Composer Joseph Pehrson interviews Electra Slonimsky Yourke, the daughter of the eminent performer, writer on music, lexicographer and composer, Nicolas Slonimsky (1894-1995).

This page contains partial transcripts of the interview and links to the 10 downloadable mp3s of the interview on Soundclick.com. To hear the interview segments, click on the audio link. A new Soundclick.com window will open, from which you can listen streaming in "Hi-Fi" or "Lo-Fi" or click "mp3" to download to your favorite portable device.

Slonimsky Personality

Yourke: He had a combination of being of the elements of a scholar in the intelligence, in the educational background and the family example for scholarship without the temperament of a scholar. So, he brought to whatever he chose to apply himself to very deep skills and knowledge, but he wanted to have some fun with it and when he was done, he wanted to be done with it. So, he couldn’t simply specialize in something. He was not the scholarly person who was going to munch his way through a century and write papers about everybody and then papers about the papers.

Pehrson: In addition, when you think of all the other things that he did: his performing and his composing, the conducting – a terrifically varied career, and yet he had the patience to sit down and be termed a lexicographer!

Yourke: He had the great desire to show the he got it right and others got it wrong, and that was something that was characteristic of him. He took sometimes a sort of fun-filled delight and sometimes maybe it wasn’t so much fun in pointing out that other people had gotten things wrong, so once, as Perfect Pitch, his autobiography, notes, his eyes fell on this encyclopedia he was asked to edit, it was like candy because he kept finding things that were wrong, wrong, wrong!

Pehrson: This was Baker’s, of course?

Yourke: This was Bakers. He took it over completely in the early 1950’s. He was always collecting new biographies, records of first performances, in particular.

Pehrson: We have here his books in front of me and I was mentioning to Electra that the experience of reading them was a journey going through various aspects of his life and various kinds of writings and ending in a musical excursion with a CD that’s in the very last book with the ultimate singing of Nicholas Slonimsky himself with his inimitable “Children Cry for Castoria,” one of his signature works almost in an Andy Warhol vein, I think, with his fascination with American advertising and the lyrics were based on an advertising story from Castoria laxative.

Yourke: When he came to this country, he didn’t speak any English and he got on the boat with a British book about the English language, as it happens, and he simply studied it, as he put it, “as if it were an extinct dialect.” He did know Latin and a fair amount of Greek and, of course, German and French. So, he put it together from those pieces. He was always interested in the lingua franca, in the language as it is spoken, and the expressions and that sort of thing, and he found the ads, the advertisements, a great source. And, he hadn’t really seen advertisements of that kind in Europe. His pieces he calls the “first singing commercials.”

Pehrson: Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, I want to make sure that our readers know how to get to the Slonimsky website. I have in front of me four wonderful books of Nicholas Slonimsky’s writings on music. These are available through the Slonimsky website and the publisher Routelege. They’re also available on Amazon.com if you search “Nicholas Slonimsky.” People will want to see the tremendous website that Electra has put together here: www.slonimsky.net.

Yourke: In fact, it is a work in progress, and it’s going to get finished. My son did a good deal of it.

Pehrson: I found it a fascinating website. Everything is “clickable’ – almost every image and funny things, like the cat which meaos and you click on the orange and get the Chopin, the famous “black key etude.” Could you please explain a little bit about that.

Yourke: He had a few parlor tricks and one of them was to play the “black key” etude with an orange in the right hand. You will hear the piece if you click on the orange.

Slonimsky Materials

Yourke: The first volume is a collection of articles from the Boston Evening Transcript which was one of those revered old newspapers in Boston which focused on, particularly, the arts and he wrote for them on a freelance basic, evidently, usually about composers, in some instances performers, but usually about composers who were visiting Boston or whose works were being played in Boston, usually by the Boston Symphony. So, it's an interesting collection because he writes about people who subsequently became the icons; at an earlier stage they were still evolving, and others who were thought to be “hot stuff” at the time but turned out not to be pantheon material, and so, in that sense it offers a contemporary view – slices into a particular period, about 1927 to, I think, about 1935 in Boston.

Pehrson : I was amazed, actually, because, for example, he'll be writing about the Copland-Sessions concerts and it's as though they are going on right now, so that kind of “slice of time” was fascinating.

