Every once in a while a magical correspondence happens. Sometime back, I posted a YouTube performance of Arnold Schoenberg conducting the first movement of his PIERROT LUNAIRE. The flutist on this recording was Leonard Posella. The other day I received this letter from his son, Nino, who gave me permission to reproduce his letter here.
Mr. Bourland:
Out of the blue I was sent a copy of the November 10th, 2008 Schoenberg conducts Pierrot Lunaire (excerpts) link to the YouTube recording of Pierrot Lunaire you provided in the article I believe you authored. The moment I heard it I was haunted, unexpectedly transported back through decades of memories and music, and then I knew I was listening to the unique sound of my father on the flute. I began to do some digging and discovered the article from which the link came. My ears did not deceive me. The flute and piccolo was credited to my father.
I have very few recordings of my father, Leonard Posella. Most of what I hear is from old Warner Brothers movies and of course, Looney Tunes cartoons. Dad did all the flute work from about 1940-1969 or 1970. I also just recently found a six record set of the Schoenberg, conducted by the composer himself. The set was in some boxes I had been hauling around for years after my father’s death, not really knowing the contents. They were from Ferde Grofe’s collection as my father and he were very close. I have not as yet been able to play them as they are either 78’s or 33 1/3 and I have no turntable. I will eventually attempt convert them to digital as I think my father was the flutist on that particular recording.
Interestingly enough, I have a letter to my father from Schoenberg, thanking my father for his work on Schoenberg’s music. I believe the Pierrot piece was included in Schoenberg’s gratitude letter, although not specifically. Anyway, I was thrilled to hear the music and take the journey on which it sent me. I also still have the ebony piccolo with the sterling head joint on which he played for the Schoenberg recording. The flute was either his platinum Powell (later stolen from his locker at WB), the Louis Lot or his Haynes (made by “old man Haynes” as he used to refer to him). I still have the Haynes and the Lot as well.
If you have any other recordings that you may know of with my father on them, I would be grateful to hear them.
Regards,
Nino Posella
Nino: Our librarian assures me that these recordings have been digitally made available. Whether they are still in print is another question. Many thanks for sharing this story about your father with me and my readers.
[Image from "Pierrot lunaire in Studio and in Broadcast" by Avior Byron, published in the Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, 2 (2006-7), p. 69]
Last night Ronnie and I went to Disney Hall to the 2nd concert of the Green Umbrella series.
The concert opened with a piece I dreaded hearing but I became a convert afterwards: the Berio trombone sequenza. Trombonist James Miller, in clown costume, sold it to the respectable crowd.
Joanne Pierce Martin made me fall in love with John Cage. She played excerpts from his Sonatas and Interludes. Some of the most heavenly music I’ve ever heard. Bravo to John and brava to Joanne. The piano preparation sounded flawless.
I was looking forward to hearing Stockhausen’s Kontra-punkte, but ultimately found the piece BORING. No, I don’t ever need to hear it again, nor do I care how it was constructed. But, I’m very happy they programmed the piece. Beautifully played.
The final pieces were Ligeti’s Aventure and Nouvelle Aventure. I had known the pieces from LPs in the 70s and was thrilled to hear them. Pockets of the audience giggled and laughed all the way through. People seemed uncomfortable thinking there might be humor in these pieces, which I do. Come on gang, music CAN be funny. Brilliantly performed.
Part of my job as Chair of the UCLA Music Department is to know about all of our large and small performing ensembles. One group that is probably what most of the world thinks when it thinks music and UCLA is our marching band.
Yesterday Daniel and I spent from dawn to dark at the Rose Bowl as guests of the UCLA Marching Band. The main attraction for everyone else was UCLA versus USC, a long standing city rivalry that I personally never cared about but was amazed to see in full force. The mere fact the we both had UCLA blue jackets made us involved in the town rivalry. And when we walked through areas of only USC colors (red and gold), we felt a bit uncomfortable. How silly.
We arrived before 9 am and there were already miles of RVs with rugs in front, full bars and lots of chairs with people already drinking and barbequeing. We were misdirected and nearly had to be locked in the purgatory known as stacked parking, but we kept saying “NO! We have to be in the M lot.” They’d shake their heads and tell us to go to the opposite side of the stadium. Some police then gave us another set of bad directions and we started getting a bit cranky. We stopped again and a motorcycle policeman got out. He looked at our pass and said, “OH! You’re really going to M, eh? Ok, I’ll take you there.” We then got a police escort to Lot M.
After parking, we went to watch the UCLA Marching Band rehearse in a large parking lot, this was now 9 am. The Director, my Vice Chair in the department, looked professional, was cool, calm, and in control. He runs a tight ship. Controlling over 200 undergraduates while playing their memorized music and stepping through complex steps all over the football field is an amazing ability. Wow!
When Gordon realized that I was there, he announced to the amassed players that I was there and that it was the first time in 20 years that a Chair had come to a rehearsal and game with the band. I waved, they whistled and shouted.
After an hour and a half of rehearsal we wandered over to the Chancellor’s tent. This was a huge tent with terrific food catered by Bristol Farms, with a free open bar, a coffee bar, and lots of tables. This is a perk of being a donor. And if I heard it right, each of these people contributed at LEAST $10,000. And the place was packed. That’s when I realized how powerful school/team spirit is, or can be.
