[History of Interview by C.
Crawford]
[Introduction by T.
Heimberg]
I EARLY YEARS: 1906-1926
[Interview 1: October 25, 1989]
Birth and Family
Crawford:Let's start our conversation today by
talking about your life in Vienna, your early years, your birth, your family.
Khuner:Well, my family on both sides come
from Moravia, southern Moravia, to wit, a little hamlet by the name of Bisenz [now
called
Bzenec, in Czechoslovakia], where the Khuners (that's my father's family) and the
Frankls
(my grandmother's family) come from. My mother's come from northern Moravia, from
Moravksa Ostrava.
Now, the German population in Moravia were practically exclusively Jewish.
The
Czechs were the native population and the German-speaking were the Jews. And they
tried to get to Vienna, because in Vienna you had much more chance to improve
yourself,
financially and culturally, in civilization; Vienna was the capital. So both the family of
my father and my mother emigrated--I think my grandfather on my father's side, and my
mother on my mother's side, went to Vienna. And they both were quite musical, they
liked music, they went to concerts, they learned their instruments. My mother was quite
a good violinist; my father was a fair violinist, a little of a pianist, and he played the
flute;
and they played in amateur orchestras. And they wanted to have a son who was a
musician.
At that time the Philharmonic conductor was Felix Weingartner, and my mother
said I was named after him because he was so fascinating a conductor. So, I obviously
was very talented. My fingers were fast, I had very good ears, a good memory; I could
read music before I could read German. And when my father and mother played
sonatas, and they didn't quite know what the rhythms were, and so I could help them. I
was about five years old at that time.So I got violin lessons from a member of the
Philharmonic who was a nice Jewish boy, just married, needed pupils, lived within
walking distance of my parents house, and was a very nice, charming man; I studied
with
him from the age of five and a half to twelve.
Crawford:What was his name?
Khuner:Max Starkmann.
Crawford:Where did you live, and when
were you born?
Khuner:I was born actually in what is now
part of Vienna [1906]; at that time it was a suburb. Because I was born in August and all
the people who could afford, left the city in the summer. It was a miserable city in the
summer; hot, dusty. So everybody who could get a little place outside the center of the
city spent the summer there; and we always did, every summer. I was born in that place
there. At that time, you weren't born in the hospital, you were born at home.
Crawford:And what was the name of the
place?
Khuner:Beidlingau. But it doesn't say on
my
birth certificate. The birth certificate says Vienna. And now it's true, because it's all part
of Vienna!
Crawford:How many miles out of the
center of Vienna?
Khuner:It was about, let's say, three or four
miles outside of the boundary. It was just like Daly City!
Crawford:But a summer retreat. Higher
up?
Khuner:It wasn't higher up,
because
everything [was level], was not in the hills.
Crawford:But more country.
Khuner:Ja, sure. It was a little village, ja.
Crawford:And then, where did you live
in Vienna?
Khuner:Oh, in an apartment house, in Maria
Hilf. My grandfather (my father's father) had a little silk weaving factory in that place,
in
the Maria Hilf; it's a part of Vienna, the sechste Bezirk, sixth arrondisement.
Crawford:And that was your father's
profession too, then?
Khuner:Then my father took over the
business, yes.
Crawford:Did you all live together?
Khuner:No, we were a few blocks away.
Crawford:Both sets of
grandparents?
Khuner:No, the other grandparents were
still
in Moravia; my mother's family was still in Moravia.
Crawford:When did your mother and
father come to Vienna?
Khuner:Well, I told you. My great
grandfather immigrated from Bisenz to Vienna, but on my mother's side, only mother's
generation, she and her two brothers came to Vienna.
Crawford:Yes. And they just came to
better themselves, as you said.
Khuner:Ja.
Crawford:Was she schooled in Vienna,
then?
An Arranged Marriage
Khuner:No, she was schooled in Moravksa
Ostrava; she came to marry my father.
Crawford:I see. And where did she meet
your father?
Khuner:Oh, through a Shadchen. That was
a
marriage broker.
Crawford:Yes?
Khuner:Oh, Ja! That was the way to marry.
You don't--
Crawford:How did that work out?
Khuner:It worked out that--the Shadchen is
like a concert agency. The concert agency brings the soloist together with the orchestra!
You don't know what a Shadchen is?
Crawford:Yes, I know the word. I think
it's a perfect way to make marriages, by the way.
Khuner:That was the only
way! As a matter of fact, the two brothers didn't do that. They met their
wives
in Vienna, much to the sorrow of my grandparents. You don't do that! You don't marry
your school sweetheart, no!
Crawford:It has to be this arranged
marriage. But then how did your father find your mother?
Khuner:My mother's parents wanted the
daughter and the sons to go to Vienna. The sons went to the university, studied in
Vienna, and the daughter was married to a Viennese.
Crawford:But that was arranged once
she
got to Vienna?
Khuner:No, I think it was arranged before
she went. You arrange that Mr. So-and-So will play the Beethoven concerto with the San
Francisco Symphony, it's arranged in New York! And then he's sent out here and plays.
Crawford:And she liked him.
Khuner:I don't know! I don't know. But
that's what you do. Now, there were other quirks. The thing was this. She had a
boyfriend--a courtier, do you say a courtier? No. Somebody who courts someone. An
admirer who wanted to marry her. And she would have married him. But there was an
older sister who did not have an admirer, so my grandfather said, "No, you don't marry
her, you marry the older one." So he had to marry the older one. It was a very unhappy
marriage. But he had to. He also wanted to, because my grandfather was quite affluent,
he was director of a coal mine.
Crawford:This is your maternal
grandfather.
Khuner:Yes, my maternal
grandfather. And he was a young lawyer. And he wanted to get the dowry from the
director of the coal mine. And he wanted the younger daughter, but he couldn't have
her,
he had to take the older daughter. So the younger daughter, my mother, was very
unhappy, and they said, "We'll marry you off to Vienna, out of the way." That's the way
it
was done at that time.
Crawford:And was your mother
schooled?
Khuner:Oh, yes, my mother
was very intelligent, and my father too, they were very bright people.
Crawford:Did your mother play
professionally?
Khuner:No. No, never. But she was sent to
a
girls' school, to Germany, to Breslau; that was the nearest German city. And she studied
violin. And she was the good violinist of the provincial city. When she came to Vienna,
she wasn't so good any more! But she played a lot.
Crawford:Was there a great deal of
music
in your home?
Khuner:Ja. Well, first of all, my father and
my mother regularly played all the sonatas, and they played together. I had to help
them.
Crawford:How did you help them?
Khuner:Well, to say that they played out of
tune, they forgot the sharps, and they played the rhythm wrong.
Crawford:You could do this at age
five?
Khuner:Yes, more or less,
thereabouts.
Crawford:And they wanted you to be a
musician.
Music Lessons and Schooling
Khuner:I was obviously considered very talented. And
Mr. Starkmann, who was asked, was delighted. I think I was his first pupil.
Crawford:And how long did you study
with Mr. Starkmann?
Khuner:With Starkmann? Until I was
twelve.
Crawford:And then what
happened?
Khuner:By that time, everybody knew that I
played miserably.
Crawford:But you were talented.
Khuner:But that's not enough! You have to
get a little instruction. I didn't know that. But I knew that I was playing very badly.
And
I played the Mozart concerto, and the Mendelssohn concerto with this orchestra in the
rehearsal. And it was atrocious. And all the friends of my mother said
that I played badly. But Mr. Starkmann thought I was great.
Crawford:So your mother realized it was
time--
Khuner:She didn't want to contradict him.
