{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/zc7rn31261/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Wyner, Yehudi"]},"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\u003eWyner, Yehudi. 1998. Interview by Neil W. Levin. Milken Archive Oral History Project. 20 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":["Wyner, Yehudi (Composer)","Levin, Neil W. (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["1998-02-20"]}},{"label":{"en":["Coverage"]},"value":{"en":["Boston, MA (Place of Recording)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (Primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with Yehudi Wyner wherein he discusses growing up as the son of composer Lazar Weiner and the cultural networks his father was part of. Through this conversation, Wyner contemplates what it means for both himself and his father to be Jewish composers, and how this dialogues with notions of authenticity and commercialism in writing and evaluating art music. Wyner also discusses his own approach to composition and details the commissions of some of his works, including \u003cem\u003eTants un Maysele\u003c/em\u003e (1981), \u003cem\u003eThe Mirror\u003c/em\u003e (1972), his \u003cem\u003eFriday Evening Service\u003c/em\u003e (1963), and more.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["Beta SP"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Park Avenue Synagogue (Person or Corporate Body)","Putterman, David (Person or Corporate Body)","Helfman, Max (Person or Corporate Body)","Brandeis Camp Institute (Brandeis, Simi Valley, Calif.) (Person or Corporate Body)","Oral Histories (genre/form)","Jews — Music (Topical Term)","Yiddish drama (Topical Term)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["aesthetics, Alexander Gretchaninov (1864-1956), Alexander Olshanetsky (1892-1946), authenticity, Brandeis University, Brandeis-Bardin Institute, Camp Boiberik, cantor, Central Synagogue, Charles Rosen (1927-2012), commercialism, Dances of Atonement, Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), David Putterman (1903-1979), David Schiff (b. 1945), Dawn Upshaw (Soprano), Ernest Bloch (1880-1959), Fiddler on the Roof, folk music, Friday Evening Service, Gimpel the Fool, Harold Shapero (1920-2013), Hasidic Judaism, Hebrew, Hugo Weisgall (1912-1997), Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), ILGWU Chorus, improvisation, Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991), Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Israeli music, Itzhak Perlman (b. 1945), Jacob Weinberg (1879-1956), Joel Engel (1868-1927), Josef Tal (1910-2008), Joseph Achron (1886-1943), Joseph Rumshinsky (1881-1956), Juilliard, klezmer music, Kol Nidre, Lazar Weiner (1897-1982), Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), Leonard Bernstein International Jerusalem Competition for Composition, Lieder, Lukas Foss (1922-2009), Manhattan School of Music, Martin Bresnick (b. 1946), Max Helfman (1901-1963), Moshe Ganchoff (1904-1997), New York — New York, Palestine, Park Avenue Synagogue, piano, Reform Judaism, Rhineback — New York, Russian, S’iz nito kayn nekht (song), Samuel Barber (1910-1981), secular music, Sérvice Sacré (Milhaud), Shlomo Bardin (1898-1976), Sidor Belarsky (1898-1975), Solomon Golub (1887-1952), Tanglewood Music Center, Tants un Maysele, The Mirror, Torah Service, translation, Vladimir Heifetz (1893-1970), Workmens’ Circle Chorus, Yale Repertory Theatre, Yale University, Yentl, Yiddish, Yiddish Philharmonic Chorus, Yiddish summer camps"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with Yehudi Wyner wherein he discusses growing up as the son of composer Lazar Weiner and the cultural networks his father was part of. Through this conversation, Wyner contemplates what it means for both himself and his father to be Jewish composers, and how this dialogues with notions of authenticity and commercialism in writing and evaluating art music. Wyner also discusses his own approach to composition and details the commissions of some of his works, including \u003cem\u003eTants un Maysele\u003c/em\u003e (1981), \u003cem\u003eThe Mirror\u003c/em\u003e (1972), his \u003cem\u003eFriday Evening Service\u003c/em\u003e (1963), and more.\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/000/111/931/small/Wyner.jpg?1622115030","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - L3950_Yehudi_Wyner_4X3.mp4"]},"duration":6427.22133,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/111/931/small/Wyner.jpg?1622115030","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-milken.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/111/931/original/L3950_Yehudi_Wyner_4X3.mp4?1619690310","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":6427.22133,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Final Transcript (2) [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin: I want to talk about a number of things in relation to music, Jewish experience in music, and some of your compositions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut before we even do that, it’s hard for me, and I think this is a good thing.  It’s hard for me, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, to separate the Yehudi Wyner the composer, Yehudi Wyner the son of Lazar Weiner.  It’s hard to separate the influences from the Yiddish milieu, the Yiddishiste milieu, the Yiddish intellectual, intelligentsia milieu, and the influences of the American musical scene.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=16.0,57.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  To begin with, I mean, let's talk a little bit about growing up in a household of your father's musical influence, the great Lazar Weiner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Sure, of course.  I’ll be happy to talk about that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know, there are many cases where sons have real conflict with their fathers.  And really resent the fact that they have to talk about themselves in relation to their father or emanating from their or being influenced by or being trained by.  I don’t have a problem with any of those things.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=57.0,90.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: If I had a problem with my father, it is along different lines altogether.  It was that he himself was a quite — not depressed at all, but quite a taciturn person, a presence, at home.  He was the stern presence.  That is, when he was present.  He was mostly absent.  He was working, at rehearsals, at all his musical activities.  And when he was home, he was also working, in his little room, or occasionally, with cantors or with other singers, and so on and so forth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=90.0,125.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: So I did not have the relationship with my dad that most, or many children who love to refer to their father as “dad,” and you know, shared games with them, who shared recreation with them, who shared very warm and embracing family activities with them.  I didn’t have that with my father.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=125.0,147.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: But on the other hand, I never had any doubt that, that his support of what I was doing was not total.  His support was very strong.  His expectations were very high.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, you want to know what it was like growing up in a milieu like that.  There were actually many entertainments.  My parents would have many friends over quite frequently.  Many musicians — well, I would say mostly musicians, but also, poets, writers, people, and painters.  They were mostly people from the arts.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=147.0,185.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: My mother was rather famous for her entertaining.  Although it was entertainment on a very, very modest level.  There were always good cheeses, there was excellent tea, there was milchic gibulcha [sic], there were ice box, there were, you know, excellent cookies, butter cookies, there were nuts, fruit, I said cheeses, sometimes, lox.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=185.0,203.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: But the lox and bagel picture was not part of it.  The hot pastrami was not part of my parents’ entertainment.  As a matter of fact, that was looked down upon as being too much Broadway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt such gatherings, my father would really be the life of the party, very often.  He was full of fun, full of jokes.  Full of very vital interchange with his guests, with his friends.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=203.0,224.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: And then, when the door would close on the party, my father would really return to his rather withholding personal world of self-involvement, involvement with his work.  And I, as the son, or us as the sons — I have a brother — he and I would be left, basically, to our own devices.  And Papa would disappear from our surrounding.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=224.0,248.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: The culture was Yiddish.  Occasionally Russian.  And sometimes, of course, both.  Russian Jews who would alternately speak Russian or speak Yiddish.  As far as I could tell, and, or as far as I can remember from those days, they were constantly involved in discussing cultural matters.  The poetry of this one, the music of that one, the origins of this kind of music.  And there would be discussions as to how to define Jewish music, how to...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=248.0,284.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  What were some of those discussions — how to define Jewish music?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh.  Well, the discussions were, it was the usual.  The lines were drawn along the usual, along...the usual lines.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat is to say, if you’re Jewish and you write music, you’re a Jewish composer.  No.  If you write music that uses Jewish themes, you are a Jewish composer.  If you write music that somehow incorporates music that was part of your early heritage, then you’re a Jewish composer.  If you write music that uses Yiddish or Hebrew texts, then you’re a Jewish composer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=284.0,326.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: Then came the question, if you’re a Jewish composer, does it mean you have validity?  Or does it mean you have to be judged and can be judged on the terms of whether the music is any good?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd ultimately, my father’s real criteria took place on that basis.  Was the music good?  Is it good music or is it not good music?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=326.0,349.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: Now, the definition of what was good music and bad music was simply left for the philosophers and for the critics.  My father would not really define, ever, that I could tell, whether it was good music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  What would he have said — Hugo Weisgall — would he have said…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He had nothing but the highest respect for Hugo.  Nothing but the highest respect for Hugo.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=349.0,368.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  But this--this is something Hugo said, and so it doesn’t matter, I mean, actually, who said it.  Just what, as to what he--somebody once asked Hugo at a table lunch in the cafeteria, and Hugo said — about what was Jewish music — and he said, quote-unquote, “Well, first of all, it has to be good music.”  Quote-unquote.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, what would your father have said to that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Well, my father would have said, “Amen.”  Amen.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=368.0,391.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And, you know, with Hugo, Hugo with his background, thoroughly immersed in synagogue music as a youth, most of the rest of his life was spent involved in regular Western American, or cosmopolitan art music. But when he came to write the \"Golden Peacock\"...it is the Golden Peacock?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: Right.  \"The Golden Peacock.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=391.0,416.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  For example, in Yiddish text, and so on and so forth, that was something extraordinary.  And my father responded with such respect and such affection.  He was so, so touched by what Hugo had achieved.  Not only a synthesis of very high-flying complexities and intellectual disciplines but also the tam [sic], the internal taste and feeling for the idiom. The language is beautifully set, the tunes of course that he sets are just ravishing. I love that set of songs and um...but in general, my father would not have identified Hugo as particularly a Jewish composer.  He would talk about somebody like Joseph Achron as a Jewish composer, but he wouldn't talk so much about Ernest Bloch as a Jewish composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: Really?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=416.0,465.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: Not so much.  Because he felt that Bloch’s--he felt that Bloch’s acquisitions were somewhat posturing.  They weren’t really from a real background or even a living of the experience.  In other words, there’s something exterior about the--about Bloch’s work.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=465.0,484.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: And in the initial stages, for example, when he was working on the Darius Milhaud sacred service, he felt that this was a music which was really divorced from any Jewish tradition.  Until he was informed and really had to be educated in the fact that the Provençal version of Jewish music had a long history and was simply a long--a convention that was different from the Eastern European.  And it had a completely different set of, of Jewish identities.  And at that point, my father accepted the Milhaud as being a kind of a authentic Jewish expression.  Which was, I thought, quite interesting of him to have done that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=484.0,527.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  So, in other words — look, let’s take many of the--your father’s most sophisticated Yiddish lieder, those that are not at least overtly based upon or incorporating…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Folk motifs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …motivic material.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean, pitch-wise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=527.0,544.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  That has any basis, they’re free composition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Correct.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  So then the--it’s the Yiddish language and the understanding and the syntax and so forth of the Yiddish poetry that makes it…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It is the Yiddish language which also inflects turns of phrases, accentuations, nuances of the rhythm of the projection, that somehow gives it what my father would think of as being a Yiddish flavor.  Or be a Jewish expression of authenticity.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=544.0,583.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: I mean, the question, the influence of language on any musical culture is profound.  People, for example, who try to sing and produce things like Hungarian music, music of Kodahy or Bartôk or Duchnany and so on and so forth, really very often miss the point, if they don’t somehow have the language read to them, if they don’t really hear what authentic practice is on that.  ‘Cause the accentuation is so different.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=583.0,615.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: Same thing with a lot of, quite a lot of Russian music, although that’s entered our mainstream more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But you could say the same thing about every language.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  You do say the same thing about every language, indeed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean, this would relate to the whole question — and I don’t know, it doesn’t matter where either of us stands on it — but the business of translation, whether opera in translation, or whatever.  But I mean, it, what you’re saying is essentially what I tell my students, too — that language itself is part of the sound, it’s part of the rhythm.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=615.0,638.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: It determines, in very many cases.  I think, if language is properly used, it determines the sound, it determines the accentuations, it determines the character of the piece.  You know, I mean, what language are you talking about — opera in translation.  Of course, there’s the famous business about Verdi not wanting one of his operas to be performed in Paris until he himself had overseen the translation into French.  And he obviously wanted to have a proper translation of it.  But he was not against opera being in another language.  But somehow, it had to be done well.  But that’s another story.  Not that's...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=638.0,669.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  You mean, opera’s different from lieder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes, I think so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Anyway, because of…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean, you can’t imagine…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Can you imagine Schubert being sung in English or in — you know, sure, it would be disturbing, I think.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Was the Yiddish language, would you say, the primary language, spoken language in your household?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Absolutely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  As children…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  As children, it was Yiddish.  Russian as a secret language, to avoid our understanding about what our parents were talking about.  But English, well ought to.  It was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Both your parents spoke Russian?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Both my parents spoke Russian.  I think my mother’s Russian was not terribly strong.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=669.0,702.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  But your father’s Russian was Russian?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  My father was Russian.  It’s rather than Ukrainian, as far as I know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=702.0,707.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Which indicates a kind of, as far as I look at these things, historically, I mean, it was the intelligentsia of Jewry who spoke Russian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  You know, somebody asked me this question recently, about whether my father’s language was actually Ukrainian or Russian.  And I didn’t not know that it was Ukrainian.  But how could it not have been Ukrainian in the very beginning, when he was from this little town of Czetcas, which is outside Kiev?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=707.0,732.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  But on the other hand, my father was a remarkably self-determining person, who really, in many ways, formed himself.  For example, the Yiddish that he must have spoken in the shtetl and in the early days in Kiev was probably a much more corrupt and much more irregular vernacular than what he later came to speak.  Because he allied himself later with the pure vowel formations and constructions of what, so-called literataci Yiddish.  And he would not deviate from that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=732.0,769.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  That, for him, was the high road of the aspect of Yiddish culture that he wished to really promulgate was the aspect of its ascendancy, the aspect of its sophistication.  The aspect where it could really be put on a par with any other literary expression of any other country.  Rather than, let’s say, a dialect or a jargon.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=769.0,793.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Your father picked up on an emerging, rather late in the game tradition, in terms of compared to Western music…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …when he did the perfection of the genre of Yiddish Lieder.  So you mentioned some of the people who had worked earlier, you mentioned Achron.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Hmmm-mmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean...I mean, I think it’s generally acknowledged that your father brought this art form to its peak.  And I say that not, I mean, that’s just, I think, generally acknowledged.  But preceding him, there weren’t too many generations of anything in terms of Yiddish art music.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=793.0,829.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Very little.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Because it didn’t begin until this century, actually.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Exactly.  And with — what is it, with the Petersburg group, the St. Petersburg group?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Right.  With the Petersburg group.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Was Rossovsky one of the people in that group?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  One of them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  And — yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And Rossovsky was just a few songs, and…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=829.0,841.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Yes.  Almost all of them just wrote a few songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Just a few.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I mean, the person that my father admired more than any was — \"In Cheder,\" what’s his name?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Milner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Milner.  Milner was like a demigod for my father.  The taste, the absolutely definable sense of Yiddish accentuation and nuance.  That rang absolutely true for my father.  Plus, it wasn’t just the Yiddish character of it — it was the taste and the refinement of Milner.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=841.0,877.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  He would have been really gratified to know things that are just happening now, you know, they’re just finding Milner’s archives in — because Milner is one of the people who did not leave the Soviet Union.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And there were whole operas of Milner that are--that they’re just beginning to find now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Really?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Because it was hidden.  They didn’t…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I didn’t know that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=877.0,899.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  …destroy anything, the way the Nazis did.  Well, the Nazis didn’t destroy it — they were also going to build a museum to the lost, to the extinct race, too.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Milner, Milner he could not have met.  Did he meet — well, and then, of course, he wouldn’t have met Joel Engel, even though he left…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Well, where would Engel have been?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Palestine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He would have been in Palestine?  Probably didn’t meet him.  But he admired Engel’s work.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=899.0,917.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  And what, but what about Achron?  He was probably…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He loved Achron’s work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Did he ever, did he ever meet him, did he…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I don’t know that he ever met him.  And I certainly don’t have any recollection of Achron being at the house or anything like that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  There is some correspondence somewhere between your father and one of these people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That may be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But I have to look — it’s in Tischler’s dissertation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Okay.  That may be, but I don’t remember it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Written correspondence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=917.0,936.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Who were some of the other people who formed, from the point of view of musical people, that your father would have had interaction with in New York?  By the way, I mean, we’re talking about New York now, right?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  New York — well, I’m talking about New York, where I was brought up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Who were some of the other…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Some of the other people who were in that circle, who he…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=936.0,952.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Who he did, that he did associate with.  I mean, I’m trying to create a kind of a context, because, you know, there are different types of Yiddishistes.  I mean, there are the more folksy people, then there are the--then there’s the Hoch Yiddish, the literati, and so forth.  I mean, certainly, certainly, you didn’t mix with the Yiddish theater crowd.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He didn’t mix, but he knew them all.  I mean, he knew the Rumshinskys…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  He did?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, sure.  Of course.  I did, too.  Oh, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI mean, from a personal point of view, these were not enemies.  These were colleagues.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd what was the name of the guy who had the thing on the radio for years, on WEVD?  Who had--who was very current then?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  A composer or…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=952.0,986.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Yeah, a composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Olshinetsky, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Olshinetsky was one.  And there are a whole bunch of people in that circle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Shulmeivitch and all that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That my father knew.  And he didn’t really like the music.  Because that was exactly what he was trying to rise above.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=986.0,1001.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  I don’t say, I don’t even think it was a matter of rising above.  His natural tendency was to be an aristocrat, to be a musical snob.  He’s--his basic aspiration was to the great music of the Western tradition.  I mean, for him, Stravinsky was a discoverer, but he wasn’t a weirdo.  For him, Hindemith was a great composer, and not merely somebody who...in the description of his circle, cricht, cricht al gleich avent.  You know, he was not…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  What about somebody like Weinberg?  Jacob Weinberg?  Was he part of…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He found, yes they were friends.  They were friends for all time.  I mean, always, for many, many years.  My father found Weinberg an uninspired composer, but a very, very good kapellmeister.  You know, a good, solid musician.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1001.0,1047.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  What about Maurice Rauch?  Was he part of that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah, through the Sacred School, but I don’t, I don’t know about my father’s opinions about him.  I wouldn’t know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I mean, that he was colleagues with somebody who, like a musicologist, like Eric Werner.  Who was also somewhat of a personal friend.  But he had no respect whatsoever for Werner’s so-called compositions.  Which are, I think his opinion was correct about that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah, well, they weren’t…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That’s it.  Well, but if you knew Werner, you knew that he put a high stock in it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  He did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah, he did.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1047.0,1080.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  But then, there were other people whom he, who my father had long relationships with.  For example, like Reuven Korsakov.  Now, Reuven Korsakov, in the early days, was not a composer concerned with Yiddish or with Jewish music at all.  And it was my father who really persuaded him, cajoled him, shamed him, finally, into writing and committing himself to Jewish music.  And Reuven, of course, made significant contributions, as a result of that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1080.0,1107.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  They — I don’t know what the--what happened in the very end.  They did not end up being very good friends.  They were neighbors.  Korsakov just lived down the block.  And he was really a grand fellow, a fine man.  A good musician, too.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1107.0,1120.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Now, you obviously exhibited your musical talent very, at a young age, ‘cause who doesn’t, in among composers?  And you came to a--you were a pianist at an early age, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  Evidently, I was improvising fixed, formed pieces at the age of four or five.  I have some pieces that my father wrote down.  At the point where he realized that every time I played it, it was the same, he would write it down.  And then I’d go on to the next.  So I have pieces from the age of five, six.  Which are really fully-formed, perfectly decent little pieces.  Not really baby pieces — they’re nice.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1120.0,1156.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And they’re very Jewish.  They’re more of a, like a Hasidic melody than anything else.  With, of course, a bit of accentuation, like seconds, and so on and so forth.  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And then you, you went on to…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  And then I was trained.  As a matter of fact, following those trembling signs of talent, I was put into training as a pianist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Who’d you study with?  Do you remember?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1156.0,1186.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  I studied first at the Manhattan School with some teacher named Miss Brown.  I guess I studied with my mother a little bit.  Never with my father, by the way.  And then, eventually, with a neighbor named Janet Glass, Janet Altshuler Glass, who was a spectacular teacher and pianist.  A wonderful woman.  Later on, with a teacher, with Morris Rosenthal’s wife, Hedrich Rosenthal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Maurice Rosenthal?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  The pianist?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  With his wife.  Who was teacher.  Charles Rosen’s teacher.  She was Charles Rosen’s teacher.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCharles was 15; I was ten.  You know, I--we would meet.  Charles was unbelievably talented.  I mean, he could, he could rip off anything at that, even at that age.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1186.0,1226.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And then afterwards, an interesting teacher named Joseph Fiedelman from — also, I think, a Russian Jew originally, or, but somebody who had concertized as a young man in Europe.  After a year of study with him, he was taken off, he was drafted into the army.  And I was bereft.  I loved this man.  He was a great teacher.  And he was put in the intelligence services, where he was a polylinguist, so he was able to help.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1226.0,1252.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And then I studied at Juilliard, with Loni Epstein, who was a Mozart specialist.  I didn’t study Mozart with her, but she was my basic teacher.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1252.0,1258.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And then, at the point when I went away to college, by the time I was 16 or 17, I really was no longer interested in pursuing a piano career.  Before that, I knew I didn’t want to do that.  The idea, number one, of traveling with, the idea of repeating programs over and over again really interested me very little.  And composition was becoming more and more interesting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  By the time you entered university, you were…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I was committed to being a composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …you were a composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  Yeah.  And there were--there was a lot of conflict, actually, about that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou have to understand that I was fulfilling my mother and father’s dream about what kind of a, what kind of a follow-up, what kind of progeny they would like to have.  And so, I was put into this classic situation of being drilled to within an inch of my life, and really not having a very private life, in many ways.  It was a rather constricted life, with not a whole lot of recreation.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1258.0,1316.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  That is to say it wasn’t a slavery, but if a boy of 10, 11, 12 had to practice — systematically practice — three or four hours every day, before he went to school, and then when he came back, and then, you know, if I went out and played baseball with my friends, or stickball or stoop ball, or football, touch football — whatever it was — nevertheless, you know, I would have to fill in my practice into the full quota.  And then there would be homework, and one thing and another.  So the days were very, very full.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1316.0,1345.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And I must say, I remember my childhood not as a sense of, with a sense that there was daylight in it at all.  It all seems in shadow.  It all seems rather gloomy and overcast. Only in the summers did I feel I came alive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  In the summers.  But was your father involved in those days, yet, in the Yiddish camp, the Yiddishiste summer camp?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.  No.  In those days — well, yeah.  Part of the time.  There was, there a long sandwich, in a sense.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1345.0,1370.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  In the earliest days, when I was a small child, he was involved in one of the Yiddish organizational camps, Boiberik, in Rhinebeck, New York, as the music director.  And that was quite wonderful.  They were rather significant musicians who came through there as children.  William Kapell, the pianist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, yes.  William Kapell would wow everybody by sitting down…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Wait, wait, wait.  William Kapell…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  William Kapell.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …was at Boiberik?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  William Kapell was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  He came from a Jewish — I know he was Jewish, but…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I’m telling you.  I’m telling you.  Well, he was no sport.  He was there for the summer.  And he would wow everybody by playing on a furshlugginer upright The Fire Dance.  And everybody would go, “Wow.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was a little boy, and so, I don’t have much recollection.  But I certainly remember him playing The Fire Dance.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1370.0,1415.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And it, you know, how things come full circle.  The remarkable musician, Robert Levin, the Mozart maven, and altogether remarkably gifted musician, is living in Cambridge, and teaching at Harvard.  And he is going to play a large piece of mine at the Kapell, during this Kapell competition.  There is also evidently some sort of concerts that are given by members of the jury, as well.  And I, when Levin announced this to me about three weeks ago or so, I was really very pleased.  You know, the way the circle closes in that way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1415.0,1452.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Another person who went to that camp was Harold Shapiro.  And he was just as, as opinionated and as definite about what he, what he needed to do then as he is now.  At his advanced age.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean, that was one.  Then there was Camp, wasn’t…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Well, Camp…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Kindermain, Kinderwelt?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Kinderwelt was a good deal later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Okay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  In the meantime, when he, when he left Boiberik, he would spend his summers at a farm in the Catskills.  And he would take, we would take rooms or a cottage where there would always be a barn or a chicken coop.  He loved to work in those places.  He’d rent a broken-down upright piano.  He’d set himself up in the barn, and he would take his long cigarette holder, and he would go in there and compose all summer.  That was his greatest pleasure.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1452.0,1504.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And during those times, during the summer, I really had a good deal more of a real boy’s life.  I went out with my air rifle, I went out fishing, I went out hunting, I, you know, spent a lot of time in the woods mushroom picking and fruit searching and berry picking, and all sorts of things.  Which were fun.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I loved the summers.  And as I say, those were the times when, as a boy, I felt I came alive.  With friends, with companions, and so on and so forth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1504.0,1531.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And then, when I would have to go back to the gulag...of Manhattan and practice again and be a good boy and submit, and so on and so forth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: Your university, your undergraduate was where? Was it… \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner: Yale. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: Yale yeah. You were going to automatically to devote at least some or major portion of your attention to so-called Western music.  I mean, and not necessarily related to Jewish things.  You were going to do both, or you were just going to go wherever the road would take you, or..?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1531.0,1564.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: Oh, I was, at that time — Neil, I was not at all concerned with Jewish music.  Through all the time I was growing up.  I didn’t write any Jewish music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was saying that my very earliest attempts or probes were rather Hasidic.  But very rapidly, I was more reflecting the classical cosmopolitan upbringing that I had, in music as well.  I mean, my, there was no effort to inculcate any kind of Jewish cultural consciousness in me.  It was around me, but I was not concerned with it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1564.0,1599.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  That wasn’t the major motivation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  By no means.  It was simply to write music like all, everybody else was writing music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  To be a good composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  A good composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Right.  You were more concerned with what you would come out with in the way of a string quartet or whatever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Exactly.  Exactly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And you weren’t thinking about continuing your father’s Yiddish lieder at the time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  By no means.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  How did he feel about that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, he had no — he, he was not committed to, to continuing that, that, that line of work in the way that he had done.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And nearly everything…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He didn’t feel, he did not feel that, he did not lay that kind of trip on me.  Ever.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1599.0,1628.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  I remember, on his deathbed, he said something which was, I think, symbolic of the kind of philosophy that he had.  My brother was on one side of the bed and I was on the other.  He took our hands and he said, “You know, take care of mother.  And all I wish is that you both be honest men.”  Nothing else.  He didn't say that \"I want you to be a good Jew,\" \"a good American,\" that \"you be a good parent to your children.\" Nothing. Just \"take care of mother, be an honest man.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: Of course, I think, that’s all included in there, isn’t it?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1628.0,1665.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Well, I mean, some people would say it should be more, you know, the more parochial than that, more particular, more focused.