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Gabriela Ortiz: "Gustavo, did you see the score?" "Yes." "Let's rehearse it." [laughter]

[MUSIC - Gabriela Ortiz: Revolución diamantina]

Gabriela Ortiz: I said, "Oh my God. Okay, here we go."

[music]

Manny Ax (Emanuel): From WQXR and Carnegie Hall, this is Classical Music Happy Hour, hosted by me, pianist Manny Ax. Each episode, we'll speak with a special guest about their lives, listen to some of their favorite musical gems, play music-inspired games, and answer questions from you, our listeners.

Conductor Gustavo Dudamel has called my guest today one of the most talented composers in the world. Growing up in Mexico City within a family of musicians, she insists that rather than choosing music, music chose her. She's known for her mixing of musical idioms, and her latest album, called Revolución diamantina, won three Grammy awards, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Gabriela Ortiz, welcome to the show, and thank you so much for coming.

Gabriela Ortiz: Thank you, Emanuel, for this incredible invitation.

Manny Ax: You grew up in a musical family. Did they all play instruments? Were they composers themselves? What did they do, really?

Gabriela Ortiz: Well, my mother played the piano. She studied piano. She was a good reader. She never became a professional pianist. She was a psychologist. Yes, she played the piano. She was the one that knew how to read music. Then my father played the guitar. My father, his family come from Guadalajara, from Jalisco, where the mariachis and the song El Jalisciense come from.

Manny Ax: Yes.

Gabriela Ortiz: My father loved to play the guitar, and he sang very, very well. Basically, I grew up listening to folk music and listening to classical music. That was very normal in my house. They found this group called Los Folkloristas that was a famous group in the '60s, playing all the folk music not only from Mexico, but from Latin America. I remember listening to Los Folkloristas rehearsing in my living room, in my house.

Manny Ax: Fabulous.

Gabriela Ortiz: Then my father, "Let's play Beethoven," or-- It was very common in my house to hear Beethoven, and then to hear folk music, and then hear mariachis. That was very common.

Manny Ax: That's an amazing combination because very often the background of a composer, a pianist, or a violinist is one type of music. They hear Beethoven all their life and that's what they play. To have this combination as a child must have been amazing.

Gabriela Ortiz: Yes. My favorite uncle, he's a scientist, he's a mathematician. He's the one that introduced me to The Beatles. He's the one also to introduce me to the rock of the '70s and in the '60s. My brother love it. It was very common that, "Don't hear folk music. Let's hear Led Zeppelin." I prefer Led Zeppelin. I have my brother always going into the opposite side of my parents.

Manny Ax: All of that must be influencing what you do now.

Gabriela Ortiz: Absolutely.

Manny Ax: Also, you wanted to be a flamenco dancer as a child, right?

Gabriela Ortiz: One of my favorite folk music in Mexico is son jarocho. The son jarocho, it's played in Veracruz. It's very famous because they do the sapateado, the stepping. That comes from the flamenco. That's why I also like flamenco very much. Probably this is also because of my grandfather. He came from País Vasco, so I have this Spanish side, also, as well in my blood, probably. It's just I love it. I mean, it's fire. It means so many things. Yes, I was just dancing flamenco.

Then, when I was 14 years old, I remember that I saw this movie that it's called Bodas de Sangre, based on Lorca's text by Carlos Saura, this famous Spanish filmmaker.

Manny Ax: Yes, I've seen the Carmen movie.

Gabriela Ortiz: Exactly, Carmen. Antonio Gades was one of these famous flamenco dancers. I remember saying to my father, "I don't want to finish high school. I want to move to Spain. I want to study with Antonio Gades. I want to dance in his company." My father said, "Do your homework, and then we can talk later about this idea."

Manny Ax: Well, it's my fantasy to dance like him and look like George Clooney.

[laughter]

Manny Ax: For some reason, neither of those things happened, I'm sorry to say. You have a connection to Mahler and a specific movement from his Fifth Symphony, the Adagietto.

[MUSIC - Mahler: Adagietto Symphony 5]

Manny Ax: It's a sublime movement. What do you feel is special about that?

