{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/pv6b27qf0v/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Cotel, Morris"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCotel, Morris. 1998. Interview by Neil Levin. Milken Archive Oral History Project. 23 February.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Milken Family Foundation"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003e© Milken Family Foundation. Unauthorized use is prohibited. For inquiries, please contact info@milkenarchive.org.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Cotel, Morris (Composer)","Levin, Neil (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["1998-02-23"]}},{"label":{"en":["Coverage"]},"value":{"en":["New York, NY (Place of Recording)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (Primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with composer Morris Cotel that is oriented toward his Jewish compositions. The interview focuses on the characteristics of his creative compositional processes, the stories behind his compositions, and the ways in which he relates his Jewish identity to his music. Cotel recounts the conversation with his uncle that impacted him to make Judaism the major influence in his compositions. The interview ends with his announcement that he is a rabbinical student and has stopped composing. Pieces discussed are: \u003cem\u003eConcerto for Piano and Orchestra; Piece for Piano, Four Paws; Tehom for Three Pianos; Trope for Orchestra\u003c/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eYezira for Two Microtonal Pianos\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["Beta SP"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Jews -- Music (Topical Term)","Topical Term: Classical Music (Topical Term)","Oral Histories (genre/form)","Peabody Institute (Baltimore, Md.) (Person or Corporate Body)","Milhaud, Darius, 1892-1974 (Person or Corporate Body)","Bloch, Ernest, 1880-1959 (Person or Corporate Body)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Ansche Chesed Synagogue (New York, New York), Arch of Titus (Rome, Italy), Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), Book of Formation, Book of Genesis, Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra (New York, NY), Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), Eli Wallach (1915-2014), Ernest Bloch (1880-1959), Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Kavanah, Kennedy Center (Washington DC), Lukas Foss (1922-2009), Meet the Moderns (New York, NY), National Soviet Jewry Movement, Peabody Institute (Baltimore, MD), Polytonality, Return to Tonality, Richard Dreyfuss (1947-), Richard Wagner (1813-1883), Roger Sessions (1896-1985), Romanticism, Rome Prize, Rubin Academy of Music and Dance (Jerusalem, Israel), Sh'ma Yisra'el (Jewish prayer), West Side Minyan (New York, NY), Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987)"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with composer Morris Cotel that is oriented toward his Jewish compositions. The interview focuses on the characteristics of his creative compositional processes, the stories behind his compositions, and the ways in which he relates his Jewish identity to his music. Cotel recounts the conversation with his uncle that impacted him to make Judaism the major influence in his compositions. The interview ends with his announcement that he is a rabbinical student and has stopped composing. Pieces discussed are: \u003cem\u003eConcerto for Piano and Orchestra; Piece for Piano, Four Paws; Tehom for Three Pianos; Trope for Orchestra\u003c/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eYezira for Two Microtonal Pianos\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003e\u0026copy; Milken Family Foundation. Unauthorized use is prohibited. For inquiries, please contact info@milkenarchive.org.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/111/967/small/Cotel.jpg?1621941493","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - L3429_MA_2005_OH_Morris_Cotel_2017_Logo.mp4"]},"duration":2320.46933,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/111/967/small/Cotel.jpg?1621941493","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-milken.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/111/967/original/L3429_MA_2005_OH_Morris_Cotel_2017_Logo.mp4?1619776784","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":2320.46933,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Cotel-Morris-08-29-2022 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Mr. Cotel, you have written a tremendous amount of music for the synagogue, or for — in relation to Jewish experience.  You’ve been devoted to what we call loosely “Jewish music” for, ever since I heard your name.  How did, what brought you to this?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Well, I wrote a symphony and score when I was 13 years old.  Nothing Jewish there.  Ten years later, I became one of the youngest winners of the American Rome Prize.  I spent two years in Rome.  No Jewish music there. Ten years later, I was writing music based upon Jewish themes, Judaica, Jewish literary ideas, Jewish trope.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=16.0,74.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In fact, at Peabody, where I’m chair of music composition, just last month, we did a program which included the first Jewish piece — “Jewish,” in quotes — that I ever did, which was a tone poem for three pianos, written back in the ‘70s, which was premiered at the Kennedy Center.  I played with two Peabody pianists. It was Tehom, from the beginning of Sefer Bereshit, the Book of Genesis, L’choshek al Paneh Tehom — Darkness on the Face of the Deep.  And it was a tone poem that followed the textual drama of the opening of the Book of Genesis. “In the beginning….”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=74.0,117.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So all three pianos spew out all the material of the piece.  You don’t know what’s happening — it’s the big bang.  God created the heaven and the earth.  The music divides into heavenly material and earth material.  And so forth. Until it ends, some 15 minutes later, with the spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters. And the tone painting that I used there is the spirit of God — pianos one and two strum arpeggios inside, directly on the strings — a heavenly kind of association.  Hovering over piano three, playing low chords at the base of the keyboard — the face of the deep.  And then it dies away to nothingness.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=117.0,166.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, the real question is, since I am a straight conservatory product and grew up on Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, what happened between the age of 23 and 33? And it’s very simple — I’ve thought about it many times since, looking back on it.  And, like all the important things in our lives, totally unexpected until the moment that it happens. When I got to Rome in 1966, I was 23, I began a piano concerto which I completed there and performed with Radiotelevisione Italiana.  And that piece had absolutely nothing to do with Judaica in any way whatsoever.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=166.0,215.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But, during my stay in Rome, my favorite uncle came to visit me.  Now, he had a daughter in Israel.  He therefore, on his way back from visiting her, stopped off in Rome to see me.  And I was his tourist guide for the few days that he was in Rome, before he returned to the U.S.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI took him to see the Arch of Titus.  I didn’t quite understand the significance of the Arch, at that point in my life. I had had a Jewish education as a boy, up to the age of my bar mitzvah, and then, like many American Jews of that generation, I shed my Jewish identity.  As a musician, I embraced classical music.  And that, in effect, became my religion.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=215.0,261.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"At the age of 23, 24, when my uncle came to visit me, when we got to the Arch, he showed me that Jewish tourists had, had written graffiti all over the Arch. Am Yisrael Chai — the People of Israel Live. I didn’t realize at the time that this was the commemorative arch that the Romans put up, with great pomp and circumstance, to celebrate the destruction of the Jewish state and the destruction of the Temple, in ’70, of the current era.  But he explained that to me.  And then, he pointed out that the frieze inside the Arch, which shows the Romans carrying off the candelabra from the Temple.  And what the Romans felt was the end of their Jewish problem for all time, and the end of the Jewish people for all time. And he got so excited, he started jumping up and down.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=261.0,316.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So he said to me, “Morris” — some people call me Morris, some call me Moshe, my Hebrew name.  He said, “Morris, go to Israel and rediscover your Jewish heritage.” Now, I was at loose ends at that point in my life, finishing up with the Rome prize, and not knowing whether I should go back to the States, or what.  But he transmitted his enthusiasm to me — it was infectious.  And my thought was, I’d go to Israel for a few months and take an ulpan, learn Hebrew, check out my roots, and then go back to the States and resume my life as a classical musician.  I stayed for four years.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=316.0,359.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And for two of those years, I taught at the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem.  By then, my Hebrew was fluent.  And even there, my music was secular.  What need did I have to write Jewish music, whatever that is?  I’m not sure that any of the composers that you’ve interviewed for this Archive can really tell you what Jewish music is.  I certainly can’t tell you exactly, though we can talk about it and we can walk around it. I didn’t write any Jewish music until I came back to the States, after four years in Israel.  And the first piece that I wrote was the one I just mentioned to you — Tehom, for three pianos. In Israel, I lived a secular life.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=359.0,406.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When everybody around you — the bus driver and the storekeeper and the college professor — when everyone is Jewish, that’s not something that you have to spell out.  