Principal Trumpet Michael Sachs reflects on his relationship with one of the most influential figures in modern classical music—and the lasting legacy of Boulez in Cleveland.
Principal Trumpet Michael Sachs reflects on his relationship with one of the most influential figures in modern classical music—and the lasting legacy of Boulez in Cleveland.
Featured Music
STRAVINSKY – The Rite of Spring
PART II: The Sacrifice
Welcome to The Cleveland Orchestra’s On a Personal Note, where every story has a soundtrack. In difficult situations or moments of sheer joy, music connects us with our humanity.
I’m Michael Sachs, the Principal Trumpet of The Cleveland Orchestra for the last 32 years, and today I’m going to be talking about my relationship with Pierre Boulez and specifically my relationship and experience playing the works of Igor Stravinsky with Mr. Boulez.
When I was a kid, my mother loved classical music and was really the person who exposed me to classical music. And one of the things she played for me, I think I was maybe about 12 or 13 years old, and she had The Cleveland Orchestra recording with Pierre Boulez doing Rite of Spring from 1970. And I remember thinking, what on earth is this?
Even though it’s 107 years ago that it was premiered in 1913, it’s still one of those pieces that — there was before Rite of Spring and there’s everything since.
Stravinsky just took a totally different avenue and created just a completely new language. And I remember hearing that and at first was puzzled by it, but then the more I heard it, the more the kind of rhythmical language and the very primal sense of the piece really came through along with the fact that the recording and then the quality of orchestra and the playing was just spectacular. I mean, I was blown away by that.
And then the next moment for Stravinsky for me was when I was in school. I grew up in Santa Monica, California, where music in the schools was very, very strong.
I was actually playing in an 80-piece orchestra by the time I was in high school. We actually played the First Tableau of Petrushka. And just learning the rhythm of that and the complexity of that, and actually performing that, and then we read through the rest of the piece, so I actually got to play the Ballerina’s Dance. But as a 16-year-old, getting access to the piece and understanding it, it is one of those things that became really one of my favorite pieces.
Fast forward, 10 years, and it’s 1991. And Pierre Boulez, of course, had a long relationship with The Cleveland Orchestra. Back in the sixties, George Szell first brought him here in, I believe, 1967 [editor’s note: 1965], to conduct the Orchestra. And then of course he was a caretaker between George Szell and Lorin Maazel’s music directorship. He was with the Orchestra quite a lot, they did many, many wonderful recordings. And then he became music director of the New York Philharmonic and then was no longer able to do much guest conducting.
Pierre Boulez is one of those seminal figures in 20th century music. And really his relationship with the music of Stravinsky goes all the way back really to his education, his time in Paris. Stravinsky was as much a Parisian as much as he was Russian. So Boulez was a natural person to kind of carry that torch forward of really, just one of the great interpreters of Stravinsky in that style of music.
It’s 1991 — by that point, I was in my third year of the Orchestra and he was coming back the first week he was going to, we were going to play and record Petrushka. And then second week were going to play and perform The Rite of Spring. I thought I have this giant part, this Ballerina’s Dance, this big solo. And I thought, well, you know, different conductors want different things from that — different tempos, different styles. Before we start the rehearsal, I’m going to go visit with Mr. Boulez, introduce myself and ask him if he wants anything specific for this particular solo passage.
Of course, I had heard many things about him when he was music director in New York — that he was very austere and all these things. I mean, he could not have been more kind, more warm, immediately friendly with me and said he’d heard a number of nice things about me already and some recordings we had done, which, of course I was — I’m looking at him like visiting Valhalla or something, one of the gods. I mean, this is somebody who is one of the great musicians on the planet and one of the great intellects.
So, I asked him about the solo in Petrushka, and he said, “Well, you know, the 1911 version, the original version of Petrushka, is written for cornet and he just writes, Stravinsky just wrote Allegro.” For the 1947 version, where he changed it from two cornets, two trumpets to three trumpets, 1947, he writes Allegro quarter note equals 1/16.
But he said, “But at 1/16, it sounds just a little fast; it gets just a little too hectic.” He said, “You know what? We're going to take it about — mmmm a smidge under, maybe about 1/12, maybe 1/10 per quarter note, at which point it’s going to give it the right, the right kind of . . .” He didn't use this word, but I’ll use it, the right kind of groove.
And lo and behold that’s exactly what happened. It just — everything was very calm and it was a precursor to many things with Boulez because with Mr. Boulez, when you work with him, first of all, there was just the ease that he went about doing things. It was very practical, just everything had a purpose that he was, he was doing. It was very clear what he was doing with his hands and was almost like he was setting you up and handing it to you on a platter. There’s someone like, “Here’s the time, here it is. Here I’m going to frame it for you. Go ahead and sound phenomenal.”
