http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/ICD%20Robison.mp3
Paula
Robison, internationally known flute soloist and a faculty member at the New England
Conservatory.
Transcript of Island Cabin
Discs on Interlochen Public Radio, hosted by Jeff Kimpton, July 14, 2012, in Interlochen, Michigan.
JEFF KIMPTON, HOST:
(Waves crashing, soft music) Welcome to Island Cabin Discs on Interlochen Public Radio. This is the program
that features the people you know about sharing the music they would take with them to a deserted island
getaway in the middle of Lake Michigan. I'm Jeff Kimpton, your host, and my guest today is Paula Robison,
internationally acclaimed flutist currently on the faculty at New England Conservatory. Welcome, Paula, to
the island.
PAULA ROBISON:
Thank you, it's good to be here!
KIMPTON:
Well, it's great to have you here. Even though we're in our studio, we're going to pretend that we're on the
island here. You're here at Interlochen for the Summer Institute so it's great to grab you into the studio
for this program. We always ask our guests the same question. [When] we asked you to be on the program what
went through your mind as you had to look at this amazing career you've had in music and how could you
possibly choose five pieces?
ROBISON:
Oh, thank you for saying that! (Laughs)
KIMPTON:
What happened? (Laughs)
ROBISON: I
had heard through my whole life about the list of what you would take onto a desert island and I always
hoped that no one would ever ask me what I would take (Laughter) because I love so many different kinds of
music! And then when you described further what it was, that it wasn't a little island with just one palm
tree on it, but it was an island in the middle of Lake Michigan that changed the whole thing! And there's a
cabin there! And because I love being in nature so much--that's one of the reasons I love being here at
Interlochen because of music--the nature is all around. Then it started becoming in fact, quite appealing,
the idea of going there and being there. It was very appealing.
KIMPTON:
Right. And you didn't hold back because the list you brought is quite extensive! (Laughs)
ROBISON:
(Laughs) It's kind of full!
KIMPTON:
This is a twelve hour program here today!
ROBISON:
Paula's marathon list!
KIMPTON:
But what's interesting--and you're the first person of the hundred and so programs we've done here--who said
you would arrive on the island and you would not listen to music, you would listen to...
ROBISON:
Exactly! To nature! I would love to, upon my arrival, just set foot on this island and just listen to the
wind (Sound of waves crashing on the beach), listen to the water, listen to the birds who are my teachers
and my friends and my family. I just live for their sound. I love listening to them so I think a good part
of my first listening experience there would be listening to them, to my friends the birds. And I thought
when you asked me this of a poem by William Butler Yeats. He's one of my very, very favorite poets and so
would it be too over the top to read the poem here?
KIMPTON:
Absolutely! I think birds and nature sounds go right with poetry so take it away.
ROBISON:
OK. It's called "The Lake Isle of Innisfree."
I will arise and go now, and
go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there,
of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have
there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud
glade.
And I shall have some peace
[here], for peace comes [dripping] slow,
Dropping from the veils of the
morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all
a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the
linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for
always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with
low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway,
or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's
core.
So, I've thought so often of that poem
when I'm in the city - in an airport. "I will arise and go now." And here you've given me a chance! You see,
I can go now!
KIMPTON:
That's right, that's right. There's music and poetry in nature. It's a huge motivator for so much musical
composition to begin with.
ROBISON:
Yes, absolutely.
KIMPTON:
So, very appropriate. But now, the sun is falling, it's cocktail time and you do have to pick out some
music! (Laughter) You went right to some Brazilian music.
ROBISON:
That's right, I love Brazilian music and I love bossa nova music, I love ch^oro music. I play a lot of
Brazilian music with ch^oro and with kind of the folk and urban folk music which led into samba and then into
bossa nova in the '50s. And so in the '60s when I as a young person started hearing Jo~ao Gilberto singing,
and he would sing in a whisper and just play his guitar and he'd be singing his most marvelous--often very
complex--poems about longing and about something called saudade, which is a Portuguese
word, a Brazilian word. There's no kind of word for it in English, it's kind of like--well Debussy got it in
his music--it's kind of like you don't know whether to be happy or sad. It's a kind of a longing; for you
don't even understand what it is. Sort of like the blues.
