INTERVIEW WITH RAYMOND STUHL INTERVIEWER: PROFESSOR TOM LEWIN Oral History Project The K.U. Retirees ' Club The University of Kansas Fall of 1985 INTERVIEW WITH RAYMOND STUHL Studied at Akademische Hochschule fur Musik, 1926 Service at University of Kansas Instructor in Cello, 1935-40 Assistant Professor of Cello, 1940-50 Associate Professor of Cello, 1950-66 Professor of Cello, 1966-77 Professor Emeritus, 1977 INTERVIEW WITH RAYMOND STUHL It 1 s 1:30 p.m. Q. I am speaking with Mr. Raymond Stuhl at his home located at 1515 University Drive. I am speaking with Mr. Stuhl to gather information regarding his history for the KU Oral History Retirees Project. I'd like to begin with a few questions about your childhood and proceed to gather as much information as time allows, to the present. childhood. I 1 d like to first gain a little insight into your Can you tel l me where you were born and the date please? A. I was born on November 3, 1906, in Kansas City, Missouri. My childhood consisted of a very normal childhood. my parents were intensely interested in music. Both of My mother was both a vocalist and a pianist and took me to many, many concerts, most of them symphony concerts and chamber music concerts and so on. I heard Jascha Heifetz when I was in seventh grade. This was the first time that Heifetz ever played in the United States. I heard the Minneapolis Symphony . I heard the St. Louis Symphony and several other organizations - and the Cincinnati Symphony. These were symphonies that regularly came to Kansas City to play for rather a vast audience, especially if you take into consideration the per capita. Q. All right, can you tell me what your father did for a living, please? A. My father had a school of watchmaking , engraving and mechanical invention of smal l machines. He was a successful teacher and had many students all over the six to eight state area. Q. Is this where you spent most of your time as a child? A. I spent most of my time as a child in Kansas City , Missouri. That's right. Q. How many other members wer e t here in your fami l y? A. Two other members. One was my brother who is living and is retired as Chairman of the Board of Directors from the Cupples Corporation in St. Louis. And the other one died at the age of 28 , where he was an architect in the same office as Ed Tanner , who was the head architect for the office of the J.C. Nichols Company. Q. I see. Who probably influenced you the most i n your childhood and in what ways? A. my head. That's a difficult question to answer off the top of I would say my general family environment and my parents , as well as one mathematics teacher who I thought was the greatest teacher I ever had in my life. Q. Can you descr ibe your family environment a little more? A. Well, my parents were instrumental i n formi ng the f irst symphony orchestra in Kansas City. They're t he peopl e who pushed a man by the name of Carl Busch int o the conductorship and the formation of the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra Society. Back in about 1910, he , together with Wall ace Robinson , who was a - 2 - big hotel operator and owned the Baltimore Hotel, as well as about forty other hotels in this area . There were perhaps other people involved, but I do not know their names. Q. I see. read an article where you said that your I father probably influenced you the most towards starting in the cello, starting to play the cello. Can you tel l me a little bit more about that? A. My father was always crazy about the cello, and he arranged for me to take cello lessons without my knowing it. He bought a cello. He had a frien d who was quite a good cellist, German-trained, and played in this orchestra as well as playing in a movie theater, which all musicians had to do, either that or teach. And so I went to the first l esson with the cello, hardly knowing what it was. And he was a very nice man, a very average teacher, quite a good cellist. And I learned considerably from him. I to teach. That which was difficult to teach he was unable to would say I learned what, in my opinion, was easy handle. Q. I see . What age were you when you actually began studying cello? A. Oh, about ten. Q. About ten, uh- huh. A. No. Q. Just the cello? A. No, just the cello. Q. I see. Do you play another instrument? Can you tell me anything else about your cello that stands out in your memory? - 3 - A. At the age of fifteen, after a year of playing tennis - I won a tournament at the age of fifteen , which encompassed the entire city of Kansas City, Missouri, and which was restricted to all people up to eighteen years old. Q. So, did your father also play tennis? A. No. Q. I see. A. I think I got started playing tennis because my brothers Neither my father nor my mother played tennis. So who told you to start playing tennis? played tennis. Q. I see. A. My brothers played tennis rather badly. Q. Average players, I suppose. A. They wouldn't let me play with them at f irst because they played so much better than I did, and later I wouldn't play with them. Q. Why was thiS?; A. Same reason, only reversed. Q. Are there any activities or interests you had when you were a child? A. Well, I had, uh, I was interested in mathematics because of this very fine teacher I came in contact with rather early in life. He was a fabulous teacher, and if I have been successful in teaching it is because I have learned so much how to teach from this one teacher. He was far and above the finest teacher I ever had. Q. Was this a high school teacher? A. This was a high school teacher, yes. - 4 - During my high school years I was very interested in taking cars apart and rebuilding cars. Much to the concern of my father, because mainly of the expense, and also because he thought I might get hurt, I assembled an automobile by buying a body and a frame , buying the motor separately and complet ely taking the motor apart and replenishing it with new piston rings and valves, placing it in the car and making the car work. It wasn't a very handsome car but it worked beautifully. Q. Did you work anywhere as a child or did you . ? A. I worked some for my father, but that was the limit. Q. I see . A. Many young people had jobs in the afternoons and I used to go down and work with my father, but not extensively. Q. I see. What type of education did you receive? You went through high school? A. I went through high school, practiced a great deal, went to junior college for a couple of years in Kansas City and then went directly to Berlin. Q. I see. What school did you attend in Kansas City? A. Westport High School, which was the only high school which serviced the entire southern area of Kansas City, including all of the Shawnee Mission area, etc., which . . . Q. I see. So how many students were there in your class? A. It was a large, large school. It was so large and so overcrowded that one of two years while I was in high school all classes of the sophomore year were restricted to the morning, the junior year would be restricted to the afternoon and the - 5 - senior year would be restricted to however they could handle it . It was a growing population, a very big problem, and this was certainly before Southwest High School was built in order to relieve the congestion in Westport . Q. I see. So then you went into j unior college right after you graduated from high school? A. That is correct. Q. What junior college did you attend? A. The Kansas City Junior College, which at that time was located at Eleventh and Locust . Q. I see. So after junior college you decided to go to Europe? A. I went to Europe and studied with a private teacher for a year. playing. All this time, of course, I'd been practicing and After having studied cello for a year with a Hungarian cellist whose name was Paul Hermann, I entered the Akademische Hochschule fur Musik with a famous cello teacher whose name was Hugo Becker. The Akademische Hochschule fur Musik, which wsa the official name of the school that I attended, was financed by the Kaiser and was the most luxurious school for students you've ever heard of. not pay tuition. It only had 110 students. You could It was strictly a scholarship school. took his lessons in front