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Interview Only w/ Anthony Tommasini - Remembering The “Voice Of A Century” · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
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  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4255. Well, I'm going
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: to do a bit of a turn with my guest today.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: We have a cannon of barrier breaking in this country.
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  Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson taking the field in Brooklyn, Rosa Parks staying
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  Speaker 1: in her seat, the nine kids walking into Central High School.
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  Speaker 1: And we teach those stories and we know the dates.
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  Speaker 1: Marian Anderson belongs on that list. And I bet most
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  Speaker 1: Americans couldn't tell you much more about her than one photograph.
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  Speaker 1: Easter Sunday, 1939, the Lincoln Memorial, 75,000 people right here
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  Speaker 1: in Washington, D.C. outside after the Daughters of American Revolution
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  Speaker 1: refused to let her sing in Constitution Hall. And that's
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  Speaker 1: the whole life for most of us. One afternoon, one photograph.
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  Speaker 1: What I didn't know and what I found a little
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  Speaker 1: embarrassing for me not to know is that the concert
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  Speaker 1: was the least of it. She was already by then
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  Speaker 1: one of the great singers of the world. She'd been
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  Speaker 1: famous in Europe for years before America caught up and
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  Speaker 1: she spent the next two decades performing in cities that
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  Speaker 1: applauded her at night and wouldn't rent a room afterward.
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  Speaker 1: In 1955, at 57, she became the first black singer
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  Speaker 1: to appear at the Met in New York City. There's
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  Speaker 1: a second reason though I wanted to do this. Some
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  Speaker 1: of you know I spent a good chunk of my
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  Speaker 1: life with a French horn in my hands and I
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  Speaker 1: often lament that I don't have it in my hands
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  Speaker 1: as often. And Anthony Tomasini was the chief classical musical
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  Speaker 1: critic at the New York Times for the last 20
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  Speaker 1: plus years. So this is a book about the civil
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  Speaker 1: rights story most of us half know, written by a
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  Speaker 1: critic who can tell you what was actually happening inside
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  Speaker 1: that voice. His new book is called Voice of a Century,
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  Speaker 1: The Life and Artistry of Marian Anderson. It's actually part
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  Speaker 1: of an interesting series being edited by our friend Skip Gates.
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  Speaker 1: which I think Tony will tell us a little bit about.
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  Speaker 1: So Tony, welcome to the podcast.
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  Speaker 2: I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for your interest.
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  Speaker 1: Well, let's start with how you came about to do
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  Speaker 1: this biography. Was this something you've been working on? Was
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  Speaker 1: it something people reached out to you, Skip Gates, things
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  Speaker 1: like that? I know that this is part of a
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  Speaker 1: series that he's involved with. So tell me some of
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  Speaker 1: the origin story.
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  Speaker 2: This seldom happens to an author. I was asked to
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  Speaker 2: write the book. I had gone to know Skip And
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  Speaker 2: in fall of 2021, Sony Classical issued this big deluxe
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  Speaker 2: set of all of Anderson's RCA recordings. And I wrote
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  Speaker 2: a Sunday Times piece about it. And for people who
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  Speaker 2: didn't know about her, I talked about the Lincoln Memorial
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  Speaker 2: and her childhood in Philadelphia and stuff. But I focused
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  Speaker 2: a lot on the recordings. And I said, some of
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  Speaker 2: these recordings are just forgotten. you know, kindertotenlieder Mahler with
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  Speaker 2: the San Francisco Symphony of Piedmont, Scandinavian songs in the
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  Speaker 2: original languages. And so Skip really liked it. And he
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  Speaker 2: emailed and told me so. Two months later, he asked
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  Speaker 2: me to write this book. Would I write a book
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  Speaker 2: for him? And why me? I mean, I did think
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  Speaker 2: about that. I mean, all the subjects are major black figures.
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  Speaker 2: And one thing he said in interviews about this series
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  Speaker 2: is that There is an underappreciation. It's a remnant of
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  Speaker 2: prejudice of black intellectualism. And I think he's right. And
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  Speaker 2: in a way, in this article, I was saying Anderson,
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  Speaker 2: for all her fame and her position that you were
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  Speaker 2: talking about as a civil rights pioneer or however reluctant,
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  Speaker 2: you know, She was for how people, she's in a
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  Speaker 2: way intellectual, the equivalent in music of intellectually underrated. She
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  Speaker 2: was a probing interpretive artist. She was a major musician.
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  Speaker 2: And that sometimes, that happens in a lot of fields
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  Speaker 2: to pioneers. They wind up being remembered mostly for, you know,
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  Speaker 2: breaking the path, you know. And well, how did they...
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  Speaker 2: You mentioned Jackie Robinson, the biggest pathbreaker in baseball history.
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  Speaker 2: If you were writing a book about him, was he
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  Speaker 2: also one of the great, great players? Yes, actually he was,
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  Speaker 2: but we forget that, all we remember, and in a
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  Speaker 2: way that's happened to her. So I think he knew
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  Speaker 2: I would tell the story well and be sensitive to it,
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  Speaker 2: but in a way he wanted the Times critic to say, well,
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  Speaker 2: make a case for her, you know, artistically. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: So that's why the book, the subtitle, The Life and Artistry,
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  Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time writing about her recordings,
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  Speaker 2: her voice, her approach, how she, when she was rejected
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  Speaker 2: from music school, she learned this stuff on her own. But,
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  Speaker 2: but it's, she was a major, major artist.
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  Speaker 1: So what, it is interesting, you know, her, her life
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  Speaker 1: story growing up in Philadelphia and not having these opportunities.
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  Speaker 1: And it's a, It's such a reminder. I mean, I'll
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  Speaker 1: be honest. I've always said one of the reasons why
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  Speaker 1: I'm not a professional French horn player is I remember
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  Speaker 1: the first time I heard somebody not as good as
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  Speaker 1: I was technically make a better sound. And there is
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  Speaker 1: something called a gift. We all know it. And you
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  Speaker 1: have it or you don't. And the way you describe
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  Speaker 1: her voice is terrific. Because I think a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people can sing. But can you... Can you amplify on
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  Speaker 1: your own?