It’s in the air that you breathe.  When you get back to America, and you realize again that we are a tiny people in a sea of humanity, always on the verge of disappearing, constantly in danger of assimilating, you realize the miracle of Jewish existence. I couldn’t help but think back often to the fact that the Romans, who thought they had wiped us off the face of the Earth 19 centuries ago, are gone.  As my uncle told me then, look at it.  There’s nothing left but ruins.  But the Jewish people are alive and well.  We really are a miracle of history. And I had to create something for myself back in America, which is, let’s face it, for all the rhetoric that we use, a Christian country.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=406.0,463.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"How do you identify as a Jew in a Christian society? And I suppose one way that I did that as a musician was to try, for the first time in my life as an artist, to combine what it is in me that is the musician and what it is in me that is the Jew. So, after that first piece, I did a number of other pieces, some of them abstract, and some of them quite concrete. For example, one year I spent an entire year on a piece for two microtonal pianos.  The piece is called Yezira — Formation.  But it’s based upon the proto-cabalistic text — Sefet Yetzirah — The Book of Formation — which states the mystical idea that the world was created from the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=463.0,518.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I remember spending months on this piece and getting nowhere, because my original thought was, 22 has to figure into this piece.  But how can I get 22 out of the 12 notes of the octave?  And I tried various kinds of things, including serial ideas and 12-tone ideas and free atonal ideas — nothing worked.  Until finally, eureka!  That eureka moment.  It occurred to me, it had to be 22 tones. And I experimented with a 22-note tuning, and I found, to my amazement, that there is only one interval in the 22-note scale that is congruent to our regular 12-note scale, and that is the tritone.  And then I thought, this has to be for two pianos — 24 keys, tuned to two pianos, minus the two notes in common — that’s 22, that’s perfect. So I spent a year doing that very abstract piece, and we premiered it on Meet the Moderns, which was the chamber music component of the Brooklyn Philharmonic series, which was then headed by Lukas Foss.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=518.0,582.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"A more — a concrete piece that I did at that time was The Night of the Murdered Poets.  I had come across a pamphlet published by the National Soviet Jewry Movement.  This was in the heyday of the Soviet Jewry movement, in the late ‘70s.  And the words leapt out of the page. There was one proclamation signed by 80 Soviet Jews who wanted to get out, and they smuggled this document out of the USSR.  “Brother Jews,” it was headed, “we, we pour our hearts out to you,” or “we, we extend our hands out to you.  Help us,” blah, blah.  “Shema Yisrael — Hear, oh Israel.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=582.0,628.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When I read that line, I thought, this is a piece that needs to be based on the traditional synagogue tune, the Shema Yisrael, the one that spans the perfect fourth. So, in a burst of activity, I wrote this piece for narrator and chamber ensemble — five players.  A very hot piece.  And we did it in a political setting, a Soviet Jewry convocation in a synagogue in New York in ’78 or ’79, and we got Richard Dreyfuss to narrate it.  I conducted it.  And we rounded up five players.  The New York Times covered it.  And it went from there all over the country.  And then, it was recorded with Eli Wallach narrating, and it was broadcast repeatedly behind the Soviet Union, or on Voice of America, and Radio Free Europe.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=628.0,679.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, there was a piece in which I felt that I could descend from an ivory tower as a musician and deal with the real world.  And later, when the Berlin Wall fell, I felt that I had a piece of that in my pocket, because we — we did this piece at rallies and at synagogues and in concerts all over the country.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=679.0,696.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What about synagogue music?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Ah, that’s something else. I, years ago, I started to sketch out a Ma’ariv service.  And I never finished it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s still lying unfinished now?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Well, I couldn’t help but overhear, in the last few minutes of the Milton Babbitt interview, which I heard when I came in, that he made mention of a conference in Israel years ago, in which all the composers were Jewish, and they — international convocation of Jewish composers. I was on that panel.  I was the youngest composer there.  And I was, I thought, the only composer there who was “Jewish”, quote-unquote.  Because all the other composers on the panel were born Jewish, but how, how do you define a Jewish composer?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=696.0,755.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Well, you mean, you mean — do I understand, ‘cause you were the only composer there who, who…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Who defined himself consciously in daily life as a Jew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …who was involved in the synagogue life?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Who — yeah, who was a self-identifying Jew. And in the years between, I am no closer to defining what Jewish music is than then. You would think that I would be the person to write synagogue music.  I go to shul every week.  My wife goes with me.  You know the old ad that they used to have on TV — “The family that, that prays together…”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=755.0,795.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: “Prays together stays together.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Okay?  Well, my daughter is almost 19, and my son was bar mitzvahed two years ago.  And all the years that my kids were growing up, we all went to, to synagogue every Saturday morning, in Norman Rockwell Jewish style, you know — going up to the place of worship.  Only with us, it’s Saturday instead of Sunday. So, why don’t I write synagogue music? And, as I told you, I started to write a Ma’ariv service at one time, and I just, I put it aside. I daven at Ansche Chesed Synagogue, on 100th Street and West End Avenue.  And I daven in a small, egalitarian minyan.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=795.0,835.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What do you mean by egalitarian?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Men and women together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Called The West Side Minyan.  And we have rabbis in our congregation, but we don’t have a rabbi.  That is, any rabbis who come to our service come as congregants. We share all the duties.  So, one week, I will lead the service; another week, somebody else will.  One week, I’ll read from the Torah; another week, I’ll do the, the Dvar Torah — the sermon. There is no place for synagogue music in this service, for me.  Suppose…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Do you know, Ansche Chesed has a great history?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I understand.  It’s the paradox.  Life is a paradox.  And…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Do you know that Cantor Adolph Kotchko…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I understand what you’re saying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …was the cantor there?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=835.0,881.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"COTEL:  I can only tell you, from inside my own life, how I perceive the world. Writing a Ma’ariv service, or any kind of service, would not fill any need in my particular kind of prayer. What would that mean?  That I would have to get conservatory-trained singers and players and bring them — I’d have to bring them to Ansche Chesed, and we would have to…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, it wouldn’t work at Ansche Chesed, no.  It would have to be in a different kind of synagogue, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=881.0,910.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e From, from where I perceive this problem, if I were to write a synagogue service — and people have asked me from time to time, and it’s a point of, of pain with me, because, why can’t I?  And I really can’t, because there’s no need there. If I were to do a service in synagogue, then all of, all of the people I daven with would be sitting there with their hands folded, observing a performance.  But when we pray in our small minyan, we are not observing a performance.  We are praying to HaMakom — God Almighty.  So that’s the paradox.  And that, I think, is why I never wrote a synagogue service.  Though people sometimes point at me and say, “You should write a service.” When, for example, when I did that microtonal piece, I felt a tremendous need to do that.  God created the world out of 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.  And one of the mitzvot is that we should imitate God.  And I’m a musician, so I spent a year imitating God. Or when I wrote the Soviet Jewry piece.  That was a mitzvah to me, not just an act of writing music.  It’s a commandment, to, to free the captive, is it not?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=910.0,992.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Mm-hmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I did my part there. But to write a synagogue service, it would have to be for the people that I pray with.  The people that I pray with don’t need me to write a service.  They need me to daven with them.  And so, again, the paradox stands. And I’m totally incapable of writing a piece that I don’t feel a need to write.  I don’t work on commission.  Most composers — almost all composers — do, and have. But I can only tell you what music is in my life.  And in my life, there’s no need for music at a religious service, because it turns the prayers — that is, the people who pray — into spectators, and I don’t want that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=992.0,1042.