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SPEAKER: Your compositional career began almost as early as your musical career in general.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Yes, yes, this is true. When I was probably 3 and 1/2, 4, I started to play piano.

SPEAKER: And studied with your mother.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: No, not really. Well, I started with her probably just the very beginning. She was a pianist. I was listening what she does, but I never liked it very much. She played all the romantic, late romantic music starting with Liszt, not early romantic, but late Liszt, Chopin, mostly, and some lesser composers Henselt--

SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE].

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: --and so forth. And when I started to play, I was amazed by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven were my first gods. And when I started to have lessons with a lady, I started with, of course, sonatinas of Clementi, Haydn, Mozart sonatas, and so forth, Beethoven. And this was my world. So I was very much opposed to my mother's world in music.

At the same time, I composed. I just wanted-- I wanted to express myself, and I composed in the style of Mozart, I would say, generally speaking, which became later style of Beethoven and, well, went up to Wagner. And in a few years probably I came up to Tristan, [INAUDIBLE], the end of the crisis of tonality.

SPEAKER: Right.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: And when I was about nine, Bruckner did a big, terrific impression on me. But to really, a tonal music in the sense of Schoenberg revolution, I came rather late. And I was rather conservative until I was about 16, 17. I was rather stubborn on tonality. I have written my first orchestral-- really good, in a sense, by symphony, I was about 6, 7. But an overture, which was played, which I called it, I have found some 17th century Polish music. Well, I cheated because it was my own overture. It's well written. Now I can just play it and present it, and no one will guess--

SPEAKER: That is yours?

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: This is mine from-- I was 7 and 1/2 and 8. I mean, instrumentation, knowledge of instruments, I was quite knowledgeable about this and form, I would say, exquisite with all first, second theme, proportions, development, reprise, et cetera. So if I-- and then, of course, I was 9, 10. I was already with Wagner and Bruckner, very familiar. So then it is surprising that I didn't want to move forward for 6, 7 years until really after the war, maybe, the Polish composer Roman Palester, whom I have played here a couple of times.

Excellent composer, who, well, has been in kind of avant garde in the '30s in Europe, became my spiritual teacher. And I knew him, and he really pushed me towards change, any change. He said, this is impossible. And I knew at the time it's impossible to write. I've written something like five symphonies, and so forth, string quartets, piano sonatas, violin sonatas, always in this style up, well, I would say to late-romantic music.

SPEAKER: You've been associated with Polish music, at least in the public eye. You gave the American premiere of Penderecki's St. Luke Passion, performed it here twice, did it in New York. One of your best recordings is that of the Chopin concerted works for piano and orchestra.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Yes, well, of course, as I am from Polish origin--

SPEAKER: Certainly.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: --this is one. But I even shouldn't mention, but this is clear. I just do it because I think Poland has, after the war, extremely strong and interesting group of composers.

SPEAKER: I'd have to agree.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: And I'm playing some of them, not because they are Polish, but because they are very good composers like Penderecki, for instance, or Lutoslawski, not just because they're my friends because I have many friends whom I wouldn't play it because their compositions just do not appeal to me very much.

But for instance, I mentioned before Palester, who was my spiritual leader in, well, middle '40s, right after the war. I played him here, again, not because he was my teacher or something, but because he's, I think, extremely interesting and important composer in the sense of importance of development of progress or changes in music in the last 30 years. So is Lutoslawski and some other composers when whom I play.

SPEAKER: You say you also spent some time with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, a marvelous woman--

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Who hasn't? Everybody--

SPEAKER: True.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: This is true. No, yes, I did. And again, she was my great, great teacher and spiritual leader again, not so much in composition because her aesthetics were so different from--

SPEAKER: They would almost--

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: --what I was writing. But where her great talent as a pedagogue was and is-- she still teaches and has an enormous influence on so many young musicians, not only composers, but conductors, pianists because she's kind of a Renaissance person. And what she teaches is not just any particular music or style or aesthetics or something that she believes should be. But she teaches approach, a serious approach to any kind of music and is able technically to look at your output, your compositions, from your own aesthetic point of view, not from her.