Gabriela Ortiz: The Adagietto is one of the most tender moments in music history. It's so difficult to describe with words because it's so, so intense, it's so beautiful.

[MUSIC - Mahler: Adagietto Symphony 5]

Gabriela Ortiz: Also, I think that I have an attached history behind the Adagietto. My grandfather studied medicine at Georgetown University. He came from Spain. He arrived in Jalisco in Guadalajara, and then his family sent him—this is at the beginning of 20th century—to Georgetown University, to study medicine. At that time, he went to New York and heard Mahler. He saw Mahler conducting.

Manny Ax: Wow.

Gabriela Ortiz: My father grew up listening to Mahler. That came from my grandfather. It's an interesting story because when he came back, he was a doctor and he was working in a hospital in Guadalajara. This is when the Mexican Revolution just started. Pancho Villa came to the hospital, and he asked, "Who is this guy with the blond hair that is taking care of my soldiers?" Oh, my grandfather. He said, "Well, you're coming with me." My grandfather spent 10 years, by the way, with Pancho Villa in the Mexican Revolution.

Manny Ax: Amazing.

Gabriela Ortiz: It's an amazing story. My grandfather.

Manny Ax: Wow.

Gabriela Ortiz: He loved Mahler, really loved Mahler. I remember the first time I saw my father really crying is when he was listening to the Adagietto.

[MUSIC - Mahler: Adagietto Symphony 5]

Manny Ax: Do you find yourself being quite liberal with people who play your music? I mean, allowing them to do different things?

Gabriela Ortiz: I really believe that performers are also creators. They are incredible artists. They have these creative perspectives that I really respect. When a performer puts his own personality into his playing, I really respect that. Like, for example, the Attacca string quartet played my piece, and they did it so wonderfully. It's their own interpretation, their own world, their own way of playing. That was really fantastic.

Manny Ax: Sometimes you imagined a different sound, but you might be happy with what you get?

Gabriela Ortiz: Exactly. With Dudamel, for example, sometimes he really plays very fast, my music. Sometimes it's very exciting. It's like, "How, Gustavo? You're just really conducting this so fast. Wow."

Manny Ax: I actually wanted to ask because in the Revolución, the pink glitter, unbelievably, it sounds incredibly difficult. The chorus is just amazing. How do you get these people to do that?

Gabriela Ortiz: I know I write very difficult music. Not because difficult music means that it has to be really good.

Manny Ax: No, it's incredibly exciting. It's just as someone who plays, I'm always thinking, "Oh, my God, I could never learn that." Well, part of it is because I'm really old.

Gabriela Ortiz: [laughs] No, I don't think so. You don't look like that. You look fantastic.

Manny Ax: Can you tell me a little bit about a piece like Clara?

Gabriela Ortiz: Well, Clara was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel. The idea is that they commissioned this piece to be paired with Schumann's symphonies. Gustavo, told me, "Why don't you explore the relation between Clara and Robert?" Because of that, I start reading a lot about Clara, about Robert, about these really strong but very complicated and painful relationship between them.

Manny Ax: A lot of the inspiration comes from the life of the composer.

Gabriela Ortiz: Absolutely. The life of both.

Manny Ax: I see.

Gabriela Ortiz: Then there is a central section of this piece that-- because I thought a lot about, "Should I quote Clara's music in this piece, or shall I quote Robert Schumann?" Then I decided, "No, but what if instead of me traveling to their world, why I don't bring them into my world?" That was my question. Then, trying to have this conversation in a circle kind of thing, where the past meets the future or the future meets the past. In the middle section is my idea of bringing what happens if Robert Schumann and Clara come to Mexico, or drink tequila. What would have happened? This is my idea. The central part is very rhythmic, and it has a very different feeling.

[MUSIC - Gabriela Ortiz - Clara]

Manny Ax: Gabriela, I'm hoping that you can help me answer some questions about classical music from our WQXR listeners. We've invited them to submit their questions, and we're going to do our best to answer them. If I don't know the answer, I'll just make something up.

