Angelo Musolino

Dana Paul Perna speaks with

Angelo Musolino

Dana Paul Perna: Angelo, when were you born?

Angelo Musolino: December 6, 1923 in New York City.

DPP: So, a HAPPY BIRTHDAY is in order — like Beethoven, too. He was born in December.

AM: That's right — yeah. Thank you.

DPP: When did you move to Long Island?

AM: I moved here in 1959, to Great Neck.

DPP: When did you begin teaching at Adelphi?

AM: That was in, let's see, 1978. I had done a lot of private teaching, too; a lot of private teaching, before that.

DPP: Are there any particular people you worked with that our readers may not know?

Bertold Brecht

Hanns Eisler

AM: Probably many, but, one of my earliest jobs, I did a job for Hanns Eisler and Bertold Brecht.

DPP: How did you get to work with Bertold Brecht and Hanns Eisler? What was the project?

AM: That was a production of “Galileo.” I was referred to them by my teacher, Josef Schmid who knew them in Germany. Schmid was a student with Schoenberg and Berg. My friend, Joe Maneri — my best man at my wedding, by the way — also worked with Schmid, so he was known in the area.

DPP: Joe Maneri, the saxophonist?

AM: Yes, he specializes in microtonal jazz. And he writes, too. The Boston Symphony did one of his things.

DPP: Do you remember who conducted?

AM: Yeah, he was a friend of Schmid's, too — their music director at that time....

DPP: Erich Leinsdorf?

AM: YEAH, THAT'S HIM!! That was really something! Great! Anyway, Ted Harris told me about him, Schmid, so I called him and I began taking lessons from him privately.

DPP: Were you interested in the 12-tone technique or....

AM: Oh sure, but Schmid was a strict teacher in tonal things — harmony, counterpoint, you know, not just the 12-tone thing. You did harmony and counterpoint first — the foundation, then you did 12-tone at the end.

Before he fled the NAZIs and came here, he was conducting in Vienna at the Opera. During a rehearsal, the door swings open and some Gestapo officers interrupt, come up front. “You, you, you ”.... three or four guys get called out by name — “Come with us” you know

DPP: Leave the instruments......

AM: Yeah, but they didn't come back to the next rehearsal. Schmid got the message.......

DPP: to get the hell out of........

AM: Absolutely, so he did and came to New York. Anyway, Schmid was close to Eisler and Brecht. The FBI was after them like mad, I think 1947. Charles Laughton was going to do their Galileo — a very famous work; it was a play. And the music came from Hanns with an all messed up orchestral score from Europe. So I was called in and I met him and Brecht at that time. It was like eye-opening! And I had to reduce it down to about 8 or 9 players — Schmid conducted it in one of those off-Broadway theatres, but uptown. And he (Eisler) was a very quiet man, and Schmid said wonderful man. He went to Hollywood and did some film scores.

DPP: Right.

AM: So great. If he saw an oboe player from Europe, he'd say “you’re working?” He was that kinda guy. He was good that way — good natured.

DPP: He was crucified during the McCarthy era — he was deported.

You notice that, over the years, these particular people whom I met who were “big” — and they were great!, not like you read about today. You could reach......they were human beings. For example Schoenberg, I understand, reasonable guy: if he liked you, he liked you; if not, that's it — but today it's a different story, like, speak to my agent, speak to my manager.

AM: He was beat — and very somber and Brecht was close; smoking cigars and, can't explain over and over around talking about Galileo. Shortly after that they left in 1948, so I can pinpoint that particular job. And this last year, someone wanted to recycle his work again — bring him back.

DPP: What was it like to actually work with them? Did you actually work with them or did they say “go away and just let us know when you are done?”

AM: We had meetings at the theatre where they rehearsed in the Village, sure, where he gave me the parts, to keep the general contours of the work, like that..... the colors. It was very good.... meetings.

DPP: Did Laughton actually do the performances?

AM: He did it! Yeah! I didn't go. I was not a very aggressive person at that time to bother people. I just did my job, grateful for it and went away. But, I'll tell you, Laughton, in one of the books I have at home tells, wanted to interpret it his way.

DPP: Which was always the case

AM: ...and Brecht was kinda like.

DPP: OH, Brecht was REAL strict!!!

AM: YEAH, real strict, very strict, sure!!! so that was an interesting time.

DPP: Brecht was used even to casting in Germany; he'd pick his voices and his actors first and that's it.

AM: Sure! Sure! Total charge, unlike here.

DPP: Where you pick your actors first and the rest later.

AM: This was total charge then.