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean, he philosophically discusses Hebrew with their honesty…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Well, the right, the heir…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Honesty to oneself…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Honesty to oneself…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I would say it’s pretty inclusive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  I mean, but the ultimate thing is the righteousness attitude.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  So, I mean, he was not interested in whether I would become a Jewish composer or not.  What he would, I think, be shocked by is if there were indications of rejection.  That if there were, if there was a sign in me that I did not want to identify myself with being Jewish.  That was another thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1665.0,1699.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  But your father was fully trained, I mean, fully a musician in every way.  I mean, and he wasn’t a total, a parochial composer.  So obviously…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Exactly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …you had exposure in your childhood, I assume, to the full range of, of Western music.  Or some…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.  And to a much larger proportion than the Jewish music.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1699.0,1718.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin: I mean, for example, your father was director of the Workmens’ Circle Chorus for awhile, right?  But that didn’t mean that, I assume — I mean you can tell me — that, as a family, you weren’t all exposed to choral music of the Western tradition.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1718.0,1736.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: It was my father who took me to the first performance of the Brahms Requiem I ever heard, which floored me.  To the performances that Bob Shaw would be leading, of the Collegiate Chorale.  To all the concerts that he thought I would be interested in, in Carnegie Hall, whether it was Stravinsky conducting, or Raginsky, or whoever.  To all the concerts that he could get into of Toscanini in Studio H, or whatever that studio was at NBC.  To all the recitals, the lieder concerts, the opera — anything that —it was not at all, it was basically a secular education.  And secular cultural exposure.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1736.0,1774.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Because, first of all, you have to realize, my father was very much, at a certain level, a deeply secular Jew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  What does that mean?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It means a non-observant Jew.  It means a Jew who had very strong anti-clerical feelings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Now…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1774.0,1793.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: Now, very strongly anti-clerical feelings.  At the same time, he was a profoundly religious man.  His basic tenet was to concern himself with the relation of man and God.  That’s where it all was.  But that it would need an intermediary like a rabbi or a cantor who officially were installed as the emissaries, as the negotiators between a simple Jew and his, and his deity, that was unacceptable to him.  All he would talk about were the hypocrites of the clerical world.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1793.0,1834.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And people find this very curious, because they often say, “Was he a cantor?”  Or, “How come he spent all those years in a position as a music director in a synagogue?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, for one thing, ech mir a synagogue.  I mean, you go to temple, someplace like Central Synagogue, and when you were at a sermon or a place, a service that was presided over by Jonah B. Wise, you were in Middle America Protestantism.  It had, it bore no relation to any aspect conceivable in Judaism.  It was really another experience altogether.  It was a thing utterly devoid of warmth, of the tradition.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1834.0,1881.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  The Hebrew itself was pronounced in a manner which made it sound like sort of failed English.  And the services themselves were about as warm as a leftover fish.  And that was the synagogue that my father was working at all those years.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1881.0,1899.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And he stayed in that situation not for religious reasons — he stayed in it because, for musical reasons.  And because he thought he could do some reform and some good, and raise the level.  That’s what he really devoted himself, to the extent it was possible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd it was a fight all the way.  From beginning to end.  To do as he did.  The first performance in New York of the Bloch with organ — not with support — the first performance of the Mihaud, possibly the first performance of the Achron, let alone all his own services, and so on and so forth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1899.0,1929.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And he wrote all those services because, again, his desire to have a religious expression was very strong.  Where else was he going to put it, besides the three other, the two other areas — the Yiddish art song, the organizational choruses, for which he wrote cantatas, sometimes on Yiddish themes, sometimes on universal themes.  \"Man and the World,\" \"Cnce Upon A Time\" — you know, things that may have been set in Yiddish, but were of a universal theme.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1929.0,1957.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And in the synagogue, where he could write a quite sophisticated kind of music.  He had a good, professional chorus, he had a fine professional organist, who could execute these things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo the major motivation was a kind of personal religious expression, and the possibility for writing really good music.  But to put him in the context of a religious revival of some kind, or of any, in any way having a good relation with the Orthodox or with established religion, would be a great mistake of what his temperament was.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1957.0,1994.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  We never went to shul.  I barely was bar mitzvah.  I think the only reason I was bar mitzvah was not because, you know, there wasn’t a desire to do that, but because my father intervened.  I was such a rebellious student.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI mean, just laughing at the nonsense and the poor teaching of the bar mitzvah preparation at the Central Synagogue school.  It was so without taste and without any intelligence.  It was baby stuff.  And I disliked it, and I rebelled.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1994.0,2023.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  So, since I was the son of the musical director, they thought — besides that, I wrote a piece, I wrote a song, I wrote a prayer, Frederick Lechtner sang it in the, and you know, it seemed like a contribution, et cetera, et cetera.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt that time, I’ll tell you, my relation to my Jewishness was in question, actually.  At that point.  In the early teens.  You know, it took me many, many years to come to a change, in a sense, of attitude, about identity.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2023.0,2053.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Actually, there was a significant moment that that happened, and I can talk to you about that in a minute.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Please.  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, well, it actually happened quite unexpectedly.  I graduated from school, from undergraduate school, in 1950.  And there was nothing really for me to do that summer, and Max Helfman, who was involved with the Brandeis Institute — camp and institute — in California, got a hold of my father and said, “You know, this would be interesting for Yehudi to do.”  And I reluctantly acceded to the idea.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2053.0,2082.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And the next thing I knew, I was in California, and really had a fantastic experience.  It was an amazing indoctrination.  That was one of those atmospheres which can detoxify or indoctrinate anybody.  It was brilliant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Now, so many people have said similar things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Both from a musical point of view…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …from the Judaic point of view, down.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner: Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2082.0,2105.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  I mean, this seems to have been an unparalleled incident in American Jewish history, this whole Camp Brandeis, Brandeis-Bardin in California.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But of course, it’s gone.  I mean, in terms of the musical family.  This is something that is, to me, an unthinkable thing, that nobody has tried to or cared enough, with all of the billions of dollars that have been spent, and that, and compared to Helfman’s day, to restore that.  I don’t know how we account for that.  Only so much can be attributed, no matter how much, to Helfman’s own personality, or his own, you know, tenaciousness, tenacity.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2105.0,2137.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin: But it, you know, I mean, they do some things there, of course.  But not, here are you telling me this.  I’ve never heard this from you before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I’m telling you this…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  You were…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I was profoundly affected.  And I must say, the spring, the powerful spring that fed this was not Max.  It was Shlomo Bardin.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2137.0,2158.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Now, Shlomo Bardin was a charismatic leader of the highest capacity and quality.  He was really magic.  And there was a good reason why people thought that he really was slated to be Prime Minister of Israel.  That’s the kind of leader he was.  He was very established.  That is, his foundation of the personality that was of great gravity and density.  And he was charming, he was full of remarkable insights, profound insights, into every individual he came in contact with.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2158.0,2195.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And he really had the psychology and the smarts, the acumen, to somehow see into people’s souls and to manage to manipulate their thinking, so that they came around to an acceptance of who they were.  I’m talking now about the young, rebellious, and often negative Jewish clientele who went there.  The university-educated, the con--the suburbanites who were, you know, concerned with shopping, and so on and so forth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2195.0,2224.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And Shlomo was the one who assembled the team.  And of course, Max was the ideal musical presence in that situation to, I would say implement, from an artistic and musical idea, some of these same sentiments that Shlomo had.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  ‘Cause your father knew Helfman well?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Very.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  In New York?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Very.  They were good friends.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  You weren’t synagogue-goers as a family.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2224.0,2249.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Not at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Your father wasn’t there, and maybe it was even partially positional, though I don’t know how much they could have paid in those days, the choir master, the choir director…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Very little.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Not enough to make it…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Very little.  But not to forget that it was on the Message of Israel every Sunday.  Which gave it a national exposure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2249.0,2264.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That there was no relation to Orthodoxy, you didn’t have to tell me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No, we…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Or you wouldn’t have been going to Yale as a composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  You know, a lot of people who were involved in Yiddishiste, Yiddish cultural things had a total replacement for synagogue altogether.  Complete replacement known as shule, you know, the Workmen’s Circle shule.  Your family wasn’t involved in that as a substitute?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.  There was no substitute.  Officially.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2264.0,2291.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  You know, the Third Seder, they don’t have--they don’t have Seders, they don’t believe in it.  They have their Third Seder that they made up, which has a whole — but that wasn’t, that was yet, that wasn’t part of your…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.  I mean, we had our Seders at home.  We usually would have a Seder either at the house or we’d have a Seder with my grandparents.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2291.0,2306.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Your father, because even though your father was involved with the Workmen’s Circle Chorus…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He would do, very often, he would do what?  A Third Seder with them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.  But that was his job.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  In the ballroom.  Of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But I mean, in terms of, in terms of your own family life, you were not Workmen’s Circle…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  You weren’t Arbeter Ring...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2306.0,2318.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …culturally.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No, no.  No.  There were plenty of people from the Arbeter Ring who were, you know, were visitors, guests, friends, et cetera, et cetera.  But not officially in any way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd for example, my Yiddish training, such as it was, was done with a tutor.  I never went to school.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  You didn’t go to the Peretz school?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I didn’t go to the Peretz school.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Or the Sholem Aleichem School?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I didn’t go to the Sholem Aleichem School.  Neither.  But a woman came to the house, and for awhile, I studied reading and writing with her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I wish I had gone to school.  Actually, I wish I had, now, looking back, and for many, many years.  I would say, for the last 35 or 40 years, I regret the fact that I don’t have a Hebrew background.  That’s a real lacuna in my life.  That really hurts.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2318.0,2359.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  What was the mood — that affected you, in terms of a future composer and so forth, in terms of these years which were the formative years of Zionism, of the transformation of Palestine into the State of Israel, and so forth?  I mean, uninvolved?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Uninvolved. Uninvolved.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2359.0,2380.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And I do think, partially, when you were talking about the restoration of the influence of something like the Brandeis Institute, that part of the potency of that had to do with the, with the fact that the, that Israel had just been founded.  There were all kinds of songs that Max was using that were from the new Israel that seemed to be — rather than the, you know, the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  It’s funny you say that.  That’s my explanation, by the way, for these things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2380.0,2407.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  The same thing with why the Zamir Chorale in New York doesn’t exist anymore.  Because, and I don’t know.  I sometimes think exactly what you said — that it wouldn’t matter how much money were allocated or how many personalities came along.  The mood, it’s not exotic anymore.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That was, that was a euphoric…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Well, but you know, what’s exotic now is the whole resurgence of klezmer music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That’s right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That’s remarkable.  And not only here, but of course, all through Germany and all through Central Europe.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2407.0,2430.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Just straight out, this is a deliberately unfair question.  What is klezmer music and what is klezmer?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It’s basically street and shtetl music that are played by, usually, a family of instruments that are quite portable.  And music that was done for, obviously, weddings, festivities, bar mitzvahs, brises, banquets — any kind of public festivity. And the music from--is Eastern European, I think, without a mistake it's heavily infiltrated or heavily influenced by Russian-Polish. Mazurkas, Polka-Mazurkas, and so on and so forth, the phrase structure is that, there's plenty of Hungarian stuff in it. Also, I think, in its execution...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: Would you agree or would your father have agreed that the same thing is true, in terms of the Ukrainian-Polish…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2430.0,2482.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Influences?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …influences?  And melodically, we’re talking about, now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  The same thing is true as Yiddish folk songs?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes, I think they, I think he would.  Perhaps he would say yeah, but the folk song very often has some influence by cantillation, by trope.  Yeah, basically.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2482.0,2501.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And there is, again, once again, the connection between language — I mean, the instrumental…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Of course.  That’s what I’m saying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  It takes on a totally different thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It takes on a…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean, I do a trick at a lecture which — and I don’t know how you would react to this, but I’ll tell you what it is.  I mean, and I’ve done this in London, recently.  Where I take our men’s choir, and they can, they can imitate Hasidim at a febrengen.  Yeah?  And they sing the following,  “Oh…” and I put it on tape.  And then I show them an example of something.  (sings) “Oy, oy oy oy…”  And I play everything.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2501.0,2542.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Now this is an authentic folk song.  You know what it is.  It’s the slow--it’s the second theme and the third movement to the Dvorak Violin Concerto.  But because I’m having them inflect it that way, only a violinist — and only once did the, did somebody who was a conductor whisper in my ear, at while I was playing, “Isn’t that the Dvorak?”  I’m fooling them.  You see?  But it’s, who would know?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2542.0,2565.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/89","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Well, the “Oy” helps.  And then, of course…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That’s what I’m saying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  You know, what it is…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  It’s the inflection of the sound, but otherwise, if you hear it in the (sings) bam-bam-bam….\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I remember, the first time that I heard that, I said, well — now, Dvorak is not probably — I mean, some composers might have, but Dvorak is not one who hung around to hear this in Hasidic circles.  Nor did that kind of melody filter out into the streets, because Hasidim were pretty, were so insular.  That it’s a, the type of melody that…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2565.0,2593.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/90","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  We’re talking about a common origin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Sure.  It was in the air, it’s Slavic, it’s, you know, it’s part of that whole Mittel Europa situation, Eastern, Middle — you, I mean, that’s, you know, still part of the same basic cultural ambiance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe, we, you know, we’re, in many ways, imprisoned by borders that we learned, you know.  Czechoslovakia is here, and Hungary is there.  And not really seeing that a lot of this stuff is porous.  There were large immigrations.  There were certainly traveling bands, and so on and so forth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2593.0,2622.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/91","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin: After your father had passed away, I mean, until recently, your whole--the whole association with klezmer — I mean, I think, I mean, I knew your father, and I think — not terribly well, but I mean, I knew him at the meetings of the Jewish Welfare Board and debates about various subjects that should be chosen or not chosen for the annual theme of the Jewish Music Month, and that--things of that sort.  And...I can just imagine what he would have thought about today's notion of a klezmer concert at Carnegie Hall or [inaudible].\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Well, he would feel extremely happy at the fact of it, but the music he would have found, I believe he would have found corrupt.  I think he would have found it…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2622.0,2665.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/92","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  As concert music?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  As…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  As opposed to background music?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.  As opposed to real klezmer music.  He would have found it show biz.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Oh, oh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He would have found it, the Hollywood influence of it.  He would have found it just, it would not have been, it’s…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That, you and I grabbed that, there’s no question.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  That’s all I…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I should have…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  But the idea that there would be klezmer concerts would give him — well, he was perfectly happy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI remember going to a performance of Fiddler on the Roof.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And what did he think of that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He thought that was not bad.  I thought I was more condemnatory than he was, but he thought not bad.  Not bad…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2665.0,2692.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/93","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Did he hear it with Mostel?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  With… yes, of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Or Luther Adler?  Mostel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah, Mostel, sure.  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd it was, he thought it was not bad.  I mean, he was not, you know, he didn’t think it was totally authentic.  He was still, it was Broadway, but he thought it was not bad.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That’s what I thought.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It did more good than harm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Until, until, and now — I thought that then.  Now I think it did more harm than good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But for a different reason.  Because it glorifies the shtetl.  It glorifies illiteracy, basically.  But you know, to the public, as a romantic ideal.  But at that time, we weren’t thinking that way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2692.0,2723.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/94","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  No.  All you have to do is — they’re glorifying the shtetl.  All you have go is that section of Israel, of Jerusalem.  Where the shtetl exists.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yes, but it glorifies…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  You know, I mean…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  It glorifies the opposite of your father’s type of Yiddish literary circles.  You come away, I mean, the general public — and we didn’t think of it at that time, because we didn’t know what kind of influence it would have.  That was--I agree.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2723.0,2746.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/95","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  But when I now look back, I would say it could be, I, one could make a case it’s the worst thing that happened to our, to the American understanding of European Yiddish culture, because they think that that’s the only type…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That’s the problem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  They don’t see that there was a Yiddish literary circle in Warsaw, that there wasn’t always persecution, even…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2746.0,2763.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/96","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Of course.  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That there were no good, great, literary — you know the shtetl becomes the model.  But nobody was talking that way 20 years ago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That’s true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  But my father would have felt that if that is taken, if that, in the characterization that you’ve given it, has taken over as the emblem for Jewish culture, then he would have been very upset.  The idea of concerts being given like that would have made him perfectly happy, as long as it didn’t obliterate the other.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2763.0,2791.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/97","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  What would he have said, what would you say, Perlman — have you seen the Fiddler in the House, or whatever it is?  The Yitzhak Perlman, there’s the CD and then there’s video?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He asked me to do the arrangements for the CD about ten years ago, and I said, “Yitzhak, you’re asking me to do this.  Do you know my music?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Well, how did you come to asking me this?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe said, “Somebody told me you could do a good job.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2791.0,2812.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/98","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And I said, “This is not my thing.  You know, you can find people who could do much better arrangements.  If you’re interested in the kind of music I write, that’s another story.  I’d be happy to do something for you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe said, “All right, let’s just talk.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo we didn’t do anything.  I was not going to pursue it.  But yes, I know what he did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  For what it is, it’s well-done.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Sure.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2812.0,2830.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/99","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  And that is an authentic.  In that they are not using electronic instruments, in other words — electric violins.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Okay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That’s a group that you, approximates without rebuilding certain archaic instruments from…but that part is okay. But there’s one statement he makes there — Perlman — he says, “This is real Jewish music.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2830.0,2851.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/100","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Thank you.  Thank you very much, Yitzhak.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Now…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  All right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  What would…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  What’s my reaction?  I would thank him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  What would be your father’s reaction?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  My father would say, “Thank you very much, Yitzhak.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I don’t mean his public reaction.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2851.0,2870.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/101","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: It’s so parochial.  Not only is it parochial, it’s also--I think it’s very, frankly, very low-class.  And without any inspiration, without any aspiration, without any, also, without any real notion of what’s possible and what’s there.  It’s degrading.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know, in Schindler’s List, John did a pretty good soundtrack, all things considered.  Partly it’s not pretentious.  But when people feel that the height of the musical culture of the time was \"Oyfn pripetchik brent a fayerl,\" I say to myself, oh God, the cause is lost. I mean if that's what we aspire to, if that's the best we can produce or that we are identified with that, what is..?  I mean, it's like the Black community being identified only with, let's say, whorehouse music from New Orleans of a very narrow kind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: Except that we’re doing it to ourselves.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2870.0,2930.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/102","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Well, commercial forces are doing it.  Whatever that means, we’re doing it to ourselves.  We’re, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I mean, let me tell you something that happened just very recently.  I flew to Jerusalem at the end of November to be one of the final jurors in the Leonard Bernstein International Jerusalem Competition for Composition this year.  And I was there with a number of my colleagues, and we were treated to a limousine from the airport to Jerusalem.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2930.0,2952.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/103","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  While we were in the car, in the limo, the driver was playing tapes of music.  “How do you like our music?” he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, I’m hearing this, what amounts to Euro-pop, and I, Israeli music is Euro-pop.  I said, “I don’t like it.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2952.0,2969.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/104","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  “What?  You don’t like it?  What’s the matter with you?  You like that American stuff?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “No, not particularly.  It depends which American stuff.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “Wait.  I’ll pay something else for you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd he puts in another tape.  Etz Erget.  Plays me something again that’s more Euro-pop, but with a faster beat, or something like that.  “How do you like that?  That’s wonderful.  This is my favorite.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2969.0,2991.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/105","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  I said, “No, it’s not mine.  I don’t care for it too much.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “What do you like?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Well, I think the greatest popular music in the Near East is Egyptian classical popular music from Cairo.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What?”  He says, “What’s the matter with you?  What, that’s terrible music.”  He says, “My father likes it, but what does he know?\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2991.0,3010.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/106","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  I said, “Well, I think that’s the finest music.  And you know, I hear it in the tsuks, but I don’t hear--I don’t hear it on the radio, normally.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “That’s terrible music.  Let me play you something else.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo he plays me something else, and it’s even worse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I said, “I don’t care for that too much.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “What do you know about music?”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3010.0,3028.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/107","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And I laughed.  I said, “Well, I don’t really know very much, but I know what I like.”  I gave him that kind of an answer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut here was a situation where we’re doing it to ourselves.  What is the so-called Israeli music now?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know, the kind of thing, for example, that was coming out of Israel in the, let’s say the late ‘40s, early ‘50s, the sort of thing that Max somehow grasped a hold of, had quite a lot of power.  Old, it was, it had Russian influences, Polish influences, Central European influences.  But there was a kind of identity to it, a kind of vigor.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3028.0,3062.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/108","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Now it’s all been swallowed up by this — it’s really Euro-pop.  With Hebrew texts.  Yes.  It doesn’t sound any different from what you get on European...any different from what you get on Rome radio or anyplace else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  It began with those Hasidic pop festivals…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  You know all that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …in the ‘70s, and all that junk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  You know all that stuff.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  You had — I mean, to switch to a higher level of music, though — I mean, you have a relationship with Israeli colleagues.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3062.0,3087.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/109","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Very little.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Almost none at all.  No, no.  I mean, I just received a letter from Menachim Tour, and I know Noam Sharif a little bit, but no, I really don’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  You mean, there’s still no, there’s still a kind of a wall of divide between Israeli composers and…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, I don’t know if there’s a…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …and many American composers?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  …wall or divide.  They, you remember there was the festival a few years ago, with concerts at Merkin Hall…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That’s that one I did.  That was in ’89, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  The one you did.  Which was a very edifying and very worthwhile project.  And I heard some music and composers, the music of composers whom I had a lot of respect for.  But it was, it didn’t follow up in any way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3087.0,3120.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/110","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  They didn’t follow up because, because I went on to the next thing.  But I was about to ask you, how is it different from your fathers’ relationship to Israeli composers?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner: Well mine? I wish I can say I had a relationship. I am trying  to establish  some right now as a result of this recent visit with a number of people — conductors like Mendy Rodan and some members of the Israel Symphony, Israel Philharmonic and some — as I say, some composers like Menachem and others.  But I don’t have an ongoing relationship with them at all.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3120.0,3154.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/111","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Is your music played in Israel at all?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No, not at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Not at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Not at all.  I don’t think — not, not to my knowledge.  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean, would you say the situation hasn’t changed much, in terms of very little Israeli — I’m not talking about pop things.  But very, very little of even someone of the stature of Yosef Tal.  Who has to be, I don’t know…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He’s a wonderful composer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3154.0,3175.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/112","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  …as one of the — I mean internationally.  You know, if you ask people who aren’t Jewish, who don’t know Israeli composers, if they only know one Israeli composer, I’m talking about, you know, a university type composers around the country, they’re probably going to…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Tal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …they’ll mention Tal even before Ben Chaim, because that’s too folksy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3175.0,3192.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/113","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  All right.  So even in that sense…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …where is a Tal string quartet ever played in the United States?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  On the other hand, where is your music or, or Hugo Weisgall’s music, or — I don’t even care if the person’s Jewish or not, you know, it doesn’t matter.  Where are they played in Israel?  And that situation hasn’t changed much?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I don’t know.  I have, I can only speak about my own music in this.  I don’t know about Hugo’s music, et cetera, et cetera.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI noticed, in the bios of some of the judges who were Israeli, that their music had been exposed very broadly in Europe.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3192.0,3225.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/114","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Whose music?  The Israeli composers?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Some of the Israeli composers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Oh, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  In Europe.  Yes, yes.  But not, I don’t notice that there’s much in the States.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No, but in Europe, there’s a big thing, for instance.  That’s a whole political…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That’s another issue.  Yes, that’s another venue for them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I just got annoyed with a situation in England, like this where they’re going to put on one, if they have one big night to put on something, a showing of American Jewish composers…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh.  Aaron Copland again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  At most.  Most.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Most I think would be Bernstein and Gershwin…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …even though his Rhapsody in Blue…  It isn’t that much different than Israel, then.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  ‘Cause aside from Bernstein or maybe Lukas Foss, because he was there, maybe.  But outside of that….  And Yehudi Wyner, who is…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3225.0,3264.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/115","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  …one of the major composers in America…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.  Not done.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Not done.  Not that I know of.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And your father’s Yiddish songs probably are never…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, I think never.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Never?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Never, except maybe by visiting — you know, I mean, well, of course that whole genre.  The business of giving lieder concerts is, is not exactly vital, these days.  It’s relatively moribund.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3264.0,3284.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/116","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  I mean, it’s - it’s soaking in formaldehyde, it seems to me.  And maybe that’s a good thing — it’s waiting.  You know, the music isn’t going to die.