Variety (October 1954)

Wednesday, October 20, 1954 P^RIETY 4©rti ASCAP ANNIVERSARY 43 •_ - . - 1 — - ■ ■ 1 - 1 — 11 — - 1 ; ; - ■-■■■■ ■ —— ■ ■ w -jf- scar Hammersteitt 2d IT FEELS GOOD ■By OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN 2d Twenty-nine - years ago when ASCAP was 11 years old Ottb Harbach and I sat in his garden at Mamaroneck, N. Y„ trying to write words to a melody by Sigmund Rom- berg. It was to be for “The Desert Song” We were hav- ing trouble. We had a general, idea of what the song was to, be about, but a general idea is not good enough. A song must be based on a very specific idea. We were that not uncommon predicament in which two collabora- tors, trying to corner and capture a refrai , are themselves cornered. On such yOdcasions the two collaborators seldom sit or stand together. There is always one seated and the other is standing or pacing.. They take turns. The one who is standing may “break the silence With a suggestion. The one who is sitting shakes his head. It gets to a point where neither has any confidence left. ' Each will preface a sug- gestion with: “This isn’t it but it might be something like this —Then he offers -his feeble notion and breaks off in the middle— “No, it’s lousy,” he will say, taking the words out of his friend’s mouth. It" was at one of these discouraging moments when Otto said something wonderful: “You know Oscar, y/e are not going to make this song, the song is here. It exists some- where in the world. What we have to do is to find it.” The truth of this struck me with great force and I have never forgotten it. That afternoon we “found” the song we were looking for. But who knows What really made it and how. long it, had been in the making? What ex- periences of our own, what experiences of others, what a continuity of hew many men’s thoughts, for how many generations, had resulted in this final assembly of words which ultimately were found by two searching song- writers? ,. ' . In the 29 years that have followed, Otto and I and thou- sands of other songwriters have continued the quest for songs that, are “somewhere in the world.” Songs have been found and passed on to singers. The catalog of ASGAP has grown. Every year new-found refrains line lip eagerly and say “Here I am! Sing me! I’m pretty!” Sometimes people do sing, them and sometimes they don’t, but nothing* can stop a songwriter from trying—neither the pain Of failure nor the fatness of success. He is trapped by the fascination of exploring a limitless field. Once you have come upon a group of words and notes and succeeded in making them follow each other in such an order that they make people want to march, or dance, or laugh, or cry, you are songwriter arid you know how it feels. It feels good. Everybody’s Doin’ It: Writing Songs By HARRY WARRfcN Hollywood. Everywhere you turn you meet a songwriter. You may meet him in a crowded subway train, hanging on the strap next to you—on a transcontinental plane—op a boat going to Europe—in the meat market, the grocery store, and a thousand other places. You may be just about to have your last fitting for a denture When the dentist happens to think of a melody he wrote the night before, and while you sit Jielplessly with your mouth full Of plaster, you listen to "a fast 32 bars and nod your head in approval. ■Or you get a phone call from a friend who has a friend who has a son (or daughter.) Who has just written, a couple of great songs and would you please listen to them? You give a dinner party and anything can happen. You might have a film producer present who whispers over his martini that.he wants to see you out in the garden after dinner. You naturally expect some good news about a big musical he’s going to make soon, and you can’t, wait till dinner is over so that you can get outside, and at last you are alone with the great man. He draws you into the shadow and whispers, “You know what I think of you as a writer, and a friend—I wouldn’t give this to anyone but you because if anyone can write it, you’re the one I would pick.” You have visions of- a colossal musical with top drawer talent and a Tat check. He continues. “My little, daughter Zelda, who is only four years old. pulled what I think is. a terrific title for a song, and I, want you to write it up!” After I recover, I ask in my best Hollywood man- ner, “What is the title, it must be great.” He says, “Get ready for this, it will kill you—‘Daddy, Where Does Mommy Go Every Afternoon.’” Bandleaders, musicians, producers, cameramen and actors are all writing songs. The ones who have benefited most by this boom are the record companies. They have taken the amateur, songwriter to their bosom. People are now listening to songs that are not only constructed badly but. rire in some cases so unmusical they have to be doc-v tored up by the arrangers. A lot of these songs , come from the back hills of Tennessee and other parts of the Deep gouth. They were orijginally twanged on a “gee-tar” and the player only knew two chords; Nevertheless, quite.a few hit tunes came out of this “hit-or-miss” system of picking songs. It looks like the professional songwriter has A hard road ahead of him to cope with this situation. He even finds himself bn a spot while he’s demonstrating a new song. The people listening have set themselves up as experts and are rewriting the song before he gets to the last bar. .