Composer Betsy Jolas discusses her latest work for the Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle, studying with Darius Milhaud, and how Olivier Messiaen offered her her first Conservatoire teaching opportunity.
Jessica Duchen: You’ve written a new piece for the LSO and Sir Simon Rattle, for performance at the Barbican and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. How did it come about?
Betsy Jolas: Every time my publisher called me about a new commission, I thought it would be my last orchestral piece. But then I got a note from Sir Simon saying that he was finally in Aix-en-Provence – everything had been difficult because of Covid-19 – and he was conducting Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. I told him about the first time I heard Tristan, in New York with Lauritz Melchior and Kirsten Flagstad singing. I was a teenager and I’d decided I would not like Wagner, because I was just out of the war in Europe and I knew Hitler liked Wagner. But I was totally taken, I couldn’t resist! So I told Simon that this is going to be a historic Tristan. Then he said that this year is the festival’s 75th anniversary and how about writing another piece? Well, how could I say no? Not to Simon!
JD: How did you first become interested in music as a child?
BJ: My mother, Maria Jolas, had a beautiful, warm mezzo-soprano voice and a wonderful memory. She was from Louisville, Kentucky, and she knew all the Spirituals, Creole songs from Louisiana, cabaret songs, everything. Her father had sent her alone to Germany in 1912 to study singing. She learned the whole Lieder repertoire and she taught it to me. As soon as I could play the piano, I accompanied her.
JD: Your father, Eugène Jolas, edited the literary magazine Transitions in Paris, but the family escaped to New York after World War II broke out. What were your formative musical influences in the US?
BJ: My father’s brother, Uncle Jack, was a pianist, so I had lessons with him – he was teaching in Iowa. I’d always wanted to play the organ and he had an organist friend who took me to an instrument, showed me how it worked, then left, telling me to have some fun. I pulled out all the stops and made so much noise that people in the street opened the church door to see what was going on!
Later I took lessons in Princeton with a German organist. You know who came to listen? Albert Einstein! He played the violin and Gaby Casadesus [the pianist], who was also living there, told me she used to play with him. And she said, without laughing: ‘He had a problem. He couldn’t count.’
I was also lucky to meet Paul Boepple, director of the Dessoff Choir, in which I sang. Imagine: I had practically just survived from France and the first concert we prepared was music by Orlande de Lassus. I was amazed: what is this wonderful music? Lassus has been one of the most important composers to me ever since. The next programme was Arthur Honegger’s Nicolas de Flue. I was so excited by Honegger that when I came back to France I wanted to study with him and nobody else.
‘ I’d always wanted to play the organ … I pulled out all the stops and made so much noise that people in the street opened the church door to see what was going on!’
JD: After Honegger stopped teaching for health reasons, you studied with Darius Milhaud?
BJ: Milhaud’s class was always at his home, rather than the Conservatoire, which was wonderful because we were surrounded by photographs and suchlike from his past. For a while we’d wonder what he was teaching us, because sometimes he would seem to doze off in his wheelchair [Milhaud had severe rheumatoid arthritis]. We thought he wasn’t listening – but he was. He knew I was very shy and I hated telephones. And whenever the phone rang, he’d say, ‘C’est pour vous, Betsy!’ (It’s for you, Betsy!) and I had to answer the phone in front of everybody.
JD: What was your contact with Messiaen like?
BJ: At the Conservatoire, Messiaen was not teaching composition. I think they were scared of him because he was too modern. So he taught analysis. His class was compulsory if you were a student of Milhaud. They didn’t like each other, but I was totally fascinated by that class, which at the time was enormous.
Normally a Conservatoire class was twelve regular students, but Messiaen admitted everybody as ‘special’ students from the whole world. It was famous. It was extraordinary. I remember discovering pieces I’d thought I knew. He taught me so much.
My first published piece was Episode 1 for solo flute. I proudly sent it to Messiaen, with a dedication. There was no response, but then I met him by chance at a concert and he said, ‘Thank you for your piece. I analysed it this morning in my class.’ I couldn’t believe it!
When my children were growing up, in the 1970s, I thought I’d try to become a teacher at the Conservatoire, but I didn’t know you had to campaign to members of the nominating committee, 40 people representing the teachers, administration and students. I only called Messiaen, who said he would vote for me. But on the day of the vote, he wasn’t there and I wasn’t nominated. Next time I saw him, he said: ‘I’m so sorry! To be forgiven, would you accept taking my place teaching when I leave on tour?’ I nearly fell off my chair.
It was total luck. I had never taught before. Messiaen finally had a composition class and in it were all the founders of the Spectralist movement: Tristan Murail, Hugues Dufour, Gisèle Barreau, Gerard Grisey … I thought they would wonder who I was, but they knew my music. The students were supposed to start at 9am, but nobody arrived until 10am and they didn’t bring work every time, so I had to prepare. Messiaen always had a briefcase full of scores and when students had not brought work, he would continue with analysis. I did the same – it was extremely useful.
‘At the Conservatoire, Messiaen taught analysis. It was extraordinary. I remember discovering pieces I’d thought I knew. He taught me so much.’
JD: How come you never joined any of the big stylistic movements?
BJ: After I left the Conservatoire in 1956, luck came: I met the right kind of people, I always said yes and I really wanted to learn. The result was that I became friends with all the greats of the time. I was friends with Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, and they never let me feel that I was not as good as them. Some of them liked my music. Not Stockhausen – he was so occupied with himself – but he was very pleased when I once lectured on his music for 500 children.
But I didn’t agree with Boulez when he talked about ‘le devoire d’amnésie’ (the obligation to forget the past). My roots are deep in the history of music.
Interview by Jessica Duchen. Jessica Duchen is a music critic, author and librettist. She contributes to publications including the Sunday Times and the i news. Her latest book is Immortal, a novel about Beethoven’s ‘Immortal Beloved’.
Images © Mark Allan