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And the… you didn’t - you didn’t carry on that part very much of Yiddish lieder, did you?  Just…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Not at all.  Only in one case, did I write…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  One song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Only one song, and it’s not my own song, really.  It’s a setting.  S'iz nito kayn nekht.  It was published in a volume of collected folk songs.  That’s really a setting.  And of course, it’s a real transformation of a setting.  It’s a rather radical setting, in the Bartôk manner, let’s say.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3284.0,3318.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/117","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  But otherwise, no.  I never wrote any Yiddish.  For example, there are other composers — Marty Bresnick wrote some Yiddish material.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Also, a wonderful composer named Stephen Jaffe.  Do you know Stephen Jaffe at all?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No.  He has, ‘cause these are, these are pieces we’re planning to record.  Well, we recorded the Bresnick pieces already, by the way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Mmm-hmmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Those are choral though.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Mmm-hmmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Those are choral, a capella choral pieces.  The Jaffe are with orchestra, I think.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Jaffe is with orchestra, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But lieder-lieder, for voice and piano…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …no one has carried on, really.  I mean, who’s, who has carried on your father’s tradition, then?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Nobody.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Nobody.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3318.0,3352.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/118","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Nobody.  I think David Schiff, perhaps, would have liked to have done some.  I just saw that David had a big piece done in New York yesterday.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.  What piece?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  A chamber piece of some kind that was supposed to be quite remarkable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Well, that would include part of Gimpel?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, Gimpel is so — oh, my father loved Gimpel.  My father was very…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  He did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, yeah.  He was so supportive of David’s work.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3352.0,3374.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/119","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  I thought it was an excellent work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  And I haven’t heard of anything that Jacob, that David’s done in years, and now I see there’s a big piece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No, no.  Well, he has a CD, he did a service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Well, I know the service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  For when, that he wrote for his wife.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I think the service is quite beautiful, but it’s really basically weak, and it’s second-hand.  It’s not, you know, it really is not, I think, a very - a very deep expression of...You know, it’s too, very accommodating of a number of, a mélange of different sort of synagogue styles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3374.0,3404.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/120","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  It’s...I find it basically conciliatory, and…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Well, it’s…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  …suburban.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  It’s for...it’s for, you know, it’s for his wife to sing.  And she sings that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And there was this whole thing that you fortunately for yourself don’t have to deal with, which is the business of female cantor voices not having music.  I mean, you can’t just transpose something up an octave and let it go at that — from a tenor cantor to a soprano.  So there’s virtually no music, really, for — especially for sopranos.  Of cantorial.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3404.0,3435.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/121","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Even the most radical, what they call egalitarians — and I bridle at that, because that’s not what the word means.  But they, what they mean, is gender-free.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is no music.  And really, things have to be rewritten or written afresh, so that it isn’t, you can’t do a kind of coloratura endlessly, that you could do with a tenor.  And at least many people feel that way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo Schiff tried, and I think that was one of the motivations there.  To write something for, that was specifically written.  Which is why, one of reasons we’ll include it, regardless of the musical merits, because it’s one of the only things that’s really written from the beginning for a female voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Right.  And it’s also a decently put together piece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3435.0,3475.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/122","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  He did a professional job.  Gimpel has a lot of, Gimpel has real character, I think.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  I do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  What about — I mean, people like Golub?  Did your father ever…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Didn’t think very much of it, but they were, they knew each other.  Certainly.  They were friends.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And it was a much simpler level of…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …of song.  No question.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3475.0,3493.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/123","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  But I don’t remember him really raving over that or committing himself to it very closely, no.  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  What about Hebrew lieder?  Did your father ever delve in that?  Did you ever delve into that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No, I didn’t.  And I don’t think he did very much, either.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  His only Hebrew writing was for the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Synagogue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  For the synagogue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  The only.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3493.0,3512.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/124","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Otherwise, I mean, and the whole commitment was Yiddish.  That was also, his, he was not a Hebrew — he didn’t know Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But there’s a division, there was a stark division in those days, still, of the Hebraist and the Yiddishistes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Well, he didn’t even really treat it as an ideology.  He simply did not have that kind of a Hebrew background.  \u003cbr\u003eIt wasn’t a knowledge or a feeling for the language from within.  I mean, he was trained in cheder as a young man.  But to do the prayers and so on and so forth, so he could, he could conduct a Seder in Hebrew and so on, the rest.  But he really, it was not something that, you know...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3512.0,3544.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/125","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  I mean, there were those who thought that the Yiddish language should have been chosen as the official language of the Jewish state.  It wasn’t.  It wasn’t 100% certain that Hebrew would be the official language.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No, no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  As a matter of fact, that’s an unusual circumstance.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3544.0,3560.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/126","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And I remember, when I was walking through parts of Jerusalem with my, one of my sons, who lives there, he pointed out the house where the founder of the Hebrew language — modern Hebrew language — who was that?  Who was that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  His son is the one who wrote that little dictionary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, Weinreich.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No, no, no.  Weinreich is the Yiddish dictionary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes, the Yiddish dictionary.  But there’s the — oh, I see.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No, no.  If I were, Ben… it’ll come to me in a moment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It doesn’t matter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  He wrote the paperback dictionary…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I don’t know it.  But I mean, Adam has pointed out, and he says that…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I want to say Ben Swede, but it isn’t.  But it’s something like that, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3560.0,3591.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/127","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: He pointed out the building where this, this person lived, and where the language was actually formulated.  And that it was the Orthodox, in the early stages, who were so opposed to the idea of taking a sacred language and turning it into a vernacular.  He said it’s, you know--it would be like talking Latin.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3591.0,3609.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/128","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Yeah.  When we come to some of your pieces that we are going to record, I want to talk a bit about how you came to do them.  I mean, for example, let’s take the Tants un Maysele which…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Mmm-hmmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I think we have already.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Mmm-hmmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  How did this come about?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That was a commission from the Aeolian Chamber Ensemble.  The violinist, whose name is Kaplan, was the founder of the Aeolians.  And he said, “I’d like to have a Jewish piece.  Would you be interested in doing one?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Of course.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3609.0,3640.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/129","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And the Ensemble, as you know, is violin, clarinet, cello, and piano.  And he wanted it for this, for the coming season, and I finally came up with a piece for him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd he wanted a Jewish piece, so I began — well, partly, I was, I think I was led to some kind of a solution in the music by title.  By the titles, which I sort of knew I was going to ascribe to the pieces.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3640.0,3671.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/130","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  When I was two or three years old, my father wrote a series of three piano preludes.  One of them was called, the first was called Maysele.  No — Prelude.  And the second was called Maysele, and the third was called Tants.  Maysele, of course, means “little story.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3671.0,3690.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/131","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  When I grew up, I was about 15, 16 years of age, I learned those pieces.  Obviously, when I was, they’re virtuoso, Liszt-like pieces, on Hasidic themes.  And I began to think in terms, now, of — when I was writing this piece, I guess it was 1970… 1980 is the date, or 1981 is the date for Tants un Maysele.  I thought, gee, would there be some possibility of giving my father a gift, of returning the homage, the dedication?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3690.0,3724.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/132","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And so, I began working on a piece that was dance-like, filled with Hasidic-like rhythms, but with a kind of — infused, also, with a kind of violence and peremptory rage that you would normally not find in a Hasidic dance.  And also, a sense of extreme mystery and confusion.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3724.0,3749.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/133","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And particularly at the end of that first piece, which is called Tants, there is a transformation from the rage and vigor to a peculiar sense of distant mystery, kind of an ineffable peculiarity.  It becomes a dance of creatures that you might find in, like Where The Wild Ones Are.  You know, you could just imagine those creatures doing a slow dance in a dense forest.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3749.0,3785.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/134","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And that seemed to me to be very Kabbalistic.  Very much closer to a kind of Dybbuk, to a mysterious creature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaysele was very--was based on a folk material, on a folk-like theme, which I made up.  Unlike Stravinsky’s stories about how he made up all the songs from The Rite of Spring, or the themes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3785.0,3813.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/135","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  We found out, when the documents were finally available, that he didn’t at all.  He had actually stated on his manuscript exactly where the sources were.  Whether he heard it on         a farm or on the estate, or whether he looked it up in a book, an anthology of Russian folk songs.  He basically took them all.  And then transformed them into one of the greatest pieces we know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI actually made up this tune.  And then proceeded from there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3813.0,3840.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/136","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  The tune itself is a kind of polka mazurka.  Slow, quiet.  Just very much like many of the songs that we know from Eastern Europe.  And then it goes on through various transformations, also.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe...I think part of what I was writing was reflecting the character of the group, of the Aeolian Chamber Players, of the violinist.  But above all, I think, reflecting my memories of that kind of music from my father’s music.  And combining that with some quite systematic study I had done when I was about 19 or 20.  I got ahold of the Idelsohn and I really spent months with the thesaurus.  I went through, in that particular time, through the Eastern European, Eastern Jews, Ashkenazim, the tunes that they fashioned, the dances and tunes.  And I wrote out innumerable ones and studied them and sang them.  I was at the time writing a piano concerto on Jewish themes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  What happened to it?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3840.0,3906.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/137","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Oh, it died.  The first movement alone was something like 16 or 17 minutes.  And I got one reading of the piece, of that huge movement, and the writing was so clumsy that I decided, never again.  And it took me another 40 years before I wrote for orchestra again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But you never wrote a piano concerto?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3906.0,3926.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/138","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  No.  Well, yes.  I wrote a movement for piano concerto quite a few years later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Judaically related?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.  In no way.  Judaically, it was written for my father-in-law, for the Yale Summer School Orchestra, and my father-in-law’s playing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  These three piano preludes…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …that you just mentioned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Those are your father’s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  You said they’re virtuoso, they’re Liszt-like?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  How come I don’t know about them?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Uh…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  We need, desperately…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3926.0,3949.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/139","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  I’ve got them in my apartment.  I’ll play them for you anytime.  When you come over tonight, I could even play them badly or I could play you a tape of…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  What are they based on some of your Jewish folk material?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, yes.  Oh, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah, I need a piece — okay, we’ll have to talk about that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  They’re short, they’re gangbusters pieces.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No, I need something that would interest certain pianists.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3949.0,3966.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/140","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  These are gangbusters pieces.  I mean, they’re--any pianist would be interested in them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Because Vladmir Heifetz, which is a name I didn’t mention.  Did your father know of Vladmir Heifetz?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, sure.  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  He was connected with the… what was it?  There was a different chorus.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Uh…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  One of the really left-wing groups.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3966.0,3981.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/141","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  It wasn’t the Freheit Gezaren Farayn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  It might have been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It might have been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Or the Jewish People’s Philharmonic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Something like that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  The Jewish People’s Philharmonic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean, you’re talking very left-wing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  In those days, everybody was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Well, my father was very, the left-wing in the earlier days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.  But the story is, I mean, that he, that he didn’t want to, that he moved to the Workmen’s Circle group ‘cause the, I mean, the perception is — I mean, you know the truth, but the perception is that he didn’t want to be associated with something that was openly anti-American at that time.  I mean, there was a time when they started singing songs about Stalin, the glory of the great, the great Comrade Stalin, in Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  So what’s the...what’s the street truth about that?  What is it?  What is normally thought of?  He did it because he moved to the Workmen’s Circle.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3981.0,4023.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/142","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Yeah.  Because the Workmen’s Circle was, is Socialist, they’re good Socialists…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  Well, why would he make that move?  I’ll tell you what happened.  I know exactly what happened.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father was a very successful vocal coach in the ‘20s.  For eminent singers.  And he made quite a lot of money.  He was very good at it, and very successful.  He was an accompanist and coach.  He also was conducting the Freiheit chorus, and was thought to be, as he was, quite a demagogue and quite charismatic.  And, they thought also, quite committed.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4023.0,4050.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/143","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  So when he applied for a visa to go and visit some family with my mother in 1927 — I think it was ’27 — there was no problem.  He got the visa, they went right into Russia with no problem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd what he saw there, what he felt there, with the secrecy and the oppression, and the lying and the hypocrisy and the — you know, he was seeing what was really there, and the fact that no conversations could be carried on, except in the middle of the park.  Turned him so powerfully against the regime that he came back and said, “Sorry.  Finished.”  And he broke with the Freiheit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Well, that was essentially the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  That’s the story.  But it first came from a reaction, a firsthand reaction to what he had seen and what he had felt.  And boy, he became a card-carrying anti-Communist of such a ferocious kind.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4050.0,4098.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/144","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  And that’s when he came to the Workmen’s Circle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That’s when he came to the Workmen’s Circle.  Because his leftist tendencies, the idea of Socialism and the rest of that, still was quite acceptable…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That’s right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  …and that’s where his heart lay…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Well, they say, but the Workmen’s Circle is very patriotic because they all, in the first place, they always sang Ich dank der Gott fur Amerika.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  At the same time as it was a Socialist thing. Plus, plus, they weren’t anti-Zionist — they were non-Zionists.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4098.0,4122.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/145","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  It was irrelevant, but it wasn’t a question…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  And then, you know, he also shared those duties with his directorship of the ILGWU Chorus organizations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean, he did that…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, yes.  For many years.  Oh, indeed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union Chorus.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah, with David Dubinsky.  Yeah, you bet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And they sang mostly in Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  They sang largely in Yiddish.  That’s correct.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  So…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  So anyway, that’s the, that’s really the origin of Tants un Maysele.  The title had something to do with it.  The fact that I was requested to write a Jewish piece — that’s what came out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4122.0,4151.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/146","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  What about Dances of Atonement?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Dances of Atonement also came out with, in response to a commission.  This was a funny one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSonya Hamlin was sort of the Barbara Walters — but much more intelligent and much more of a mensch — in Boston television for many years.  She was really quite an institution.  And I don’t remember what the channel was here, because I wasn’t in Boston.  But she was a very famous and most appealing lady, and she was also a childhood friend.  She was one of the daughters, one of the two daughters, of one of my fathers’ closest friends, Yudel Borenstein, who was a quite successful person, both in the Yiddish cultural scene, and as a real estate operator.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4151.0,4200.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/147","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Shayndel, as I knew her as a little girl — and I had remained in contact through, through life.  One day, I got a call from her in New York.  She said, “You know, is there any High Holiday music, is there any Yom Kippur music that we could play?  You know, we’re having a program, we’re having a guest, Joseph Silverstein, do you know him?\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4200.0,4220.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/148","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  I said, “Joe Silverstein?  Of course I know him.”  You know, through et cetera, et cetera.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe said, “Well, he wants to know what he can play.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Well, normally, something like the Kol Nidre, that we know, is played by double bass or by cello or some old instrument that’s big and sad and lugubrious, and you know, et cetera, et cetera, but I don’t know of any other music.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4220.0,4240.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/149","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  She said, “Well, he’s going to be our guest.  What should I have him play?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Well, maybe…”.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe said, “Would you write something, if you don’t have something?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I said, “Well, I’ll try.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I started to figure out how I was going to deal with the Kol Nidre tune that everybody knows, which is — what’s the name of the, the Bach cantata?  Zurst a traynin, which is, you know, sighing and weeping, and so on — that tune is just so breast-beating.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4240.0,4270.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/150","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  I started working on that familiar tune, and I couldn’t get anywhere.  The tune is so locked into its associations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI called up and I said, “No, I have really no success with this.  I’m going to have to take another tack.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd she said, “Go ahead.  Do it.  We have time.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I went back to the Idelsohn, and I found a Kol Nidre in, what, among the -  in the compendium about the Sephardim from the Moroccan Jews.  And it’s a tune that was traditionally used at — it was a Yom Kippur tune, it’s a Kol Nidre tune.  And this one really hit me like a ton of bricks.  It was so powerful.  It had a rhythm that I couldn’t quite use, the way it was set up, but I could use certain aspects of it.  And I made a piece out of this tune.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4270.0,4321.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/151","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  It was slow, rather ceremonial.  It was grave, without its being self-pitying.  And it had some moments of real power.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI came to Boston, Joe and I read it through.  He’s a very quick study.  And we did it on the program, we talked a little bit, and that was the end of it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4321.0,4344.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/152","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  The piece, as it existed in that form, was too short to be used anywhere.  You know the Brahms choral piece, Nänie?  It’s a piece…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  One of those four-choral…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No, no.  It’s a separate piece, with a large orchestra.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Oh, no, no, no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  And it’s a piece of merit which is no less than the compositions of the Brahms of, in the Requiem.  But it’s eight minutes long.  What are you going to do with an eight-minute long choral piece with large orchestra, which you can’t easily ally with another piece?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4344.0,4372.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/153","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Well, so this Kol Nidre really was relatively useless, as a piece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd another friend, Yuval Waldman, was a fine violinist, and originally Israeli, I think.  Or for a long, Israeli background.  He was also a colleague.  Was coming up with a concert at the 92nd Street Y, and said, “Would you do something?”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4372.0,4389.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/154","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And I said, “Well, I have this piece that I began.  Maybe I’ll extend it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I did.  I added a fast section to the first movement, and then I wrote the HaKohanim, when the priests come marching in, in effect, for the second one, which was based on High Holiday motifs that we normally know for the Neilah service and afternoon service, and so on.  And that’s the origin of that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4389.0,4412.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/155","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  That uses, in both movements, the real thing — authentic tunes, and turns of tunes that are associated with the liturgical tradition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Is that the piece that — or am I confusing it with the other, the incidental — what’s the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  The Mirror.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  The Mirror.  Which — no, it seems The Mirror breaks into a very well-manipulated — what you would call klezmer-type moment.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4412.0,4442.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/156","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  That would be, the klezmer would certainly be The Mirror.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That’s The Mirror.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Wait a minute.  What do you mean by well-manipulated?  Wow, hey.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  You know, I…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  What…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean that very complimentary.  I mean as a composer…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Really?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …manipulating the pitches so that it’s…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …so that it’s more than just…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It feels organic, it feels…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Well, it’s organic, but it shows, but something was done to, in other words…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4442.0,4461.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/157","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: But The Mirror was simply incidental music for a play by Isaac Bashevis Singer.  And it’s a play very much about the normal themes that Bashevis Singer was concerned with.  That is, religious life among the shtetl Jews, sexual inhibition, that the sexual frustration which is produced by inhibitions and by the law produces fantasy, the fantasy, and therefore, a kind of mysterious alliance with the Devil, with the Jew of Babylon, who’s a big necromancer, and with Hurmiza, who is the emissary from Onan.  You know, et cetera, et cetera.  I mean, Singer’s references are fairly transparent.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4461.0,4522.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/158","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And it has to do with the side of Yiddish and of ghetto life that’s not normally exposed.  That was really the revelation that Singer brought to bear — was that the consciousness of the whole sexual side of life certainly had not been emphasized in any aspect of Yiddish folklore, and yet, had to have been a factor there, and that he brought that very much into the 20th century.  I think that’s one of the themes. Anyways, this play is about that kind of thing. And the play itself opens simply wonderfully with a great first act. And a reasonably smooth second act, and a catastrophe of a third act that is simply unusable as it stands. Singer re-wrote the version and I think it appeared later as a play called \"Yenta,\" [sic] or a similar play that appeared on Broadway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: Is that...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4522.0,4577.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/159","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  It’s very similar.  There are similarities of Yenta and…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yentl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yentl.  Yentl ran on Broadway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah, I saw one of the versions of it, before it was destroyed and probably the worst movie ever made.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah, well.  But the theme was largely the same, and some of the subject matter, and the kinds of characters.  But the…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4577.0,4596.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/160","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  But I’m--I want to clear something…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  The story, The Mirror was originally a play or a story?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No, no.  It was a play.  It was a play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  He wrote it as a play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He wrote it as a play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Not as a short story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Not as a short story.  It’s a play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And then Yentl was originally a short story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That I didn’t know.  So maybe Yentl preceded The Mirror in the first place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I don’t know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4596.0,4613.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/161","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  But The Mirror was definitely…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yentl was a short story, and he supervised — obviously, he gave permission — but he supervised or had some role in making it into a play for Broadway, which was why, I imagine why it was successful, and it was an excellent play.  It was fantastically done in every way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4613.0,4632.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/162","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Except for the Yiddish, which your father would have covered his face, because a brucha — but it was deliberate.  It said, in the Southern Polish Yiddish, it was a brucha boor.  Instead of a…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But the, with the film, Bashevis Singer had nothing to do with.  He signed away his rights for an enormous amount of money, and then complained bitterly in The New York Times in a letter to the editor on how they had destroyed it, which they did.  It was, it was nonsense, what they did with it.  But you know, he gave it away, because he, because…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4632.0,4660.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/163","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Well, you give those things away in good faith.  I mean, people are persuasive, and they say…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Well, but if you’re giving it away to Barbra Streisand to deal with — but anyway, we’ll talk about him later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the thing is, The Mirror, I didn’t know this — that The Mirror, there is a connection between The Mirror and Yentl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, I think there’s a connection.  I, from, from when I saw Yentl.  I don’t have a clear recollection of it, but…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  You didn’t see the play on Broadway?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I saw the play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  And I was rather astonished at the, at the similarity of themes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4660.0,4681.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/164","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  The play left you wondering what it really was all about.  You could interpret it either way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  But the play, it ran smoothly as a play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  You know, compared to, compared to The Mirror, which was really a very weak sister.  And…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And he was the playwright for The Mirror.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Absolutely.  Wrote the play.  I mean, I — tonight, I’ll show you the, the whole, the whole play, play type.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  So how did the incidental music role come about for you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yale Repertory Theatre.  I was a faculty member.  I don’t know who appointed me — whether it was the director, Michael Poznick, who became a very good friend.  And we began the collaboration.  I don’t know how, how it was that I got involved.  I mean, since I was there, this, it seems logical, but that would not have designated me as the choice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And he wanted incidental music?  Or…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4681.0,4734.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/165","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  The director wanted incidental music.  I have no idea whether Isaac Bashevis Singer wanted music.  I don’t think Isaac Bashevis Singer had an ear for music at all.  I don’t think he cared one bit.  Frankly.  And I think I told you the story of Isaac Bashevis Singer saying, when Poznick came to him and said, “Mr. Singer, the play, really, the last act, please do some editing.  Please do some rewriting.  It--it needs help.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4734.0,4760.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/166","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  “I don’t understand what you mean.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “It just doesn’t work.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “You have hypnotized yourself into thinking that it doesn’t work.”  He used a very funny word — “you have hypnotized yourself into thinking.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut it was really a terrible piece of work.  It, the denouement, the conclusion of it, is just a dreadful, dreadful mess.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4760.0,4779.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/167","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Anyway, I was asked to write music for certain scenes, and somehow, the music took over, in many ways.  There’s a great deal more music for that play than was really needed for advancing certain scenes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the gratitude I feel to Poznick is inexpressible, because when he heard a good piece of music, he said, “Oh, we’ll find a way to put it in.  We’ll find a way to make it work.”  You know, voice-under, we’ll put voice-over, or we’ll have a little interlude, we’ll have a transition.  And he found a way to include almost every note of music that I wrote for the play.  Feeling that it had really come from a very deep source, and somehow could be made to enhance the play.  Which, in fact, I think it did.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4779.0,4819.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/168","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  So that was...and then it was done that way at the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It was done that way at all the productions.  Yes.  And it had a run of some, I don’t know, some weeks or whatever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Now, but you have some material that’s performable on its own?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, yes.  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  The sessions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That’s put together, that will be put together like sort of a Jewish L’Histoire du Soldat, if you like.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  But without narration.  I’m just going to put as…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Without the narration.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4819.0,4839.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/169","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  It would be nice with narration, because it makes some of the things a little bit more vivid, but it’s not necessary.  I think the music will stand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  How about singing?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Well, there are a couple of songs in there.  As you know, I sing one of them.  