of the other fellow. Everyone It was very international, in that there were not more than two people in the cello class of which I was a member that were from the same country. There were two from Russia, one from Italy, one from Hungary, one from Sweden, one from Norway, I was the American, - 6 - and there were two Germans. That was it. Q. I see . A. We were on test every day, and the moment our work was unsatisfactory we were dismissed from the school. Q. Hum. A. So that it wasn ' t a matter of grades. of staying superior all the time. It was a matter We always took our lessons in front of each other which was very tough, because those Russians had a fabulous education. Q. Uh-huh. A. There was no limit to the advantage of being accepted into t his school. First of all, let me say that Bruno Walter was one of t he two teachers of conducting. Bruno Walter was a conductor of the Met ropolitan Opera and much of the time the New York Philharmonic after he came here during Hitler's time, but before that he was the head of the City Opera in Berlin, which was operated eleven months in the year. every night to a sold-out house. They performed George Zell was the other conductor and he ended up in the United States as the permanent conductor of the Cleveland Symphony. I would say he was there for probably thirty years. .He was a very famous man. Flesch was the violin teacher. Karl He taught many of the famous violinists in the world today , and Becker came to this country for the first time playing joint concert s with Fritz Kreisler, who at that time was the greatest violinist in the world , by far, of course . Al so, Artur Schnabel, who was probably one of the greatest influences in the applied musical world, was - 7 - a member of the faculty. His class was very small. He never took over four or five students, and one year fifty-five students tried out ot get into Schnabel's class and he didn't take any of them. He taught piano. It was a great, great privilege to be in his class, and it was a great privilege especially to be in the conductors' class because of the fact t hat they found jobs and very good ones, and saw the conductors to be place before they could start their career. And many of the conductors in t his country and all over Europe went through this conducting school. Q. I see. It was also limited to six students. So, who actually, how did you actually get that scholarship to get over there? A. My parents paid for me to go and I stayed with a teacher there and after a year's study I applied to play an examination, and when I played the examination they . Q. So you tried out? A. Oh, yes, you tried out. Everything was tried out. Every time you took a lesson, it was a try-out. Q. So that your parents sent you over there for a while, and you A. I was there five years, yes. Q. I see . A. I was there five years, and it was a very difficult five years in the sense that the competitive t alent and their backgrounds were absolutely superb. any two Russians. I'm not talking about just The two Russians who were in the class with me became the first cellist of the New York Philharmonic ano - 8 - the first cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Josef Schuster and - I can't remember the other man's name, but he was on his level. Q. I see. A. And Piatieorsky had formerly been a student there. Piatieorsky then became the first cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic and then the outstanding cellist of the world. Clifford Curzon was also another student in the school and who studied with Schnabel. He died two years ago and his price for a concert when he died was $15,000 a concert. A friend of mine who studied in the conducting class was an associate of Wilhelm Furtwangler and conducted two symphony orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic. When Furtwangler conducted one week-end in Berlin, Giovanni di Bella conducted the Vienna Symphony, and then they would switch and Giovanni would conduct the Berlin Philharmonic and Furtwangler would conduct the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Q. I see. So what year was it when you returned to the United States? A. 1930 . Q. 1930. And so what was your next course of action? What did you do once you returned? A. Well, my next course of action was to find out that the sound fi l m had had a devastating effect upon employment of musicians . Q. Uh-huh. A. . . . and the situation in music was really quite chaotic, - 9 - and after having heard t he Berlin Philharmonic and all the marvelous chamber music in Berlin, I found the music in Kansas City was indeed primitive. So I got int o the etching business together with a couple of friends. One of them was s tudyi ng viol in in Paris and the other one had just returned from Paris. Wi t h whom both Mrs. Stuhl and I played trios. Q. The etching business? Excuse me, what's t he etching business? A. The etching business was a very good business to be in, I found out forty or fifty years later, because of the fact that we would buy etchings from competent French contemporaries through the years when French impressionism was still going strong. And we bought prints over there - I had one print which I sold for about a hundred dollars which is now worth forty t housand. Unfortunately, I sold it. We had several Picassos, very famous prints, but it was very difficult to sell things in those days, and very difficult to stay afloat. This was Depression years. Q. So tell me why when you came back from Eur ope t hat you decided not to be associated with the music industry right off then. A. Wel l , first of all, the kind of music making that went on in Kansas City in comparison to the ki nd of mus ic making I got so used to during five years of music attendance and participation in Berlin was vast ly different. I found that t he music making i n Kansas City, and the teaching as well, was indeed in rather a primitive state; and it seemed rat her impossible - 10 - to reestablish to the degree where I would be happy within t his profession. of mine. So I got into the art business because of two friends One was at that time a fellow who had just come back from study in Paris, a violinist with whom Mrs. Stuhl and played trios. We traveled extensively. I And the other one ended up being the concert master of the Kansas City Philharmonic. But at that time he was still studying in Paris and he bought etchings, French contemporary etchings, and sent them over to us and then we would travel - mostly I did the traveling - all over t he United States, going into department stores and art stores with prints. Sometimes I sold them, sometimes I arranged for a small exhibition, which they would advertise. be there and we sold a great load of prints. I I would Unfortunately, was not farsighted enough to realize that some of these prints one day would be worth thousands and thousands of dollars, that I was thinking of selling for a hundred. a picture by Chagal. This man, as a matter of fact, died recently. He was a Russian artist. $40,000 . I For instance, I had This print is worth today at least sold it for $100. Q. Oh. A. We sold two Picassos for about $100 apiece. These Picassos are probably worth, oh, five to ten thousand dollars apiece, at minimum. Q. Uh-huh. A. These were color prints. I also happened to have stored away, mainly because I couldn't sell them at the time, quite a number of prints by a Japanese who lived in Paris and was - 11 - taken to Paris by his father when he was a year old. His name was Fujita, who is known in Kapan as the first and foremost contemporary Japanese artist. And his work was different than anything that had appeared on the scene either in French impressionism or any other form of art, either in Japanese or in Western European art, especially French. So he was a big success. Q. I see. So, how long did you continue selling prints? A. Well, I didn't stop exactly, but in the meantime I found that I would l ike to start teaching music. Q. Did that just come to you all of a sudden, or you pretty much felt that you wanted to teach all along? A. Well, I - first of all, I went to see a former fr i end that I had known. His name was Charles Horner - who later