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And she was doing it without all the modern help
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  Speaker 1: that everybody has today to boost sound or to boost
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  Speaker 1: different decibels within your sound. So describe her sound a
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  Speaker 1: little bit, because I think that must be what really
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  Speaker 1: jumped out at you when you heard those recordings.
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  Speaker 2: And I think also what jumps out at all people
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  Speaker 2: who hear those recordings and heard her in her church.
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  Speaker 2: One thing I learned, which I is that from Mahalia
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  Speaker 2: Jackson to Marian Anderson to Beyonce today, to Dionne Warwick,
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  Speaker 2: to Leon Price, growing up in the black church was everything, everything,
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  Speaker 2: everything in their lives. And for her, that was true too.
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  Speaker 2: She was conscripted into the junior choir at six years old.
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  Speaker 2: And before long, everybody was bragging about the baby contralto.
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  Speaker 2: So already this child had a kind of low set voice.
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  Speaker 2: But Anderson, both as a young woman and throughout her career,
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  Speaker 2: also had this wonderful middle and upper range too. She
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  Speaker 2: could get, but it was a haunting, beautiful thing about
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  Speaker 2: her voice that when she got into soprano terrain, it
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  Speaker 2: was beautiful and radiant, but it sounded like it was
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  Speaker 2: emanating from that awesome low voice.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you can go high. and low and you're using
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  Speaker 1: your low you're using your diaphragm to support it i
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  Speaker 1: mean you can hear thin versus full absolutely you would
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  Speaker 1: never describe her her her high range is thin.
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  Speaker 2: No no no she she it just emanated from everything
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  Speaker 2: was supported and.
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  Speaker 1: So that's the gift isn't it this isn't some like
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  Speaker 1: training mechanism i mean you know i went through diaphragm
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  Speaker 1: breathing exercises back in the day and all of those
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  Speaker 1: things and you know i'm sure she did learn those
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  Speaker 1: things over time but This was just a gift that
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  Speaker 1: she had, wasn't it?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's a gift. Also, her younger sisters
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  Speaker 2: both have very good voices. They actually thought about maybe
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  Speaker 2: could they have a career.
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  Speaker 1: Mom and dad must have had some good voices as well.
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  Speaker 2: Well, her mother, not her father so much, but her
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  Speaker 2: mother did. And, but yeah, I mean, she, so yes,
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  Speaker 2: the voice, that's a gift. Musicality, just having instincts for music,
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  Speaker 2: that's a gift. You either have it or you don't.
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  Speaker 2: The intellectual, analytic part of music that you can learn.
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  Speaker 2: that you learn by going to school, by studying harmony,
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  Speaker 2: by working with composers, by working with coaches. And that's
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  Speaker 2: what she had to find her way around. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I tell the story in the book that she was
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  Speaker 2: taking private lessons and finally at around 17, she says, okay,
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  Speaker 2: I have to get serious. And she takes herself off
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  Speaker 2: to the Philadelphia Musical Academy, which no longer exists. And
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  Speaker 2: she tries to get an application and she, kind of snippy, young, pretty,
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  Speaker 2: blonde receptionist says, oh, we don't take colored. And Anderson
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  Speaker 2: talked with her journalist friend, Emily Kimbrough, 50 years later
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  Speaker 2: about it. It's still hurt. She said, I finally came
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: face to face with what it means to be a
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  Speaker 2: Negro in this country. And the shock, you know, was
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  Speaker 2: like something physical. You would think she knew that already,
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  Speaker 2: but somehow having that happened to her. So even then,
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  Speaker 2: She wasn't going to go to music school. She had
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  Speaker 2: to keep learning from expert coaches and teachers, which is
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  Speaker 2: why she eventually made herself, just found a way to
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  Speaker 2: get to Europe.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I was just going to say, I mean, this is,
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of our 20th century black music history
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  Speaker 1: had to be popularized in Europe and respected in Europe.
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  Speaker 1: The musicians got more respect in Europe before they ever
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  Speaker 1: got back here. This has been true of multiple genres
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  Speaker 1: of music. So how did she get there?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it was 1927. She had just turned 30. She
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  Speaker 2: had saved money. The church raised money for her, and
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  Speaker 2: she finally took herself off to London, and she stayed
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  Speaker 2: there for a year. And by the end, she sang
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  Speaker 2: at a London proms concert, believe it or not. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: that was a big deal. So it was kind of
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  Speaker 2: a big success. Then she came back home, and then
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  Speaker 2: The second time she went to Europe, that was in 1930,
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  Speaker 2: and she applied for a Rosenwald Fund scholarship. And she
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  Speaker 2: wrote the most poignant letter where she said she wants
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  Speaker 2: to be a fine artist who will be accredited to
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  Speaker 2: her people. And she got a fellowship to go study
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  Speaker 2: in Germany. This was 1930 in Germany, 1931 in Germany.
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  Speaker 1: Can we say that again? Early 1930s Germany. Here's this
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  Speaker 1: black woman.
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  Speaker 2: Black woman. And it's really interesting. There's a scholar and historian,
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  Speaker 2: Kira Thurman, who's written a lot about this, about trying
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  Speaker 2: to parse the reception she got. And like German leader,
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  Speaker 2: we're so central to the identity of German culture and
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  Speaker 2: German people and stuff that they confounded them that how
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  Speaker 2: could this black American woman sing our music so beautifully,
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  Speaker 2: you know, and she got reviews, rave reviews, but sometimes
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  Speaker 2: along the lines of, it's horrible to say it, but
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  Speaker 2: they would essentially were saying, she sings Schubert so well,
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  Speaker 2: you wouldn't know she was black. So they, they had
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  Speaker 2: to kind of, bleach out her color and just sort of,
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  Speaker 2: but then she wound up going to Scandinavia and she
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  Speaker 2: had a promoter there and she found an accompanist there,
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  Speaker 2: a Finnish man, Kosti Vahanen. And before long, Marian Fever
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  Speaker 2: gripped Scandinavia.
