Rich Caparella: Elliot, here we are! Good to see you, sir. Elliot Goldenthal: Good, good. Carl St. Clair: Hey, Elliot! It’s great to see you! EG: Yeah, I heard that too; I didn't hear it since the performance. Great work, Carl, you know, beautiful beautiful conducting on that. CSC: Hey, man, it's great to see you. I miss you. EG: Yeah, me too. RC: So you two to have the story behind the genesis of this very powerful piece. CSC: So, like I said, I wanted to invite Elliot to write a piece because he's been such an important part of the Pacific Symphony's life throughout my 30 years, starting back with ‘Fire Water Paper’, the Vietnam oratorio, in 1996, and then Symphony in G-Sharp Minor in 2014 and then – and of course you have to know that Elliot’s ‘Fire Water Paper’ was the first recording that we did with Sony Classics when that was – and very unusual that Sony Classics would be recording a work of the size and scope of the Pacific Symphony back in those days, but of course that all had to do with Elliot and his friendship. EG: Yes. And, Carl, you're so kind to have asked me to, you know, to compose that piece. If you remember, it started was cello, the first notes was cello. The first gesture was Carl [as conductor]; the first sound was cello. CSC: Yeah. You know, cello of course plays an important role because in April of 2019 our dear principal cellist Timothy Landauer passed away and it was a shock and still is to the orchestra; and Elliot, being very sensitive to that – because ‘Fire Water Paper’ also in the first section has a large, long, very extensive cello obligato part, which Timothy played so beautifully. And of course Elliot's memory of that – but Elliot, remember – I wanted Elliot to write an adagio. Because, for those of you that know Elliot's film music, when he writes adagios in his film scores, it's like an extenuation of what Mahler might have written after the adagio of the 10th Symphony. I mean, Elliot – I'm sorry, I'm just in love with them, and I just wanted you to write me something like that. And you did and it was incredible. But if you listen to the Adagio from “Cobb” and so many other of your scores – where do you go to get those kinds of intensities? EG: Well, in this case, I thought this piece was about yearning and aspiration, and any conductor, especially yourself, and Timothy. And it's a certain – you live your life yearning and inspiring and you don't know where you're going. And it's –you have a metamorphosis in your life and all of a sudden you find yourself being a musician or being an artist. And what do you look for? You look for the beautiful; you yearn, you aspire towards the beautiful. And the passage you played, the last three minutes, has a four note motive that keeps going up and it keeps yearning and aspiring to go somewhere. And there's no preparation. When it ends, it's just a kind of disappear in ethereal blue somehow; it just becomes part of light at the end. And you never know when the aspiration is going to terminate. Whether it's your work on in the Pacific Symphony, all of a sudden you have another gig or your contract runs out or the contract of your own life runs out. And, you know, the deadline of a commission runs out. But it's the yearning before; it's the aspiration before. I hate to be... CSC: I remember you saying that you were taking a walk and there was a particularly beautiful sort of brilliant day that where sunlight was coming through, and that had some play in the inspiration of the title, and also the brightness of the world. EG: Yes. Actually the title comes from a john Gardner novel October Light. And I was thinking about that. I wrote an opera called Grendel and it was based on Beowulf legend from the monster point of view. Also John Gardner. But I was thinking about one passage that Gardner’s referring to; an old farmer in rural America talking about aging and talking about the pull of the earth. And there's something about the juxtaposition between the light that I see here next to the sea in Massachusetts, something about 5:30 in the morning light and the gravitas, the gravity of the earth. And then I was in between those two things when I was got the inspiration, when I actually knuckled down to write a piece for you, Carl, and it was a great delight. CSC: Can I just ask this question? And I don't think I asked this back in December when we premiered the work. But, first of all the process – Rich, you can't believe the process of creating this piece and the give and take and the understanding and what Elliot allowed us to do and encourage us to do and searching to create this piece and bring it to life. But, Elliot, this long sort of incredible scream, this held scream just before this long, immediate subito silence. And then – what is this? Is this sort