It is rare to meet a man as intelligent, fun, and with as many interesting experiences as musician David Schwartz. During his 40 year career, David played with the Cleveland, Detroit, and NBC Orchestras under the likes of Arturo Toscanini, Leopold Stokowski, Bruno Walter, Fritz Reiner, Glenn Miller, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and John Williams; he played on the Carol Burnett show, with Yale and Paganini Quartets, and even recorded a live album called “Live at 80!” Not being one to back away from a challenge, at 94 years young, David is currently learning the guitar, and considering another recording project.
I look at your career – you worked with Toscanini, Stokowski, Glenn Miller – you’ve made music that was a huge part of the American cultural fabric. Do you think music has that importance now?
Well, a lot of big orchestras are in trouble. But they have big budgets, and spend about 40% on administration. If you’re a performer at the top, there is money; I know a concertmaster who makes $400,000 a year. But the biggest problem is that there are too many musicians for the jobs. I’d say to my students, “What are you going to do?” They’d say, “I don’t know.…” I’d say, “Well you better marry a rich woman!” (Laughs.)
Did you know that recently the New York Philharmonic had 332 applicants for just two violin spots?
That doesn’t mean they heard all of them – if you’re from Oshkosh, they’ll just throw that away. If you’re from Juilliard, they’ll pay attention. That may be unfair, but how can a committee listen to all those people?
So would you say that music is less a part of the American culture?
No. We’ve grown in population, and I would never tell a music student “you’ll never make it.” We don’t know about money until we start working. I remember when I joined the Cleveland Orchestra at 21, I didn’t even know what they paid. Who cared of money? I just wanted to play! I lived on $40 a month – that was in 1937.
But I came from an unusual background. My parents came from Russia, my mother was a Latvian, and young Jewish girls were not allowed to go to school at the time. She was completely illiterate when she came to this country. What did she do? She went to night school.
She was there. And soon, she was saying, “What kind of language do you have? Why is there a ‘k’ in ‘knife’? Why do you spell ‘light’ with a ‘gh’? And the word ‘through’!” I said, “Mom, you’re right! It’s a crazy language!”
She became very smart, and for culture, she had me study piano. The first thing my dad did when he made a little extra money was to buy us a grand piano, just a six foot one. “Chickering” I think it was called. My three sisters and I all took lessons.
But there was something about the piano that I didn’t cotton to. With the viola or guitar, I control how the sound is made; it’s me expressing myself through the instrument, but with the piano, it’s a mechanical thing. I know pianists spend their whole lives trying to make it not sound like that, but the distance between you and what comes out is so big.
I told my mom that I wanted to play the violin. We went to my second cousin who played and he recommended a man named Joachim Chassman. Joe came to town, and among his pupils were Cathy Linski, and Glenn Dicterow.
What’s your favorite Toscanini story?
Well you asked me… There was a very voluptuous singer who we were working with. She was trying to sing one of these famous opera arias, and she was very nervous. And Toscanini kept saying: “Oh, the music! For shame! Shame!” He was cursing at her – “No, No, that’s a dotted quarter, not a sixteenth!” Finally he went over to her and her luxurious bosom and said, “If only these were brains!”
Oh!
I don’t know if you want to print that…
He’d never get away with that today!
Exactly. No way could he do that today. When I started in the ‘30’s, the conductors were really bastards. They could say anything they like, they could fire you on the spot for nothing! You didn’t even have a contract.
But the lucky thing about my emergence in music was that I had the best of the classical and pop worlds. When I was in the Cleveland Orchestra, I didn’t do too much recording, but later on I was Principal Violist in Detroit, and I played at Motown. I got to know little Michael Jackson when he was a nice little quiet kid. I worked with the Jacksons and many famous musicians. And then when I came to LA, I started working in the studios.
You were an original “crossover” artist!
Well, I didn’t “play jazz” exactly, but after three years with Glenn Miller, I knew what you were supposed to do!
I’d imagine so! What’s your favorite Glenn Miller story?
(Laughs.) Ok, over on the wall over there, there’s a medal that I’d like you to see. When I joined the Air Corps, I was a Link Trainer – I trained pilots. One day I was out drilling the soldiers, and the Captain called me in and said that I was doing a good job. He said that he was going to make me Staff Sergeant, which would keep me out of Europe. I thought to myself, “Gee, what a great patriot I am! Here I am, a Jewish kid, with Hitler over there, and he’s saving me from going overseas!”
Two weeks later, we were shipped out! We had secret orders and didn’t know where we were going. Finally we were told that we were to be deployed to the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Atlantic City! (Laughs.) Most of the rest of them went to the Aleutian Islands!
Anyway, I ended up being sort of the “House Mother” of the top two floors of the Ritz Carlton! They didn’t even have barracks for us! So I would get the guys up at 5:30 am, have them put on their fatigues, helmet, gas mask, rifle, their pack, and then they’d ring for the elevator! I thought, “All the Germans have to do is unscrew the fuse box and my troops are inoperable!”
Then one day the Captain said, “I hear you are a musician. We’re having a Christmas party, would you come and play some carols?” I agreed and I went to the party. Of course, there they had the best gin, the best bourbon, the best everything! Their food was so superior to ours – it really was a crime! They did less work than any of us!