KIMPTON:
But not as explicit as the blues, right?
ROBISON:
Right, not, because it's very ambiguous, very sexy. So, I'd listen to him first.
(Plays "The Girl From Ipanema" by Jo~ao
Gilberto and Stan Getz.)
KIMPTON:
That's the first musical selection--well, recorded musical selection. We've already had wonderful musical
poetry and musical nature sounds--but of our guest today Paula Robison, international flutist/flute
performer right here on our campus at Interlochen this summer. And the great music of Jobim and the great
performance of Gilberto. So, does it put you in the mood?
ROBISON:
Oh, yes. I am glad to be here.
KIMPTON:
(Laughs) Well, that's great. So, the flute...and the flute for such a distinguished career for so long. How
did you start the flute? I mean, were there early experiences? Was it something you heard once and you saw
it and identified?
ROBISON:
Well, my mother was an actor so there was a very strong theater strain in my family. My father was a writer
but he loved music. His whole family was full of music. His family life was full of music when he was young.
He always had wanted to be a conductor so he was always conducting to Toscanini recordings (Laughs). They
started me with the piano, but it was just kind of too big for me and it was always so big and I was kind of
overwhelmed by it. They used to say they never would be able to tell I had any music talent whatsoever from
my piano playing. But then--before I was born actually--my father heard a recording of the great French
flutist Marcel Moyse playing the Mozart Concerto in D Major. This was a recording that was made in the '30s
and he always had in his ear that sound of the flute as Moyse played it, which was so full of life, and he
saw this young girl--so I was about eleven years old then--and he thought, "Ahhh, maybe the flute." And
there was a great school music program in the California schools at that time. I was just going into junior
high school and there was a beginning winds class. A friend loaned me a flute. She gave me this flute, I
picked it up, and that was it. That was my voice. I had found my voice because I think every one of us has a
voice there somewhere. Either a singing voice or for some instrument, and we're really lucky, or blessed
actually, if we can find that voice.
KIMPTON: If
you can find it, that's right. Sometimes you can't. People are searching for that.
ROBISON:
Sometimes you can't. That's right and I felt lucky even then. Oh my gosh! So I worked as hard as I could. I
used to get up at five o'clock in the morning and practice and I really wanted to play. And then it was when
I was twelve-years-old that I sat down with my parents and I said, "I think I really want to do this." And
this was a time when women were really not in orchestras and that was the path I had chosen. I really wanted
to be in an orchestra and even being a professional musician for a woman was just risky business. But they
said, "We believe in you," which is the greatest gift a parent can give to a child, a young person. "We'll
support you." And because they knew, being artists themselves, they knew what the struggles would be. But
they knew what the joys would be too, and they wanted that for me. It's so wonderful.
KIMPTON:
And you went to college where?
ROBISON:
First the University of Southern California which I had a great music program.
KIMPTON:
Yes, it did.
ROBISON:
And then Julius Baker was in town with the Bach Aria group and so Mitchell Lurie, the great clarinetist who
was teaching at USC then--they were friends--took me over and had me play for Julius Baker. And so I played
for Julius Baker and he said, "You have to come to New York. You have to come to Juilliard." And I started
crying and said, "Oh no!" because I had a really terrific boyfriend at USC, a trumpet player, and I didn't
want to leave him and go to the big city, you know.
KIMPTON:
(Laughs) Of course, Julius Baker at the time was principal flutist for many years at the New York
Philharmonic, right?
ROBISON:
That's right. He was teaching at Juilliard. So, there I was, Juilliard. It was so cold! I mean, you know, if
you're raised in California, born in Tennessee...I didn't know you had to wear socks, you know! Hats? Scarves?
(Laughter)
KIMPTON:
Well, you don't have to but you're going to be a little chilly! (Laughter) Subway's not going to be too good
without socks, right? So, you're in New York with no socks studying at Juilliard and we won't necessarily
discuss the dates but suddenly your career began to take off and it's been more than four decades of
performing.
