The MTT Files

250 years ago, when composers included “noise” in their music, they mimicked the sounds of the physical world, like farm animals and gunshots. But by the late 1800s, they were using harsh, aggressive sounds to represent the internal, psychological anxieties of the coming modern age.

And then, of course, during the 20th century, composers blurred the line between noise and music even more. From the dissonance of early modernism to music that glorified the machine—from musique concrète to the ear-deafening throbs of hyper-amplification—art music gave us just about everything an increasingly noisy world could offer.

What’s music, and what’s noise? In this program, MTT demonstrates that noise is in the mind of the listener. His guest is contemporary composer Steven Mackey.

Before 1900, there was no real American concert music. But only 20 years later, composers had begun to break the hold of European standards for art and were experimenting in earnest with ways to portray an American sound.

In this program, Michael Tilson Thomas reviews what American classical music was like at the turn of the 20th century, and asks what it was about the cultural melting pot of places like Brooklyn that led us beyond Beethoven and Brahms, to our very own concert music. Aaron Copland’s modernist compositions are front and center. Featured is a recorded rehearsal of Copland’s little-known piece for women’s chorus, “An Immorality,” where Michael demonstrates the raucous sounds the composer was striving for in his earlier works.

As a part of Aaron Copland’s move from modernism to populism, he created musical landscapes that were abstractions of the sounds he’d heard all his life-folk tunes, Jewish music, the blues and jazz. This music was so successful that we now associate it with the sound of America-with prairies, cowboys, and the heartland.

In this program, Michael Tilson Thomas explains Copland’s musical transformation, and the political and artistic sentiments behind it. Included is a recorded rehearsal of the composer’s greatest modernist work, the Symphonic Ode, with MTT conducting the New World Symphony.

When Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird premiered in Paris, it was the most sensational hit of the early 20th century. But when the score fell out of the composer’s control because of the Bolshevik Revolution and the arcane realities of international copyright law, Stravinsky spent much of the rest of his life trying to collect some of the money he thought was due him.

In this program, MTT tells the sad tale of Stravinsky’s efforts to collect a royalty payment or two and asks why we should even care whether artists can protect their intellectual property. Featured is an interview/performance with pianola scholar Rex Lawson about one of Stravinsky’s efforts to make some money – the piano roll versions of tunes from The Firebird.

In this program, Michael Tilson Thomas examines why Heifetz was so good, and asks whether any violinist living today could ever hope to match his incredible technical ability and immense musicality. What’s changed? What is virtuosity, and why is it so hard to maintain? Featured is an interview/demonstration recorded on the stage of Davies Symphony Hall with Alexander Barantschik, the Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony, who now plays Heifetz’s Guarnerius violin.

Jascha Heifetz was arguably the last great violin virtuoso – the end of a line.

Some people think the music of Giselle is a piece of fluff. But Michael Tilson Thomas thinks it’s a masterpiece. The work marks the very beginning of art that looks at internal, emotional explanations of behavior. Art has always predicted the future; in this case, music predicted Sigmund Freud. MTT interviews former prima ballerina Natalia Makarova, the greatest Giselle of our time, about dancing this “heart on the sleeve” role.

After Giselle, music grew increasingly dissonant as the world view of the human psyche became more central to art-until the bubble burst in the mid-20th century, when dissonance overtook itself with a human scream in the opera Lulu. This program is a tour de force examination of one of the major historical transformations in music.

The core of this program, an extensive interview with James Brown about his music, was recorded at Brown’s home in Georgia.

As a university student, Michael Tilson Thomas and his colleagues were on the cutting edge of modern classical music. One day, while he was driving on the LA freeway, a song by James Brown came on the radio. That song, and the many that followed, changed MTT’s views about how to perform the music of Boulez, Stravinsky, and the like. The level of energy, the precision, the sense of time, the angularity — all gave the young conductor insight into the music he was performing.

A program about teachers and students – about how teachers pass on technique and musicianship, but also about how they use stories about their own teachers to pass on the spirit of a musical life.

As a young pianist, Michael Tilson Thomas studied with John Crown, who’d studied with Moritz Rosenthal, the last student of Liszt, who’d studied with Czerny, who’d studied with Beethoven. In this program, MTT explores what it takes to be a great teacher, and takes us backward in time to hear the stories passed down through five generations of great pianists. Included are interviews with pianist and Liszt expert Garrick Ohlsson, and with pianist Ralph Grierson, a fellow student of John Crown.