ARTS
Music
Hands across the water
Tim Rostron talks to Leonard Slatkin, an American conductor of English music
Today's most prominent conductor of English music is a Californian now based in Missouri, where he has a part-time job on local radio as a baseball commentator. Leonard Slatkin, conductor and music director of the St Louis Symphony Orches- tra, is best-known at home as a champion of American music. Over here, where we are short of native volunteers, he has made his mark with recordings of works by Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Walton and Brit- ten. 'I think in the States there's the same Problem as you have here,' he says, 'and that's an inferiority complex about our own music. The orchestras of Britain and the States tend not to play their own music, Which is like the Vienna Philharmonic not Playing Mozart. We have to preserve our traditions.'
The man who is helping us to hang on to our music heritage grew up in Los Angeles. His father, Felix, conducted the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and was leader of the Hol- lYwood String Quartet, for which his moth- er, Eleanor, was cellist. Sinatra was a dinner guest at the family home. Schoen- berg ate there too. So did Danny Kaye. And William Walton. 'I wish I'd been a lit- tle bit older. I remember those people, but not as anything special. It only meant any- thing to me when Doris Day came over.' He attended public — not private — schools. 'The American public school sys- tem at that time was wonderful, and my parents wished me to have a well-rounded education, and not just from the classes themselves. My school was as culturally, racially and ethnically mixed as you could Possibly imagine. I had a string quartet in my house, and what I was getting at school were the early days of rock and roll, some blues, a little bit of everything.' His studies in music were private, of course. At two-and-a-half he took up the violin. 'And then I realised my father was t(?0 good, so I stopped that. Then I took Piano and my mother was too good, so I quit that too. I studied viola for a while and composition and then I quit music alto- ge. ther. I was 19 and my father had just died. I thought I would be an English teacher or a baseball commentator. Then oPportunities to conduct came up and it all began. The baseball thing has sort of come to pass, though. I'm in the position where when matches are on in my own city I sit in with the regular broadcasters.' .., I:le was conductor of the New Orleans Philharmonic from 1977 to 1979, and this is his 25th year of involvement with the St Louis band, first as associate conductor and in full command since 1979. He trans- formed the orchestra's sound — building bY demonstration the same lush strings that he and his father had always favoured as instrumentalists — and gave its repertoire a new agenda. 'I thought, if I want them to become a really well-known ensemble, what do I do? And at that time nobody was really focusing on American music and nobody was doing anything English. So I concentrated primarily on those, and to a certain extent the Slavic repertoires.'
In St Louis there is no other professional orchestra within 300 miles, so the home audience gets to hear 'everything from Bach to Yesterday'. On record, though, Slatkin is one of the few world-class mae- stros never to have added another, say, Beethoven symphony to the very many ver- sions already available. 'I'm more interest- ed in expanding the repertoire than continually confining it,' he says.
With few exceptions, his recordings of English music have been made with English orchestras. 'That's to do with finance. It has nothing to do with tradition. The cost of the musicians is significantly lower here. Also, in the States you pay for every member of the orchestra whether they're used or not. And in a three-hour session in the States, there's one hour of time within that session in which you can't record. Here there's only a 15-minute break.'
There's another consideration. He per- forms the pieces in concert before they are recorded. 'I wanted to perform those pieces for English audiences, so that audi- ences that were familiar with them could hear influences that came from outside.'
His interpretations have sometimes raised eyebrows. How does he justify, for example, the furious lick at which he takes the first movement of Vaughan Williams's London Symphony? 'There's a very good reason. Vaughan Williams is seeing a change happen in this country, is seeing what was a serene way of life change. I can't imagine what those changes were like at the turn of the century. But what I can do is say, this is what I see London as today: this frenetic pace, not calm at all. It's automobiles, it's faxes, it's all this stuff going on.' Suddenly, this boyish, teddy- bearish figure seems very American indeed. What else might he be capable of? An 1812 Overture with kalashnikovs? A Pastoral Symphony with set-aside?
And then the musician reasserts himself: 'Also,' he says reassuringly, 'I'm very close to the metronome marks.'
Largely, though, our music is safe in his hands. What will he be giving back to us next? Parry, perhaps? 'Parry will be some- thing I'd want to look at. The problem with recording Parry is not that I don't know the music or that I don't like it; it goes back to financial reasons. A record company is in the business of making money, not losing it.' This remarkably down-to-earth maestro — one of the few who confesses to being 'lousy' in certain works — allows himself a hint of egotism: `I'll get round to Bax when I get to the point that people buy my discs no matter what I'm recording. I'm not at that point yet.'
Meanwhile, 'There is a Walton cello con- certo coming out soon, and I want to do the violin and the viola concertos with Pinkie — Pinchas Zuckerman. And I want to do the second symphony at some point. Elgar's Dream of Gerontius is a definite. I have been thinking of doing it in St Louis. We have a very good chorus.'
He does not regard himself as a stranger in a strange idiom. 'My prime teacher was Walter Susskind, who knew the repertoire and lived here — and I remember from an early age listening to recorded perfor- mances of English music which had a great impact on me. And anyway, these com- posers don't sound English to me, they sound like composers.'
Leonard Slatkin conducts the St Louis Sym- phony Orchestra at Symphony Hall, Birming- ham on 19 November and at the Festival Hall, London, on 21 November. Their recording of Elgar's Violin Concerto, with Pinchas Zuckerman as soloist, was released recently by RCA.
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