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    Norman Dello Joio

Norman Dello Joio
Interview Part Two

With Dana Paul Perna

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Continued from Part One

DPP:   Turning now to a question that's a long way from Babe Ruth, how long have you lived in the Hamptons? When did you first come out here?

NDJ:   To the Hamptons, I think I was with my original wife — and I had three children by my original wife. We had a place at that time when I was teaching at Sarah Lawrence in Connecticut, but I wasn't too happy. In New York, one night, I went to dinner with Vladimir Horowitz, the pianist — he wasn't playing at all at that time and we were playing cards (I lived a block away from him in New York). I forgot what it was but I was saying about I was not liking Connecticut for the kids very much, and he suggested “have you ever been to East Hampton on Long Island?” I had never even given that any thought. So I asked him why? He said “it's a nice place. I go there every summer and rent a house. Why don't you come down there?”

So, I went down late Spring by myself to look at East Hampton, and, gee, at that time, the 50's the court had really been discovered, it just struck me, oh boy, this is the place for the kids. Marvelous pools....so I fell in love with the place and that's how I finally went to rent a home for three years and finally bought a house.

DPP:   So you have been here since the '50's, basically ?

NDJ:   Large house my kids all grew up there. We are here for ten years in this house; I divorced my first wife. With my second wife, here for the past ten years.

DPP:   Not to sound rude but do you remember what you paid for in the 1950s for your house?

NDJ:   Yes, I paid for the original house, which was a 14 room house — practically on the water, I think I paid about $27,000 at that time.

(Mr. Dello Joio revealed what he sold that house for in 1995/96, but that information has been withheld in this article for reasons of privacy.)

DPP:   That was definitely an investment

NDJ:   I never bought it terms of investing here! It was a nice place that was large enough for the three kids. It was three stories high, I had all the top floor I made into a studio. I did a lot of writing up there. I fell into it.

DPP:   Yeah. I am looking over here at the wall at some of the faces that are familiar to me. I see, is that you with Artie Shaw? Did you work with Artie at all?

NDJ:   I wrote a work for him.

DPP:   oh you did? Which one?

NDJ:   He commissioned a work for clarinet and orchestra. He concertized with it a great deal.

DPP:   Oh, really, do you remember what it is called — is it called Concertino?

NDJ:   YES, it's a printed score.

DPP:   I'm sure it would be.

NDJ:   That's Eugene Ormandy.

DPP:   That's Arthur Fiedler up there.

NDJ:   There's the Russian and Hungarian composers, that's —

DPP:   Zoltan Kodaly?

NDJ:   That's the letter to inform me that I received the Pulitzer Prize. There was a check enclosed.

DPP:   And you have won the Pulitzer Prize, yes! I should have mentioned that — and the work that received the Pulitzer Prize has been recorded.

NDJ:   Yes, that's right.

DPP:   Meditations on Ecclesiastes.

NDJ:   That's right.

DPP:   Just for the record folks!

NDJ:   With it was a check which I never cashed. (Instead, Mr. Dello Joio had it framed) It was only for, can you imagine in that time, five hundred dollars?

DPP:   Wow, but at time that would have felt like a fortune. And there's a picture of you with Hindemith. Is that in his class?

NDJ:   That's right. And seated next to Hindemith is Lukas Foss who was a student. This was taken up at Tanglewood; it was the first year of Tanglewood; Hindemith was up there as the teacher, and I'm standing up

DPP:   You're the one by the tree?

NDJ:   By the tree. That's Bruno Walter.

DPP:   I also see that you have Fritz Reiner up there, too. Is that Chicago or is that Pittsburgh?

NDJ:   That's Fritz Reiner and that's Copland up there. At the very top is at the home of Toscanini for his grandchild andin that picture is Horowitz.

DPP:   Did you know Toscanini well?

NDJ:   No, I knew his daughter and Horowitz well, but, Toscanini, not well. They invited me up to the party and took the picture at the party.

DPP:   Throughout your career, I mean, you obviously worked with the some of the great conductors. Do any of them stand out that really you were simpatico?

NDJ:   Reiner was the first to recognize me and was the first big time when he was conductor in Pittsburgh. Ormandy was very close to commission me which I did. Bruno Walter to everybody's surprise, performed because he was not known for doing any new works. He was very complimentary about the work.

DPP:   Well that's good! One of the works of yours I've always liked is a work called New York Profiles.

NDJ: Yes.

DPP:   I've enjoyed that a lot over the years. Any works of yours, in particular, that you feel are your best efforts?

NDJ:   Well, I think that possibly my most famous, at least for me, the one that I feel sums up me completely is a choral work I did called Saint Cecilia for chorus and brass instruments.