When I came to Paris in '47, I brought with me some brand new scores. The first course I wrote under just the influence of Palester. And I changed to so-called atonal music at the time, and these scores were quite, I would to say, terribly avant garde and crazy and mad.

And she was great to mention to me that she didn't mind my aesthetic ideas or so-called language or style. But she could mention to me what is wrong within the style. So she accepted my aesthetic basis. And from this basis, she could decide this, this, and this. Therefore, I consider her the unique personality in our century.

SPEAKER: She'd have to be, so active and so influential. 60 years she's been going.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: And then if you wish to know what enormous knowledge and insight and talent she possessed, for instance, you could bring completely new score to her, most complicated score for large orchestra. First of all, she could sit at the piano and play it.

SPEAKER: From the score.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: From the score, straight, the most complicated thing. And secondly, she would just page it. And after 150 pages, for instance, she would say, look, you see? On the 11th page you have this, and now here you repeat this. Just the first minute, she would just-- like X-rays to your mind. This is incredible. It doesn't sound possible because there is no other person in the world who possesses this kind of ability of reading and knowing the new music.

SPEAKER: So quickly.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: So I was fortunate to have a long and very sincere contact with her. And I got a lot of help from her because my language at that time was extremely heavy, full of complications, of polyphonic complications. And she with her, I would say, French clarity, her idol was always Igor Stravinsky.

At that time in the '40s, Stravinsky was in his very strict neoclassic period. It was a time of Orpheus, of the symphony in C, of concerto for strings. So she could really balance nicely the aesthetics that I lacked, influenced me with something that I really lacked. I needed some certain clarity, some simplification.

SPEAKER: To weed out some of the Germanic heaviness.

[AUDIO OUT]

Let's get back to you as the composer, and your most recent works being the English Horn Concerto, which has been quite successfully performed.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Really, it's the only one.

SPEAKER: And Richard Carr.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Well, Richard Carr is the very tiny thing, and I hope to write a continuation of it, at least to. This is funny because when I was conducting in Philadelphia in April of this year, and of course, the musicians came to me and said, well, we would like to play for you what we are going to play in a few weeks in a Washington concert. I said, of course, I would be happy to. So we went upstairs to the green room, and they played for me. And it was about a year after I had written this. And they have finished, and they waited for, I don't know, sign of criticism or approval or something. And I was waiting for the next.

SPEAKER: Ah.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: And I said, well, why don't you play more. And they said, this is it. This is what you've written. We have asked you to write more, but you didn't. You didn't have time. I said, really, this is only-- this, what I have written, I just expected another sequence or something. He said, yes. I said, well, you are right. I have to write something more. But this was true. I didn't realize that this is the end. It was a good end for a movement. But really, for the work, well, it starts, I would say, well, it gives the impression that it will be bigger work.

And then when it ends it ends like the first movement, after which you wait for something more. And it wasn't. So this really tiny, tiny work. But Concerto for English Horn Orchestra at least has three movements. It's something like 17 or 18 minutes long. So it is, I would say, a little bigger work. But I don't know if you know. It was, again, written by strange coincidence only, namely, I wrote my last work in about '53, '54.

And then I haven't written for 15 years anything. And when Stacey, our former English horn player mentioned to me that he really would love to see me writing something for English horn because there is practically no literature whatsoever for solo English, only the orchestra. I said, yes, yes, of course, you're right. But when and so forth?

What happened actually, I think it was '69, at the end of the summer I was supposed to have the premiere at the Met Opera, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, with Eugene Onegin. And this was the first premiere in their season. And I remember I had the rehearsal scheduled for the beginning of September. And I was here before, and they were in negotiations for new contract.

