MUSICALLY SPEAKING WITH MILDRED KAYDEN: YEHUDI MENUHIN, JOSEPH FUCHS, AND WINTHROP SARGEANT (RADIO)
Summary
One in this series of talk shows that aired on WEVD in the 1950s and 1960s in which composer/librettist/Vassar music professor Mildred Kayden interviews renowned performing artists about their musical influences. In this program, Kayden talks with violinists Yehudi Menuhin and Joseph Fuchs, and The New Yorker music critic Winthrop Sargeant.
Topics discussed include: whether chamber music is “compatible in this electronic age”; the relevance of chamber music and its "visibility in the public eye"; how trends in chamber music from different countries reflect similarities; chamber music education for children; if the tendency for professional and/or amateur musicians to teach musical skills to family members is in decline; contemporary composers and their ability to write music for strings; the advent of string instrument players turning to composition; composer-conductors and the way their insight alters perspective on a score; Menuhin’s association with Indian musician Ravi Shankar; the new equipment used for electronic music and its unknown implications on the music world; and the “big sound” of violinists and the evolution of string techniques over time.
Mildred Goldstein studied music at Vassar College under Ernst Krenek, from 1940 to 1942. After graduation, Goldstein worked as an instructor of music literature at Vassar College as well as a composer and lyricist. In 1950, she married Bernard Kayden, taking his name and composing under the name Mildred Kayden. During her career, Kayden wrote operas (including “Mardi Gras” and “The Last Word”) and scores for musicals such as “Call the Children Home,” “Storyville,” “Sepia Star,” and the hit 1974 Off Broadway show “Ionescopade” (revived in 2012 by the York Theater in New York City), as well as music and lyrics for the NBC television program “Strangers in the Land.”
Mildred Kayden’s weekly radio program, “Musically Speaking” -- in which she interviewed luminaries from classical music, opera, theater, dance, and jazz -- aired from 1956 to the early 1960s on WEVD in New York, followed later in the 1960s by the radio program “Forum of the Arts.”
Cataloging of this program was made possible by The Kayden Foundation.
Details
- NETWORK: WEVD
- DATE: November 30, 1999
- RUNNING TIME: 0:28:41
- COLOR/B&W: N/A
- CATALOG ID: 110136
- GENRE: Talk/Interview
- SUBJECT HEADING: Talk/Interview; Music - Analysis, appreciation
- SERIES RUN: N/A
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Mildred Kayden … Host
- Yehudi Menuhin … Guest
- Joseph Fuchs … Guest
- Winthrop Sargeant … Guest
- Ravi Shankar