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  Speaker 1: How many different languages did she speak? Was she able
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  Speaker 1: to sing it?
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  Speaker 2: This is someone who barely finished high school and she
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  Speaker 2: became fluent in German. It's hard to know. She, she
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  Speaker 2: was pretty comfortable in French and the Scandinavian language is
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  Speaker 2: a little bit because she, she had a Finnish accompanist
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  Speaker 2: and she immersed herself in this songs and this stuff. But,
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  Speaker 2: but at least three, I'd say, you know, English and
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  Speaker 2: German and French.
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  Speaker 1: It's, it's, and, and those are the three that she's
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  Speaker 1: recorded in. There's recordings.
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  Speaker 2: She also recorded Italian arias, but the, the, opera but
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  Speaker 2: sort of brings up a whole nother.
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  Speaker 1: That's more of a fanatic or what.
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  Speaker 2: No no it's it's more that she no it's a
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  Speaker 2: beautiful language for singing it's that she from the start
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  Speaker 2: didn't see the point of studying too much italian opera
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: because she wasn't going to get into opera companies in
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: the united.
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  Speaker 1: States oh interesting so she just yeah so a whole
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  Speaker 1: genre that she might have been We may have missed
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  Speaker 1: out on a whole subsection of canon had she felt
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  Speaker 1: like she could have broken into.
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  Speaker 2: An opera company. In 1925, she won a competition for
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: the New York Philharmonic to make her debut at Lewiston Stadium.
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  Speaker 2: And she won against several hundred other applicants. And the
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  Speaker 2: big aria that she sang was a Donizetti aria, O
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Mio Fernando. It knocked everybody out. At the London Proms concert,
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  Speaker 2: she also sang that aria. So it was exactly what
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  Speaker 2: you said. It was a hint of what she could
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  Speaker 2: have done. I mean, you mentioned her debut at the
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  Speaker 2: Met in 1955. First of all, that is not that
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  Speaker 2: long ago that the Metropolitan did not have black singers
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  Speaker 2: on its stage. But she had already sung in Carnegie Hall,
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  Speaker 2: in major halls in the 30s and 40s, Why not?
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: What was wrong? The difference was on the Carnegie Hall stage,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: a black woman was sort of just a voice. On
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: stage at the Met, you are a character. You could
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: be somebody's lover or somebody's mother or somebody's brother or,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, sister. And the other singer would inevitably be white.
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  Speaker 2: And we couldn't have that. You know, you couldn't mix people,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: races on stage. There was still this issue of um
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: uh you know casting again uh a casting that's still
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: in a way troubles all the arts but but um
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  Speaker 2: i we've made huge progress over that i think.
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  Speaker 1: You make pretty clear yeah go ahead finish.
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  Speaker 2: That no that that was the inhibition that huh and
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: but anyway she she did it and she had had
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  Speaker 2: no experience in opera whatsoever and it was a but
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: she only sang in that one production of very Zimbalo
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  Speaker 2: and Mascara, a supporting but important role of El Rica.
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  Speaker 2: And it was a big triumph. And sitting in the
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  Speaker 2: audience that night, that was 1955, was a young soprano
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: named Leontine Price. Oh, wow. Who said, she later told me,
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  Speaker 2: she anointed me that night. And she said, maybe someday
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  Speaker 2: I can sing on that stage. And she went, how
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: did she? get to that stage, exactly what you said.
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  Speaker 2: She went off to Europe and she performed, Price performed
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: in European companies. Then eventually in 1961, she had a
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: triumphant Met debut.
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  Speaker 1: What, what, if she had been born 30 years later,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: what genre of music do you think she would be singing?
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  Speaker 2: She would have, she, she loved songs. She especially loved
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: German leader. And we can talk more about what drew
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: her to that if you want, but she would have
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: sung opera. And in 1960, she did a long interview
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: for ladies home journal, but the very good journalist, Emily Kimbrough,
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: who was a friend of hers and tried to get
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: her to really talk openly about as the article was called,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: you know, being black in a white America. And, and,
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  Speaker 2: And Emily said to her, well, you know, I know
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  Speaker 2: it was so tough, but you look at everything you've done.
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  Speaker 2: There's nothing you haven't accomplished. And Marian turned on her
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  Speaker 2: and said, nothing? What about opera? I wanted opera. But
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: they didn't. I wish I could have offered. I could offer,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: you know, now what I could have offered then. But
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: they didn't want it. They didn't want me. But she said,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: but at least I've broken this barrier for singers who
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: will follow me. Which she absolutely did. So I think
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: she would have had an opera career.
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  Speaker 1: It's interesting that she said it then because the portrait
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: you paint of her early is not someone who was–
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: she was not focused on being a trailblazer. She was
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: focused on being a music singer.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And at times– look, I don't want to say you
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: wrote critically about that, but it was almost like I could–
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: you wrote with a bit of disappointment that she didn't
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: fight harder.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Except I think that's interesting that that that came through
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  Speaker 2: that way, too. I do present that that side of her,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: but on balance, I'm on her side.
