{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/q814m92217/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Kraft, Leo"]},"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\u003eKraft, Leo. 1999. Interview by Neil Levin. Milken Archive Oral History Project. 25 March.\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":["Kraft, Leo (Composer)","Levin, Neil (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["1999-03-25"]}},{"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 Leo Kraft concerning his tenure at Queens College and several compositions on Jewish themes and topics,as well as his brief stint as an instructor at the Cantors Institute of Jewish Theological seminary. Includes some discussion on Kraft's teachers, Karol Rauthaus, Rodger Sessions, and Nadia Boulanger, as well as the development of his compositional style. Among pieces discussed are “A Proverb of Solomon,” “Eight Choral Songs,” and “Omaggio.”\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["Beta SP"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Jews -- Music (Topical Term)","Entartete Musik (Topical Term)","Oral Histories (genre/form)","Kraft, Leo (Person or Corporate Body)","Berkshire Music Festival -- Chorus (Person or Corporate Body)","Cantors Institute Choir (Person or Corporate Body)","Rathaus, Karol, 1895-1954 (Person or Corporate Body)","New York Virtuoso Singers (Person or Corporate Body)","Levi, Primo, 1919-1987 (Person or Corporate Body)","Battel Chapel Choir (Person or Corporate Body)","Boulanger, Nadia (Person or Corporate Body)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["A Proverb of Solomon (work), Battel Chapel Choir (Yale University, U.S.), Berkshire Music Festival (U.S.), Cantors Institute (U.S.), CRI, Eight Choral Songs (work), Entartete Musik (Degenerate Music; Germany), Franz Schreker (1878-1934), Gershon Ephros (1890-1978), Harold Rosenbaum (1950-), Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935), Hillel Foundation (U.S.), Karol Rathaus (1895-1954), Moses ibn Ezra (1060-1139), Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), New York Virtuoso Singers (U.S.), Paul Hindemith (1895-1963), Omaggio (work), Primo Levi (1919-1987), Queens College (U.S.), Randall Thompson (1899-1984), Shofar, Stephen Wise (1874-1949), Uriel Acosta (1585-1640)"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with Leo Kraft concerning his tenure at Queens College and several compositions on Jewish themes and topics,as well as his brief stint as an instructor at the Cantors Institute of Jewish Theological seminary. Includes some discussion on Kraft's teachers, Karol Rauthaus, Rodger Sessions, and Nadia Boulanger, as well as the development of his compositional style. Among pieces discussed are \u0026ldquo;A Proverb of Solomon,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Eight Choral Songs,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Omaggio.\u0026rdquo;\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/000/110/762/small/Leo-Kraft.jpg?1618940825","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - X3093_Leo_Kraft_MASTER_1.mp4"]},"duration":2003.34933,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/110/762/small/Leo-Kraft.jpg?1618940825","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-milken.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/110/762/original/X3093_Leo_Kraft_MASTER_1.mp4?1616023548","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":2003.34933,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Kraft-Leo-07-19-2022 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Opening Graphic","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=0.0,15.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKRAFT:\u003c/strong\u003e My undergraduate work was done at Queens College.  And the graduate work at Princeton University. My composition teacher at Queens College was Karol Rathaus, one of Hitler’s many gifts to the United States.  And, at Princeton, it was just the opposite — I studied with Randall Thompson, an old-line, Anglo-Saxon type of teacher.  And after I was teaching at Queens College for a number of years, I, I had a Fulbright Fellowship to Paris, where I spent a year with Nadia Boulanger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat was my training, and I’ve been teaching at Queens College since 1947.  Then, I retired in ’88.  And I’ve been a full-time composer ever since.  I loved every minute of it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=15.0,61.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: You were at the Jewish Theological Seminary at what was then called The Cantors Institute.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yes.  It’s no longer called the Cantors Institute?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.  It’s now called the H.L. Miller Cantorial School and Seminary College of Jewish Music.  Because a man by the name of H.L. Miller, actually, he owned Quill.  You know, the office supply…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, yes.  I know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And so, he gave a gift to, which, it was stipulated that he, that that was the name of the school.  So….  Some of us still call it the Cantors Institute. But anyway, in the days that you were there, it was quite different, probably.  What years were that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah, I had thought you would ask that.  I, I have a hard time pinning it down.  It was in the ‘70s, I would say.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, it was that late?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  The latter ‘60s and ‘70s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOh, I knew, I knew Garnier Spector.  And Miriam Gideon was teaching the theory courses at that time.  I conducted the chorus and taught a course called “Synagogue Music Literature.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Mmm-hmmm.  Was Albert Weiser there?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  He died while I was there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, if he died while you were there, he died in 1982.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=61.0,126.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  No, then, he didn’t die when I was there.  Then, then I’m thinking of somebody else.  No, no, no.  That was, late ‘60s, early ‘70s, I would say, is when I was there.  No, I knew Mr. Weiser.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  Well, he was there for, all during the ‘70s.  In fact, he was there in the late ‘60s, too.  That’s right.  He was there — I don’t remember when he started, but he certainly was there in 1969, 1970.  But by then he was there, he might have been there for a while before.  