Music Director of the YSO from 1968-1974
When Beethoven was a lot younger, a mere 200 years old, the YSO celebrated his biggest birthday yet with an all-Beethoven program (December 17, 1970) that was an homage to the epic four-hour concert the master conducted in Vienna on December 22, 1808, when both his symphonies No. 6 and No. 5 were premiered. To this we added the Violin Concerto, played by Jonathan Bieler (who went on to play in the Philadelphia Orchestra) and Stravinsky’s “Happy Birthday” piece, composed for Pierre Monteux on the occasion of Monteux’s 80th birthday.
The 1970-71 season is worth remembering. It opened with Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder (a Parents’ Weekend challenge if ever there was one!) and ended with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Both were New Haven premieres. In between, we played the Berg Violin Concerto, la Mer, Petrouchka, Scriabin’s Prometheus with coordinated lasers (twice in one night for the overflow crowds), and The Miraculous Mandarin Suite. We also toured France, starting out in Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, where we performed Debussy’s rarely performed last ballet score, Khamma, along with the Scriabin (no lights) and Ives’ Symphony No. 4. We brought a chorus along with us and had a couple of encores: the Danse Russe from Petrouchka and Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm Variations. (Overheard in Paris when we performed the Gershwin, a somewhat befuddled woman said, “Enfin, la Rhapsodie en bleu!”) I well remember the wooden toilet seat in the conductor’s room and thinking about Pierre Monteux and how he had probably made use of it shortly before the world premiere of The Rite of Spring in 1913.
An all-Beethoven concert was quite rare for us in those days. Whenever we played Brahms or Beethoven we liked to call it “straight night.” In general, we left that repertory to the New Haven Symphony and Yale’s Philharmonia. We wanted to make Beethoven’s 200th special and celebratory—and long.
Our partners in garnering an audience in those days were our graphic designers who created magnificent art-house quality posters and table cards (for the dining halls). Of those terrific designers, Chris Pullman brought his brilliance and sense of humor to everything he created. His idea was to photograph a gigantic birthday cake with 200 candles on it. This required a certain amount of planning—and a cake.
The photo shoot would have to take place at least a month before the concert so the poster could be designed, printed, and put up all over campus. Yale’s Food Service agreed that their meat freezer located across I-95 would then keep the cake on ice until we defrosted it in time for the post-concert party at our apartment on Orange Street. Our unofficial team doctor, Joe Rossi, suggested his local bakery, called (I am not making this up) Schiller’s Country Club Pastry Shop might help.
I visited Mr. Schiller and asked if he would bake a gigantic wedding-style tiered birthday cake for us (free of charge). I said I was a big fan of the Country Club Bakery, and he said yes, because he was “a big fan of Beethoven.” Once he had completed his masterpiece, I placed it in the trunk of our Ford Falcon and carefully drove it to Chris’ studio where he set up the shot, put 200 candles on the cake, lit them, and started photographing. I was not present for the shoot, but late that afternoon he called me. “John. I finished shooting the cake, but I have to tell you something. The heat from the candles was so great that it caused the icing to melt and catch fire.”
And so began the offstage saga of our 200th birthday celebration.
When I saw the cake, I knew I was in trouble. I picked the candles out of the hardened wreckage and the next morning I went across the street to the Orange Street Market and bought cans of cake frosting—pink and white. Like an episode from I Love Lucy, I set out to hide the mess. I can still see myself wearing an apron and occasionally answering the kitchen phone from the orchestra’s officers to see how I was doing. I also remember finding pink icing on just about everything for the next six months.
Having done what I could, I drove the wounded cake down to Yale’s freezers where it would remain for the next four weeks. The concert went well enough. Beethoven triumphed, as he inevitably does, but there was the party—and Mr. and Mrs. Schiller, our honored guests.
The defrosted cake (sad thing that it was) rested in our kitchen during the concert. I had put lots of candles on it, and at a certain moment during the reception, I lighted them up as my brilliant wife Betty turned off the lights in our apartment. I emerged with the cake once again ablaze. All sang the Happy Birthday song and once it was over, I tore into that cake with a knife and quickly handed out slices before the lights went on again and Mr. Schiller could see what had happened to his work of art. I truly believe he never noticed. I’d like to think so.
If you look at the poster carefully, you will see—just below Ludwig—the beginning of the molten avalanche that almost burned down Chris Pullman’s studio and was one of the great challenges of my seven years at the helm of our beloved YSO.