And the day before my first rehearsal Rudolf Bing called me and said, look, it looks absolutely disastrous. I think we will have no season at all. At least your premiere is canceled because we will have for weeks, we will not have anything. And suddenly, I was with three weeks completely free. I was quite unhappy about Metropolitan, Onegin, but I was quite happy because usually I don't have the three weeks free. And at that time, we just rebuilt our house. I had a new studio, very pleasant. So I said--

SPEAKER: Nothing left for you to do but to compose.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: I had a sudden-- I was supposed to go to Hamburg to conduct Penderecki, the repeat of the Devils of Loudun, which I conducted a month ago in Santa Fe Opera. I said, no, I don't know any place. I will stay here. I will enjoy. I will write it. And so I did. So this was because of the strike of the orchestra and the opera I could write it. It doesn't mean that the next thing will be written when another strike comes. I hope no strikes will come ever in any of the major orchestras here because this is what we try to avoid.

SPEAKER: It means that at least you won't be composing anything here for the next three years.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: No, no, no, no, I hope that we'll not have-- will never strike here. But I think I will still make something. I have some ideas and this question of organization in your plan. However, however, not I ought to say that I am so busy. But really, there are two problems involved. Of course, all conductors, especially conductors who have an orchestra try like I do, are busy because, of course, they want to go guest conducting.

And as I have many very dear ties with other orchestras, not only in Europe, but here like with the Cleveland or Philadelphia Orchestra. And I spend so many weeks with them every season, now in summer with the Boston Symphony, Tanglewood, and in Europe, of course. I have to go, and I cannot break this because this is necessary to everybody and to me also. So I have to go to conduct there.

The second problem is that ability of compose during conducting. Or I was lazy, or I was just unable to do it mentally because mental is very important. There are some conductors-- I talked to Lukas Foss, and I consider him absolutely marvelous because he can make rehearsals in the morning. He can go in the afternoon to hotel and compose his own music.

Well, maybe this is laziness, but it is hard-- I couldn't do it until now. I never tried maybe hard enough, but I couldn't really. I'm full with the music that I am performing actually when I am a few days or a week or two weeks in other city. And I'm doing many other programs. I am just full of the music that I'm conducting, and I'm revising what I have done at the rehearsal, what I should eventually do tomorrow.

I would like to have a certain longer period of time when I could forget, to a certain point, the tension and liberated my mind from the music of other composers. And this usually takes, oh, a certain time, I would say. It takes just to go, I don't know, to the mountains, climb mountains, forget about everything. And then to have a few weeks really to think about what you have to compose.

You see? With the English Horn Concerto, as it was in the last moment, and I had just three weeks. And of course, I had to study some other scores for next concerts also. After so many years of not composing, I hardly could make any attempt to write something corresponding to my actual point of view in composing. What I could do, I could take so-called my language of 15 years ago, which was easy enough for me and to continue with this kind of language to build a new piece.

Therefore, the English Horn Concerto sounds extremely close to pieces that I have written 15 years ago before because really I had only time to almost to continue with a certain, how to say, this kind of built-in edifice or building with certain bricks. If you have a language, you have your own way of building. Your bricks you put together, and you build another building. If you want to change your attitude, your aesthetics, your point of view, your bricks, your language, in music you have to think what kind of language it will be to make sense of it for yourself, of course, not because avant garde went then, and you have to do it now.

Everybody is writing electronic music or alaetoric, then you do this. It doesn't matter to me much. I have to write something that, to me, has a sense of continuation of expressing myself in the way that I would be contented or glad. Or at least I would-- myself, I would understand what I am doing, not just completely from air something that I don't believe in it.

So the new composition, if ever would come, I would like to have certain time to think of creating a kind of new-- well, let me say, [INAUDIBLE] language that I could, again, speak easily with a full expression of it just a new alphabet, if you wish.