But he died in exactly, actually, it was Pesach of 1982.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I’m vague on dates.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Sorry to say.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But of course, Weisgall was there the whole time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  The whole time, right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He was there the entire, from the very beginning.  Was Siegfried Landau there?  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  No.  He had — wait a minute, now.  He had just left, when I arrived.  Maybe that would be of some help.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  I think it might be earlier, then, than the late ‘60s.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=126.0,176.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: In those days, well, you taught synagogue music literature.  What did you teach?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  There was a book, three volumes of a cantorial anthology.  And I worked from that, almost exclusively.  Plus, well, I brought in pieces now and then, which I thought the students would not otherwise see.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut basically, it was the three volumes with the blue cover, whose name I’ve forgotten.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Ephros.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Gershon Ephros.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Which later became expanded to five.  But at that time, you’re right — it was three.  Sabbath, holy days, and festivals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Three volumes.  And those are still the three that count.  The other two have some interesting curiosities in them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Uh-huh.  That seems, seems to me, that covered the situation rather thoroughly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So, it was a survey of…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=176.0,221.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  It was very much a survey course.  And then I was, sat, sat around the piano, and I played, and they all sang.  And talked about the pieces.  All of which were new to the students, who had, who had a very narrow view of even Jewish liturgical music.  They knew what they had learned from their hazzan back home, and that was all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: You worked with major league players, in terms of Boulanger, and in terms of Randall Thompson.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd, by the way, Randall Thompson, I didn’t know he was at Princeton.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yes.  I went there in 1945, to study with Roger Sessions, who, at that moment, moved off to California.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Uh-huh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  And Randall Thompson replaced Mr. Sessions for a number of years, and then he got an offer to go to Harvard.  And he, that’s where he ended his days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So, Randall Thompson was, of course, a fixture.  Every high school choir was singing his Alleluia, even then, probably.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Have you seen the interesting correspondence between him and Rabbi Wise?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  In which he, he refers to “Alleluia,” and Rabbi Wise refers to “Hallelujah.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=221.0,286.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I don’t know where this exists.  I, I, I have, I haven’t seen it.  I’ve heard about it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  When you say “Wise,” you mean Stephen Wise?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  It would have to be.  Not Isaac Mayer Wise.  That would be too early.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, that’s an earlier…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s 19…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Don’t forget, I go back…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, no.  Randall Thompson was not young, at that time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, no.  No, he was not.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What was the occasion of the correspondence with Stephen Wise?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I, didn’t he commission the Alleluia?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I don’t know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I think so.  It became an anthem of the Berkshire Music Festival.  But that was not the original intention, I don’t think.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You think it might have been commissioned specifically for the Jewish, for a Jewish service?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I, I think, I think so.  I’m not, that’s my recollection.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, that’s interesting. Karol Rathaus — a number of people, a number of composers we’ve talked to have worked with Rathaus. In fact, Jack Gottlieb even worked with…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Well, he is, Jack, for, is for, my former student.  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He told me Rathaus wrote, he thinks Rathaus wrote a work that we might be interested in, and he was going to check it out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Which was that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I don’t know.  He didn’t know, either.  He wasn’t sure.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=286.0,341.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  Rathaus wrote a, a movie music for Histadrut in the late ‘40s, early ‘50s.  He died in ’54.  But he did a couple of movie scores.  He was a film score, film composer at heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Uh-huh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  And he did several film scores for Histadrut, back in those days. But, oh, you’re talking about Uriel Acostoff.  He wrote that…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s it.  Uriel Acosta.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  He wrote that, it’s been recorded.  He wrote the incidental music for the Habima production of Uriel Acosta.  You didn’t know that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.  Now, now that you mention it, that’s what Gottlieb was going to check out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  All right, there’s nothing to check out.  It’s published by the, a suite from it is published by the Israeli Music Institute.