Yourke: Of course he was personally familiar with Copland and Sessions and by the time you move through this period he had already established himself, in 1931-32 as a proponent of modern American music, so he had a little bit of a position as a figure himself and this point and so they present a certain immediacy that is perhaps different than looking back at those composers and, indeed, it's probably different from his writings later on about those same people and, perhaps, those same works.

Pehrson: And they're all relatively short since they are basically newspaper articles.

Yourke : Some of them are rather analytical and somewhat technical, but they're unique. I don't see his style quite like that anyplace else.

Pehrson : The second book on Russia is one of my very favorites.

Yourke: Yes, there he is revisiting his native territory Russia, looking at the composers and the music, and the final selection is a sort of narrative of a visit that he made under the auspices of the State Department to Eastern Europe and Russia as an ambassador, a role for which he was uniquely suited as an ambassador of American music which was part of the purpose since he took with him scores and so forth. He met with both the establishment and the “musical underground.” He came speaking Russian in 1962 and they were fascinated to have him come and tell them what was going on in the West since, I guess, they really didn't know – they really didn't have access. I imagine he must have been speaking from morning until night and enjoying every bit of it.

Pehrson: One of the most interesting things I found in the Russian volume was the perspective on censorship. I had never seen the inside of that. One thing that I found very interesting is the fact that it was much more complex than a person might think. I guess there were some committees associated with the Composers Union that were trying to simplify the music and so forth but there were always people opposed to that and it never seemed like a monolithic thing – there were too many intelligent people there to let them just “steamroll” over the thing. It seemed like a much more gray area and changing circumstance than I would have imagined. Another question has to do with Shostakovich since he has a rather lengthy chapter on the various symphonies and he goes into detail, but he never mentions much about the so-called “mysterious” referential things in Shostakovich – the shorthand for opposition to the regime and I'm wondering if people aren't making those up or dreaming those and they really don't exist.

Yourke: Shostakovich is such a controversial character, but my father resisted conspiratorial viewpoints of anything unless it's absolutely clear that something is a code for something or initials are an acronym, he would tend to find it going too far. The other side is that Shostakovich is a genuinely mysterious character. I'm told this is kind of a seminal article. I don't know whether the “mystery letters” had emerged at that point.

Pehrson: And the third book?

Yourke: Well, it's music of the Modern Era with articles about composers and one longer monograph on Roy Harris, with whom he had a close personal friendship, and there are a series of fairly lengthy articles on various aspects of modern music, some of them quite analytic.

Pehrson : When you think about your father in the overview, would you agree that he seems to me to be someone who is in the “new music camp.”

Yourke: Yes, because he was, shall I say, bored by the classics. He knew them all too well. He did not find anything in them that he didn't already know about and, it may seem surprising, but he was not a person who sat and listened to music for pleasure. He didn't need to hear the “warhorses,” as he called them, over and over, much as he appreciated them. He could appreciate a really fine rendition, but it was more the response of a conductor. He didn't listen to music for pleasure unless it was something new and challenging, and then he didn't have to listen to it: he could read it, as he did with Ives.

Pehrson: That's something I really wanted to talk about, too. He was known, of course, as a conductor early on and, in fact, I had remembered from the past that he was the person who had first conducted one of my favorite pieces of music, which is the Varese Ionisation . What I didn't know until I looked at my own score for Ionisation, was that the score was dedicated to him.

Yourke: Yes, “Au Premier Ionisateur.”

Pehrson: So, he had conducted several scores of new music. I'm not sure, was he the first person to conduct Ives Three Places in New England ?

Yourke: Yes, I believe he did in Town Hall here in New York, but I'm not sure.

Pehrson: Certainly he was one of the very first. So, I had heard of your father through his conducting of contemporary music. But, then he went to the Hollywood Bowl and that seemed to be more problematic?

Yourke: Problematic would be putting it nicely. The family mythology was that he conducted all of these modern works and the dowagers who were the board of the orchestra threw him out because they didn't like this and they wanted to hear Strauss waltzes. I suspect the controversy was a bit deeper than that. Part of the stir was actually within the orchestra and the orchestra said they really shouldn't play these things – whether it was because they couldn't play them or because they objected to the style, I don't know. This was 1933. However, there were those who heard these piece, including John Cage, who said his life was changed by attending those concerts.

Pehrson: He had conducted similar programs in Europe and other places, right, more successfully?