ROBISON:
Yes, it has. Almost five actually.
KIMPTON:
So, how did that start off? Did you go to an orchestra first or did you go into solo? You know, some people
start out with an orchestra first and then get kind of frustrated and want to branch out and do different
kinds of literature and experience, and others just go right on into the solo career. So, what was your
path?
ROBISON:
When I was young I was training to be in an orchestra because that was the ideal of most young wind players.
My idol was William Kincaid, also then Doriot Anthony Dwyer when she won the first chair position in the
Boston Symphony. Then I started studying with Marcel Moyse and the idea suddenly of figuring out myself how
I wanted a piece of music to go--and also playing with other people, a small group of people (that would be
chamber music where everyone decides this together), this started to become quite appealing to me. And
around that time Jean Pierre Rampal started coming to this country and playing recitals. And I would go to
them and listen, "Oh my gosh! This is really exciting and wonderful!" And listen to this repertoire--I
didn't know it, even. And then I discovered the Schubert Introduction and Variations for Flute and Piano and
I started listening to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing Die Sch"one Mullerin and started
thinking, "Oh this is a great piece of music! This is not just a silly piece, this is a very important piece
and look at all those Bach sonatas!" And suddenly I just thought, "Well, I'm going to give this a try." And
I had no role models. I had no one to whom I could go and say, "Well, how do I do this thing? What's my
career path? Where should I go first?" So, I thought, "Okay, I'll just go and enter every competition I can
see." And there weren't any, because at Juilliard the concerto competition did not include wind instruments,
it was only for violin or voice and piano.
KIMPTON:
(Laughs) Of course not!
ROBISON:
Same with most of the competitions. Every once and awhile, though, there was one. And then I went to Europe
and there was the Geneva Competition, Munich Competition, and then I came back to the United States after
having won both of them but then no manager wanted to take me because the tradition in orchestras was for
the first flutist to play the concerto, not for some upstart to come out and do it. No matter that that
upstart person had been spending her whole life learning the repertoire to do that. So, it was really a
struggle and I've said this often but I think I chose the road less traveled. It wasn't the road that was a
clear, clear path ahead of me. It had lots of sticks and stones and fires and floods and so I had to pick my
way through sometimes and just pick myself up and say, "Okay, start again. (Singing) Pick yourself up, brush
yourself off, start all over again!"
KIMPTON:
(Laughs) Well, I think that there's a glass ceiling in a lot of professions and we think of it as upward
mobility in business, but it very definitely was true in terms of the stigmatization of where people could
perform and what men did and women did not do. And Carol Jantsch, the first female major brass, or tuba
player, alum here just won the Philadelphia Orchestra a couple of years ago and we said she broke the brass
ceiling. (Laughter)
ROBISON:
(Laughs) The brass ceiling!
KIMPTON: But even then it was like,
"women don't play tuba." Well, of course they play the tuba. So, there are these stereotypes that you would
think in our quote unquote "liberated society" we would...but they were there. It's just part of the process.
Really part of the old studio system of kind of the apprentice model. How men would study with men and women
only played certain instruments but not necessarily in public and it was a very different time.
ROBISON:
Yes, it was a different time. In a way it was a very exciting time because there were a lot of frontiers.
There was a lot of open space to be discovered and so I had a lot of fun with that too.
KIMPTON:
Well, and we changed as a world too. The women's rights movement kind of began in the '70s and you were
there at the right time.
ROBISON: I
was. At the same time I did want a family. I did want to do that.
KIMPTON:
Sure!
ROBISON:
So, I did have to figure a way to combine those two things. It wasn't as though I was doing one or the
other. Sometimes I think it's almost necessary to do one or the other. Except that men have really come
around these days! Men are becoming fabulous fathers--you know, really willing to spend as much time with
their children as the mothers. So, it's possible to do it more now.
KIMPTON:
Well, we'll talk about your advice for young players in a little bit.
ROBISON:
OK. Some music?
