In his own words: The maestro reflects
By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff, 4/14/2002
Seiji Ozawa sat quietly in a small room at the Fairmont Copley Plaza, across a service corridor from the Grand Ballroom where he had spoken to 1,500 people who had held subscriptions to 10 or more Boston Symphony Orchestra seasons. He had signed numberless autographs, posed for as many pictures.
He was tired and in a reflective mood as he sipped on a Scotch-and-water and spoke of his 29 seasons as music director, which come to a close with concerts in Symphony Hall this week and at Tanglewood in July. He is the music director-designate of the Vienna State Opera.
Here are some of the things he talked about in a conversation that lasted an hour and a half.
An outsider looking in
''When I was a student at Tanglewood in 1960, Charles Munch, my mentor, and old Pierre Monteux, who had been music director in the 1920s, were there. Every rehearsal was a surprise to me. I was permitted to sit in a corner on the stage, and I heard Sherman Walt play, and I had never heard a bassoon sound like that in my life. And I heard Doriot Anthony Dwyer play the big flute solo in Ravel's `Daphnis et Chloe,' and it was beyond anything I could imagine.''
Against the odds
''For the Toronto Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, and the Boston Symphony to invite me to be music director needed guts, and I appreciate the guts those institutions and the people who ran them showed when they hired me - especially Boston, which may be the most traditional orchestra in America. And now Vienna - that took guts too. I was born in China and grew up in Japan. Still, these people believed that somebody from Asia could help bring new life to music in the world.''
Getting his bearings
''To conduct such an orchestra when I came back in 1964 as guest conductor and after I became music director in 1973 was not so easy. I think it took me 10 years to pull out of those first impressions and begin to do my own work. But this was not a mistake, because I learned so very much from that group of musicians in the orchestra at that time.''
Early mistakes
''I don't like to dwell on mistakes, which are there to learn from. But one mistake was to make all those recordings of Ravel and Respighi in the beginning. Those were what the recording companies asked me to do, and they created the impression that we couldn't do anything else, or anything more serious. And at that time, the impression may have been right - we were asked to record a Brahms Symphony, but I did not permit them to release it because I could hear that something was wrong; we were not ready for it yet.''
Seeking `a bigger sound'
''When I came in, the orchestra played with a wonderful finesse of color that was the creation of Charles Munch and that was still there 10 years after he had left. I wanted a bigger and darker sound from the strings and the brass, and when I asked for it, some difficult situations arose. There were people who thought I was going to kill the beautiful color of the orchestra. But from my experiences in Germany and in France, I believed the Boston Symphony could do both.''
Finding a backbone
''The change began to show when Edwin Barker became the principal bass with Lawrence Wolfe backing him up [in 1976] - that was the turning point. Along with Vic Firth on the timpani, the bass section made a backbone for the orchestra that is both solid and subtle.''
Guaranteeing greatness
''The orchestra is more than 100 people, so many individuals, all of them important, but the sections and the ensemble are also important. The violin section is now excellent and plays with real pride. The most important thing for a section to do is to take responsibility for its work, and to have the courage to say `no' to colleagues who are not functioning right. This is something that all the great orchestras have - the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic and the London Symphony have it, and there are signals that we have it too, now.''
Memorable pieces
''I think that Henri Dutilleux came out with his truth in the last piece he wrote for us, `The shadows of time.' And a piece I cannot get out of my mind is Roger Sessions's cantata `When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd.' Sessions wrote his last piece for us, the Concerto for Orchestra, but I think he tried to make it too difficult; but for me something real and great came out in the cantata, and I would like to do it again.''
The need for opera
''It is not enough for an orchestra to play the symphonic literature. It must also play chamber music and it must taste opera. We did that, and some of the operas we did I think were wonderful - Tchaikovsky's `Eugen Onegin,' Berg's `Wozzeck,' Tchaikovsky's `Pique Dame' with Mirella Freni, and `Elektra' with Hildegard Behrens.''
Changing Tanglewood
''When I came, there was very little money for Tanglewood, and the audiences were not large. I remember I once wanted to engage the cellist Jacqueline du Pre to play, and I was told she was too expensive for us at Tanglewood. I felt Tanglewood ought to be the most important international music festival in America, and to do that, we would have to spend more money, and gradually the management and board came to agree with me. The first opera we did at Tanglewood was `Tosca' with Shirley Verrett, but the turning point came the next summer when we did scenes from `Boris Godunov' with Nicolai Ghiaurov. We had to spend more money to attract more people to buy more tickets to generate more income. This was a dangerous game, but we won it.''
Spreading the word
''Important international artists began to come to Tanglewood, and then they went back to Europe, telling everyone how beautiful the place is, and what a good place it is to work in, so all the other important artists wanted to come to Tanglewood too. ''
A special school
''Somebody had to change the Tanglewood Music Center, and I was at that moment there and in charge. I now feel I was too quiet for too long about the fact that there is a big difference between even the best conservatories and this special school sponsored by the Tanglewood Music Center. The best conservatories have to maintain a permanent faculty and a traditional curriculum; the Tanglewood Music Center is new every summer, and ought to be in a constant process of change.''
Faculty resistance
''The walkout of some of the faculty when we started to change things was a big shock and it made me very sad; I did not want for anyone to leave. This was a difficult time for me and for everybody, and I am grateful to my friends like Isaac Stern who were so strong with me in this period. The changes were needed, and I think we are on the right track today. Of course the school needs more work; it always does - that's what it's for.''
A smart audience
''The Boston Symphony has a wonderful public, one of the best audiences in the world. I know this from my work here and in other cities. Boston is a city of character and tradition, and it is full of an amazing number of people who really know music and care about it deeply.''
Music in Asia
''Asia is still behind the Western world in Western music. The basic training has grown up very high - my teacher Hideo Saito was the first one to start that. If the offer from Vienna had not come up, before long I would have gone back to Japan full time, because Asia is now full of young musicians with very good basic training who need help with the next step. What I could give them is what I have learned from my experience in order to help these young people face what is real musical life, and to learn styles. Music should never become routine, or something you keep to yourself. It is something you give from inside yourself to other people.''
The future
''I start in Vienna in November with Krenek's jazz opera `Jonny spielt auf.' I will do Wagner's `The Flying Dutchman' and start a cycle of Mozart operas, many Mozart operas. My cycle of Mozart operas with international singers and young Japanese instrumentalists is still going in Japan; `Don Giovanni' is next.''
Lingering prejudice
''I feel that prejudice is still there, but the world has changed since I started out, and it is still changing - three women conductors are coming to conduct the Vienna State Opera.''
Ties to Boston
''In Vienna I will be living in Placido Domingo's apartment, which is about a 15-minute walk from the Opera House. We are not going to sell the house at Tanglewood - too many memories are there. But I do not know what we will do about the house in Newton, because it holds a lot of nostalgia too. We have had many family meetings on this subject, but never arrive at a decision. Our problem is that there are only four in the family; we need a fifth one to break all the ties!''
Ties to the BSO
''I do not know what my future relationship with the Boston Symphony will be, but I hope it continues. They asked me to become conductor laureate before they named James Levine the new music director, but I wanted Jimmy to be involved in that decision. The one thing I don't want to do is hang around like a ghost.''
Saying farewell
''I am saying goodbye to the whole orchestra family - the players, the chorus, the board, the staff, the stagehands, the ushers, the public in Boston and at Tanglewood. Some of these people I remember all the way back to 1960. To leave is very tough. For three years I have tried not to think about this moment, but now comes the reality.''