became Assistant Secretary of the War Department. I thought it might be a good idea for me to start teaching, because while the standards of cell o were so low they were almost non- existent, there was no cellist as such compared to today. Mr. Horner said that their cel lo teacher had l eft because he had no pupils, so I said, "It's quite a job, isn't it? But I'll take it." After a year ' s time I had eighteen students studying regularly, once a week. And this was a result of a pi oneering job which I sincere- ly believed in. I felt that if they didn't know how to play that I should use the knowl edge I had t o teach them. So I went into the schools, I went into homes, I went into different towns, so that I did teach at the conservatory. I later resigned at the conservatory because it restricted me too much. in many towns: So I taught Kansas City , Ft. Scott, Pittsburg, Chanute, - 12 - Atchison, Leavenworth, and Iola. This was quite a jog . Weekends my wife would come down and meet us in Ft. Scott where she had a piano class and where Mark Holmes, this violinist who had just returned from Paris, would also teach. result also of the same pioneering. Now this was the The class finally grew to the point where I had approximately eighty-five students. Most of these students were private students. were class students. Some of them At that time I was allowed to teach during school hours if a student had an easy subject he could get out of once a week or had a study hall. So it made it possible for me to teach more hours per day. I knew many of the superin- tendents because I had gone to see them and talk to them about this and they were heartily in agreement with a broader and better education in music than they were able to supply. So this music turned out to be a busy life that I was in, because I traveled approximately five hundred miles per week and taught an average class of some place around eighty. After about three or four years of teaching, I had a student who came in on the railroad (he had a pass on the railroad, and his father was a member of th e Board of Regents). He came in every two weeks and took two lessons on Sunday, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Then he got on the train and went back home. He came in the day before and stayed in one of the downtown hote l s, took his lessons and went back home. After he graduated from high school he went to KU and studied cello with Dean Swarthout. Dean Swarthout had studied in Leipzig, Germany and studied the piano as well as the cello. However, he was mainly, he was - 13 - really a pianist . one year. This young man studied with Swarthout for At the end of that time, he said, "Dean Swarthout, I like studying with you very much, but I like my other teacher better, so I'm going to go back and study with him again if you don't mind." He said, "What's his name?" name is Raymond Stuhl. 11 He said, "His "Oh," he said, "I've heard many of his students play because I've judged many contests in various parts of the state, especially in eastern Kansas." "I know him very well by his students. at all. And he said, I don't know him personally But if you'll send him up to see me, I'll give him a job." So this young man relayed the information from Swarthout and I came to KU, and he did, he gave me a job. ever since. Q. I've been there This was in the year 1935. So were you overwhelmed in getting the job like you did having received that offer? A. This was a difficult thing to come into because again I came into the same situation as at the conservatory. There was one student who had been studying with Dean Swarthout but his father had been ill - he was from Salina - so he was not attending school that year. lesson a week. So actually I had one thirty-minute After two or three years of teaching in the school I walked into Swarthout's office and said, "Well, the department's growing. I don't know whether you're aware of it, but we now have seven cello majors." And he said, "My goodness . How big do you think that department can be? How large will it ever be?" "Well," fifteen and twenty," I said, "I think we can have between whereupon Swarthout, on his swivel chair, - 14 - rocked back and turned around and laughed for a good minuteand-a-hal f. Q. What? A. He said, "It sounds like you ' ve stay wi th it. You seem to have vision. Which indeed it did. Actually, It may work out." After I returned from the service, I had eighteen cello majors and a class of about twenty-six, or twentyeight students. Q. I see. A. So the class did indeed get greater. The University also grew. Q. so you concentrated just on the cello, right? You instructed just on the cel lo? A. I taught all the sight-singing and ear-training for several years, because there was no teaching to do; and I also taught chamber music extensively. There was no teacher for that either, because there were no cellists to play in the ensemble. Q. Uh-huh. A. But as the cellists began to come in this gradually became quite a department. Dean Swarthout wanted to develop this department of chamber music because he indeed was interested in it very much. Q. Can you describe the KU Chamber Music Series a little bit more for me? A. Well, the first chamber music that was here was done by Dean Swarthout through the Coolidge Foundation. The only chamber music of a professional status was done during music - 15 - week which was held every spring as long as he was the Dean. And I can remember the Coolidge Quartet coming in to play, and the London Quartet came in to play, but only during this week. The first five years I was here I talked to Dean Swarthout about having a regular chamber music series. it can be done. Very impractical." it is, but I don't think so. He said, "I don't think "Well," I said, "maybe I think it would work." Well, after seeing him for five consecutive years, the fifth time I went to see him he said, "I finally have a few funds towards that, and we will try it. than ten people there." But you'll see, there won't be more "So," I said, "over my dead body." I must say I had some expert assistance in the help of my wife, Mrs. Burzle, whose husband was in the German Department, and a Mrs. Snyder, Mary Snyder. They knew a great many of the faculty at the University and they also knew a great number of the people in the town. They worked on the people in the University, the faculty in the University, and the people in the town, and I worked on the students mostly. And I would stop the students in the hall and tell them that we were starting this series and I thought that they should hear it. Q. Uh-huh. A. Because the University did not offer any kind of educational opportunity which was of that quality. In other words, we had no lecturers who would come to the University and receive an honorarium of say from $2,000 to $3,000, as the chamber music groups did receive when they came. The long and the short if it was that the students became fascinated with the idea and - 16 - we sold the house out, which was Swarthout Hall, which seated about 425. concert. We sold out of the season tickets before the first This was in Strong. floor of all places. Strong Auditorium, on the third And to try to find a place to park and to walk up those two flight s of stairs took a stable stamina and determination. After the people were there and they enjoyed the series and it flourished. We continued to sell out as long as it was located in that location. Q. So when did it start? A. That started probably around maybe 1939. Q. 1939. A. That's as close as I could come to it. Swarthout and I worked at it together until I went into the army, and he closed it down, semi-closed it down until I got out of the army again. Q. So when did you go into the army? A. I went into the Army Air Corps about 1940. be my guess. Q. That would I can 't tell you the exac t date. All right. And then you came back and started working again? A. Yes. I started working again. that was a different story. When Swarthout retired Because at that time Dean Gorton came i n and Dean Gorton wanted to run the show. Q. I see. A. And so he did. I worked out , I think, an arrangement with other towns, such as Topeka, Cansas