SPEAKER: Yeah, the situation with a contemporary composer is either becoming very easy or almost impossible because with so much of the music of the past in the air, and still, this idea of there being a continuity of a cycle of development, of expansion, of newness, one's almost at a total loss of what to do. George Rochberg just completed a quartet a year ago, which has as its third movement a set of variations, which are not meant as a joke by any means and which he composed completely. But they sound like late Beethoven.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Oh, I see. Well, the situation is exactly as you mentioned. It is a situation that everything is possible, which makes it from-- fortunately it's like that because 10 years ago you had composers who were supposed to be composers and were supposed to have publishers and public and the fame and name were only composers who would write in a special way, very avant garde. At a certain time, it was a strict--

SPEAKER: You were either atonal or Aaron Copland, and there was nothing else.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Well, yes, well, if you wish. It was full organization, for instance, after Anton Webern, during 10 or 12 or 15 years, the type of composers like Milton Babbitt, for instance, who still probably is full organized, were continuing Anton Webern ideas that everything in music should be absolutely organized, to the utmost point, to the smallest detail, not only pitch, but also rhythm, dynamics, color, and everything.

SPEAKER: Structure.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Must be structured by the composer. And this attitude provoked a reaction, a very wild and very strong reaction of composers who just wanted to abolish it, who wanted to write allitorically which means that would write to give to performer to play whatever he pleases or slightly to organize it.

Or even, if not allitorically, to write something that doesn't have any form, any organization, any dodecaphonic, 12-tone organization with-in pitch, just completely improvisation mixed up as a reaction, which created enormous chaos in aesthetics, which fortunately resulted in nowadays that everything is accepted as possible.

And of course, there are still certain schools and certain believers that think this is all wrong, that you must do only this or only the other thing. But public or really music lovers wouldn't care less about it. They always will choose what they like.

So, for the composer, important is what his aesthetics are. And to me, will be important what I believe would give me this kind of shiver of creation, if you wish, for myself. If this is accepted or it gives shiver to you and to the public, then if it does, I am very glad. But it doesn't. At least I believe this is what I want to write.

[AUDIO OUT]

SPEAKER: Do you have any works in progress, or are you completely at a standstill?

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: No, I don't. I have some ideas, but I don't really-- I have some ideas for some new works. Maybe I'll--

SPEAKER: If the Metropolitan hadn't canceled out your premiere and Stacey had kept pushing you, would you eventually have set aside time? Or would you have put him off?

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: I don't know. I cannot answer it what would happen if-- probably, I would have written something still.

SPEAKER: I found it a remarkable work. I was so pleased to hear it and so glad that it's performed elsewhere, twice at the Philadelphia Orchestra concerts at least.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Well, they liked it. And apparently, the public loves it because it is-- well, it has many, many faces of it. It is also funny here and there. It is very serious in certain places. It is funny, funny to hear and funny to watch because in the first movement the English horn player travels around the stage and goes up to piano and plays into the piano, which always provokes a certain kind of smiling at least. And later, he plays a quadruple chords in the instrument, which no one believes that an oboe English horn can produce quadruple chords or triple chords, something like that. But he does it. So it sounds kind of fun.

SPEAKER: It's good that there is an emotional response being provoked in the audience that is more than just a focus on the music. In old days, when it was-- in Schubert's time when they all gathered in someone's home and played chamber music, it was a social occasion, certainly with the aristocratic folk. It was the same in church. The music was there to lift one into the spirituality of the occasion. The concert, as an experience in 20th century America, is often such a sterile, sterile ritual.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: I see what you mean. Well, you can lift to the spiritual. I think the final aim or purpose of the concert, not every concert, but the aim of the music, concert or not, is somehow lifting people to this spiritualism, isn't it, to many ways. And very often you can lift it through fun if you have, well, if you have a speaker, a good speaker, for instance, making a speech on some serious subject, but the speech is witty.

