in the music, and the instruments of the orchestra, and how wonderful these things could be. If we do that, we’re going to put the emphasis in the right place. All the rest of it is a failure to either believe in music itself, or a failure in the ability to put that across to the kids. It can be done, and it must be done! You may have to try different means, but whenever I hear someone say, “Let’s have a puppet on the children’s concert,” I absolutely say NO! By the way, our youth concerts are sold out in Baton Rouge. We could do more if we had more money. They’re very popular, and they’re one of the strongest activities that the orchestra does. We do none of this nonsense. All you have to do is come out on stage, and let the kids know that you’re going to talk to them right from your heart. Then you’re not going to have any problem at all. It happens to be the teachers that are the problem. They’re the ones who don’t understand. The kids are fine. It’s no big deal for them. There are ways to involve them, and then it’s going to be great!

BD:   I hope you keep involving them.

Paul: I believe in youth concerts. It’s what I’ve always admired about the great British conductors, like Sir John Barbirolli, and Sir Malcolm Sergeant, and Sir Thomas Beecham. From the beginning of their careers to the end, they did youth concerts. Beecham would come staggering out on stage at the age of 79 or 80, fat and hardly able to move, and do youth concerts. Malcolm Sergeant did the same thing. It was great, and they loved it. What’s such a terrible thing in this country is that kids so rarely get a chance to do this, and then the youth concerts are kind of strange, almost apologizing. You don’t have to apologize! You have to have the gift to get it across to kids.

* * * * *

BD:   This Fall you will hit the Big Five-Oh. Are you where you expected to be at 50?

Paul: I don’t know where I expected to be. The only thing I ever said in my life was that if I weren’t somewhere by the age of 40, I would probably feel I shouldn’t be in the conducting end of music. But when that came, I was doing some really wonderful stuff.

BD:   Will you be back at Grant Park next year?

Paul: You’ll have to ask Steven Ovitsky! He’s the boss, but I assume so. We’ve been talking about repertory, but he has to satisfy a lot of people.

BD:   Where are you from originally?

Paul: I was born in Oregon, near the coastal town called Forest Grove, west of Portland. We didn’t have any orchestras out there then.

BD:   You had lots of timber!

Paul: [Laughs] Yes, lots of timber, and my mother, bless her heart, let me listen to records. To this day I thank her for that, because she and The Lone Ranger program got me going on classical music. When we were talking about jazz, I wanted to say that I admire a really fine jazz artist who gets going. It’s a unique and a remarkable thing. Some of them are phenomenal, but what happens to me in classical music I do not find it in any other music. Some of it is very nice, but there is so much more. I will say that I do find I am moved by certain other kinds of music, especially Indian classical music.

BD:   Ragas and such?

Paul: Yes. Both Northern and Southern Indian music are quite remarkable in their own way. Some aspects of Balinese and Javanese music I like very much. But my idea of hell is five hours of Cage’s music. Ugh!

BD:   Have you played some Lou Harrison, because he incorporates much of the Eastern style into the Western style, with gamelans, etc.

Paul: No, I never have. The Colin McPhee piece, Tabuh-Tabuhan for 2 pianos & orchestra (which we just did) was based on, or comes from his experiences with Balinese gamelan music. He was kind of the granddaddy of what we call ‘minimalism’ now. I have heard his Symphony which is also minimalist. There’s a lot of repetition, and figures, and so forth.

BD:   Have you found a couple of American composers that you try to champion whenever you can?

Paul: There’s one fellow whose music I haven’t played yet that I want to play, and that’s Stephen Douglas Burton. Stephen and I were classmates at Oberlin, and I would really like to do his music. There’s also a composer named Kenton Coe who wrote a Concert Overture for us for our fortieth birthday, which we played last season, called Ischiana. I like his music a lot. [Paul would conduct that work with the Chicago Symphony in 1995.] I really would like to see us playing a bit more of the Pistons, and the Crestons, and that whole wonderful group of American composers. Gerry Schwarz is about the only one who’s really pushing them at all, and there’s a lot of wonderful music there. For instance, the only time I have ever heard Piston’s Fourth Symphony was when I’ve done it! I told the folks last night here at Grant Park that these two performances of Tabuh-Tabuhan was the first time I’ve heard it live!
james paul

BD:   But obviously you’ve looked at the score and decided you’d like to do it.

Paul: Yes, but in the case of the two pieces I just mentioned, there were recordings that you could hear. Originally Steve Ovitsky suggested Tabuh-Tabuhan, and I said yes immediately because it had fascinated me for years. There are also David Diamond, and Norman Dello Joio. I’d love to do the ballet After Eden by Lee Hoiby. It’s wonderful music. I’m also a great lover of English music. Just give me any of them, and I’ll gladly do them.

BD:   Harrison Birtwistle?

Paul: I only know a couple of things of his, and I know a couple of the early symphonies of Peter Maxwell Davies. Somebody else will have to do them.

BD:   Someone you should look into is William Mathias.

Paul: That’s a horse of a different color. I’d love to do Mathias. I’d love to do some Grace Williams, the Welsh composer. She did some beautiful compositions. Malcolm Arnold’s stuff is never done in America. He’s still alive, and it’s fairly tuneful, but it’s very impressive in many ways.

BD:   What about Lennox Berkeley?

Paul: I would love to do some Lennox Berkeley, and some Michael Tippett. There is no greater fan of Benjamin Britten, or William Walton, or Edward Elgar, or Arnold Bax, or George Butterworth, or Gerald Finzi, or Ernest Moeran than I am, and I’ve done a lot of their pieces.

BD:   Now a lot of their works are being recorded, so that’s great.

Paul: I’m glad, because it’s really worth it. There is so much beautiful music that has been written by English composers, and I honestly believe that Britten’s music is going to live for a long, long time, because this guy’s music is unbelievable.

BD:   Of course, the bulk of that is the operas.

Paul: Those will go on, but you’re beginning to see that the great song cycles are now being taken up by other singers.

BD:   I’ve played Les Illuminations several times on my radio programs.

Paul: Anthony Rolfe Johnson has done it very nicely, and it’s actually been done by a number of women now, which really is probably who it ought to be for. There are also other things, like the Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, and my favorite, the Nocturne. In fact, the first time I ever worked with the great British tenor, Richard Lewis, was the Serenade. Richard came to Milwaukee in 1978. He was 65, and he sang that, and two Handel arias, including ‘Waft her angels through the skies’. I then visited Elizabeth and him that fall when he was in San Francisco doing the Captain in Billy Budd.

BD:   He did that role here in Chicago in 1971, with Theodor Uppman, and Geraint Evans.

Paul: I asked him to do The Dream of Gerontius, and in 1980 he came and did the next to the last performance of Gerontius that he was to sing, and he did it magnificently. By that time he was 67, and he sounded fine. We talk on the phone a couple of times a year. I absolutely adore and love Peter Pears. He’s one of the great singers of all time, but Richard had a bigger, more international voice. He could sing everything from Italian opera to Gilbert & Sullivan. He is a sensational musician. Many things were written for him, including the main tenor in King Priam by Michael Tippett.

BD: [Noticing the time] Thank you so much for coming back to Chicago, and for speaking with me today.

Paul: Thank you.

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This conversation was recorded in Chicago on July 16, 1990. Portions were broadcast on WNIB the following day, and again in 1997, and three times in 2000. 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.

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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.