City, Pittsburg, Manhattan, Fayetteville, Arkansas, and perhaps - oh, yes , Emporia, part of the time. And so they did what we call today block-booking. - 17 - In other words, they brought the same groups. a special price. This gave us But, unfortunately, these people didn't really take that much interest and we ended up having groups that were practically all from the back of the Iron Curtain because they were cheaper. Q. Uh-huh. A. Something I disapproved of heartily. We did have some wonderful groups, however, before Dean Gorton took over, and afterwards, some very important groups indeed, including the Amadeus Quartet; but before that we brought the Hungarian Quartet and we also brought the Budapest Quartet, and above all, the Albeneri Trio, which to me was the greatest trio that ever existed in the world. Q. How about the Guarneri? A. Guarneri String Quartet. Dean Moeser became dean . This took place in 1977 when I went to a faculty meeting, his first facu lty meeting, whereupon he announced that I was going to be in charge of the Chamber Music Series and the Concert Series without even consulting me. I practically fell out of the chair but I thought it might be smarter if I didn't say anything. So I kept my mouth shut and thought I might be able to do it. Q. Can you describe the KU Concert Series? A. Well, the KU Concert Series had been a very famous series, especially under Dean Swarthout. He had brought to this campus every famous soloist of international repute who was in the limelight during the time that he was the Dean of the School. - 18 - Q. I see. A. And one of the examples was a series which he had in 1944, no, 1946- 47 , called the All-Star Series, and here we had the internationally famous organist, Dupre. He had the Metro- politan Operatic Ensembl e, consisting of famous singers from the Metropolitan Opera. We had, believe it or not, when Isaac Stern was a very young man, he had Isaac Stern; and a famous pianist at the age of approximately ten, whose name was Leon Fleischer. Leon Fleischer had a series of master cl asses which lasted, I think, three years, and at that time he decided he didn't want to do it anymore. a leader in the world. He became a very famous pianist, And he also became a very famous teacher, still is a very famous teacher and he is now also a conductor, because he lost the use of his right arm. He caught a strange disease. Q. I see. A. And the last on this All-Star Series was his niece, Gladys Swarthout, who was a famous Metropolitan soprano. Q. So, there were opportunities fo r famous people? A. Dean Gorton kept this going and he was much more interested in bringing in orchestras than Dean Swarthout, so we began to hear orchestras. This is a much more difficult thing to achieve because of the fact that there i s an enormous expense involved in bringi ng in fine orchestras. Q. I see. A. To bring in an orchestra comparable to Isaac Stern, you have to bring in something like t he Berlin Philharmonic - 19 - or the New York Philharmonic, which is prohibitive, even though i t is sometimes very highly subsidized. Philharmonic today is $50,000. The price of the Berlin Can you imagine paying $50,000 for one performance? Well, this becomes impractical. However, we did have the Berlin Philharmonic here under Dean Gorton. Chancellor Murphy was mainly responsible for this concert. Because of the fact that he thought that it was a very fine thing to do. Shortly after the war was over, he brought the Berlin Philharmonic to this campus, but, of course, at that time it wasn't so expensive. Q. I see . Now, I'd like to go back a little bit and ask you, after the war, did that change your attitude about wanting to be involved with music at all? A. As a matter of f act, the war increased my determination to go back to music and see what I could, how I could be of further service - not only as a teacher, as an individual teacher or a classroom teacher, but as a greater influence over this area of the country. I t was at this time, and Dean Mallott was the Chancellor, and when Swarthout was still the Dean, that Mrs. Stuhl decided that we would take on the project of playing in as many schools as would be humanly possible, in order to make available a form of education which didn't exist in the public schools. We played for twenty-five years and played approximately three thousand concerts in a six state area , as well as playing in New York for schools and in the America Houses in Germany after the war. Q. So basically you got everybody going, it seems like. - 20 - A. Well, I had many people stop me in the hall the following t wenty years, and would say, "I heard you play in, 'let's say,' Chanute, when I was in junior high," and they'd call me up and say, "I'd like to have my daughter study cello with you because when I was in junior high in Newton, Kansas, I heard you play and I've never forgotten it, so I'd like to have her learn to play." This was exactly what I wanted to do and it amazed both of us. The public, not knowing much about music and nothing about the cello, would receive it with such enthusiasm. We had the feeling that we were out in order to educate and to enthuse people and to fascinate people with music, but we were actually the people who came back more fascinated and more touched than the people for whom we played. Q. Because you were touching and teaching so many people getting everything started? A. We worked with the music educators where orchestras existed and strange to say, there were more orchestras in those days than there are now. All of a sudden, between the years of 1930 and 1950, orchestras mushroomed and were much more prevalent than bands. Q. Uh-huh. A. It wasn't until the combination of the band and the athletic department became so closely connected that the band began to exceed in membership. Q. Uh-huh. A. After that time then it became much more of a struggle to promote strings, and has been ever since. - 21 - But I think they sell it the wrong way . Q. You do? A. I think they sell it the wrong way today because of the fact that this is not sold in such a way that it is part of our educational and cultural program and it should be emphasized that this is a part of western European and America, a real heritage. Q. Uh-huh. A. And it's probably the most unique thing that western man ever invented Q. Uh-huh. A. . . . because of the fact that we invented the instruments, we invented the clefs , we invented the notation system, we invented the tonal system, the half-tones and the whole tones, and we also produced t he genius not only to play these instruments, but certainly to compose for the instruments so that what we have today is unbelievably unique; but it's not sold like that. Q. Uh-huh. A. It's sold as something which is still somewhat precious, somewhat remote, instead of being part of the people's lives, and from the point of view that if you don't know about this, you should know about it. If you should know about it, here it is, and here is a very fine example of what you know little about. Q. Uh-huh. Okay, I also notice that in the KU Concert Series you brought a famous Russian cellist by the name of . A. Rostropovich. - 22 - ? Q. He is very famous , isn't he? A. He is one of the greatest artists who ever lived. Q. Uh-huh. A. When you become such a genius at playing an i nstrument the word unbelievable is almost inadequate. Q. Is he one of the best? A. He's one of the finest, not only finest cellists , he's one of the finest artists that ever lived, along with Gregort Piatigorsky, Pablo Casals, Isaac Stern (who's not a cellist, of course), but I would say that he's one of the ten greatest artists who has lived in the last hundred and fifty years. In what year did he come to the University? Do you Q. remember? A. Well, I'll have to do a little calculating. It was about ten years ago, so I would say it was approximatel y in 1975. Q. I see. A. He was here in the house, and I showed him a picture of Red Cloud. We had a big hook with a great big picture. Q. Uh-huh. A. And I said, "I want to show you a picture of an Indian who looked like Beethoven." Like that. And he said, "Don't tell me stories!" "No Indian look like Beethoven!" out, opened it up, showed