Gabriela Ortiz: Okay. [laughs]

Manny Ax: We have a question about musical instruments.

Nancy: Hi, Manny. This is Nancy from Lewes, Delaware. Here's my question: It doesn't seem as though the basic instruments of the orchestra have changed much in hundreds of years. Why is that? The cello is, of course, perfect, but are there no improvements or inventions that can be made to other instruments, other than adding computer elements? Could there be a differently shaped string instrument or a longer flute? I see invention in composition and forms of musical performance, but not much invention other than electronics in the instruments themselves. Why is that? Inquiring minds want to know.

Gabriela Ortiz: Wow.

Manny Ax: Okay. Well, I'm going to let Gabriela start to answer that because she knows.

Gabriela Ortiz: That's a very interesting question. I know that there are a lot of explorations on strings, but in terms of how musicians play the strings, not in terms of the acoustics of the instruments. What I know, for example, with the flute, because I'm married to a flutist, is that there are a lot of improvements in the flutes, for example, glissandos. Normally, the flutes cannot do a glissando, or the range of the flutes. Now we have, like, a contrabass flute, but they are not in the orchestra for other reasons. Because, for example, the contrabass flute, the sound is very soft. They need an amplification. One of the reasons that composers have not used these instruments in the context of an orchestra is because of that, probably because of the balance.

In percussion, for example, the beginning of the 20th century, the marimba got to a low A, and now we have a five octave marimba, which means that we have a really bass marimba thing. That's really common. Basically, in percussion, you can see always new instruments, acoustically speaking, that they are not electronics.

Manny Ax: Yes, I think as far as going higher than a violin, I don't know that the human ear would pick up so much. As you say, if the cello is perfect, I would say the violin is probably pretty close to perfect for what it does. My main instrument is the piano. In fact, my only instrument is the piano; I've never played anything else. But there have been incredible changes up to the beginning of the 20th century.

Since then, we've been sort of locked down. There are always extensions in terms of just sheer volume. The pianos from 1900 did not have the power of the piano today. That's a big change, I suppose. There are pianos with extra octaves that are made by Buschendorfer, which is actually very scary to a pianist because they do put them in black rather than white. I remember playing a Brahms concerto on one of the pianos. This particular concerto starts on the next-to-last note of the regular piano. I was looking down, all of a sudden I see all these extra keys, and I think, "What the heck is that?" You need to get used to it.

Also, I did play what you'd call an ergonomic piano. There's a famous architect, Rafael Vignoli, who died last year, who designed the hall in Philadelphia, the Verizon Hall. He also built a piano that was sort of based on the ergonomic computer, where the keyboard is kind of curved. This keyboard is also curved. I actually practiced and played it in Philadelphia in his hall. He designed this piano. He was a very good amateur pianist. It looks amazing. I don't know if it's an improvement, but it's certainly a change. I don't know if we'll see a lot of that. Anyway, thanks for the question.

[music]

Manny Ax: This is Classical Music Happy Hour. I'm Manny Ax. We'll return in just a moment.

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[music]

John Banther: From WETA Classical in Washington, Classical Breakdown is your guide to classical music. Join us as we explore entire symphonies, concertos, operas, and more, to show you what to listen for. We also dive into the personal lives of composers to gain a better understanding of their music, and we learn all about the instruments of the orchestra with the prose themselves. Plus bonus episodes featuring full-length works. I'm John Banther. Listen to Classical Breakdown in your podcast app or online at classicalbreakdown.org.

[music]

Manny Ax: I'm Manny Ax. This is Classical Music Happy Hour. Let's return to our conversation with Gabriela Ortiz. What is your favorite drink after a long day?

Gabriela Ortiz: I used to drink tequila, but now I think that mezcal is one of my favorite Mexican drinks.

Manny Ax: Wow, Amazing.

[laughter]

Gabriela Ortiz: Also, a glass of wine. I mean, my father loves wine. Also, good dry white wine.

Manny Ax: What's the best book you've ever read about music?