DPP:   Was that one for the National Cathedral by any chance in Washington DC? Yeah, I know that piece. I can see why you want to single that one.

NDJ:   I have a very beautiful edition of it on my piano.

DPP:   Who were some of the composers you knew?

NDJ:   I never developed close friendships with composers. I liked Copland personally, he was very nice to me, but, as a matter of fact, also, I think Virgil Thomson was a very good friend, strangely enough. Although I disagreed with all his choices of what he liked, as a person he was a very amusing man. He liked my music; I couldn't say I liked his. I knew William Schuman very well and Bela Bartók

DPP:   You worked with Schuman at Sarah Lawrence or was he there before you?

NDJ:   No, I inherited his job when he left; I was the one who replaced him and I was in Sarah Lawrence for just five years. At that time I received so many requests, commissions, I gave up teaching.

DPP:   Did you enjoy teaching at all?

NDJ:   I liked teaching but it was very difficult the teaching that I did because, at Sarah Lawrence there were just girls who were there to take the course. There were no professionals.

I gave up teaching for a long time, then the head of Juilliard asked me but I didn't. The other conservatory, Mannes, I taught for them but at my home. Then I retired from it, I didn't feel like teaching anymore.

DPP:   Like certain artists. Did you see them play? I'm sure you had seen Vladimir Horowitz play?

NDJ:   No, I was not much of a concert goer. Not much. I usually went to hear if there any new works of composers, I was always interested in that. I did go a lot to the opera. I still believe Verdi is, possibly, the best opera writer that ever lived.

DPP:   Did you, yourself, write any operas?

NDJ:   Yes I did

DPP:   How many have you?

NDJ:   Three

DPP:   Do you remember any singers that you may seen along the way?

NDJ:   Very strong, close relation with Leonard Warren and I wrote a work for him.

DPP:   Oh, YES! He was tremendous.

NDJ:   I wrote it for him; it was a commission from Washington. The work was for a sextet and voice - Lamentation of Saul. You know that one?

DPP:   Yeah

NDJ:   That was it and he premiered it and he sang it. He was tremendous in the work and he loved the work. Then he said “Norman, please do this for full orchestra. Re-score it for full orchestra 'cause I'll get engagements all over to do it with full symphony.”

So, I was more than willing to do it, which I did. During the course of writing it he died.

DPP:   Was it subsequently performed with the orchestra....

NDJ:   It was finally done once with the orchestra with a guy who did a very good job — it was Cincinnati Symphony, but no singer has taken it up at all. That is really one of my major works in terms of, it's called Lamentations of Saul that I wish — but, strangely enough, just recently, this year, somebody who has a recording thing, found a recording at the Library of Congress and they were bold over when they heard the recording with Leonard Warren. The original!, with the six instruments. They didn't even know it was for orchestra. They are doing a lot right now, to see that this gets, I don't know what, but they're going to put this out as a record.

DPP:   Oh wonderful, congratulations.

NDJ: but they're taking care of everything — I have nothing to do with the preparation of it. They found it and they were amazed at the recording.

You know, it was one of these experiences, when I finished the work and he came. We were going over it, there is an introduction and its the opening of where he introduces himself. The end of the phrase ends as a baritone on a high “E”. But, during the course of playing the piano with him, we came to that point and he sang the opening of that — he was so excited about hearing the music with the piano — he hit a high, believe it! a HIGH C!!! I'm talking about a HIGH C !!!!!, not just a C. I just stopped, I couldn't believe it and he said “What's the matter?” I said, “You realize what you've done?” He wasn't even conscious of what he had done, he was so full of it. That was one of the exciting moments of my career in terms of working that close to a great singer.

DPP:   Well, what a singer.

NDJ:   Son, he was tremendous! I have the recording of it for orchestra with this other person who did it in Cincinnati and it's a very good recording. It's always bugged me that no singer has taken this up — but it's also the fault of the publishers who never get off their asses in promoting the works. They just sit back and wait for people to come and all they're interested in is what money.

DPP:   Like I said, I asked about concerts because I know people who went to them and heard whomever. Any concerts that you went to or any artists whom you felt were remarkable?

NDJ:   Well, I'll tell you I was more of an opera goer than a symphonic

DPP:    Except when they played your pieces

NDJ:   That's right.

DPP:   I'll throw out an example — like when Meditations on Ecclesiastes was premiered, you must have been present at the performance?

NDJ:   Yes

DPP:   Do you still have a lot of your works left to proof read?

NDJ:   No, pretty much everything that I've written is published.

DPP:   Unless you write something this week and then that would be....

NDJ:   This is my favorite, this is the one I told you about, (looking at a score of Saint Cecelia) but this is the full score I have to this work.

