Mr. Tuba

10. Family, Friends, and Summer Activities

208 While it was impossible to divide my busy musical lifeintoclearlyidentifiedsections,thereweresomeeventsinthe1960sthat broughtaboutmajorchanges,mostimportantlythebirthofmythreesons, Jesse (1964), Harvey Jr. (1966), and Thomas (1968), and starting Twentieth Century Innovations with Gunther Schuller. In1959,JuliusBloom,executivedirectoroftheCarnegieHallCorporation , requested that Gunther—himself one of America’s most important composers—select, organize, and present a seriesof modernchamber music . The concert series would be presented in Carnegie Recital Hall and repeatedat majorcollegesanduniversitieswhenpossible.Withourattorney, Gunther and I established Twentieth Century Innovations, Inc., with the goal of giving contemporary composers a venue to have their works performed . Gunther was the president and I was vice president, but in reality this meant that Gunther was the conductor and I was his tubist, personnel manager, and manager of the small budget from Carnegie Hall (or occasionally , Gunther was the boss and I was the lackey!). We featured the music of Luigi Nono, Joseph Arrigo, Charles Ives, Iannis Xenakis, John Cage, Ned Rorem, Ralph Shapey, Harvey Sollberger, Milton Babbitt, Gunther himself, and many others who in general were not your typical household Family, Friends, and Summer Activities CHAPTER TEN 209 Family, Friends, and Summer Activities composers.Nobody inNew York was performing thismusic.After onlysix concerts in three years, this series had presented more twentieth-century compositions than any other chamber ensemble in the world. For my part, I was intrigued by this new music and by the composers who took it so seriously. I compared it to a special meal prepared by a gourmet chef. You might not like it at first taste but it was still a gourmet dish and had to be respected as such. Gunther Schuller is, in my humble opinion, one of the best examples of a true musical genius in our time. He wasprincipalhornoftheCincinnatiSymphonyatageseventeenandjoined theMetropolitanOperaasfirsthornatnineteen.Hecoinedtheterm“third stream” to describe the contemporary blending of musical styles, specifically the jazz and classical disciplines. You can listen to him lecture on the music of Duke Ellington or John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet as though he were born in the jazz idiom, but the next moment he will switch to Bernstein, Beethoven, Mahler, Wagner, or Mozart with astonishing virtuosity. I consider him our most important living American musician. Guntherhaslivedeveryfacetofthemusicprofession,alwaysoperating at the highest level, with maximum results. His ears were incredible, too. He could hear a twenty-note chord with twenty different instruments and tell you which notes were sharp or flat. It’s as if we have always known each other and worked together as a team. Working as Gunther’s personnel manager was a demanding job; there were some compositions that simply couldn’t be performed adequately without certain individual musicians. That sometimes posed problems, because the best musicians were busy all the time and it meant we had to schedule rehearsals at odd times, like 5:15 to 7:45 pm so they could do a 2–5 recording and an 8:00 concert. We also had to make sure that everybody was free and not passing up more lucrative work to play for us, because we didn’t want musicians to lose money on our account. If we were unable to get the musicians we wanted, we found that it was generally better not to perform the piece at all rather than present a lackluster, second-rate performance. This was sometimes hard to get across to the contemporary composers who were writing extremely difficult music. Around 1962, we were premiering a Charles Ives work discovered and completedbyGuntherSchuller, Chromatimelotune.Guntherhadrehearsed 210 Mr. Tuba the work with the ensemble and scheduled it for performance. But when it was time to go onstage, one of our clarinet players hadn’t arrived. As personnel manager, I was in trouble! The Recital Hall is on the third floor of Carnegie Hall and the pay telephone (the only telephone) was in the first-floor lobby. Trying to locate the missing clarinetist, I raced up and down the stairs several times to use the telephone (the ancient elevator with operator was too slow). Finally, the clarinetist arrived, with apologies . A previous engagement had run overtime, then unfavorable traffic and weather conditions were also problems. We accepted his apologies and were relievedand happy hewasn’tinanaccident. Inany event,hewent onstage with the other musicians. Gunther and I were about to go onstage when I noticed the tuba part was not on my stand. Embarrassed, I confessed to Gunther I didn’t have thetubapart.Guntherdidn’tpanic,buthastilyextractedsomemanuscript paperfromanearbyviolincaseand,holdingthepaperonthewall,beganto scratch out...