• 19:27
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• 20:24
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  Speaker 1: can call 800-327-5050 in Massachusetts. You can call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: you can simply text HOPE-NY-NEW-YORK. in order to get some
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: help with any gambling concerns. Finally, you can also call
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: 1-877-770-7867 if you're in Louisiana. I don't want to make
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: it seem like you weren't, but it was sort of like,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: you know, and this is always to me the difficulty
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: of writing about anything in history, is that how much
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: of today's morals In today's ethics, do you ascribe– and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: it is impossible if we're writing about something we did
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: not experience. If we're writing about a time we did
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: not live in, what was the norm is– the best
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: we can come up with is what other people tell
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: us what the norm was. So I get this challenge,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: but I could feel a little bit of that tension
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: that you had of like– In hindsight, it's easy. You
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: could have done this or you could have stood this,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: but you didn't. But in some ways, she was playing
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: a long game. It's the other side of that.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: And also, if I can tell you one story I
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: tell in the book, she's singing in church. She's the
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: star singer of the choir. She's having voice lessons. She's
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: about 14 years old. And the great tenor, black tenor,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Roland Hayes, who was about 10 years her senior, comes
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: to her church and sings. And among the things he
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: sings are German songs, Schubert in German. And the congregation
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: thought his voice was beautiful. Nobody knew what he was
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: singing about. Marian didn't know what he was singing about.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: She didn't care. She was haunted. She was hooked. She
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: made up what the songs were in her mind. But
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: what Roland Hayes, she had this epiphany. This is something
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: hard to define. This was an artist. This went beyond music.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: the components of his voice, his technique. There was something
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: about getting to the essence of music that just got
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: to her. And from that moment forward, she wanted to
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: be a fine artist. That was her driving thing. That
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: even applied to the Lincoln Memorial Concert that you described well.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: The night before that concert, she was on the phone
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: to her manager trying to get out of it. Because
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: she thought the whole thing had morphed into some kind
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: of civil rights demonstration. And if she sang, she didn't
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: need to sing at Constitution Hall. You know, like she
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: didn't need to. She had sung everywhere. But if she
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: was going to sing there, she was going to do
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: it because she was a great artist. And that's what
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: they want. You know, that's what they wanted. And she
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: was afraid. And Sol Yurok, her manager, had to say, no, Marion,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: that's not what it's going to be like. People are people.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: They're not going to be banners. People are going to come.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: and express their support for you by savoring every moment
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: of your artistry. And that's what happened. And that's why
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: she was deeply moved by it. But it was, it
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: was being an artist that drove her. You know, why
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: didn't she speak out more? In 1937, she has her
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: first concert at Princeton. She hasn't sung there before. She
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: thinks she has a room at the Nassau Inn. Until
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: she finds out, uh-uh, she can't stay there. She's there.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: What is she supposed to do? Word gets to a
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: famous faculty member, a refugee from Nazi Germany, who had
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: heard her at Carnegie Hall and come backstage meekly to
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: meet her. Big fan, Albert Einstein.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: And he says, you must, you will come. His wife
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: had just died. He said, you will come and stay
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: with my stepdaughter and me and my personal secretary at
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: my house on Mercer Street. So she did. And they
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: took wonderful care of her, and he went to the concert,
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: and they stayed up late. And he was ashamed of
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: his adopted hometown that this magnificent woman honors your hotel
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: by staying in it. And are you kidding? And they
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: became fast friends, and there was one point of disagreement.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: He thought, why don't you speak out more? You have
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: this platform. You're marrying, you know, and she was said,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: I can't know how she put it to him, but
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: she probably said, well, basically, it's easy for you. You're Einstein.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: You know, you can go out and say whatever you want.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Well, that's kind of what he was saying. It should
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: be easy for you.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't. She was still trying to get through
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: the door of an opera house in this company, in
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: this country. You know, she was trying. There were still things,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: so many things closed to her. And she had to
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: do it through the merits of her singing. through her artistry. So, yeah,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: I just think it was partly her nature. Maybe she
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: wasn't bold enough. Paul Robeson spoke out all the time,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: but career-wise, as a singer, he paid a price for it.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: He lost a lot of opportunities. So, yeah, she could
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: have been more outspoken, but she prevailed through her artistry,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: through her Great, you know, great voice.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: So let's, you know, did she, you know, sometimes some artists,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: they go to Europe and they never want to come back.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Because they're so, they were so frustrated with how poorly
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: they were treated here, they stay there. I mean, and
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: there's plenty of generations of artists have done that.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Especially early in the 20th century. Early 20th century. Jazz musicians.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: A lot of black artists just basically left America because
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: they felt like they were, frankly, safer.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Right. In Europe.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Why did she come back?
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: She was an American. And she was proud to be
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: an American. And she was comfortable in this country. And also,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: if she was not outspoken in a way that we
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: would maybe admire even more today, she spoke all the
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: time of my people. I want to be a credit
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: to my people. She thought she... But she thought the
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: way to do that was to be an example of
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: excellence and possibility. Give us a chance. Look what we
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: can do. And she wanted to prove herself that way
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: in America. I think that's why she came back. But
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: she kept going back to Europe. She would turn around
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: and go have tours there and come back. She traveled
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: a lot. But sure, she based herself here. And eventually
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: all the doors did open for her, but she pried
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: them open.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: You say that if the genre that obviously she missed
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the most with opera, what did she make of the rise? Because,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: you know, as she's becoming more well-known, that's also the
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: rise of jazz. It's the early days of the crooners.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Then we move from that to, you know, popular music
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and it goes from there what did she make of
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: that genre and it at all interest her.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Yes she was friends with duke ellington and she respected
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: all that music tremendously i don't think she had great
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: feeling for it or deep interest in it but she
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: was very curious and respectful um i kind of rescue
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: her in a chapter um where from interviews she gave
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: where she would talk about uh You know, my upper
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: higher music and, you know, that maybe that during it
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: used to be that people favored popular things more than
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: the song she sang, you know, the art song she sang.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: But during the war, singing for the troops and going
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: to hospitals, it's amazing how often people ask for Schubert
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: and Brahms songs. And she acted like the higher forms
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: of music. She used that word, unfortunately.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Well, it's funny. I mean, look, let's be honest, especially
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: if you, you know, I was a music major for
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: a while, right? And so there's this mindset that real music,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: the real difficult music is classical music, right? And opera
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: is a derivative of that.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Um, popular music are, are for, are for singers who
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: could do opera. Right. And I, and I'm sitting here
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: being very obviously ham handed here, but that was sort
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: of this mindset. And yet I, I look at somebody
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: like Whitney Houston. It's like, well, if she'd chosen to
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: do opera, she might've been a great opera singer.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes. I think there's this chapter I'm proud of
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: that was called Why Schubert, where I try to explain
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: what drew her to this art form. And I compare
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: it to myself growing up in a Long Island suburb,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: but there was more, there was more music in her
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: household than there was in mine. This grabbed me, I
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: don't know how, I just, I was listening to Salzburg
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Festival radio concerts on the radio by myself when I
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: was a kid. It just hooked me.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: You don't have that parent or grandparent that said, hey,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: take a listen to this. I mean, I did have that.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I had a father who had eclectic and stuff, so
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I was hearing it in my house a little bit.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: No, I screened for, I went to piano, I went
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: to lessons. It was through me. Finally, at eight years old,
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: I got one, but It wasn't through my parents. Everyone
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: in her family sang. Music and music at their church was,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: you know, crucial to her. But what I say is
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: that when she heard these songs, like Roland Hayes singing Schubert,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: it wasn't, she may have used the word higher, but
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: she didn't mean, she ended every recital she ever gave
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: with spirituals, singing Negro spirituals.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Was that always connected to her first recording contract?