So this guy with a Southern accent comes over and says, “Hey, Sarge, why are you doing this soldiering thing?” I said, “Well, where am I going to play the viola in the US Air Force?” “Well, Glenn is organizing a band – he’s going to have about twenty strings and he’d love to have you!” I said, “Glenn who?” I had just come from Cleveland Orchestra, and had heard his name, but….
I’d imagine that at that time, it was unheard of to have a big band of that size.
Oh yeah! Glenn didn’t use strings up to that point. But I just said “Oh sure!” and forgot about it. Then a couple of months later my Captain called me in and said, “Schwartz! How can you do this blankety-blank!” He was swearing every cuss word he could think! “You’re wanting to go to some band somewhere on the East coast, and I’m not letting you go!” I said, “Ok, sir.”
So I called my friend, (whose name was Fink, such a hard name), and said, “Sergeant Fink, what’s going on?” He laughed and said, “You just sit tight, don’t do anything.” Two hours later, the Captain called me in and said: “You know, I’ve been thinking it over. You have this craft of yours, and I wouldn’t want to stand in your way, so, goodbye and good luck!”
So I went to Yale University for the first time (I ended up teaching there later), as that is where we formed the band. We had all the best jazz musicians in the world from every band you can think of: the Dorsey Brothers, Artie Shaw, just name them, everybody was a star! And the strings were all young players from Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, etc.
This award, signed by President Eisenhower, that was given to you and the band has the words: “Reputation as a Vital and Important Morale Builder in the Theater of European Operations”. I bet the soldiers just went crazy for the band!
It’s too bad that Eisenhower didn’t write what he said to us, which was, “You’re the second thing that any red-blooded soldier would want over here!”
What would you suggest to orchestras locally and nationally to get new members of the public involved in classical music?
Well, I don’t know how much of this they do around here, but in LA they do a certain amount of concerts that are free to the public, though the musicians are paid, through the Musicians Performance Trust Fund. You have to do free chamber music concerts, and performances at middle schools to get them interested. There’s still a stigma that classical music is ‘hoi-polloi’ stuff. But you can bring it right down to the kids, and play “Yankee Doodle” and let them touch it or bang on it. Have the musicians really go into the classroom and show the kids what’s easy to do on the instruments, on the piano, saw, flute. Anything where they can make the notes. The difficult thing is getting them to relate what we do to the popular music they hear today. I have a theory – in early rock in the 50’s there was a connection in the chord structure to Baroque music. But now, there isn’t much of a connection. I don’t even understand what they’re trying to do. There have been bands with really great musicians, but I don’t get what it is they are trying to do.
What did you think of Frank Zappa?
(He laughs) I liked Zappa. In the Yale Quartet, we recorded Beethoven’s Opus 132, and were nominated for a Grammy. We knew we weren’t going to win, we were up against Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar who won, but I went to the party anyway. Frank Zappa and Leopold Stokowski were the two MC’s that night and it was the most fun night I ever had!
What advice would you give to students as far as what makes a good musician?
Flexibility makes a good musician today. The conservatory training is all wrong to stick to etudes and concertos. Give them a Bulgarian rhythm to play! I’d always tell my students to just play – you don’t need music – just improvise. You can’t make it just playing classical music. You have to know bass clef, you have to be able improvise, you have to know other kinds of music.
David credits Jane, his wife of 55 years, with being an amazing support in his life. When big jobs would come that would take him away from their growing family, he’d talk with her, and say that he felt he was being unfair leaving her with the kids, and she’d say, “I never want to hear you say I wish I had done this or that…” David said: “I could never thank her enough for that kind of understanding. She would also really look after me – she’d say ‘you played seventeen gigs this week! I just bought you a ticket to Mexico, you leave Thursday night.’ She knew I wouldn’t have any gigs down there… So I was very lucky!”
David Schwartz has seen more in his life than most of us will ever have the chance to. As might be normal when speaking with a 94 year old man, we chatted about aging – going gray… he is here, as he is in many respects unique – the majority of the hair on his head is still black…
…well I’m interested in politics, but it’s not going to make me go gray
It doesn’t seem like much will make you go gray! Those are some strong genes you have there!
(Pointing to a plaque on the wall) There’s my mantra –
“Live well, Love much, Laugh Often”
Do you need anything other than that?
André Watts will open the celebration with Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. We will bring back Beethoven’s signature Fifth Symphony, which was performed in the very first season 1953/54. We have assembled a stunning selection of masterpieces including Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Brahms’ Symphony No. 3, and Mahler’s huge “Resurrection” Symphony with the Choral Society. State Street Ballet will join us for Stravinsky’s Firebird, and New York Philharmonic’s Principal Violin and Viola – both from the Music Academy of the West – play Mozart. Not to forget an exciting world premiere…
Music Van (pictured here at the 2011 Earth Day Festival) which serves about two thousand 3rd grade classrooms in more than 40 schools each year. It goes on with “Concerts for Young People” and String Workshops for 4th to 6th grade, and Junior Strings for ages 9-14, up to the Youth Symphony for ages 12-20. 
