Pacific Symphony Adviser Suggests Constant Work Is Key to Greatness

Kazimierz Kord, the music director of the Warsaw Philharmonic who is serving as music adviser of the Pacific Symphony while it searches for a new conductor, has a few suggestions for improving the Pacific.

In his first extended conversation with The Times, the 58-year-old conductor said “the first problem is to organize the orchestra so that it works every day, morning and afternoon. People in an orchestra must play together all the time. You cannot expect miracles from people who play (only) from time to time,” as the Pacific’s members do.

Between classical concerts, pops programs, a summer series and per-service work for choral groups and visiting ballet companies at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Pacific only plays a total of about 24 weeks a year. The rest of the time, the musicians work separately, free-lancing or teaching or whatever.

“Another question is a material problem,” Kord continued. “Where does the orchestra play? In a very good Center. It is beautiful. I like it. I cannot say it is the best acoustic I have ever heard, but it’s a good acoustic. . . .

“But right now there is only one rehearsal there and then you give a concert. So you don’t get proper results. You must have time to get used to the acoustic. You must simply work on it: too loud here; no, no, not enough balance here. . . .”

Kord, who assumed leadership of the Warsaw Philharmonic in 1977, said he is used to rehearsing his orchestra four hours a day, five days a week, before giving two weekend concerts.

The Pacific averages four rehearsals, with only one in the Center, for each of its regular subscription concerts, according to a spokesman for the organization.

“In every orchestra,” Kord said, “you find good musicians, but the standard level of musicians (in Poland) is not extremely high, I must say. But we have enough time to work on it. . . .

“For instance, if you take classical music really seriously, then the problem of articulation is crucial: You must tell exactly what note is important, which is short, which is longer and so forth. How fast, how slow. You must have time to do that.”

Kord remembers hearing George Szell, one of his heroes, rehearsing the Cleveland Orchestra during a tour in Poland.

“He did Mozart’s 41st Symphony, and he worked approximately 40 minutes only on three or four pages of the fourth movement,” Kord said. “I thought, ‘My God, it is a long piece, this is impossible, how will they play it?’ He was working on it, bar by bar: ‘No, no, no, not this way,’ he said. ‘No, no, not that way. . . . Not too short, not too long.’ It was amazing.”

A reporter ventured the suggestion that union pay scales may prohibit such long rehearsals these days.

“Exactly,” he said.

Still, “Without this, you cannot achieve results that are high.”

Kord is the only musician in a family of doctors. “I was supposed to be a doctor, too,” he said, “and I started to study medicine but did not finish it.”

He started studying the organ, and “from the moment I began playing it, I knew I would love to have an orchestra. My God, the organ sounds terrific, but how good the music could sound with an orchestra!”

Advised to study other instruments first, he went on to study piano at the Leningrad Conservatory. “They told me, ‘First teach yourself how to play and be a musician yourself and then you can teach other people.’ I think that was very good advice.”

He sees his role with the Pacific in teaching terms. Asked his opinion of the orchestra’s limited repertory over the past 10 years, Kord had a diplomatic answer.

“It is a result of necessity,” he said. “It is not the result of somebody who would like only to play Mahler or Bruckner or something bombastic. No. I think that the public likes music that is loud and fast. And to come to the point where that is not necessary, you must develop not only the orchestra but the public also.”

He had hoped to address that issue while shaping the Pacific’s new season. But the repertory for 1989-90 “frankly is the result of compromise,” he said.

“I proposed a survey of great composers, from the beginning, from Mozart, if not even from Haydn. That builds an orchestra, it builds a public. But, you know, the (guest) conductors wanted to show themselves to their best advantage” with flashier works.

Kord himself will conduct three very unflashy programs next season, with works ranging from Mozart’s “Requiem” to Brahms’ Fourth Symphony.

Kord believes that greater community support of the orchestra is critical for the orchestra to grow.

“If at the beginning (the Pacific) is not so splendid, maybe, if it cannot compare to an orchestra in Cleveland or Philadelphia or Chicago, I ask myself, why is there an orchestra like that in Cleveland? What happened there? Somebody came and said, ‘We need such an orchestra.’ And they gave the money for this and they worked like crazy, with fantastic people, to establish that level.

“There are some people who tell me that they don’t like music,” he added. “ ‘I don’t care at all if you like it or not,’ I say. ‘It’s not important if you like it. Your children or the children of your children may love music, and it is a duty of the culture to build an orchestra here. . . .’

“Also, I do not understand this problem that doctors and scientists sometimes come to me and say, ‘I do not understand music, it’s too difficult for me.’ It is the same as if to say, ‘I do not read, I do not see.’

“I do not need to know everything about perspective, about what colors to put together, to appreciate what Rembrandt did. . . . ‘I see this picture has many colors, but I don’t know what these many colors mean.’ It is ridiculous to answer like this. It’s not true.

“Just open your ears. Listen to it. Don’t think it is difficult. It is not. . . . The emotional level of music is not to understand it--it is to feel it. There are waves of colors, of beauty of sounds, and so on, and if you are sensitive enough, you will perceive it as beauty.”