And he makes some fun and people laugh. But right after laughing, the next second they may be very seriously touched by the right words. And I think making fun or being witty or making laugh is to touch people emotionally. And then it's very easy to play on emotions from funny to serious and vice versa.

SPEAKER: Once you've shown them that they have the emotions, then you can work with them.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Yes, well, the worst is just to have, as you say, sterile, people bored or blasé.

SPEAKER: Who can't even appreciate the humor in Haydn.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Yeah. So if no one laughs during my English concerto, I am really sad.

SPEAKER: Disappointed.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Yes, they should laugh.

SPEAKER: This is getting on thin grounds, and this is going away from composition for a moment. But as the people who influenced you were pushing you into new frontiers as a composer, at the same time, we suddenly shift the frame and look at the audience. In Europe, the audience seems to be a little more advanced. But in this country the audience hardly gets past Mahler or Bruckner.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: I wouldn't agree completely with you. I know what you mean, but it's not so. You have in Europe in every city, in each city, you have two or three different publics because you have more than one orchestra. And they do different series. Take any German town or even Paris, you have Musica Viva or what Boulez created.

SPEAKER: Domaine musical.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Domaine musical. Or it is in Milan or Rome. You have an orchestra or [INAUDIBLE] in Munich, the radio orchestra plays about 8 to 10 concerts in winter season only of 20th century. Even of 20th century, they hardly play any Debussy or Ravel. Sometimes maybe, but really, the last 20 years or 30 years output what they play. And they have excellent public for this. Don't forget that this hall is 1,200.

And in Munich or Paris or Berlin you can make a series of concerts appealing to people that are just interested in this music. But there is another orchestra and another orchestra, and every city you have three four orchestras, like Philharmonic, like in other radio orchestras, like opera orchestra, which also plays concerts. And what they play, they play to the large public. And then if you take an avant garde piece, you have boos and you have very dissatisfied people. The same problem that in states.

So this is maybe the difference between Europe and states, that you have more different series in each European town and somehow more concert goers because of longer tradition. For instance, well, not to speak of, all those orchestras are maintained completely by state or government or radio or city or any other structure, not by private foundation. And therefore, they can afford to have more opera and so forth.

SPEAKER: I'm really quite pleased that you'll be starting a series of perhaps more intimate, perhaps more avant garde direction concerts.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: I'm very excited about this. And I don't know if you are aware. I have started it something like seven or eight years ago. This was my deep wish from the very beginning. At that time, we didn't have even Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. You see? We had something that played a few concerts but not really permanent orchestra like now. What I wanted-- we started-- when Guthrie Theater was built, because of good acoustics for a few players, and the Guthrie stage because it's a very small stage.

And because of bad acoustics in Northrop at that time, I tried to create a new series of chamber music which were called Sinfonia, and we went with great success, the first season making three concerts. And what we played was something to appeal to play avant garde or contemporary music but also to play something that has never been played in Twin Cities. It's still very appealing to a large public, like Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat, with dancers and actors from Guthrie Theater.

Then we played Bartók Sonata For Two Pianos and Percussion. I wanted to play Pierrot Lunaire of Schoenberg, which unfortunately was canceled because we went for something like two years. And I connected with electronic tape. We played the music written by Varése to the opening of the world exhibition in Brussels.

SPEAKER: Oh, on electronic.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Electronic tape only. And also we played some unknown Baroque or even Renaissance Italian composers with small ensembles. We played Anton Webern, anything that would amount to very few musicians that we could pay. The deficit was tiny, very tiny, amounted up to $1,000 for a concert. But after a year and a half, when I was away, the association decided not to continue it because of certain deficits. And I was very unhappy about this. But somehow the expression was that we don't need it. And I was very unhappy, and we stopped the series.

SPEAKER: But now it's coming back.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Yes, it was very traumatic and unhappy and unpleasant because I believe that this was badly publicized. No one really knew how to make publicity of it. And we didn't have a full Guthrie. We had at the beginning when it was start.