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: That was the first recording she was asked to do
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: were spirituals. But soon after, you know, other things. But
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: it was her way of saying these works are every
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: bit as profound and great as any song by any
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: European composer that I've sung already. But what I think
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: did grab her about classical music was, yes, it was
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: the subtext of things. It was the multi-layered quality of it.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Why is it that a Schubert song, on the surface,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: seems so cheerful, but yet there's this undertow? There's this sadness.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: There's this longing. What's going on there? It's the subtleties
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: and inner workings of it. I think that's what hooked her,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: that she had to figure out what is that. She
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: used the word higher, but it wasn't higher.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Was she also a piano player?
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Yes. I figured. Most singers are. She took piano lessons.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: There wasn't a lot of money for them, but she
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: learned a lot on her own.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: And was she a music reader or did she learn
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: it by ear?
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, no. Yeah, she did learn to read. Yeah.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: And all that stuff. But not being able to get
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: into the music academy. What she never did was like
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: take a course in harmony or something like that.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Gotcha.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Or counterpoint or these things that all music students do. Right.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: She was not doing like rudimentary composition.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: And things like that. No, she wasn't doing that. But again,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: she worked with really, really interesting- I have scars.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: By the way, I still have scars from my music
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: composition professor who went to Yale who absolutely eviscerated one
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: of my first attempts at a Bach chorale. And I'm
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: like still scarred from this.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's terrible.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad she, I'm so glad she didn't have
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: to fear that.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But normal in classical music training, that usually by
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: studying counterpoint and writing pieces in the style of Bach
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: chorales and, and harmony, it's not that you become a
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: master of this, but it changes the way you hear.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: You really do. You hear, ah, you're alert to what
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: you're listening to, I think. So she did miss that,
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: but yeah.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: She is somebody, I get the impression that when you
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: did your review and Skip Gates reached out to you,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: that in some ways what Skip Gates is concerned about
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: is some of these folks getting lost. Because I do think,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and it goes back to this pioneer and this breaking
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: barrier mindset that we have, the pioneers- will always have
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: their pages in the history books. There's a whole group
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: of people who, you know, she was a pioneer. She
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: didn't choose to advertise being a pioneer.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: As we keep, as basically we've spent 20 minutes talking about.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: That doesn't make her any less relevant to the music,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: to the history of music in the 20th century. And ultimately,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: I feel like with this book is you can't tell
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the history of American singing of the 20th century without her.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. And she, even in the moment of being
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: a pioneer, she was going to make the larger points
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: about artistry. And, for example, the Lincoln Memorial Concert. Okay,
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: she agrees to do it. There she is. She opens
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: up singing America. She's so flustered to look at 75,000 people,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: black and white, all mink.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Was that the largest audience she'd ever had? Performed in
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: front of them.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: That was the largest audience that had ever been at
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: the Lincoln Memorial. And, you know, 24 years later for
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: the I Have a Dream speech, it absolutely hearkened back
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: to the Anderson concert. You know, like in a way
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: it was a reference to that. It was really one
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: of the seminal events of the civil rights movement, that
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: concert in 1939. So she sings America. She flubs the
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: words a little because she's so flustered. It's only a
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: half-hour concert. It's going to include a Schubert Ave Maria
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: and three spirituals. The second piece she sang was the longest,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: that Donizetti aria I mentioned before. O Mio Fernando, seven
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: minutes before an audience. It was then an obscure aria.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: How many people among those 75,000, even radio listeners, would
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: have known anything about it? She said, I'm going to
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: show them. This is real, even if this is a
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: civil rights milestone, I'm gonna also show them. And newspaper
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: reporters surveying the crowd said people were awestruck. They didn't
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: know what she was singing about, but just that a
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: voice could do this, really. That's what gets forgotten about
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: that concert when it's written about. How well did she sing? Well,
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: that day she sure did.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Is there a really good recording of that concert?
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, the radio broadcast. There's a radio broadcast of it
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: on NBC, and it was broadcast. But the other thing
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: that people forget about that concert, okay, there's a platform
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: of sponsors, Supreme Court justices and senators and Katharine Hepburn
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: and people like that, and 75,000 people. She's greeted. It's
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: a big— of course, her mother— And her two younger sisters
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: come from Philadelphia for this big day. And she's, you know,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: news around the world. Of course, none of the Anderson
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: women in 1939 could stay at any hotel in Washington, D.C.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: So from all this, she has to rely on it
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: had been arranged. Gifford Pinchot was the former progressive Republican governor,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: two-term governor of Pennsylvania, her home state. His wife was
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: a big supporter of women's rights. They had the Anderson
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: women stay with them at their home in Washington. I mean,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: that's the part of our history that we keep. It's
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: not only that she, as an artist, I think is underrated,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: but even what she did as a civil rights pioneer
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: is forgotten. That she had to face the humiliation of
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: not being able to stay anyplace in Washington.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Your source material, you had quite a bit. Obviously, you
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: had to go into multiple languages to see how she
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: was received in Germany. But I'm curious about her. You
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: note in her memoir that she left certain details, including
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: about her father and his business, out.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes. He had a side business in selling alcohol.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Which I guess she didn't– you get a sense of
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: why she left that out. And what else did she
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: leave out of that memoir?