And I love the song that I wrote for that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Now, as the songs, are those texts from the--the lyrics are from the play?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes, yes, yes they are.  And they’re sung by — it’s presumably supposed to be sung by people in the play.  And as a matter of fact, I believe that, in one case, The Angels are Gay at Heaven — in Heaven With the King.  I think that was sung by the character in the play, the person who was supposed to sing it.  As a matter of fact, the name of that person was Yenta.  She sang it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4839.0,4882.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/170","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  That was really conceived, as I said, like for a little klezmer band — a violin, clarinet, double bass, “Yidl mitn fidl, Dovid mitn bass, zing zu mir a lidl, oifn mitn gas.” You know, that was really the usual…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  This is an old, an old folk song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  Yeah.  And drums.  Had to have drums.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4882.0,4900.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/171","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Now when it comes to your synagogue music…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Hmmm-mmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Totally different thing.  I mean, your, I — your Friday night service, for example.  I think we’re going to record the Hashkiveinu from that or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That would be wonderful.  That would be wonderful, that piece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …or something out of that.  That, was that on a, either on a commission, or for a specific request for a synagogue, or...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4900.0,4921.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/172","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  I don’t think I’ve written a piece of extended music without commission since 1956.  ’55. So everything has been sort of catch-up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  So you knew that that would have at least one…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4921.0,4936.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/173","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  It was the Park Avenue Synagogue commission.  From David Putterman.  Part of a long series.  This was 1962, I believe, or ’63.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  The Friday night service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  Hmmm-mmm.  And so it was written for those forces, and that ritual, and — you know, the Conservative ritual.  With the possibility of having several opening numbers — the Ma Tovu, the Lecho Dodi, the Shiru L’Adonai, et cetera.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4936.0,4963.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/174","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  By the way, if you do record some things for the project, I’d love it if the Shiru L’Adonai would be done, too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Okay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I mean, it’s...I don’t think there is anything like that in our synagogue music at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  How did--how did you treat or how did you deal with the idea of nusaḥ hat'filla in there, of traditional material for…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4963.0,4982.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/175","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: I didn’t--I did not concern myself with that at all.  The whole piece is based, however, on trope, and is constantly infiltrated with some of the simplest, most basic trope, turns of trope, that I had heard in cantillation being cantillated, and also from the Rossovsky book...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4982.0,5008.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/176","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Yeah, but you do.  I mean, you come, let’s say, to the Barchu.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  So, is that freely composed?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Made up.  It’s made up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Completely — pay no attention to what is the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Completely made up.  Not for the modes of the, of Shabbat — nothing.  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But subconsciously, it sounds…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5008.0,5025.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/177","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Oh, subconsciously.  I think it has real, it has character.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI must say that that was, I mean, that was instinctive, to one sense, and also, it was showing that there had been quite a lot of absorption of things from the early days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Even if I didn’t go to the synagogue, still, I heard a lot of cantors around the house.  Now, they came to the house to learn Yiddish, art song.  They didn’t coach, they did not coach the prayers with my father.  That wasn’t the idea — they came to…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No, but they — by the way, as long as you mentioned it, I’ll come back to it.  Did somebody like Moshe Ganchoff ever...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5025.0,5059.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/178","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Yes, Ganchoff was, yes, yes.  Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But people don’t realize — I only learned a few years before he died, that he was really first a Yiddish singer, and more interested in that than becoming a hazzan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That I didn’t know, but Ganchoff was certainly a visitor, and would do things with my father.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5059.0,5074.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/179","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  I mean, he would have needed coaching, and…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah, yeah.  So, but in the meantime, they would have, you know, they would have broken off and done some hazzanish…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But as far as you were concerned, it’s totally…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It was totally free.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Free.  I mean…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Totally free.  Except — totally free, except for, as I say, this constant reference, in the composed music of that — not so much in the melismatic, but in the other, to cantillation.  And I must say, the first — let me just relate this incident, this anecdote to you, which is something that meant so much to me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5074.0,5110.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/180","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  When the service was over, there was a reception that night at the Park Avenue Synagogue.  And a very old Jew came up to me and said, “You know, for the first time since I arrived in the United States from Odessa, I felt that I was home in my little shul.”  He said, “How did you do that?” I said that “I don’t know.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5110.0,5140.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/181","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  But that was an amazing accolade, that I felt justified everything I had done, somehow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That service was part of their annual, in those days annual commissions?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Every year, they did a commission.  Yeah, I think Jacob Druckmann did one a couple of years later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.  And Putterman sang it that night.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes, Putterman sang it.  Yeah, yeah.  I just this year, within the last three or four months, was able to recover the original recording from that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5140.0,5165.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/182","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  And then it was subsequently published.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It was published.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  And you know why it was published?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  For whatever reason, Sam Barber attended that night.  Attended the service that night.  Out of curiosity as to what I was doing.  Because I didn’t have much of a relationship with him at all.  I think I’d met him in Rome a few years before that.  Perhaps he knew something about my music.  But we didn’t have an ongoing relationship at all, nor did I even know he was coming.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5165.0,5193.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/183","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And the very next day, I got a call from G. Schirmer, saying, “Please come down.  We want to talk, talk about publishing your music.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat was it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo what had happened is, that Barber had talked to Heinz Heimer, who was the editor-in-chief, and it started a collaboration with Associated Music for, which lasted — Associated-Schirmer — which lasted for many, many years, until about five or six years ago, when I finally broke with them.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5193.0,5218.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/184","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Is that the only piece of synagogue music you’ve written?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  There are other things.  There’s another service — there’s a Torah service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Now was that a Torah service alone?  Or is it a part of a larger...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5218.0,5227.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/185","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Torah service is alone, which I have managed to incorporate into the Friday evening service.  Now, that’s not appropriate.  Torah service would be, after all…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean, in the Reform movement it is…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  In the Reform movement it’s possible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  So we have occasionally performed it with the Torah service serving in the center as a centerpiece, and using part of the same band that has orchestra, that I used in orchestrating the larger service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  The Friday night service was orchestrated?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Friday service is now orchestrated.  As of 1991.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  The whole service?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  All together.  All of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Full symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5227.0,5261.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/186","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  It’s...a large chamber orchestra, basically.  It uses--it has no horns.  It uses a couple of trumpets, a trombone or two — I think two trombones — a double bass, strings — regular strings — flute, oboe — oboe?  I’m not even sure right now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Does it have two woodwinds?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5261.0,5282.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/187","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  I think two woodwinds.  I’d have to look again.  It’s an irregular combination.  And that was also the result of being determined by the orchestration of some other things that were on the program that, which it was, premiere where it was performed.  It was a Bach cantata and a Gabrieli quartet.  So I took a lot of the brass...But it did, I remember that it didn’t have French horns.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  It doesn’t have tubas.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No tubas.  No tubas, no, no ophicleides, no Wagner tubas, either.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Or any kind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No double bass clarinets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That’s orchestrated.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5282.0,5311.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/188","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  That’s orchestrated.  Now, the Torah service is orchestrated, but the Torah service’s original form was for two trumpets, horn, trombone and double bass.  A quintet of instruments.  And chorus.  That’s all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And no strings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No strings.  So, that stands alone.  And within the Torah’s, within the overall service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  The brass quartet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.  Well, brass quintet with double bass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  With double bass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah, with double bass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  That would be an interesting — have you ever recorded that?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5311.0,5335.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/189","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Commercially?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.  Just had a — I mean, I have a number of performances of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And that’s with chorus, and it requires a cantor?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It requires, in this case, a bass-baritone cantor.  It’s not a tenor cantor.  And it can be done by the — yeah.  I mean, there are only a couple of short fragments that would be needed to be sung by a cantor…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5335.0,5354.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/190","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  And the orchestral version is also available?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I have it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And that’s for, the Torah service — that’s what you sent me the tape of.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I sent you the tape of the Torah service and the Friday evening service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Right, right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I, I’m sure I sent you the orchestra version of the Friday evening service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I don’t think so.  Just the Torah service.  In the Torah service, which is not part of, in other words, you didn’t do a whole Saturday morning service, or you did just the Torah service?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I started a Saturday morning service, and did two or three numbers, but I gave it up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  The Torah service is also totally free composition, or are you basing it on any modes or any melodies?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  No.  Not based on — no, not at all.  It’s freely composed.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5354.0,5386.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/191","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  As a matter of fact, you know, when we talk about this freely composed, it’s done as much out of ignorance as out of independence of mind.  I don’t - I’m not really educated in those modes, you know?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Well, let’s say, your father’s Friday night services.  There are a couple of them, right?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Two or three?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Uh-huh.  There are several.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  There are several.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5386.0,5405.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/192","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin: There are still certain determinants, I mean, such as cadential formula.  They don’t have to stick to the exact formula, but somehow, I think that’s the basis of it, you know.  The modality, the end of the, the bracha, I mean, that, but not only whether it’s major or minor or neither, but some modal formula.  I mean, you didn’t worry about that.  You just...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5405.0,5435.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/193","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  No, I didn’t.  Not at all.  No.  Whatever felt right to me was what I did.  Yeah.  Does that surprise you?  Evidently, it does.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No, no, no.  It surprises me that Putterman didn’t specify that.  Because what he, a lot of times, when he worked with, when they would commission a non-Jew altogether, you know, so he didn’t have any feel for the language or anything, so he would work with them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  For example, who would he — do you know who he did that with?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5435.0,5465.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/194","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Douglas Moore, I think, at one time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Did Douglas write up…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Oh, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Douglas wrote a service?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.  See, there were whole, they’re whole services.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  You’re kidding.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  You know that Susan just conducted the local, the Boston Lyric Opera Company of The Ballad of Baby Doe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  She did this production.  And that’s some piece of work, by the way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5465.0,5482.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/195","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Douglas Moore wrote, was commissioned; Gretchaninov.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner: Gretchaninov was a wonderful composer.  No kidding.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah. Gretchaninov is too big an Adonai Malach and… but those are from the, from the Kabbalat Shabbat in the Friday night service.  Yeah, Gretchaninov wrote those after he came here from Paris, after...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5482.0,5501.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/196","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  How are they?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Well, they’re a little bit over--over-grand.  I mean, the organ parts are, I think, over-elaborate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Because he’s Russian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  It’s very, yeah, it’s very Russian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  The Russian choral music is just wonderful.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: But there were a number of non-Jews who — let me see who else.  Somebody in that same category as Douglas Moore.  I can’t remember.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5501.0,5525.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/197","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  But you know, in the same way that Sulzer asked Schubert to write the Tov L’hodot.  He obviously had to work with him on the Hebrew, because the Hebrew is perfect, the words…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  The prosody.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  It’s perfect.  It’s the same as if Sulzer wrote it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5525.0,5542.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/198","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin: So, Putterman used to — yeah, I was just...we were often...he’d say, “Look.  I mean, there are certain, like the Barchu, just the modality of it and what, what — you can harmonize it however you want.  You can make a tone row out of it, if you want.  But still have some relation.  So he...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5542.0,5559.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/199","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Putterman never...absolutely left me alone.  Absolutely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I want to go back now to Yiddish, to one of the pet problems that we’re having nowadays, I think.  And that is, who is there to perform anymore?  Who is there to sing Yiddish artistically, the way — I’m not even questioning whether Belarsky or not, I mean, there are better than Belarsky’s voice, too.  I mean, I mean, is it possible, today?  And how are we going to do it?  Do you feel that to sing — you know, we’re talking about your father’s songs — to sing \"Ergets vayt,\" to sing, you know, 20 songs like that.  That someone can just be coached?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5559.0,5607.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/200","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Yes.  Yes.  And the reason for that is that, once again, with his attitude about, number one, good music; number two, the cosmopolitan nature of the basic craft, he felt that simply good, pure singing, in the fine lieder tradition, was the proper way to go about it.  He didn’t like any special krechtzing…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No, I don’t mean that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  He didn’t like — well, I mean he…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I mean the language.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5607.0,5636.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/201","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  He demanded, well, he demanded meticulous language in that.  And he felt that people could learn that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI mean, look — here is Susan, who became his favorite singer of his songs in, you know, for the time that she was singing, which was relatively short.  He worked with her on the diction and correcting the Germanisms in many cases, where, I mean her — she had learned a meticulous German for the literature that she sang, and now had to switch to a language, as you know, which was so close, and yet, so distinct.  And she managed it.  And then, I mean, he felt he could not have heard a more eloquent projection of his songs, of his thought.  And again, I have some tapes to play for you that I think you’ll find quite thrilling.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5636.0,5687.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/202","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  The demonstration there is that any really cultivated and good singer could do that kind of work.  I mean, I’ve tried to interest Dawn Upshaw in this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I was just going — I was going to mention somebody similar, since you mentioned Lauren Flanagan.  I mean someone in terms of stature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Because, supposing a Dawn Upshaw, said, yeah, okay, this is…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  She could be coached so that she could do…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  And it was your undertaking to coach her, ‘cause you could both…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  ‘Cause you were going to be the pianist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5687.0,5714.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/203","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  …because she called you.  You don’t have any question about the Yiddish, the problems in Yiddish being more than other foreign languages.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  By no means.  By no means.  I think they’re, they’re not, there aren’t more problems, and in many ways, it’s a lot easier than many others.  It would be a lot easier than French.  A lot easier than French.  I mean, of course, people have some French background.  But…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5714.0,5738.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/204","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Yiddish is a much simpler language.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No, I’m asking this because, for a singer who has been — I mean, there are certain basic exposures to music.  So one has heard, even if one didn’t take, study French yet before they got it, I mean, one’s heard French.  You go to the opera…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  That’s true.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5738.0,5757.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/205","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  It’s not totally foreign.  Hebrew, to that singer, might be totally foreign, but Hebrew is very easy, compared to Yiddish, I think we’d have to agree.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Well, I don’t know.  Is that true?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.  Because it’s much more straightforward.  You don’t have problems like oyden.  Like bettin.  How to sing it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5757.0,5773.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/206","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  You mean the unvoiced consonants?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.  How the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  But there aren’t a lot of those.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  No, but they come up a lot in singing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  They come up a lot in songs, but once you get it, you get it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  So, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I don’t think it’s a very, a real — I mean, a lot of people have a lot more trouble with the ch…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5773.0,5788.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/207","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Well, there, I never understood that.  Now, that I don’t understand.  Because if they sing German, that’s just--I just think it’s kind of stupidity a lot of times, when I’ll see a singer who has sung every Bach cantata and sung Wachtoff a million times, and he keeps saying you know, “melech.”  That’s just stupid.  He just forgot, because I keep reminding him, “If you see a ch,” it’s not, that’s not a foreign sound, really.  You know, the ch is not a foreign sound.  It’s all over German.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Well, of course, there, one is talking about the difference between somebody reading it and the other thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5788.0,5818.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/208","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Really learning it.  Now, if somebody is going to do a song recital, they have to totally absorb that material, or else it’s not going to happen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  But you’ve coached people…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, yes, I have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …in the Yiddish tongue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I have at Tanglewood.  Even younger people who may have had some, some approach to Yiddish, but really didn’t know it very well.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5818.0,5834.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/209","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  So you could, you feel that one could concentrate primarily as the main criterion on the voice, what the voice is and what the musicianship is, and then, you can, I mean, if a person can sing Yiddish, German, Russian…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Give me, give me Renee Fleming, give me Bill Sharp, give me any number of cultivated…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Who have never even heard, who had never heard…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Never heard a thing.  And Jan Oppeloch — I mean, give me a Dawn — I would, there’s no problem.  I don’t see a special problem at all.  Not at all.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5834.0,5870.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/210","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And I think we erect, perhaps, psychological barriers in thinking that it should be any different.  I mean, this is the whole point.  My father was trying to bring — I mean, as far as the Yiddish, his production was concerned, he was trying to bring this music into the thing where you’d sing Foray and you’d sing Wyner.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5870.0,5885.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/211","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin: That’s my point.  That’s the mainstream.  One should be able to go to Patelson’s and pick out a book of Yiddish.  Your father’s songs should be available at Patelson’s, too.  They’re not, because nobody’s going to sing them because everyone, they’ll think, “Well, I can’t pronounce these words.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5885.0,5901.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/212","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Well, we can’t, that’s, of course, nonsense.  But as, you know, some CDs come out, people begin to hear it.  And of course, that’s the point.  And when he did that wonderful CD — you know, there were two CDs originally, with what’s his name, University of Washington — Lishner.  Leon Lishner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Leon Lishner, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Those are very, very beautiful.  Beautifully produced and it’s a — you know, it’s a dark voice.  But nevertheless, they sang wonderful things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  And there’s really ideal Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Did he work a lot with…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …with Belarsky?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Yes.  A great deal.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5901.0,5934.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/213","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  I have to tell you a funny story about Belarsky.  First of all, Belarsky was a frequent visitor at the house.  He’s sort of the Jewish Bing Crosby, after all, you know?  And Belarsky was very much of a sort of narcissist, very full of himself, and his image.  But he was a charmer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5934.0,5951.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/214","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  When he would come out on stage — and my father would often accompany him at concerts — he would do what’s called chracking.  Now, chracking is when you start to clear your nasal passages and you — ch! ch!  And he’d clear, and he’d blow his nose.  And this would be all right in your face, right in public, you know, right in the front of the piano before a concert would begin.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5951.0,5975.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/215","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  My father says to him one day, when they’re about to give a concert at Town Hall — a very prestigious hall, you know, in Manhattan.  He says, “Sidor, you know, when you get out on stage, please, don’t chracke.  You know, if you have to, you know, a little bit, but don’t chracke.  This is, after all, Town Hall.  It’s dignified.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBelarsky said, “Don’t worry.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo, they get out on stage and Belarsky takes out the handkerchief as if he’s about to chracke.  And he takes it out and he turns his back to the audience for a minute, and he just sort of clears his throat.  And he’s ready to sing, and my father beckons him over.  And he would do like this — he would beckon in this way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5975.0,6018.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/216","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Belarsky came over.  “What’s the matter, Weiner?  I didn’t chracke.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “No, but your fly is open.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe delighted in telling that story, he was so...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: You don’t worry about that too much about that, that there’s no, I mean there is more today than here was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner: I don’t worry about it at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: Well there is no…Who are you going to get? Belarsky is no more. Vishner is no more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner: I would like to interest…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: And no one will sound authentic as if it could, as if it were mamaloshen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner: Well….\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: You feel like it could be made to sound the same?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6018.0,6045.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/217","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner: I think it can be made to sound as my father intended for it to be sound. That is the Yiddish pronunciation being correct and the rest of the musical value as being just straight to western musical values, that’s all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: The music value, yes, but the inflection of the words. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner: The inflection of the words, but I think that can be done. I mean Susan did it. She made some mistakes now and then, but they were correctable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: No I am just playing devil’s advocate. Because I, if I take that position, we will hear, yeah, what about actors?  And look — Rod Steiger did it, too. But nobody else did, and so, Rod Steiger’s a genius.  Rod Steiger in The Chosen, that’s an incredible inflection of the language, and you couldn’t...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6045.0,6080.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/218","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  But you know how he did that, by the way?  He went to live in a--he rented a house in a Jewish neighborhood.  And he went to the butcher shop every single day and stood there for an hour.  And he just stood there.  Until it entered his ears.  How to, in a Hasidic neighborhood.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6080.0,6096.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/219","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  But that’s a God-given...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  And then he promulgated that, that diction, right?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.  In the film, which is what he wanted to do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  The [inaudible].\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah.  But I mean, it’s absolutely authentic.  I mean, one could never know.  I don’t care.  But that’s - but that’s the exception — it isn’t the rule.  I mean, and so, that’s why I’m asking these things, because we have to deal with that.  If we’re going to continue to pick up where there’s been a gap in Yiddish art song, to say nothing of Yiddish choral music, then one has to deal with that problem.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6096.0,6129.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/220","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  I really don’t think - I don’t see it as a problem, really.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin: Good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner: I mean, as long as there’s some people who are around who have a feeling of what’s correct.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor example, one of my colleagues right here at Brandeis, Allan Keiler, who is a musicologist and a theorist, his Yiddish is really quite sophisticated, to say the least.  He reads all the time, he’s always trying to teach me new words.  He teaches me; they, alas, they stay for a few minutes, and then they disappear.  But he’s always correcting my genders, my endings, my choice of words.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6129.0,6161.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/221","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And when there’s a choice between the Teutonic or the German derivative one and the Hebrew derivative one, he’s quick to point it out and say, “Now, that’s really, oysius, instead of buchshtadten.”  There’s a case.  There’s a perfect case.  I would use, I didn’t know the word oysius, except from the Milner song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  But the buchshtadten I heard all my life.  And he said, “No, no, no, buchshtadten — that’s German.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6161.0,6187.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/222","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  That’s German Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  German Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  There is a such a thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Oh, there is such a thing.  But it’s a preference.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd, for example, the greatest writers for our, for English, are the writers who rely mostly on the Anglo-Saxon origins of the language, and not the foundations of the language and not so much the Latinisms.  It’s not the big, long, polysyllables that are so beloved of the academic community.  It’s the ones that are hard-hit — the monosyllables.  I mean, when you look at the great writers in English, you see that they’re, the real core of their language is Anglo-Saxon.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6187.0,6220.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/223","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  I mean, the interesting thing is — and this has been pointed out by Yiddish, Yiddish scholars — that the, that the authentic Yiddish of the Eastern European intelligentsia, that is, as opposed to Deutsche Yiddish, actually is one that’s more reliant on Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  More reliant on Hebrew, yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6220.0,6245.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/224","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  For example, kever as opposed kraven for a grave.  You know, no, in your father’s circles in Europe, they would never have used the word kraven for a grave, which is also, can also, but it’s the same thing.  Because kever comes from Hebrew.  And they didn’t say bois so much as they said bayis.  In the house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  See, I don’t know all of that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6245.0,6262.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/225","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin: Sholem bayis.  Both words are from Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut anyway, these, these things have, they’re often used as excuses, I guess, by singers.  That it’s so foreign that I don’t dare touch it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6262.0,6277.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/226","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Oh, that doesn’t make sense to me.  Either that, or they, they really don’t know the glories of the literature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  I think that’s part of it, too.  Now that you bring it up.  Because what about a singer who sings for the first time Greig songs?  Now, Norwegian is not in anyone’s ear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Greig?  Sibelius.  Meerson.  Or Skalkottas.  What are you going to do when you sing Skalkottas?  What did you, how do people manage Hungarian?  How did they manage — what’s the name of the wonderful Polish composer, for example?  Szymanowski.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Szymanowski.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  Who was a great songwriter.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6277.0,6317.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/227","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  I don’t know, because…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I mean, it makes no sense to me at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  Yeah, but I don’t know those languages, so therefore…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  It makes no sense to me at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  …I don’t know whether it sounds right or not.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I think this strictly is — I mean, people will go and they’ll sing Shostakovich songs and Prokofiev songs and Tchaikovsky songs, because they’re really great composers.  And they hear this stuff and they say, “Gee, I’ve got to really learn how to do that.”  But they never hear any really great Yiddish songs, so what are they going to bother for?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6317.0,6336.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/228","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Neil Levin:  Is there anything else that you'd like to bring up about your music or your...anything that you'd like to say.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYehudi Wyner:  I have some very good friends who are highly sympathetic to my music.  One of them is somebody like Michael Putnam, who is a professor of classics and one of the experts in the poetry of Virgil.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6336.0,6356.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/229","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  And he loves my music.  And when he heard the fairly recent cello concerto which I wrote for Ralph Kirshbaum and the BBC Orchestra — this is 1995 — he heard it and he said, “What a wonderful combination.  I hear, you know, I hear the great European tradition, and I hear your Jewishness in it.”  And the Jewish aspect of it is not anything that I deliberately intended but it's evidently something that transmits itself through the general...the general syntax and accentuation of my music.  