KIMPTON:
We're going to come to some famous moments and I'm really curious to hear what some of those will be, but in
the meantime we've got a little Bach we're going to listen to. Do you want to go to the Magnificat?
ROBISON:
Yeah, let's do that because I would say, if I were on an island by myself I'd have my Bible under my arm and
I'd be thinking Bach a lot of the time, praising God for being alive and in gratitude. Bach's been so much a
part of my life in that way and this is such a radiant piece.
KIMPTON:
Yeah, the beginning of this is incredible. So, this is the beginning of the Bach, Magnificat,
here performed by the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi choir, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.
(Plays Magnificat
by Johannes Bach)
KIMPTON:
Well, from Bach we're back to the island with our guest today, Paula Robison, internationally known flute
performer. I'm always curious when people have had these wonderful careers that they've had--and you're
continuing to have--four decades of incredible musical moments! What are two or three, that to you were
transcendent experiences? Just, wow?
ROBISON:
Well, one of them was what happened very early on, when I was twenty years old, when Leonard Bernstein asked
me to come and play The Carnival of the Animals with the New York Philharmonic and then
to afterwards record it. And what's funny about the recording is they gave me one take to do Voliere, one
take! They said, "Okay, Miss Robison," (or Paula or whatever) "Okay play, play. That's fine, thank you very
much!" (Laughs) Oh my gosh, I'd like to do that one again! But that's the one that stuck. But the idea of
just working with him--he was just such a marvelous musician, artist, everything.
Another great one was working with
Michael Tilson Thomas who's one of my great friends, family really, and doing the first performance of Leon
Kirchner's music for flute and orchestra which was written for me with Michael who has such an amazing
spirit and mind in the way he understood the piece. We played it once and then somebody had made a mistake
in the orchestra sort of towards the end of the piece. We walked off stage and he said, "Let's do it again."
So, we went at it and we played the whole thing again. It's only about a thirteen minute piece but that was
wonderful, you know, that kind of moment.
Then another one of my great experiences
personally was working with Rudolf Serkin when he wanted to play. He asked me to play the Schubert
variations with him at Marlboro--the whole experience of Marlboro, I could say all of it was kind of a peak
experience. But being with that man, rehearsing with him, seeing him before a performance and seeing how an
artist like that--because I was quite young also then--prepared for the performance; how he got so quiet and
went inside himself. He suddenly looked up when I was looking at him and he said, "Ah, you've never seen me
like this, have you Paula?" Because he was such a passionate, you know, you worked, (In a loud voice)
everything about him was like THIS! You know, that he was within himself so much. Just also the actual
performance, being carried along on that immense flood of energy playing with him.
Those are classical music experiences.
Also, I think playing in a performance of the St. Matthew Passion, which Blanche Moyse conducted, I'll never
forget that. But one of the most fun things for me was--one of the great loves of my life for me is playing
Brazilian music--and I have been lucky enough to play with some marvelous artists. Romero Lubambo who's just
an extraordinary guitarist and Cyro Baptista is a great percussionist; we had a trio for many years
together. But we were in Carnegie Hall and we were playing in a whole evening celebrating bossa nova and we
were playing a ch^oro which is called "Um A Zero (One To Nothing)." It's like a soccer match by the great
composer Pixinguinha who wrote a lot of great ch^oros. And it's really fast, you know, and it's just banging
things, and it's like guys bumping up against each other in a soccer match! We played that piece so many
times and people would just cheer and everything! We played it mostly for Americans but that audience was
filled with Brazilians.
KIMPTON:
Sure in New York, right.
ROBISON: So
the minute we started people started cheering and I felt like we were the Beatles! You know, and we were up
there playing this and I remember the Beatles complaining (In an English accent), "We can't hear each
other." You know, and it was the same thing; we almost couldn't hear each other because they were cheering
so loud! And Carnegie Hall, which is just fantastic... I mean, playing in there--that's my favorite place in
the world. It just reaches out with big arms and embraces you. And so to have that flood of sound coming
towards us too, that's something I think I'll remember when I'm old and gray and full of sleep. (Laughs)
KIMPTON: I
bet, and probably many more memories beyond that and more to come!