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What about the, the Tropes?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  The orchestra piece that I finished in ’96 — Trope…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Trope.  It’s singular.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Yeah, it’s Trope.  It’s based upon the Torah trope.  I wrote it for my son, who was bar mitzvahed.  And it has not yet been performed, but will be performed on this program.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Is this based upon one variant of the trope?  In other words, am I to assume this is the Ashkenazi…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And, and moreover, it’s the regular Ashkenazi, not the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …not the High Holy Day?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  The so-called “American” trope, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, no.  It’s the same thing in, it was the same thing in Europe.  In Eastern Europe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  And I took certain patterns from, from…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: Yeah. It’s the Eastern European one, right?  It’s not the German Ashkenazi…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Correct.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So you -","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1042.0,1093.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e And I took certain patterns from my son’s Torah portion, and worked that into an orchestral work, based upon the typical cantillation figures that you find in the trope. Now, there, you see, I felt comfortable as a classically trained musician, because I could use the trope figures in the way that any classically trained composer can use basic material to build a piece.  But such a piece, of course, could only be played by a symphony orchestra.  And, in this case, a good one — it’s a difficult piece. But it fulfilled a need for me.  I wanted, I wanted to give my son something of myself as a bar mitzvah present, something that would have meaning for him.  In a sense, it was an offering of time.  Because he knew that I spent the year writing this piece for him. And, in fact, after I finished the piece — it’s uncommissioned, so there was no venue, at that time — I gave him the score, and I said, “Sivan, here’s, here’s my orchestra piece in honor of your bar mitzvah, but I don’t have an orchestra for you to play this.” He said, “That’s okay, Abba.  I know you spent the year on it, and I feel very honored that you did that for me.” So again, that fulfilled a function, an important function, for me.  It was a way for me, as a musician, to pass along my pride in being a Jew to my kid.  And he perceived that.  So, in a sense, the performance was the least important part of it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1093.0,1189.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Tell us something about the compositional procedure in this particular piece.  Or, you can relate it to the way you work with other pieces.  But in particular, I mean, is this — your harmonic language and so forth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Trope begins with a basic pattern, a French horn solo, which then goes through all kinds of variations and transformations in the course of the piece. Now, Trope has to be modal in order for it to be singable.  So, right away, you see, you have a certain constraint, in terms of the material that’s being used.  So that involves a modal vocabulary, or a polytonal vocabulary.  If it’s stretched at all, it can only be stretched to a certain limit, before it loses its particular flavor as synagogue music.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1189.0,1247.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What would you, how would you characterize its harmonic language in overall terms for — I mean, are you…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I would say extended, extended tonal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Extended tonality?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Polytonal — that whole environment. Whereas earlier pieces, such as Tehom, that I mentioned to you, would be much more abstract and atonal.  Or a piece such as Yezira, for two microtonal pianos, would be further afield.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, if it’s microtonal, yeah, of course.  Naturally. But I mean, in this case, with still, with the 12 pitches that we’re more or less stuck with…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1247.0,1285.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e When I was a teenager, in the throes of Romanticism — Rachmaninoff and all that sort of repertoire — I clearly had a tonal vocabulary.  And then, as I moved into my 20s, through my interest in Schöenberg, it became much more chromaticized.  In fact, I always thought of Schöenberg as the last of the Romantics.  When Schöenberg died in 1951, I would say that marks the end of the 19th century. From a certain hyperbolic point of view, you could say that the 20th century never existed musically, because it was — the 19th was a long century, extended from the Eroica symphony up until the end of Schöenberg.  And the so-called “revolution” that Schöenberg thought he had begun barely lasted his own lifetime.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1285.0,1348.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I was writing atonal music in my 20s.  And then, by the time I was in my mid-30s, I was back to a tonal vocabulary.  Now, the way that came about had nothing to do with Jewish interests. Again, when I look back on my experiences, I think, like all of us, I like to think of myself as a fairly sharp cookie.  But my life keeps telling me that it ain’t true.  Because all the important things that seem to happen to me are unexpected, and I’m totally unprepared for them.  And then, I have to scramble to try and figure out what that was. For example, when I was in the throes of atonal writing, in my late 20s, an idea percolated up out of nowhere — just a bagatelle.  I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to write a set of variations on a well-known — too well-known — classical theme?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1348.0,1415.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, I took the, the Andante from the Haydn Surprise Symphony — the Papa Haydn theme — and I did a set of variations for orchestra backwards.  In other words, instead of starting simple and then getting more and more complex, it starts with, the conductor comes out, gives a downbeat, the orchestra goes crazy, and you don’t know what’s going on.  And then, in the course of seven or eight variations, it gets more and more ordered, more and more tonal, and, at the end, Haydn’s theme emerges. Now, this whole piece, which was written for Haydn’s original classical scoring of a small orchestra, takes about six minutes.  And I did it in about a week or two — very quickly.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1415.0,1458.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"COTEL:  But my point is…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You’re starting at the end, and…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I wrote the complex variation first.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  So, you would think, you have a simple theme…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  …and then you get more and more complex. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: Mm-hmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL: And then it becomes totally transformed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So that’s not the usual composition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  But I started with total complexity, it gets more and more simple, and then it ends with Haydn’s theme.  This was back in ’72.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s a reverse…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  … almost a reverse theme.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  This is at the very beginning of what became known as “the return to tonality.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You could, you could be accused of decomposing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1458.0,1491.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, you might say that. Though my, my understanding of deconstructionism is that any interpretation is as good as anything else.  Whereas my thought is, that as a Jew, that’s not a very rabbinical attitude.  Because meaning is very important to us.  Our whole search is for meaning, and what is the true meaning of the text. But, in any case, in answer to your question, musically, I’ve gone through a spiral.  I began as a Romantic; I got pulled, through my interest in Schöenberg, whom I considered a Romantic, into atonality; and then, the spiral came back to tonality on a higher level again.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1491.0,1536.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Who were your major influences?  Who were your teachers?  Your main, your principal teachers, in terms of composition?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I studied with Roger Sessions at Juilliard.  And Vincent Persichetti.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Also at Juilliard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Yeah.  And Darius Milhaud at Aspen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  At Aspen, right.  What year were you in Aspen?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I was in Aspen when I was about 19, when I was a Juilliard student. I remember Milhaud very well.  He gave a master class once week.  Not private lessons, but all of us composition students would congregate in his villa.  He had arthritis in a very advanced stage at that point, so his assistant…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1536.0,1580.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I think it was more than the arthritis, wasn’t it? He was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Well…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He was in a wheelchair altogether, and he was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  He was incapacitated.  I mean, mentally, he was totally alert.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  No, but I mean, whatever. Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  But this great French-Jewish composer would meet with us weekly, or twice weekly, at his villa. And I recall one, one day we were waiting for him to be wheeled in, and we were amusing ourselves, and I had been reading through Tristan und Isolde at that time, and so while we were waiting for him, I was amusing the other kids by playing through the Liebestod at the end of Tristan. And you know that ending – it goes up and up and up and up and up. It’s supposed to be a visible –","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1580.0,1627.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: It spirals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL: It’s supposed to be a visible orgasm. It gets up to the high C-sharp three times, and it ends on the last page. So I took it up to the high C-sharp, and at the third one, Milhaud is wheeled in by his assistant, screaming, “I will not have that in my house!” So I stopped, right there.  Okay?  Just right there, at the climax.  And I apologized to him, you know, for angering the great man. And I could see at a glance that the complex through which he saw that music was made up of layers of his Jewish identity and his French identity, and how Wagner was an affront to everything that he believed in as a man and as a musician, as a Frenchman, as a Jew. And I recall mentioning that to someone, years later, who said, “Well, after all, Wagner didn’t invent anti-Semitism in Germany.” And my response was, “Yes, but no one did more than he did to make it a respectable attitude for the German middle class.” But, in any case, those were my teachers.  And my formal study came to an abrupt end at 23, when I won the Rome Prize.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1627.0,1727.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Did you ever talk to Milhaud about his, his service, his Servis Sacré?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  No.  No. Milhaud, of course, had a tremendous facility.  He could turn out music almost automatically.  And I was in awe of that.  To me, a composition is a much more painful process. But I think that my main teachers were actually the teachers that I communed with when I was growing up as a young musician.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The masters.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1727.0,1765.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah.  You study the three Bs.  And those are your teachers. My teacher, Roger Sessions, was the protégé of Ernst Bloch.  When Bloch was head of the Cleveland Institute of Music.  And Bloch used to begin his composition sessions by studying some Bach.  That’s where you learn. To this day, I play a Bach fugue every single day.  As a matter of daily hygiene, you might say.  If I’m on the run and I’m not near a piano, I simply run it through on the bus or the subway, or whatever.  But to me, that’s like a tefilah. Well, you can say the Ashrei in a minute or two.  And you can say the Amidah in about five minutes, concentrating on every word.  You can do Aleinu in, in a minute or two.  And that’s Mincha.  And you can do a Bach prelude and fugue in about the same amount of time, so it’s a different kind of, different kind of prayer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1765.0,1834.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  There was some — I don’t know who, I don’t remember whether it was Verdi, maybe, or somebody, did something similar.  But instead of playing, he, he wrote a fugue every morning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Could be.  Could be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s pure exercise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Well, on a lighter note, you may have heard about my cat, Ketzel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.  I haven’t heard about your cat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  She just won a composition prize. I’ve always said that at Peabody, I’ve taught students of every race, every religion, every national origin.  And now, I can say that I have even taught young composers from another species.  Because, only a couple of months ago, Ketzel had her piece premiered at Peabody. Now, what does that have to do with me and with Ernst Bloch? She comes into my studio when I play my daily Bach fugue.  When I’m home.  And she usually perches on top of the piano. About a year ago, she perched on the piano, as usual, when she heard me start the Bach.  And she only comes in for Bach — you can explain that how you will.  And she put her paw down on the keyboard.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1834.0,1907.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Now, you know, we have a concept in our tefilah — kavanah.  You pray with kavanah — direction.  You direct your attention. And if, if I were in a normal state of mind, I would say, “Shoo, cat.”  Right?  You know, “I’m doing something.”  But I think I was in an elevated state of mind at that point.  I think I had a state of kavanah. I stopped my Bach immediately.  I grabbed pencil and paper, I was right there at the piano, and I took dictation from her.  This went on for about half a minute.  She walked down the piano, slowly, and she jumped off. And then I looked at this little thing in my hand, and I thought, this is beautiful, because it had an A section, a B section, and it returned to the opening.  It was ternary form.  But what can you do with such a thing?  So I shrugged my shoulders and I, I put it up on a pile of manuscripts on the piano and forgot about it. And then, some months later, I came across an announcement.  The Paris New Music Review has a new competition — 60 seconds for piano or less.  And I thought, I don’t have anything that small, and none of my students at Peabody have anything that small.  Wait a minute — Ketzel’s piece.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1907.0,1975.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, I sent it in to the judges.  On the up-and-up.  I wrote to them, “This is my cat’s piece.  I took dictation.” And they sent back a certificate of special mention, praising her for her creative instincts.  One of the judges said, “It reminded me of Anton Webern.  This is the kind of piece Anton Webern’s cat would have written, if Webern had had a cat.” And we played the world premiere at Peabody just last month.  It was on NPR, and everything.  And the European premiere will be in Amsterdam next month, and then it will go to cities around the world. Now, I am at the point, now, where I see everything from a Jewish point of view, for better or for worse.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1975.0,2020.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What does that mean?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  To me, this is an example of kavanah.  That we are surrounded by miracles, if we can only perceive them.  And by prayer, by meditation, by study, we can become attuned to this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In closing — I’m glad you mentioned that, because we did an interview, I did an interview with Ralph Shapey.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Uh-huh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You know Ralph Shapey.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I do indeed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I don’t know if you know him personally.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I do indeed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But you know his music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I know Ralph, I know his music, I know his character.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, okay.  And, in essence, the question about Jewishness and his music and so forth, he said the following.  And you can react to that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He said, “Look — here’s my credo as a Jew, which is the same as a man.  Which is the same as a human being, which is all I accept.”  He said, “All great art is ipso facto a miracle.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=2020.0,2087.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e You want my take on that? As one of my meditations — and not one of my rabbinic meditations, but as one of my meditations as a musician — from time to time, I will sit down at the piano and not play a Bach fugue.  I will just sit down at the piano and play an octave, and just close my eyes and listen. Now, it says in the Book of Genesis that God created the heaven and the earth, and so on and so forth.  It doesn’t say the most important thing — God created an octave.  That’s the greatest miracle in human perception. Think about it.  If you’re talking about what we see — and let’s face it, outside of musicians, most people are visual creatures.  Most people never learn how to use their ears.  If you’re talking about light, you have red, orange, yellow; you keep increasing the vibrations, you have blue, indigo, whatever the sequence is, and then it disappears.  That makes sense. If you increase the vibrations with music, you come back to where you started, somehow.  It’s like that Escher print, where the monks are going around the monastery, and somehow…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=2087.0,2154.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  It has a certain ring in the — don’t you think? — in the Platonic idea of the, of the perfect harmony?  In which sense, I suppose you could say that…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Maybe.  But I see it more in terms of my cat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The spheres.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I see it more in terms of my cat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You’re seeing everything through the, through the eyes of your cat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  A cat steps down on the keyboard, and behold - It is a beautiful little piece. We are surrounded by miracles.  The octave itself is a miracle. You know, but in our haste to get to the next thing, we rush past the octave to get to the next stop.  And we never stop and listen.  That’s what a musician is supposed to do, right?  Use your ears. So, in terms of all music being a miracle, sure.  Everything is a miracle.  When your, when your child is born, that’s a miracle.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=2154.0,2202.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Do you expect to do, to follow up on something like Trope?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Mark Twain said, “Just tell the truth, and then you don’t have to remember anything.”  