But next season, for instance, I remember we had an excellent ensemble of Iowa City Ensemble Ford Foundation for Contemporary Music, which pays excellent musicians something like three years period to stay together and to play only mostly American but also contemporary or avant garde music. We invited them. They agreed to play without any income just for benefit of the organization. And still, even with this, didn't go. You see? This was 6, 7 years ago. But we started at that time-- I'm sorry.

SPEAKER: That's OK.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: So now, finally, for the series that we opened this season, I already talked two years ago when we started in Saint St. Catherine O'Shaughnessy Hall, which is more intimate than Northrop, I wanted at once to continue to reestablish the series. And it had a lot of, again, criticism somehow within the association. And the finally, finally, we got to concerts. And I hope with the new hall will go more, 3, 4, and who knows?

But you see, also, the maybe clever thing about this that I will take only a certain small part of the musicians. And sometimes, the maximum they will amount to something like 25 players or so. When the bulk of the orchestra can still play a young people's concerts or something simple the same week. So financially, the orchestra is not exposed to a big deficit. And no one can charge that, for instance, all we have to pay extra money for extra services. Or we have 3/4 of the orchestra not doing anything but being paid. So these concerts are parallel to the activity of the rest of the orchestra on educational programs.

SPEAKER: That's very good. The 1974 year will be centennials for both Charles Ives and Schoenberg.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Yes.

SPEAKER: I noticed, of course, at the end of this season, you're doing the Gurre-Lieder.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: We do a violin concerto. We do Gurre-Lieder this season, I mean in '74 because it's January and May, respectively.

SPEAKER: Are there any held over for the beginning of next season, the '74, '75?

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: I hope so. I hope to do a few other things. Of course, I would like to do variations, which we never did-- of Schoenberg. They are, again, they are extremely difficult. The problem is that we need more rehearsals than just one week. But also, I hope to do Ives, almost all--

SPEAKER: The four symphonies?

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Well, we do the third symphony. Now we do-- at the opening we do three places in New England. We do third symphony in January. And in '74, for instance, I think it would be nice to do his works connected with certain events, for instance--

SPEAKER: Like the holidays.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: The holidays, like 4th of July or Thanksgiving. I'll be doing these works Declaration Day and so forth, more or less within the time of the event.

SPEAKER: Very good.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: And maybe we should, I think, repeat the fourth symphony, which was played here right after Stokowski's performance. But this was already, what, 7, 8 years ago.

[AUDIO OUT]

SPEAKER: At one point in your career did the compositional thrust give way to your conductorial duties?

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Well, in a sense, a lot. Trust, I don't know how much because abilities to conduct are probably very much inborn. And we have plenty of excellent musicians with excellent knowledge of scores, who just cannot stand and just beat or have physical problems of communicating, of just beating very simple things. Just doesn't go.

But what was important when I mentioned, for instance, of being 8, 9 years old, I was composing the style of Mozart or Beethoven or later Bruckner. And I knew very well the instrumentation. And of course, I knew very well all these composers that I mentioned, Mozart, Haydn. But I never thought at that time that I will become a conductor.

But I knew absolutely all works of Beethoven or major works of Haydn, of Mozart, all symphonies by Brahms, operas by Wagner, I knew it by heart. And when I came to conducting, this was such an enormous benefit that I didn't have to learn the scores and music. But I knew it almost-- they were in my blood.

SPEAKER: OK, at the age of 11, you directed from the keyboard a performance of the Beethoven's 5th?

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: I was 13. I was 13. At age 11, I played my first recital on the radio. Then at 13 I conducted a Beethoven C, C minor concerto and played, which was very easy for me because it was-- somehow I didn't consider this conducting. I consider just playing with because I played a lot of chamber music with the string quartets or wooden quintets and so forth all literature. So when I was asked to do this it was just normal procedure that I used to do for so many times. And the players around me, they were good players. They didn't need much conducting. But when [INAUDIBLE] came I was, of course, conducting. But at the time, I didn't realize how I do it. But it was so natural to me, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3 or something that I probably was doing quite all right because the whole thing was going quite well.