And I'm very happy that that kind of identification and identity exists and is clearly projected.  Um...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6356.0,6415.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/66767/annotation/230","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yehudi Wyner:  Thanks, Neil.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeil Levin:  This has been a wonderful conversation.\n\nTRANSCRIPTION END","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6415.0,6427.22133"}]},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Final Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/231","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e And I want to talk about a number of things in relation to music, Jewish experience in music, and some of your compositions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut before we even do that, it’s hard for me, and I think this is a good thing.  It’s hard for me, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, to separate the Yehudi Wyner the composer, Yehudi Wyner the son of Lazar Wyner.  It’s hard to separate the influences from the Yiddish milieu, the Yiddishiste milieu, the Yiddish intellectual, intelligentsia milieu, and the influences of the American musical","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=16.0,57.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/232","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e Sure, of course.  I’ll be happy to talk about that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know, there are many cases where sons have real conflict with their fathers.  And really resent the fact that they have to talk about themselves in relation to their father or emanating from their or being influenced by or being trained by.  I don’t have a problem with any of those","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=57.0,91.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/233","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"If I had a problem with my father, it is along different lines altogether.  It was that he himself was a, a quite — not depressed at all, but quite a taciturn person, a presence, at home.  He was the stern presence.  That is, when he was present.  He was mostly absent.  He was working, at rehearsals, at all his musical activities.  And when he was home, he was also working, in his little room, or occasionally, with cantors or with other singers, and so on and so forth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=91.0,125.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/234","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I did not have the, the relationship with my dad that most, or many children who love to refer to their father as “dad,” and you know, shared games with them, who shared recreation with them, who shared very warm and embracing family activities with them.  I didn’t have that with my","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=125.0,147.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/235","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But on the other hand, I never had any doubt that, that his support of what I was doing was not total.  His support was very strong.  His expectations were very high.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, you want to know what it was like growing up in a milieu like that.  There were actually many entertainments.  My parents would have many friends over quite frequently.  Many musicians — well, I would say mostly musicians, but also, poets, writers, people of, and painters.  They were mostly people from the","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=147.0,185.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/236","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"My mother was rather famous for her entertaining.  Although it was entertainment on a very, very modest level.  There were always good cheeses, there was excellent tea, there was milchic gibulcha (?), there were ice box, there were, you know, excellent cookies, butter cookies, there were nuts, fruit, I said cheeses, sometimes, lox.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=185.0,203.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/237","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But the lox and bagel picture was not part of it.  The hot pastrami was not part of my parents’ entertainment.  As a matter of fact, that was looked down upon as being too much Broadway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt such gatherings, my father would really be the life of the party, very often.  He was full of fun, full of jokes.  Full of very vital interchange with his guests, with his friends.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=203.0,224.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/238","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then, when the door would close on the party, my father would really return to his rather withholding personal world of self-involvement, involvement with his work.  And I, as the son, or us as the sons — I have a brother — he, he and I would be left, basically, to our own devices.  And Papa would disappear from our, our surrounding.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=224.0,248.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/239","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The culture was Yiddish.  Occasionally Russian.  And sometimes, of course, both.  Russian Jews who would alternately speak Russian or speak Yiddish.  And the, as far as I could tell, and, or as far as I can remember from those days, they were constantly involved in discussing cultural matters.  The poetry of this one, the music of that one, the, the origins of this kind of music.  And there would be discussions as to how to define Jewish music, how","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=248.0,284.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/240","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What were some of those discussions — how to define Jewish music?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh.  Well, the discussions were, it was the usual.  The lines were drawn along the usual, along the, the, along the usual lines.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat is to say, if you’re Jewish and you write music, you’re a Jewish composer.  No.  If you write music that uses Jewish themes, you are a Jewish composer.  If you write music that somehow incorporates music that was part of your early heritage, than you’re a Jewish composer.  If you write music that uses Yiddish or Hebrew texts, then you’re a Jewish composer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=284.0,326.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/241","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Then came the question, if you’re a Jewish composer, does it mean you have validity?  Or does it mean you have to be judged and can be judged on the terms of whether the music is any good?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd ultimately, my father’s real criteria took place on that basis.  Was the music good?  Is it good music or is it not good","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=326.0,349.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/242","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Now, the definition of what was good music and bad music was simply left for the philosophers and for the critics.  My father would not really define, ever, that I could tell, whether it was good music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What would he have said — Hugo Weisgall — would he have said…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He had nothing but the highest respect for Hugo.  Nothing but the highest respect for Hugo.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=349.0,368.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/243","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But this, this is something Hugo said, and so it doesn’t matter, I mean, actually, who said it.  Just what, as to what he, somebody once asked Hugo at a table lunch in the cafeteria, and Hugo said — about what was Jewish music — and he said, quote-unquote, “Well, first of all, it has to be good music.”  Quote-unquote.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, what would your father have said to that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Well, my father would have said, “Amen.”  Amen.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=368.0,391.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/244","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e Right.  The Golden Peacock.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=391.0,416.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/245","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e For example, in Yiddish text, and so on and so forth, that was something extraordinary.  And my father responded with such respect and such affection.  He was so, so touched by, by what Hugo had, had","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=416.0,430.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/246","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e Really?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=430.0,465.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/247","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e Not so much.  Because he felt that Bloch’s, he felt that Bloch’s acquisitions were somewhat posturing.  They weren’t really from a real background or even a, a living of the experience.  In other words, there’s something exterior about the, about Bloch’s work.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=465.0,484.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/248","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And in the initial stages, for example, when he was working on the Darius Milhaud sacred service, he felt that this was a music which was really divorced from any Jewish tradition.  Until he was informed and really had to be educated in the fact that the Provençal version of Jewish music had a long history and was simply a long a convention that was different from the Eastern European.  And it had a completely different set of, of Jewish identities.  And at that point, my father accepted the, the Milhaud as being a kind of a, authentic Jewish expression.  Which was, I thought, quite interesting of him to have done","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=484.0,527.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/249","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So, in other words — look, let’s take many of the, your father’s most sophisticated Yiddish lieder, those that are not at least overtly based upon or incorporating…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Folk motifs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …motivic material.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, pitch-wise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=527.0,544.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/250","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  That has any basis, they’re free composition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Correct.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So then the, it’s the Yiddish language and the understanding and the syntax and so forth of the Yiddish poetry that makes it…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It is the Yiddish language which also inflects turns of phrases, accentuations, nuances of the rhythm of the, of the projection, that somehow gives it what my father would think of as being a Yiddish flavor.  Or be, be a Jewish expression of","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=544.0,583.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/251","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I mean, the question, the, the influence of language on any musical culture is profound.  People, for example, who try to sing and produce things like Hungarian music, music of Kodahy or Bartôk or Duchnany and so on and so forth, really very often miss the point, if they don’t somehow have the language read to them, if they don’t really hear what authentic practice is on that.  ‘Cause the accentuation is so","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=583.0,615.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/252","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Same thing with a lot of, quite a lot of Russian music, although that’s entered our mainstream more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But you could say the same thing about every language.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  You do say the same thing about every language, indeed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, this would relate to the whole question — and I don’t know, it doesn’t matter where either of us stands on it — but the business of translation, whether opera in translation, or whatever.  But I mean, it, what you’re saying is essentially what I tell my students, too — that language itself is part of the sound, it’s part of the","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=615.0,639.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/253","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e It determines, in very many cases.  I think, if language is properly used, it determines the sound, it determines the accentuations, it determines the character of the piece.  You know, I mean, what language are you talking about — opera in translation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course, there’s the famous business about Verdi not wanting one of his operas to be performed in Paris until he himself had overseen the translation into French.  And he obviously wanted to have a proper translation of it.  But he was not against opera being in another language.  But somehow, it had to be done well.  But that’s another story.  Not","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=639.0,669.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/254","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You mean, opera’s different from lieder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes, I think so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Anyway, because of…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, you can’t imagine…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Can you imagine Schubert being sung in English or in — you know, sure, it would be disturbing, I think.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Was the Yiddish language, would you say, the primary language, spoken language in your household?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Absolutely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  As children…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  As children, it was Yiddish.  Russian as a secret language, to avoid our, our understanding about what our parents were talking about.  But English, well ought to.  It was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Both your parents spoke Russian?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Both my parents spoke Russian.  I think my mother’s Russian was not terribly","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=669.0,702.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/255","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But your father’s Russian was Russian?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  My father was Russian.  It’s rather than Ukrainian, as far as I","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=702.0,707.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/256","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Which indicates a kind of, as far as I look at these things, historically, I mean, it was the intelligentsia of Jewry who spoke Russian.  I mean…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  You know, somebody asked me this question recently, about whether my father’s language was actually Ukrainian or Russian.  And I didn’t not know that it was Ukrainian.  But how could it not have been Ukrainian in the very beginning, when he was from this little town of Czetcas, which is outside Kiev?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=707.0,732.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/257","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But on the other hand, my father was a remarkably self-determining person, who really, in many ways, formed himself.  For example, the Yiddish that he must have spoken in the shtetl and in the early days in Kiev was probably a, a much more corrupt and much more irregular vernacular than what he later came to speak.  Because he allied himself later with the pure vowel formations and constructions of what, so-called literataci Yiddish.  And he would not deviate from that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=732.0,769.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/258","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"That, for him, was the high road of — the, the aspect of Yiddish culture that he wished to really promulgate was the aspect of its ascendancy, the aspect of its sophistication.  The aspect where it could really be put on a par with any other literary expression of any, any other country.  Rather than, let’s say, a dialect or a jargon.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=769.0,793.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/259","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Your father picked up on a, on an emerging, rather late in the game tradition, in terms of compared to Western music…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …when he did the perfection of the genre of Yiddish Lieder.  So you mentioned some of the people who had worked earlier, you mentioned Achron.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Hmmm-mmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, I mean, I think it’s generally acknowledged that your father brought this art form to its peak.  And I say that not, I mean, that’s just, I think, generally acknowledged.  But preceding him, there weren’t too many generations of, of anything in terms of Yiddish art music.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=793.0,829.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/260","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Very little.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Because it didn’t begin until this century, actually.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Exactly.  And with — what is it, with the Petersburg group, the St. Petersburg group?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.  With the Petersburg group.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Was Rossovsky one of the people in that group?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  One of them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  And — yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And Rossovsky was just a few songs, and…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=829.0,841.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/261","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Yes.  Almost all of them just wrote a few songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Just a few.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I mean, the person that my father admired more than any was — in cheder, what’s his name?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Milner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Milner.  Milner was like a demigod for my father.  The taste, the, the absolutely definable sense of Yiddish accentuation and, and nuance.  That rang absolutely true for my father.  Plus, it wasn’t just the Yiddish character of it — it was the taste and the refinement of, of","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=841.0,877.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/262","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  He would have been really gratified to know things that are just happening now, you know, they’re just finding Milner’s archives in — because Milner is one of the people who did not leave the Soviet Union.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And there were whole operas of Milner that are, that they’re just beginning to find now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Really?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Because it was hidden.  They didn’t…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I didn’t know","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=877.0,899.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/263","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  …destroy anything, the way the Nazis did.  Well, the Nazis didn’t destroy it — they were also going to build a museum to the lost, to the extinct race, too.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Milner, Milner he could not have met.  Did he meet — well, and then, of course, he wouldn’t have met Joel Engel, even though he left…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Well, where would Engel have been?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Palestine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He would have been in Palestine?  Probably didn’t meet him.  But he, he admired Engel’s","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=899.0,917.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/264","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And what, but what about Achron?  He was probably…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He loved Achron’s work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did he ever, did he ever meet him, did he…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I don’t know that he ever met him.  And I certainly don’t have any recollection of Achron being at the house or anything like that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  There is some correspondence somewhere between your father and one of these people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That may be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But I have to look — it’s in Tischler’s dissertation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Okay.  That may be, but I don’t remember it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Written correspondence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=917.0,936.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/265","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Who were some of the other people who formed, from the point of view of musical people, that your father would have had interaction with in New York?  By the way, I mean, we’re talking about New York now, right?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  New York — well, I’m talking about New York, where I was brought up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who were some of the other…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Some of the other people who were in that circle, who he…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=936.0,952.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/266","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Who he did, that he did associate with.  I mean, I’m trying to create a kind of a context, because, you know, there are different types of Yiddishistes.  I mean, there are the more folksy people, then there are the, then there’s the Hoch Yiddish, the literati, and so forth.  I mean, certainly, certainly, you didn’t mix with the Yiddish theater crowd.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He didn’t mix, but he knew them all.  I mean, he knew the Rumshinskys…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He did?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, sure.  Of course.  I did, too.  Oh, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI mean, from a personal point of view, these were not enemies.  These were colleagues.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd what was the name of the guy who had the thing on the radio for years, on WEVD?  Who had, who was very current then?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  A composer or…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=952.0,986.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/267","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Yeah, a composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Olshinetsky, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Olshinetsky was one.  And there are a whole bunch of people in that circle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Shulmeivitch and all that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That my father knew.  And he didn’t really like the music.  Because that was exactly what he was trying to rise above.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=986.0,1003.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/268","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I don’t say, I don’t even think it was a matter of rising above.  His natural tendency was to be an aristocrat, to be a, a musical snob.  He’s, his basic aspiration was to the great music of the Western tradition.  I mean, for him, Stravinsky was a, a discoverer, but he wasn’t a weirdo.  For him, Hindemitt was a, a great composer, and not merely somebody who, in the, in the description of his circle, cricht, cricht al gleich avent.  You know, he was not…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What about somebody like Weinberg?  Jacob Weinberg?  Was he part of…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He found, yes they were friends.  They were friends for all time.  I mean, always, for many, many years.  My father found Weinberg an uninspired composer, but a very, very good kapellmeister.  You know, a good, solid musician.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1003.0,1048.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/269","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What about Maurice Rauch?  Was he part of that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah, through the Sacred School, but I don’t, I don’t know about my father’s opinions about him.  I wouldn’t know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I mean, that he was colleagues with somebody who, like a musicologist, like Eric Werner.  Who was also somewhat of a personal friend.  But he had no respect whatsoever for Werner’s so-called compositions.  Which are, I think his opinion was correct about that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, well, they weren’t…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That’s it.  Well, but if you knew Werner, you knew that he put a high stock in it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah, he did.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1048.0,1082.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/270","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But then, there were other people whom he, who my father had long relationships with.  For example, like Reuven Korsakov.  Now, Reuven Korsakov, in the early days, was not a composer concerned with Yiddish or with Jewish music at all.  And it was my father who really persuaded him, cajoled him, shamed him, finally, into writing and committing himself to Jewish music.  And Reuven, of course, made significant contributions, as a result of","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1082.0,1107.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/271","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"They — I don’t know what the, what happened in the very end.  They did not end up being very good friends.  They were neighbors.  Korsakov just lived down the block.  And he was really a grand fellow, a fine man.  A good musician, too.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1107.0,1123.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/272","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Now, you, you obviously exhibited your musical talent very, at a young age, ‘cause who doesn’t, in among composers?  And you came to a, you were a pianist at an early age, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  Evidently, I was improvising fixed, formed pieces at the age of four or five.  I have some pieces that my father wrote down.  At the point where he realized that every time I played it, it was the same, he would write it down.  And then I’d go on to the next.  So I have pieces from the age of five, six.  Which are really fully-formed, perfectly decent little pieces.  Not really baby pieces — they’re nice.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1123.0,1156.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/273","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And they’re very Jewish.  They’re more of a, like a Hasidic melody than anything else.  With, of course, a bit of accentuation, like seconds, and so on and so forth.  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And then you, you went on to…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  And then I was trained.  As a matter of fact, following those trembling signs of talent, I was put into training as a pianist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who’d you study with?  Do you","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1156.0,1186.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/274","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  I studied first at the Manhattan School with some teacher named Miss Brown.  I guess I studied with my mother a little bit.  Never with my father, by the way.  And then, eventually, with a neighbor named Janet Glass, Janet Altshuler Glass, who was a spectacular teacher and pianist.  A wonderful woman.  Later on, with a teacher, with Morris Rosenthal’s wife, Hedrich Rosenthal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Maurice Rosenthal?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The pianist?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  With his wife.  Who was teacher.  Charles Rosen’s teacher.  She was Charles Rosen’s teacher.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCharles was 15; I was ten.  You know, I, we, we would meet.  Charles was unbelievably talented.  I mean, he could, he could rip off anything at that, even at that age.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1186.0,1226.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/275","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then afterwards, an interesting teacher named Joseph Fiedelman from — also, I think, a Russian Jew originally, or, but somebody who had concertized as a young man in Europe.  After a year of study with him, he was taken off, he was drafted into the army.  And I was bereft.  I, I loved this man.  He was a great teacher.  And he was put in the intelligence services, where he was a polylinguist, so he was able to help.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1226.0,1252.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/276","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then I studied at Juilliard, with Loni Epstein, who was a Mozart specialist.  I didn’t study Mozart with her, but she was my basic teacher.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1252.0,1280.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/277","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then, at the point when I went away to college, by the time I was 16 or 17, I really was no longer interested in pursuing a piano career.  Before that, I knew I didn’t want to do that.  The idea, number one, of traveling with, the idea of repeating programs over and over again really interested me very little.  And composition was becoming more and more interesting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  By the time you entered university, you were…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I was committed to being a composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …you were a composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  Yeah.  And there were, there was a lot of conflict, actually, about that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou have to understand that I was fulfilling my mother and father’s dream about what kind of a, what kind of a follow-up, what kind of progeny they would like to have.  And so, I was put into this classic situation of being drilled to within an inch of my life, and really not having a very private life, in many ways.  It was a rather constricted life, with not a whole lot of recreation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat is to say it wasn’t a slavery, but if a boy of ten, 11, 12 had to practice — systematically practice — three or four hours every day, before he went to school, and then when he came back, and then, you know, if I went out and played baseball with my friends, or stickball or stoop ball, or football, touch football — whatever it was — nevertheless, the, you know, I would have to fill in my, my practice in to the full quota.  And then there would be homework, and one thing and another.  So the days were very, very full.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1280.0,1346.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/278","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I must say, I remember my childhood not as a sense of, with a sense that there was daylight in it at all.  It all seems in shadow.  It all seems rather gloomy and overcast. Only in the summers did I feel I came alive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In the summers.  But was your father involved in those days, yet, in the Yiddish camp, the Yiddishiste summer camp?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.  No.  In those days — well, yeah.  Part of the time.  There was, there a long sandwich, in a sense.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1346.0,1372.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/279","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In the earliest days, when I was a small child, he was involved in one of the Yiddish organizational camps, Boiberik, in Rhinebeck, New York, as the music director.  And that was quite wonderful.  They were rather significant musicians who came through there as children.  William Kapell, the pianist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, yes.  William Kapell would wow everybody by sitting down…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Wait, wait, wait.  William Kapell…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  William Kapell.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …was at Boiberik?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  William Kapell was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He came from a Jewish — I know he was Jewish, but…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I’m telling you.  I’m telling you.  Well, he was no sport.  He was there for the summer.  And he would wow everybody by playing on a furshlugginer upright The Fire Dance.  And everybody would go, “Wow.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was a little boy, and so, I don’t have much recollection.  But I certainly remember him playing The Fire Dance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd it, you know, how things come full circle.  The remarkable musician, Robert Levin, the Mozart maven, and altogether remarkably gifted musician, is living in Cambridge, and teaching at Harvard.  And he is going to play a large piece of mine at the Kapell, during this Kapell competition.  There is also evidently some sort of concerts that are given by members of the jury, as well.  And I, when Levin announced this to me about three weeks or so ago, I was really very pleased.  You know, the way the circle closes in that way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1372.0,1453.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/280","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Another person who went to that camp was Harold Shapiro.  And he was just as, as opinionated and as definite about what he, what he needed to do then as he is now.  At his advanced age.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Was, that was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Anyway…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, that was one.  Then there was Camp, wasn’t…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Well, Camp…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Kindermain, Kinderwelt?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Kinderwelt was a good deal later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Okay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  In the meantime, when he, when he left Boiberik, he would spend his summers at a farm in the Catskills.  And he would take, we would take rooms or a cottage where there would always be a barn or a chicken coop.  He loved to work in those places.  He’d rent a broken-down upright piano.  He’d set himself up in the barn, and he would take his long cigarette holder, and he would go in there and compose all summer.  That was his greatest pleasure.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1453.0,1504.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/281","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And during those times, during the summer, I really had a good deal more of a real boy’s life.  I went out with my air rifle, I went out fishing, I went out hunting, I, you know, spent a lot of time in the woods mushroom picking and fruit searching and berry picking, and all sorts of things.  Which were fun.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I loved the summers.  And as I say, those were the times when, as a boy, I felt I came alive.  With friends, with companions, and so on and so","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1504.0,1532.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/282","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then, when I would have to go back to the, to the gulag of, of Manhattan and practice again and be a good boy and submit, and so on and so forth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: Your university, your undergraduate was where? Was it… \u003cbr\u003eWYNER: Yale \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: Yale yeah. You were going to automatically to devote at least some or major portion of your attention to so-called Western music.  I mean, and not necessarily related to Jewish themes.  You were going to do both, or you were just going to go wherever the road would take you,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1532.0,1564.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/283","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, I was, at that time — Neil, I was not at all concerned with Jewish music.  Through all the time I was growing up.  I didn’t write any Jewish music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was saying that my very earliest attempts or, or probes were rather Hasidic.  But very rapidly, I was more reflecting the classical cosmopolitan upbringing that I had, in music as well.  I mean, my, there was no effort to inculcate any kind of Jewish cultural consciousness in me.  It was around me, but I was not concerned with it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1564.0,1600.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/284","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  That wasn’t the major motivation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  By no means.  It was simply to write music like all, everybody else was writing music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  To be a good composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  A good composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.  You were more concerned with what you would come out with in the way of a string quartet or whatever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Exactly.  Exactly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And you weren’t thinking about continuing your father’s Yiddish lieder at the time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  By no means.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How did he feel about that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, he had no — he, he was not committed to, to continuing that, that, that line of work in the way that he had done.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And nearly everything…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He didn’t feel, he did not feel that, he did not lay that kind of trip on me.  Ever.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1600.0,1629.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/285","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I remember, on his deathbed, he said something which was, I think, symbolic of the kind of philosophy that he had.  My brother was on one side of the bed and I was on the other.  He took our hands and he said, “You know, take care of mother.  And all I wish is that you both be honest men.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1629.0,1648.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/286","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e Of course, I think, that’s all included in there, isn’t","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1648.0,1666.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/287","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Well, I mean, some people would say it should be more, you know, the more parochial than that, more particular, more focused.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, he philosophically discusses Hebrew with their honesty…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Well, the right, the heir…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Honesty to oneself…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Honesty to oneself…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I would say it’s pretty inclusive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  I mean, but the ultimate thing is the righteousness attitude.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  So, I mean, he was not interested in whether I would become a Jewish composer or not.  What he would, I think, be shocked by is if there were indications of rejection.  That if there were, if there was a sign in me that I did not want to identify myself with being Jewish.  That was another thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1666.0,1699.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/288","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But your father was fully trained, I mean, fully a musician in every way.  I mean, and he wasn’t a total, a parochial composer.  So obviously…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Exactly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …you had exposure in your childhood, I assume, to the full range of, of Western music.  Or some…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.  And to a much larger proportion than the Jewish","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1699.0,1718.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/289","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e I mean, for example, your father was director of the Workmens’ Circle Chorus for awhile, right?  But that didn’t mean that, I assume — I mean you can tell me — that, as a family, you weren’t all exposed to choral music of the Western tradition.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1718.0,1738.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/290","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e It was my father who took me to the first performance of the Brahms Requiem I ever heard, which floored me.  