She was always taking my side against all her friends. Because I really was talented. If
you gave me something, in a few minutes I could learn the concerto by heart. The
teachers were delighted.
Crawford:But it was the instruction that
was lacking.
Khuner:Ja.
Crawford:So who did you go to
next?
Khuner:Well, then my parents
tried to find out the dope about this little boy. So I played for Sevcik when I was eleven
or twelve, and I played for Carl Flesch--do you know Carl Flesch, the famous violinist?
Because his brother was a doctor in Vienna, and my parents knew him. So the next time
Flesch came and played in Vienna, I was permitted to play for him. And both Sevcik
and
Flesch said that that boy will never be a violinist. Ja? Because they were looking at how
I
played. Elementary things. Sevcik asked me elementary bowing patterns, which I
couldn't do. Because I never learned them. You know about violin playing? I can show
you. I remember exactly what he wanted. [Felix gets out a violin.]
I could play [demonstrates a messy, chaotic bouncing string crossing bit].
Virtuoso things. He says, "Fine, would you please let the bow jump four times on the
open G string? Like this." [demonstrates] I couldn't do it. I didn't know--
Crawford:You could do some of the
virtuoso things, but . . .
Khuner:Yes. Miserable! Sloppy! Sloppy!
Foolishness!
Crawford:Well, so then, why didn't you
just pack it all in, and say, "I'm not going to be a violinist?"
Khuner:My mother said I'm
going to be a violinist. I was only eleven years old! What do you
want?
Crawford:Yes, so she said--
Khuner:I remember this very well.
Crawford:--We'll find a better
teacher?
Khuner:So they said you have
to find a better teacher. So, much to the chagrin of Mr. Starkmann, I was introduced to
the director of the Music Academy. Not the Conservatory. The Music Academy was the
State school. The Conservatory was the private school. I went to the State school and I
played for the director, who was not a violinist. Mr. Bock. And he tested me for my ear.
I had perfect pitch. I had already gotten some instruction in harmony from Camillo
Horn, who was a local composer. And Mr. Bock played a chord. And I said, "Well,
that's
A major." And then he played the dominant seventh. And I said, "Dominant seventh
chord." "How do you resolve it?" I mentioned the notes. He said, "The boy's fabulous!"
He didn't know I what a bad violinist I was. He knew that I had a musical ear. And I
had
to be accepted because I was two years younger than the minimum age. I was only
twelve; the minimum age was fourteen.
Well, I got the certification of Mr. Bock, that I am a promising musician. Not a
violinist; Mr. Bock didn't care about it, I never played the violin for him. I played violin
for Flesch and Sevcik, who said I shouldn't become a violinist. They didn't care whether
I
would be a musician or not.
Crawford:What did you play for Mr.
Bock? Piano?
Khuner:I didn't play violin, he just tested
my
ear.
Crawford:Oh, you just did an ear
test.
Khuner:Ja.
Crawford:So then he put you into the
Music Academy--
Khuner:Yes, he accepted me. And then I
studied in school with Mr. Arnold Ros‚, of the famous Ros‚ Quartet. Unfortunately--or
fortunately, I don't know--he was a miserable teacher too. Nothing. He couldn't--
Crawford:Wonderful player?
Khuner:A very fine player!
Crawford:But he couldn't teach.
Khuner:Sevcik left. That was 1918, when I
was twelve years old, and the war was over. Sevcik returned to Czechoslovakia. He
didn't want to stay in Vienna. He knew the political situation, the Czechs and the
Germans. So Ros‚ took over Sevcik's master classes and I got another teacher, who was a
very fine, grandfatherly Mr. Julius Egghardt. Professor Julius Egghardt. E, double G,
who also thought that I was great, I was wonderful. Not a trace of
violin instruction! And by that time, when I was thirteen, or fourteen, or fifteen years
old,
I told my parents it doesn't make any sense to go to classes. I tested him. I played badly,
I played out of tune, I played out of rhythm, as badly as I could. Everything was all
right.
He didn't care.
Crawford:So here you were,
fifteen--
Khuner:Ja. I graduated when I was sixteen,
in 1922, from the Music Academy, in violin.
Crawford:Let's back up here for one
moment, and talk about your grammar school and your Gymnasium and so on.
Khuner:Grammar school was from the age
of
six, to eleven. I was born in '06--In 1917 I started the Gymnasium, when I was eleven. In
1918 I started at the Academy, when I was twelve. And I was four years in the
Academy.
That was the Ausbildung. First, second, third and fourth Ausbildung. It was a little
more
advanced in education. There were three grades. Forbildung, Ausbildung, and Master
Class. And for the Ausbildung I was supposed to be fourteen years old, but I was only
twelve. But I was accepted, and spent three and a half years with Professor Egghardt.
Violinistic useless. But I still played in those school recitals, and I even, when I
graduated, played the first movement of the Brahms concerto with the orchestra. Badly!
Crawford:At the Music Academy.
Khuner:At the Academy, yes. At the same
time--
Crawford:They
thought you were fine; you didn't think you were
fine.
Khuner:My teacher promoted me.
Because I was such an easy pupil, I learned everything so fast. My fingers were running.
And that I had no tone, and had no patterns, no, he did not know, he didn't know
anything about violin. My colleagues knew. My colleagues knew more, they told me
that
that's really not very good playing. But what do you care when the parents and teachers
are satisfied? Ja, the colleagues are jealous! The teacher said the colleagues are jealous,
because I was so talented.
But there were some other teachers. Because the friends of my mother in the
orchestra, they all had other teachers, they didn't go to the Academy; they were more or
less amateurs, but they still took lessons. There was Mr. Christiann, who was a real
stupid fellow, but he was an assistant of Sevcik, he said. He knew a little bit about the
elements of technique. For instance, I came to him and he said, "Please play whole bow,
and upper half [one long note, two short notes], whole bow, lower half [one long note,
two short notes]," which I couldn't do; he had to show it to me. But I played all the
concertos, without having any control of my right arm. It's
practically unbelievable what you can get away with, with a little talent, without
knowing anything.
Crawford:I'm surprised [at this] in
Vienna, because you always hear that the standards are very, very high.
Khuner:Very low! Very low! In the Neue
Conservatory, the New Military Conservatory, it was a little better. There were actually
two good violin teachers there.
Crawford:When did you start at the
Conservatory?
Anti-Semitism in Vienna
Khuner:Then, the thing is this, there was
something else, too, which was the anti-Semitism. In the Academy, which was a state
school, state supported, it was very anti-Semitic. In Neues Military Conservatory, the
director was a Jew, so that is where the Jews went. Just like here, the Bohemian Club is
anti-Semitic; the Family, all the Jews go. Did you know that about the Bohemian Club
and the Family?
Crawford:The Family Club?
Khuner:The Family Club.
Crawford:The Family Club.I don't know
the Family Club.
Khuner:It's an offshoot of the Bohemian
Club, for the Jews. In Vienna, for instance, in mountaineering, in Teich, there was
Deutsche und Oesterreiche Alpenverein, no Jews permitted. But there was a
Dohnerland,
only Jews. It was a separation.
Crawford:Yes. But the Jewish people
were the most prominent cultural leaders in Vienna.
Khuner:Yes, but not for the Viennese.
Crawford:Not among the Viennese?
Khuner:Not for the Bogenst„ndiger, native
Viennese. The Jews were also native Viennese . . .
Crawford:But Mahler was Jewish.
Khuner:Sure, but . . . that's very
complicated.