SIDE BAR — Hanns Eisler had already been working in Hollywood by the time he returned to New York to collaborate on this historic production of Galileo with Brecht, starring Charles Laughton in the title role who also served as the work's translator. This production ran for only six performances — from December 7, 1947 to December 14, 1947 — at the Maxine Elliott's Theatre.

This marked the final stage production Brecht and Eisler were involved with in the Untied States prior to their deportation in 1948. The production was directed by a newcomer named Joseph Losey who, in 1975 directed an adaptation of this work for the screen starring Topol in the title role. The music by Hanns Eisler is listed in the credits.

Mr. Musolino was correct that this production was held in an off-Broadway — but uptown — theatre. Maxine Elliot's Theatre was located at 109 W. 39th Street — two blocks south of the starting line street (e.g. 41st) which designates the beginning of the “Theater District.” It was, therefore, the only Broadway theater that was just off-Broadway. The theatre was demolished in 1960 having stood as a theatre at that location for 52 years.

Following Galileo only six more productions were to grace its stage, one of which being a special performance by Martha Graham (February 17 - 29, 1948), and the last being a staged production of the Jerome Moross/John Latouche “Ballet Ballads” (May 9 - 17, 1948 at which time that production moved to the Music Box Theatre where it completed its run that July.) Beginning in 1941, the theatre became a radio studio, first for WOR Mutual Radio, then, in 1944, for CBS. In 1949 it became CBS television Studio No. 51.

As for Hanns Eisler (1898-1962), among his Hollywood film credits are None but the Lonly Heart (starring Cary Grant) and Hangman Also Die (screenplay by Brecht, directed by Fritz Lang) for which Eisler received an Oscar nomination for “Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture of 1943” [the award, in that category, went to Alfred Newman for his score to The Song of Bernadette in 1944.]) Dubbed “The Karl Marx of Music,” he was deported from the US after being deemed an unfriendly witness after his 1947 testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Upon leaving the US, Eisler went on to be expelled from Great Britain, too, where, it seems, the British Secret Service had opened a file on him in 1936 due to his communist associations when he briefly lived in London. He lived briefly in Austria only to discover that the welcome mat was not laid out for him there either. He eventually settled in what became the German Democratic Republic (aka. East Germany) where he went on to compose the DDR's National Anthem “Auferstanden aus Ruinen.”

NOW, back to our interview:

AM: You notice that, over the years, these particular people whom I met who were “big” — and they were great!, not like you read about today. You could reach......they were human beings. For example Schoenberg, I understand, reasonable guy: if he liked you, he liked you; if not, that's it — but today it's a different story, like, speak to my agent, speak to my manager.

DPP: Speak to my lawyer

AM: Yeah, now it's speak to my lawyer. Do you remember that movie ““Quiz Show?”

DPP: Sure!

AM: That was all about my friends I worked with Bob Enright, Jack Barry. I used to work for their publishing firm - free lance. If there was a “cue” we'd publish it, you know, get the credit. So, I did music for Tic, Tac, Dough, Life Begins at 40, Winky Dink and You, Juvenile Jury. Juvenile Jury was interesting: in 1948 it was the first NBC commercially sponsored TV show. The sponsor, I remember — Geritol.

DPP: and it's juvenile.

AM: You'd look down the street and see all the bottles you'd say what are you doing? It was like cable then, I didn’t know it at the time. At first there were no commercials then they started adding them — like cable was.

DPP: How did you work with a cue? Would you just write the cue and they'd use it, or did they tell you the story?

AM: “Winky Dink and You” was a weekly cue for years.

DPP: Different each week of the same?

AM: Different show every week. It was actually the first interactive show where you a bought plastic sheet and then you get magic crayons, you know, and they'd do something in the studio and you trace — very cool, ya know. We sold crayons; we sold the whole package. My job was to come up with cues for every little situation for a half hour show, like Jingle Bells became Jungle Bells, ya know. A lot of TV stuff changed, though, they wanted the copyrights. That was an interesting show.

DPP: But you took a PD tune and made it yours and that became “published.”

AM: Yeah, right! Then I wrote original stuff, too. They would indicate in the script if they wanted original music to do something in a particular style. That paid off a lot over the years, my ASCAP... Everyday these shows were on, I got 3, 4 times a show's theme song. That helped a lot!

DPP: Another person for whom you worked was the great Raymond Scott. When you interviewed with him, among the items you showed him was your Violin Sonata, a rather serious work to use for an interview for doing commercial work. Why that one?

AM: That was the one piece out of the ones I brought that stood out with him, even over the commercial things. It caught his eye because he wanted someone with classical training because it meant that that person could do anything he would want to be done for a job.

