Remembering Harry Begian

My friend and colleague Greg Clemons is active on Facebook and for "throw back Thursday" posted this photo of Harry Begian, the legendary band director.

That brought back so many memories I decided to choose Dr. Begian as the subject of this week's blog entry.

I met Harry Begian for the first time in 1979. I was auditioning for graduate school at the University of Illinois, and the percussion professor Tom Siwe, noticing that I had played in bands at Michigan State, told me that if I were willing to play timpani in the symphonic band, I could audition for Begian and (if successful) get a band scholarship.  I thought the language of the possibility seemed a little strange, ("willing to play"?), but since I would need a scholarship regardless of where I went to school I said yes I'd definitely be interested. Playing in band was a normal part of life for me and, like many young musicians, especially in the midwest and definitely in the rural midwest, my earliest experiences as an instrumentalist (except for private lessons with my Dad) were in public school music.  

If I remember correctly, Tom made a call over to the band office, arranged for me to play, and sent me over to the band building, which was in a separate location from the rest of the music school, walking distance of course (the Illinois campus is pretty centralized), but I know I couldn't help wondering about why the band had a separate building and also why there seemed to be more than just a physical distance between the band and the rest of the school. I could sense this from the very beginning and later that distance was both confirmed and amplified during my year in residency at Illinois. My audition for Dr. Begian (no one I know ever called him by his first name) went well, although he must have been somewhat taken aback by what I played--Improvisation by Elliott 

Carter--and I was offered the scholarship on the spot. After the audition we went back to his office, which was an amazing space and even had a shower installed. Anyone who played under Dr. Begian knew why it was there--he was usually drenched in sweat after rehearsals.  He talked to me about Michigan State University, how much he had loved the school and what a dream it had been to be chosen as Leonard Falcone's successor. Then he asked me where I went to high school. When I told him I came from Leslie, Michigan he said, "Well, that's proof talent can find its way out of anywhere."

After graduation, I packed up for a summer playing percussion with the Santa Fe Opera, an amazing opportunity for a twenty-year-old just out of undergraduate school. Mark Johnson, my professor at Michigan State was the timpanist, and Michael Udow (who was teaching at the University of Missouri--Kansas City at the time) was the principal percussionist. Things have changed now I'm sure but back then there were only two of us playing all the parts so Mike had to make "arrangements" of big pieces so we could cover everything. Can you imagine Salome played by two percussionists and timpani? I can! We also performed the U.S. premiere of the completed three-act version of Alban Berg's Lulu, which was conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. That reminds me of a story. My future plan was to be an orchestra player and when I wasn't performing I spent the rest of my time practicing for an audition with the Grand Rapids Symphony (Bill Vits won that job and still holds the position). During one practice session, I was working on Stravinsky's Les Noces when I heard a knock on the door. When I opened it there was Michael Tilson Thomas! He said, "That's not the right tempo. Would you like me to conduct you through it?" And so he did. What a memory: both his ability to conduct me through Les Noces from memory like that, (it's not exactly in the standard repertoire after all), and the memory of me playing playing Lulu under his direction as well as that Les Noces excerpt in the practice room.

I mention this as a prelude to my arrival at the University of Illinois, one week late because the opera season goes through the end of August. I had that preapproved of course, but during my first rehearsal with the band, Dr. Begian stopped conducting, looked directly at me with that stare everyone calls "the beam" and said, "This may be your first look at this piece but we've been working on it for a week. I want to see you in my office after rehearsal." Had he forgotten why I arrived late?

I entered his office with fearful trepidation--the first of many times I experienced fear in Dr. Begian's presence; in fact I was pretty much in fear every time I was in his presence--waiting for him to come out of the shower. When he came out he smiled, shook my hand, and said, "How was the Santa Fe Opera? What was Tilson-Thomas like?" Turned out, I had worried for nothing and he wasn't mad at all. However, a seed had been planted that lived and grew for the entire year I played in his band. I never, ever wanted to see that look on his face directed at me again. And I knew (first intuitively, later by experience) that if I ever made a mistake in rehearsal or concert (it didn't really matter since rehearsals and concerts were all performances for him) I'd get that look.  And that he would never forget.

Conductors can no longer behave that way in front of any ensemble, professional or student. Fear as a motivator is no longer how music gets made, at least not directly in the hands of any conductor I'm aware of.  And even then, with many conductors still using intimidation as a means of establishing discipline and order, Dr. Begian was legendary for his dictatorial ways. When I arrived, very few music majors played in the Symphonic Band. That's why Tom Siwe had asked if I was "willing." There was only one other percussionist in Tom's studio, my good friend John Leister, who played in the band when I did. Most majors instead played in the wind ensemble under the direction of the trombone professor Dr. Robert Gray.  Dr. Begian was quite open about his resentment that this was the case, at least he was with me. I remember him telling me once about how he had received a phone call from a band director at a top music school, asking about a musician who was being considered for a teaching position there. Begian told the director, "I can't tell you anything about him. He never played in my band." "What?" the band director said. "Went to Illinois and didn't play in your band? I can't believe it." Begian then said to me, "This happens all the time. Someone is a candidate for a job and who do they call? The one person they know at Illinois. Me. And I don't know those candidates because they never play in my band." Sure enough. When I applied for my job at the University of New Mexico, who did they call? That's right, Harry Begian.