Gabriela Ortiz: About music? Oh my gosh, that's very difficult. There is a Cuban writer, Alejo Carpentier. He's not really famous, probably in the English literature, but there are three books, and it's called Ese músico que llevo dentro (That Musician Inside Me). Really an incredible writer. I think that that was one of the best books that I read about music.

Manny Ax: Great. What is a concert that you would wish to hear again?

Gabriela Ortiz: The first time that I heard The Rite of Spring live was when I was studying music in London. I heard Boulez conducting by memory. I was so, so surprised because I've never heard Stravinsky and especially The Rite of Spring in a life situation. I couldn't even breathe after that.

[MUSIC - Pierre Boulez: Stravinsky "Rite of Spring"]

Manny Ax: You talk about the idea of pulse being maybe different from rhythm. Or is that sort of one word meaning the other to you?

Gabriela Ortiz: Pulse is about rhythm. What happened, especially in the second half of the 20th century, is that many European composers felt the rhythm in a more abstract way. They focused more on the series of durations and things like that instead of feeling the music with a pulse. The way, probably, Latin culture feels the rhythm is always within a pulse. For me, it's very difficult to feel a piece of music that doesn't have a specific pulse. Even if you have metric changes or it's very regular, you have a pulse, you have the sense of pulse. For me, that is very important.

Manny Ax: What I find in your music is also a great variety of rhythm and great variety of, if you choose to call it, pulse. I think what I was brought up with was very steady metric beats and, in a way, more importance being paid to harmony and melody. I think maybe that's one of the things that's changed in music, in composition, since 1900.

Gabriela Ortiz: That's true. I mean, I think that there are so many parameters in music. You can focus on temper, texture, noise. Certainly, my feeling towards harmony and melody is still very important in my music.

Manny Ax: Well, sure. You can't get rid of one--

Gabriela Ortiz: No, no. I think that's part of what I do.

Manny Ax: One of the pieces that completely blew me away was this violin concerto, which is on the Revolución record with María Dueñas, who sounds incredible. Do you know the violin well? It sounds terrifyingly difficult, but it all seems to work.

Gabriela Ortiz: No, I don't play the violin, but probably my experience with writing string quartets gave me some knowledge about the violin. I think María was a very strong inspiration for me. This is very important for a composer. When you know that you're going to write for a specific performer, it's just fantastic.

Manny Ax: You heard her play and you heard recordings.

Gabriela Ortiz: Yes.

Manny Ax: Did you talk to her at all as you were working on the piece?

Gabriela Ortiz: Only once.

Manny Ax: Just one time?

Gabriela Ortiz: Yes. I think twice, but very briefly. Then I sent her the solo part. Then I said, "Wow, probably I will receive thousands of questions." Then, silence, so I was very curious. I was scared, actually, I have to confess. "Well, maybe she doesn't like it," or I don't know. Then I arrived at the hotel before the first performance with LA Philharmonic, and I remember that we had our first rehearsal in the hotel in her room. Then she played the entire concert to me. Incredible. She just mentioned these octaves at that speed are very complicated, so maybe I just want to play the top note of these octaves. Probably that's all we changed.

Manny Ax: I remember reading some letters of Brahms where he was writing to his friend Joseph Joachim back and forth about, "Is this practical? Is this practical? Is this practical?" I guess with someone like her, it doesn't matter. Everything is practical. In a way, may I ask the same kind of question about working with someone like Dudamel? You give him a piece of music. Does he make changes? Does he make suggestions? Do you talk about things like balances, tempos, what's possible, what's not possible?

Gabriela Ortiz: I think with Dudamel, it's a very different situation. When you work with a performer or when you work with chamber musicians, you have more time for rehearsals. That's the truth. With an orchestra, time is very limited.

Manny Ax: Sure.

Gabriela Ortiz: You have to arrive with a very professional score. You don't want to waste time during the rehearsal, "Okay, could we try this?" or, "Could we try this in the other way?" We could do that in specific places, but you have to be very smart, because time is cold.

Manny Ax: Yes. Before you ever get to the rehearsal stage, when you look through the piece with him, before the orchestra even begins to play, does he have suggestions about things?