DPP: I heard he was real difficult. Did you like working for him?

AM: I enjoyed it because I told him the truth. A lot of the guys didn't but, if I disagreed with him, I told him so. So, we got along. I remember one time we did a commercial and he said, “you know, I want to bring in this guy Bob Brookmeyer to do a chart on this, too.” I told him that that was a bad idea — that he'd confuse the client we were working for. But Ray called Bob in anyway. He went back and forth on which one he liked — mine then Bob's, mine then Bob's, mine then Bob's. In the end he agreed with my version, so that was the one that was used on the commercial. He never told the client.

DPP: So, you were right in the end anyway.

AM: Right. He liked me ‘cause I stood up to him.

DPP: You stopped working with him because he moved to California, otherwise you would have kept on, right?

AM: Yeah, that's why it ended. But he believed that we were being visited by Martians.

DPP: Really?

AM: Oh yes! Rosalind and I had dinner with him once at his home and, half way thru the meal he stops and says “They're coming. They're here.” I say “who” — he says the men from Mars.

DPP: What do you think of that new commercial that is running now using part of “Powerhouse?”

AM: Great! You know how that got its name?

DPP: Yeah, but go ahead and tell the story.

AM: He had written it but didn't have a name. He looked out his window and saw the street sign where he lived — Powerhouse. That's how it got its name. But, he heard stuff no one else heard. He was a genius in his own way.

DPP: You also wrote some charts for the great Boyd Raeburn. How did that come about?

AM: Totally out of left field. Boyd was out of work when I met him — he was working as a salesman in Manhattan. He came to my house ‘cause he wanted to put a new band together. It was a nice talk. Columbia Records was going to sponsor the recordings. Boyd's wife, Ginny Powell was gonna do the vocals. He was a fantastic person who knew music well. Well rounded; he knew the jazz stuff and the classical things, too — Stravinsky..... He also had Johnny Mandel doing charts for him around that time.

DPP: The guy who wrote “The Shadow of Your Smile?”

AM: Oh, yeah, and lots of others, too. He's a great guy and we were good friends at that time — a great musician, great charts.

DPP: .......and for Boyd?

AM: I wrote, I think about four or five numbers for him. It was a big band; six saxes and he played Bass sax! Then Columbia had a change in their administration so they scrapped the whole recording thing, so that was that. It was a real shame, too, ‘cause that was a fantastic band.

DPP: How do you feel about the two recordings that have appeared within the past couple of years on the Albany label that are devoted entirely to YOUR compositions?

AM: Excellent! The caliber of the musicians did a bang up job — the strings were insane. Great!!! The State Philharmonic in Kosice, Slovakia. They really played the stuff great!!!

DPP: Did you go there for the sessions?

AM: No, I didn't feel it was a good idea. I stayed here — leave it to the professionals, you know.

DPP: Are there any particular pieces you are particularly proud of that appear on them; ones that you really want people to hear?

AM: My Violin Concerto for one. That one is very personal to me since it was my late wife, Rosalind, who told me “You need to write a Violin Concerto, you need to write a Violin Concerto.” She was the impetus of the piece. I started it and worked on it a bit, then she died so I set it aside. “Who will ever play it,“ I thought?, so I forgot about it. When we began talking about doing these recordings, Tristan Willems told me to finish the concerto, so I did in her memory. He gave it to one of the orchestra's violinists, this Peter Sklenka. He did a tremendous job; his intonation....wonderful. I really want to thank him for bringing it to life. I never thought I would ever hear it but now it's out. That's on the second disc, on the first disc I was really pleased with my Fugal Fantasy for Clarinet and String Orchestra. I wrote that one to fulfill a commission so I wrote it in memory of Benny Goodman. That one I like a lot. You give me the space to thank Tristan Willems, all the musicians of the orchestra, the soloists like Denver Oldham — and all the solo players, my God — they were all so great, ya know!!!! I can't remember all of their names but they know I mean it.

DPP: Absolutely!

AM: The people at Albany Records were a really big help, too, especially Susan Bush, she helped a lot. And your art work for the covers; they really helped capture it, ya know?

DPP: Well, thanks, Maestro but your music speaks for itself. I hope people will take the opportunity to check it all out for themselves.

AM: That would be nice! I hope those that do like what they hear.

DPP: Thanks for being my guest.

AM: You're welcome — that was fun.

For those readers interested in discovering the music of Angelo Musolino, the recordings alluded to in this interview are available on two Albany Records CDs, their titles and catalog numbers being:

Angelo Musolino: Opening Doors TROY 708

Angelo Musolino: Orchestral Works TROY 818