ROBISON: I
hope so, thank you!
KIMPTON:
But they always leap out in those moments when the music transcends and becomes almost spiritual in a lot of
ways: both in terms of fun, and in terms of the sheer movement to another level.
ROBISON:
The movement! There was one I remember playing, my father had passed away and none of us had heard that he
was okay, you know, sometimes you get a signal from someone. Everyone else in the family had seen a star or
felt his presence somewhere blessing them, and I was playing--I was on the stage of Alice Tully Hall--and I
was playing the B minor Bach Sonata Second Movement which has a--it's like a sort of largo and it had a
repeat, each section of the movement has a repeat. So, I was playing the first part and I almost felt like I
was asking him, "Are you okay?" And then as I was playing the second part I felt just, that he was. And then
I played it again, asked the second part and got my answer. It was really...that was overwhelming actually.
KIMPTON:
Well, you talked about the Beatles not being able to hear themselves and that's actually the next piece you
went...no, no, no, we're going to do Count Basie aren't we?
ROBISON:
Well, why don't we do the Beatles next?
KIMPTON:
Well, let's do the Beatles. And you were very specific. Two songs, "A Hard Day's Night" or "Get Back."
ROBISON:
Get back Loretta! (Laughter)
KIMPTON:
But you decided on "A Hard Days Night." We're all products of the Beatles ourselves here, but they were a
liberating group in their own right.
ROBISON:
They were good! They were so good!
KIMPTON:
They were innovative.
ROBISON:
Innovative. Amazing, amazing. So full of energy, good energy.
KIMPTON:
Well, here it is, Hard Days Night.
(Plays "A Hard Day's Night" by The
Beatles)
A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles
KIMPTON: Well, from the Beatles and Bach, on to other influences. You know you talked about [the fact that] you love to play Brazilian music and I know that you've had some experiences with jazz and you've brought some jazz--we'll listen to that in a minute--but today players have to be so eclectic in their knowledge of the world of music. And literally is the world of music! How did that--in the process of your career--how did that become different in terms of the different kinds of music you have to know? And then you have to understand the cultures and the composers and the influences and the rhythms. Tell us a little bit about that. You know, with a lifetime of performing because you haven't just put your stamp on the Bach B Minor Mass or the Flute Sonata, gorgeous though it is.
ROBISON:
Well, I guess I always was curious and my family also. My parents were social activists. They were very much
aware of other cultures within our culture, which, if you think that I was a young person in the '50s and
'60s, people tended to be isolated in groups. This is still when there was segregation in the south. My
father taught at Fisk University, which was an African American college. That's why I was born in Nashville.
He was very much aware of how important it was to really start the melting pot melting and mixing. And so as
a young person I heard a lot, Paul Robeson was my godfather so I heard him singing and he sang about the
world. He sang in many, many different languages. He sang about people and Pete Seeger singing about people
living together in peace. The dream that we are still dreaming because we still seem to get ourselves into
wars somehow, that seems to be our pattern. But the hope for peace is always there.
So, I guess I've always felt myself a
citizen of the globe, even though in those days we were in our individual countries. And now we are so
mixed. So, I find that the influences that come for artists now from all around the world. They're
blessings, one blessing after another. We're hearing. We have such ease of communication with other
cultures. It's a world music and we're really all world musicians. If you think too, that a composer like
Mozart or Beethoven was living in Europe at a time when Europe was in flux, there were people coming
through, there were conquerors, there would be other cultures mixing a great deal in Europe and so their
music is full. If you listen to Brahms, the Brahms G Minor piano quartet and you hear Hungarian music in
there - he was fascinated with the music of Hungary - and if you listen to the Brahms clarinet quintet and
you hear how much, how many influences from other cultures are in the music of Brahms, because he was
curious, too. He was listening, too. So, I think it's just an enlargement of what people have always been
doing who have open ears; who are just aware of their surroundings. There are many more techniques of
playing now if that's maybe part of the question you were asking me?
KIMPTON:
Right, yeah.