I worshipped the man. He scared me to death but I loved him. I'd never played under the direction of anyone like him and I wanted to be like him too. So, with no prior experience, I asked Dr. Begian if I could take his conducting class, which I found out later was created for graduate students of his who were majoring in wind conducting. Actually I did have some conducting experience, one experience to be exact. I conducted "Coat of Arms" at graduation, following a tradition that all band seniors could conduct a march of their choice at spring commencement. "Coat of Arms" was my favorite march then, I loved playing it in high school, and it is still one of my favorites today. I'm pretty sure Stanley DeRusha, who was Director of Bands at the time I graduated, was not happy with my choice. He didn't like marches anyway I could tell but this march, a march only played by small town high school bands like the one I played in? Well, I think it's great and here's a YouTube link so you can listen for yourself, played about as well as I remember my high school band playing it, and it is the only link that is at the right (fast) tempo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfs4MlyOcC4

Dr. Begian said yes so I joined the conducting class, meeting many fine students who have since gone on to successful conducting careers. Dr. Begian spent most of the class telling stories. He especially liked to talk about wind ensemble conductors, their arrogance, their predilection for turtlenecks, (Begian instead wore polo shirts, usually Illini orange and blue), and how one instrument on a part was not conducive to the repertoire, which he believed was best served by a large symphonic band. My favorite wind ensemble story involved his nemesis, Frederick Fennell, whom he talked about, and not favorably, a lot. I made the mistake once of bringing in a Fennell recording for one of my conducting lessons, an excellent Eastman Wind Ensemble recording of Schoenberg's Theme and Variations, and he was so furious he went up to his shelf and handed me an Illinois recording. "Use that from now on," he said. End of lesson. Anyway, back to the story, which happened not long after he had been appointed Director of Bands at Michigan State University. Begian had invited Frederick Fennell to be a guest and at the first rehearsal, Fennell asked Begian to conduct the piece through so he could have some idea of what had already been accomplished in rehearsal and take it from there. After Begian finished, Fennell took the podium, closed the score, put it on the floor and said, "We won't be needing that," and conducted the rest of the rehearsal from memory. Begian was furious, and, according to him, this was when the rivalry began.

One of my favorite Begian stories, I've told it many times over the years, originates during another one of those class sessions.  He was giving us all advice about being a conductor and making priorities, "God first, family second, music third," he said and then told us that after a concert, no matter what goes wrong, "you have to let it go and move on. Otherwise it will just eat at you, become an obsession." At that time, I was conducting Hindemith's Symphony in B-flat, a piece I would later analyze for my final (I still have it), using a University of Illinois recording under Begian's direction, as I had learned you dare not do otherwise. During my private lesson, Fridays at 8:00 AM,  (although I usually could never get up that early I was never late), I started to conduct the second movement, which begins with a very exposed duet between trumpet and saxophone. There is some trouble in the recording with the trumpet playing, and when that trouble was heard, Begian stormed over to the turntable, pulled the needle off the disk, and in that inimitable husky voice of his quietly roared, "how could he make that mistake? Completely ruined a great recording." So much for letting go and moving on! He then put another record on the turntable and I finished my conducting lesson by listening to the recording he made of the Hindemith with his high school band. In fact he told me that Cass Tech High School, under Begian's direction one of the greatest high school bands ever, did the Michigan premiere of the first movement of the Hindemith, after which (according to Begian) William Revelli at Michigan finally gave the complete Michigan premiere. Apparently Revelli did not like the piece but refused to be "upstaged" by a high school band.  Here's a link for the second movement, from that amazing performance of the Hindemith performed by Begian and the Cass Tech band:

https://soundcloud.com/cshultis/symphony-in-b-flat-major-ii

I've always loved the music of Percy Grainger but there's just no way to emphasize enough how my feelings about Grainger's music deepened through performing his band music under the direction of Harry Begian. Every band director has their own way around this music but I am guessing that no one ever approaches Grainger's music without first listening to Begian's legendary Grainger recordings. Of all the pieces I studied with Dr. Begian, Grainger's Colonial Song was my favorite and I consider it to be Grainger's minor masterpiece. This is the recording of it I used for my lessons:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07IOPHrg7Lg