Yourke: Well, those were pretty controversial, too. But they weren't “pops concerts.” They weren't “Hollywood Bowl.” He was financed by Ives, sent to Paris and Berlin and Budapest and those concerts created also enormous controversy, but they attracted enormous attention, too. The people who attended were the musical notables of the time, the reviews were pro and con and Varese was there helping to arrange. Of the Berlin concert, he said he had never experienced an orchestra of that power and ability. They didn't blink at any of the difficulties of the music. He got some controversial reviews, but also some reviews that were extraordinarily complimentary of him.

Pehrson: I'm surprised, in the first place, that he would be on a “pops” concert, per se, and I wouldn't think that the reception would be so surprising.

Yourke: I think that he did things on his own terms and I don't know that he would have wanted to compromise about changing programs. Did he become a martyr to the cause? Well, you could put it that way. He did continue to do his own small concerts in Boston where he played and conducted new works, including many first performances. He was a brilliant pianist, but he had no more interest in a piano-playing career than in conducting “warhorses.” Even though he was very talented, it was a matter of playing repertoire that I don't think really interested him.

Pehrson: Well he did the first recording, I believe of Ionisation as well?

Yourke: Yes

Pehrson: I thought that was a curious story since he said that, since the musicians couldn't really play the music, he had gotten together a bunch of composers to do the recording, which was the first recording. But Carlos Salzedo, I guess, and Wallingford Riegger, and Bill Schuman on the Lion's Roar. They were all playing the percussion parts and, as composers, at least they could do the intricate rhythms accurately.

Yourke: That's right, yes.

Pehrson: That certainly is a factor as to why the musicians might have revolted, I suppose.

Yourke: Yes, well Varese always made people mad [laughs], which was fine. He liked that fine.

Pehrson: I thought it was also fascinating that Varese believed that someday he would be recognized – he and Ives would be recognized. At that time they spoke of it with your father and it seemed like some kind of lunacy, something so hypothetical or unbelievable – just a fantasy to imagine that Ives and Varese would be so notable. And, of course, here they are.

Yourke; Here they are, now the classics.

Pehrson : Of course, we should mention about your father living to the age of 101.

Yourke: Yes 101 and ½ and he really did very well until his very late age, being very active. Well, we went to Russia for his 98 th birthday, and declined only at the very end.

Pehrson: You mean after 100? [laughs]

Yourke: That's right. He didn't have illnesses, he didn't have disease. He didn't even have arthritis.

Pehrson: What would you say about his disposition? Was he a person who was able to laugh things off? Did he take things very seriously? What was his demeanor like?

Yourke: His demeanor was very positive and he laughed things off with clear sincerity, but I would not say that sincerity went all the way down to the core. So he developed an attitude of “Well, it doesn't matter…” Certainly the fact that everyone else was a philistine helps. He had not an easy start in life as the designated genius of the family, on the part of a highly oppressive and manipulative mother. From a small child, his only value as an individual was as a “genius” and performer. So, he was a kind of “trained seal act” for the family.

Pehrson: Of course, he did leave home then fairly early.

Yourke: Fortunately. He laughed it off, but I think he had a rather difficult and troubled childhood and adolescence.

Pehrson: I notice that one of the articles in Book 4, the Slonimskyana volume is about child prodigies. He was very interested in that topic, probably for that reason.

Yourke: Yes, yes. I think, though, to some degree he was still showing how much he knew and how much he could do even when he was an adult. It was tolerable and attractive because he was very smart and very amusing, very convivial. He was also very wide-ranging, very well educated, so if you wanted to talk about history or mathematics, languages… He truly made a positive impression on the people who met him and a rather long-lasting one. The fact that he left Russia, where they didn't have any bread -- that experience must have shaken a lot out of him and also forced him to be self-sufficient. He had an amazing ability to establish himself wherever he was.

Pehrson: Did he have any friends here when he first arrived?

Yourke: No, but he did it in Constantinople, he did it in Paris. He could orient himself

Pehrson: The end of this Book 3 is a long monograph on Roy Harris which I believe had never been published before.

Yourke: It had never been published.

Pehrson: It's unfortunate, but Roy Harris's music is just not heard so much anymore, and I wasn't really acquainted with it. After listening to it recently, it seems quite substantial and interesting writing – a lot of work that he did and it seems kind of unfortunate that it has disappeared so completely.