And that’s my secular credo.  So, if you want to hear the end of this, it might surprise you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, when I say follow up, I mean, do you have any particular, any concrete plans to do a second type piece on Haftorah trope, as opposed to Torah trope, or something like that, or…  Or is that something you haven’t thought of, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I’m doing something else now.  I’m a rabbinical student.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Where?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=2202.0,2241.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e At the Academy for Jewish Religion. Now, the question is not whether I’ll follow up on Trope — the question is whether I’ll ever write another piece. Gustav Mahler said, “Ich bin ein Sommerkomponist — I’m a summer composer.”  You know, he made his living as a conductor.  He said, “I conduct to live; I live to compose.”  He wrote all his symphonies in the summertime, in his hut, up in the mountains.  And lots of composers more or less say the same thing.  “Ich bin ein Sommerkomponist.” I am, too.  But now, in the summer, I don’t compose anymore.  Now, I study Torah. So, when am I going to write my next piece? So, one scenario — and I think you understand from our conversation that my personal take on my own life is that it has a life of its own.  You know, we make plans, but life takes us somewhere else. The way it seems to me now, maybe Trope was my last piece.  So, it would be a perfectly fitting composition for your Archive.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=2241.0,2300.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/39566/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Well, let’s hope it’s not your last piece.  But in any case, we’ll be talking about that back and forth.  And thanks for coming in to see us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  A pleasure being here.  Thank you for having me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=2300.0,2320.46933"}]},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Morris Cotel [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Mr. Cotel, you have written a tremendous amount of music for the synagogue, or for — in relation to Jewish experience.  You’ve been devoted to what we call loosely “Jewish music” for, ever since I heard your name.  How did, what brought you to this?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Well, I wrote a symphony and score when I was 13 years old.  Nothing Jewish there.  Ten years later, I became one of the youngest winners of the American Rome Prize.  I spent two years in Rome.  No Jewish music there. Ten years later, I was writing music based upon Jewish themes, Judaica, Jewish literary ideas, Jewish trope.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=16.0,74.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In fact, at Peabody, where I’m chair of music composition, just last month, we did a program which included the first Jewish piece — “Jewish,” in quotes — that I ever did, which was a tone poem for three pianos, written back in the ‘70s, which was premiered at the Kennedy Center.  I played with two Peabody pianists. It was Tehom, from the beginning of Sefer Bereshit, the Book of Genesis, L’choshek al Paneh Tehom — Darkness on the Face of the Deep.  And it was a tone poem that followed the textual drama of the opening of the Book of Genesis. “In the beginning….”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=74.0,117.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So all three pianos spew out all the material of the piece.  You don’t know what’s happening — it’s the big bang.  God created the heaven and the earth.  The music divides into heavenly material and earth material.  And so forth. Until it ends, some 15 minutes later, with the spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters. And the tone painting that I used there is the spirit of God — pianos one and two strum arpeggios inside, directly on the strings — a heavenly kind of association.  Hovering over piano three, playing low chords at the base of the keyboard — the face of the deep.  And then it dies away to nothingness.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=117.0,166.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, the real question is, since I am a straight conservatory product and grew up on Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, what happened between the age of 23 and 33? And it’s very simple — I’ve thought about it many times since, looking back on it.  And, like all the important things in our lives, totally unexpected until the moment that it happens. When I got to Rome in 1966, I was 23, I began a piano concerto which I completed there and performed with Radiotelevisione Italiana.  And that piece had absolutely nothing to do with Judaica in any way whatsoever.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=166.0,215.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But, during my stay in Rome, my favorite uncle came to visit me.  Now, he had a daughter in Israel.  He therefore, on his way back from visiting her, stopped off in Rome to see me.  And I was his tourist guide for the few days that he was in Rome, before he returned to the U.S.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI took him to see the Arch of Titus.  I didn’t quite understand the significance of the Arch, at that point in my life. I had had a Jewish education as a boy, up to the age of my bar mitzvah, and then, like many American Jews of that generation, I shed my Jewish identity.  As a musician, I embraced classical music.  And that, in effect, became my religion.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=215.0,261.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"At the age of 23, 24, when my uncle came to visit me, when we got to the Arch, he showed me that Jewish tourists had, had written graffiti all over the Arch. Am Yisrael Chai — the People of Israel Live. I didn’t realize at the time that this was the commemorative arch that the Romans put up, with great pomp and circumstance, to celebrate the destruction of the Jewish state and the destruction of the Temple, in ’70, of the current era.  But he explained that to me.  And then, he pointed out that the frieze inside the Arch, which shows the Romans carrying off the candelabra from the Temple.  And what the Romans felt was the end of their Jewish problem for all time, and the end of the Jewish people for all time. And he got so excited, he started jumping up and down.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=261.0,316.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So he said to me, “Morris” — some people call me Morris, some call me Moshe, my Hebrew name.  He said, “Morris, go to Israel and rediscover your Jewish heritage.” Now, I was at loose ends at that point in my life, finishing up with the Rome prize, and not knowing whether I should go back to the States, or what.  But he transmitted his enthusiasm to me — it was infectious.  And my thought was, I’d go to Israel for a few months and take an ulpan, learn Hebrew, check out my roots, and then go back to the States and resume my life as a classical musician.  I stayed for four years.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=316.0,359.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And for two of those years, I taught at the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem.  By then, my Hebrew was fluent.  And even there, my music was secular.  What need did I have to write Jewish music, whatever that is?  I’m not sure that any of the composers that you’ve interviewed for this Archive can really tell you what Jewish music is.  I certainly can’t tell you exactly, though we can talk about it and we can walk around it. I didn’t write any Jewish music until I came back to the States, after four years in Israel.  And the first piece that I wrote was the one I just mentioned to you — Tehom, for three pianos. In Israel, I lived a secular life.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=359.0,406.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When everybody around you — the bus driver and the storekeeper and the college professor — when everyone is Jewish, that’s not something that you have to spell out.  It’s in the air that you breathe.  When you get back to America, and you realize again that we are a tiny people in a sea of humanity, always on the verge of disappearing, constantly in danger of assimilating, you realize the miracle of Jewish existence. I couldn’t help but think back often to the fact that the Romans, who thought they had wiped us off the face of the Earth 19 centuries ago, are gone.  As my uncle told me then, look at it.  There’s nothing left but ruins.  But the Jewish people are alive and well.  We really are a miracle of history. And I had to create something for myself back in America, which is, let’s face it, for all the rhetoric that we use, a Christian country.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=406.0,463.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"How do you identify as a Jew in a Christian society? And I suppose one way that I did that as a musician was to try, for the first time in my life as an artist, to combine what it is in me that is the musician and what it is in me that is the Jew. So, after that first piece, I did a number of other pieces, some of them abstract, and some of them quite concrete. For example, one year I spent an entire year on a piece for two microtonal pianos.  The piece is called Yetzirah — Formation.  But it’s based upon the proto-cabalistic text — Sefet Yetzirah — The Book of Formation — which states the mystical idea that the world was created from the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=463.0,518.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I remember spending months on this piece and getting nowhere, because my original thought was, 22 has to figure into this piece.  But how can I get 22 out of the 12 notes of the octave?  And I tried various kinds of things, including serial ideas and 12-tone ideas and free atonal ideas — nothing worked.  Until finally, eureka!  That eureka moment.  It occurred to me, it had to be 22 tones. And I experimented with a 22-note tuning, and I found, to my amazement, that there is only one interval in the 22-note scale that is congruent to our regular 12-note scale, and that is the tritone.  And then I thought, this has to be for two pianos — 24 keys, tuned to two pianos, minus the two notes in common — that’s 22, that’s perfect. So I spent a year doing that very abstract piece, and we premiered it on Meet the Moderns, which was the chamber music component of the Brooklyn Philharmonic series, which was then headed by Lukas Foss.