SPEAKER: Do you miss being able to perform from the keyboard and direct?

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: I don't believe in this, and I think this is good theater, show. But if you play in a big hall with a bigger orchestra, even Mozart or even early Beethoven, you can do it better with conductor and pianist, the board, especially if you do something like Ravel concerto. I think this is unnecessary show. Many conductors used to do it a certain time, and I don't blame them very much. But this is a good show for public. Public loves it. But I don't think any-- really, it is not necessary. It's always better if you have-- unless you have disagreement with the conductor. This is something disastrous.

But otherwise, it's always better if you play more-- even Mozart, I would say. This is, for instance, it depends on the size of the hall. If you have big hall and you have players spread around the piano, not too close, sometimes they have problems of hearing. And of course, you not only play Mozart, you play some contemporary, some more difficult concertos. You play something like even Robert Schumann or Chopin. Both of them have a lot of rubato. It depends on the pianist. And you have to follow rubato. It is impossible by ear. You have to follow by ear. You have to try, but I think conductor on the podium is very necessary. There is no doubt.

SPEAKER: The directions of the orchestra in the United States sometimes worry me, but I'm quite impressed at the number of new works that you're able to put into the programming here. Each year, there are at least six or seven pieces that I've never heard before, that I'm sure the public has never heard before. Do you find the percentage about right? Or do you think that the musical situation is in a very precarious position now in terms of the literature that the people want?

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Who knows what is right? We have to wait to see what every year brings with-- what is the answer? What is the reaction of the public? I believe in Twin Cities situation, I believe that we still can go very well by bringing a certain variety in programs. I don't think that always-- this is something that we should do always and everybody should do always because I think what we have, actually, we have 20 subscription concerts. And this is not much.

We have some summer concerts. We have some pop concerts and so forth. But 20 some subscriptions concerts per year. It is not much. For instance, one or two will go to the big oratorio or a big opera, which will take one. With the rest you have soloists. And I believe that you should really make each program-- you may have some series. We used to do years, which we had the year with a series of four concerts of Beethoven's music. We had series of French music. We had series of some Russian music, and so forth. And this sometimes helps a certain point. And we may do it.

But what I'm after, I think mixing, making variety gives always some good results if public comes, if everybody, concert goers goes, for instance, 5, 6 times a year for a concert, if he by any chance has just one type of music only more or less, it is not good. It is good if he can be exposed to a larger variety of styles. And even if he is against certain thing, we have on both sides, we have people that are, of course, against contemporary music.

But we have people who are really criticizing that we have very conservative programs. There are people from both sides, and you never satisfied everyone. This is true. But therefore, also I believe that if somebody believes that only, should be only contemporary music should be played, like we had the case 200 years ago. That's what they played, actually, was contemporary music because didn't have any past, or they didn't know about past very much.

SPEAKER: Didn't care.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Some other would say, well, the contemporary music is really just kind of rubbish. We should play only good music, which ended in the 20th century. Some believe in this. Now, to these people, if they are exposed to something different than they believe, they may catch a hook. Actually, I'm going only playing some more contemporary works, but I'm playing some works go before even classical period.

I would like to play some-- there's very little left really, not only Baroque music, of course, but some Renaissance music. And maybe those chamber music series would make it possible to play more of someone like, I don't know, Gesualdo, who was a marvelous, completely unknown composer to the public, who was so marvelous because really in his harmonic world he anticipated something that happened 200 years later after him. Or even Guillaume de Machaut or something like that.