There were two kinds of anti-Semitisms. There was the national anti-Semitism and the
religious anti-Semitism. The religious anti-Semitism you could get away from by being
baptized into a Catholic or a Lutheran.
Crawford:Or a Lutheran?
Khuner:That was the religious
anti-Semitism.
That's why the Nazis were against the Catholics. Because the Catholics were not
anti-Semitic enough for the Nazis.
Crawford:I see. So what was the
national
anti- Semitism?
Khuner:Those were the ones who wanted a
greater Germany, that came to pass with the Nazis. But in Vienna it was mostly Catholic
anti- Semitism, because ten percent of the Viennese population was Jewish.
Crawford:So what you're telling me is
that a young Jewish musician would not be accepted.
Khuner:Oh, Ja, they were accepted. Of
course they were accepted.
Crawford:But they wouldn't be
promoted
at the Music Academy?
Khuner:They had a difficult time. But it was
all subterranean. All subterranean. My harmony teacher--I think he was a competent
harmony teacher--I came there with the score of Schoenberg's Transfigured Night. And
he saw me with that, and said, "You like that?" And I said, "Yes." And he said, "Don't
come to my class, you'll never learn anything."
Crawford:I don't understand. Why? He
didn't like Schoenberg?
Khuner:Of course, it was a red rag for him.
Not only because Schoenberg was Jewish, but Schoenberg in general. If you liked
Schoenberg, you were hopeless.
Crawford:Did Schoenberg have a very
hard time because he was Jewish?
Khuner:Of course. Not only because he was
Jewish. Because he was a revolutionary. But of course that played in there, too. Because
Webern was just as revolutionary. Webern and Berg were not Jewish.
Something else interesting. When Berg was a young man, he met Schoenberg, he
was fascinated--Schoenberg was a fascinating musician--and he studied with
Schoenberg.
And Berg's family was rather poor, and Schoenberg taught him for nothing, without any
compensation. Then Berg's mother made a little [i.e., came into an] inheritance. And she
said to her son, "Now you can go to the Academy and study with Holberger." With
Holberger, you never heard of him? He was the great teacher at that time at the
Academy. And Berg said, "Are you out of your mind? I should study with Holberger
when I can study with Schoenberg?"
Crawford:How was Schoenberg
regarded? Transfigured Night was a Romantic piece.
Khuner:Of course, Ja.
Crawford:But not accepted?
Khuner:But there were some chords that
were not permitted. There's a famous chord in Schoenberg. You don't know? There is
one chord that didn't exist, so how can Schoenberg--
Crawford:Couldn't exist?
Khuner:It doesn't exist! How can you use
that chord!
Crawford:So people were outraged?
Khuner:Outraged, yes. As I said, my
teacher,
when he saw me with Transfigured Night, said, "You'll never amount to anything if you
like that stuff."
And then my composition teacher was Mr. Springer, who was also a teacher of
church music, and then later he became the director of the Academy. Austria was a
Catholic country, you know. That was the Catholic anti-Semitism that pervaded that
life.
Crawford:I see. Now, your family was
Jewish.
Khuner:Oh, Ja.
Crawford:Were they Orthodox
Jewish?
Khuner:Not any more. My
grandparents were, but not my parents any more. The assimilation came in for the Jews,
Ja. But we were very Zionistic. Zionism started at that time, and both the brothers of my
mother were contemporaries and friends of Herzl, and Martin Buber. You know Martin
Buber?
Crawford:Oh, yes.
Khuner:Martin Buber was a friend of my
uncle.
Crawford:What happened with your
uncles? Did they go into music at all?
Khuner:Oh, no, no, no. One was an
engineer,
one was a lawyer.
Crawford:[I'd like] to find out a little bit
more about your parents. Your mother. You didn't say much about what her life was
like, what she did. But you told some wonderful stories about her.
Khuner:She was an amateur violinist, she
used to be quite good in the provincial city where she grew up, and she was not as good
in Vienna, because there were better amateur violinists. But she had good talents, useful
for an amateur orchestra; she always counted correctly, came in after rests, watched the
conductors. But those amateur orchestras were generally pretty poor; everybody
struggles to get some notes. She struggled, too, but she counted well.
Crawford:And what was her life like,
otherwise?
Khuner:Otherwise, she took care of the
household.
Crawford:Stayed at home.
Khuner:Stayed at home, ja. Later on, when
my parents had a car, she became a member of the auto club.
Crawford:That must have been kind of
adventurous.
Khuner:I really don't know. First of all, I left
Vienna when I was twenty-two or twenty-three; returned rarely. So I really don't know
what she did.
Crawford:What did she do as a member
of the auto club?
Khuner:Go to meetings, and arrange that
everything went according to the way she thought it had to go.
Crawford:And drive.
Khuner:Oh, she drove her car, sure.
Crawford:What was her car?
Khuner:Well, there were several cars. There
was the very early car, there was the better car two years later, and there was a better car
two years later--
Crawford:Was driving popular?
Khuner:It just began at that time. At that
time in Vienna you could walk the streets for hours and not see an automobile.
Crawford:And you had a good bus and
tram system?
Khuner:Streetcars, ja, electric trains.
Crawford:What happened in 1918?
Were
there shortages that made getting around more difficult?
Khuner:To get around? Well, it was very
difficult. The streetcars came in long intervals. When I took my streetcar to school, of
course you never got a seat, you had to hang out at the entrance. And you had to wait a
long time--just like the bus here. You wait and wait and wait, and finally the bus is
crowded to the brim. That's the way the streetcars were.
Crawford:How about the
shortages?
Khuner:Shortages of everything! But that
was during the war, during the blockade of Austria and Germany--The Allies blockaded
and we had no food. And the Hungarians, who had plenty of food, wouldn't let any
food
go to Austria, although it was the same country. The rural population was very, very
afraid that the Viennese would buy up everything. I remember we would go to
Hungary,
across the Danube to Bratislava, to get some food. They didn't want to sell it to us,
because they knew we came from Vienna.
Crawford:Was there enmity, other than
that?
Khuner:There was enmity with all
ethnic groups--the Czechs, and the Hungarians, and the Serbs, and the Poles, there was
enmity, because the government population was German-speaking. They were hated
throughout. That's why the monarchy broke up in 1919.
Crawford:Your grandparents. How
much
did you see of your grandparents during that period?
Khuner:Well, the grandparents--my father's
parents?
Crawford:Your father's parents.
Khuner:They lived in Vienna. I saw them a
lot. They lived a few blocks from us.
Crawford:And your mother's
parents.
Khuner:They lived in
Czechoslovakia. I saw them only when some of them came to visit Vienna, which they
did. It was always a treat for them to go to the capital, see a few shows, buy a few things
in the stores.
Crawford:How much travel did that
represent?
Khuner:About five hours by train.
Crawford:And you went in the summers
sometimes?
Khuner:I visited them in the city, and two
summers we spent near their domicile.
Crawford:When did you start hiking in
Vienna, in the mountains?
Khuner:We hiked every Sunday in hills
around Vienna. Ever since my teen age. And in the summer when we were in the
surroundings, my father was an avid hiker, when he had time.
Crawford:Was there a grandparent who
was a great influence?
Khuner:Of course, I am influenced by
everybody. The family influence was very strong, all the time.
Crawford:But was there one grandparent
who--
Khuner:No. Everybody [influenced me].
My
paternal grandmother died early, she died in the middle of the war, 1916, probably. My
maternal grandfather died in '14, my paternal grandmother died in '16. And then the
other two died much later.
The relations were always important and our behavior had to be so that it would
be accepted by the older people. That's like what they have in Japan.