Gabriela Ortiz: Normally, Gustavo is so busy that we never have time to discuss a piece, to be sincere.

[laughter]

Gabriela Ortiz: Usually, you just arrive at the rehearsal, and that's it. At this point, Gustavo knows my music so well. He understands everything so well that there's no need really to do that. I remember my first time with the New York Philharmonic, I was just really, really scared. I arrived at the first rehearsal, and my heart was beating at a really high speed. It was like, "Gustavo, did you see the score?" "Yes." "Let's rehearse it." I said, "Oh, my God. Okay, here we go."

[MUSIC - Gabriela Ortiz: Revolución diamantina]

Manny Ax: What about La Mer? I know you love the piece.

Gabriela Ortiz: I love the piece.

[MUSIC - Kodály Quartet: La Mer: Jeux de vagues]

Manny Ax: What about it?

Gabriela Ortiz: Something that I really like is that Debussy really captured the poetry and the mystery of the ocean. I had this obsession with water. Obviously, one of my obsessions is the sea, is the ocean. I spent my childhood going to Colima, Manzanillo, which is one of the states where my grandmother comes from, and spent the whole summer in front of the beach. I always find it fascinating.

[MUSIC - Kodály Quartet: La Mer: Jeux de vagues]

Gabriela Ortiz: His sense of harmony is unbelievable. His sense of color, it's so beautiful. The way he orchestrates that is so unique.

[MUSIC - Kodály Quartet: La Mer: Jeux de vagues]

Gabriela Ortiz: It simply is enigmatic and beautifully crafted.

[MUSIC - Kodály Quartet: La Mer: Jeux de vagues]

Manny Ax: Do you find some kind of connection between Ravel, Debussy, and water? There seems to be a lot of music by both of them that deals with water.

Gabriela Ortiz: I had the chance to visit Saint-Jean-de-Luz, which is the little town where Ravel was born, and it's near the ocean. I think that Ravel grew up having the ocean in his head.

[MUSIC - Kodály Quartet: La Mer: Jeux de vagues]

Manny Ax: A listener wants to know about the social dynamics of orchestras.

Listener: Do members of large orchestras get cliquey? Like, is backstage of the symphony, kind of like a high school cafeteria where the woodwind people don't sit at the same table as the percussion people? Or is everyone maybe a lot friendlier than I'm giving them hypothetical credit for?

Manny Ax: [laughs] Gabriela, would you like to try to answer that, or--?

Gabriela Ortiz: Well, it depends on the orchestra, I guess. Can you answer that? I mean, from your own perspective?

Manny Ax: My experience is that, yes, sometimes they gather by instrument, but I actually know of several cases where, because of some longstanding feuds, for reasons which I'm not aware of at all, there are members of a section that don't speak to each other for years. It's like a family. You know, there are families where all the brothers and sisters get together every holiday, and there are others where you meet until you have to.

Gabriela Ortiz: Exactly.

Manny Ax: Until there's a funeral or something.

Gabriela Ortiz: In my experience, probably the percussionists are the exception. Normally, that section, they're very friendly to each other.

Manny Ax: I agree with you. Also trombones. Trombones and tuba are always together, and they like to have a beer after a concert. That's been my feeling. Thank you for the question. Let me ask about a title, Revolución diamantina, the album that won the Grammy. What does the title mean?

Gabriela Ortiz: Well, Revolución diamantina is a ballet. The ballet is inspired by this protest that happened in Mexico City against violence to women. This protest became very controversial because these women that went to the streets protesting, they did a lot of graffiti on very important monuments, and then they threw glitter through the whole city. Since then, that protest took the name of Revolución diamantina.

Manny Ax: Because of the sparkle.

Gabriela Ortiz: Because of the sparkle. The title comes from that protest. It's my protest. It's my way of saying, "We need to stop this." Unfortunately, in Mexico, every single day, there are 11 feminicides. 11 women die every day in my country. That has to stop.

Manny Ax: Yes. You're often moved to write music in response to ideas like this.