of the pining or the crying or the just – EG: No, no, no, it's not a weltschmerz or anything like that. It’s more like – if I were to reflect, it's more like, people have the near death experiences, and they talk about a blinding light that they see before they get somehow miraculously returned to corporal life. You know they see something; they experience a blinding light. That's what I, what I was after in retrospect. RC: I have a question by the way; and that is art seems to reflect, and always has reflected, the reality of the day. What is it like being a composer during a pandemic? What kind of thoughts are going through your musical side, as we go through this? EG: Well, of course, when I composed it, there wasn't a pandemic yet, and it was shortly before. And Carl brought up Mahler and as a Mahler 10th and works like that towards the end of his career. Many thought he was foreshadowing the, the World War I, the horrible state of horror in in in Europe, and even the Holocaust. Who knows? But there’s one call chord the first movement of the Mahler 10th, if you record that stacking up dissonances in the brass that's like intertwined diminished chords that has a fermata on top. It's hellish to listen to, But it sounded like a premonition. He died in 1911; it wasn't a premonition of 1912, 1930. It felt like, you know, a state of which of a dark state of which Europe fell into. As far as the pandemic, I'm composing now every day. RC: That's what I was asking about was, what was informing your composing? EG: I'm very lucky, I'm not – the people are the heroically on the front lines like bus drivers, working at supermarkets, or musicians or choristers, they thrive and live in a community realm. For me, I disappear, like certain political candidates, in my basement. I’m just here, just in the basement as we speak. I can feel above me all the pressure of humanity, all the heaviness. Not to say that the COVID virus won't sneak in here when I go to the grocery or receive the mail or who knows, you know, but still, I'm at my best when I'm alone, really. CSC: Elliot, can I ask a question? I don't think I've ever asked anyone, all of my composer friends, but, how do you know when a piece is over? How do you know when ‘October’, how did you know when it's finished? Is it something that's distinctive? Is it intuitive, is it structural, is it theoretical? In your mind, how did you know that when the cellist played [hums] that that was going to be the end of the piece? EG: The easy answer. I look at the calendar and say, I have 11 days left. But the difficult answer is, you have a instinct of feeling the coda of whatever you try to achieve. But it's agonizing for me, Carl; it's like, when it's done, I want to fix it, I want to go back and compose it all over again, you know? So it's not done. I like the ending, but it's a lot of stuff in between that I wish last longer, for example. CSC: Every composer has that sense, you know? ‘I wish I would have done this…’ But I will tell you, the reason I asked that question is kind of because I already had my own answer. For me it was perfect. The structure, the balance. I mean I don't think I've ever said to a composer, ‘That piece is too short.’ You know, I've always said, ‘Well, if you cut and trim over here and we did this, we did that.’ But for me the structure and the flow of ‘October’, it was perfect, and I want to compliment you on that. And all of the adagios that I listened to you – I mean, adagios could go on interminably. You know that; I mean, they, by the sense of their just their name ‘adagio’, slow. But all of the adagios is you compose I feel a really a sense of completion and fulfillment at the end of them; and I didn't need anything else and I didn't pine for anything more. And that's one of the real beauties of this particular piece, and I just can't thank you enough that you took part in the 30th anniversary, and that you that you gave us this jewel. And I look forward to being able to – you know, I had it programmed, and I will program it again, because, you know, the Pacific Symphony musicians – we worked really hard to make it what you wanted it to be, and I'm very proud of that, and I think the audience will listen to hear that. EG: It was for you, Carl, most importantly. And it helps to be on the concert with Beethoven's Seventh and Prokofiev piano concerto, you know? You don't want to carry on too long. CSC: And listen, it was a world premiere, and I will tell you the reaction of our musicians to your work and the reaction of the audience each and every night, and after we actually put it all together and shaped it and molded it the way you wanted it – there was a very profound feeling on stage and in our audiences and I think even a radio audience will feel that tonight.