Running a Marathon at the Bowl

Twenty-five years ago, while commiserating over the apparent rapid graying of classical music audiences, Lukas Foss and Ernest Fleischmann had a bright idea.

Foss, veteran composer and conductor, and Fleischmann, managing director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, decided to loosen up the classical ambience by making a night at Hollywood Bowl into a “happening.”

The result, in the summer of 1971, was a purposely informal six-hour dusk-to-midnight event at which listeners were encouraged to come and go freely, picnic and snack, and even, in those days, smoke, all the while watching the L.A. Philharmonic, plus smaller ensembles and soloists, making music.

“It was a wonderful atmosphere,” says Fleischmann. “There was still a hippie generation around then. They responded to the relaxed and comfortable feeling; people brought their babies in prams and the babies behaved.”

The inaugural event was called a “Bach at the Bowl Mini-Marathon,” and two more marathons were scheduled for that summer, then three a season for the next three years. Each time, Lukas Foss returned to Cahuenga Pass to preside over the extravaganzas, which regularly drew a respectable (for classical music) 8,000 to the Bowl and at its height attracted 17,000 listeners.

Now, after a hiatus of two decades (broken by a lone marathon in 1987), Foss and his creation are returning to the Bowl. Tonight, from 6 until nearly midnight, he will preside over “The Marathon of Marathons,” a retrospective of Foss’ previous oversize Bowl programs climaxing with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, scheduled to begin around 10.

Foss remembers the marathons’ beginnings:

“The idea was to bring in young people--the problem, how to attract them.

“We saw a six-hour intermissionless concert as an attractive ‘happening.’ And, from the start, we got crowds,” the composer recalls, on the phone from Bloomington, Ind., where he is guest-conducting a normal-length symphony concert with a summer session ensemble.

But did the experiment work in the long run? Did more young people later join the mainstream?

Hard to measure, Foss admits. It did keep him busy, however.

“I took the concept to other places,” he says. “I led marathons in Brooklyn, in Amsterdam and three times in Israel. Each time, we drew a great number of young people.”

But nothing lasts forever. Happenings grew out of fashion, and after the mid-’70s, there was only one other marathon, this one emphasizing a mix of music: Copland and barbershop quartets, Bernstein and bluegrass, Morton Gould and gospel music.

Nine years later, Foss says he and Fleischmann have high hopes that for one more night, the old classical formula will work again.

“It’s a celebration and it’s an anniversary,” the ever-optimistic 73-year-old composer says.

*

What about stamina at these events? Is standing on a podium for six hours a hard thing? Through the telephone, Foss seems to shrug.

“Survival is easy. I just rest while someone else plays chamber music. It’s all feasible--a lot of work, of course, and the rehearsals go on a long time. But feasible.”

Stamina seems not to be a problem in the rest of Foss’ professional life either.

After long tenures at key American symphonic posts--music directorships of the orchestras in Buffalo, Brooklyn and Milwaukee--Foss is now a permanent guest conductor “to the world,” he says with a laugh.

Which means he spends most of his life on the road. Before Los Angeles and Indiana, Puerto Rico was Foss’ temporary home; he conducted at the Casals Festival there. “There’s no rest for the wicked,” he says, laughing some more.

When he is not traveling, Foss composes--at least he does so every summer, at his warm-weather home in Long Island. One fairly recent work, a flute sonata, has already chalked up more than 80 performances in eight years, he says.

His last completed piece is a commission from the American Guild of Organists; his next one, about to be started, is a symphonic work for the University of Buffalo.

Foss remains proud of the effect he thinks the marathons had on the general audience: “They were actually theme concerts years before theme concerts became normal programming devices, and they were designed for the informal entrance and exit of the listeners, for an atmosphere of looseness.

“When we did our first Mozart marathon, I thought, now how can I sell Mozart to young people? So, I told them: Mozart was the first unemployed composer--which is perfectly true, of course. And they cheered. That was a marvelous time.”

* L.A. Philharmonic; L.A. Chamber Orchestra; ensembles and soloists; Lukas Foss, conductor. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., (213) 850-2000. “The Marathon of Marathons”: music by Bach, Vivaldi, Stravinsky, Mozart, Ives, Foss and Poulenc; Beethoven: Ninth Symphony. Today, 6 p.m.-midnight. Tickets: $10-$40.