Washington Conservatory's director, Kathy Judd, talks to Fred Begun about his career as a musician and teacher:
KJ: You were principal timpanist of the National Symphony Orchestra for 48 years. What stands out as the best part of that experience?
FB: Being able to get up every day, play the music, and do what I want with my life. Being able to have a wonderful time and being paid for it!
KJ: What orchestra music did you enjoy most?
FB: Of course I liked all the Russian composers with Slava [conductor, Mstislav Rostropovich] and the standards like Beethoven, Brahms, or Tchaikovsky. Specific favorites are Beethoven 3rd (Eroica) Symphony, Rachmaninoff 2nd Symphony, and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Then there were the concertos I performed with the orchestra by composers Robert Parris, Jorge Sarmientos, Blas Emilio Atehortua, and John Stephens.
KJ: Who was your favorite conductor?
FB: One of a kind: Lenny! [Leonard Bernstein] He has yet to be replicated. The only person I see as possibly replicating him -- the Lenny genius -- is Gustavo Dudamel.
KJ: What was Bernstein like personally?
FB: He was very affable. He really, really cared about the players. He could galvanize a group to play above what they ordinarily would play. He had a wonderful -- not dictatorial -- but demanding way and was appreciative of really good results. He was definitely a man for the people and definitely cared.
KJ: Back to conductors, can you speak about other favorites?
FB: Well, Lenny is in an exalted place. But Lorin Maazel, as far as scholarly research, has probably researched stylistic and period idiom more thoroughly than any other conductor. He has a total photographic mind. He can conduct a Schoenberg [Arnold Schoenberg] piece by memory, call out both bar numbers and rehearsal letters, and hear any missed notes. And there are others who stand out: Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Eric Leinsdorf, Pierre Monteux, Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir John Barbirolli, and back at the beginning of my career, there was Bruno Walter.
KJ: How did you choose to play timpani?
FB: I must have been around 10 years old when a kid brought a board, with five or six tin cans nailed to it, to school -- that was his drum kit! Then he made one for me. After school every day I would turn on the radio and play along with all the big bands. This gave my folks quite the culture shock. I said I really wanted to be a drummer and talked them into letting me take lessons. I had chosen Gene Krupa as my role model. He was a fabulous player and on the cover of magazines. That was very sophisticated and glamorous to me. I studied drums all through high school and when my parents asked what I wanted to be -- a doctor? a lawyer? -- I said I wanted to go to Juilliard. The ulterior motive was to be in New York, hear all the music jam sessions, and maybe get discovered.
KJ: What changed when you went to Juilliard?
FB: After the first year at Juilliard, I decided to start taking my studies more seriously and find out everything I could from the principal timpanist of the New York Philharmonic, Saul Goodman. I played timpani with every orchestra I could find, no matter what size -- with only 11 players or whatever. I got a lot of experience with those different orchestras. The National Orchestral Association Training Orchestra conducted by Leon Barzin met three times a week. This was the big opportunity to play and I learned a lot that way.
KJ: How did you get the National Symphony job?
FB: The summer before I graduated from Juilliard they had a big thing at the Watergate. There was a budget to do a big extravaganza, so they did the Berlioz Requiem with 16 of everything...16 trumpets, 16 trombones, 16 timpani. I remember the older players gave me the third timpani part because that was the one that came in first -- and they wouldn't have to count bars! The personnel manager of the NSO was there and seemed to think that I was doing something differently from the other guys. During my last year at Juilliard I got a note from him that there would be an opening in the NSO. I graduated in June, took the audition, and got the gig.
KJ: Why do you love to teach?
FB: OK, we can go back to when I was studying with Saul Goodman. To really see what he was doing, I would watch through binoculars when he was performing, then ask him questions about it the next day. He was typical of the musicians in those days -- they didn't want people getting too close. So I decided then and there that if ever I would be lucky enough to teach, I would give everything I know, good or bad, and not hold anything back. And I always implant a certain amount in my teaching to help students "get outside the box" -- which incidentally is the name of my autobiography that I'm working on now.
KJ: Tell me a little about the pieces you'll be playing on the WCM Faculty Spotlight concert on October 18 [2009].
FB: I wrote 21 Etudes for Timpani for three drums, four drums, or five drums. I'll be doing one of the etudes for three drums and one for four drums, which is the final one I wrote. This very involved piece, built on the notes F-B-F, sort of became a portrait of what I do. It starts calmly, finishes calmly, and has an awful lot of excitement in between.
