Bruce Duffie:    You are both a composer and a teacher.  How do you divide your time between those two very exacting activities?

Betsy Jolas:    I haven’t been a teacher all my life, you know.  I started teaching in 1971, when I became Olivier Messiaen’s assistant at the Conservatory.  He had been my teacher, you know.

BD:    Was that especially gratifying, then, to be able to work alongside him?

BJ:    It was absolutely wonderful.  It was absolutely the best class that you could possibly have at the Conservatory.  He really had the best students; he was the best teacher.  He was the best of everything!

BD:    Did you learn more when you were his student, or when you were his colleague?

BJ:    It was totally different because I had sort of kept away from the Conservatory once I had finished my studies.  Coming back to this school through the big doors, so to speak, was an incredible experience because all the students he had then have become famous since.  They represented a very interesting tendency.  In my generation, we were brought up sort of in twelve tone, post-war, around Boulez and domaine musical, and these men and women — there were some women, too — were not interested in that anymore.  They were building something new, which became what is known as spectral music.  These were people like Levinas and Grisey and Murail, and they were all his students at the time.

BD:    Have you have continued his tradition, or are you building your own tradition?

BJ:    I’m not in that tradition at all, myself.  I was interested in those students, but my own music has not evolved that way at all.  In fact, I never wrote any twelve tone music, if you really want to know!  I have followed all these movements very actively, but I believe I’m considered sort of independent.

BD:    Is that the best way to go, really?

BJ:    I don’t know if it’s the best way to go.  I can’t tell you.  It’s the way I am! [Both laugh]

BD:    Now you are both teaching and composing.  Do you get enough time to compose?

BJ:    I find the time.  It’s just something I have to do, otherwise I can’t live.  It’s just so necessary, I always find the time.  I’ve never stopped finding the time.  Teaching, actually, is gratifying because it gives you something like a feedback, and I get a lot of it for my own use.  I always say that I teach selfishly.

BD:    [Laughs]

BJ:    No, I really do!  Otherwise, it’s not interesting; I’m not interested.  I think teaching selfishly is what makes teaching interesting for the students, too.

BD:    I was going to say that the students, I’m sure, get as much out of it as you do.

BJ:    Yes, well this is the way Messaien taught himself.  He gave us his own point of view, and through his point of view we evolved ours.  We didn’t have to agree with him, but it was so stimulating

BD:    Let me inquire about the recordings.  Are you basically pleased with the recordings that have been made of your music?

BJ:    Oh, yes, very pleased, very pleased, especially with one of them which was issued in ’67 and had quite a long career at that time.  It went to America.  It’s my Quartet Two with coloratura and string trio and was issued in America on the Angel label.  It was issued in France first and then in America, and it lasted about ten years.  Then it was out of print and it has come back on CD.  It’s a fabulous recording.  One doesn’t record anything today that way.  It’s just wonderful!

BD:    How was it done?

BJ:    It is a fifteen minute piece which we recorded for eight hours.  And I was there for the splicing and editing, which took another three days.  So it’s just perfection.  It’s just wonderful!  But recordings are not made that way today.  I was very lucky.  I have another recording which is all devoted to my music.  It has my Piano Concerto, and that was very well recorded; also my Viola Concerto and two other pieces, all of which are very well recorded.  No, I have no bad recording!

BD:    If these recordings are so perfect, does this then set up an impossible standard for future live performances?

BJ:    Some live performances are very interesting.  At this point today, this is the way many pieces are recorded.  A good live performance is taken as a recording.  I don’t think there’s a special studio performance for recording any more; most of the time, at least in contemporary music, that’s the way it’s done.  Here in France we have a national radio which gives us very high standard performances of our music, and several contemporary music groups here, too.

BD:    Besides that, what are the differences between the French music scene and the American music scene?

BJ:    From what I see, contemporary music is rather limited to universities and small groups which have to struggle for funding.  I understand it’s not very easy.  In France, it’s been like this for a long time.  I’m not absolutely sure this is a good thing, but we now have groups that are sort of institutions, which get public funding

BD:    You have a piece that is identified by three initials, and it says that you have never identified what the initials stand for.

BJ:    That piece is on a record, so you’ll hear it.  J.D.E., are you talking about that?

BD:    Yes.  And you’re not going to reveal to me the secret?

