At 74, Gould Still Goes for the Joy of Creation

One of the deans of American music, Morton Gould, 74, with more than 1,000 compositions and 100 recordings behind him, doesn’t give any indication of slowing down.

The Grammy Award-winner (and 12-time Grammy nominee) continues to compose, conduct and, two years ago, was elected president of the 35,000-member American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).

“I have had to temper some of my other activities,” Gould said, speaking by phone from ASCAP headquarters in New York. “This is a full-working presidency and a very responsible position. . . .

“But one of the things about my career, for good or bad, I have always been involved in more than one thing at any one time. I always had dreams of glory, of sitting off somewhere and doing nothing but writing for a period of years. It never worked out that way.”

Still, in all the hubbub, Gould created such popular works as the “Declaration Suite,” which he will offer with the Pacific Symphony in a Fourth of July program on Monday at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. The program will also include works by Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin and Ives.

“I think the program represents an American sound--not, I would hope, in any narrow, chauvinistic sense, but as a music that has a communicative power and that reaches out to a large audience . . . from the most sophisticated to people who are not so sophisticated musically,” Gould said.

“What is interesting about all those works,” he added, “is that they represent something special that has happened in our musical climate--works which are popular and which have become accepted as important concert pieces.”

But Gould has mixed feelings about playing them in the great outdoors.

“I’m not crazy about outdoor venues, for a lot of obvious reasons,” he said. “So much of the actual music-making is lost in the terrain. . . .

“On the other hand, there are factors that might balance out. Audiences do seem to enjoy the business of being outdoors in a July evening. (The concerts) tend to have a relaxed, informal atmosphere, against the more formal indoor concerts during the season.”

Gould is particularly concerned about using amplification.

“There is a fine point at which an amplified sound can be distortion,” he said.

“For example, when a flute or an oboe begins to sound like a kazoo and you’re not sure what instrument is playing--assuming it’s not a piece made for a transformed sound--there obviously is something wrong with that system. So outdoor concerts do have that extra problem. But without the amplification, you won’t get the sound at all.

“One hopes the amplification (at the Irvine Amphitheatre) is done in a way that does not distort the actual texture too much. That’s Russian roulette. There’s no way of knowing. When you stand up there as a conductor, you hear one thing. But there’s no way of knowing what goes out into the audience.

“You hope whoever is monitoring it and the system can give a reasonable facsimile of what happens on that stage.”

Gould’s Fourth of July program will be his first work with the Pacific Symphony. He arrives today and rehearses with the orchestra Sunday and Monday.

“It would always be nice to have more rehearsals,” he said. “But that goes with the territory. It’s a fact of life. One is always pressed for time.

“A great deal depends on what the orchestra knows. . . . I would assume that they are certainly familiar with ‘West Side Story’ and ‘American in Paris,’ familiar in the sense of having played it as an ensemble. I really don’t know. I will know when it is too late.”

Gould sees his role as being “the intermediary between the composer and the audience. My goal is to . . . re-create those black notes on white paper and turn them into sound and make them sound exciting and hopefully to try to make every piece an event. . . .”

Does Gould even think about his place in American music?

“No. Honestly. I never thought of what my place is. I either am or I ain’t, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. Or anybody can do about it. It never occurred to me whether I, or anybody, will know who I am in a year from now. . . .

“The fact is I am basically a composer-conductor, primarily a composer. But I would like to think of myself as a functioning--perhaps malfunctioning--musician.

“I’m certainly still active, at least I think I am. There are all kinds of things I would like to write. I have sketches in mind for so many things I would like to do. . . .

“The big joy . . . is the actual creating. When one is on a roll, when one feels things are coming out of one’s head onto paper . . . When you’re on that roll, it’s a special kind of euphoria. It may be a bad piece, it may be a good piece, but the sheer euphoria, that’s what it’s about.”