He would take things half-a-click slower than normal. But because of that, the ensemble was able to get absolutely razor-sharp together. And because of that intonation, note lengths, articulation, and especially the style of the piece came through and the piece just jumped with energy and excitement.
So that was the first week, the next week getting to do Rite of Spring — was another just mind blowing experience with him. I mean, of course, my experience with the original 1970 recording and knowing that like the back of my hand, and then here he is in front of me, 21 years later, I’m getting to play it with him.
A lot of guys at that point were still guys who had played with him on the original recording. And I think that was the first time the Orchestra played Rite of Spring, or it was really the first time they felt like they’d really learned Rite of Spring was with Boulez. So having him come back and having an evolved acumen 21 years later, but still very much the same kind of perspective. And having those players know it so well and just the energy in the room doing that piece was really something I will never forget.
From the bassoon starting it alone with that really eerie high solo all the way through to the end with this, this crazy ending with all the percussion and everybody’s kind of raging. In some ways, it’s almost like a great heavy metal tune.
Playing Rite of Spring and just the energy in the room and the audience and Boulez and everything — just those two weeks were just something extraordinary for me and something I will, I will truly cherish the rest of my life.
And then over the next number of years, Boulez, Mr. Boulez was actually coming back quite often. There were a couple of conductor seminars, workshops that we did — one in Carnegie Hall and one in Paris — where he was working with conductors and one of the pieces we did with that was Stravinsky’s Song of the Nightingale. And what was fascinating is to watch Boulez not only conducting the piece, but then working with conductors, and showing them how to conduct a piece, and also giving them a window into how he deconstructs the piece and then puts it back together.
There’s a lovely fisherman song that Stravinsky wrote into the ending of the piece, that I used a special felt hat for it. It’s, it’s one of these very lamenting, kind of longing, very transparent, ethereal kind of a moment in the piece.
And David Zauder, a wonderful longtime second trumpet player, who became very much a father to me, a second father to me. Here in Cleveland was a second trumpet player and the personnel manager who had played with my predecessor, Bernie Adelstein, for roughly about 30 years and then with me for about 10. And Dave bequeathed me his very special felt hat that he used and his felt hat is actually an old felt yarmulke from his uncle, from the thirties, that he had, that he cut a little piece off the top so that you can place it on top of the horn. And it just, it’s just the right distance from the bell and it gets this really beautiful kind of a collar and a cover to the sound.
And it’s actually the Song of the Nightingale was the first time I used that. And then he bequeathed it to me after we were finished with Song of the Nightingale. And it was just one of those things whenever I hear that fisherman song, I always think of Dave — was somebody who I dearly loved and had such respect for his, his integrity, his work ethic, his professionalism, his musicianship, his artistry. On every level, Dave was really, to me, the embodiment of the quintessential, really, the greatest aspiration of what a Cleveland Orchestra member could be.
Mr. Szell really wasn’t that keen on doing a lot of contemporary music or more contemporary music. Bringing in somebody like Mr. Boulez to do the Stravinsky, the Messiaen, the Varèse, things that were, you know, very, very more avant-garde then, of course became much more mainstream over time — that you know, being very, very much a part of the fabric of what The Cleveland Orchestra became and is now, is very much attributed to the work with Mr. Boulez and the way he worked with the Orchestra in the way, in many ways, he taught the Orchestra to play many of these pieces.
For now, 32 years, to be sitting in the Principal Trumpet chair in this orchestra.
One of the great joys for me is to work with really some of the greatest soloists and conductors on the planet.
We’ve got just incredible people in our ranks. All these wonderful young musicians, who now inspire me and bring me the same kind of energy that, I guess, hopefully I had brought, the John Macks and David Zauders and Al Kofskys and those guys.
So, in many ways, it’s transferring that energy and keeping that continuum of this excellence that really is at the heart of what I think The Cleveland Orchestra is and that kind of family environment. And that sense that, you know, we’re all in this to really produce something special and really to honor the music in every way that we possibly can.
Michael Sachs chose three works by Stravinsky. We heard The Rite of Spring, Petrushka, and Song of the Nightingale. Michael and Pierre Boulez share a singular devotion to the music that is utterly compelling. And we think it’s the perfect note to end on with this first season of On a Personal Note. We’ve loved sharing these stories and this music with you over the past 10 weeks. You can find all 10 episodes and the bonus at clevelandorchestra.com/podcast. If this series has become personal to you, please get in touch. We’d love to hear about it. And now here it is, The Rite of Spring: Part Two, The Sacrifice, conducted by Pierre Boulez and recorded in Severance Hall in 1991.