Gabriela Ortiz: Absolutely, yes. Because I want to express many things. For example, climate change. I think that we are facing a very difficult moment right now as human beings, and I want to talk about that. The best way that I could do it is through my music. Definitely, those themes are just fuel for my creativity and also the necessity for me to speak out.

Manny Ax: Do you find that music is a way to escape what's around us or a way to engage us in what's around us?

Gabriela Ortiz: I think it has those meanings. You can escape by listening to wonderful music. For example, if I feel sad and then I play Celia Cruz, which is the salsa music, I start dancing, and I forget my sadness. It's contagious. You can escape, or you can really feel consolation or comfort by listening to music that gives you that. Mozart, for example, for me, is a way to get comfort.

Also, you can get the other thing. I listen to music. When you read the program notes, and you understand why this composer wrote this music, then you can get consciousness about many things. Think about Messiaen when he wrote Quatuor pour la fin du temps. This quartet was written in a concentration camp. When you feel that, you feel the strong believing in humanity and in art. Despite all these really terrible conditions, he was producing one of the most beautiful pieces that I ever heard.

Manny Ax: I find it amazing to read, for example, about what Beethoven was going through when he was in despair and thinking about ending his life, and writing music that's actually his funniest music. Sometimes the disconnect between those two is endlessly fascinating to me.

Gabriela Ortiz: Me, too. Just think about Bartók writing the Concerto for Orchestra or the Viola Concerto. At the end of his life, when he was having cancer, it's unbelievable. He wrote, I think, that symphony in three months.

[MUSIC - Vadim Chaimovich; Brahms' Intermezzo]

Manny Ax: Here we have a question from a listener in South Carolina. This, I know you're going to love.

Jock: My name is Jock, and I'm here in Charleston, South Carolina. My question has to do with folk music. I would like to know how popular has it been for folk music to be recorded, written down by composers, and then turned into great symphonies or clarinet concertos or whatever it might have been. That's my question. Thank you.

Gabriela Ortiz: Well, there are so many composers that got inspiration from folk and popular music. I can tell you, just to give you an idea, most of our composers in Latin America, like Villa-Lobos, Ginastera, Carlos Chávez, Silvestre Revueltas from Mexico, Villa-Lobos from Brazil, Ginastera from Argentina. All of them got inspiration from folk music from their own countries. I can tell you hundreds of composers that got inspiration. Even John Adams got inspiration from jazz or popular music. Steve Reich, so many American composers. Bernstein is a wonderful example of an incredible composer, conductor, incredible musician. Gershwin, even Mahler. There are so many.

Manny Ax: One of your inspirations, Bartók.

Gabriela Ortiz: Bartók, of course. Bartók, Ligeti at the beginning of his career. Lutosławski as well, at the beginning of his career.

Manny Ax: As you say, even Beethoven wrote three string quartets, which to some degree are based on Russian tunes.

Gabriela Ortiz: Absolutely.

Manny Ax: Russian folk songs.

Gabriela Ortiz: Yes.

Manny Ax: The Opus 59 quartets. Chopin wrote 53 mazurkas, which are based on Polish dance. I think the idea that classical music and other music are separate is something we need to very strongly oppose all the time. That idea should not be part of our lives, I think.

Gabriela Ortiz: Bravo. Yes, I agree with you.

Manny Ax: I'm so glad you asked this question because I think that's something we should keep talking about and making as much sense of that as possible.

Gabriela Ortiz: Totally agree.

[MUSIC - Estancia, Op. 8: Danza Final]

Manny Ax: Rite of Spring was a big influence.

Gabriela Ortiz: The Rite of Spring was one of the most revolutionary ballets in 20th century.

[MUSIC - Michael J. Gelb: Observation]

Gabriela Ortiz: Introduction is just amazing. That beginning with bassoon playing in a very high register, that actually Saint-Saëns got really angry and said that Stravinsky didn't know how to write for the bassoon.

[MUSIC - Michael J. Gelb: Observation]

Manny Ax: It's become sort of a problem because the bassoon players today are so fabulous that they make it sound like a very natural and simple tune. I'm sure when he wrote it, the bassoon playing was not of this quality, and so it sounded all choked up and unnatural. I think that's probably what he meant. We need to find some really bad bassoon players.

