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SCHOENBERG AND HIS LEGACY: A Tribute to Leonard Stein
By Maiko Kawabata
Leonard Stein was a keeper of Schoenberg's legacy. He was also my
mentor and my friend. When he passed away nearly three years ago, we
lost our last living musical connection to Arnold Schoenberg, the last
person who had worked closely with the composer.
Stein was 22 when Schoenberg arrived in L.A. just before the Second
World War; at first as his student and later as his teaching assistant, Stein
became a trusted member of the composer's inner circle. Schoenberg
called him "a first class musician" and wrote to him in 1949, "I am glad to
name you a pupil of mine... I am sure you will play a role in the fate of
my music."
Stein is probably best known as the editor of Style and Idea. This was
where I first encountered his name in 1993, when I was an undergraduate
at Cambridge University. He had arranged Schoenberg's essays in
categories of his own devising which, he hoped would "bring into sharper
perspective the many and ever-broadening directions explored by an
intensely curious and passionately involved mind of genius." Clearly,
these were the words of a person utterly devoted to spreading
Schoenberg's music and his teachings.
At the time, I was studying the Phantasy for Violin with Piano
Accompaniment, op. 47, a piece that fascinated me on two levels -densely crammed with complex musical ideas, it was also hard as hell to
play. Style and Idea did not elucidate the ideas for me -- there is not a
single mention of the Phantasy in all 559 pages -- nor did it make the
piece any easier to tackle. But it did draw me into the mind of a composer
who had, it seemed to me, an unusually developed sense of artistic
purpose. His music was so difficult to understand that it defied ordinary
modes of listening, and yet his approach was considered so revolutionary
that almost every composer since agreed on its importance, if not its
likeability.
The Phantasy troubled me. From my research I knew that Schoenberg
considered it "very difficult... but all technically very playable indeed."
Technically very playable, my foot. Take measure 26, for instance: the A#
trilled with the harmonic, all double-stopped with another harmonic, is
simply unplayable as written--because harmonics and non-harmonics
require different bow-speeds to sound, and no violinist can draw the bow
faster across one string than another. My violin teacher at the time, Nona
Liddell, was concertmaster of the London Sinfonietta and had recorded
the piece for Decca in 1974. She told me to "fudge" it when I asked her
about it at a lesson. She even let me in on her "little trick": lose the
double-stop and instead cross strings rapidly, alternating between the
harmonic and the non-harmonic. "The whole thing is over so quickly, the
effect will be fine," she told me with a wry smile.
Some years later, when I began graduate school at UCLA, I wrote a letter
to Dr. Stein c/o the Arnold Schoenberg Institute at USC, where he had
been the Director from 1975 to 1991. In my letter, I explained my interest
in Schoenberg and particularly his Phantasy. I had no idea whether or not
I would get a response. A few days later I received a neatly typed note
from Dr. Stein: he would be happy to discuss the Phantasy; he had
premiered it with violinist Adolph Koldofsky at Schoenberg's 75th
birthday concert back in 1949. Would I care to join him for lunch the
following Saturday?
He suggested we meet at an Italian restaurant on the fashionable Third
Street Promenade in Santa Monica. I spotted him sitting at a window
booth--I knew it was him from the picture on the jacket sleeve–with his
distinguished shock of white hair. Clearing my throat, I approached the
table. "Dr. Stein?" I said. A pair of glimmering eyes peered up at me
slowly through large circular spectacles and the whiskers of his neatlytrimmed moustache were twitching slightly. "My dear," he roared, with an
outstretched hand, "call me Leonard!"
He told me he had been there as the Phantasy took shape and watched the
creative process unfold before his very eyes. "The writing for the violin is
always idiomatic and often purposefully virtuosic," he said. He did not
remember how Koldofsky had tackled measure 26, alas. But his playing
had apparently satisfied Schoenberg--no easy feat considering his deepseated beliefs concerning what constituted good violin-playing. "He hated
the idea of stringed instruments sliding all over the place," Leonard said.
"I once copied into a score for him, 'don't play glissandi like the
Hollywood players do.'"
I could hardly believe I was sitting across the table from this living
legend, much less that I was having a meal with such a person (and such a
delicious meal too, of seared tuna). This man had actually known
Schoenberg, played piano for his university lectures, and was widely
regarded as the world's foremost authority on Schoenberg. Leonard was
also an authority on L.A.'s finest dining establishments.
He then steered the conversation to what I later discovered was one of his
favorite topics: musical structure. "Why do you think I'm such a nut about
thematic form?" he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "Blame it on my
studies with Der Meister!" Leonard admired "progressive" composers
like Boulez and Berio, Cage and Stockhausen: they pushed the language
of music in new directions. As for the rest (and anyone composing tonal
works seemed to fall into this category)... well, it was clear what he
thought of them. He leaned in across the table, peered at me over the rims
of his glasses, and crinkled his nose in a comic scowl. Where most people
were vague or resorted to euphemism, Leonard was utterly no-nonsense
in his opinions.