Maybe if we have small chorus or some little transcriptions, for instance, we could play some madrigals of Gesualdo. I thought to do some transcriptions for orchestra. But finally, it is so hard. I don't know. I don't like really to do transcriptions very much. But I would like to go really backwards into 16th century or even 15 or 14. Sometimes you have some marvelous works, very amazing. And to juxtapose them with something from the 20th century. And then in the middle, of course, to have 19th century, 18th century, whatever you wish, beginning of the 20th century.

So what I personally, if I listen to any standard romantic 19th-century work, and before I have something new for small orchestra or something contemporary. The same work becomes, how to say? It has a new light, is, well, is put against the other period of time before or after him and becomes more alive.

And I had many comments of people that listen to, I don't know, Beethoven [INAUDIBLE] symphony after or before something else that they didn't know. And they realized how Beethoven sounded differently and how much they enjoyed or just were interested by this well-known music but somehow put together--

SPEAKER: From a different perspective.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: --in different perspective with some other things. And I really believe this makes programs very much alive. Also, even from the point of view of the size of the orchestra, sometimes I like to do very much to start with the, I don't know, small strings, then to be followed by some kind of a wind ensemble or percussions or wind and strings, but not full.

And then to have full big, full bloom romantic work with a full orchestra, which really becomes a, how to say, outspoken. If you start concert with Meistersinger or Wagner and you end with Daphnis, it's a beautiful program, of course. But you have always from the beginning to the end the full orchestra. And people, after a while, lose the perspective of--

SPEAKER: Being able to stratify the sounds.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: --orchestra growth during ages or centuries or decades at least. I think this kind of variety also in size gives certain insight into the work and have some aural pleasure to the public. So I am very much right now within the series for variety, for much variety, including everything I would like really to abolish term contemporary avant garde, old, and so forth.

SPEAKER: Just music.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Just good music, live music because we had bad music, and we have bad music [INAUDIBLE]. And now we have bad music we had 100 years ago. We had bad music 200 years ago. We had some recent rubbish if you play it's just boredom written 200 years ago. And it's Baroque, but this is boredom without any invention. We had some late romantic period with composers that wrote some really poor music also. There's no reason to play them.

But if we really abolish those "terms" in quotations, contemporary, this, this, this, people will come to listen to music, which is the sonorous impact. And they will be more sensitive, probably, to all beauties of music and to all stylistic differences.

SPEAKER: I might just be at odds with you on one point. If you're contrasting different periods of music to give the listener varying viewpoints with which to look at familiar scores, the same could be said for playing less than the greatest music so that he could realize how great a Beethoven is as compared with lesser--

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Well, I agree with you. But it happens always. [LAUGHTER] There's no doubt, no doubt. Well, even the very well known composers, there isn't many composers who would match Beethoven or Mozart or Bach, isn't it?

SPEAKER: No.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: You can love many other composers. I wouldn't mention it, but certain composers certainly belong to, I would say, certain first category. But still, they don't have genius of some other composers. This is no doubt in the new field the differences.

SPEAKER: But take Franz Liszt, for instance, who is very popular. And we realized why or we seem to sense that there is a reason for his being more popular than Henry Litolff, perhaps, who was called the English Liszt.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Absolutely.

SPEAKER: But if someone were given the chance to hear a Litolff work, which is pleasant in its own way, and then compare it with the Liszt later on, they would realize that there is a very palpable difference.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: Well, in this case and in many other cases, you have always a certain characteristics of a composer who in many other cases could have been not so great. You mentioned Liszt. And Liszt would have great admirers and great critics also because of, I don't know, repetition of his works being a little bombast here and there.

But the same Liszt had some marvelous characteristics. His invention of harmonies, of colors was incredible. He didn't have an ability of a hidden wants to write, for instance, to have the ability of any concern for form like classical composers before him.

SPEAKER: He was not a cerebral musician at all.

STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI: It was not in his, well, circle of interest. But as a harmonious, Liszt, like Chopin, are incredible, for instance. And maybe as, I don't know, instrumentation here and there somebody else is stronger, has more invention, again, and doesn't have so much to say in other areas.