(Mr. Perna sees Mr. Dello Joio holding a copy of..)
DPP:   I know the Songs of Love and Parting.

NDJ:   You do? Nobody does that. I say “I wonder why” but people say “It's too sad.” I've written three masses. But they were all commissions.I had one extraordinary experience of this one mass. It was commissioned to be played when the former Pope.....

DPP:   Pope John Paul the Second

NDJ:   ...was coming to this country for a World Visit. This Mass, I had to write, a good deal before his visit in order that it could be published and distributed world wide to people who would come to sing this Mass.

DPP:   Sort of like a World Chorus, gotcha!

NDJ:   And that was what I did. I remember that I was to conduct, too. I've done a lot of conducting — my works.

DPP:   Do you enjoy that?

NDJ:   YES, I do 'cause I know what I want. Sometimes, boy, you get some really weird ideas, conductors.

But the first rehearsal there was a gathering of people from all over the world who were just going to sing this work for the Pope's visit. I opened with the last movement which ends in a very quiet way. But I'll never forget the effect it had on me to hear this work and the occasion of all these people of different nationalities — all in Latin — sing this work, and at the end of it, the response that I had from all — I'll never forget that end. It was so moving — we were all in tears.

DPP:   And the Pope did come?

NDJ:   No, he didn't come.

DPP:   Oh, sorry that he didn't get to share.....

NDJ:   The occasion happens every four or five years.

DPP:   Any particular band pieces of yours that you like?

NDJ:   This one, the Fantasias on Haydn I like particularly much. I feel it is really a good work; a really good work. That's about my favorite band work.

You know, a great deal of the music that has been written for band is pretty cheap stuff. But, I ran into, on an occasion, a man who was a band director of one of those universities, and he said “Look, Della Joio, we're trying to raise the level of the repertory that the band world has and you owe it to us to do something.” He made me feel very guilty about that, so I took it upon myself to do something. I found it was very exhilarating in terms of finding ways that I didn't have to compromise in any kind of way; I wrote what I heard and band people seem to respond very much to what I was doing. I've just about ten works for band with great success.

DPP:   One of which I played in High School called Scenes from the Louvre. I saw both the TV show you wrote the music for then the band version. It was a lot of fun to play.

In regards to a more personal point that I wanted to get a chance to make to you, face to face, was your Variants on a Medieval Tune for band was one of those life changing experiences for me. We had a High School wind ensemble that could play more serious repertoire. On the night of their concert, our band director, James Donnelly, let me stand on the stage with the band but with the curtain covering me so the audience couldn't see me. Taking the band out of the band room and putting it on stage is a much different sound, as you know. So I had a chance to stand there while they played that piece and actually heard it come up. It definitely effected my ideas and notions about writing for band. Like you say, you don't make any differentiation than you would for other mediums — and I try to do the same thing. Sometimes I might challenge the envelope a bit but that's part of what our job's supposed to be.

NDJ:    Yes. Right.

DPP:   And you have had good experiences working with bands throughout the country and everything?

NDJ:   Oh yeah. It was an education for me, too, to conduct a band organization because, when you say piano to fourhorns and trombones, is a tremendous difference from a piano to cellos. You have to be very careful about what you mean and be aware, when you say piano, a piano doesn't mean the same to a brass player as it would to a violinist. All these things are learned during the process of a career. A piano by the bass section is very different from a piano of the Alto section. You learn yourself.

DPP:    This may come off as a funny question, so, is there anything left that you would like to do that you haven't done yet?

NDJ:   Ah, I can't, at the moment, think of anything? I'll get my pleasures now out of my children and my grandchildren.

DPP:   But you felt it was a rewarding career you had as a composer?

NDJ:   I did the right thing for me.

DPP:   You feel that it has changed a lot now for another generation of composers?

NDJ: Yes

DPP:   In a good way or a bad way?

NDJ:   I can't say either one; I can say it's different. I mean if people find, say, a highly dissonant twelve-tone thing to their liking, that's their business. If they think it's good, that's their choice. I don't worry about that. The fact that you come to me means more than you're NOT coming to me.

DPP:   My honor to be coming to you.

NDJ:   Let me put it that way. Something must be that there that drew you to me.

DPP:   Oh, absolutely!

NDJ:   Now, that is my satisfaction in life. That there are a lot people like you and to say that I'm not pleased would be a total misinformation. Why it is that I have communicated with black notes? When you hear a piece of mine, that tells you more about me than anything I can say.

DPP:   So, there in lies the answer to my last question. I get a chance to reach over the table and shake your hand again and say, THANK YOU for being my first entry in the Journal.

NDJ:   VERY GOOD

DPP:   And I hope that this will continue and we'll do others.

NDJ:   I hope you are successful (as we shake hands)