To the performances that Bob Shaw would be leading, of the Collegiate Chorale.  To all the concerts that he thought I would be interested in, in Carnegie Hall, whether it was Stravinsky conducting, or Raginsky, or whoever.  To all the concerts that he could get into of Toscanini in Studio H, or whatever that studio was at NBC.  To all the recitals, the lieder concerts, the opera — anything that —it was not at all, it was basically a secular education.  And secular cultural exposure.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1738.0,1774.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/291","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Because, first of all, you have to realize, my father was very much, at a certain level, a deeply secular Jew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What does that mean?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It means a non-observant Jew.  It means a Jew who had very strong anti-clerical feelings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1774.0,1793.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/292","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e Now, very strongly anti-clerical feelings.  At the same time, he was a profoundly religious man.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis basic tenet was to concern himself with the relation of man and God.  That’s where it all was.  But that it would need an intermediary like a rabbi or a cantor who officially were installed as the emissaries, as the negotiators between a simple Jew and his, and his deity, that was unacceptable to him.  All he would talk about were the hypocrites of the clerical world.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1793.0,1836.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/293","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And people find this very curious, because they often say, “Was he a cantor?”  Or, “How come he spent all those years in a position as a, as a music director in a synagogue?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, for one thing, ech mir a synagogue.  I mean, you go to temple, someplace like Central Synagogue, and when you were at a sermon or a place, a service that was presided over by Jonah B. Wise, you were in Middle America Protestantism.  It had, it bore no relation to any aspect conceivable in Judaism.  It was, it was really another experience altogether.  It was a thing utterly devoid of warmth, of, of the","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1836.0,1882.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/294","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The Hebrew itself was pronounced in a manner which made it sound like sort of failed English.  And the services themselves were about as warm as a leftover fish.  And that was the synagogue that my father was working at all those","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1882.0,1900.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/295","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And he stayed in that situation not for religious reasons — he stayed in it because, for musical reasons.  And because he thought he could do some reform and some good, and raise the level.  That’s what he really devoted himself, to the extent it was possible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd it was a fight all the way.  From beginning to end.  To do as he did.  The first performance in New York of the Bloch with organ — not with support — the first performance of the Mihaud, possibly the first performance of the Achron, let alone all his own services, and so on and so forth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1900.0,1929.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/296","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And he wrote all those services because, again, his desire to have a religious expression was very strong.  Where else was he going to put it, besides the three other, the two other areas — the Yiddish art song, the organizational choruses, for which he wrote cantatas, sometimes on Yiddish themes, sometimes on universal themes.  Man and the world, once upon a time — you know, things that may have been set in Yiddish, but were of a universal theme.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1929.0,1957.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/297","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And in the synagogue, where he could write a quite sophisticated kind of music.  He had a good, professional chorus, he had a fine professional organist, who could execute these things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo the major motivation was a kind of personal religious expression, and the possibility for writing really good music.  But to put him in the context of a religious revival of some kind, or of any, in any way having a good relation with the Orthodox or with established religion, would be a great mistake of what his temperament was.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1957.0,1995.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/298","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We never went to shul.  I barely was bar mitzvah.  I think the only reason I, I was bar mitzvah was not because, you know, there wasn’t a desire to do that, but because my father intervened.  I was such a rebellious student.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI mean, just laughing at the nonsense and the, and the poor teaching of the bar mitzvah preparation at the Central Synagogue school.  It was so without taste and without any intelligence.  It was baby stuff.  And I disliked it, and I","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=1995.0,2023.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/299","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, since I was the son of the musical director, they thought — besides that, I, I wrote a piece, I wrote a song, I wrote a prayer, Frederick Lechtner sang it in the, and you know, it seemed like a contribution, et cetera, et cetera.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt that time, I’ll tell you, my, my relation to, to my Jewishness was in, in question, actually.  At that point.  In the early teens.  You know, it took me many, many years to come to a, a change, in a sense, of attitude, about","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2023.0,2053.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/300","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Actually, there was a significant moment that that happened, and I can talk to you about that in in a minute.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Please.  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, well, it actually happened quite unexpectedly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI graduated from, from school, from undergraduate school, in 1950.  And there was nothing really for me to do that summer, and Max Helfman, who was involved with the Brandeis Institute — camp and institute — in California, got a hold of my father and said, “You know, this would be interesting for Yehudi to do.”  And I reluctantly acceded to the","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2053.0,2082.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/301","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And the next thing I knew, I was in California, and really had a fantastic experience.  It was an amazing indoctrination.  That was one of those atmospheres which can detoxify or indoctrinate anybody.  It was brilliant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, so many people have said similar things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Both from a musical point of view…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …from the Judaic point of view, down.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2082.0,2105.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/302","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I mean, this seems to have been an unparalleled incident in American Jewish history, this whole Camp Brandeis, Brandeis-Bardin in California.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But of course, it’s gone.  I mean, in terms of the musical family.  This is something that is, to me, an unthinkable thing, that nobody has tried to or cared enough, with all of the billions of dollars that have been spent, and that, and compared to Helfmann’s day, to, to restore that.  I don’t know how we account for that.  Only so much can be attributed, no matter how much, to Helfmann’s own personality, or his own, you know, tenaciousness, tenacity.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2105.0,2137.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/303","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But it, you know, I mean, they do some things there, of course.  But not, here, here are you telling me this.  I’ve never heard this from you before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I’m telling you this…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You were…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I was profoundly affected.  And I must say, the, the spring, the powerful spring that fed this was not Max.  It was Shlomo","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2137.0,2159.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/304","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Now, Shlomo Bardin was a charismatic leader of the highest capacity and quality.  He was really magic.  And there was a good reason why people thought that he really was slated to be Prime Minister of Israel.  That’s the kind of leader he was.  He was very established.  That is, his foundation of the personality that was of great gravity and density.  And he was charming, he was full of remarkable insights, profound insights, into every individual he came in contact","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2159.0,2195.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/305","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And he really had the psychology and the smarts, the acumen, to somehow see into people’s souls and to manage to manipulate their, their thinking, so that they came around to an acceptance of who they were.  I’m talking now about the young, rebellious, and often negative Jewish clientele who went there.  The university-educated, the con, the, the suburbanites who were, you know, concerned with shopping, and so on and so","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2195.0,2225.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/306","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And, and Shlomo was the one who assembled the team.  And of course, Max was the ideal musical presence in that situation to, to, I would say implement, from an artistic and musical idea, some of these same sentiments that Shlomo had.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  ‘Cause your father knew Helfmann well?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Very.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In New York?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Very.  They were good friends.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You weren’t synagogue-goers as a","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2225.0,2249.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/307","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Not at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Your father wasn’t there, and maybe it was even partially positional, though I don’t know how much they could have paid in those days, the, the choir master, the choir director…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Very little.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Not enough to make it…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Very little.  But not to forget that it was on the Message of Israel every Sunday.  Which gave it a national exposure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2249.0,2264.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/308","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That there was no relation to Orthodoxy, you didn’t have to tell me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No, we…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Or you wouldn’t have been going to Yale as a composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You know, a lot of people who were involved in Yiddishiste, Yiddish cultural things had a total replacement for synagogue altogether.  Complete replacement known as shule, you know, the Workmen’s Circle shule.  Your family wasn’t involved in that as a substitute?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.  There was no substitute.  Officially.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2264.0,2291.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/309","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You know, the third Seder, they don’t have, they don’t have seders, they don’t believe in it.  They have their Third Seder that they made up, which has a whole — but that wasn’t, that was yet, that wasn’t part of your…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.  I mean, we had our seders at home.  We usually would have a seder either at the house or we’d have a Seder with my grandparents.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2291.0,2306.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/310","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Your father, because even though your father was involved with the Workmen’s Circle Chorus…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He would do, very often, he would do what?  A third Seder with them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  But that was his job.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  In the ballroom.  Of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But I mean, in terms of, in terms of your own family life, you were not Workmen’s Circle…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You weren’t Arbeter","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2306.0,2318.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/311","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …culturally.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No, no.  No.  There were plenty of people from the Arbeter Ring who were, you know, were visitors, guests, friends, et cetera, et cetera.  But not officially in any way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd for example, my Yiddish training, such as it was, was done with a tutor.  I never went to school.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You didn’t go to the Peretz school?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I didn’t go to the Peretz school.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Or the Sholem Aleichem School?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I didn’t go to the Sholem Aleichem School.  Neither.  But a woman came to the house, and for awhile, I studied reading and writing with her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I wish I had gone to school.  Actually, I wish I had, now, looking back, and for many, many years.  I would say, for the last 35 or 40 years, I regret the fact that I don’t have a Hebrew background.  That’s a real lacuna in my life.  That really","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2318.0,2360.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/312","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What was the, the mood — that affected you, in terms of a future composer and so forth, in terms of these years which were the formative years of Zionism, of the transformation of Palestine into the State of Israel, and so forth?  I mean, uninvolved?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Uninvolved. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2360.0,2380.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/313","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I do think, partially, when you were talking about the restoration of the influence of something like the Brandeis Institute, that part of the potency of that had to do with the, with the fact that the, that Israel had just been founded.  There were all kinds of songs that Max was using that were from the new Israel that seemed to be — rather than the, you know, the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s funny you say that.  That’s my explanation, by the way, for these things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2380.0,2408.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/314","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  The same thing with why the Zamir Chorale in New York doesn’t exist anymore.  Because, and I don’t know.  I sometimes think exactly what you said — that it wouldn’t matter how much money were allocated or how many personalities came along.  The mood, it’s not exotic anymore.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That was, that was a euphoric…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Well, but you know, what’s exotic now is the whole resurgence of klezmer music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That’s remarkable.  And not only here, but of course, all through Germany and all through Central","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2408.0,2431.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/315","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Just straight out, this is a deliberately unfair question.  What is klezmer music and what is klezmer?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It’s basically street and shtetl music that are played by, usually, a family of instruments that are quite portable.  And music that was done for, obviously, weddings, festivities, bar mitzvahs, brises, banquets — any kind of public","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2431.0,2453.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/316","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e Would you agree or would your father have agreed that the same thing is true, in terms of the Ukrainian-Polish…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2453.0,2482.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/317","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Influences?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …influences?  And melodically, we’re talking about, now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The same thing is true as Yiddish folk songs?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes, I think they, I think he would.  Perhaps he would say yeah, but the folk song very often has some influence by cantillation, by trope.  Yeah,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2482.0,2501.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/318","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And there is, again, once again, the connection between language — I mean, the instrumental…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Of course.  That’s what I’m saying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It takes on a totally different thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It takes on a…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, I, I do a trick at a lecture which — and I don’t know how you would react to this, but I’ll tell you what it is.  I mean, and I’ve done this in, in London, recently.  Where I take our men’s choir, and they can, they can imitate Hasidim at a febrengen.  Yeah?  And they sing the following,  “Oh…” and I put it on tape.  And then I show them an example of something.  (sings) “Oy, oy oy oy…”  And I play--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2501.0,2542.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/319","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Now this is an authentic folk song.  You know what it is.  It’s the slow, it’s the second theme and the third movement to the Dvorak Violin Concerto.  But because I’m having them inflect it that way, only a violinist — and only once did the, did somebody who was a conductor whisper in my ear, at while I was playing, “Isn’t that the Dvorak?”  I’m fooling them.  You see?  But it’s, who would","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2542.0,2565.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/320","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Well, the “Oy” helps.  And then, of course…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s what I’m saying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  You know, what it is…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s the inflection of the sound, but otherwise, if you hear it in the (sings) bam-bam-bam….\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I remember, the first time that I heard that, I said, well — now, Dvorak is not probably — I mean, some composers might have, but Dvorak is not one who hung around to hear this in Hasidic circles.  Nor did that kind of melody filter out into the streets, because Hasidim were pretty, were so insular.  That it’s a, the type of melody that…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2565.0,2593.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/321","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  We’re talking about a common origin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Sure.  It was in the air, it’s Slavic, it’s, you know, it’s part of that whole Mittel Europa situation, Eastern, Middle — you, I mean, that’s, you know, still part of the same basic cultural ambiance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe, we, you know, we’re, we’re, in many ways, imprisoned by borders that we learned, you know.  Czechoslovakia is here, and Hungary is there.  And not really seeing that a lot of this stuff is porous.  There were large immigrations.  There were certainly traveling bands, and so on and so","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2593.0,2622.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/322","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e After your father had passed away, I mean, until recently, your whole, the whole association with, with klezmer — I mean, I think, I mean, I knew your father, and I think — not terribly well, but I mean, I knew him at the meetings of the Jewish Welfare Board and debates about various subjects that should be chosen or not chosen for the annual theme of the, of Jewish Music Month, and that, things of that sort.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2622.0,2644.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/323","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e He would feel extremely happy at the fact of it, but the music he would have found, I believe he would have found corrupt.  I think he would have found it…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2644.0,2665.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/324","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  As concert music?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  As…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  As opposed to background music?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.  As opposed to real klezmer music.  He would have found it show biz.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, oh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He would have found it, the Hollywood influence of it.  He would have found it just, it would not have been, it’s…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That, you and I grabbed that, there’s no question.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  That’s all I…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I should have…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  But the idea that there would be klezmer concerts would give him — well, he was perfectly happy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI remember going to a performance of Fiddler on the Roof.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And what did he think of that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He thought that was not bad.  I, I thought, I was more condemnatory than he was, but he thought not bad.  Not bad…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2665.0,2692.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/325","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Did he hear it with Mostel?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  With… yes, of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Or Luther Adler?  Mostel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah, Mostel, sure.  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd it was, he thought it was not bad.  I mean, he was not, you know, he didn’t think it was totally authentic.  He was still, it was Broadway, but he thought it was not bad.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s what I thought.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It did more good than harm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Until, until, and now — I thought that then.  Now I think it did more harm than good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But for a different reason.  Because it glorifies the shtetl.  It glorifies illiteracy, basically.  But you know, to the public, as a romantic ideal.  But at that time, we weren’t thinking that","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2692.0,2723.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/326","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  No.  All you have to do is — they’re glorifying the shtetl.  All you have go is, is that section of Israel, of, of Jerusalem.  Where the shtetl exists.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yes, but it glorifies…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  You know, I mean…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It glorifies the opposite of your father’s type of, of Yiddish literary circles.  You come away, I mean, the general public — and we didn’t think of it at that time, because we didn’t know what kind of influence it would have.  That, that was \u003cINAUDIBLE\u003e, I","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2723.0,2746.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/327","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But when I now look back, I would say it could be, I, one could make a case it’s the worst thing that happened to our, to the American understanding of European Yiddish culture, because they think that that’s the only type…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That’s the problem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  They don’t see that there was a Yiddish literary circle in Warsaw, that there wasn’t always persecution, even…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2746.0,2763.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/328","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Of course.  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That there were no good, great, literary — you know the shtetl becomes the model.  But nobody was talking that way 20 years ago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That’s true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  But my father would have felt that if that is taken, if that, in, in the characterization that you’ve given it, has taken over as the emblem for Jewish culture, then he would have been very upset.  The idea of concerts being given like that would have made him perfectly happy, as long as it didn’t obliterate the","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2763.0,2792.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/329","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What would he have said, what would you say, Perlman — have you seen the Fiddler in the House, or whatever it is?  The Yitzhak Perlman, there’s the CD and then there’s video?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He asked me to do the arrangements for the CD about ten years ago, and I said, “Yitzhak, you’re asking me to do this.  Do you know my music?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Well, how did you come to asking me this?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe said, “Somebody told me you could do a good job.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2792.0,2813.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/330","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I said, “This is not my thing.  You know, you can find people who could do much better arrangements.  If you’re interested in the kind of music I write, that’s another story.  I’d be happy to do something for you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe said, “All right, let’s just talk.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo we didn’t do anything.  I was not going to pursue it.  But yes, I know what he did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  For what it is, it’s well-done.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2813.0,2831.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/331","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And that is an authentic.  In that they are not using electronic instruments, in other words — electric violins.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Okay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s a group that you, approximates without rebuilding certain archaic instruments from…but that part is okay. But there’s one statement he makes there — Perlman — and this, he says, “This is real Jewish music.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2831.0,2852.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/332","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Thank you.  Thank you very much, Yitzhak.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  All right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What would…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  What’s my reaction?  I would thank him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What would be your father’s reaction?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  My father would say, “Thank you very much, Yitzhak.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I don’t mean his public","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2852.0,2870.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/333","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e It’s so parochial.  Not only is it parochial, it’s also, I, I think it’s very, frankly, very low-class.  And without any inspiration, without any aspiration, without any, also, without any real notion of what’s possible and what’s there.  It’s degrading.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know, in Schindler’s List, John did a pretty good soundtrack, all things considered.  Partly it’s not","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2870.0,2900.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/334","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e Except that we’re doing it to","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2900.0,2931.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/335","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, commercial forces are doing it.  Whatever that means, we’re doing it to ourselves.  We’re, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I mean, let me tell you something that happened just very recently.  I, I flew to Jerusalem at the end of November to be one of the final jurors in the Leonard Bernstein International Jerusalem Competition for Composition this year.  And I was there with a number of my colleagues, and we were treated to a limousine from the airport to","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2931.0,2952.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/336","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"While we were in the car, in the limo, the driver was playing tapes of music.  “How do you like our music?” he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, I’m hearing this, what amounts to Euro-pop, and I, Israeli music is Euro-pop.  I said, “I don’t like it.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2952.0,2970.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/337","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"“What?  You don’t like it?  What’s the matter with you?  You like that American stuff?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “No, not particularly.  It depends which American stuff.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “Wait.  I’ll pay something else for you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd he puts in another tape.  Etz Erget.  Plays me something again that’s more Euro-pop, but with a faster beat, or something like that.  “How do you like that?  That’s wonderful.  This is my","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2970.0,2991.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/338","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I said, “No, it’s not mine.  I don’t care for it too much.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “What do you like?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Well, I think the greatest popular music in the Near East is Egyptian classical popular music from Cairo.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What?”  He says, “What’s the matter with you?  What, that’s terrible music.”  He says, “My father likes it, but what does he","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=2991.0,3010.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/339","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I said, “Well, I think that’s the finest music.  And you know, I hear it in the, it the tsuks, but I don’t hear, I don’t hear it on the radio, normally.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “That’s terrible music.  Let me play you something else.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo he plays me something else, and it’s even worse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I said, “I don’t care for that too much.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “What do you know about music?”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3010.0,3029.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/340","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I laughed.  I said, “Well, I don’t really know very much, but I know what I like.”  I gave him that kind of an answer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut here was a, a situation where we’re doing it to ourselves.  What is the so-called Israeli music now?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know, the kind of thing, for example, that was coming out of Israel in the, let’s say the late ‘40s, early ‘50s, the sort of thing that Max somehow grasped a hold of, had quite a lot of power.  Old, it was, it had Russian influences, Polish influences, Central European influences.  But there was a kind of identity to it, a kind of vigor.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3029.0,3062.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/341","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Now it’s all been swallowed up by this — it’s really Euro-pop.  With Hebrew texts.  Yes.  It doesn’t sound any different from what you get on European, on, any different from what you get on Rome radio or anyplace else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It began with those Hasidic pop festivals…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  You know all that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …in the ‘70s, and all that junk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  You know all that stuff.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You had — I mean, to switch to a higher level of music, though — I mean, you have a relationship with Israeli colleagues.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3062.0,3087.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/342","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Very little.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Almost none at all.  No, no.  I mean, I just received a letter from Menachim Tour, and I know Noam Sharif a little bit, but no, I really don’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You mean, there’s still now, there’s still a kind of a wall of divide between Israeli composers and…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, I don’t know if there’s a…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …and many American composers?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  …wall or divide.  They, you remember there was the festival a few years ago, with concerts at Merkin Hall…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s that one I did.  That was in ’89, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  The one you did.  Which was a very edifying and very worthwhile project.  And I heard some music and composers, the music of composers whom I had a lot of respect for.  But it was, it didn’t follow up in any way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3087.0,3120.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/343","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  They didn’t follow up because, because I went on to the next thing.  I mean, that was, but I mean, people did come.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut it hadn’t happened. But I was about to ask you, how is it different from your fathers’ relationship to Israeli composers?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: Well mine? I wish I can say I had a relationship. I am trying  to establish  some right now as a result of this recent visit with a number of people — conductors like Mendy Rodan and some members of the Israel Symphony, Israel Philharmonic and some — as I say, some composers like Menachem and others.  But I, I don’t have an ongoing relationship with them at all. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3120.0,3155.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/344","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Is your music played in Israel at all?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No, not at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Not at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Not at all.  I don’t think — not, not to my knowledge.  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, would you say the situation hasn’t changed much, in terms of very little Israeli — I’m not talking about pop things.  But very, very little of even someone of the stature of Yosef Tal.  Who has to be, I don’t know…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He’s a wonderful composer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3155.0,3175.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/345","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  …as one of the — I mean internationally.  You know, if you ask people who aren’t Jewish, who don’t know Israeli composers, if they only know one Israeli composer, I’m talking about, you know, a university type composers around the country, they’re probably going to…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Tal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …they’ll mention Tal even before Ben Chaim, because that’s too folksy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3175.0,3192.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/346","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  All right.  So even in that sense…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …where is a Tal string quartet ever played in the United States?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  On the other hand, where is your music or, or Hugo Weisgall’s music, or — I don’t even care if the person’s Jewish or not, you know, it doesn’t matter.  Where are they played in Israel?  And that situation hasn’t changed much?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I don’t know.  I have, I can only speak about my own music in this.  I don’t know about Hugo’s music, et cetera, et cetera.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI noticed, in the bios of some of the judges who were Israeli, that their music had been exposed very broadly in Europe.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3192.0,3225.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/347","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Whose music?  The Israeli composers?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Some of the Israeli composers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  In Europe.  Yes, yes.  But not, I don’t notice that there’s much in the States.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, but in Europe, there’s a big thing, for instance.  That’s a whole political…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That’s another issue.  Yes, that’s another venue for them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I just got annoyed with a situation in England, like this where they’re going to put on one, if they have one big night to put on something, a showing of American Jewish composers…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh.  Aaron Copland again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  At most.  Most.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Most I think would be Bernstein and Gershwin…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …even though his Rhapsody in Blue…  It isn’t that much different than Israel, then.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  ‘Cause aside from Bernstein or maybe Lucas Foss, because he was there, maybe.  But outside of that….  And Yehudi Wyner, who is…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3225.0,3264.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/348","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  …one of the major composers in America…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.  Not done.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Not done.  Not that I know of.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And your father’s Yiddish songs probably are never…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, I think never.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Never?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Never, except maybe by visiting — you know, I mean, well, of course that whole genre.  The business of giving lieder concerts is, is not exactly vital, these days.  It’s relatively moribund.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3264.0,3284.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/349","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  I mean, it’s, it’s soaking in formaldehyde, it seems to me.  And maybe that’s a good thing — it’s waiting.  You know, the music isn’t going to die.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, that’s what we have to do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  Well…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And the… you didn’t, you didn’t carry on that part very much of Yiddish lieder, did you?  Just…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Not at all.  Only in one case, did I write…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  One song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Only one song, and it’s not my own song, really.  It’s a setting.  S'iz nito kayn nekht.  It was published in a volume of collected folk songs.  That’s really a setting.  And of course, it’s a real transformation of a setting.  It’s a rather radical setting, in the Bartôk manner, let’s say.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3284.0,3318.