Interview Transcript
Rolf had just turned 10 when he wrote to Bernstein from his home in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I tracked him down at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he is a Teaching Professor of Distinction Emeritus in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric. He talked about the intergenerational roots of his own love of music, and why seeing Bernstein’s young audience on TV was a game-changer for him.
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Dear Mr. Bernstein,
My name is Rolf Norgaard. I was ten years old a few days ago. I wonder if you could give me some tips on conducting. When did you learn all about music? How did you become famous? I want to thank you for the love you’ve put in these programs and how I enjoy them.
I am playing the piano for 3 years, the cornet for half a year, and cello for 2 months. I’ve been in the boys’ choir for ¾ of a year, and I’m a member of the Junior St. Cecilia Society of Music. You are my example of my music career, and therefore I hope you will write back. Thank you again for your TV programs.
With best wishes,
Rolf P. Norgaard
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I think the multi-generational aspect of this is really important. My grandfather, I think, had the most particular experience or, you know, impact on me. He was the person in charge of culture and cultural funding for the … I suppose the equivalent of the German National Chamber of Commerce, okay. And so he would edit a yearly anthology of contemporary German literature – German writers – that the Foundation or the Chamber of Commerce was supporting. And so he was in touch with all sorts of artists and painters and the like, and loved music, was not a musician himself.
He took me to my first opera when I was 8 years old – the Bavarian State opera. Fidelio, was the opera. And my interest in opera has, you know, remained. Opera and chamber music are the two sort of key passions.
My father, on the other hand, was a … not an accomplished musician but loved sort of playing around with music and the like – string bass in an orchestra and a tuba in the college marching band, and the like.
My mother was didn’t play music at all, but … she … I suppose she played the audience, which is not to be underestimated! You know, encouraging, you know, and things like that. I remember playing trumpet duets with my father. Neither of us were accomplished you know, with that instrument, but we knew enough to, you know, play together just a little bit. But that was a very important bonding experience.
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My father was an accountant, and my mother was a stay-at-home mother without any real college training. My father had a degree in hotel administration, you know. It was any you know … it wasn’t an academic family. The academic impulse came from my grandfather on my mother’s side. That was a huge, huge influence.
I think we took education very seriously. And reading was very, very important. It was just a value that the family, you know, had. And so that was yeah … music. Interestingly enough, although I really enjoyed the visual arts and, for example, in Europe, going to museums and the like, there was not much in the way of training in the visual arts, you know, in our upbringing. It was mostly music and then just a lot of, you know, just wonderful reading. My father would read to me at … when I would go to sleep at night.
I do recall – precocious kid that I was – I wrote to CS Lewis because I was so disheartened by the Narnia Chronicles finishing, and wrote to CS Lewis saying that I hoped he would continue and here’s some ideas for the next … the next story. And CS Lewis did write back, and was very kind, and recommended some books by a colleague of his, Tolkien.
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We didn’t watch much television. It was a household that really relied on books, on practicing. I would be up at 6 o’clock in the morning, every morning, for an hour of practice on the piano. And then in the afternoons, it was the ‘cello after school. And so it was … you know, very much a household that was focused on reading and music.
Things like sports never really had much … much of an impact on my upbringing. That changed later in life when I took up cross country skiing. But … but in any case … yeah, not much television. And so we were all very selective in terms of what we watched. But a program like the Young People’s Concerts was very, very important.
His love of music, also his interest in mentoring and reaching out to audiences to young people … He was very much a teacher in those Young People’s Concerts. And you know, I … a teacher and a mentor – to the extent he could be on a television broadcast. But, you know, that’s sort of what I appreciated, you know, at the time.
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We did have season tickets to the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra. So my parents did, you know, did what they could to bring that, you know, to life. It was, might have been, maybe six concerts a year, you know, something like that. And again, not a terribly good orchestra, if you were to sort of be very snobbish and critical about it. But it’s one of those, you know, a mid-sized town with its own sort of orchestra. And … and there was a youth symphony orchestra, you know, that took young people from the city and … and so those were all very, very important, you know, influences.
And the quality of the music mattered less than simply being in a collective venue where you could appreciate it. There’s something very social about, you know, going to a concert, as opposed to listening to recording. And I think the young people’s concerts were … the fact that they were live, and there was a live audience, mattered a lot. It was … it would be an entirely different beast if it were just, you know, in a recording studio with Bernstein and the orchestra there. I think that the audience – and the young people in the audience – were actually central to Bernstein’s project and its impact and influence.