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=518.0,582.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"A more — a concrete piece that I did at that time was The Night of the Murdered Poets.  I had come across a pamphlet published by the National Soviet Jewry Movement.  This was in the heyday of the Soviet Jewry movement, in the late ‘70s.  And the words leapt out of the page. There was one proclamation signed by 80 Soviet Jews who wanted to get out, and they smuggled this document out of the USSR.  “Brother Jews,” it was headed, “we, we pour our hearts out to you,” or “we, we extend our hands out to you.  Help us,” blah, blah.  “Shema Yisrael — Hear, oh Israel.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=582.0,628.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When I read that line, I thought, this is a piece that needs to be based on the traditional synagogue tune, the Shema Yisrael, the one that spans the perfect fourth. So, in a burst of activity, I wrote this piece for narrator and chamber ensemble — five players.  A very hot piece.  And we did it in a political setting, a Soviet Jewry convocation in a synagogue in New York in ’78 or ’79, and we got Richard Dreyfuss to narrate it.  I conducted it.  And we rounded up five players.  The New York Times covered it.  And it went from there all over the country.  And then, it was recorded with Eli Wallach narrating, and it was broadcast repeatedly behind the Soviet Union, or on Voice of America, and Radio Free Europe.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=628.0,679.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, there was a piece in which I felt that I could descend from an ivory tower as a musician and deal with the real world.  And later, when the Berlin Wall fell, I felt that I had a piece of that in my pocket, because we — we did this piece at rallies and at synagogues and in concerts all over the country.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=679.0,696.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What about synagogue music?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Ah, that’s something else. I, years ago, I started to sketch out a Ma’ariv service.  And I never finished it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s still lying unfinished now?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Well, I couldn’t help but overhear, in the last few minutes of the Milton Babbitt interview, which I heard when I came in, that he made mention of a conference in Israel years ago, in which all the composers were Jewish, and they — international convocation of Jewish composers. I was on that panel.  I was the youngest composer there.  And I was, I thought, the only composer there who was “Jewish”, quote-unquote.  Because all the other composers on the panel were born Jewish, but how, how do you define a Jewish composer?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=696.0,755.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Well, you mean, you mean — do I understand, ‘cause you were the only composer there who, who…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Who defined himself consciously in daily life as a Jew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …who was involved in the synagogue life?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Who — yeah, who was a self-identifying Jew. And in the years between, I am no closer to defining what Jewish music is than then. You would think that I would be the person to write synagogue music.  I go to shul every week.  My wife goes with me.  You know the old ad that they used to have on TV — “The family that, that prays together…”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=755.0,795.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: “Prays together stays together.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Okay?  Well, my daughter is almost 19, and my son was bar mitzvahed two years ago.  And all the years that my kids were growing up, we all went to, to synagogue every Saturday morning, in Norman Rockwell Jewish style, you know — going up to the place of worship.  Only with us, it’s Saturday instead of Sunday. So, why don’t I write synagogue music? And, as I told you, I started to write a Ma’ariv service at one time, and I just, I put it aside. I daven at Ansche Chesed Synagogue, on 100th Street and West End Avenue.  And I daven in a small, egalitarian minyan.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=795.0,835.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What do you mean by egalitarian?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Men and women together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Called The West Side Minyan.  And we have rabbis in our congregation, but we don’t have a rabbi.  That is, any rabbis who come to our service come as congregants. We share all the duties.  So, one week, I will lead the service; another week, somebody else will.  One week, I’ll read from the Torah; another week, I’ll do the, the Dvar Torah — the sermon. There is no place for synagogue music in this service, for me.  Suppose…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Do you know, Ansche Chesed has a great history?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I understand.  It’s the paradox.  Life is a paradox.  And…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Do you know that Cantor Adolph Kotchko…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I understand what you’re saying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …was the cantor there?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=835.0,881.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"COTEL:  I can only tell you, from inside my own life, how I perceive the world. Writing a Ma’ariv service, or any kind of service, would not fill any need in my particular kind of prayer. What would that mean?  That I would have to get conservatory-trained singers and players and bring them — I’d have to bring them to Ansche Chesed, and we would have to…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, it wouldn’t work at Ansche Chesed, no.  It would have to be in a different kind of synagogue, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=881.0,910.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e From, from where I perceive this problem, if I were to write a synagogue service — and people have asked me from time to time, and it’s a point of, of pain with me, because, why can’t I?  And I really can’t, because there’s no need there. If I were to do a service in synagogue, then all of, all of the people I daven with would be sitting there with their hands folded, observing a performance.  But when we pray in our small minyan, we are not observing a performance.  We are praying to HaMakom — God Almighty.  So that’s the paradox.  And that, I think, is why I never wrote a synagogue service.  Though people sometimes point at me and say, “You should write a service.” When, for example, when I did that microtonal piece, I felt a tremendous need to do that.  God created the world out of 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.  And one of the mitzvot is that we should imitate God.  And I’m a musician, so I spent a year imitating God. Or when I wrote the Soviet Jewry piece.  That was a mitzvah to me, not just an act of writing music.  It’s a commandment, to, to free the captive, is it not?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=910.0,992.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Mm-hmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I did my part there. But to write a synagogue service, it would have to be for the people that I pray with.  The people that I pray with don’t need me to write a service.  They need me to daven with them.  And so, again, the paradox stands. And I’m totally incapable of writing a piece that I don’t feel a need to write.  I don’t work on commission.  Most composers — almost all composers — do, and have. But I can only tell you what music is in my life.  And in my life, there’s no need for music at a religious service, because it turns the prayers — that is, the people who pray — into spectators, and I don’t want that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=992.0,1042.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What about the, the Tropes?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  The orchestra piece that I finished in ’96 — Trope…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Trope.  It’s singular.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Yeah, it’s Trope.  It’s based upon the Torah trope.  I wrote it for my son, who was bar mitzvahed.  And it has not yet been performed, but will be performed on this program.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Is this based upon one variant of the trope?  In other words, am I to assume this is the Ashkenazi…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And, and moreover, it’s the regular Ashkenazi, not the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …not the High Holy Day?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  The so-called “American” trope, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, no.  It’s the same thing in, it was the same thing in Europe.  In Eastern Europe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  And I took certain patterns from, from…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: Yeah. It’s the Eastern European one, right?  It’s not the German Ashkenazi…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Correct.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So you -","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1042.0,1093.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e And I took certain patterns from my son’s Torah portion, and worked that into an orchestral work, based upon the typical cantillation figures that you find in the trope. Now, there, you see, I felt comfortable as a classically trained musician, because I could use the trope figures in the way that any classically trained composer can use basic material to build a piece.  But such a piece, of course, could only be played by a symphony orchestra.  And, in this case, a good one — it’s a difficult piece. But it fulfilled a need for me.  I wanted, I wanted to give my son something of myself as a bar mitzvah present, something that would have meaning for him.  In a sense, it was an offering of time.  