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, so it’s published in Israel?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  It’s published in Israel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Good luck getting it…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  And, and you’ll never get a copy.  And the, the suite was recorded, and it’s on the Koch International label. It’s the, the, the crowd-pleaser piece on the record.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: If it’s a decent record, maybe we…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, it’s a very good recording.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, it would be nice to represent Rathaus on this.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=341.0,399.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  I would be very happy to have him represented.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You know the series \"Entartete Musik\"?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  On Decca.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yes?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The Decca series of \"Entartete Musik.\" I don’t think they’ve included anything of Rathaus in there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Well, that’s, there are two recent recordings of orchestral works, and another one on the way.  And the Germans are getting interested. There’s a scholar, whose name I can’t think of, who was making a career out of Rathaus.  And there’s the CRI recording we did ten years ago, of the chamber music.  So there are at least, I think, there must be three CDs devoted entirely to his music in circulation, at this point.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: I’ll have to get a hold of the Uriel Acosta recording of that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah.  It’s a good, it’s a good performance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah. You worked with the major players, here. You obviously had some involvement in synagogue music, or in Jewish music.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=399.0,450.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  Yeah.  But not in any formal way.  Well, I conducted the choir at the Laurelton Jewish Center for a few years, at the High Holy Days.  That was about the extent of my involvement. And I conducted a, a chorus for the Hillel Foundation of Queens College in 1953, ’54.  And it’s for them that I wrote the piece that mentioned, initially, A Proverb of Solomon, which is in print.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: You wrote it for that…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I wrote it for the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …for Hillel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  …Hillel Foundation Chorus, which I organized, and which disappeared, the moment I went off to Europe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  When you went off to work with Boulanger?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  To work with — yeah, that was my Fulbright year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.  And when you came to the Seminary, I mean, how did that happen?  Weisgall called…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, Hugo called me up and said something like, “It’s about time you, you did something here.” And I was, I had been teaching in the extension division at Queens College, in addition to my full program there, which I didn’t like very much, because it kept me out late at night.  So, the prospect of coming in for one morning a week to Morningside Heights seemed very attractive.  And I thought I would do something Jewish.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=450.0,516.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: What was your Jewish involvement….\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Well, I, it, all informal.  All of it, I, I make it up as I go along.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So, when you taught the chorus and synagogue music literature and all that, you knew something about, you had some involvement with synagogue…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I knew something about it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You just taught it innately?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I had, I had been listening — wait a minute, now.  It’s earlier than I thought.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  I know it’s earlier.  Because…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah.  It’s earlier than I thought.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Because I just asked somebody yesterday who was there in ’69…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …if you were there when he was a student.  And he said no.  He was already…     \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  So I had left, by that time. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  But whether it’s ‘50s or — well, it couldn’t be ‘50s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Uh, no, no.  Well…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Late ‘50s, early ‘60s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Late, when did — no.  Hugo came to Queens College in 1961.  So, it has to be after that.  So, I guess…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  …’62, ’63, ’64, or something like that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Probably from ’62 to ’6…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  And I was there for about five years.  When, giving up the, the — you know, I come a, it takes me an hour and a half to get there from here.  And spending that much time traveling, and going over the same ground, I got restless.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=516.0,575.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah.  But did you bring any particular personal involvement with synagogue music to this class? For example, Weisgall.  He had things he liked.  He was very partial to the Central European school of synagogue music.  Other people would have had other partialities.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  No, I don’t think I had — he had a very strong point of view.  I didn’t have that.  He grew up much, in a synagogue, to, to a very great extent, his father being a hazzan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  My grandfather was a bal korei and a shokhet and part-time hazzan.  But, you know, a grandpa’s not, not that kind of close contact you have when you grew up in the family. No, I didn’t have, I didn’t have that kind of point of view, to, to bring to bear.  I just, after a while, I began to look for things that were not on their beaten, their well-trod path.