When I was writing Openings, the band piece I finished in 2009, and dedicated to my father who was himself a band person having studied with Sousa drummer Frank Perne and playing in the Michigan State University Band when Leonard Falcone was the director, Grainger's Colonial Song was ever present, the score sitting at my piano and the music always in my ear, even becoming the intentional source of how the last movement "Ear" ends, so if one wanted, you could without pause have Colonial Song immediately follow. Here's the last movement of Openings so you can hear for yourself how the two pieces fit together:

https://soundcloud.com/cshultis/openings-for-winds-and

I always told Eric Rombach-Kendall, Director of Bands at the University of New Mexico, that before I retired I wanted to conduct Colonial Song, which unfortunately didn't happen but is something I still hope to do in the future.

There are many stories out there about how brutal Harry Begian could be in rehearsals.  And no remembrance of him is complete without drawing attention to that side. One time in particular I will never forget. We were preparing for a tour in mid-Michigan, essentially a homecoming for Dr. Begian, (for me as well of course), and we all knew these performances were a rare chance for Michigan band directors and students to hear the great Harry Begian conduct the famous University of Illinois Symphonic Band. The program was very difficult and, as usual, mostly transcriptions. I don't like transcriptions and, as my former percussion students know, I refused to ever program anything not originally composed for percussion, even though we had a marimba ensemble where it would have made sense to program transcriptions following in the great Guatemalan tradition. Instead we played exclusively traditional Mexican and Guatemalan marimba music and the ragtime xylophone repertoire. I will continue with this subject momentarily. For now, back to the story at hand. 

We were rehearsing the Aegean Festival Overture by Andreas Makris which, if you don't know it, you can listen to here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGE8uVP-Bf4

The piece has a very exposed bassoon solo and just days before we left on tour, the bassoonist, accompanied by me on timpani and (probably) John Leister on snare with the snares off, was having some trouble. Dr. Begian stopped and had the student, who like most of the band was not a music major, play by himself.  Not good. "Try again," Begian said. "Again." And "again." Several times. After which Begian, with that terrifying glare of his, finally looked at the student (the "beam," remember) and said "What on earth is wrong?" The student replied, "I'm playing on a new bassoon." Begian: "Why would you do that now?" "I did it for you, so I would sound good on the tour," the student replied. The tension in the room was unbearable. "Well, that was a terrible mistake," (emphasis not mine) Begian fumed, standing there in silence just looking at him. We were all horrified and I've never felt so sorry for a student in my entire life.

I assume the student got his old bassoon back (what else could he possibly do after that?) because the tour went splendidly. The finale of every concert was one of Begian's favorite closers, Respighi's Pines of Rome, in a brilliant transcription by Guy Duker who wrote many of the great transcriptions I played when I was at Illinois. They were always in the original key so if you learned the part you essentially had learned what you might someday play in an orchestra, at least if you were a percussionist like me. I think that's the reason I never minded playing transcriptions at Illinois. And you were performing under someone who really should have been an orchestral conductor anyway. Begian had studied conducting at Tanglewood before he began his professional career as a band director and he had also conducted opera when he was at Cass Tech. I can tell you this: I've played the Pines of Rome many times but it never, ever sounded as good as those performances with Harry Begian. When we played in Charlotte, Michigan, my parents came to the concert and it was so close to home I actually spent the night with them afterward. The Pines drew incredible ovations everywhere we went but that night in Charlotte was by far the best.  And the fact of that just seems to capture what I loved more than anything about Harry Begian: making music had nothing to do with whether you were playing a concert or a rehearsal, whether you were playing in Carnegie Hall or Charlotte, Michigan. The music itself, the making of it, is what mattered. And it mattered so much that, no matter what, you had to push as far as possible to make it absolutely great. 

Many people suffered getting there, and I suspect he suffered the most of all. But was it worth it? I guess nowadays people would say no it's not worth it and I certainly can't speak for anyone else who was there at the time. But for me? Yes it was. Absolutely worth it. Listening to the Respighi again, in this great recording now available through the American Bandmasters Association (link below),

http://americanbandmasters.org

I'm guessing the musicians who performed on the recording would have said it was worth it too. Playing under the direction of Dr. Harry Begian was an incredible experience. For me, there has been nothing like it before or since. Here's a link so you can hear Begian conducting the last movement of the Pines of Rome:

https://soundcloud.com/cshultis/pini-di-roma-pines-of-rome

I wonder if that's me playing timpani?

I went all year playing in the University of Illinois Symphonic Band without making a single mistake, terrified that I would at every rehearsal and every concert. And at the end of the year, not long after we returned from our tour of mid-Michigan, I asked Dr. Begian if he would sign a picture of himself and give it to me as a gift. It is one of my most treasured possessions.