{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/t727941n1n/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Schwarz, Gerard"]},"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\u003eSchwarz, Gerard. 1998. Interview by Neil W. Levin. Milken Archive Oral History Project. 03 June.\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":["Schwarz, Gerard (Conductor)","Levin, Neil W. (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["1998-06-03"]}},{"label":{"en":["Coverage"]},"value":{"en":["Seattle, WA (Place of Recording)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (Primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with Gerard Schwarz focused on his involvement with the Milken Archive project, his musical and cultural background, and the significance of the Milken Archive project.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["Beta SP"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Jews -- Music (Topical Term)","Oral Histories (genre/form)","America -- Emigration and immigration (Topical Term)","Milken Archive of American Jewish Music (Topical Term)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["America -- Emigration and immigration, David Diamond (1915-2005), Ellis Island, German Jewish cultures, Hugo Weisgall, Jewish diaspora, Klezmer Rondos, Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, New Jersey, New York Philharmonic, Paul Schoenfield, World War II"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with Gerard Schwarz focused on his involvement with the Milken Archive project, his musical and cultural background, and the significance of the Milken Archive project.\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/000/111/985/small/Schwarz.jpg?1621347695","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - B17824_MA_OH_Gerard_Schwarz_Master.mp4"]},"duration":759.70133,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/111/985/small/Schwarz.jpg?1621347695","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-milken.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/111/985/original/B17824_MA_OH_Gerard_Schwarz_Master.mp4?1619790597","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":759.70133,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["AUTO_TRINT_B17824_MA_OH_Gerard_Schwarz_Master.mp4 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  Maestro, you’re conducting the first orchestral session of this series of the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music today.  And I’d like to ask you a little bit about your own perception of how this project will affect both Jewish culture in America and musical culture in general.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=17.0,39.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ:  The Milken project is a fabulous project, because it delves into the great American music.  And the great American music, by and large, is Jewish music.  Or, I should say, by Jewish composers, sometimes specifically Jewish and sometimes not.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=39.0,55.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: Because of the tremendous immigration of Jews in the early part of the 20th century and up, obviously, through the Second World War, an extraordinary amount of remarkably talented composers came to our shores.  So many that it’s almost — that the great contemporary 20th-century American music is almost synonymous with the Jewish composer.  Whether it’s Aaron Copland or David Diamond or Eric Korngold or Arnold Schoenberg.  The names go on and on.  And it really is synonymous with the great American music of this century.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=55.0,90.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: So the project is very important not only because it deals with great American music, but it identifies the music of a, a Jewish tradition — whether it’s through the Sacred Service of Ernest Bloch or works of Milhaud.  I mean, there are so many religious works that were written for Friday night services for temples throughout the country.  Or whether it’s a work of David Diamond honoring the first settlement of the Jews in New York State in the 17th century, or whatever it was.\n\nIt’s an extraordinary project.  And I think will mark special attention to the great contribution of these great Jewish composers.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=90.0,130.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  Now, you obviously have a great interest personally in this — not only in this project, but in its goals of…\n\nSCHWARZ:  I’m a product of this, of the, of the, that same kind of immigration.  My parents were obviously persecuted in Austria as medical students in the ‘30s.  And in 1938, they had to leave medical school in Vienna and finish their medical school in Basel, Switzerland.  Their story, like so many stories, is remarkable and horrendous and wonderful.\n\nAnd in 1939, they came, like so many Jews did, through Ellis Island.  They came on the New Jersey side.  They landed in Hoboken after Ellis Island.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=130.0,173.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: Of course, now we know that Ellis Island is in fact primarily owned by New Jersey.\n\nBut they came and they settled in Hoboken.  And they became the great American success story.  The hospital that I was born in eventually became the hospital that my father was the president of.  They were wonderfully successful.\n\nBefore my mother died, she had 11 grandchildren.  And she was a psychiatrist, trained at Bellevue.  My father was a general surgeon, and spent his whole life at St. Mary’s Hospital in Hoboken.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=173.0,205.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: And so I became the first generation very much connected to a European Jewish tradition — German-Jewish tradition — rather than a Russian-Jewish tradition.  And I became very appreciative of our country and what it did for my parents, as you can imagine, coming in 1939, slight German accents.  Yes, speaking English, but there were not so many jobs in those days.  And, and they were always very grateful to, to our country and what it’s done for them, as I continue to be.\n\nAnd so it’s, it’s the tradition that, that, that I have.  And that’s why Arnold Schoenberg was here, and that’s why Korngold was here, and that’s why, you know, Leonard Bernstein’s parents came.  You know, the, the list is extraordinary.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=205.0,254.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  You came to conducting through the trumpet?\n\nSCHWARZ:  Well, it’s a very interesting thing for me, because I grew up in, in a town called Weehawken in New Jersey, which was an Italian-Catholic community.  In my class at school, there were probably two Jews out of 31 kids.\n\nIn high school, I went to Performing Arts High School in New York.  And there, it seemed like a third of the students were black, a third were Jewish and a third were other.  And it was a whole different environment for me, growing up, in a sense, in New York, because New York is a, a very Jewish city.  And when you’re such a part of a very small minority, growing up.  And all of a sudden, there are other people who are like you.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=254.0,295.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: It’s not that — yes, there was some prejudice and yes, we all have experiences.  But parents generally want their children to associate with people like them.  So if I would ask a girl out who was Protestant or Catholic, her parents may say, “Oh, no.  You can’t go out with him, because he’s Jewish.”  Not that he doesn’t, you know, like me.  But they, they didn’t want to say that that was okay.\n\nIntermarriage in those days was not — religious intermarriage — was not something that was very common, even.  And this is, we’re talking about the ‘50s and early ‘60s.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=295.0,322.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: I was a trumpet player.  