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, first of all, you’re born in America?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=575.0,625.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  Yeah.  Brooklyn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  At that…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Whereas Weisgall came from, I guess, what is roughly Czech Republic today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Czech, the Czech Republic, yeah. Brno was where he was born.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Somewhere near there. Not actually in Brnow.  And I can never remember the name of the town.  I mean, it’s a complicated pronunciation. Let’s talk now, about the Proverb of Solomon.  In the first place, what’s the text?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  The, from the Book of Proverbs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The Book of Proverbs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah.  “Trust in the Lord with all thy heart.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So, did you choose the text, or was it stipulated?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I, I chose the text.  I started to conduct the chorus, and I, when I found there, I called, I, I put out a call on the bulletin board, any Jewish students want to come and sing in a chorus.  And, to my amazement, about a dozen showed up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Mmm-hmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  And there was a chorus there, SATB.  So, I, we found arrangements, we found this, we found that.  And I wasn’t satisfied with anything that I found.  And, musically, they were good students.  And they could do more.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=625.0,679.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I, I think, ah, yes, in December of ’53, I wrote a piece for them.  I, I picked up the text.  I tried to find a text that was not too specifically religious.  Not, not liturgical.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Because the students were all different backgrounds.  They’re all Jewish, but, you know, one was a rabbi’s daughter, one was a Jewish atheist.  You know, there were all kinds of things.  And I wanted them all to feel comfortable with it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I wrote it for chorus and piano.  Subsequently, I scored it for small orchestra.  And…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And chorus?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  And, and keeping — the chorus part is unchanged.  But it’s, I invented a little orchestra that would go with a chorus.  And so, it exists in two forms.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  This is going to sound funny, but, because the answer might seem obvious, but which do you prefer?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, the orchestral version.  Yes, certainly.  Yeah, I’ve got a trumpet in there, which vaguely resembles a shofar. Occasionally I write a piece, I try to get a, a Biblical sound.  What can, in my mind, which is not what you hear in the synagogue.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=679.0,742.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Well, is there a modality about the piece?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, I don’t know.  It’s like my, all my other pieces.  Quasi-tonal.  It’s more than quasi-tonal.  It has more Hindemith in it than anything else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: That would be the biggest influence, at that period of your life, in music, or just in this piece?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I was — no.  I would say that when I was an undergraduate, Hindemith was very important to me.  And that is, that’s, we had a big difference of, with Karol Rathaus who, who looked down on Hindemith.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He did?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  He did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What, I’m interested why.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Well, he, oh, he, he never wanted to say anything negative about anybody.  So, I had to ferret out little, little bits and pieces.  And I gather he thought that Hindemith was — how do I — gebrauchsmusik was not Rathaus’s thing.  No, he was the, the great ideal of his, the, the spiritual, the lofty, the, the greatness of art.  And Hindemith was some kind of a musical shoemaker, a tradesman — whatever.  A lot of Americans felt that way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI mean, the story, you’ve heard the story about Roger Sessions.  When some student says to Sessions, with great enthusiasm, “You know, Mr. Sessions, Mr. Hindemith writes music for every day.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=742.0,813.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And Sessions says, “That’s very nice.  I wish he would write something for Sunday.” And I think that epitomized the attitude of a great many people, especially in the high and mighty academic world, towards Hindemith.  And still does, I think.  He is looked down upon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn his later years, even before he died, his, his popularity waned, enormously.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, it’s true.  You don’t hear as much — but Mathis der Maler, for example.  I don’t know how you could call it gebrauchsmusik.  I mean…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Well, no.  That, of course, he, he also wrote a lot of other — in fact, I think he’s a, was at his best when he had a, a spiritual text, text of some kind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  And Das Marien Leben, Mathis der Maler, [SOUNDS LIKE Da Bellissima Yona].\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, let’s take the piano sonatas.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How do you call that — it would seem to me that Rathaus, that if — his film music is, by definition, gebrauchsmusik.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=813.0,862.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  Well, yeah, but, but Rathaus comes from Mahler.  And…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But it’s still, you know what I mean.  It’s still…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  But the attitude, Rathaus’s attitude, I think it was up in the air, in the clouds, someplace.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But if it’s a soundtrack.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Even there.  His, his film music, I heard one of the scores.  Very, it’s very arty.  