•^he bug’ has really bit ’em. And there’s no telling where l think I will give Up my Hollywood mansion i J and swimming pool (?) and take off my shoes, go South, get me one of them “gee-tars” and start all over again! If you can’t fight ’em, join ’em! Neighbor, move over. I’m coming South! Maestro’s Sharp Insight on Existing Shortcomings in Professional Orchestras—Too Much Sluffoff Of U.S. Batorieers By VERNON DUKE Leopold Stokowski By LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI A frank look at present conditions in American music shows some that are extremely good and others that are dangerously bad. For example, recently I was studying several new scores, and found one by an American com- poser that startled me. It started wonderfully, but suddenly was con- fused and hesitating-^-later it was brilliant and forceful and then again almost unintelligible. I asked to meet the, to me unkndwn, composer. He. was young and seemed dejected, I showed him the parts of his score I felt to be Unequal to the really inspired and spontaneous parts, He told me he could only compose on weekends. All the Week he must work in a commercial office for his living, because he is married and has tWo small children. His heart, and all his thoughts are with music, but when the weekends come he is tired and should relax, Instead he is torn between his desire, to be with his family, and the wish to put on paper the musical ideas that have come to him during the week of uncongenial drudgery in. the office. This talented composer is not unique. ‘I personally khow several others ih the same depressing difficulties, and it is. possible there are still others over this Vast country. The simple fact is that these talented composers are not' able tp make a living out of the gifts that nature has given them, and the result Is that the cultural life of our country is the loser. Physically speaking, America has the highest standard of living for the most people that this world has ever known, but our psychological standard, of living is growing more slowly, and many American musicians suffer from this important difference: If We face these facts we can find'a way to better these conditions. I will suggest a way later. We,are, with good reason, proud of ouf^great orchestras (some? Qf them, like Cleveland and Detroit, far greater than is nationally realized), but behind their brilliant ex- terior lie lamentable conditions. The “first men” have good incomes, but some have such smallincomes, because, of short symphony seasons, that they cannot support their families all the year round from music. They are forced to do other kinds of work, and become “semi-professional.” The result is that they cannot give enough time and' thought and energy to practicing their instrument, and gradually .the quality of their contribution to music is lowered, arid with it the quality of performance of their orchestra. . , This tendency is growing in many parts of . the United States and is dangerous to the future of our orchestras and our cultural life. It is a life’s work to play a horn or a violin, or any in- strument well, and really gbod players become better as they riiature in age and experience. This is not possible to a player who, because of the high cost of living and the short winter symphony season; is not able to devote all his time and striving to become master of his instru- ment. The result is that in many good orchestras the best players v pull upwards and the worst players drag down- wards, making an unequal, ensemble, and harming the music. In consequence, the discriminating listener has a confused Impression of contemporary American music. Economic Hazards Equally unfortunate are the many splendid players who formerly composed the fine radio-station orchestras^ which how are disbanded in most parts of the country. The majority of these players are artists of the highest quality, now without work, and without hope of finding other positions commensurate with their unusual talent and ex- perience, For American music this is a triple loss: (1) some of our finest players have rip work; (2) thou- sands of listeners cannot hear these orchestras any more; (3) our gifted American composers have lost one of their best opportunities for performance of their music. Fortunately, exactly the opposite is happening with student orchestrris,in our universities, Colleges and other educational institutions. The new generation arising is talented, enthusiastic; free from outworn traditions, with, a fresh, instinctive, spontaneous conception of music. Here is the hope of the future. What is. happening in. the Uni- versities of Illinois, Indiana, Boston, California, Michigan and. Wisconsin, and in the Juilliard School of New York, Curtis: Institute of Philadelphia, schools and universities all over the country will result in a glorious future for American music. Among the hundreds of gifted students today are some with genuine talent for conducting. But their future will be difficult, to judge by. past and present conditions. Some of our greatest orchestras have never had an American- born conductor. And some of the European: conductors they engage never play music of American composers. Brilliant exceptions to this were the late Koussevitzky and Stock, and now Mitropoulos, Reiner, Golschmann and Szell, who to their honor have championed the American composer. But there is a dark side to this picture. Several orches- tras who are replacing their conductor have asked me to give them a list of the best European conductors. I have always answered, “Why not give an American-born conduc- tor opportunity?” They said, “Are there any?” I answer ■‘Notable examples are Johnson, Hendl, Allesandro, Whit- ney, Bernstein, Krueger and others.” Grudgingly they say, “Yes, but we cannot experiment, we need a man of experience, we cannot take risks.” I give them the names of several conductors of born .