And, and of course, I joined the New York Philharmonic.  And that was, that was the most extraordinary experience.\n\nIn my section, two of us were Italian and two of us were Jewish.  And that was typical of what, of what the New York Philharmonic was, in those days.  The whole horn section in those days was all Italian.  The first oboe, bassoon, clarinet and flute were all Jewish.  It was this, a melting pot, but with a certain, a certain percentage of people who were like I was, in a sense — my minority.  Our minority.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=322.0,357.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: And we are, we are — yes, we’re all immigrants.  And we are very much a minority in our country.  And it’s nice, once in a while, to be with, with, and work with people who had those same issues when they were growing up.\n\nIt was an exciting time for me, in that yes, I came to it through, through, conducting through playing in the New York Philharmonic.  And then went on to my second career, basically, at the age of 28, after my first career had ended and I — actually, it ended when I was 30, and that was to become a conductor.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=357.0,390.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  Do you see this as a preservation effort?  Or more as a creative effort, or starting new creativity?  Or both?\n\nSCHWARZ:  You’re talk, you’re talking about the, the project?\n\nLEVIN:  The project and some of the music that we’re working on.\n\nSCHWARZ:  Well, I, it’s just, say it once more.  You know, I’m sorry.\n\nLEVIN:  Well, I mean, to what extent do you look at it as a preservation, in the sense that we’re unearthing pieces?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=390.0,414.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ:  Well, you know, the project is very interesting because, of course, it will unearth many great works that in a way have not found a home.  It’s hard to do the remarkable sacred services for Friday night that have been written.  It’s hard to place them.  There are very few temples, synagogues that are doing music to that degree.  And very few concert halls that are — I mean, are doing works of that type.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=414.0,442.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: Yes, they do do the Bach B-Minor Mass and the Magnificat.  But Bach is in an exalted position.  Even the Missa Solemnises is — of Beethoven — is done often.  But when, when it gets into the lesser — and lesser important — works of, of religious music, whether it’s Catholic or Lutheran or, or Jewish, there’s, there’s a smaller audience for it, and not often played.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=442.0,466.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: I think exposure to do, is the way that great music gets to be appreciated and then performed.  We don’t have a lot of people, we don’t have a lot of people in our musical society that will take chances — that will study the scores and really understand what that music is about.  They come to it more from recordings — from CDs and, and tapes.  And in a way, we are preserving the past while enlightening the people of the present to what exists. And I think that there’s a very strong possibility that since so many of these works are truly magnificent works, that they will find a, a, a new home in the symphonic repertoire of the world.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=466.0,511.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  You alone, in three days, are recording some very different works.  Works different from each other in origin and type and so forth.  What does this represent to you?  How do you feel about the diversity of what we’re doing?\n\nSCHWARZ:  Well, in, for these specific sessions, I, I can say that it’s very exciting for me personally.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=511.0,533.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: First of all, we’re doing the Schoenfeld Klezmer Rondos.  It’s a fabulous piece.  He’s a wonderful composer.  It is a folk kind of work, as Mahler was, as Copland was.  There’s a folk idiom.  But the folk idiom is klezmer.  And it’s music that is joyful, poignant, wonderful and deeply felt.  It’s fun.  It’s, for all of us to be involved with.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=533.0,560.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: On the other hand, doing a work of Hugo Weisgall is much more severe.  Very poignant, with the shofar that is, is intoned a few times during the work.  And, and with a lot of material of, of Jewish history interwoven within this extraordinary music.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=560.0,579.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: That, like the Toch work, and in a way like the Schoenberg, are much more difficult, but in a way, may be even music of greater depth.  Because we don’t have the superficiality of, of the folk idiom that is, that is a part of the Schoenfeld — as wonderful as that is.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=579.0,601.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: The work of David Diamond is a work that I’ve been trying to perform for years.  It’s with narrator.  It’s a great work.  But it’s a very, very specific work.  And it’s hard to find the right audience for a work that’s about the first settlement of Jews in the United States, or in New York.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=601.0,621.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: This is the perfect place for it.  I think once people get to hear it and hear its poignancy, it will have a place in, in our world.  And that, in some ways, is the most exciting thing for me.  It’s a work that I, I mean, that I’ve been studying for ten years and never had an opportunity to play.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=621.0,641.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: While the Weisgall work is a work that I actually premiered.  And I remember very well Hugo working with me on it, and working with the shofar player in particular.  It was a very exciting time.  And it was a very, very successful piece at that time.\n\nSo the, the diversity is extraordinary.  But the music is all wonderful.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=641.0,659.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: And I guess we as artists want to be involved with great music.  And so we have to be very grateful to, to Neil Levin and to the Milken Foundation for unearthing and producing the repertoire that we’re recording, which is, yes, diverse, but all substantial and quite beautiful.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=659.0,680.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ:  Yeah.  As, as an artist, what I care about the most, I think, is preserving the past, looking at the present and looking to the future. When we deal with great music, we have to have opportunities.  If there’s no audience, you can’t play the concert.  If there’s, if there’s, if there aren’t people willing to support a project of recording great music for people to listen to, I’ll stay at home all day and, and, and study my scores for myself.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=680.0,711.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: When a project like the Milken Foundation project of recording all this music comes about, we — artists — have an opportunity to play, to listen to, to digest this great music.  And to make it available to as many people as can go to a library or buy the CDs.  It’s extraordinary.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=711.0,739.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985/transcript/25041/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" SCHWARZ: And we’re very lucky that we can be a part of this project.  Because the importance of it, because of the quality of the music, is something that can’t be overestimated.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40320/file/111985#t=739.0,759.70133"}]}]}]}