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: She left out any mention of, well, and throughout her
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: whole life, the only romantic relationship she ever owned up
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: to was with Orpheus Fisher, the man she eventually married
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: until 1943. And she, you know, she went to, in 1935,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: she was on a tour. of Europe, and she made
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: it to the Soviet Union, if you can imagine, in 1935.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: Two tours. And the Soviet government puts her up at
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: a spa for two weeks as a gift from the government.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: And there she has a fling with a younger Russian
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Jewish man who was an actor and reader, and who
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: was apparently very passionate. And there are, we have his letters,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: but not hers. And she, of course, never, ever, ever
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: mentioned this, you know, So there are things like that.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: And also the other thing I do talk about in
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: the book, this is how much– so she worked with
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: a ghostwriter, Howard Taubman, who was very, very faithful to
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: the recorded tapes, which you can hear at the University
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: of Pennsylvania at the library.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Is that where all of her stuff is?
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: That's where all of her stuff is. Yeah. And he,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: by the way, talking about conflict of interest in journalism,
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: he had my job. He was the chief classical music
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: critic of the New York Times at the time. He wrote,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: he was her ghostwriter. They kept it quiet. His name
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: was not given. And even... mentioned.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Not even in the acknowledgements or anything like that?
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: No, in the acknowledgements, yes, for editorial help, but not
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: that he actually wrote, you know. And he was left
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: out of all the reviews. He was getting, sharing money
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: that he made from it. It would be like I,
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: if I had, as a critic, was the ghostwriter for
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Renee Fleming's memoir. And we kept it quiet, and we
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: were both making money, and I kept reviewing her positively.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, that was just a total different era of journalism.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean, I always say, be careful when
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: you ask about the good old days of journalism. You
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: don't want to know what some of the rules used
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: to be.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly. But when she finally got the draft of
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: the book from Howard Taubman, her first thing was she
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: wanted everything about the Lincoln Memorial Concert taken out.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Hey, this episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought
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  Speaker 1: August of 2026. That's why are we doing the book, right?
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: And her lawyer, whom she trusted, and her husband. And
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: Taubman had to convince her, no, no, that is quite wrong.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: But she didn't, she wasn't- But you don't open with it.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: You know, and I almost feel like now listening to
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: that story, that your decision not to open with the
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Washington concert, I feel like was an homage to her.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, what I, I wanted to make clear how,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: how for Black, for all of us, But especially black people,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: even today, but especially back then, you can't overstate how
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: important it is to have a model, to see somebody, ah,
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: doing that. So I begin with Leontine Price, who's still
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: with us at 99. So Anderson comes back from Europe
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: and she starts singing here again. And she has a
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: concert in Jackson, Mississippi. And one day Leontine Price's Mother
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: says to her, well, Marian Anderson is not going to
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: be coming to Laurel, Mississippi, but she is singing in
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Jackson and we're going to take the bus and we're
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: going to go there and hear her. So they did.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: They went to see her. Now, of course, in this
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: big auditorium, they're sitting in the colored section, you know,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: and this woman walks out and elegant, beautiful and starts singing.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: And Price has this epiphany and she looks at her
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: and says to herself, I'm going to be her. That's
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: my future. At the time, Price was the star of
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: her church choir. She was taking piano lessons. She thought,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: maybe I could be a music teacher. Maybe I could
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: be a voice singer and do some concerts. Then she thought, ah, that.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: I'm going to do that. And what does she do?
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: She goes out and does it. She becomes the most
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: famous opera singer in the world.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: It's a wonderful way to open because the whole point
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: is that she did break barriers first.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: She did, yeah.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: For the next generation.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: And then, so Price is in the audience when Anderson
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: makes her debut. When Price makes her debut in 1961,
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: who's in the audience? Marian Anderson. I mean, wow, that's
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: really moving.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: What, somebody listening right now, one recording, where would you
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: tell people to start?
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm such an advocate of wanting her. Can I
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: pick two? I'd say one is Schubert's Ave Maria because
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: it's so famous. And I think even to people new
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: to this music, the eloquence, the personalness, the authenticity, the
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: sensitivity she brings to it is overwhelming. But the other
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: one is this spiritual crucifixion.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: She recorded it in 1941. It wasn't released for years
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: and years. I don't know why, because maybe she thought
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: it was too personal. The spiritual is amazing. It's profound.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: The words are, they begin, they crucified my Lord. And
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: he never said a mumbling word. Not a word, not
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: a word, not a word. So the spiritual is about Jesus' reaction.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: That he never, even with this punishment, he never said
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: a word in his defense. The spiritual, it's a profound piece.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: It's meant to be sung very slowly. Anderson sings it
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: at this glacial tempo. So slow, you think she's taking
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: a risk that the music is going to lose any
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: kind of rhythmic thread. It's just going to go limp.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: But it's so intense. So, the sound is so tremulous.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: and grabs you, and so heart wrenching, you hang on
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: every word. It's just, it's four and a half minutes,
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: and it's one of the most profound vocal music recordings
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: of the whole 20th century. And I'll tell you, she
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: sang it in 1935 in Salzburg. Of course she couldn't
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: sing at the Salzburg Festival, black woman, Nazis were overrunning Austria.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: but the lobby of a hotel was rented for her,
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: and it was kind of an informal concert for a
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: few hundred people. Two people show up, famous conductors, Bruno
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Walter and Arturo Toscanini. And on the program, she sings
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: some spirituals, and one of them is crucifixion. And the
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: reporter reporting on the concert said, at the end of crucifixion,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: no one applauded, not a sound. You know, and they
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: were overcome.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: It just sounds haunting the way you, and look, it's
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: the subject matter itself of this is your fate. This
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: is the moment. And it sounds like she interpreted it
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: that deeply.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. This gets to the title of my book, which
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: we don't have to go into, but Toscanini goes up
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: to her afterwards and congratulates her. Then he says, and
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: this is the best quote we have is from her
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: accompanist who was standing right next to him. He says,
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: what I just heard, one is privileged to hear only
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: once in a hundred years. So naturally, her big shot manager,
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Sol Yura, grabs that comment and tweaks it into something
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: much catchier and promotional. So all of a sudden, her
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: posters are plastered with Marian Anderson, quote, the voice of
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: the century, Arturo Toscanini. And he never said that. He
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: never said that.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: The social media of that day, huh? That would have
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: been immediately tweeted out and Instagrammed and all of that, right?