it to him. I got the book "He look like Beethoven!" And then Rostropovich said, "His hair look like Schumann," who was a very famous composer. Q. You mentioned Pablo Casals, right? - 23 - A. Yes. Q. When you were in Europe, you studied with him? A. No, I didn't study with Casals . and played very often. Casals came to Berlin Casals did not teach at all during those years. Q. I see . A. In fact, Casals never taught until he came to this country, not just to this country, but to Puerto Rico, and even at that his teaching was extremely limited. I would say Casals only had one real student, and his name was Casado, and he was really a Casals' student, because he had studied with Casals before he became so famous and while he still had time to teach. After that time he was so busy playing that he had no time to teach. One interesting story about Casals, if we have time to tell it, that Casals went to Russia on a tour, and this was told to me by one of Russia's most famous cellists, one of the members of the trio that was mentioned, called the Albeneri Trio. This man's name was Benar Heifetz, a cousin of Jascha Heifetz, the violinist. When Casals played the first concert, everyone wanted to hear him play, and play as he did. The objective of most of the Russian cellists, and indeed, many, many of the violinist s was to play with a great big, luscious, beautiful tone. Casals came and played with a very beautiful tone, but he played loud, and soft, and varied the quality of the tones . The Russians had never even thought of playing like that. they were absolutely fascinated. And And so, he was a great success and went back to Russia many times after that, until under the - 24 - Communistic system it became impossible. One of my students, John Erlich, who got a master's degree here, and went to Europe on a Fulbright, after he had accepted a job on the faculty as a professor at Drake University in Des Moines, started studying with Casals for two years. In Pradres - he commuted between Paris, or he lived in Pradres - every two weeks, and then had two-hour lessons. He came back and practiced all day long and went back and took another lesson from Casals. He was the only student I ever had who studied with him, but it was a rare privilege, because very few people ever had the chance of doing it. Q. I see. Can you tell me a little bit about Alan Harris? I have a little information about him. A. man. Well, Alan Har ris was indeed a very talented young Yes, he studied with me in high school. This is rather an interesting story because another student of mine was the head of the Lawrence public schools. His name was Jack Stevenson, who is now the head of the Music Education Department of UMKC. I came to Jack after I got out of the army and saw that there were no cellists in the schools, so I said, "I will accept four talented young men and teach them for nothing all the time they're in high school, junior high and high school, if they want to make music a career, and come into KU later. And thereupon Jack found four very good men, one of whom was Alan Harris, who graduated from here. He studied with me about ten years, later became a member of the faculty of the Eastman School, then after that a member of the Cleveland Institute, and is now the head of the Cello Department and professor at Northwestern - 25 - University. And also a member of the faculty in Aspen, Colorado. Another one of those four boys is the music supervisor, head of all instrumental and vocal music, in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and this young man was not, indeed, half as talented as Alan Harris, but became probably the greatest infl uence on young people of any person I know, because he developed a string program in Albuquerque consisting of 2800 people studying string instruments in a town of, Q. Uh-huh. A. Maybe a million. Albuquerque. say, not over half a million people. I can't tell you the population of He has three youth orchestras, any one of which is better than any youth orchestra in the state of Kansas, by far. He t ook them to Europe twice, he has been instrumental in helping other people get string programs started; but he has that peculiar kernel of genius for getting people, for developing a certain fascination for playing stringed instruments. And he's been very practical in the way he has gone about hiring, engaging people to become members of his music department. He has the biggest string program per capita of any place on the face of the earth. The other boy is not far away, in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where they have a wonderful center, and practically all the people who live there are physicists or scientists. But he has al l these people, the average IQ in t he high school there, even including the natives, some of whom have maybe only seventy or eighty, but still the average IQ is 152. Q. These were probably the most outstanding students that - 26 - you taught? A. No, I wouldn't say altogether. ing students. of eight. I had many other outstand- I had a girl who started studying at the age She left this area when I went into the army, went to New York City and studied with a famous Russian cellist, and later became a member of the City Center Opera Company, and played in two or three other symphony orchestras and ended up in Kansas City as the assistant first cellist of the Kansas City Philharmonic. When she quit that job another student came up from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who had actually been a business major, but who was a very fine cellist; he never stopped practicing the cello . His name was Arthur Fielder. He was not a graduate of the KU Music School , but he was a fine cellist and he became the assistant first cellist of the Kansas City Philharmonic. There were other very fine cellists. In talking of my students, I would l ike to start out with a story that I heard just the other night from a member of the Beaux Arts Trio, the most famous trio in the world today. His name is Bernard Greenhouse. Bernard Greenhouse says that I have sent him more fine student s for graduate study and doctoral study than anyone in the United States. There are other teachers who have received fine students. Harris went to a man named Starker. number of students. I sent Starker quite a And there have been others as well. I'll talk about some of the outstanding students. I had a student whose name was Lyle Wolfrom, who's now teaching in a state college in Kentucky. Rita Gonzalez Thompson, who after graduating taught in the Fort Scott schools for a while - then - 27 - abandoned music as a profession - but her daughter is a member of the San Antonio Symphony, and her daughter studied cello with me at KU. I haven't said anything in detail about Jack Stevenson, who got a doctor's degree in music education at my suggestion. Jack was a talented cellist, but I felt that he had more of a disposition to t each and to work in the field of education than work as a professional cellist; so he did get a degree in cello but he got a doctor's degree in music education. He taught music education at the University of New Mexico and then moved to the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He taught here at Lawrence High School, yes, which was before his first position. Stephen Shumway , an outstanding cellist, just played a concert here the other night. to Greenhouse. He's one of the ones I also sent He teaches in a college in Ohio and has become a very fine cellist. He still has most of his live yet to live. He's not yet thirty. He ' s trying out in a contest; the Namburg, which is the most difficult contest in the world, probably, to win . And he's going to try out and see how he comes out. If he doesn't win, he'll come close to it. Don Watts is teaching at a college back in Baltimore, Maryland. Linda Judd went to the University of Texas with the Professor of Cello, a very fine cellist who was former ly the first cellist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. And he also says the finest prepared students he's ever had came out of any undergraduate program. She won a contest in Oklahoma City call ed the - I can't recall the name - but at any