Gabriela Ortiz: Yes.

Manny Ax: After this sort of primordial thing, then we start getting this crazy rhythm.

[MUSIC - Michael J. Gelb: Observation]

Gabriela Ortiz: The adolescents dance, and the accents. That beginning of that, it's just amazing.

[MUSIC - Michael J. Gelb: Observation]

Gabriela Ortiz: Or the dance as a crowd, the last one. All these metric changes are incredible.

[MUSIC - Michael J. Gelb: Observation]

Manny Ax: Yes. At the end,-

Gabriela Ortiz: It's crazy.

Manny Ax: -it's terrifying. I find that you can't really follow it, but it sounds right. In other words, it always is unexpected.

Gabriela Ortiz: Absolutely. Yes.

[MUSIC - Michael J. Gelb: Observation]

Manny Ax: Our game for today is bad reviews of famous composers.

Gabriela Ortiz: Okay.

Manny Ax: There's a wonderful book called Lexicon of Musical Invective, which was compiled by Nicolas Slonimsky. A very brilliant, funny, and wonderful man. I will read a bad review, and you decide which composer this is about. There'll be a choice. This is from the London Observer in 1923, "I suffered more than upon any occasion in my life, apart from an incident or two connected with painless dentistry. To begin with, there was his piano touch, but touch, with its implication of light-fingered ease, is a misnomer. He had a touch like a paving stone." Was this about John Williams, Sergei Rachmaninov, or Béla Bartók?

Gabriela Ortiz: Certainly, John Williams. Not because of the time. I guess Bartók.

Manny Ax: Bartók is the answer. Sure. Bartók is the answer.

[unintelligible 00:38:03] [unidentified music]

Manny Ax: Here's one from 1907 from the New York Post. "This composer's music is the dreariest kind of rubbish. Does anybody for a moment doubt that he would write such chaotic, meaningless, cacophonous, ungrammatical stuff if he could invent a melody?" Was this about Copland, Steve Reich, or Debussy?

Gabriela Ortiz: Debussy.

Manny Ax: Absolutely right. Debussy.

[MUSIC - Kodály Quartet: La Mer: Jeux de vagues]

Gabriela Ortiz: Unbelievable.

Manny Ax: Unbelievable, yes.

Gabriela Ortiz: Unbelievable.

[MUSIC - Kodály Quartet: La Mer: Jeux de vagues]

Manny Ax: Now, the final question.

Gabriela Ortiz: Okay, okay.

Manny Ax: Maybe I shouldn't give the date. "This composer's second Symphony is a crass monster, a hideously writhing, wounded dragon that refuses to die, and though bleeding in the finale, furiously beats about with his tail erect." Was this Schubert, Hildegard von Bingen, or Beethoven?

Gabriela Ortiz: Beethoven?

Manny Ax: Beethoven is right.

[laughter]

[MUSIC - Danish Chamber Orchestra & Ádám Fischer: Symphony No. 2]

Manny Ax: This is about the second Symphony. That's our quiz.

[MUSIC - Danish Chamber Orchestra & Ádám Fischer: Symphony No. 2]

Gabriela Ortiz: That was so fun.

[MUSIC - Danish Chamber Orchestra & Ádám Fischer: Symphony No. 2]

Manny Ax: Gabriela Ortiz, thank you so much for joining us today.

Gabriela Ortiz: Emanuel, thank you so much. It was one of the funniest and most entertaining interviews that I ever had.

[music]

Manny Ax: I'm Manny X, and this is Classical Music Happy Hour. Classical Music Happy Hour is supported in part by the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation and by Linda Nelson. Our production team includes Lauren Purcell-Joiner, Eileen Delahunty, Laura Boyman, Elizabeth Nonamaker, David Norville, Christine Herskovits, and Ed Yim. Our engineering team includes George Wellington, Irene Trudel, and Chase Culpon. Classical Music Happy Hour is produced by WQXR in partnership with Carnegie Hall.

 

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