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PAN PIPES • WINTER 2017 • sai-national.org 18 America in a way that one does when it's young and trying to get its identity, would naturally turn to him. Of course, I've been very, very interested always in the effect on music of our hymn literature and the kinship that I feel for such things as the way he uses hymn tunes in the symphonies, and what not, strikes a responsive chord in me. I, at a very important time, had occasion to hear the Concord Sonata, for instance. This would have been about 1936. And this was extremely important, although I didn't realize it until later — this was extremely important in my memory. And then, of course, the symphonies began to come out. But Ives was just kind of being discovered about then, as I recall. A lot of times, an influence like this is just a matter of a little bit of encouragement on something you've already thought yourself. Then you hear it, and it gives you a push forward, and then you're off. Are there specific works of these composers that have particularly influenced you? The Concord Sonata of Ives has had a very strong influence; of Bartók, the string quartets; of Berg, the Violin Concerto, which I heard very early — that original recording of Louis Krasner's came to my attention. Of Vaughan Williams, certainly the Fantasia on a eme of omas Tallis. Another work that influenced me very much and has influenced a lot of people of my age is the Roy Harris ird Symphony. I had quite a bit of influence from him. I knew him very well. I didn't study with him because he imposed, in my opinion, his will too much. But the music that he wrote had a strong influence. Ives — beyond the Concord Sonata, the violin sonatas, and the symphonies — the third particularly I think, the third, and, of course, the second. You mentioned Copland earlier. I hear a lot of Copland — perhaps some of the textures from Appalachian Spring — in your Little Symphony. Let's see, I don't recall when that particular work of Copland was made — but it would have been maybe just afterward, or right about that same time. I'm quite sure I didn't hear it at that time. A lot of times these things come up in several places; it's like patents, you know. Several people think of the same thing at the same time. I have a feeling there is a similarity, although I must tell you that typically I have tried to solve problems myself. And I have rather avoided being too involved in the literature, of listening to too many people, because I find that my memory is quite good. And so I've mistrusted myself a little bit in this, and have tended to go on my own, especially in the early days, without listening to too much music — so that I wouldn't be influenced. I'd just hear a snatch, and that would give me an encouragement in the direction I was going, then I went on my own as a result. And I purposefully stayed away from New York and some of those centers, at that time, to give myself a chance to get my own feet on the ground. I think it's paid off, actually. Do you have a philosophy of music, or of composition? I think if you pulled some of the statements out of what we just talked about, you'd find quite a bit of the philosophy there. For instance, the business of universality is a very definite one; the business of it being functional is very definite. I think that it's most important that we consider the writing of music as the creation of an entity which is functional, either in communication of an idea to other people — the listener is absolutely essential — or in the creation of just things of beauty, straight beauty. The kind of beauty I'm talking about is not only a charming kind of beauty — that's one kind of beauty. The beauty of nobility, the beauty of balance, the beauty of an intricate working of forces—both opposing and concurrent, and what not — the creation of balanced forms. These things mean more to me than the grinding of axes, for instance, or the propounding of ideologies, although I must admit to the propounding of ideologies in many of the religious works that I've done. I had occasion last night to play again a work which has just come out, published by Schirmer — Paul of Tarsus, which really propounds the strong faith that Paul himself exhibits — like almost no other person in the history of any religion. Here's one of the most powerful figures in the history of any religion in the world. And his faith was so strong, that I found it reflected in my own faith in human nature and in the eventual destiny of people — that it became a kind of pronouncement. I feel that my philosophy, though, bends a little more COMPOSING IDEAS Professor Robert Fleisher

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