rate it entitl ed her to receive - 28 - an honorarium of $500, and also to be placed on the same series, playing with the Oklahoma City Symphony on the same series as Isaac Stern and internationally famous people. She played very well and played very satisfactorily, an extremely talented girl. She taught in Wisconsin at a state college and has moved. lost track of her. I've Someone has said that she is now playing in South America. Merl Clayton is the assistant first cellist with the Dallas Orchestra, and he's also the man who represents the musicians union with the administration; so he's actually the go-between, between the orchestra personnel, the administration and the board. That places him in the position because he studied two or t hree years in the Business School at Washburn. After he got out of the army he decided he was going to start out in music; he liked that better than business. So he got a degree in cello here and went further, again, to this man in Texas. Sue Gewinner is a girl who is extremely talented. a member of the Oakland Symphony. She's She lives in California. Damian Socol went to a position in San Antonio, Texas, and the San Antonio Symphony. Later he was a teacher in the Broadway Schools in New York City. But this is not to be confused with some little, just fly-by-night schools, it is a very serious music school. Jolene Kessler studied with me for about six or seven years. She completed her study in Wichita because her family moved there, which was not exactly an economic problem, but they wanted her down there, and I think for rather good reasons because - 29 - she was not as stable as she finally has turned out to be. She married another student of mine, Kevin McCrudder. They live in Boston today and they simply make a living by playing jobs , any kind of job that comes up, they play i t. They also teach extensive classes. Another outst anding student was Kathy Wolfe, who's father inherited a department store in Detroit, and she worked for her father. What her musical activities are today I'm at a loss to say. Another one whose name is Evan Townsend who teaches at Oklahoma A & M in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He has the cello department and also he's head of the theory department. One of the finest students I ever had was a young man named Carl Peiper, who has a standing offer to play with the Saint Louis Symphony any time he wants to. orchestra to get into. This is a very difficult But he went to St. Louis in order to pursue the study of electronics with emphasis on its medical importance, such as the development of the various mechanical devices used in hospitals. He ended up with a doctor's degree in neurobiology and a doctor's degree in computer science; no a master's degree in computer science , and a doctor ' s degree in electrical engineering. Shirley Foster is a girl who graduated from here and pursued her study in New York City and was a very fine student, and is now teaching in southeastern Kansas as a private teacher. I believe that - well, there are a couple of other names here which should be mentioned. Walter Hawkey, who t eaches - 30 - at the University of Arkansas where part of his teaching is devoted to teaching cello and strings in the University and part of it is to supervise the string study in the Little Rock, Arkansas public schools. Verna Jarnot, who is a very fine teacher and teaches in Tucson, Arizona. And Olga Zalboorg, who is a most wonderful talent and was here for only a couple of years, because she didn't want to come here in the first place. She wanted to go to a big city, but she did stay here for two years, then went also to Greenhouse. So Greenhouse has good reason to say that talented people had come to him via my studio. Q. Uh-huh. A. Richard Magg is a teacher at Fuhrman University in South Carolina. Donna Moore Ward teaches cello at Corvalis, Oregon, at a state instituiton. There is another student, violin student teacher, whose name is Merlyn Carlson. I believe we've gone as far as I need to go, but I have a list, as you can see from this page, which will take up another five days, but I think that these names won't mean very much to most people. Q. Uh-huh. A. Two other students I neglected to mention are Robert Stewart, who has been at Missouri State college in Warrensburg, Missouri, and has been a big influence there. And the other one is Mary Ann Dresser, who recently received her doctoral degree from the University of Texas, and is a member of the Austin Symphony and a private teacher there - very talented girl. So, all these people play in their communities and have great influence. There 's one girl, Jane Shackelford, who never - 31 - played a not e or gave a singl e l esson , but she did teach music in the schools and had about 200 hours on her transcript, and i s a trememdous influence in New York State in the areas of creating interest in attending concerts, not only in her own community but all over the area whe re she lives. great contribution. And i t's a Another is William Ward, who i s t he Associate Dean of the School of Liberal and Fine Arts at San Francisco State University with the student population in t hi s one particular department of school of 14,000 st udents . composer. He ' s also quite a He also studied cello and was in cello choir which I have in the other room, (in a picture), and it's very interesting to look at these . Bill Wagner graduated from KU and studied al l the time he was here, and he ' s a surgeon today. I think that's probably it. Q. Okay , you've helped us quite a bit, I can see. Are there any other honors which you have received? A. Well, I received quite a few honors , I'm not sure I can remember all of t hem, but I was cited three times as a Hilltop Professor, (I'm not sure that still exists), and also Q. Can you describe t he Hilltop Professor a little bit? A. It was formerly called the Hilltop Professor and now it has been changed to Hill Teacher . Also I received the award of Distinguished Professor one year. As a matter of f act, t hat was t he year I retired. I t was the Chancellor's Award. Q. I see. A. I rece ived two awards from the Ameri can String Teachers Association for outstanding teaching and leadership. - 32 - Q. What is that? A. This is a national association, and also two awards from the Kansas State Teachers Association, String Teachers Association for outstanding teachers and contribution to music through playing for so many young people. Q. Any other honors that you'd like to mention? A. Well, I was selected during a meeting of the American String Teachers Association, a national meeting, to make a speech to Casals, who was unable to attend the meeting because of the weather and because of the fact that he was threatened with pneumonia at t he time, had such a bad cold - so I was elected to speak to him after he'd played a couple of pieces into the radio, or over the t elephone , which we had al l heard. There were about 800 of us actually, and I gave the speech of acceptance at that time and also talked about my experiences in Europe and gave some comments about teaching. One was the comment, Benner Heifitz, who had told me the story about Casals in Russia, among many other t hings. I had a cello choir which played many, many places in which, I think , eighty students participated. It was a rather large cello choir of some sixty pupils from all over the United States, so we felt lucky to have had thatmanypeople accepted. Q. Can you describe a little bit more about what the cello choir was? A. Well, a cello choir is a group of cellists (the cello is a singular instrument insofar as it has the greatest range of any instrument in the orchestra so composers can write for - 33 - this group and have it almost as interesting - it's a bit more restricted, to be sure - as an entire string section of an orchestra, because they can play so high and they can play so low). And the literature while limited, does exist and many of the works which have been written for this choir are really thrilling to hear. It's a different kind of a sound and to people who hear the cello choir if it plays well, is really fasc inating, to the degree that the Berlin