After polishing off a large helping of tiramisu, he offered me a ride home
and on the way stopped to point out the house in Brentwood where
Schoenberg had lived--not far from O.J. Simpson's house, he said with a
snort. He invited me to a recital he was giving as part of a series he ran
called Piano Spheres, with a program including works by Schoenberg (of
course), Eisler, Ruggles, and Bach. At 81, Leonard was well beyond the
age when he could have kicked up his feet and spent his days playing
mini-golf and bingo. But that was not the life for him--he was passionate
about new music and clearly enjoyed challenging himself. The recital was
nothing short of extraordinary: throughout Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and
Fugue, Leonard attacked the keys with the energy of someone half his
age--maybe even a quarter. The reviews later commented on the
"arresting drama and depth of expression" of the Three Pieces, op. 11, and
his "crisply pertinent and persuasive" account of Eisler's Third Sonata.
Afterwards he invited all the pianists and devotees of the series out for
dinner at one of his favorite restaurants, Il Fornaio in Pasadena. We drank
to Leonard's health and shared steaming plates of capellini pomodoro. He
introduced me to everyone, including a student of his, a young conductor,
saying "you young people should meet, raaaah!" Edwin Outwater was a
sun-tanned native Angeleno with an easy-going manner, a quick wit, and
big dreams of conducting his own orchestra some day. We hit it off
instantly and became close like cousins who share a "musical
grandfather." He has since gone on to assist Michael Tilson Thomas-another former student of Leonard's--at the San Francisco Symphony and
now leads the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony in Canada.
When he wasn't performing or practising, Leonard was busy teaching,
lecturing, and corresponding with musicians around the world. He was a
regular at the L.A. Philharmonic, the "Green Umbrella" contemporary
music series in downtown L.A., and the Ojai Music Festival, and he often
invited Edwin and me along. Among the highlights were Mitsuko Uchida
playing Schoenberg's Piano Concerto (Leonard admired her rendition)
and a Boulez piece with 3 harps that went way over my head (but
delighted Leonard). Leonard followed contemporary music with a
passion, he knew everyone, and he steered us to secret, out-of-the-way
parking spots where we could park for free. He was constantly running
into friends and colleagues: at the Philharmonic, the Executive Director
and concertmaster stopped by to say hello, as did the composers Morton
Subotnick and H.K. Gruber. During intermission at a chamber music
concert at Zipper Hall, Leonard embraced his "dear friends Anne and
Larry." It was only afterwards at the Patinette Cafe, where Leonard
adored the Tarte Tatin, that I realized his friends were Schoenbergs--the
youngest son of the composer and his wife.
One day Leonard invited me over to play the Phantasy with him at his
house in the Hollywood hills. A long, steep driveway led up to the house
where he lived alone, across the street from supermodel Linda
Evangelista ("they say she is a fashion model, raaah!"). In his music
studio were not one but two Steinway grands. The bookcases bulged
with books, scores, and papers. Letters lay on the tables from musicians
the world over--he had a thick folder of correspondence with Boulez, to
whom he referred as "my friend Pierre."
"Okay, Mai, let's have a go at it," he said, sitting down at the piano. The
Phantasy begins an exordium in the violin--fortissimo, with heavily
demarcated bowstrokes, marked "passionato". Then the piano comes in
with a discordant, descending gesture rather like a controlled tumble.
When Leonard played this it was so loud it took me by surprise. We
played on through the contrasting sections--the ethereal Lento, the
Grazioso leading to the lively Scherzo, and then the return of the opening.
Finally, we reached the dramatic conclusion--huge leaps in the violin and
brittle textures in the piano leading to an expressionistic scream that
crescendoes to the last, stabbed chord. I waited with bated breath to see
what he would say.
"You play very well," he said, and I sighed with relief. "You see, this is
the work of an older person," he continued. "He knows what to leave out.
It's a very compact work. He says a lot in a very short space of time. It's
only, what, 12 minutes long and yet it has all these different movements
in it." He then showed me how to bring out the musical character of each
section. Play the Meno mosso again," he said (starting at m. 34). "Not too
much pathos." "The Scherzando (mm. 85 ff) should have spice and be
demoniac in character... that was Schoenberg's word," he explained. "Oh,
and here," he said, pointing to bar 52 in the score, "this part should be
light, like a Viennese waltz." I played the phrase again and again until he
said, "very good, raaaaaah."
A short time after that visit, Leonard asked me to perform the piece with
him at the Monday Evening Concerts. I was surprised and incredibly
honored by the invitation. I was also terrified: the historic series, formerly
known as "Evenings on the Roof," had once featured Schoenberg and
Stravinsky. I knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me. As we
rehearsed, Leonard taught me that technique was only a small part of
preparing a performance–he simply didn't care how I got around m. 26, as
long as all the notes sounded clearly. I was struck by what a unique
person he was: a tireless champion of Schoenberg's music, which he knew
and loved better than anybody else, here he was, fifty years after the
premiere, still playing the Phantasy with unabated curiosity and
commitment.
Schoenberg may have talked about "Heart and Brain in Music," but
Leonard seemed to go one step further: along with the emotional and
intellectual dimensions, there was the physical. He embodied the music,
lived and breathed it, involving his entire self: heart, brain... and hands.
He taught by example that this is how traditions are really kept alive--not
just through the books and scores left for generations to come but through
the human legacy, through those that the composer touched directly.
On the night of the concert I was so nervous I have almost no memory of
it. But I do remember Leonard's contented roar shot through with postperformance adrenalin ("RAAAAAAAAHHH!"). He patted me on the
back then rounded up everyone who had come to see him backstage
saying, "come on, we're all going to Kate Mantilini's for oysters and
champagne!"
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