Crawford:Filial piety?
Khuner:It's not piety; piety has something to
do with religion. No, I'll give you an example. One says, "Well, Uncle Emile wouldn't
like what you just did."
Crawford:There was always an
example?
Khuner:Ja. And if some of
the
cousins, like I told you, that cousin didn't behave, he was a bad boy. "Don't take on
example of him, you have to do better than the cousin."
Crawford:Well, was that a big extended
family?
Khuner:There were a lot of people, ja.
Crawford:Did you routinely get
together?
Khuner:Some more, some
less,
depending on where they lived, and how close the relations were. But they were always
somewhere in the background, and they always existed, and we were always told, "He
got a very good report card, you know. He's going to go to the University, you know!
And the other one, he flunked because he didn't learn! So
watch out, don't be like him!"
Crawford:So, who was the purveyor of
the information?
Khuner:Oh, my parents.
Crawford:Your mother?
Khuner:Mainly my mother, ja. And then if
something was not according to her liking, we were told, "I don't like that, this is the bad
part of the family." Like Uncle Moritz, he couldn't keep a job, no good. That was the
level of civic and moral standards that was always there.
Crawford:And that was within your
family.
Khuner:Within the family, ja.
Crawford:And who was the fictitious
uncle?
Khuner:Oh, the fictitious uncle!
That was my--you mean Kisev! Uncle Kisev.
Crawford:Kisev, yes, I couldn't
remember
his name.
Khuner:[laughs] Terrible! That was when
my
mother had to lie for some reason. She'd get that name in so the children would know
it's
a lie. We met an acquaintance and my mother said, "Oh, I have to go home, something is
going to happen, Uncle Kisev is coming." That means she wants to get rid of that
person,
also to go home. Nobody is coming. Uncle Kisev didn't exist! So we knew that it was a
lie. [Younger Khuner son enters]
Eliot:Did she use that often?
Khuner:Oh, ja!
Crawford:You always knew when Uncle
Kisev came into the conversation--
Khuner:Ja. Or once, some girlfriend, who
was it?
Eliot:Pamela Susskind.
Khuner:Susskind, she used to do that, she
knew about it, you know?
Crawford:When did you hear last of
Uncle Kisev?
Khuner:I don't know. He existed to the end
of my mother's life. Ja. But probably--not lately, not in the last few years. Because there
was not so much lying necessary. But that I got a kick out of, when my mother wrote
that
Uncle Kisev was so happy and proud that I was in the army.
Crawford:So Uncle Kisev was a family
member for a long time.
Khuner:Ja.
The Gymnasium and More About Music Studies
Crawford:Talk about the Gymnasium for
a moment.
Khuner:In Gymnasium there was a
difference, because--Gymnasiums were regional. Not like here, the Berkeley high school
is only one school. There was a Gymnasium in any part of Vienna.
Crawford:All the neighborhoods.
Khuner:Neighborhoods. They were
neighborhood schools. In my class where I lived in Maria Hilf, was a second ghetto of
Vienna. The real ghetto was in the Second Arrondisement, Leopoldstrasse. In Maria
Hilf,
where my grandfather's factory was, and we lived, was a secondary ghetto. A little
higher class ghetto, where the middle class Jews lived. So we were about fifty-fifty Jews
and non-Jews.
Crawford:I remember Mr. Adler said
that
he went right close to his own home to the Gymnasium.
Khuner:Ja, the Gymnasium was exactly 800
meters from my home. That's how I trained myself for 800 meters in track and field,
running to school every day!
Crawford:And that was exacting, wasn't
it, demanding?
Khuner:The school?
Crawford:Yes.
Khuner:Well, I'll tell you how it was. I
started it, as I said, in 1917. And in 1918 I started the Academy. And it turned out that it
was impossible time-wise, because I had to attend morning classes in the Academy:
orchestra, chamber music and all that. So I couldn't go to school and to the Academy. If
I
would have been fourteen years old I could have skipped school, but I couldn't skip
school. So I had to have an exemption: I could study at home and make the
examinations
four times a year. And fortunately one of the professors lived nearby and he came twice
a week, or three times a week, and helped me with my Latin and my Greek, and my
history, and so forth. Not much; you can learn that all in books.
Crawford:Did you learn at home? Did
your parents have tutors at home?
Khuner:No, this professor helped me with
Latin and Greek.
Crawford:Did you learn Italian and
French?
Khuner:No, no. The
Gymnasium was only classical.
Crawford:The classical languages. But
you could handle both, you did both fine.
Khuner:Latin and Greek? Ja, I learned it
from
school. It was not too difficult; the requirements were not very high. A little grammar, a
little reading, a little Caesar, and Horace, and Homer, that was not so difficult.
Crawford:But everybody had that?
Khuner:In Gymnasium you had to have
that.
The Gymnasium was for eight years, but by the time I graduated from the Academy in
1922 I became a regular student again for the last four years in Gymnasium.
Crawford:Then what did you do, when
you finished?
Khuner:Then I went back to Gymnasium
and
practiced a lot of piano. Now I want to tell you about that. I
had good instruction in Vienna, it was the sister of my father. She was a private piano
teacher, one of the most educated musicians, far above the regular teachers.
Crawford:This was your aunt.
Khuner:My aunt, yes. She is the teacher of
Jonathan. She came here and was a teacher of Jonathan. He owes her very much.
[Cecily
Lichtenstein]
Crawford:Is she here?
Khuner:No, she's dead.
Crawford:I see. So she came from
Vienna,
she lived in Berkeley--
Khuner:She lived in Oakland first, and then
in Berkeley.
Crawford:And she taught your son.
Why
was she so special as a teacher?
Khuner:Oh, she was intelligent, and
educated, she went to concerts! All the vocal scores of Wagner operas, and Mahler
symphonies and Bruckner I got from her, I didn't have anything. I couldn't buy
anything.
Crawford:So you started piano--
Khuner:Piano with her, yes.
Crawford:How old were you then?
Khuner:Seven. Very early. And I practiced.
Crawford:How old was she?
Khuner:She was--she was I think sixteen
when my mother married in '25. She was the younger sister of my father, the youngest
in
the family. She was probably around eighteen or nineteen.
Crawford:So she taught you piano from
the age of seven--
Khuner:Not only piano, but music.
Crawford:I see. And you felt you were a
better pianist?
Khuner:I was a very good pianist, Ja. And I
practiced, and I played a lot of piano. In violin there is nothing to study, playing my
Wienawski concerti? What? What can you-- Pagannini concerto? Who wants to play
that? But I played all the Beethoven sonatas, the Schubert sonatas, the Brahms piano
music, and Schumann Klaviermusik, ja, and all that.
Crawford:Did you study Schoenberg
harmony?
Khuner:Yes!
Crawford:Was that what she gave
you?
Khuner:That's what she gave me.
Now Schoenberg I discovered exactly in 1921, when we were in a little city in Geusen.
There was a hotel that had a piano downstairs in the lobby, and they had some music,
songs. And that is where I first played Schoenberg songs. And I said, that's the music,
not Strauss. Strauss songs were very popular at that time.
Crawford:And who else was it that
affected you, that influenced you?
Khuner:Well, I would say mostly I was
critical of the life. For instance there was a performance of Fidelio, Mr. Franz Schalk
conducting, and I had the feeling that I was the only one there who knew anything about
the opera.
Crawford:You didn't approve of his
conducting?
Khuner:Not only the conducting; the
singing,
the orchestra, everything. I said, that's not the opera by Beethoven, that's not how to
perform it.