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: But the president of Penguin encouraged me to tweak that
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: phrase into voice of a century. I didn't want to
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: go anywhere because it's ambiguous. I love that, that it's
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: not the voice it's voice. It's like, it almost means
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: she exemplified the century. She embodied this. She sang for it.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: She spoke for it, both the possibilities and the horrible shortcomings,
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: you know, of it. It's all there. So, and also
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: by the way, it implies a little, she happened to
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: also have one of the great voices of the century, but, but,
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: but Toscanini also said, what I loved about his quote,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: he didn't say, the voice I have just heard. He said,
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: what I have just heard, meaning everything, your artistry, your interpretation,
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: your sensibility, and of course the voice.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Well, look, it's a tremendous story. Congratulations that you got
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: to do this because you get to put your imprint
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: on this. Before I let you go, I'm curious of
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: your thoughts on the state of classical music. And I
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: say this as I watch, you know, my last music
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: professor was second chair at the national symphony still is
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: still is at the national symphony. They don't have a home.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: They don't have a home.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: You know, it is look, one of the things that
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: I've always said, I talked myself out of, of, of
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: trying to go into music as a career was, you know,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: the opportunities are fewer and fewer all the time. No,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: unless you're the best of the best. It is, it
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: is really, you want to talk about, it's not 1%.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: It's the one, you know, one 10th of 1% are
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: able to truly make a living in classical music. Um,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: What's your sense of it as a public genre and
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: what's your sense of it? You know, how do we
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: create a new youth movement?
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: That's a huge topic. And we got two minutes.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: No, I'm kidding.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Well, the Kennedy Center story, the tragedy there is that
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: maintaining a symphony orchestra, maintaining an opera company is already
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: so challenging. even if you have the most supportive board
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: of trustees and people and patrons, it's still so hard.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: And so to have politics just take over and run
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: the place into the ground is just incredibly tragic.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: No, it's a gut punch.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: But, you know, the thing, the great hope I have is,
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: In a way, AI could maybe, even though we're all
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: afraid of it, help this. I know you've said things
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: like this on your podcast, that it might drive people
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: back to the original.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, I am a believer in this, that the unintended
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: consequence of the artificialness of everything is going to make
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: us appreciate the original everything.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: And when you were talking to Bob Spitz about the
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: book on the Rolling Stones, you were both talking about
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: the kind of mystique of live instruments. We've been losing that,
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: and even in that field, we have to get it back.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: But my mantra in writing about this field and loving
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: this field and promoting it and encouraging people is this
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: is one field, art form, you have to hear live.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: You think you don't chamber music? A string quartet?
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: What? No, and unfortunately, I think the digitalization of it
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: has turned it all into elevator music, and it's not fair.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: If you hear a string quartet playing in a hall
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: that seats three or four hundred people, no amplification, I'm sorry.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: When I was a kid, I knew nothing about opera.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: I got seats at the Met, the old Met, when
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: I was really young. I had no idea what these
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: operas were about. But the sound of these voices coming
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: up and encircling me, no amplification, was enthralling. Every time
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: I've brought some neophyte to the Met Opera in New
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: York who doesn't, they'll ask 10 times, there's no amplification?
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: I said, no, no. You know, a symphony or to
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: hear a great orchestra at Carnegie Hall, that sound is...
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: You cannot record that. We all love our recordings, obviously.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: They're wonderful. It's like, Toscanini once said, it's like getting
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: a kiss over, no, Stravinsky, I'm sorry, once said, it's
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: like getting a kiss over the telephone. But yeah, but
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: I think if young people could just hear this stuff
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: and hear it in the places where it's meant to
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: be performed, I mean, it's just enthralling. It captivates you.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: And if the demand, the demand has to be there.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: But it's a very expensive art form. You know, putting
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: on opera is very, very labor intensive. But I believe
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: in the genre. I believe in the art form. I
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: believe in its sustaining power. And it's never going to
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: have the big audiences that, of course, pop music has.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: But we can sustain it. We have sustained it.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I always love to tell some of my friends who...