Yourke: To me it was surprising the difference between his music and the person. As a person, he was tall, rangey, very Western, extremely disorganized – always starting things and not finishing them and he always had a houseful of people, students who were living with him. Wherever he was, and he was always moving from one place to another, he would invite my father to come. We spent three wonderful summers in Colorado Springs where he was teaching there at Colorado College. There was a messy trail of unfinished projects. Then I read about what he wrote about his own music and it seems to tightly constructed, and conceptual, so abstract. He went to Paris and studied, and took in all the lessons of the structural approach, fugues and so forth.

Pehrson: Well, Nadia Boulanger

Yourke: Yes, and it was so designed and so structured and it just seemed so opposite to his personality.

Pehrson: Well he must have been quite convincing, because it showed that Nadia Boulanger was actually performing in some of his pieces, so he must have had a very strong personality to convince her to perform in ensembles of his works in public.

Yourke: He did have tremendous promise that didn't quite flower.

Pehrson: Your father was probably quite fascinated with him because he was, literally, born in a log cabin – the quintessential American story which was probably quite a novelty from your father's perspective.

Yourke: Yes, I think he found that whole picture very attractive and appealing.

Pehrson: Well, there is a list of Roy Harris compositions at the very end of the Third Book as well.

Yourke: I included that because I think that might be quite definitive up to that time.

Pehrson: And what motivated the Slonimskyana volume, which is Volume 4?

Yourke: Well, there was a lot of good stuff that didn't fit into any of the other categories. Then there is funny stuff. Sex and the Music Librarian — a “Seminal” Article, and other oddities — chess, that are fun and it seemed a shame if you were doing four volumes of Slonimsky to let these by the wayside.

Pehrson: Because your father was very funny sometimes.

Yourke: Yes!

Pehrson: Was he oftentimes funny, or just sometimes funny?

Yourke: He was often quite funny.

Pehrson: I thought so.

Yourke: He could also overdo it. He had a lot of verbal humor and he saw the humor in a lot of situations. That made his lectures rather popular. There were times when his sense of humor got away from him and he forgot that he was there to provide something of substance. [laughs]

Pehrson: I think the sense of humor is one reason that he's so popular today.

Yourke: Yes. There's no question.

Pehrson: In the fourth volume there is also quite a serious article that I think is one of the most valuable in the entire set, and that's the very first one which is on American chamber music. I found that very useful because so many composers are shown there and I think it just illustrates how many fine composers we've had in this country and how much chamber music they've actually written.

Yourke: I felt it was especially important to preserve this, because it's a little mini-history.

Pehrson: I think it's sad that there are so few of those chamber pieces that are still available. They're not available on CD anymore. Maybe they were on long-playing records and never were transferred over. It's hard to get some of the scores. Maybe if you search long enough through the library systems you can get some of the things, but it's unfortunately there isn't a more serious archiving of composer materials.

Yourke: You've touched on something I feel very strongly about as well which is that works, artistic works, are simply physically disappearing.

Pehrson: Well, there's lots of other curious material in the Slonimskyana volume. I thought that the Tchaikovsky letters were of particular interest. I never had read the letters of his platonic affair with the countess Von Meck.

Yourke: It hardly even reaches the level of platonic. They were writing when they were living next door to each other.

Pehrson: He would be a person to find materials like this.

Yourke: Yes

Pehrson: Well, we greatly appreciate this fantastic opportunity to go through these books and materials with you and hear about your father. I'm sorry I never had a chance to meet him. That would have been a very exciting experience for me, but his legacy and attitudes live on. You can't imagine a more widely varied career and a more engaging individual than your father in every dimension of music and respected by so many different people across the broadest spectrum of music and still as intriguing today to many as ever. So, we're certainly delighted to have had this opportunity to do the interview and I hope that people will get an opportunity to pick up these books and go through them because it's a real journey from beginning to end which ends with Nicholas Slonimsky's voice himself in his final singing of his Advertising Songs at the end of the fourth volume. So, Electra I want to thank you so much again for this great time and opportunity.

Yourke: I want to thank you and I will continue to see that his voice is heard.

Nicolas Slonimsky was a friend of Frank Zappa's, and this mp3 relates some of that. Both individuals, many believe, were among some of the strongest cultural influences of our day in the realm of music. 

Slonimsky was also a friend of music legend Frank Zappa and appeared on Zappa's concerts.