And he didn’t look upon it as gebrauchsmusik, in the same sense, in the Hindemithian sense. Now, there was a complete miss between them, I would say.  I wish I’d, I’d thought to question him more precisely, but I wish I had thought to question a lot of people more precisely.  When you’re 20 years old, you don’t think of this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT: I found out a lot about Rathaus in recent years.  I only ran, discovered about his European career, which was very impressive, when these records came out, a couple of years ago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You didn’t talk about it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=862.0,917.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKRAFT:\u003c/strong\u003e He didn’t talk about it.  He was a very positive, optimistic kind of person, and always looked for say, say something good about things.  And he hardly ever mentioned the fact that his career had been nipped in the bud.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause, you know, when Schöenberg and Stravinsky and Krenek came here, they were already in their 60s.  And they were very well-established.  He was not quite at that point.  And it just killed it off completely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe went to England, and they spent ten years in England.  And didn’t settle in this.  The story, which I can’t authenticate, is that he was in line for a good position at the BBC.  And was, just at the last moment, they decided they want a native-born Englishman for the job.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=917.0,972.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, he went to Hollywood, and tried to break in there.  But the other — you know, I’m telling you everything second-hand.  I, I wasn’t there.  The, the German Jews who had arrived already, like Steiner and — what’s the guy?  I can’t think of the other guy’s name.  Newman.  They wouldn’t let him in.  Now, I don’t know if that’s true or not. But his natural home might have been Hollywood.  But he couldn’t, he couldn’t break in.  So, he came back to Europe, and then, somehow, got the connection to Queens College.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd he and his wife had to go to — and child — had to go to Mexico for six months, and establish temporary residence there, to get in, to get a visa to come in here. But I think that Rathaus arrived in the, in ’39, a year before I did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Mmm, mmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  And he spoke English with a curious mixture of, a curious mixture of English accent and Central European, Viennese.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So, he came from where?  What part of…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Well, he was, he was born in Poland, you know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, I didn’t know that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  In Turnopol.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I thought he came from Germany.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=972.0,1034.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  He was born in Turnopol, Poland.  He was a child prodigy.  His father took him to Vienna, to, to see — that’s where all the Jews went to see…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  To make their fortune.  Because it was part of the Austrian Empire.  And he was checked out by some authorities there, and declared to be a child, a genuine prodigy. And then he was drafted in the Austrian Army.  And wounded.  And then, came back to Vienna at around 1920 or ’21. There’s a, haven’t you seen the article on all the, on him by that German scholar?  What’s his name?  I’ll try to find it for you.  I’m sorry — I can’t think of his name.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, I assumed he came from Vienna.  Whether he came as a young child or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  No, his, no, he was a Pole.  He said to me one time, “I realize now that I am a Polish composer.”  It’s that European emphasis on ethnicity which will kill them all, the rate they’re going.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1034.0,1091.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In, he studied in, in Vienna, in the Hochshule there, and then, when the anti-Semitism got very severe there, his teacher, Franz Schreker, moved to Berlin, and took his students with him. Schöenberg did the same thing.  They moved from Vienna to Berlin, where there was a much freer atmosphere. And he stayed there until the Nazis won the election.  And then, being a historian of sorts, he saw what was going to happen, and did not wait for a second notice.  Picked up his wife and off to Paris, where he was greeted by a great number of other German Jews.  Or, I call them German Jews.  They are simply European, is more accurate. And then, after a year in Paris, they went to London, and spent ten years there.  And then, came to the States.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  By the way, Schreker was not Jewish, was he?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I don’t know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I asked Weisgall that.  He didn’t know, either.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I don’t know.  I know very little about Schreker.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  There isn’t much to…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1091.0,1152.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  But I have a suspicion that, since he led the move from Vienna to Berlin, that he may very well have been Jewish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s very hard to tell.  In a lot of these cases.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Well, a lot of these people didn’t, didn’t say anything.  I mean…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  How did you find out that Schenker was Jewish?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I don’t know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I found a program from about 1910 or so of a concert of Jewish music in Vienna.  And the pianist was Heinrich Schenker.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You know, there’s that little yellow book that the Germans published, after the Nazis took power in 1933, actually, right away.  ’33, ’34.  Which lists all musicians who are Jews.  But on the one hand, it’s very accurate.  On the other hand, it’s Jews by their definition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1152.0,1211.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Which could mean that somebody’s paternal grandfather was Jewish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And that’s it.  