ROBISON:
The extended techniques that are available to, specifically flute players, let's say for now. I have dabbled
in it; I've gone a little bit into it. I love playing the Berio Sequenza which is one of the first pieces to
have multiphonics! But then I've played Takemitsu which has a lot of multiphones. But farther than that I'm
leaving it to the young folks to do. There was a young player who played today in class and he played Greg
Pattillo--a beat box flute piece.
KIMPTON:
Yes, I've heard that.
ROBISON:
And it's just great! And I'm thinking, "Great, play it and I'm going to love listening to it!" And I want to
now be--because think museums are living places because the origin of the word is that's where the muses
are, that's where they live--and so I want to preserve that vitality of the music with which I was raised
and see if I can keep the music that was written for my instrument alive and also pass on the things that
many people who have passed on now talked [about] to me. I mean, Pablo Casals--I worked with him at Marlboro
and I can hear him say (Imitating) "Music." I can hear his voice saying it right now (Laughs). "Music."
Actually, as I get older I'm able to imitate him better which is a little disconcerting. But for me to be
able to say, "OK, he was like this, he looked like this, he walked like this or that." So, I can actually be
a transmitter of what my own memories are. I guess that's how I'm thinking of what my role should be right
now as an aging person. (Laughs)
KIMPTON:
Well, you've brought one of the great classics...
ROBISON:
Oh, it was juvenile though! It was juvenile.
KIMPTON:
That's right, there you go. You've brought one of the great classics that we'll always remember, Count Basie
which [has] set a standard.
ROBISON:
Yeah, I was lucky to be in New York in the '60s when jazz was being played all over the place so I went.
(Laughs) Another boyfriend took me to hear Count Basie so I was able to sit there and listen to him and
watch him, that smile, and listen to "Lil' Darlin'."
(Plays "Lil' Darlin'" by Count Basie)
KIMPTON:
You're listening to Island Cabin Discs on Interlochen Public Radio. I'm Jeff Kimpton, your host, and my
guest today is Paula Robson, internationally acclaimed flutist, currently on the faculty of New England
Conservatory. That's the great Count Basie, "Lil' Darlin'." The traveling life of a musician: different
orchestra, different halls, plane flights, weather, food...how do you keep the consistency as a performer, as
a world performer?
ROBISON:
You know, through storm, through all dark of night I feel like the postman: you know you always have to
deliver the goods. It's a challenge because I've never enjoyed traveling too much. Some people really love
the traveling and the adventure of it but I always get kind of nervous when I have to get to the airport and
I always get there too early. That's why I've read so many books, I take so many books along with me! And
the traveling is stressful, especially now. It used to be a little bit easier.
KIMPTON:
Yeah, yeah, it's tough.
ROBISON:
Now that there's so many people in the security and all of that it's just extremely stressful and more
packed into small planes. Unfortunately, my career was not of the type where I could have my own private jet
or I can always travel first class. Sometimes I can travel first class, sometimes not. But I'm at the age
where it would be really nice to do that all the time. The private jet I think would be the best way.
KIMPTON:
(Laughs) I'm with you!
ROBISON:
But the thing is, that what I've always thought is, my mission is to get to the place and make the best
music that I can. And so it sometimes means, "Oh gee, I'd love to go to that museum," and then I say, "No,
you're here to make music. This is why you're here. You've come to communicate something through your voice
of a composer and also to make music with whatever people you're going to encounter." And so sometimes I've
played with some marvelous orchestras and conductors with whom I've had a great affinity. One of them was
Don Jaeger by the way! I played with him when he was conducting out in California. I played with him years
ago--we were laughing about that. How many years ago it was. And sometimes the orchestras were not so good
but I always thought, still, the thing is to make music and I think any musician would say the same thing.
Even if you're playing to a hall full of people, even if there's only one in the whole hall whose life has
been changed by your music, then that's the reason you're there.