Crawford:How old were you then?
Khuner:Oh, that was also when I was a
teenager-- about fifteen.
Crawford:What had been your exposure
to opera at that point?
Khuner:Oh, I went very much, every
performance that interested me; mostly Mozart and Wagner. I wouldn't go to Italian
operas. No, no way!
Crawford:I knew you would have strong
thoughts about that! We won't get into it. Eventually I want to have you talk about
Wagner and Verdi. So you went to the Royal Opera as a young person.
Khuner:The thing is this. I was at that time
already a major in what you call music theory; harmony, counterpoint, composition,
conducting. Not instrumental.
Crawford:So that at the Music Academy
you were- -
Khuner:First at the Academy, then at the
Neue Konservatorium, where I met Adler.
Crawford:Oh, that's where you met
Adler, and you shared Professor Melius, right?
Khuner:Melius, that's right.
Crawford:What was the balance of your
studies there?
Khuner:Well, it was useless. Somebody
played. We had Carmen, we had Figaro, I don't know the operas. Somebody played the
piano. I never played the piano. They were all better pianists than I. And we were
sitting there, making believe that you conduct. Just conduct and follow
one-two-three-four, there was no instruction.
Crawford:That was your conducting
instruction?
Khuner:That was the conducting. Mr.
Melius
didn't know himself. [Whispering] Like here. Senturia doesn't know it either!
Crawford:Did you not conduct at the
Music Academy?
Khuner:No, I was not in the conducting
school in the Academy, only in Conservatory. But in the Academy I had composition.
There was Franz Marx and Franz Schmidt, and Professor Springer . . .
Crawford:Franz Schmidt the
composer?
Khuner:Schmidt, Ja, but I
never studied with Schmidt.
Crawford:Did you study with
Marx?
Khuner:Not with Marx. Occasionally when
Springer was sick, Marx would come in for a class. But I had a good teacher, he was
Mandyczewski, in counterpoint. Mandyczewski was the curator of the museum of the
Gesellschaft der in Musikfreunde and a friend of Brahms. And that's also a little thing, is
that the people who lived upstairs from our apartment house, there was a young fellow,
he was about four years older than I. He was a bad violinist but was interested in music.
And he was Karl Geiringer. Do you know Karl Geiringer? He became the curator of the
instrument [collection] . . . [shows Crawford something]
Crawford:I know this name, yes.
Khuner:He lived upstairs. And he was the
successor of Mandyczewski in the museum. And he became a very noted musicologist.
He died last year. He was about three or four years older than I. From 1922 to 1926, that
means from my graduation as a violinist from the Academy, until I graduated from
Gymnasium, I did a lot of playing, not officially. There were quite a number of amateurs
who were very interested in contemporary music. And I played quartets with them. We
played the Bartok quartets, Kodaly, Toch, Korngold, and Szymanowsky, all the
contemporary quartets.
Crawford:Were they well received?
Khuner:They were not played in Vienna,
they
were played only at home by the amateurs.
Crawford:It was about that time that
Schoenberg organized that society for private listening and so on?
Khuner:That's right, ja. The Ros‚ quartet
played the first two quartets by Schoenberg. I mean, there were
performances, but not regularly. It was only an exception. Of course there
were performances of Schoenberg and Berg and Webern.
Crawford:Did you have contact with
Arnold Ros‚?
Khuner:I was a pupil of his for four months.
Crawford:Did he help you?
Khuner:No! Not at all. As a matter of fact, I
met him later. He came and saw our rehearsal and he didn't recognize me.
Crawford:But you knew the Ros‚
family?
Khuner:No, I didn't know the
family. I went to the concerts. I attended all the Ros‚ Quartet concerts.
Crawford:Where did they perform?
Khuner:They had their regular
six-subscription concerts every season.
Musical Life in Vienna
Crawford:Let's talk about that. What
was
your musical exposure outside of your schooling?
Khuner:Very strong. I went to all sorts of
concerts, and the opera; practically every evening I was out listening to something.
Crawford:And your parents went
too?
Khuner:No, my parents didn't go
any more. They went when I was a baby, I knew that; when I was a child, six, seven,
eight, nine. At that time they were going, to the Italian things, quartets, the Triest
Quartet,
the Bohemian Quartet, the Ros‚ Quartet, the Klingsor Quartet, the Philharmonic concerts.
They went to concerts all the time. They were not so much in opera, because my father
liked only Donizetti. He thought it was marvelous.
Crawford:Fine for a German!
Khuner:Ja!
Crawford:What do you remember of
Vienna?
Khuner:Well, I remember that
I
went to school, that I took violin classes, practiced for my teachers. Then on Sunday we
went out hiking in the Vienna woods, in the summer we went swimming.
Crawford:Did you leave in the summer,
other than to go a few miles out from Vienna?
Khuner:No. We always went outside [the
city].
Crawford:In August?
Khuner:Ja. In June. In June, July, August.
Until school started again.
Crawford:And your father would come
and then come back into Vienna?
Khuner:If he could, ja, if we went close
enough to Vienna. I know we lived in Pergstersdorf, which is just about ten miles
outside
the city limits, [and] Beidlingau, where I was born, and Mauer, in Rodaun--some of these
things are now part of Vienna. And then later on, we were getting farther away, about
one, one and a half, two hours by train. So my father could come home on weekends.
Crawford:Were there brothers and
sisters?
Khuner:I have one sister, still
alive. [Franzi died in 1992]
Crawford:Is she a musician too?
Khuner:No, no. She gave it up. She was
supposed to get cello lessons, piano lessons, but she wasn't interested. No talent
whatsoever.
Crawford:Did your parents push her to
learn music?
Khuner:I guess they wanted to, ja, but she
wasn't interested.
Crawford:Was your family interested in
theater as well?
Khuner:Very little. I was more interested in
the theater. I went to--not to the Burgtheater, because I had no chance to get there--but
there was the Reimund Theater and Deutsche Volks Theater, where I saw quite a
number
of interesting plays.
Crawford:The Burgtheater was the
Reinhardt theater?
Khuner:Reinhardt had his own theater.
Crawford:Did you go to the Reinhardt
theater?
Khuner:Yes!
Crawford:So you liked the theater. Why
was music so important in Vienna?
Khuner:It wasn't important. That is all
fiction.
Crawford:Really?
Khuner:Yes, that's all a fiction, that is all
public relations.
Crawford:We always hear that music
was
king in Vienna.
Khuner:Ja? Well, they say the waltzes--you
couldn't hear a waltz in Vienna. Yes, at the time of Johann Strauss the waltzes were for
the dancing at the Imperial Palace. But the popular people didn't dance waltzes.
Crawford:No, but look at all the quartet
activity; that's remarkable.
Khuner:Well, the Ros‚ Quartet was
there--they were members of the Philharmonic. Mr. Ros‚ was the concertmaster, Rugiska
was the principal violin, Buchsbaum was the principal cellist.
Crawford:But there were many
quartets?
Khuner:They came from
other
places, ja? Well, there was an audience for string quartets, yes.
Crawford:And two opera
companies?
Khuner:More or less, ja, the
Volksoper--
Crawford:And operetta?
Khuner:Well, there was operetta--oh, ja,
operetta, that's a different story. Vulgar things were very
popular!
Crawford:But music was a big part of
life,
it seems, from what you're telling me.
Khuner:No! Not more than here.
Crawford:But you went every night to
music! A young man doesn't do that unless--
Khuner:Because it was the capital; it was for
promotion's sake. Like you have to give a recital in New York if you want to get
engagements in Kansas City. You have to have press releases.