So that clouds the issue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  It does, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But the book was designed as a guide for hiring practices.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Like the Little Red…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  To make sure that nobody had an excuse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Like the Little Red Book, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.  But back to Proverb of Solomon. What size orchestra is it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  It’s a small chamber orchestra.  Single winds, two horns, trumpet, and strings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So, how many strings?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I think it needs at least six first, first violins, and correspondingly, down the line.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So, you’re talking about, still, talking about what?  Thirty?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah.  About 30, yes, right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So, about 30.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Thirty-ish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And the piece?  How would you characterize the, apart or in addition to the Hindemithian influence…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Well, that’s, also, you’ll find a little bit of Bloch in there, and a little of this and a little of that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So, it’s a piece that a university chorus should like to sing?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, yeah, I would think so.  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In those…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1211.0,1270.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  Yeah, I would think so.  It was designed for that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Exactly, exactly for that purpose.  I heard it sung last year, both by a community chorus and a college chorus.  And that, the community chorus had a hard time with it, because they were only used to doing show music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  But they still learned it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  And they sang it.  And the college chorus had a much easier time with it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you ever write anything using Hebrew?  Or Yiddish?  Hebrew or Yiddish?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I wouldn’t tackle Yiddish.  I don’t know the, the music of the language well enough. My Eight Choral Songs, which are on the, I mentioned to Mr. Lee, on the CRI Records, I wrote in both Hebrew and English, simultaneously.  But the English version is what’s published.  And I have a, a copy of the Hebrew version, too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, tell me about those.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1270.0,1321.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  I heard it — let’s see.  The very first performance was by the Battel Chapel Choir at Yale University.  Which does a service every Sunday morning.  And, through a personal connection, I, I, they came to sing it in New York, did this piece in New York, and I gave it to them in Hebrew. And they were, they prided themselves in singing in 15 different languages.  It’s a bunch of top-notch Yale students who are not all necessarily music majors.  And they could do anything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  They’re good?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  They were very good.  They were, they’re excellent.  Their, their Hebrew was flawless.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  About how many people?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, about under 20.  But may, maybe about 20 at the most.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Chamber chorus?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Chamber choir.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, are these Eight Choral Songs?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1321.0,1366.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKRAFT:\u003c/strong\u003e Eight Choral Songs. Yes. I wanted to write something, some more choral music. Choral music in this country has been almost killed by the photocopying machine.  So publishers won’t touch the choral music.  A choir, choir master buys one copy, and then Xeroxes 30 more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I wanted to write some choral music, and I talked to Hugo about texts.  And I said I was interested in the Jewish poets of, of Spain in the, the Golden Age.  And he gave me a copy of the poetry of Moses ibn Ezra, of whom I had heard very little. I was taken with some of the poetry.  I found some, some nice, short poems that I could use.  But I didn’t like the translation.  So I revised the translation.  It was very Victorian and prissy.  And ibn Ezra is out of doors and free and flowing and very smart.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1366.0,1421.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I wrote the two of them more or less simultaneously.  One in Hebrew, one in English.  And my publisher grudgingly published them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But he didn’t publish it in Hebrew?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So the Hebrew is in — but you have it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I have a copy, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  When they sang it at Yale, they sang it in Hebrew?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  They sang it in Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But they didn’t record it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  From my manuscript.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  From the manuscript.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  But the recording was done just last year by Hal Rosenbaum and the New York Virtuoso Singers.  That’s on my CRI Record, and it’s a wonderful performance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cEND OF TAPE 1\u003e","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1421.0,1447.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Any other works that have some Judaic connections?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Secular, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  On the same CRI record is my Omaggio.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, yes.  