mt.st. mary's orchestra
info from "the mother of all interviews, by don menn, 1992
dm=don menn
- mg=matt groening
dm: what was the first performance of your "serious" music?
fz: actually, the first time i had any of it performed was at mount st.
mary's
college in 1962.
dm: what was the occasion?
fz: i spent $300 and got together a college orchestra, and i put on this
little concert. maybe less than a
hundred people showed up for it, but the thing was actually taped and broadcast
by kpfk. last year a guy in england, who somehow got a copy, sent me a cassette
of it, but i haven't bothered to
listen to it.
dm: when you were building your career, then, your focus on so-called
"serious music" began much earlier
than your becoming a rock and roll star.
fz: by the time i graduated from high school in '58, i still hadn't
written
any rock and roll songs, although
i had a little rock and roll band in my senior year. i didn't write any rock and
roll stuff until i was in my 20s.
all the music writing that i was doing was either chamber music or orchestral,
and none of it ever got played until this concert at mount st. mary's.
dm: and did it sound like music is supposed to sound?
fz: oh, no. it was all oddball, textured weirdo stuff.
dm: you started out that way, and as time went on it got more so.
fz: yeah. in fact, this concert even involved sounds on tape. i was doing
tape editing of electronic music,
and part of all the pieces had this little cheesoid wollensak tape recorder in
the background pumping out through
mono
speakers -- sounds that were supposed to blend with the acoustic instruments.
and there were sections of improvisation and a lot of different experimental
techniques.
dm: varèse wasn't doing that stuff. who was influencing you at that time?
fz: by that time, i had already heard stockhausen. i had already heard
boulez. i had a much broader musical
horizon than just my first varèse album, and even owning that was a major
achievement, living in lancaster
[california]
and trying to get ahold of that kind of stuff. try to figure that out.