Music: THE SYMPHONIC FORM IS DEAD

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Take the case of Lukas Foss, a dear friend whose music I've always loved. He's going through a period now of what seems to me publicly destroying the music he's always loved most—Bach. In some of his compositions he takes a piece by Bach and breaks Coca-Cola bottles over it and makes it fragmented and distorted. It's like watching him publicly clawing the stuff out of his brains to make room for something new. It's as though an avant-garde composer at this point will do anything to clear a space for himself. I don't know that that's going to succeed. There is something so destructive about it.

On the Future of the Musical Theater You can't sit down and say, "I'm now going to write a whole new, different, original thing which is going to change its course." It's got to come from the Broadway musical because that's what is American, that is what we know how to do. That's what is the equivalent of the Singspiel in Austria, out of which Mozart grew, and then Beethoven, Weber, right up through Wagner and Strauss. We have a Singspiel situation here in the United States, and by that I mean a pure entertainment that incorporates elements of vaudeville, operetta, whatever you want. Out of this something can emerge.

Hair is not what I'm talking about. I mean, it takes unbelievable chutzpah to make a show out of laundry lists. There is a song called Sodomy, right? So you take all the words that relate: sodomy, pederasty, anal erotic, or whatever it is, and you list them and that's your lyric, and you put it to a bad rock beat. Then you write a song called Colored Spade, and you say, "I'm a colored spade, Nigra, coon, little Black Sambo . . ." That's another laundry list. lust for shock. At intermission I was collaring people and saying: "Why are you clapping? Why are you laughing? This is horrible!"

On Pop Music

Too many rock groups are too fascinated with electronics. They seem to be saying "Look, that made a nice noise when I pressed that button; let's do it again. Let's put this noise with that one." When you let the machine dictate ideas to you, then it really comes from the outside, not from inside. But when I hear a group like the Cream, which is just sensational, I feel much better about the state of pop music. Those three people are great performers. I mean, they've got a drummer who can really keep time!

On Reaching 50

I feel very young. As a matter of fact, I feel better than I have in a long time as this horrifying birthday arrives. I play better tennis. I have more endurance. I'm happier, in spite of the increasingly ghastly state of the world. I feel that I have enough energy to do whatever it is I am going to do. And I'm looking forward to it.