Speaking Soundly: The principal trumpet who made it big
OrchestrasThis week’s guest on David Krauss’s podcast is the conductor Gerard Schwarz, who started out as co-principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic orchestra. Schwarz, 76, went on to become transformational music director of the Seattle Symphony for 26 years, as well as leading New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival and, for five years, heading the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Schwarz talks about his parents, both doctors from Vienna, who took their kids to music as a matter of course. His mother never got over the murder of her parents in a Nazi transport to Latvia. ‘Whatever my sisters and I did,’ he says, ‘it was a better life than being killed by the Germans.’
Having achieved his dream of playing trumpet in the New York Philharmonic, ‘how could I think at the age of 28 that I could take something of my love and just put that aside and assume I would be a successful conductor? It was all stupidity.’
Listen here.
Thanks. This should be interesting. I don’t think Gerry Schwarz is a particularly great interpreter and he was probably at his most interesting in his early years in Seattle. Taking a good orchestra that wanted to go places and getting them much of the way there. His promotion of Hanson, Diamond, Piston, and others was a great thing, though some people got a bit tired of it and his programming in later years was much more conventional.
But he was in many ways the model of what everyone says they want in a music director. He lived in Seattle, and gave up most of his other jobs; he raised his kids there; was constantly not only engaging but befriending donors. His schmoozing and fundraising efforts were a major factor in the building of Benaroya Hall.
He is also a cautionary tale. He didn’t have a major second job for a long time, and then went to Liverpool, which didn’t go all that well. He had to leave Seattle eventually, and when he did he didn’t jump to another big job and I don’t see him conducting a lot these days. Other conductors might look at him and conclude they need to make sure to keep at least two irons in the fire.
He’s MD of the Palm Beach Symphony, certainly a much smaller band than Seattle and is also teaching at the U. of Miami School of Music.
He is 76 after all, older than most who simply retire from their careers, but he is on the conducting faculty at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. He is also the Music Director and Conductor of the All-Star Orchestra (made up of “top players from major orchestras across the United States, including the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, New York (Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera), Philadelphia, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, New Jersey, Houston, Minnesota, Detroit, Seattle, Nashville, Oregon, Dallas, Florida, Utah, Cincinnati, the National Symphony, and more.”), and he is the music director of the Eastern Music Festival, Palm Beach Symphony, and the Mozart Orchestra of New York.
Whatever “cautionary tale” there may be, a conductor who is still conducting top-notch players at 76, with a discography of more than 350 CDs on major labels, who arguably has done more for American orchestral music than any other American conductor, has a major legacy to leave. His work with students in major festivals also deserves special mention, having helped to train generations of orchestral players over a very long career.
I write as one who played under Maestro Schwarz at the (now-defunct) Waterloo Festival in New Jersey, a revelatory experience for me. He is, hands down, one of the most accomplished conductors I’ve ever played under, and he knows the score – every score – inside and out. He’s also one of the fairest conductors I’ve known…who can dole out disappointment with the best when it’s justified (and yet make it educational, not nasty), but who can likewise dole out the most amazing compliments when somebody in the orchestra plays something extraordinarily well. One of the most disciplined and well-prepared conductors I’ve known, also one of the kindest. I loved playing under him!
Agree completely. He did a lot of good for Seattle, but stayed at least five years past his best-before date. I recall a performance of Beethoven 5 near the end of his tenure which was quite simply boring, with the musicians frankly looking disengaged. Yet a Mozart/Bruckner concert around the same time under Kurt Masur (who it must be said was in Seattle only because Schwarz invited him) was breathtaking. He also seemed to be in a rut with his same soloist friends appearing over and over (two particular Russian bomber pianists come immediately to mind), and it was a breath of fresh air to hear some new blood in the Morlot era. Most of the new music he brought to Seattle was at least worth a hearing, but his championing of the music of Henri Lazarof fails even that test (it received the only boos I’ve ever heard in a concert hall).
Overall Schwarz must be given credit for leaving the Seattle Symphony better than he found it, but things were not pretty at the end. And I’m going to hear Yuja Wang tonight in Benaroya Hall, which would not exist without his efforts.
The overall tone of this post is dismissively cavalier for no good reason. The salient point is – he was a major orchestra principal with a recording legacy, who went on to have a pretty good career over many decades as a professional conductor. That happens sometimes, but it is uncommon and inspiring.
I only heard him conduct two programmes in the early 1980s near the start of his conducting career. I found them more than interesting as did the musicians. But equally there was a spark missing, rather like the interview when I feel he really does not get to the meat of the questions. His answers are generally rather boring.
He was also founder/music director of what was originally the Y Chamber Symphony, later known as New York Chamber Symphony, when they out of the 92nd Street Y. Also MD of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
NL, he was also a founding member of the American Brass Quintet.
He is not a founding member.
Schwarz’s book, Behind the Baton, is very interesting, humorous and insightful. Like a lot of American maestros of his generation, he is highly competent and able to conduct anything from any era. Maybe he is a second-tier conductor, but his contributions to the recorded legacy of American composers is something to be really proud of and the record collectors and people interested in American music should be very, very grateful. For me, his recording of the Borodin symphonies is the best ever made with that Scheherazade right up there, too. Retiring to Palm Beach must be great!
Has there ever been a champion of American music like Gerard Schwarz?
Yes. Leonard Bernstein and David Zinman, to name a few.
He was never principal trumpet with the NYP. He shared the co principal position with John Ware
GS was a world class trumpeter with The NY Phil!
Many people, including me, were disappointed when he gave it up to become a less than world class conductor.
He may well have been the greatest all around classical trumpet player of his generation. He should have stayed playing the trumpet, for his conducting never reached the level of his playing. If you want to hear state of the art, then as well as today, try this on for size: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf6Lc0REo6E
Conducting is a lot more fun than playing trumpet even in the NYPO.
It’s a no brainer for a young and ambitious musician to take the next step and challenge himself.
While flawed in many ways, his contributions to both the SSO and the legacy of American composers should be enough to show that the move was indeed a good one for him and made a bigger impact on US symphonic music than sitting principal trumpet for 40 plus years.
Also worth noting that his son Julian is a first-rate cellist.