We sat down with a retired couple and had a lovely chat. Members of the band came in and entertained us for a while. I got to visit with the Chancellor’s wife, Carol Block who is a marvelous and bubbly person.
After the reception we went into the stadium, and since we were apparently on the A list, we had access to everything. We went down on the field during the pre-game show, wandering up and down the sideline until we were told to go back to our seats. We sat in front of the band near the 30 yard line, and with good earplugs, it was tolerable. The audience was deafening when the cheerleaders would call for NOISE. An incredible phenomenon–an audience of 40.000 (?) all screaming some loud sound that, together, adds up to an amazing cluster of terror, done to distract the USC offense.
Just before the end of the 2nd quarter, Jennifer Judkins, perhaps sensing I was in melt down mode from the sheer volume of everything, grabbed us, and walked us down on the field. It was a bit surreal. The game was still going on, and we tip toed around the edge of the field, cops saw our badges and waved us through, walking in front of a huge section of USC fans. Would they boo us? Would they throw something at us? Two little blue spots moving along a sea of red and gold. THey didn’t. We then stopped at the corner of the UCLA end zone and just watched the game from the field. It was marvelously QUIET. The view from the field is vast and quite beautiful. The sun was starting to go down as well, so everything looked beautiful.
We then watched the half time show. After hearing the two bands, it is clear to me the great job Gordon does arranging and running the band. UCLA did, appropriately, a suite from West Side Story– perfect for town rivalry. After the show, Jennifer fetched us again as the players came back on the field and took us up to the press boxes hovering above the stadium. We went into the media room and watched the announcer, and everything involved in keeping the score board up to date, and the various video feeds.
Next to it was the Chancellor’s room where donors were allowed to watch the game from a privileged room and schmooze with the Chancellor. I greeted him and chatted with Carol again, had a hot dog with Sheila, Jennifer and Daniel and then got into our cars, leaving a bit early to avoid the rush.
USC beat UCLA 28 – 7. I’m over it. I had a great time and suspect everyone else did as well. I’m not ready to up my quotient of “Bruin Spirit” but I’m glad to have learned that many take it very, very seriously. We were exhausted when we got home. It is a lot of exercise: walking all over the place, standing most of the game, clapping with the cheerleaders, cheering, watching, shouting at each other. I had no energy to sit through the Beethoven 9 at Royce. We came home and collapsed, pooped, but exhilarated.
Go Bruins!
[Photo by Daniel Shiplacoff: RB watching UCLA Marching Band rehearse]
Some time ago, probably late 80s, I was sitting in Hugos in West Hollywood, with my partner having dinner. I looked across from me and there was David Crosby with his wife Jan. I couldn’t resist telling him that he changed my life and my music was very much influenced by his music. He was amused — amused enough to agree to come to UCLA to talk to our students about stuff (don’t take drugs — he was freshly sober), and his most recent music.
Before that, he came to my apartment in West Hollywood. He played me a cassette of the Bulgarian Women’s Chorus (their first Nonesuch recording), and I played him my Dickinson Madrigals, Book I where there was harmony that I felt was very Crosby influenced. He said he didn’t hear it, but he liked it.
I then pulled out my guitar, showed him that I knew the tuning for “Guinnevere”, he was impressed, and then I started playing it. We sang it together for a verse and bridge and stopped. “Yeah, that’s not exactly how I play it but those are definitely the notes.” I was sanctified.
The sound of “Guinnevere” pervaded my late-60s high school days. To be with this guy, WOW.
Here is a video of another version that was made at the same time with some very interesting variants from the one they released on Crosby Stills and Nash’s first album.
Americans celebrate Thanksgiving once a year. It’s a warm and fuzzy time often associated with being with one’s family — biological and not — and for being thankful. Like many other holidays, the origins are fuzzy, but we get the gist.
Being raised a Protestant American, “We Gather Together” meant Thanksgiving. It’s a great hymn. Lovely dissonances that resolve in a kind of Americana way. It was written in mid-17th century and is described as a Netherlands folk song. The harmonization we all know and love was done by an early 20th century chap. It always reminded me of Sibelius’s “Finlandia” from around the same time.
This Thanksgiving I brought out a book of folk songs. I sat at the piano and crashed through them. David, Daniel’s father, sang with with me. Great fun. We realized that young people just don’t know all the folk songs we older types do. We had a blast singing songs we haven’t sung since childhood. Daniel and Josie knew them all and sang along.
Some of these songs are like 20 seconds long. For that reason, there was never a hit single for young people to learn or hear. They would only know the songs if they were to have been sung by their parents, friends, or siblings. Think: “Skip to my Lou” or “Billy Boy” or “Clementine” or “Down in the Valley” … there are skads of them and I know them all! The storage capacity of knowing songs in remarkable, and not just a PhD from Harvard, everyone has their own bank of music memories.
I bring all this up because it seems a nice tradition: to sing these old songs at Thanksgiving. They are easy to sing, people like them, you can harmonize them, play simple guitar or piano or whatever instrument is lying around, and it makes people feel good, especially those singing. (If you really want to know, it increases the amount of oxytocin in your system, a hormone that spikes during orgasm.) Music does that. Clapping together does, as does singing together. Singing is a better high because there are more variants than plain old clapping.
I advocate a return to group singing, group music making: a new 21st century chamber music or parlor music tradition. Add your favorite Beatles, or Kurt Cobain, or Beyonce. Singing does a body good.
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