Crawford:Well, in The Proud Tower, by
Barbara Tuchman, she says that the politics in Vienna, the political climate, was
disintegrating, and she said music was an anchor.
Khuner:Well, you mean, when the Nazis,
with the annexation, or--
Crawford:No, I mean before the first
war,
right after the turn of the century.
Khuner:There was a congregation of writers,
journalists, painters, sculptors, architects, musicians, whatever else. The greatest
architect
was Loos at that time, but he was a good-for-nothing, he had nothing but enemies.
Schoenberg had nothing but enemies.
The writer Karl Klaus had nothing but enemies. But there was always a small
group--I am honored to belong to that--who realized that; and we of course
hated the official Vienna.
Crawford:So you're saying there
was that friction--
Khuner:There was no actual friction; they
were just-- they were not in our class.
Crawford:I read that the Emperor Franz
Joseph never read a book.
Khuner:The Emperor was--my mother's
oldest brother was a reserve officer in the Austrian army. And he was a real Austrian, he
was a real military man. Very strange for a Jew.
Crawford:How so? How was he a "real
Austrian"?
Khuner:Because he was military man. Like
here, if somebody is a colonel in the army, he's a military man. Now, he was not active,
he was a reserve officer. There were not many Jewish reserve officers. He was just a real
good soldier. Ja?
Crawford:Not interested in music?
Khuner:Not interested in anything; but he
was a soldier. And even he said, our Emperor is an idiot! A
chammer, that's the Jewish word for idiot. But he spelled it, "c-h-a-m-m-e-r," he
wouldn't say chammer. But not only an idiot, he was a
criminal. Actually, he had his wife killed, and he had his son killed.
Crawford:Are you sure?
Khuner:Sure.
Crawford:That's such a sad story, about
his wife.
Khuner:Well, he had nothing but mistresses,
and affairs, and he wanted to get her out of the way. She was killed in Geneva, you
know
that.
Crawford:I know, I remember the
story.
Khuner:That was an open secret.
But you don't find that in history books.
Crawford:No, you don't, you don't see
that in history books. Well, what was the political climate in Vienna, before the war, as
you can remember now?
Khuner:The first war? Well there were the
ruling party who were the Catholic party. And there was a little opposition, the liberal
party; the opposition was the Jews. And the Catholic party was anti-Semitic. There was
a
mayor of Vienna by the name of Luger, who was elected on the anti-Semitic platform.
He
said, "I will get rid of the Jews. The Jews have too much influence, they have too many
jobs, they have too many businesses, they are in banking and so on; I'll get rid of the
Jews." So he was elected. And then it turned out that he didn't want to get rid of the
Jews. There were some complaints: "You still do business with all those Jewish firms."
So
he said, "I decide who is a Jew. If I want to make business with
him, he is not a Jew."
Oh, you know that?! Ja. But then, after 1918, Vienna became Social Democratic.
The intellectual leader of the Social Democrats was Otto Bauer, he was a Jew. And his
widow, Mrs. Bauer, lived in Berkeley after the war.
Crawford:That was Kurt Herbert Adler's
uncle, you know.
Khuner:Possibly, ja.
Playing in the Vienna Opera Orchestra
Crawford:Let's talk about Mahler and
Strauss.
Khuner:Well, of course,
Strauss--I played with Strauss, in the Opera, when he conducted, sure, I knew--he was
the
co-director with Schalk of the [Vienna] Opera.
Crawford:What do you remember of
him?
Khuner:Well, I'll tell you--it's not
very delicate. He was not paid very liberally, because there was no money in Austria;
but
he was given a palais to live in, for, let's say, twenty or thirty or forty years, in lieu of
money.
Crawford:A palace?
Khuner:A palace, yes. So he lived in that
palace. And he conducted very sloppily, and very disintegrated. So the musicians said,
"Well, tonight he directed and conducted from the bathroom, from the scheissheisel
[scheissh„usel means little shit house]. When he conducted well, he conducted from the
livingroom, or from the bedroom, but tonight he conducted from the bathroom."
Crawford:And you played in the
orchestra there?
Khuner:I was substituting in the Opera
orchestra. When I was in the last year of Gymnasium, Mr. Starkmann wrote me one day,
or told me that there were auditions for substitutes. That was a rule that there were
accredited substitutes when the regular people didn't want to play because they had
better jobs. At that time there were a lot of dance bands going around in Vienna.
Crawford:And you got more money, I
suppose.
Khuner:I didn't get
anymoney. They got more money!
Crawford:They got more money?
Khuner:Not more [from the Opera]--they
got
their regular salary for the Opera, plus the money they'd make. Because they didn't pay
much to the substitutes. I was accepted as official substitute. I could play any time one
of
the violinists needed a substitute. So Mr. Weissgaber or Mr. Sedlak, or Mr. Whoever-it-is
wanted to get a night off, they phoned me--can you play?--mostly Wagner operas.
Rigoletto they liked to play themselves, but Wagner was too long. And Wagner was
always on weekends, on Sundays, when they got good jobs. So I played--for two years I
played every Tristan, every G"tterd„merung, every Walk re, every Meistersinger. Ja.
And they lined up, already, three weeks ahead, they were asking me, "Please play for
me."
Crawford:Now this was in the Twenties.
Were you still in school?
Khuner:That was when I was still in school,
Ja. That was '24, '25, '26. When I was eighteen or nineteen years old.
Crawford:And did you at that time
think,
"I will be a regular member of the--"
Khuner:I thought, in
case I become a conductor, which was always somewhere in the back of
my
mind. But I knew all those operas. Up till now I know
Meistersinger and Tristan and Parsifal by heart. I know even Mahler symphonies by
heart. I remember once we played the Second Mahler Symphony, Steinberg conducting.
Something was wrong, and I had to tell him, "The clarinetist transposes wrong, because
the clarinet is in B. And Steinberg said, "Yes, yes, that's right." But he didn't know. I
knew the score better than Steinberg.
Crawford:So, at that point you thought
you might be a conductor?
Khuner:Listen. I knew that becoming a
conductor doesn't come out of the open air, you know? I knew that I had no backing, I
had no entry. It's like you say, are you interested in--what would you be interested in;
geology, and you want to become a professor of geology; that doesn't come out of space.
Crawford:But still, it interested you.
Khuner:Ja, especially [since] I knew I was a
better conductor than Schalk. Schalk came and--now something like Adler. When in
the
rehearsal, I remember when the conducting fell apart, Mr. Schalk said, "Oh, I'm not
going
to conduct at all; you're better without me." He said that!
Remembering Arnold Schoenberg
Crawford:How about Schoenberg? What were
your impressions of him.
Khuner:Well, Schoenberg. I knew the music
very well, I read the harmony [i.e. Harmonielehre, Schoenberg's textbook.] I didn't
know
anything about him, I never met him, I didn't know what he looked like. And suddenly
out of the blue sky, my old professor Egghardt, whom I hadn't seen for years
already--that means between 1922 and 1926, or 1925, I hadn't seen him--He told me, he
says, "There is a violinist by the name of Rudolph Kolisch, who has a quartet, and he
needs a second violinist, the second violinist quit."
So I went to Kolisch's apartment, talked about music, and I find out that we had a
lot of things in common--musical ideas. And suddenly the door opened, and a little man
came in, talked to Rudy, didn't pay any notice to me; and I said, "who is that?" He said,
"That's Schoenberg." I said, "That's Schoenberg?" And he said, "Well, that's the husband
of my sister." I said, "So it's your family; is he interested in the quartet?" He said, "Sure,
we have rehearsals [with him]." I said, "Of course I'll play with
you. If Schoenberg is there, of course I'll play with you."