Because he knew that I spent the year writing this piece for him. And, in fact, after I finished the piece — it’s uncommissioned, so there was no venue, at that time — I gave him the score, and I said, “Sivan, here’s, here’s my orchestra piece in honor of your bar mitzvah, but I don’t have an orchestra for you to play this.” He said, “That’s okay, Abba.  I know you spent the year on it, and I feel very honored that you did that for me.” So again, that fulfilled a function, an important function, for me.  It was a way for me, as a musician, to pass along my pride in being a Jew to my kid.  And he perceived that.  So, in a sense, the performance was the least important part of it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1093.0,1189.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Tell us something about the compositional procedure in this particular piece.  Or, you can relate it to the way you work with other pieces.  But in particular, I mean, is this — your harmonic language and so forth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Trope begins with a basic pattern, a French horn solo, which then goes through all kinds of variations and transformations in the course of the piece. Now, Trope has to be modal in order for it to be singable.  So, right away, you see, you have a certain constraint, in terms of the material that’s being used.  So that involves a modal vocabulary, or a polytonal vocabulary.  If it’s stretched at all, it can only be stretched to a certain limit, before it loses its particular flavor as synagogue music.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1189.0,1247.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What would you, how would you characterize its harmonic language in overall terms for — I mean, are you…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I would say extended, extended tonal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Extended tonality?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Polytonal — that whole environment. Whereas earlier pieces, such as Tehom, that I mentioned to you, would be much more abstract and atonal.  Or a piece such as Yetzirah, for two microtonal pianos, would be further afield.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, if it’s microtonal, yeah, of course.  Naturally. But I mean, in this case, with still, with the 12 pitches that we’re more or less stuck with…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1247.0,1285.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e When I was a teenager, in the throes of Romanticism — Rachmaninoff and all that sort of repertoire — I clearly had a tonal vocabulary.  And then, as I moved into my 20s, through my interest in Schöenberg, it became much more chromaticized.  In fact, I always thought of Schöenberg as the last of the Romantics.  When Schöenberg died in 1951, I would say that marks the end of the 19th century. From a certain hyperbolic point of view, you could say that the 20th century never existed musically, because it was — the 19th was a long century, extended from the Eroica symphony up until the end of Schöenberg.  And the so-called “revolution” that Schöenberg thought he had begun barely lasted his own lifetime.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1285.0,1348.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I was writing atonal music in my 20s.  And then, by the time I was in my mid-30s, I was back to a tonal vocabulary.  Now, the way that came about had nothing to do with Jewish interests. Again, when I look back on my experiences, I think, like all of us, I like to think of myself as a fairly sharp cookie.  But my life keeps telling me that it ain’t true.  Because all the important things that seem to happen to me are unexpected, and I’m totally unprepared for them.  And then, I have to scramble to try and figure out what that was. For example, when I was in the throes of atonal writing, in my late 20s, an idea percolated up out of nowhere — just a bagatelle.  I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to write a set of variations on a well-known — too well-known — classical theme?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1348.0,1415.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, I took the, the Andante from the Haydn Surprise Symphony — the Papa Haydn theme — and I did a set of variations for orchestra backwards.  In other words, instead of starting simple and then getting more and more complex, it starts with, the conductor comes out, gives a downbeat, the orchestra goes crazy, and you don’t know what’s going on.  And then, in the course of seven or eight variations, it gets more and more ordered, more and more tonal, and, at the end, Haydn’s theme emerges. Now, this whole piece, which was written for Haydn’s original classical scoring of a small orchestra, takes about six minutes.  And I did it in about a week or two — very quickly.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1415.0,1458.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"COTEL:  But my point is…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You’re starting at the end, and…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I wrote the complex variation first.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  So, you would think, you have a simple theme…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  …and then you get more and more complex. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: Mm-hmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL: And then it becomes totally transformed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So that’s not the usual composition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  But I started with total complexity, it gets more and more simple, and then it ends with Haydn’s theme.  This was back in ’72.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s a reverse…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  … almost a reverse theme.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  This is at the very beginning of what became known as “the return to tonality.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You could, you could be accused of decomposing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1458.0,1491.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, you might say that. Though my, my understanding of deconstructionism is that any interpretation is as good as anything else.  Whereas my thought is, that as a Jew, that’s not a very rabbinical attitude.  Because meaning is very important to us.  Our whole search is for meaning, and what is the true meaning of the text. But, in any case, in answer to your question, musically, I’ve gone through a spiral.  I began as a Romantic; I got pulled, through my interest in Schöenberg, whom I considered a Romantic, into atonality; and then, the spiral came back to tonality on a higher level again.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1491.0,1536.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Who were your major influences?  Who were your teachers?  Your main, your principal teachers, in terms of composition?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I studied with Roger Sessions at Juilliard.  And Vincent Persichetti.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Also at Juilliard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Yeah.  And Darius Milhaud at Aspen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  At Aspen, right.  What year were you in Aspen?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I was in Aspen when I was about 19, when I was a Juilliard student. I remember Milhaud very well.  He gave a master class once week.  Not private lessons, but all of us composition students would congregate in his villa.  He had arthritis in a very advanced stage at that point, so his assistant…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1536.0,1580.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I think it was more than the arthritis, wasn’t it? He was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Well…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He was in a wheelchair altogether, and he was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  He was incapacitated.  I mean, mentally, he was totally alert.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  No, but I mean, whatever. Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  But this great French-Jewish composer would meet with us weekly, or twice weekly, at his villa. And I recall one, one day we were waiting for him to be wheeled him, and we were amusing ourselves, and I had been reading through Tristan und Isolde at that time, and so while we were waiting for him, I was amusing the other kids by playing through the Liebestod at the end of Tristan. And you know that ending – it goes up and up and up and up and up. It’s supposed to be a visible –","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1580.0,1627.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: It spirals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL: It’s supposed to be a visible orgasm. It gets up to the high C-sharp three times, and it ends on the last page. So I took it up to the high C-sharp, and at the third one, Milhaud is wheeled in by his assistant, screaming, “I will not have that in my house!” So I stopped, right there.  Okay?  Just right there, at the climax.  And I apologized to him, you know, for angering the great man. And I could see at a glance that the complex through which he saw that music was made up of layers of his Jewish identity and his French identity, and how Wagner was an affront to everything that he believed in as a man and as a musician, as a Frenchman, as a Jew. And I recall mentioning that to someone, years later, who said, “Well, after all, Wagner didn’t invent anti-Semitism in Germany.” And my response was, “Yes, but no one did more than he did to make it a respectable attitude for the German middle class.” But, in any case, those were my teachers.  And my formal study came to an abrupt end at 23, when I won the Rome Prize.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1627.0,1727.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Did you ever talk to Milhaud about his, his service, his Servis Sacré?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  No.  No. Milhaud, of course, had a tremendous facility.  He could turn out music almost automatically.  And I was in awe of that.  To me, a composition is a much more painful process. But I think that my main teachers were actually the teachers that I communed with when I was growing up as a young musician.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The masters.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1727.0,1765.