“Two Hegded Monster” was the original title of my autobiography crirnmissioned by Little, Brown some 18 months ago and now in work. It was generally thought a bit too violent and the title of the book has been changed to “Passport to Paris,” which is much pleasanter. Yet, the first title, sums up my case pretty well. On the closest examina- tion there is no rapport between Duke’s product and that of Dukelsky. There, have been cases in the past of composers essaying two genres and sticking to both doggedly throughout their lives. The best known example is, of course, Sir Arthur Sullivan, who; like 1 myself, had a rigorous academic training, arid wrote reams of respect- able music prior to tackling the Monied Muse. Notwithstanding the ever increasing success of, his Savoy light operas, lie per- sisted in turning out heavy handed oratories and Crusty concertoV.; Whatever the merit of these works, they are unmistakably Sullivan’s; whatever the merit of my “serious” output, it in no way resembles my Broadway and Hollywood music. My official new name-—Vernon Duke—was invented by the late George Gershwin. I had no right to use the “highbrow” Russian name for unworthy commercial pur- suits because of a long term contract with Serge Kous- sevitsky, then my publisher: The great conductor had exclusive rights to the Dukelsky music, but he did not intend to stop me from writing the Broadway kind-—pro- vided it was not signed by his contractee. Thus we too, Duke and Dukelsky, began functioning for better or for worse. Were the two heads better than one in this case? I seriously doubt it. Having adopted the rather unusual percept of “never letting my right head know what my left head doeth,” I succeeded only in be- ’ildering and irritating my contemporaries, especially tli critics. Throughout my career I was regarded with suspicion by symphony orchestra conductors: because of my Broadway activities.. Popular publishers were just as prejudiced because of my sorties into Carnegie Hall and other strong- holds of “good” music. The one advantage I enjoyed—a most singular one—was the ever present possibility of coming up with a hit in the “serious” sphere right on tpp of a resounding flop on Broadway. That’s precisely what happened in the winter of 1948 after “Sweet Bye-and-Bye’’ was put to sweet sleep in Philadelphia. “Boy; was that a dog!” cried. the theatre men on Times Square. “Duke is through.” Their glee was premature. Three weeks later my ballet, “The Wash- erwomen’s Ball,” hit the bullseye in faraway Paris and garnered some 600 'performances. Some 10 years earlier the reverse took place: the “Public Gardens,” on Which I collaborated with Andre Gide, failed in London and at New York’s Met. But did I worry? Not with the tri- umphant “The Show Is On,” following on the heels of the equally successful “Follies” with unforgettable Fanny Brice and Ira Gershwin's lyrics. Although I have now discarded the Dukelsky name and will hence function as Duke in both fields, I hereby con- fess that it is too late for this leopard to change his spots. talent, with experience, and a large repertoise ( outstand- ing on this list are Bernard Herrmann and Izler Solomon) and I .add, “Merely give them one concert, the risk will be small.” The amazing truth is not Once have any of these orches- tras been given this opportunity. There seem to be sev- eral reasons for this: 1. Snobbism, the idea that American musicians are neces- sarily inferior to European. 2. The unseen but powerful pressures of what some call “high society.” 3. Equally strong commercial pressures, 4. Racial discrimination. 5. Ignorance of the great talent now arising in the younger generation. " We all welcome the great conductors from Europe, but not at the expense of our own ambitious and gifted youth. Some of these, young conductors are forced to live and work in Europe, where their talefit is recognized arid encouraged—for iple, Strickland, who conducts Vienna, and Dixon, in. Scandinavia. The solution of many of these Undesirable conditions fs„a yearly festival of American music, Government spom sored, and covering the fields of American opera, ballet, chamber and symphonic music; One year it could be in New York or Washington, another on the Pacific Coast in Sari: Francisco, Los Angeles or Santa Barbara, Later years in the south—New Orleans, Houston or Dallas, Following years in the north, Minneapolis or Seattle or in the mid- west; Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, St, Louis or Louisville. These festivals would make the whole country conscious of America’s great developments in its music, created to- day. They would display the talents of young American, composers, dancers, singers, scenic and costume designers, choreographers, lighting experts, instrumentalists and con- ductors,. and would give all these American-born artists opportunity and invaluable experience. This festival must not be of any limited locality—It must be national in scope. The ballets should be televised, the rest of the programs broadcast nationwide, Then the whole country will be aware of every type of American music, created by this new generation, and gradually un- folding into an American Renaissance. There is no denying the fact that the old bromide— “composers must eat”—was the initial reason for my ven- turing into the commercial field. Most of the eating is still done by the songwriters, while the non-songwriting composer is on a strenuous, forced diet and will continue, to go hungry until the Arts are Government-subsidized, in this, the richest country in the world. Meanwhile I see nothing wrong in putting my knowledge of counterpoint and orchestration to good use, while hoping for a hit just as the Brill Bldg, boys do. After all, I have two heads to feed.