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 1983
June
Vol. 7 No. 6
(1)
An Interview With Frank Zappa
By Dan Forte, 5 pp
(2)
Nagano On Conducting Zappa
By Dan Forte, 2 pp
(1) Mix: How did you interact with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players
in the rehearsals?
Zappa: Did I tweeze it out? Yeah, I tweezed it. They knew the stuff very well
before I got here; they had played it before. They knew what the notes were – it
was just a matter of spiffing it up. Ultimately, it's up to the musician. What
the conductor is doing is showing where the beat is, and then telling them
things about style to taper it to his own taste. The instructions I gave them
about style were not extensive, because the minute I started conducting them
they sounded like they had a pretty good grasp of what the piece was supposed to
be. The only things I told them, for instance, was how to say certain
parts – don't just play the notes, but make it talk. (read
more)
(2)
One of my big interests is new music. But not just any new music; it has to be
of quality sufficient enough to enter into traditional repertoire. I'm not
interested at all in experimental music or avant-garde music; I'm interested in
new music that already has the bugs worked out of it and is a highly refined
form of art. When I heard that Frank Zappa had been commissioned to write some
pieces for Pierre Boulez, I was really curious, because that's one of the
biggest honors a composer can possibly get – to have Boulez ask you to write a
piece for his ensemble. (read
more)
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