I believe that there's a difference
between art and entertainment. They're both wonderful. Entertainment is really important for our lives. To
be entertained is part of art. Entertainment is part of great art. If you listen to any great French,
Baroque composer the purpose of the music was to stir the emotions and have something that's charming and
pleasing to the listener, right? And entertaining--if you go to hear a good singer or you go to see a show
and you're being entertained you're basically passive. You're sitting in your seat; you're letting something
come to you. And basically you leave being the same person that you were when you came but you're probably
happier, you're feeling more relaxed, you're feeling better about your life, you're refreshed, you can get
back to your life, get back to work because you've been taken to a place which is really fun and happy. But
art, although it can contain that process, also, sometimes, makes you very not happy. It makes you scared,
you know it makes you...
KIMPTON:
Think.
ROBISON:
Yes, it makes you think! It makes you concerned, it makes you shaken, it makes you cry sometimes or remember
something that happened to you. But the most important thing is that it does change you. Great art. You are
a different person when you leave a place where you've been in contact with great art than you were when you
came in.
KIMPTON:
Well, you talked about voice and great art and here we come to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf the great...
ROBISON:
Yeah, she's an artist who has just meant everything to me for my whole artistic life because she's an artist
who took chances. She had a beautiful voice but she would go to places that other singers just didn't want
to risk going to. And the song we're going to listen to now, "Waldseligkeit"...the words are:
I am sitting in the woods;
I'm by myself I am alone with
the trees
But I am not alone because my
heart is yours
She's speaking really to her lover and
the way she uses her voice in this song is just the most extraordinary thing. Leaps of octaves, sustained
tones, just beautiful, and George Szell with the orchestra.
(Plays "Waldseligkeit" by Elisabeth
Schwarzkopf)
KIMPTON:
That's one of the great sopranos of all time, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf there in "Waldseligkeit" by Strauss with
George Szell and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. You must have some challenges you want still left in your
career. Are there some things you still really want to do? Some music you want to record or commission? Tell
us a little bit about that.
ROBISON:
Yes, so here I am, I'm getting old and I said to my husband a couple of years ago, "This is it. I'm going to
stop playing the flute now because you know, I just want to be a teacher and play well enough to demonstrate
at lessons." And he said, "Oh, OK. If you want to do that okay." And I did that for a little while and then
one day he said to me, (Laughs) "Paula, you are in such a bad mood! You go and get your flute out of that
case and practice!" He's such a marvelous man. So, it was kind of a renaissance, it was kind of a renewal,
which involved going back and saying, "Well, why do I do this anyway? You know when I was young, what were
my dreams? Why am I doing this?" So, I had to rethink it. Why do I play the flute? Why did I choose the
flute? (Laughs)
So, then I started playing and going
back to the old, what my teachers said, the etudes I used to play. And then I decided I wanted to become a
really good teacher myself. So, this summer I want to. I'm setting aside a good deal of the summer when I
get home--and we've been in conversation here at Interlochen with my colleagues--I want to really know how
to help my students more. So, a young pianist--this is so wonderful when it happens to an old lady--a young
pianist came up to me, Paavali Jumppanen, he's a Finnish pianist, a fantastic pianist and he said, "Paula,
you know, I want to learn the Boulez Sonatine. Did you ever play that?" Now, this is a piece which was
written in 1946, one of the first great, just way out there difficult pieces for flute which I through my
whole life would go, "This is the year for the Boulez Sonatine," and then I'd go, "well, maybe next year."
And I still have the copy I bought all those many years ago. I said, "No, I never played it," and he said,
"OK, you should learn it. We're going to learn it together." And I said, "What we are?" and he said, "Yes,
we are, we're going to do it!" and I said, "OK, we are! We're going to do it!" And so I'm learning it. And
it's so hard! (Laughs) It's so hard. But it's so good for my brain, you know, because it's so challenging.
One of my students gave me the fingering for the high F which, ends it. I've never played a high F in my
life, now I can play one. And we're playing it two places: we're playing it in New York and in Boston in
September.
KIMPTON:
Oh, fun!
ROBISON:
And in August we're going to have a Boulez boot camp. We're going to rehearse every day all day for two
weeks. So, that's what I'm doing. Yes, I do want to record some more.
KIMPTON:
Sure.