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: who are not really maybe fluent in classical music or
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: just sort of, you know, appreciate it when it's in
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: a cool movie score, you know, which can, which can is,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: is sort of, and then they go to a rock
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: concert that brings on, you know, a brass, at least
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: a brass accompaniment, right. Or, um, might have 20, um, uh,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: instrumentalists behind them, you know, a couple of trumpets, a
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: couple of French horns, a couple of violins, And it just,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: it just fills the stadium in a way that no
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: synthesizer could. And no matter how many of those speakers
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: you stack up, right? When for the people that sit
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: on the floor seats.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Also in the kind of concert you're describing, but also
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: think of the symphony orchestra on a big concert stage.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: there's a spatial element to listening that, you know, basses
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: are here and the brasses are here and it's coming
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: from different parts, you know, and you have a solo
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: oboe sort of standing up against the whole orchestra. And
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: there's that kinetic kind of spatial thing is also, you
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: have to be there to hear it.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: There's really no recording yet. I feel like that has
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: truly been able to capture that sort of fullness, no
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: matter what kind of, you know, You could have the best,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: and I'm, you know, I was an audiophile until I
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: got kids, right? And then it's just sort of like
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: there's only so much hobbies you could keep up with.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: But you can have the best sort of setup to,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: you know, whether you're playing vinyl or you're playing something that,
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: you know, through the best version, digital version you could get,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: and it's never going to fill the room the way
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: live fills the room.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: No, you're singing my gospel. No, I agree. Again, as
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: someone who loves recordings, and especially historic recordings, all of
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Anderson's recordings. I mean, I never heard her live, and
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: so it's all I have. And I cherish them. But no,
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: I agree. I would rather hear.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: Than the most highly touted, best engineered, amazingly performed recording of,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: let's say, Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. I'd rather hear this Juilliard
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: Orchestra play it live, you know, or the Manhattan School
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: Music Orchestra play it live. because those kids have never
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: played it before, usually. They're thrilled. And they're also, by
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: the way, very good. They're very talented. They're technically incredible.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: As someone who couldn't get into Juilliard, I will tell
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: you that. Well, there you go.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: Maybe it all worked out for the best.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: You know, it all works out. Let me, if you
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: could pick one, if you cannot see classical music live,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: what is your preferred recording? Is it vinyl? Is it
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: a high-end digital sort of recording? Is it a 78
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: rather than a 33 on the vinyl? Do you have
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: a preference?
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: In a way, you're asking the wrong person, Beth. I
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: have found that many musicians and first and foremost, I
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: was a pianist and played a lot of concerts and
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: are not audio files because you can listen through anything.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: I can listen through any old scratchy recording. And so
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: when digital came along, for me, just pragmatically, it's clean,
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: it's not gonna deteriorate, it's reliable, it's maybe a little
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: colder than vinyl sound, you know, an analog sound, but.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: There's a warmth to vinyl that's hard to recreate anywhere else.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: There is, but you have to have really good equipment
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: and it's just, you know, it's- And any old CD
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: player can really, you know, so it's a convenience in
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: a way that, but Anderson made some recordings from the
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: early eras, you know, a recording that are full of
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: crackles and stuff that doesn't bother me. I can listen
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: right through, you know, to hear what I want to hear.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: Let me get you.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: Out of here.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Finish.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: I'd say go hear something live. Yes.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: I think we can't emphasize that. I mean, You know,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: even if it's something one of my favorite summer programs
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: that we have here in D.C. is the National Symphony
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: would do movie night at Wolf Trap.
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: Right. Wonderful. Right.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: And you do a movie and then they do the
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: score live. And it's just it's actually a great way
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: to get to bring your kids into something.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Right. Right.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: Sort of, you know, what music music do your kids
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: listen to?
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, my my daughter's Taylor Swift and everybody else, my friend.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: She's awfully good.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: No, and it got my daughter to pick up a guitar.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I insisted on piano lessons. Let's just
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: say it was a chore for them when they were younger. But,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I believe music is a language that you learn.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: And so even a rudimentary understanding of music is only
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: going to help you in life down the road. Let
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: me get you out of here on this because this
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: used to be a fun little conversation. I would have
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: over the years when I was more active in the
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: classical music world. Who would you say is the, what's
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: the premier symphony to get into now? You'd have these
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: little debates. There was the Cleveland Orchestra, there's New York,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: and there's Philadelphia, and there's You know, they all had
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: their strengths. Chicago, you know, some would argue. Boston, of course,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: you know, they had arguably the most famous conductors for
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: a while, you know. Who's got the belt right now?
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: Who's the number one symphony in the country? Where do
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: the musicians going, no matter where they are, they go,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: I want to go there.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: I guess I have, again, a sort of different take
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: on that because it's it's not just like you can
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: calculate uh the excellence or.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: Well i feel like it's hard to tell the difference
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: but it my guess is it's it in some ways
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: it might be even director specific.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: Yes absolutely i was just going to say it's you
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: know for example the uh los angeles philharmonic um just
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: became beat first under the composer, conductor, Esa-Pek Salonen, and
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: then Gustavo Dudamel, who's now coming this fall to the
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: New York Philharmonic. They were so, such adventurous, such an
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: adventurous whole institution. There was a real connection between the conductors,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: those two conductors, especially Gustavo, and the audience and those players.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: And the programs, they really had, they just made every
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: concert seem important, you know. And it's, was it, were
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: they playing greater than the Chicago Symphony? It's not that.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: It's just something that was really happening there. You know, like,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: you could compare to, we now look back, you can
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: read reviews criticizing Bernstein when he was a, you know,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: at the New York. Oh, sure.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Arthur Fiedler at the Boston Pops would get criticized, but
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: it was fun.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: We look back at Bernstein now in those years. Are
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: you kidding? That was like the golden age ever, you know.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: Everybody wanted to be with him and in New York.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: That was just, those concerts were incredible when, you know, he,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: so it's really the mix that makes an orchestra really great.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, basically there's eight to 10 great symphonies to
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: belong to And it's really director-specific, really, that sort of
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: drives the moment.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but, you know, the Alabama Symphony came to Carnegie
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: Hall once to play a concert, and it was a
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: really good concert, and they played really well, and it
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: was a new piece. And so I said, you know,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry. Sitting there that last night, this was as
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: good as any concert I can remember, you know, so... Uh,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: it doesn't quite work that way, but yeah, when you have,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: let's see what Gustavo does in New York, you know, uh,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: he's got some big plans and, uh, it could, he
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: could be, uh, bringing all, all his, you know, charisma
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: and energy and ideas.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: We'll see, you know, well, I, I, um, that's something
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: to look forward to. Uh, I'm glad to hear that. Uh, Tony,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: this was great. Um, thanks for, uh, Thanks for coming on.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: Thanks for sharing this book.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: I much appreciate it.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I know it comes out in about a
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: week or so.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a little longer, September 8th. And it's a couple
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: of few weeks. And yes, thanks. I'm honored. I'm very
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: glad that you invited me. Thank you so much.