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/350","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But otherwise, no.  I never wrote any Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor example, there are other composers — Marty Bresnick wrote some Yiddish material.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Also, a wonderful composer named Stephen Jaffe.  Do you know Stephen Jaffe at all?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.  He has, ‘cause these are, these are pieces we’re planning to record.  Well, we recorded the Bresnick pieces already, by the way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Mmm-hmmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Those was a choral one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Mmm-hmmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Those are choral, a capella choral pieces.  The Jaffe are with orchestra, I think.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Jaffe is with orchestra, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But lieder-lieder, for voice and piano…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …no one has carried on, really.  I mean, who’s, who has carried on your father’s tradition, then?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Nobody.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3318.0,3353.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/351","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Nobody.  I think David Schiff, perhaps, would have liked to have done some.  I just saw that David had a big piece done in New York yesterday.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  What piece?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  A chamber piece of some kind that was supposed to be quite remarkable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, that would include part of Gimpel?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, Gimpel is so — oh, my father loved Gimpel.  My father was very…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, yeah.  He was so supportive of David’s","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3353.0,3374.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/352","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Interesting.  Because…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …I know, I thought it was an excellent work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  And I haven’t heard of anything that Jacob, that David’s done in years, and now I see there’s a big piece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, no.  Well, he has a CD, he did a service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Well, I know the service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  For when, that he wrote for his wife.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I think the service is quite beautiful, but it’s really basically weak, and it’s second-hand.  It’s not, you know, it really is not, I think, a very, a very deep expression of….  You know, it’s too, very accommodating of a number of, a mélange of different sort of synagogue styles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3374.0,3404.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/353","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  It’s, I find it basically conciliatory, and…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, it’s…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  …suburban.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s for, it’s for, you know, it’s for his wife to sing.  And she’s, sings that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And there was this whole thing that you fortunately for yourself don’t have to deal with, which is the business of female cantor voices not having music.  I mean, you can’t just transpose something up an octave and let it go at that — from a tenor cantor to a soprano.  So there’s virtually no music, really, for — especially for sopranos.  Of","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3404.0,3435.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/354","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Even, even the most radical, what they call egalitarians — and I bridle at that, because that’s not what the word means.  But they, what they mean, is gender-free.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is no music.  And really, things have to be rewritten or written afresh, so that it isn’t, you can’t do a kind of coloratura endlessly, that you could do with a tenor.  And at least many people feel that way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo Schiff tried, and I think that was one of the motivations there.  To write something for, that was specifically written.  Which is why, one of reasons we’ll include it, regardless of the musical merits, because it’s one of the only things that’s really written from, from the beginning for a female voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Right.  And it’s also a decently put together piece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3435.0,3475.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/355","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  He did a professional job.  Gimpel has a lot of, Gimpel has real character, I think.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  I do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What about — I mean, people like Golub?  Did your father ever…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Didn’t think very much of it, but they were, they knew each other.  Certainly.  They were friends.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And it was a much simpler level of…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …of song.  No","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3475.0,3495.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/356","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Yeah.  But I don’t, I don’t remember him really raving over that or committing himself to it very closely, no.  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What about Hebrew lieder?  Did your father ever delve in that?  Did you ever delve into that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No, I didn’t.  And I don’t think he did very much, either.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  His only Hebrew writing was for the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Synagogue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  For the synagogue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  The","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3495.0,3521.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/357","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Otherwise, I mean, and the whole commitment was Yiddish.  That was also, his, he was not a Hebrew — he didn’t know Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But there’s a division, there was a stark division in those days, still, of the Hebraist and the Yiddishistes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Well, he didn’t even really treat it as an ideology.  He simply did not have that kind of a Hebrew background.  \u003cbr\u003eIt wasn’t a, it wasn’t a knowledge or a feeling for the language from within.  I mean, he was trained in cheder as a young man.  But to do, to do the prayers and so on and so forth, so he could, he could conduct a Seder in Hebrew and so on, the rest.  But he really, it was not something that, you","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3521.0,3545.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/358","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I mean, there were those who thought that the Yiddish language should have been chosen as the official language of the Jewish state.  It wasn’t.  It wasn’t 100% certain that Hebrew would be the official language.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No, no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  As a matter of fact, that’s an unusual","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3545.0,3562.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/359","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I remember, when I was walking through parts of Jerusalem with my, one of my sons, who lives there, he pointed out the house where the founder of the Hebrew language — modern Hebrew language — who was that?  Who was that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  His son is the one who wrote that little dictionary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, Weinreich.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, no, no.  Weinreich is the Yiddish dictionary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes, the Yiddish dictionary.  But there’s the — oh, I see.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, no.  If I were, Ben… it’ll come to me in a moment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It doesn’t matter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He wrote the paperback dictionary…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I don’t know it.  But I mean, Adam has pointed out, and he says that…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I want to say Ben Swede, but it isn’t.  But it’s something like that,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3562.0,3592.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/360","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e He pointed out the building where this, this person lived, and where the language was actually formulated.  And that it was the Orthodox, in the early stages, who were so opposed to the idea of taking a sacred language and turning it into a vernacular.  He said it’s, you know.  It would be like talking","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3592.0,3609.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/361","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah.  Where did, when we come to some of your pieces that we are going to record, I want to talk a bit about how you came to do them.  I mean, for example, let’s take the Tants un Maysele which…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Mmm-hmmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I think we have already.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Mmm-hmmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How did this come about?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That was a commission from the Aeolian Chamber Ensemble.  The violinist, whose name is Kaplan, was the founder of the Aeolians.  And he said, “I’d like to have a Jewish piece.  Would you be interested in doing one?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Of","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3609.0,3641.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/362","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And the Ensemble, as you know, is violin, clarinet, cello, and piano.  And he wanted it for this, for the coming season, and I finally came up with a piece for him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd he wanted a Jewish piece, so I began — well, partly, I was, I think I was led to some kind of a solution in the music by title.  By the titles, which I sort of knew I was going to ascribe to the","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3641.0,3672.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/363","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When I was two or three years old, my father wrote a series of three piano preludes.  One of them was called, the first was called Maysele.  No — Prelude.  And the second was called Maysele, and the third was called Tants.  Maysele, of course, means “little story.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3672.0,3690.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/364","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When I grew up, I was about 15, 16 years of age, I learned those pieces.  Obviously, when I was, they’re virtuoso, Liszt-like pieces, on Hasidic themes.  And I began to think in terms, now, of — when I was writing this piece, I guess it was 1970… 1980 is the date, or 1981 is the date for Tants un Maysele.  I thought, gee, would there be some possibility of giving my father a gift, of returning the homage, the dedication?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3690.0,3725.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/365","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And so, I began working on a piece that was dance-like, filled with Hasidic-like rhythms, but with a kind of — infused, also, with a kind of violence and peremptory rage that you would normally not find in a Hasidic dance.  And also, a sense of extreme mystery and","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3725.0,3749.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/366","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And particularly at the end of that first piece, called, which is called Tants, there is a transformation from the rage and vigor to a peculiar sense of distant mystery, of kind of an ineffable peculiarity.  It becomes a dance of creatures that you might find in, like Where The Wild Ones Are.  You know, you could just imagine those creatures doing a slow dance in a dense forest.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3749.0,3786.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/367","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And that seemed to me to be very Kabbalistic.  Very much closer to a kind of Dybbuk, to a mysterious creature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaysele was very, was based on a, a folk material, on a folk-like theme, which I made up.  Unlike Stravinsky’s stories about how he made up all the songs from The Rite of Spring, or the themes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3786.0,3814.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/368","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We found out, when the documents were finally available, that he didn’t at all.  He had actually stated on his manuscript exactly where the sources were.  Whether he heard it on, on a farm or on the estate, or whether he looked it up in a book, an anthology of Russian folk songs.  He basically took them all.  And then transformed them into one of the greatest pieces we know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI actually made up this tune.  And then proceeded from","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3814.0,3841.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/369","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The tune itself is a kind of polka mazurka.  Slow, quiet.  Just very much like many of the songs that we know from Eastern Europe.  And then it goes on through various transformations, also.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe, I think part of what I was writing was reflecting the character of the group, of the Aeolian Chamber Players, of the violinist.  But above all, I think, reflecting my memories of that kind of music from my father’s music.  And combining that with some quite systematic study I had done when I was about 19 or 20.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3841.0,3879.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/370","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e What happened to it?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3879.0,3906.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/371","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Oh, it died.  The first movement alone was something like 16 or 17 minutes.  And I got one reading of the piece, of the, of that huge movement, and the writing was so clumsy that I decided, never again.  And it took me another 40 years before I wrote for orchestra again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But you never wrote a piano concerto?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3906.0,3927.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/372","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  No.  Well, yes.  I wrote a movement for piano concerto quite a few years later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Judaically related?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.  In no way.  Judaically, it was written for my father-in-law, for the Yale Summer School Orchestra, and my father-in-law’s playing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  These three piano preludes…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …that you just mentioned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Those are your father’s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You said they’re virtuoso, they’re Liszt-like?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How come I don’t know about them?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Uh…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  We need, desperately…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3927.0,3950.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/373","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  I’ve got them in my apartment.  I’ll play them for you anytime.  When you come over tonight, I could even play them badly or I could play you a tape of…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What are they based on some of your Jewish folk material?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, yes.  Oh, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, I need a piece — okay, we’ll have to talk about that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  They’re short, they’re gangbusters pieces.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, I need something that would interest certain","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3950.0,3966.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/374","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  These are gangbusters pieces.  I mean, they’re, any pianist would be interested in them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Because Vladmir Heifetz, which is a name I didn’t mention.  Did your father know of Vladmir Heifetz?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, sure.  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He was connected with the… what was it?  There was a different chorus.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Uh…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  One of the really left-wing groups.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3966.0,3981.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/375","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Yeah.  It wasn’t the Freheit Gezaren Farayn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It might have been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It might have been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Or the Jewish People’s Philharmonic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Something like that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The Jewish People’s Philharmonic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, you’re talking very left-wing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In those days, everybody was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Well, my father was very, the left-wing in the earlier days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  But the story is, I mean, that he, that he didn’t want to, that he moved to the Workmen’s Circle group ‘cause the, I mean, the perception is — I mean, you know the truth, but the perception is that he didn’t want to be associated with something that was openly anti-American at that time.  I mean, there was a time when they started singing songs about Stalin, the glory of the great, the great Comrade Stalin, in Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  So what’s the, what is the, what’s the street truth about that?  What is it?  What is normally thought of?  He did it because he moved to the Workmen’s Circle","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=3981.0,4025.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/376","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah.  Because the Workmen’s Circle was, is Socialist, they’re good Socialists…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  Well, why would he make that move?  I’ll tell you what happened.  I know exactly what happened.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father was a very successful vocal coach in the ‘20s.  For eminent singers.  And he made quite a lot of money.  He was very good at it, and very successful.  He was an accompanist and coach.  He also was conducting the Freiheit chorus, and was thought to be, as he was, quite a demagogue and quite charismatic.  And, they thought also, quite","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4025.0,4051.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/377","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So when he applied for a visa to go and visit some family with my mother in 1927 — I think it was ’27 — there was no problem.  He got the visa, they went right into Russia with no problem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd what he saw there, what he felt there, with the secrecy and the oppression, and the lying and the hypocrisy and the — you know, he was seeing what was really there, and the fact that no conversations could be carried on, except in the middle of the park.  Turned him so powerfully against the regime that he came back and said, “Sorry.  Finished.”  And he broke with the Freiheit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, that was essentially the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  That’s the story.  But it first came from a reaction, a firsthand reaction to what he had seen and what he had felt.  And boy, he became a card-carrying anti-Communist of a, such a ferocious","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4051.0,4098.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/378","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And that’s when he came to the Workmen’s Circle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That’s when he came to the Workmen’s Circle.  Because his leftist tendencies, the idea of Socialism and the rest of that, still was quite acceptable…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  …and that’s where his heart lay…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, they say, but the Workmen’s Circle is very patriotic because they all, in the first place, they always sang Ich dank der Gott fur Amerika.\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  At the same time as it was a Socialist thing. Plus, plus, they weren’t anti-Zionist — they were non-Zionists.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4098.0,4122.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/379","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  It was irrelevant, but it wasn’t a question…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  And then, you know, he also shared those duties with his directorship of the ILGWU Chorus organizations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, he did that…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, yes.  For many years.  Oh, indeed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union Chorus.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah, with David Dubinsky.  Yeah, you bet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And they sang mostly in Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  They sang largely in Yiddish.  That’s correct.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  So anyway, that’s the, that’s really the origin of Tants un Maysele.  The title had something to do with it.  The fact that I was requested to write a Jewish piece — that’s what came out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4122.0,4152.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/380","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What about Dances of Atonement?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Dances of Atonement also came out with, in, in response to a commission.  This was a funny one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSonya Hamlin was sort of the Barbara Walters — but much more intelligent and much more of a mensch — in Boston television for many years.  She was really quite an institution.  And I don’t remember what the channel was here, because I wasn’t in Boston.  But she was a very famous and most appealing lady, and she was also a childhood friend.  She was one of the daughters, one of the two daughters, of one of my fathers’ closest friends, Yudel Borenstein, who was a quite successful person, both in the Yiddish cultural scene, and as a real estate operator.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4152.0,4201.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/381","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Shayndel, as I knew her as a little girl — and I had remained in contact through, through life.  One day, I got a call from her in New York.  She said, “You know, is there any High Holiday music, is there any Yom Kippur music that we could play?  You know, we’re having a program, we’re having a guest, Joseph Silverstein, do you know I started working on that familiar tune, and I couldn’t get anywhere.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4201.0,4220.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/382","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I said, “Joe Silverstein?  Of course I know him.”  You know, through et cetera, et cetera.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe said, “Well, he’s going to be a guest.  He wants to know what he can play.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Well, normally, something like the Kol Nidre, that we know, is played by double bass or by cello or some old instrument that’s big and sad and lugubrious, and you know, et cetera, et cetera, but I don’t know of any other The tune is so locked into its associations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI called up and I said, “No, I have really no success with this.  I’m going to have to","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4220.0,4240.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/383","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"there any High Holiday music, is there any Yom Kippur music that we could play?  You know, we’re having a program, we’re having a guest, Joseph Silverstein, do you know him?” I said, “Joe Silverstein?  Of course I know him.”  You know, through et cetera, et cetera.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe said, “Well, he’s going to be a guest.  He wants to know what he can play.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Well, normally, something like the Kol Nidre, that we know, is played by double bass or by cello or some old instrument that’s big and sad and lugubrious, and you know, et cetera, et cetera, but I don’t know of any other music.” She said, “Well, he’s going to be our guest.  What should I have him play?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Well, maybe…”.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe said, “Would you write something, if you don’t have something?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I said, “Well, I’ll try.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I started to figure out how I was going to deal with the Kol Nidre tune that everybody knows, which is — what’s the name of the, the Bach cantata?  Zurst a traynin, which is, you know, sighing and weeping, and so on — that tune is just so breast-beating. I started working on that familiar tune, and I couldn’t get anywhere.  The tune is so locked into its associations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI called up and I said, “No, I have really no success with this.  I’m going to have to take another tack.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd she said, “Go ahead.  Do it.  We have time.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I went back to the Edelson, and I found a Kol Nidre in, what, among the, in the compendium about the Sephardim from the Moroccan Jews.  And it’s a tune that was traditionally used at — it was a Yom Kippur tune, it’s a Kol Nidre tune.  And this one really hit me like a ton of bricks.  It was so powerful.  It had a rhythm that I couldn’t quite use, the way it was set up, but I could use certain aspects of it.  And I made a piece out of this tune.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4211.0,4321.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/384","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"It was slow, rather ceremonial.  It was grave, without its being self-pitying.  And it had some moments of real power.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI came to Boston, Joe and I read it through.  He’s a very quick study.  And we did it on the program, we talked a little bit, and that was the end of","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4321.0,4345.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/385","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The piece, as it existed in that form, was too short to be used anywhere.  You know the Brahms choral piece, Nänie?  It’s a piece…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  one of those four-choral…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No, no.  It’s a separate piece, with a large orchestra.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, no, no, no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  And it’s a piece of merit which is no less than the, than the compositions of the Brahms of, in the Requiem.  But it’s eight minutes long.  What are you going to do with an eight-minute long choral piece with large orchestra, which you can’t easily ally with another piece?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e01:","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4345.0,4372.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/386","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, so this Kol Nidre really was relatively useless, as a piece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd another friend, Yuval Waldman, was a fine violinist, and originally Israeli, I think.  Or for a long, Israeli background.  He was also a colleague.  Was coming up with a concert at the 92nd Street Y, and said, “Would you do something?”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4372.0,4390.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/387","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I said, “Well, I have this piece that I began.  Maybe I’ll extend it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I did.  I added a fast section to the first movement, and then I wrote the HaKohanim, when the priests come marching in, in effect, for the second one, which was based on High Holiday motifs that we normally know for the Neilah service and afternoon service, and so on.  And that’s the origin of","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4390.0,4412.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/388","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"That uses, in both movements, the real thing — authentic tunes, and turns of tunes that are associated with the liturgical tradition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Is that the piece that — or am I confusing it with the other, the incidental — what’s the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  The Mirror.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The Mirror.  Which — no, it seems probably, you know, the word, it suddenly, it breaks into a very well-manipulated — what you would call klezmer-type moment.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4412.0,4442.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/389","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  That would be, the klezmer would certainly be The Mirror.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s The Mirror.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Wait a minute.  What do you mean by well-manipulated?  Wow, hey.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You know, I…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  What…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean that very complimentary.  I mean as a composer…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Really?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …manipulating the pitches so that it’s…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …so that it’s more than just…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It feels organic, it feels…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, it’s organic, but it shows, but something was done to, in other words…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4442.0,4472.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/390","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e But The Mirror was simply incidental music for a play by Isaac Bashevis Singer.  And it’s a play very much about the normal themes that Bashevis Singer was concerned with.  That is, religious life among the shtetl Jews, sexual inhibition, the, that the sexual frustration which is produced by inhibitions and by the law produces fantasy, the fantasy, and therefore, a kind of mysterious alliance with the Devil, with the Jew of Babylon, who’s a big necromancer, and with Hurmiza, who is the, the emissary from Onan.  You know, et cetera, et cetera.  I mean, Singer’s references are fairly","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4472.0,4522.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/391","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And it has to do with the side of Yiddish and of ghetto life that’s not normally exposed.  That, that was really the revelation that Singer brought to bear — was that the consciousness of the whole sexual side of life certainly had not been emphasized in any aspect of Yiddish folklore, and yet, had to have been a factor there, and that he brought that very much into the 20th century.  I think that’s one of the","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4522.0,4552.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/392","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e Is that…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4552.0,4577.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/393","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  It’s very similar.  There are similarities of Yenta and…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yentl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yentl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, really.  Yentl ran on Broadway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah, I know.  Yeah, sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, I saw one of the visions of it, before it was destroyed and probably the worst movie ever made.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah, well.  But the theme was largely the same, and some of the subject matter, and the kinds of characters.  But the…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4577.0,4598.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/394","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But I’m, I want to clear something…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The story, The Mirror was originally a play or a story?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No, no.  It was a play.  It was a play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He wrote it as a play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He wrote it as a play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Not as a short story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Not as a short story.  It’s a play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And then Yentl was originally a short story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That I didn’t know.  So maybe Yentl preceded The Mirror in the first place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I don’t","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4598.0,4614.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/395","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  But The Mirror was definitely…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yentl was a short story, and he supervised — obviously, he gave permission — but he supervised or had some role in making it into a play for Broadway, which was why, I imagine why it was successful, and it was an excellent play.  It was fantastically done in every way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4614.0,4632.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/396","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Except for the Yiddish, which your father would have covered his face, because a brucha — but it was deliberate.  It said, in the Southern Polish Yiddish, it was a brucha boor.  Instead of a…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But the, with the film, Bashevis Singer had nothing to do with.  He signed away his rights for an enormous amount of money, and then complained bitterly in The New York Times in a letter to the editor on how they had destroyed it, which they did.  It was, it was nonsense, what they did with it.  But you know, he gave it away, because he, because…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4632.0,4662.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/397","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Well, you give those things away in good faith.  I mean, people are persuasive, and they say…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, but if you’re giving it away to Barbra Streisand to deal with — but anyway, we’ll talk about him later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the thing is, The Mirror, I didn’t know this — that The Mirror, there is a connection between The Mirror and Yentl.\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, I think there’s a connection.  I, from, from when I saw Yentl.  I don’t have a clear recollection of it, but…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You didn’t see the play on Broadway?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I saw the play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  And I was rather astonished at the, at the similarity of","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4662.0,4681.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/398","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  The play left you wondering what it really was all about.  You could interpret it either way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  But the play, it ran smoothly as a play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  You know, compared to, compared to The Mirror, which was really a very weak sister.  And…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And he was the playwright for The Mirror.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Absolutely.  Wrote the play.  I mean, I — tonight, I’ll show you the, the whole, the whole play, play type.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So how did the incidental music role come about for you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yale Repertory Theatre.  I was a faculty member.  I don’t know who appointed me — whether it was the director, Michael Poznick, who became a very good friend.  And we began the collaboration.  I don’t know how, how it was that I got involved.  I mean, since I was there, this, it seems logical, but that would not have designated me as the, as the choice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And he wanted incidental music?  Or…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4681.0,4734.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/399","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  The director wanted incidental music.  I have no idea whether Isaac Bashevis Singer wanted music.  I don’t think Isaac Bashevis Singer had an ear for music at all.  I don’t think he cared one bit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Mmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Frankly.  And I think I told you the story of Isaac Bashevis Singer saying, when Poznick came to him and said, “Mr. Singer, the play, really, the last act, please do some editing.  Please do some rewriting.  It, it needs help.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4734.0,4760.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/400","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"“I don’t understand what you mean.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “It just doesn’t work.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “You have hypnotized yourself into thinking that it doesn’t work.”  He used a very funny word — “you have hypnotized yourself into thinking.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut it was really a terrible piece of work.  It, the denouement, the conclusion of it, is just a dreadful, dreadful","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4760.0,4779.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/401","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Anyway, I was asked to write music for certain scenes, and somehow, the music took over, in many ways.  There’s a great deal more music for that play than was really needed for advancing certain scenes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the gratitude I feel to Poznick is inexpressible, because when he heard a good piece of music, he said, “Oh, we’ll find a way to put it in.  We’ll find a way to make it work.”  You know, voice-under, we’ll, we’ll put voice-over, or we’ll have a little interlude, we’ll have a transition.  And he found a way to include almost every note of music that I wrote for the play.  Feeling that it had really come from a very deep source, and somehow could be made to enhance the play.  Which in fact I think it","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4779.0,4820.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/402","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So that was, and then it was done that way at the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It was done that way at all the productions.  Yes.  And it had a run of some, I don’t know, some weeks or whatever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, but you have some material that’s performable on its own?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, yes.  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The sessions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That’s put together, that will be put together like sort of a Jewish L’Histoire du Soldat, if you like.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  But without narration.  I’m just going to put as…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Without the","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4820.0,4839.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/403","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  It would be nice with narration, because it makes some of the things a little bit more vivid, but it’s not necessary.  I think the music will stand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How about singing?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Well, there are a couple of songs in there.  As you know, I sing one of them.  And I love the song that I wrote for that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, as the songs, are those texts from the — the lyrics are from the play?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes, yes, yes they are.  And they’re sung by — it’s presumably supposed to be sung by people in the play.  And as a matter of fact, I believe that, in one case, The Angels are Gay at Heaven — in Heaven With the King.  