ROBISON:
There's still some stuff like the Boulez, which I've never recorded, there's some kind of standards of the
repertoire I've never recorded, I'd like to do a couple more.
KIMPTON:
And there's all this new music, all this new music.
ROBISON:
Yeah, all the new. Oh, so much great music new!
KIMPTON: I
heard the Chicago Symphony last year and that wonderful flutist from Chicago who was in LA for a while and
then left and went back, played a French composer...
ROBISON:
Mathieu Dufour.
KIMPTON:
Yeah, but it was a new concerto and I can't remember the name of it, unfortunately. But it was so
interesting and I wanted to hear it again because, "Gee, I missed this. What did he do here?" And you have
the time to do that.
ROBISON:
Yeah, and this is what's happening. Composers are now writing pieces, which are yes, intellectually
challenging, but they're accessible. You can't get enough of it on the first hearing that you really do want
to hear it again. You're not antagonized by it. It's really great what's happening.
KIMPTON:
Probably the work of Chopin was that kind of thing (Laughs). I'm the master of segues today! You were very
clear that you wanted to hear Rubinstein playing Chopin.
ROBISON: Oh
yeah, my man!
KIMPTON:
And why? And how does he speak to you?
ROBISON:
Oh, gosh! Well, luckily I was able to hear him play many times--the joy that he has...
KIMPTON:
Rubenstein that is, not Chopin! (Laughs)
ROBISON:
Not Chopin! No, oh dear! No, no, no, no! (Laughs) Arthur Rubinstein, he was kind of an idol in our family
when I was growing up. My father had his recordings of the Nocturnes--we would always play those--and so I
grew up listening to him. And then I was able to not only hear him and see him, but watch him play. And the
kind of relaxation he had at the keyboard because he so much loved what he did. The hands relaxed on the
keyboard helped me so much with my flute playing and I use it with my flute students also. The fact that the
body is so relaxed and the joyfulness so that the music just comes pouring out of him. And the fact that
when he plays a Mazurka you want to dance to it. The dance-- it's so much in the basic--the inner rhythm of
the dancing...
KIMPTON: He
caught the life of that.
ROBISON:
Yes, he did, which Chopin...they probably all danced the Mazurka. They were all Polish, you know. (Laughs)
Yeah, when Rubinstein plays Chopin the whole world is Polish!
(Plays "Mazurka No. 4" by Frederic
Chopin performed by Arthur Rubinstein)
KIMPTON:
That's the great, Arthur Rubinstein doing the Chopin "Mazurka No. 4 in F Minor, Opus 68." Paula this has
been an absolutely amazing time. (Laughter) We could talk on here for hours. Thank you so much for being
with us today.
ROBISON:
(Laughs) Thank you, I want to know what your choices would be!
KIMPTON:
(Laughs) Oh, well...
ROBISON:
That's for the next one!
KIMPTON:
That's for the next one. I've actually done my own program which was kind of fun. But when we talked about a
closing piece you've got written on this piece of paper--that you gave me down at the bottom in big letters:
"DEAN MARTIN." And we kept saying, "Well, maybe we don't have time for Dean," and you said, "Oh no, we've
got to do Dean Martin!" And you were very specific: "Christmas Blues."
ROBISON:
Yeah, because I would get the blues and want to go home at a certain point in that summer on that island and
I'd want Deano to take me back there in his boat!
KIMPTON:
Paula Robison, great to be here, thank you.
ROBISON:
Thank you.
KIMPTON:
And out with the "Christmas Blues."
(Plays "Christmas Blues," by Dean
Martin)
JEFF KIMPTON:
My guest today was Paula Robison, internationally acclaimed flutist currently on the faculty at New England
Conservatory. For more information about the music you've heard on Island Cabin Discs go to
ipr.interlochen.org and click on Island Cabin Discs. Or write to us (ipr@interlochen.org)
and refer to program featuring the guest featuring Paula Robison. I'm Jeff Kimpton your host, thanking you
for being with us today. The executive producer for Island Cabin Discs is Thom Paulson and this edition of
Island Cabin Discs was produced by Brock Morman for Interlochen Public Radio.