Crawford:But you knew his music
already.
Khuner:I knew a lot of his
music. I had already known the piano pieces opus 19, I believe, Ja. Short piano pieces. I
got the music from the rental library, and came to a violin class with them and played
them. Oh, they laughed about it! My violin colleagues. So I said, "Well, that's the music
[people will remember when all the Wieniawski concertos have been forgotten]."
Crawford:Opus 19. When would that
have been written?
Khuner:I really don't know. [1911]
Crawford:I wanted to ask you about
something you said, about packaging. You said that you weren't interested in
packaging.
What did you mean, exactly?
Khuner:About packaging. Oh, the package
is
not important, Ja. The sound is not important. Some time ago, a musicologist came and
asked me some related questions. He said, "Is it true that in your quartet Mr. Heifetz, the
cellist, has a much better sound than the first violin?" I said, "What do you mean, better
sound?"
Well, everybody complained that the sound of the first violin was not as good.
Crawford:Go on.
Khuner:Well, an inoffensive sound, and a
pleasant sound, is of course preferable to an offensive sound or an unpleasant sound.
The unpleasant sound distracts from the performance. Like a very bad pavement
distracts from your vacation trip. If you are jostled all the time by the potholes and so
on,
you are really distracted from the beautiful scenery. Although you shouldn't be!
Crawford:That's right. Sometimes the
rougher journey is more meaningful.
Khuner:Ja, well--but really the enjoyment of
the scenery is a little disturbed by a very rough road, or if your car stops all the time.
Crawford:You were such a close friend,
could you talk about Schoenberg, about his life?
Khuner:Well, I know very little. Schoenberg
was part of my surroundings, although I didn't see him very often. Months and months
went by when I had no idea, I didn't even know where he was.
Crawford:When did you first speak to
him?
Khuner:Well, I first spoke to him
in
the early rehearsals. Right in the first season that we had in Vienna in 1926-27, we had a
Schoenberg concert with the first and second string quartets, with the singer Maria
Freund from Paris singing the lead, [The Book of the] Hanging Gardens. And during
these rehearsals I got closer acquainted for the first time, because we rehearsed together.
Crawford:What was he like?
Khuner:He was a very friendly, and very
sympathetic, and very interested person. He was always interested in what we were
doing. He was interested in every detail of our surroundings. I always say that [as]
Adoras said, he doesn't want to discuss the price of milk with Schoenberg. But
Schoenberg was interested in the price of milk, or the rise of the price of milk. Or how
do
I reach an intersection in North Hollywood.
Crawford:Did he paint at the time?
Khuner:Not at that time, any more, as far as
I
know. He never painted in my presence. I think his painting period was gone by then.
Crawford:His biographers make the
conclusion that he painted because his music was not accepted.
Khuner:There was no indication of that. But
he never spoke about his painting. The paintings were always in his home activities,
you
know now they are all there, but at that time not all of them were there. I saw his
paintings, some of them, around there.
Crawford:He had a reputation for being
very superstitious.
Khuner:Extremely so, ja. Especially with
figures--not so much words, I think. Schoenberg was superstitious with letters. You
know, his name was Arnold, and his son's name is Ronald--the same letters.
Crawford:How about the number
thirteen?
Khuner:That was Berg. But
thirteen, I don't know. Berg was twenty-three.
Crawford:And then it also said that he
was very proud of the twelve-tone method.
Khuner:He was a
little proud. He had the priority. He
discovered it. Well, of course he discovered it, because everything in music has two
sources. The material, which is the sound; and the brain of the composer. The brain of
the composer determines what you can make out of the elementary sounds. The sound
is
the overtones and the relation of intervals.
This is our raw material, and the composer sees what he can do with it. Music
has
developed as more and more composers discover what can be done with the sounds.
And Schoenberg discovered what can be done with the twelve tones of our chromatic
scale.
Crawford:Thomas Mann apparently
wrote a novel about someone [who formulated that scale].
Khuner:That, ja, well, that's Dr. Faustus. I
haven't read that. You know, frankly, I have all the works of Thomas Mann except this
novel. I have to write to the publishers to get it. I never read it.
So, there was a Matthias Hauer, a composer in Vienna, who did also a similar
thing. He said, "I want to use different combinations of intervals, all the mathematically
possible permutations." In other words, he approached it from the mathematical
standpoint. And Schoenberg protested that. Hauer said, "I was first to discover the
possibility." But Schoenberg of course discovered it from the musical side, not from the
mathematical side.
Crawford:I see. So they were totally
different from one another.
Khuner:Ja.
Crawford:Schoenberg was quoted as
saying that "the Kolisch was the best quartet I ever heard."
Khuner:Well, it's the same thing--there were
quartets who played more polished. They neglected, they were not interested in the
musical approach. It had to be in tune, it had to be homogenized, it had to be together,
and so on. And anything that disturbed this polished surface they eliminated. Musical
considerations were less important than the polished surface. We were not interested in
the polished surface. I mean, we did the best we could, but sometimes if you really
concentrate on the musical realization of the composition, the polished surface suffers.
Crawford:The packaging.
Khuner:Ja.
Crawford:When you got together and
did
a piece, that, say, you were going to do for the first time, the Schoenberg Third Quartet,
did you just light into it? Did you talk about it?
Khuner:Well, we didn't talk about it. Now,
first of all, the first movement of the Schoenberg [Third] Quartet, is rather dry, [an]
unappealing kind of music. The quality of the music--is of course the combination of the
twelve tones and the way that Schoenberg was using it. So we were mostly concerned
that we really played the right notes. And at that time it was not easy to find the
intervals
correctly. In the beginning we worked, concentrated very hard on the intonation, on the
intervals. And then it had to be done very precise rhythmically, or rather in rhythmic
monotony, which was difficult to achieve. Because the locations of the notes were
difficult; doublestops, and jumps all over the fingerboard, which had to be practiced.
Crawford:But the score was written
down.
Khuner:Ja, ja, of course. So we
worked very hard on that. And originally, when we started out, it sounded a little
frantic, because it was difficult. But I remember a performance when it went very
smooth
and very beautiful, like a simple Haydn quartet. I remember especially one performance
in Prague--it was on a Sunday morning!--and really, the whole quartet sounded very
easy, very spontaneous, very clean, and very nice. But it was a difficult quartet to start
out in 1927.
Crawford:And then you had first rights
to
the Fourth, too?
Khuner:Then later on we played the Fourth,
that was around 1936 or 1937.
Crawford:That was the one that was
commissioned by Mrs. Coolidge? In '36?
Khuner:Or so.
Crawford:So that was a later work. How
was that different?
Khuner:You mean the Fourth from the
Third?
It's a different piece, I don't know. Well, of course, there were a lot of similarities, same
composer, same medium--
Crawford:More classical than the
third?
Khuner:It is less classical; more,
what you would say, romantic, but I hate to use that word. Especially the slow
movement. The slow movement of the Fourth is a very rhapsodic piece, very
imaginative, whereas the slow movement in the Third Quartet was a little neo-classical.
Crawford:What has been the
performance
history?
Khuner:I don't know what you mean.
Crawford:Well, for instance, [Berg's]
Lyric
Suite is done all the time in its revised form. How often are the string quartets
played?
Khuner:I don't know. How
often we did it, or the other quartets? I don't know anything about other quartets.
Crawford:I just wondered. Because I
never hear them performed.