Philharmonic has sold quite a few records of their cello choir. Eighteen. The records are fascinating. Q. So overall, what aspect of your profession did you feel that you value the most? A. Well, I think I can say that in one word - service. Service to the community, service to the University , service to young people, service to education, service to enlightenment, and certainly service to the culture of western civilization. Okay, what are some of the major changes that you saw in your department over your career that you would like t o discuss? A. Well, if you don't mind, I'd rather not hold it down to the department, but to talk about major changes, period. Q. Sure, that's fine. A. Major changes have been enormous, as you well know. When I first came to the University, it was a school of somepl ace between three and four thousand people. Now t here 's 24,000, tells somewhat of a story without any elaboration. Q. Uh-huh. A. However, we have lost a great deal of ground, and I - 34 - don't like to sound pessimistic because this is exactly the situation that I have been trying to combat all of my life. When I first came here this small school would have concerts and Hoch Auditorium would be full. Q. Uh-huh. A. Now, it takes an enormous celebrity to even begin to fill it, or a great orchestra. It's true they will fill it, but only with the most difficult efforts, which earlier was not really necessary. This is due, of course, to many things, mainly we have much more competition in television and radio and other forms of entertainment. There are many other things to do, not good things to do, in my opinion, but they are activities many of them are good. I don't mean to say that there are many bad, but they exist. Q. Just draw people away? A. Just draw people away, so that they actually keep people much more busy. People are busier, students are busier, they have less free time to dream - l ess dream-time, so to speak. I would say that the per capita attendance to concerts is the nation over, but particularly in the Midwest, is alarming, because with 24,000 students in comparison to 4,000 students, is a trememdous contrast, and yet we have difficulty in filling the same hall that we were ab l e to fill when we only had 4,000 students. Q. Uh-huh. A. I'm not saying that these things that people do instead of going to a concert aren't just as valuable. But I would say that many of them are much less valuable and many of them are - 35 - really bad influences. And the other point is that we have no been at all efficient in letting people know about the importance of music and what a great part of our own lives it should be and could be and really in a sense, is, in that we did invent it, we developed it. Shouldn't we feel that the field of concert- izing and the field of bringing a professional concert artist today is an overcrowded field not because there are too many players, but because the audience is getting smaller? So that this change is one which should be dealt with directly and much more efficiently than it's being handled. Q. How do you feel you'd go about that? A. That, I think, I can write a book about. Audiences over the entire western world, but especially in the United States, have been influenced by a low-class type of entertainment over television and radio, which we may never get over unless people take certain steps. And these steps are simple and practical and possible as long as we can find people who have the ability to talk well and to play well and work very , very hard. Q. We need people like you to go around again . A. People need to go into every avenue. I feel that it would be very appropriate that if in the school system they not only had concerts where people could talk and explain the music, but play one instrument at a time, give a short concert, talk about the instrument and, if necessary, go into the individual classrooms and talk about it, so that people would get much closer to the performer, I mean to the players, and much closer to the instruments, and have a more personal feeling about what - 36 - was being done. They would go to concerts. When I first started this last stretch that I did with the Chamber Music and Concert Series, I vowed and declared that I would have many concerts on Sunday afternoons because I discovered at that time that there was nothing for the students to do on Sunday, except trivial things, very trivial things. Ei ther that or study. Q. Uh-huh. A. Also, it was a good time to have these concerts because of the fact that they had the entire weekend to get their lessons for Monday and if they were not done, by the time they go t out of the concert hall on Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening, they could still have the entire evening for further study before the Monday mornings. Q. Uh-huh. A. So this seemed to me to be also a good idea because of the fact that people who are unable to go out at night could come and enjoy this music. Again, we get back to this matter of accessability and at the same time, exposure, and if we could expose the idea of going to concerts to more people by giving them a sample - it's just as practical as the people who came along and used to five us samples of Kellogg's Corn Flakes in little boxes and they would say, "Try this. it a person can buy it at your grocery." well. And if you like And this worked very It was done for years and years and years, for forty years at least. A sample of something which is of excel lent quality almost always catches on. - 37 - Not to one hundred percent of the people, of course , but nothing does. Q. Uh- huh. A. So by and large I think this is the kernel t hat it takes. It takes a very knowledgeable, persistent, fascinated person with that kind of subject before you can do it . Q. So what year did you retire from KU? A. '77. Q. But you still remain real active in teaching the cello? A. I'm very act ive. Let's see, this is '85. 1977. As a matter of fact I was just called by a student who was going to try out for a contest in Topeka just called right from Topeka and he wanted to try out. Q. I see. A. Yes. Do most of your students come to you now? Now I have many students. I am an adjunct professor at Washburn University where I teach about six hours a week. Q. I see. A. And, this was a high school student who was trying out for this contest. I have three high school students who are trying out, a girl from Olathe who comes here for lessons, and a girl who studies wi th me in Topeka, and a boy who comes on Saturday from Topeka and studies. Yes, three students. That's it, isn't it? But I have had - no, out of five entries in this contest, four of them have won in one division not the cello division, but the string division; that's the violin, viola, cello and bass. or six years . That's in about the last five So they consider that it has been great experience for them and they've done very well with it. Q. All right. What, if any, contacts do you still have - 38 - with the University? A. When I left the University my connection was the Music School as a teacher . The connection with the Concert Series, which I continued to work at for a couple more years was so closely tied that I felt that it was a much better idea that I make myself scarce for a few years in order to give the new people who came in a completely free rein on doing what they thought they'd like to do . And we all feel, I think, when we feel this kind of responsibility and especially if we've been around for a while, we feel that we would like not to be tied down by too much advice from the other person. Q. I see. A. So I have not been very active at the University since. I think it' s not a bad policy, and I notice that many of my friends , both at KU and other places in the country, have taken very much the same attitude. Q. HUh. A. Now it's a different matter. in this kind of thing . little bit more t ime. I began to be more active It would be mostly because I have a I've been very busy. Now I've been more busy s ince I retired than before, because of the fact that my teaching schedule all of a sudden was enormous. I don't know why, but it was. Q. You had a little more time, so they would j