Now, I wanted to talk to you about that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  That’s my big piece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, the Omaggio was performed, was it last year?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Last year.  At…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  ASJM.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  ASJM.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah.  When….  The, it, it was performed there because we had a recording session a few weeks earlier.  When we got done, I said, “We can’t stop here.”  It was so good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  And the players were so up.  And we just took it over to the concert hall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, Armagio is, meaning, in Italian, an homage.  And it’s a homage to…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Primo Levi.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.  Primo Levi.  And there’s no text to this?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  That’s right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  This is a…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1447.0,1492.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  Purely instrumental.  Five instruments.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Programmatic, would you say, or not?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Well, it’s like a monument.  You know, if you build a statue to somebody, in, in music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And that’s on the same CRI…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Are you happy with the performance?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, yes.  Oh, yes.  You can’t, you can’t do any better.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How did you come to be interested in Primo Levi?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Well, I’ve been, admired him for a long, long time.  I thought, what I admired is his, his refusal to complain, in the face of unimaginable horrors, and he, how he retained his humanity and his, his, his presence in Auschwitz.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know, he wrote several books about it.  I’m sure you know. And, as I was approaching my 70th birthday, I wanted to write something with some resonance, something important.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1492.0,1552.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I thought, who is there in the world whom I admire?  Well, very few people.  And Primo Levi just kind of suggested itself to me as something I wanted to express my admiration and respect. And that’s the sense of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe piece, the piece is not programmatic, except in a very, a very general way.  The first movement is very intense, and I felt very intensely as I wrote.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe second, I remembered Berlioz’ March to the Scaffold in The Fantastic Symphony.  I thought, I keep on reading about cattle cars and trains and what-not.  I thought I would try to catch some, without being too specific, a very sardonic kind of march.  Which is quite different from the other movements.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1552.0,1601.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And the third movement, I have to, I have to admit, is a, I was enamored of late Beethoven quartets at that moment, and I thought I’d write something like that. (laughs)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the fourth movement, I didn’t think, I just wanted to write a strong finale.  But the viola player at the first performance said, “Look.  I have the melody in the very beginning here.  What, what are we trying to express?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd, on the spur of the moment, I said, “Determination in the face of adversity.”  And I haven’t been able to improve upon that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s not a happy ending.  You can’t write a happy ending.  On the other hand, I don’t like gloomy endings.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fourth movement has a, a program or a character.  That’s, it is.  That’s what it is.  It’s, things are tough.  Things are diff, things are impossible.  But we have to go on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1601.0,1642.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  This piece was written before or after he took his life?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT: This was written when I was 70.  This was 1972.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, so this goes back.  This piece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yes, that’s the finished product.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am working on, but very slowly, an orchestral piece of a, a Biblical nature.  I’ve had to look, go back to Exodus and find out where it is.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI remember a story of Jacob coming home from God knows where, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  And he stops for a night in a cave.  And a figure appears, and they wrestle all night.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s, it’s not Exodus.  In Genesis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  It’s in Genesis, right.  Oh, did I say Exodus?  Yeah, Genesis, right.  You’re right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The incident at which is then called Bethel.  Beit El.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Beit El, uh-huh, uh-huh.  All right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, the end, the ending — that is also ambiguous.  The angel marks him for life.  Nobody wins the contest.  The angel disappears.  And he goes on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And he has a limp.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1642.0,1697.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  And he has a limp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT: I’m leaving out the limp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  But the point is that he’s marked for life, by the experience. And I’m writing an orchestral — a purely orchestral — piece, full of struggle and conflict and ambiguous resolution, again.  I guess that’s me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut, at the same time, the sense of we have to go on.  He didn’t, Jacob didn’t kill himself or jump in the River Jordan or anything.  He went about his business.  He went on with his life.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1697.0,1731.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I think that’s the only message I get from all these things.  You have to go ahead, keep going and do everything you can.