As a matter of fact, I can remember images of, you know, the television cameras panning the audience. I was overjoyed that I wasn’t the only person who had these passions. You know, it was very much a moment of confirmation and sort of a shared moment of, ‘Oh, my gosh! There are other people that I can celebrate this interest with’.
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I really didn’t recall sending that letter. You know, I was 10 years old … And apparently, there was a response that was sent. That has been lost in the distant sands of time. I don’t rec… I think … my sense was that the response was more or less perfunctory, by some sort of secretary, or something like that, you know. So … that I don’t have. But the original letter was, you know, just fascinating to take a look at. And the memory of the Young People’s Concerts is very much … very much real, very much alive, very, very influential.
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For the last two years of high school in America, I went to the Interlochen Arts Academy, which is a boarding school that is academics, but also the arts, and so for 11th and 12th grade, was there at Interlochen.
I was part of, you know, 110-piece orchestra. We travelled, we toured, we played at Symphony Hall in Chicago, you know, we … it was just … toured to Atlanta, played in Atlanta as well. So that was absolutely magical. I was good, but not good enough, if you will, for a professional musical career. So I toyed with getting a joint, you know, a conservatory degree and a college degree. But I opted to, you know, go the academic route, you know, for my career, but music was still part of my undergraduate experience, very much so.
I went to Westland University in Connecticut for my college, and we played a lot of chamber music. There’s something very magical about playing in an ensemble. You know, and the life of a pianist can be a bit lonely at times. But being in an orchestra – or even a string quartet – is something bigger than oneself. And it sort of just takes you up and envelops you in something so much bigger than oneself. And that’s magical. That’s absolutely magical.
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So I think there’s an interesting sort of set of coordinates, if you will. You have the multi–generational – both the older, you know, the parents, but also the impact of something like the Young People’s Concerts on just what … somebody like myself does with their own with their own children. So I think there’s … the richness of the Young People’s Concerts can’t be just relegated to one moment in time. There’s a really important, I think, longitudinal dimension to this.
And the other is that it’s … how it plays a role in … in a sense, acting upon it. I’m thinking about you know, so with the Young People’s Concerts, was there with that an interest in music education, you know, joining a band or taking up an instrument or developing a music library of records? The impact, I think, wasn’t in the … in the program itself, but in its invitational rhetoric, if you will, it’s invitat… it is inviting young people to embrace this, to take it up, to take it on their own. And I think that’s an important part of the impact of the broadcast. It is not just the 60–minutes – or whatever it was – that’s the broadcast itself, but how that might resonate– or how it played a role in shaping attitudes and action.
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The Young People’s Concerts fed into my experience at Interlochen with the … being in a, you know, arts school that … with 400 / 500 students, most of them musicians, but also visual arts, theater, dance, the whole thing. But that was … the fact that I was drawn to that, and again, young people. All of these are people who are 15, 16, 17 years old. Some of them, by the way, have gone on to incredibly famous careers – you know, the alumni from that Interlochen Arts Academy are just, you know, stupendous … a stupendous list of alumni. But sharing that, and sharing that sort of love of music, and, you know, being around … being around people who were invested, you know, in this …
My best friend was a clarinet player, my roommate was a bassoonist. And I remember him … that he wanted me to stand on his chest and he would lift me up and down to strengthen his diaphragm. I mean, the sort of the odd, you know, the odd things that occur and come up when you’re in, you know, in an ensemble, a symphony orchestra.
So that was … I think a natural and important extension of the Young People’s Concerts is that I myself wanted to be part of an orchestra, a young people’s orchestra, and that really sort of was I think, an important motivation to do that. And it wasn’t … it was something that … because I was not terribly happy in my, you know, local high school, the odd person out, not many friends. And this sort of just … I just flourished there.
And then went on to, you know … that was sort of a moment that sort of opened up my life in terms of not just music, but also, also academics. You know – went on to Wesleyan for an undergraduate, studied in Germany on a Fulbright, a PhD from Stanford. You know, so it’s a real turning point, frankly. And I think not the only origin story, but the point of origin, sort of the … if you will, was the Young People’s Concerts, because I saw something there that I wanted to be a part of. And that literally, I guess, thinking back on sort of happened, you know, and it changed my life.