I think that was sung by the character in the play, the person who was supposed to sing it.  As a matter of fact, the name of that person was Yenta.  She sang it.  So….","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4839.0,4882.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/404","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Now, that was really conceived, as I said, like for a little klezmer band — a violin, clarinet, double bass, “Yidl mitn fidl, Dovid mitn bass, zing zu mir a lidl, oifn mitn gas.” You know, that was really the usual…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  This is an old, an old folk song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  Yeah.  And drums.  Had to have","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4882.0,4901.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/405","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Hmmm-mmm.  Now when it comes to your synagogue music…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Hmmm-mmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Totally different thing.  I mean, your, I — your Friday night service, for example.  I think we’re going to record the Hashkiveinu from that or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That would be wonderful.  That would be wonderful, that piece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …or something out of that.  That, was that on a, either on a commission, or for a specific request for a synagogue,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4901.0,4922.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/406","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Yeah.  I, I don’t think I’ve written a piece of extended music without commission since 1956.  ’55. So everything has been sort of catch-up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So you knew that that would have at least one…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4922.0,4937.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/407","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  It was the Park Avenue Synagogue commission.  From David Putterman.  Part of a long series.  This was 1962, I believe, or ’63.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The Friday night service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  Hmmm-mmm.  And the, so it was written for those forces, and that ritual, and — you know, the Conservative ritual.  With the possibility of having several opening numbers — the Ma Tovu, the Lecho Dodi, the Shiru L’Adonai, et cetera.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4937.0,4964.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/408","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"By the way, if you, if you do record some things for the project, I’d love it if the Shiru L’Adonai would be done, too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Okay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I mean, it’s, it’s really, there, I don’t think there is anything like that in our synagogue music at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who, how did, how did you treat or how did you deal with the idea of nusaḥ hat'filla in there, of traditional material for…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4964.0,4983.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/409","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e I didn’t, I did not concern myself with that at all.  The whole piece is based, however, on trope, and is constantly infiltrated with some of the simplest, most basic trope, turns of trope, that I had heard in cantillation being cantillated, and also from the Rossovsky","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=4983.0,5009.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/410","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah, but you do.  I mean, you come, let’s say, to the Barchu.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So, is that freely composed?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Made up.  It’s made up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Completely — pay no attention to what is the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Completely made up.  Not for the modes of the, of Shabbat — nothing.  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But subconsciously, it sounds…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5009.0,5029.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/411","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Oh, subconsciously.  I think it has real, it has character.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI must say that that was, I mean, that was instinctive, to one sense, and also, it was showing that there had been quite a lot of absorption of things from the early days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Even if I didn’t go to the synagogue, still, I heard a lot of cantors around the house.  Now, they came to the house to learn Yiddish, art song.  They didn’t coach, they did not coach the prayers with my father.  That wasn’t the idea — they came to…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, but they — by the way, as long as you mentioned it, I’ll come back to it.  Did somebody like Moshe Ganchoff","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5029.0,5059.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/412","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Yes, Ganchoff was, yes, yes.  Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But people don’t realize — I only learned a few years before he died, that he was really first a Yiddish singer, and more interested in that than becoming a hazzan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That I didn’t know, but Ganchoff was certainly a visitor, and would do things with my","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5059.0,5075.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/413","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I mean, he would have needed coaching, and…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah, yeah.  So, but in the meantime, they would have, you know, they would have broken off and done some hazzanish…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But as far as you were concerned, it’s totally…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It was totally free.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Free.  I mean…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Totally free.  Except — totally free, except for, as I say, this constant reference, in the composed music of that — not so much in the melismatic, but in the other, to cantillation.  And I must say, the first — let me just relate this incident, this anecdote to you, which is something that meant so much to","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5075.0,5110.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/414","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When the service was over, there was a reception that night at the Park Avenue Synagogue.  And a very old Jew came up to me and said, “You know, for the first time since I arrived in the United States from Odessa, I felt that I was home in my little shul.”  He said, “How did you do that?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “I don’t","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5110.0,5141.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/415","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But that was an amazing accolade, that I felt justified everything I had done, somehow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That service was part of their annual, in those days annual commissions?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Every year, they did a commission.  Yeah, I think Jacob Druckmann did one a couple of years later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  And Putterman sang it that night.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes, Putterman sang it.  Yeah, yeah.  I just this year, within the last three or four months, was able to recover the original recording from","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5141.0,5166.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/416","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And then it was subsequently published.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It was published.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  And you know why it was published?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  For whatever reason, Sam Barber attended that night.  Attended the service that night.  Out of curiosity as to what I was doing.  Because I didn’t have much of a relationship with him at all.  I think I’d met him in Rome a few years before that.  Perhaps he knew something about my music.  But we didn’t have an ongoing relationship at all, nor did I even know he was","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5166.0,5193.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/417","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And the very next day, I got a call from G. Schirmer, saying, “Please come down.  We want to talk, talk about publishing your music.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat was it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo what had happened is, that Barber had talked to Heinz Heimer, who was the editor-in-chief, and it started a collaboration with Associated Music for, which lasted — Associated-Schirmer — which lasted for many, many years, until about five or six years ago, when I finally broke with them.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5193.0,5219.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/418","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Is that the only piece of synagogue music you’ve written?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  There are other things.  There’s another service — there’s a Torah service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now was that a Torah service alone?  Or is it a part of a","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5219.0,5237.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/419","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Torah service is alone, which I have managed to incorporate into the Friday evening service.  Now, that’s not appropriate.  Torah service would be, after all…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, in the Reform movement it is…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  In the Reform movement it’s possible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  So we have occasionally performed it with the Torah service serving in the center as a centerpiece, and using part of the same band that has orchestra, that I used in orchestrating the larger service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The Friday night service was orchestrated?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Friday service is now orchestrated.  As of 1991.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The whole service?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  All together.  All of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Full symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5237.0,5261.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/420","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  It’s, it’s, it’s a large chamber orchestra, basically.  It uses, it has no horns.  It uses a couple of trumpets, a trombone or two — I think two trombones — a double bass, strings — regular strings — flute, oboe — oboe?  I’m not even sure right now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Does it have two woodwinds?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5261.0,5283.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/421","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  I think two woodwinds.  I’d have to look again.  It’s an irregular combination.  And that was also the result of being determined by the orchestration of some other things that were on the program that, which it was, premiere where it was performed.  It was a Bach cantata and a Gabrieli quartet.  So I took a lot of the brass…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  But it did, I remember that it didn’t have French horns.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It doesn’t have tubas.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No tubas.  No tubas, no, no ophicleide, no Wagner tubas, either.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Or any kind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No double bass clarinets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, and the, so that’s orchestrated.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5283.0,5312.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/422","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  That’s orchestrated.  Now, the Torah service is orchestrated, but the Torah service’s original form was for two trumpets, horn, trombone and double bass.  A quintet of instruments.  And chorus.  That’s all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And no strings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No strings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No strings.  So, that stands alone.  And within the Torah’s, within the overall service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The brass quartet.\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.  Well, brass quintet with double bass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  With double bass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah, with double bass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That would be an interesting — have you ever, recorded","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5312.0,5335.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/423","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Commercially?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.  Just had a — I mean, I have a number of performances of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And that’s with chorus, and it requires a cantor?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It requires, in this case, a bass-baritone cantor.  It’s not a tenor cantor.  And it can be done by the — yeah.  I mean, there are only a couple of short fragments that, that would be needed to be sung by a cantor…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5335.0,5354.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/424","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And the orchestral version is also available?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I have it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And that’s for, the Torah service — that’s what you sent me the tape of.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I sent you the tape of the Torah service and the Friday evening service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right, right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I, I’m sure I sent you the orchestra version of the Friday evening service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I don’t think so.  Just the Torah service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: In the Torah service, which is not part of, in other words, you didn’t do a whole Saturday morning service, or you did just the Torah service?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I started a Saturday morning service, and did two or three numbers, but I gave it up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The Torah service is also totally free composition, or are you basing it on any modes or any melodies?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  No.  Not based on — no, not at all.  It’s freely composed.  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And in terms","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5354.0,5388.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/425","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  As a matter of fact, you know, when we talk about this freely composed, it’s done as much out of ignorance as out of independence of mind.  I don’t, I’m not really educated in those modes, you know?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, I mean, for example, but let’s say — well, let’s say, your father’s Friday night services.  There are a couple of them, right?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Two or three?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Uh-huh.  There are several.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  There are several.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5388.0,5405.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/426","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e There are still certain determinants, I mean, such as cadential formula.  They don’t have to stick to the exact formula, but somehow, I think that’s the basis of it, you know.  The modality, the end of the, the bracha, I mean, that, but not only whether it’s major or minor or neither, but some modal formula.  I mean, you didn’t worry about that.  You","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5405.0,5436.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/427","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  No, I didn’t.  Not at all.  No.  Whatever felt right to me was what I did.  Yeah.  Does that surprise you?  Evidently, it does.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, no, no.  It surprises me that Putterman didn’t, didn’t specify that.  Because what he, a lot of times, when he worked with, when they would commission a non-Jew altogether, you know, so he didn’t have any feel for the language or anything, so he would work with them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  For example, who would he — do you know who he did that with?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5436.0,5466.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/428","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Douglas Moore, I think, at one time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Did Douglas write up…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Douglas wrote a service?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  See, there were whole, they’re whole services.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  You’re kidding.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  You know that Susan just conducted the local, the Boston Lyric Opera Company of The Ballad of Baby Doe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  She did this production.  And that’s some piece of work, by the way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5466.0,5482.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/429","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Douglas Moore wrote, was commissioned; Gretchaninov.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: Gretchaninov was a wonderful composer.  No kidding.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah. Gretchaninov is too big an Adonai Malach and… but those are from the, from the Kabbalat Shabbat in the Friday night service.  Yeah, Gretchaninov wrote those after he came here from Paris,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5482.0,5501.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/430","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  How are they?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, they’re a little bit over, over-grand.  I mean, the organ parts are, I think, over-elaborate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Because he’s Russian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s very, yeah, it’s very Russian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  The Russian choral music is just wonderful.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: But there were a number of non-Jews who — let me see who else.  Somebody in that same category as Douglas Moore.  I can’t","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5501.0,5525.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/431","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But you know, in the same way that Sulzer asked Schubert to write the Tov L’hodot.  He obviously had to work with him on the Hebrew, because the Hebrew is perfect, the words…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  The prosody.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s perfect.  It’s the same as if Sulzer wrote it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5525.0,5543.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/432","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e So, Putterman used to — yeah, I was just, we were often, he’d say, “Look.  I mean, there are certain, like the Barchu, just the modality of it and what, what — you can harmonize it however you want.  You can make a tone row out of it, if you want.  But still have some relation.  So","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5543.0,5560.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/433","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  He would never… absolutely left me alone.  Absolutely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I want to go back now to Yiddish, to one of the pet problems that we’re having nowadays, I think.  And that is, who is there to perform anymore?  Who is there to sing Yiddish artistically, the way — I’m not even questioning whether Belarsky or not, I mean, there are better than Belarsky’s voice, too.  I mean, I mean, is it possible, today?  And how are we going to do it?  Do you feel that to sing — you know, we’re talking about your father’s songs — to sing Ergets vayt, to sing, you know, 20 songs like that.  That someone can just be coached?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5560.0,5608.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/434","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Yes.  Yes.  And the reason for that is that, once again, with his attitude about, number one, good music; number two, the, the cosmopolitan nature of the basic craft, he felt that simply good, pure singing, in the fine lieder tradition, was the proper way to go about it.  He didn’t like any special krechtzing…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, I don’t mean that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  He didn’t like — well, I mean he…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean the language.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5608.0,5638.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/435","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e He demanded, well, he demanded meticulous language in that.  And he felt that people could learn that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI mean, look — here is Susan, who became his favorite singer of his songs in, you know, for the time that she was singing, which was relatively short.  He worked with her on the diction and correcting the Germanisms in many cases, where, I mean her — she had learned a meticulous German for the literature that she sang, and now had to switch to a language, as you know, which was so close, and yet, so distinct.  And she managed it.  And then, I mean, he felt he could not have heard a more eloquent projection of his songs, of his thought.  And again, I have some tapes to play for you that I think you’ll find quite thrilling.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5638.0,5687.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/436","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The demonstration there is that any really cultivated and good singer could do that kind of work.  I mean, I’ve tried to interest Dawn Upshaw in this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I was just going — I was going to mention somebody similar, since you mentioned Lauren Flanagan.  I mean someone in terms of stature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Because, supposing a Dawn Upshaw, said, yeah, okay, this is…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  She could be coached so that she could do…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And it was your undertaking to coach her, ‘cause you could both…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  ‘Cause you were going to be the pianist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5687.0,5714.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/437","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  …because she called you.  You don’t have any question about the Yiddish, the problems in Yiddish being more than other foreign languages.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  By no means.  By no means.  I think they’re, they’re not, there aren’t more problems, and in many ways, it’s a lot easier than many others.  It would be a lot easier than French.  A lot easier than French.  I mean, of course, people have some French background.  But…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5714.0,5738.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/438","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Yiddish is a much simpler language.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  ‘Cause Hebrew has not… no.  I’m asking this because, for a singer who has been — I mean, there are certain basic exposures to music.  So one has heard, even if one didn’t take, study French yet before they got it, I mean, one’s heard French.  You go to the opera…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  That’s","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5738.0,5757.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/439","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  It’s not totally foreign.  Hebrew, to that singer, might be totally foreign, but Hebrew is very easy, compared to Yiddish, I think we’d have to agree.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Well, I don’t know.  Is that true?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  Because it’s much more straightforward.  You don’t have problems like oyden.  Like bettin.  How to sing it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5757.0,5773.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/440","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  You mean the unvoiced consonants?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  How the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  But there aren’t a lot of those.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, but they come up a lot in singing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  They come up a lot in songs, but once you get it, you get it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I don’t think it’s a very, a real — I mean, a lot of people have a lot more trouble with the ch…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5773.0,5788.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/441","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Well, there, I never understood that.  Now, that I don’t understand.  Because if they sing German, that’s just, I just think it’s kind of stupidity a lot of times, when I’ll see a singer who has sung every Bach cantata and sung Wachtoff a million times, and he keeps saying you know, “melech.”  That’s just stupid.  He just forgot, because I keep reminding him, “If you see a ch,” it’s not, that’s not a foreign sound, really.  You know, the ch is not a foreign sound.  It’s all over German.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Well, of course, there, one is talking about the difference between somebody reading it and the other thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5788.0,5818.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/442","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Really learning it.  Now, if somebody is going to do a song recital, they have to totally absorb that material, or else it’s not going to happen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But you’ve coached people…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, yes, I have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …in the Yiddish tongue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I have at Tanglewood.  Even younger people who may have had some, some approach to Yiddish, but really didn’t know it very","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5818.0,5834.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/443","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So you could, you feel that one could concentrate primarily as the main criterion on the voice, what the voice is and what the musicianship is, and then, you can, I mean, if a person can sing Yiddish, German, Russian…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Give me, give me Renee Fleming, give me Bill Sharp, give me any number of cultivated…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who have never even heard, who had never heard…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Never heard a thing.  And Jan Oppeloch — I mean, give me a Dawn — I would, there’s no problem.  I don’t see a special problem at all.  Not at","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5834.0,5870.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/444","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I think we erect, perhaps, psychological barriers in thinking that it should be any different.  I mean, this is whole point.  My father was trying to bring — I mean, as far as the Yiddish, his production was concerned, he was trying to bring this music into the thing where you’d sing Foray and you’d sing","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5870.0,5887.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/445","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e That’s my point.  That’s the mainstream.  One should be able to go to Patelson’s and pick out a book of Yiddish.  Your father’s songs should be available at Patelson’s, too.  They’re not, because nobody’s going to sing them because everyone, they’ll think, “Well, I can’t pronounce these words.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5887.0,5901.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/446","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Well, we can’t, that’s, of course, nonsense.  But as, you know, some CDs come out, people begin to hear it.  And of course, that’s the point.  And when he did that wonderful CD — you know, there were two CDs originally, with what’s his name, University of Washington — Lishner.  Leon Lishner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Leon Lishner, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Those are very, very beautiful.  Beautifully produced and it’s a — you know, it’s a dark voice.  But nevertheless, they sang wonderful things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  And there’s really ideal Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did he work a lot with…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …with Belarsky?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Yes.  A great","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5901.0,5934.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/447","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I have to tell you a funny story about Belarsky.  First of all, Belarsky was a frequent visitor at the house.  He’s sort of the Jewish Bing Crosby, after all, you know?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  And Belarsky was very much of a sort of narcissist, very full of himself, and his image.  But he was a","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5934.0,5952.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/448","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When he would come out on stage — and my father would often accompany him at concerts — he would do what’s called chracking.  Now, chracking is when you start to clear your nasal passages and you — ch! ch!  And he’d clear, and he’d blow his nose.  And this would be all right in your face, right in public, you know, right in the front of the piano before a concert would begin, would","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5952.0,5975.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/449","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"My father says to him one day, when they’re about to give a concert at Town Hall — a very prestigious hall, you know, in Manhattan.  He says, “Sidor, you know, when you get out on stage, please, don’t chracke.  You know, if you have to, you know, a little bit, but don’t chracke.  This is, after all, Town Hall.  It’s dignified.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBelarsky said, “Don’t worry.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo, they get out on stage and Belarsky takes out the handkerchief as if he’s about to chracke.  And he takes it out and he turns his back to the audience for a minute, and he just sort of clears his throat.  And he’s ready to sing, and my father beckons him over.  And he would do like this — he would beckon in this way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=5975.0,6019.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/450","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Belarsky came over.  “What’s the matter, Wyner?  I didn’t chracke.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, “No, but your fly is open.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe delighted in telling that story, he was so….  So…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: You don’t worry about that too much about that, that there’s no, I mean there is more today than here was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: I don’t worry about it at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: Well there is no…Who are you going to get? Belarsky is no more. Vishner is no more.\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: I would like to interest…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: And no one will sound authentic as if it could, as if it were mamaloshen\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: Well….\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: You feel like it could be made to sound the same? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: I think it can be made to sound as my father intended for it to be sound. That is the Yiddish pronunciation being correct and the rest of the musical value as being just straight to western musical values, that’s all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: The music value, yes, but the inflection of the words. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: The inflection of the words, but I think that can be done. I mean Susan did it. She made some mistakes now and then, but they were correctable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: No I am just playing devil’s advocate. Because I, if I take that position, we will hear, yeah, what about actors?  And look — Rod Steiger did it, too. But nobody else did, and so, Rod Steiger’s a genius.  Rod Steiger in The Chosen, that’s an incredible inflection of the language, and you couldn’t….","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6019.0,6080.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/451","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But you know how he did that, by the way?  He went to live in a, he rented a house in a Jewish neighborhood.  And he went to the butcher shop every single day and stood there for an hour.  And he just stood there.  Until it entered his ears.  How to, in a Hasidic neighborhood.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6080.0,6096.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/452","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But that’s a God-given…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  And then he promulgated that, that diction, right?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  In the film, which is what he wanted to do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  The \u003cINAUDIBLE\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  But I mean, it’s absolutely authentic.  I mean, one could never know.  I don’t care.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut that’s, but that’s the exception — it isn’t the rule.  I mean, and so, that’s why I’m asking these things, because we have to deal with that.  If we’re going to continue to pick up where there’s been a gap in Yiddish art song, to say nothing of Yiddish choral music, then one has to deal with that","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6096.0,6131.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/453","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  I really don’t think, I don’t see it as a problem, really.  \u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: Good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER: I mean, as long as there’s some people who are around who have a feeling of what’s correct.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor example, one of my colleagues right here at Brandeis, Allan Keiler, who is a musicologist and a theorist, his Yiddish is really quite sophisticated, to say the least.  He reads all the time, he’s always trying to teach me new words.  He teaches me; they, alas, they stay for a few minutes, and then they disappear.  But he’s always correcting my genders, my, my endings, my choice of words.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6131.0,6161.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/454","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And when there’s a choice between the Teutonic or the German derivative one and the Hebrew derivative one, he’s quick to point it out and say, “Now, that’s really, oysius, instead of buchshtadten.”  There’s a case.  There’s a perfect case.  I would use, I didn’t know the word oysius, except from the Milner song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  But the buchshtadten I heard all my life.  And he said, “No, no, no, buchshtadten — that’s","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6161.0,6187.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/455","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  That’s German Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  German Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  There is a such a thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Oh, there is such a thing.  But it’s a preference.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd, for example, the greatest writers for our, for English, are the writers who rely mostly on the Anglo-Saxon origins of the language, and not the foundations of the language and not so much the Latinisms.  It’s not the big, long, polysyllables that are so beloved of the academic community.  It’s the ones that are hard-hit — the monosyllables.  I mean, when you look at the great writers in English, you see that they’re, the real core of their language is Anglo-Saxon.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6187.0,6222.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/456","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I mean, the interesting thing is — and this has been pointed out by Yiddish, Yiddish scholars — that the, that the authentic Yiddish of the Eastern European intelligentsia, that is, as opposed to Deutsche Yiddish, actually is one that’s more reliant on Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  More reliant on Hebrew, yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6222.0,6245.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/457","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  For example, kever as opposed kraven for a grave.  You know, no, in your father’s circles in Europe, they would never have used the word kraven for a grave, which is also, can also, but it’s the same thing.  Because kever comes from Hebrew.  And they didn’t say bois so much as they said bayis.  In the house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  See, I don’t know all of that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6245.0,6263.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/458","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e Sholem bayis.  Both words are from Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut anyway, these, these things have, they’re often used as excuses, I guess, by singers.  That it’s so foreign that I don’t dare touch it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6263.0,6277.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/459","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Oh, that doesn’t make sense to me.  Either that, or they, they really don’t know the glories of the literature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I think that’s part of it, too.  Now that you bring it up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause what about a singer who sings for the first time song Greig songs?  Now, Norwegian is not in anyone’s ear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Greig?  Sibelius.  Meerson.  Or Skalkottas.  What are you going to do when you sing Skalkottas?  What did you, how do people manage Hungarian?  How did they manage — what’s the name of the wonderful Polish composer, for example?  Szymanowski.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Szymanowski.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  Who was a great","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6277.0,6317.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/460","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I don’t know, because…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I mean, it makes no sense to me at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, but I don’t know those languages, so therefore…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  It makes no sense to me at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …I don’t know whether it sounds right or not.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWYNER:  I think this strictly is — I mean, people will go and they’ll sing Shostakovich songs and Prokofiev songs and Tchaikovsky songs, because they’re really great composers.  And they hear this stuff and they say, “Gee, I’ve got to really learn how to do that.”  But they never hear any really great Yiddish songs, so what are they going to bother","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6317.0,6337.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/461","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eWYNER:\u003c/strong\u003e I have some very good friends who are highly sympathetic to my music.  One of them is somebody like Michael Putnam, who is a professor of classics and one of the experts in the, in the poetry of Virgil.  And he loves my","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6337.0,6356.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/462","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And when he heard the fairly recent cello concerto which I wrote for Ralph Kirshbaum and the BBC Orchestra — this is 1995 — he heard it and he said, “What a wonderful combination.  I hear, you know, I hear the great European tradition, and I hear your Jewishness in it.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6356.0,6383.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/463","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6383.0,6415.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931/transcript/34544/annotation/464","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"WYNER:  Thanks, Neil.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  This has been a wonderful conversation.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40266/file/111931#t=6415.0,6427.22133"}]}]}]}