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  There is an opera on that story by Samuel Adler.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Ah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And in fact, he calls it The Wrestler.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I haven’t heard it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s a regular opera, with chamber orchestra forces, in English.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Is it a one-act opera or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, I don’t recall how many acts it is.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I, I don’t see how he could…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s probably a one-act opera.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I can’t see how you can make more than one…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, it’s probably a one-act.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  There’s one event, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s right.  It, probably, unless you — well, you can, by weaving, by being fictional and creating other elements, and a subplot and so forth.  But it, I think it is probably a one-act opera.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Uh-huh.  I would like to hear it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He has a tape of it somewhere.  But there’s no released recording of it.  But there’s a decent performance that he made a tape of.  I don’t know if you know Sam Adler.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1731.0,1787.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  Yes, I do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  And when do you think this symphony will be…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, I don’t know.  I have two other orchestra pieces to finish first.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Mmm-hmmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I’ll go back to it sometime next year. I’m partly deterred by the difficulty of any orchestral performances.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, that’s a major problem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  That’s a big consideration.  So, but I mean to finish it.  It’s close to my heart.  I’ve had it in mind for 20 years.  And it will get done.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In these choral, the ibn Ezra songs, which I’m very interested in, how would you characterize the, is there a difference, given the time lapse?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  A different harmonic approach…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah.  Twenty-five years difference, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Oh, I’d, it’s, it’s my style, by now.  I…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Is it tonal?  Is it quasi-tonal?  Is it non-tonal?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1787.0,1835.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  Vaguely tonal.  Very, very, very slightly.  There are a few elements of tonality.  But it’s not wildly atonal, either.  It’s in the gray area in between.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Does it have pitch centers?  Does it have…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  There are some pitch centers. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s not constructed according to any modular tonic system, or….\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  No, no.  I have, I have, no, no.  No schemes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  No, no, no schemes, no methods.  No, I don’t, I don’t think, I try to keep it from being too chromatic, because it doesn’t sit well in the chorus.  So, it’s more diatonic than other pieces, than my instrumental pieces.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Omaggio, for example.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT: Omaggio is, is quite chromatic.  Intensely chromatic, in, in some places. And there’s a limit to how far I go in chromaticism. When music gets to be too chromatic, it loses the sonority, I think.  And it doesn’t have a ring, the sound doesn’t have a ring to it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1835.0,1888.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKRAFT:\u003c/strong\u003e The problem I have with a lot of atonal pieces, it seems dry and...crabby. And I've turned against that type of music a lot in the last ten years or so. If I wrote any more choral music it would be even more diatonic, but I'm not writing any more choral music unless someone asks me to. Because it's one thing to say I'm going to write a string quartet and then try and go out into the world and get it performed, but choral music I think you have to have a chorus that wants it, that is interested in doing it, that will sing it right away. It's a different kind of thing altogether. Some pieces I write essentially for myself, and some I write in response to something out in the world.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1888.0,1937.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: But this orchestra work is not a commission?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  No, it’s not a commission.  But I have friends who might lead me to a performance at such, at the, at some point. Commissions are hard to come by.  At least, I…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  I’ve found it hard to come by.  So, I commission myself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Good.  Okay, I think I’ve covered the things pertaining to the music that we’re going to want to include in this Archive.  So I think we can probably wrap it up.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1937.0,1969.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762/transcript/38983/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRAFT:  Very good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Unless there’s something else that you want to say.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  No, I, you got more out of me than I thought you would.  I didn’t realize I had that, that much to, to say on this subject.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It frequently happens.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Yeah, well, you’re an experienced interviewer, I see.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.  Okay.  Thanks so much for…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRAFT:  Well, you’re very, very welcome.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  We’re looking forward to doing your music.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39380/file/110762#t=1969.0,2003.34933"}]}]}]}