VOICE: Mr. Schnabel, while we are on social questions, do you feel that there is a difference in the quality of music and the freedom of musical production in countries where there is no question of money to support symphony orchestras, plays, theatres--that sort of thing--and in America, where it is up to the people, by donations or tickets? Do you feel it makes a difference in the quality of musical production?
MR. SCHNABEL: No. I don't think it makes much of a difference whether the support of public artistic activities comes from the state or from private sources. Orchestra organizations here in U.S.A. seem rather overstocked with boards and committees and campaigns--junior committees and ladies' committees and board of directors and trustees--and every year for months the same bustling promotion paraphernalia, meetings, luncheons, banquets, all stops of the publicity organs employed--is it really necessary? Or chiefly tradition, or fun, or time-killing, or business stimulation as such? Is there really not enough stability and confidence to guarantee for a long stretch the adequate, customary attendance to well-tested and always enjoyed associations? There is always a danger that the musical director of such setablishments becomes distracted by so much agitation--and pessimism.
Yet America has the best orchestras in the world. We are of course lucky that an American orchestra means an international one, composed of the heirs of all European traditions. We have the greatest selection of talent.
--My Life and Music (1945), New York, Dover. 161.
MR. SCHNABEL: No. I don't think it makes much of a difference whether the support of public artistic activities comes from the state or from private sources. Orchestra organizations here in U.S.A. seem rather overstocked with boards and committees and campaigns--junior committees and ladies' committees and board of directors and trustees--and every year for months the same bustling promotion paraphernalia, meetings, luncheons, banquets, all stops of the publicity organs employed--is it really necessary? Or chiefly tradition, or fun, or time-killing, or business stimulation as such? Is there really not enough stability and confidence to guarantee for a long stretch the adequate, customary attendance to well-tested and always enjoyed associations? There is always a danger that the musical director of such setablishments becomes distracted by so much agitation--and pessimism.
Yet America has the best orchestras in the world. We are of course lucky that an American orchestra means an international one, composed of the heirs of all European traditions. We have the greatest selection of talent.
--My Life and Music (1945), New York, Dover. 161.