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah.  You study the three Bs.  And those are your teachers. My teacher, Roger Sessions, was the protégé of Ernst Bloch.  When Bloch was head of the Cleveland Institute of Music.  And Bloch used to begin his composition sessions by studying some Bach.  That’s where you learn. To this day, I play a Bach fugue every single day.  As a matter of daily hygiene, you might say.  If I’m on the run and I’m not near a piano, I simply run it through on the bus or the subway, or whatever.  But to me, that’s like a tefilah. Well, you can say the Ashrei in a minute or two.  And you can say the Amidah in about five minutes, concentrating on every word.  You can do Aleinu in, in a minute or two.  And that’s Mincha.  And you can do a Bach prelude and fugue in about the same amount of time, so it’s a different kind of, different kind of prayer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1765.0,1834.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  There was some — I don’t know who, I don’t remember whether it was Verdi, maybe, or somebody, did something similar.  But instead of playing, he, he wrote a fugue every morning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Could be.  Could be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s pure exercise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Well, on a lighter note, you may have heard about my cat, Ketzel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.  I haven’t heard about your cat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  She just won a composition prize. I’ve always said that at Peabody, I’ve taught students of every race, every religion, every national origin.  And now, I can say that I have even taught young composers from another species.  Because, only a couple of months ago, Ketzel had her piece premiered at Peabody. Now, what does that have to do with me and with Ernst Bloch? She comes into my studio when I play my daily Bach fugue.  When I’m home.  And she usually perches on top of the piano. About a year ago, she perched on the piano, as usual, when she heard me start the Bach.  And she only comes in for Bach — you can explain that how you will.  And she put her paw down on the keyboard.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1834.0,1907.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Now, you know, we have a concept in our tefilah — kavanah.  You pray with kavanah — direction.  You direct your attention. And if, if I were in a normal state of mind, I would say, “Shoo, cat.”  Right?  You know, “I’m doing something.”  But I think I was in an elevated state of mind at that point.  I think I had a state of kavanah. I stopped my Bach immediately.  I grabbed pencil and paper, I was right there at the piano, and I took dictation from her.  This went on for about half a minute.  She walked down the piano, slowly, and she jumped off. And then I looked at this little thing in my hand, and I thought, this is beautiful, because it had an A section, a B section, and it returned to the opening.  It was ternary form.  But what can you do with such a thing?  So I shrugged my shoulders and I, I put it up on a pile of manuscripts on the piano and forgot about it. And then, some months later, I came across an announcement.  The Paris New Music Review has a new competition — 60 seconds for piano or less.  And I thought, I don’t have anything that small, and none of my students at Peabody have anything that small.  Wait a minute — Ketzel’s piece.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1907.0,1975.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, I sent it in to the judges.  On the up-and-up.  I wrote to them, “This is my cat’s piece.  I took dictation.” And they sent back a certificate of special mention, praising her for her creative instincts.  One of the judges said, “It reminded me of Anton Webern.  This is the kind of piece Anton Webern’s cat would have written, if Webern had had a cat.” And we played the world premiere at Peabody just last month.  It was on NPR, and everything.  And the European premiere will be in Amsterdam next month, and then it will go to cities around the world. Now, I am at the point, now, where I see everything from a Jewish point of view, for better or for worse.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=1975.0,2020.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What does that mean?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  To me, this is an example of kavanah.  That we are surrounded by miracles, if we can only perceive them.  And by prayer, by meditation, by study, we can become attuned to this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In closing — I’m glad you mentioned that, because we did an interview, I did an interview with Ralph Shapey.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Uh-huh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You know Ralph Shapey.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I do indeed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I don’t know if you know him personally.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I do indeed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But you know his music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I know Ralph, I know his music, I know his character.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, okay.  And, in essence, the question about Jewishness and his music and so forth, he said the following.  And you can react to that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He said, “Look — here’s my credo as a Jew, which is the same as a man.  Which is the same as a human being, which is all I accept.”  He said, “All great art is ipso facto a miracle.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=2020.0,2087.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e You want my take on that? As one of my meditations — and not one of my rabbinic meditations, but as one of my meditations as a musician — from time to time, I will sit down at the piano and not play a Bach fugue.  I will just sit down at the piano and play an octave, and just close my eyes and listen. Now, it says in the Book of Genesis that God created the heaven and the earth, and so on and so forth.  It doesn’t say the most important thing — God created an octave.  That’s the greatest miracle in human perception. Think about it.  If you’re talking about what we see — and let’s face it, outside of musicians, most people are visual creatures.  Most people never learn how to use their ears.  If you’re talking about light, you have red, orange, yellow; you keep increasing the vibrations, you have blue, indigo, whatever the sequence is, and then it disappears.  That makes sense. If you increase the vibrations with music, you come back to where you started, somehow.  It’s like that Escher print, where the monks are going around the monastery, and somehow…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=2087.0,2154.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  It has a certain ring in the — don’t you think? — in the Platonic idea of the, of the perfect harmony?  In which sense, I suppose you could say that…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Maybe.  But I see it more in terms of my cat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The spheres.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I see it more in terms of my cat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You’re seeing everything through the, through the eyes of your cat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  A cat steps down on the keyboard, and behold - It is a beautiful little piece. We are surrounded by miracles.  The octave itself is a miracle. You know, but in our haste to get to the next thing, we rush past the octave to get to the next stop.  And we never stop and listen.  That’s what a musician is supposed to do, right?  Use your ears. So, in terms of all music being a miracle, sure.  Everything is a miracle.  When your, when your child is born, that’s a miracle.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=2154.0,2202.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Do you expect to do, to follow up on something like Trope?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  Mark Twain said, “Just tell the truth, and then you don’t have to remember anything.”  And that’s my secular credo.  So, if you want to hear the end of this, it might surprise you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, when I say follow up, I mean, do you have any particular, any concrete plans to do a second type piece on Haftorah trope, as opposed to Torah trope, or something like that, or…  Or is that something you haven’t thought of, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  I’m doing something else now.  I’m a rabbinical student.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Where?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=2202.0,2241.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCOTEL:\u003c/strong\u003e At the Academy for Jewish Religion. Now, the question is not whether I’ll follow up on Trope — the question is whether I’ll ever write another piece. Gustav Mahler said, “Ich bin ein Sommerkomponist — I’m a summer composer.”  You know, he made his living as a conductor.  He said, “I conduct to live; I live to compose.”  He wrote all his symphonies in the summertime, in his hut, up in the mountains.  And lots of composers more or less say the same thing.  “Ich bin ein Sommerkomponist.” I am, too.  But now, in the summer, I don’t compose anymore.  Now, I study Torah. So, when am I going to write my next piece? So, one scenario — and I think you understand from our conversation that my personal take on my own life is that it has a life of its own.  You know, we make plans, but life takes us somewhere else. The way it seems to me now, maybe Trope was my last piece.  So, it would be a perfectly fitting composition for your Archive.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=2241.0,2300.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/transcript/35332/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Well, let’s hope it’s not your last piece.  But in any case, we’ll be talking about that back and forth.  And thanks for coming in to see us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOTEL:  A pleasure being here.  Thank you for having me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967#t=2300.0,2320.46933"}]},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40302/file/111967/annotation_set/821","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Simone [Transcript]"]},"items":[]}]}]}