ust give it to you. A. I don't know,but the students literally came out of the walls. At the same t ime I started going to Topeka. - 39 - They called me from Topeka and asked me if I would do that. I said, "Yes, I think I'll have some time." I was going to be that busy. And I did not know Otherwise, I wou l d never have allowed myself to get into it, but you can't anticipate things. So, l i f e has been very busy and really quite fascinating. I'm influential in the Chamber Music Series in Topeka because mainly they would have lost it unless somebody with a little bit more affection and savvy than anyone over there on that board had to make it flourish. Now it's doing much better. a good turnout for the concerts. But we have We have five concerts in number and they're in an excellent hall, good location. I don't like the time of the week, but it ' s always been on Saturday night and it's not a bad time at al l . Yeah, last s ummer I was called by a f ormer student and as ked if I would come to San Antonio to conduct the ce l lo choir consisting of fifty-five people. They had been rehearsing this and hopefully it was going to be a big success, but they couldn't seem to bring it off . was at the University of Texas at San Antonio. This So they asked me to come down, and arranged the transportation and a nice place to stay, and I had about three rehearsals , which was extremel y limited. But in those three rehearsals we got a good deal done and the concert was a big success. It was a sellout, and it was really a fascinating thing to do, insofar as it was a combination of the string section, cello section of the San Antonio Symphony mixed with high school, junior high school and grade school students. And I'd never tried that kind of combination together, but it finally worked out very well when I began to - 40 - ask these little youngsters if they could hear anybody else except themselves and if they knew what they should listen for except their own part . And if they didn't know their own part that well, they'd better go home and learn it, because we could never have a concert if they could just play their own part and not pay any attention to what else goes on . Q. Okay, what are your hopes for changes that you feel should occur in the future for KU? A. Well, this is a very thought-provoking question that no one can answer, but I can tell you how I feel about it. There must be greater emphasis on, not only playing, but also music listening in order to make our musical future in America secure. I think it's in great jeopardy at this time because this is a great day of change, and it can be a great day of change for the better or a great day of change for the worse. It depends on who puts how much energy into what. I'm not just talking about KU now, I'm talking about the whole western world. KU has always been a great school, it's still a great school. The problems of the administration, the problems of the faculty are far more complex than they were when I taught there. They will continue to be more complex because the social problems are more difficult. young people are smarter now than they were . I think that They know a great deal more in many respects, but in other respects they know a great deal less. It's hard to sum it up. Again, the society is so complex that it's a very difficul t thing to do. If I were asked how I could improve the University of Kansas it would - 41 - be impossible for me to give a direct answer. I'm sure that most anyone would be glad to listen to a direct answer which was given right. Q. Uh-huh. A. But it's like asking how are you going to make the world safe from vicious wars in the future. you that answer. No one can give The most that you can hope for is that we have more pioneers for the positive, not only in music, but in the student life in general, and more cultivation and more encouragement of good habits and good activities, good, healthy activities which are not time-wasters, but which are thoughtprovoking and fascinating . Not easy! As a freind of mine who was a great chamber music player said, "The highest form of music known is chamber music, and it's the lousiest form of entertainment." Q. Okay, well, I think that pretty much covers everything I wanted to ask you . to go back to. There are a couple of things I would like I never asked when you all were married , and I never, I forgot about your whole history . A. We've been married about . . . I can't figure it out. Q. Tell me, did you get married before you went to Europe, A. Oh, no. I got married after, just after I came to KU. Q. I see. Okay, well then, I also forgot to ask you about or? your experiences in the Kansas City Philharmonic. Did you actuall y play in the Symphony? A. I played with the Kansas City Philharmonic for three - 42 - years. When I first started playing with the Kansas City Philharmonic was when it was first started. Q. Uh-huh. A. And I looked around and the people who had been maki ng a living by playing looked so poverty-stricken and sour and discouraged and disgruntled . Q. Uh-huh. A. . . . that I felt that this was no life for me. Q. Uh-huh. A. So when Dean Swarthout offered me this position, I checked with it, but, of course, I was not primaril y a symphony player, I was primarily a teacher because I lost many students by playi ng these three years with the Kansas City Philharmonic because I didn't have time to teach eighty students a week and make the rehearsals and play in concerts. for the concerts. And also be prepared So something had to give, and coming to KU certainly was the ideal out in many respects. I had also at that time quite a number of advanced high school pl ayers and these high school players migrated to KU. said, Dean Swarthout later "I had really very little choice when I hired you, because you were the only person that had any students. If were ever t o have any cello players at the University of Kansas we had to find some place to get them, and you had them, so you're here for a number of reasons. Your standards are very high, you have shown that you are a success, and you're young, so this was so obvious a move for me." Q. I see. Well, I think that covers about what I need . - 43 - Is there anything else that you'd like to mention? A. Well, one thing. You've conducted this very well and I'd like to congratulate you on the light touch that you have and the questions that you have asked , and the way you've been prepared. Q. Thank you very much. A. I've enjoyed talking with you very much. Q. Thank you. Q. I have just finished my interivew with Mr. Stuhl at his home located at 1515 University Drive. Mr. Stuhl is very kind and he lped me out a lot to end this interview. We ar e in his l iving room, I guess you'd call it, and right off the entrance way of the house. It's a very confortable setting. We're next to the fireplace , a very comfortable, very relaxed atmosphere . The only distractions that I would say were mainly, his wife was sitting in with him, and so he would be distracted, as you could probably tell from t he tape, and she would, for exampl e, whisper things to him and try to enhance his past a little bit so that he could talk to me, and I think that was kind of a distraction, because she kept making me turn off the tape every time that she wanted to say something. So it kind of distracted me in the interview and his train of thoughts at times, but more or less he was very, very good at answering my questions and put a lot of thought into it. The only other distractions basically were one phone call during the interview, but this came at a pretty opportune time - 44 - because we weren't discussing anything at t he moment, and this was one of his students calling. was very well done, I believe. So more or less the interview Maybe you won 't, but he did answer all the questions that I had down and was not at all as inhibitive as I thought he was going to be before the interview. And as you said, he did let me take the tape once I sat down talking to him. Before, he was hesitant about the interview just because he thought he was going to be busy, but it turned up it was snowing today, and he had time to talk. went pretty well. - 45 - Everyth i ng