Khuner:Oh, they are not performed, no.
They have no entertainment value. There are a lot of quartets here recently who played,
who did the Third or Fourth Quartet--I didn't hear it--I don't know. Generally on the
program there are other quartets that have more entertainment value, whether they are
old, or new. And the Schoenberg quartets, they have no entertainment value.
Crawford:And they are very
difficult.
Khuner:They are also difficult,
yes.
Crawford:Schoenberg is often compared
to Bach-- as being the transition between two periods. Do you see any parallel?
Khuner:Well, I have to leave that to the
music
historians, to find out, to arrange, like on the music bookshelves, where the periods
begin,
where they start, all those things.
Crawford:How about--
Khuner:No, wait, listen. Bach--Bach, the
patterns, the baroque patterns, were used by dozens and by scores of composers, all the
baroque composers. And I have the impression that Bach knew all those patterns, he
used them, like he used compositions by Vivaldi. And maybe
he [Schoenberg] did that.
It's not that he [he sings the theme from the Violin/Oboe Concerto, in different
keys, to demonstrate the random abstractness of patterns] A colleague of mine
made--can we shut it off? (taping stops momentarily) I am not a musicologist, and it
doesn't concern me.
Crawford:Let me ask you, going back to
Schoenberg. He was a very spiritual person?
Khuner:Well, of course he was seeking. He
was--all sorts--he was religious, like in the opera Moses und Aaron, like the oratorio
Jakobsleiter. He was also interested in political developments, in the Jewish question.
But that is not special, every intelligent person does that.
Crawford:So you wouldn't say he was
especially religious.
Khuner:No! He is of course accused that he
left the Jewish community and was baptized and became a protestant or a Catholic. That
was the rule in Vienna, you had to do it; if you want to be at
least somehow in the public eye, you had to do it. It was a very strict Catholic country,
with an enormous amount of anti-Semitism. And also, he said if you want to, you can
believe in any religion. Schoenberg said you can believe in communism as a religion.
Crawford:Did he feel it was advisable or
was it necessary to have a strong personal belief?
Khuner:I don't know. He never talked to me
about it. I know that he converted [for public show], and then later he converted back to
Judaism.
Crawford:That was just before he wrote
Moses und Aaron.
Khuner:I don't think so. I think it was later.
Because earlier it had nothing to do with his religious beliefs, it was just a topic that
interested him.
Crawford:Anything else?
Khuner:I don't know--
Crawford:Oh, tennis! You haven't talked
about tennis. I know you played tennis with him.
Khuner:Ja, well, he was a tennis and ping
pong player. And in 1929 when we were on the Dutch Coast we played soccer.
Crawford:Schoenberg used to come
there?
Khuner:Ja.
Crawford:What was that like?
Khuner:We were rehearsing. Schoenberg
and his wife--he had no children at that time--were there. And every afternoon we went
to the [beach].
II THE KOLISCH QUARTET: 1926-1937
[Interview 2: December 7, 1989]
Vienna in the Twenties
Crawford:In another
interview
we were talking about that group of young intellectuals in Vienna that were against the
establishment, of which you were one. When did you first sense that you were going to
take that anti- establishment position?
Khuner:Well, it happened in 1918, when the
Austrian Republic was formed. We were, of course, very liberal, not to say communist,
and we were very on the lookout for the Old Guard at that time, which we didn't like.
So
that was with politics; it had nothing do with music or with art. We were always on the
lookout for the new things, and not to continue the old.
Crawford:Your thinking then extended
to
politics, too.
Khuner:That was with politics.
Crawford:And who were the people
who
were involved?
Khuner:Well, that was all very vague in
general. We were always very suspicious, like Mr. McCarthy was suspicious of
communism. We were suspicious of every conservative, old monarchists, you know?
And then we were also suspicious of--the German nationalists between 1918 and 1933,
[and the] ascending power of the Nazis.
Crawford:And what form did that
take?
Khuner:Well, that was all very
informal.
Crawford:You met in coffee houses, you
talked with other students?
Khuner:Very little. As a teenager, no, I had
no time for that. That was only meant for political groups; and the other Zionist
groups--of course that was a little detached from Austrian politics. That was something
else--No, I had no time for that; I had to go to school, I had to do my violin practicing, I
had to play quartets, I had to go to concerts, I had to go to operas. On the weekend I
would go skiing, or swimming or hiking. In the evening we had the Zionist youth
groups. So--
Crawford:So you didn't have time for
politics per se. But you read?
Khuner:Well, of course I read a lot about
music, and literature, and whatever was accessible to me. The libraries were very poor,
in the Academy. We had very little worthwhile things. But I discovered [Heinrich]
Schenker, and then I discovered the music of Schoenberg. And then, of course, there I
was a rabid Wagnerian.
Crawford:Shaw said, "You can't love
Wagner unless you are a revolutionary yourself." Is that true?
Khuner:At that time, not any more. No, that
was twenty years before, around 1900. But by that time Wagner was very well
established. He was still of course--people said that Wagner was too dull, and they
couldn't sit through a five- hour opera. Like my German professor says, "You cannot sit
through five hours of Parsifal," and I said, "But you can go through four volumes of the
old medieval German epic!" That's what he wanted us to do, you know. He had a
volume like that about Parsifal or Wolfram von Eschenbach that was standing there.
That
you want us to read! That takes five months to read! But five hours in the opera is too
much for you!
Crawford:How about Schenker?
Khuner:Well, Schenker I discovered--I'll tell
you how- -I took violin lessons of a young violinist, Mr. Schiffer. Did I tell you that? Ja?
Well, Schiffer was an absolute nobody! He was a young violinist, and he had a little
string quartet; I played a couple of little performances with him. And it seems to me that
he knew quite a lot about violin playing. I don't think that he was a very inspiring or
inspired teacher, but he knew something about violin playing. And he was probably the
first one who really told me how bad I was.
Crawford:He said you were bad!
Khuner:Ja. And I remember there was in
one
instance--I asked about holidays or vacations, and [he] said, "I'm not going to get a
vacation, I have a book to study first. When I have studied that book, then my vacations
will begin." That was Schenker's analysis of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which
probably you are not aware about. It's a very interesting book. That's where I heard the
name of Schenker first. And then I found some of Schenker's books in the Academy
library. New Ideas and Fantasies. Ja, Neues Ideen und Fantasien. And then I found the
first book about harmony, and so on.
Crawford:So that was an influence for
you.
Khuner:Ja.
Crawford:And was that of the
Schoenberg
school?
Khuner:Well, he was not an admirer of
Schoenberg, because he was very conservative. Schoenberg
admired him, and said he was a very fine [player]--unfortunately, he had a wall against
contemporary music. And Schoenberg told me that was wrong, because all his ideas,
and
all his research, and all his discoveries apply just as much to new music as they apply to
old music.
[tape break]
Crawford:Was Schoenberg attached to
Karl Kraus' political philosophy?
Khuner:Oh, Ja, Schoenberg was an
admirer--right. He told me once that he had a grudge against Kraus. Because when
Schoenberg was a very young man he wrote a letter to Kraus. What it was, I don't know.
And Kraus rebuffed him in some way or other. And Schoenberg was very hurt by that.
And I said that's too bad because if Kraus would had been more understanding--I don't
know what it was--they would have had a much better relationship, at least to the
benefit
of Schoenberg. But I don't know what the topic of this was.
Crawford:But you read Kraus's
newsletter, his publication?
Khuner:Of course, yes. I had a complete
Fackel, which was destroyed; my parents destroyed it before they left Vienna.