BJ:    No, certainly not.  I’ll tell you a story about that.  This was a time when that kind of initials came up in today’s world.  It was a way of defining, shall we say, the nature of the piece, which was to be empty and then to be filled with something.  It starts out like a very, very, sort of desert kind of music, and then it gets fuller and fuller and thicker and thicker.  That was more or less the idea that put in those initials.  But the initials do mean something, and it means a lot of things.  Darius Milhaud — he was one of my teachers — when I sent him the piece, he sent me a very funny letter giving all sorts of interpretations to those initials.  One of those was, in French, Jolas Droît Écrire [Jolas Must Write].  The other one was Juliet des Ésprits which was the title of a film by Antonioni or Fellini!  [Both laugh]  And one of the instrumentalists who played it the first time said, “Oh, I know what that means.  It means J’ai Des Ennuis,” which means I have troubles or I have problems.

BD:    Are any of those ideas correct?

BJ:    Everything you want to put in is okay with me, and I have my own interpretation.

BD:    Has anyone ever hit your own interpretation?

BJ:    Some very secret, yes.  I told some people.  When I’m dead, you can find out.  It’s not one of my favorite pieces, so it’s not important, I don’t think.

BD:    Is it right that a composer has favorites amongst the pieces?

BJ:    I don’t see why he shouldn’t have that right, really.

BD:    Are they not all like children, and you must give almost equal weight to each child?

BJ:    That’s morally speaking.  Don’t you have favorite children, too?  Some people do, you know.

BD:    I guess some children succeed in one way, and other children succeed in other ways.

BJ:    Uh-huh.  Anyway, I do think many composers have favorite pieces.  There’s no doubt about that.

BD:    Without mentioning any names, are there pieces that you feel you should not have written, or you would rather have withdrawn?

BJ:    No.  No, those pieces I withdraw.  I do not let out any piece that I should feel I should have withdrawn.  Any piece out is okay, but I have some favorites, that’s all.

BD:    I just wondered if a piece had gotten some playing, and you really just decided you didn’t like it once it’s been published.

BJ:    No.  Once it’s published, I have no right on it.  The publishing is important.  I had a piece that I did not want played, which somebody had in manuscript and played nevertheless.  I don’t think that’s right.  I had not published it.  There was some reason.  She should have let me know.  That’s not right.  But once it’s published, anybody can play it.  There’s nothing I can do about that.

BD:    When someone comes upon a piece of yours and performs it, is there ever a time that they discover things in the score that you didn’t know you’d hidden there?

BJ:    Yes, yes.

BD:    Is that a good feeling?

BJ:    Very good feeling.  Very interesting.  I’ve had this experience many times.

BD:    When you’re writing a piece and the notes are coming out, are you always in control of the pen or are there times when you feel that the pen is guiding your hand?

BJ:    Both.  Sometimes you’re in control, sometimes you’re not.  That’s the whole idea of composition.  You have to let your pen go sometimes.  [Both laugh]  And then, you know, catch it before it leaves!

BD:    You never fight with the pen?

BJ:    Oh, yes, sometimes, sure!  Sure.

BD:    Who wins?

BJ:    Sometimes I don’t win, and then I start something else.  Sometimes I win.  Most of the time I win!

BD:    One last question about compositional technique.  When you’re writing and getting all of the notes in place and tinkering with it a little bit, how do you know when to put the pen down and say, “It is ready to be

BD:    Let me ask the big philosophical question.  What is the purpose of music in society?

BJ:    That’s a big question, indeed.  It’s a question of what’s the purpose of art; what’s the purpose of communication through art.  That’s the whole question.  It’s a necessity from the part of the composer.  I guess a lot of people can do without music, or they can do without painting, or they can do without reading.  But quality of life is not exactly the same, that’s all.  It’s very hard to answer that question.  It’s a total necessity for me to compose.  I can’t do without it; it’s like breathing.  So I trust that somebody will get my message, somewhere.  It seems to happen, sometimes.

BD:    Are you writing for a specific public, or a small public, or the whole public?

BJ:    Hopefully I write for the whole public.  I think, as the years go by, from what I hear I have the feeling that I have a public which is not exactly the same public as most composers have today.  It’s a public that includes people that I wouldn’t meet normally in life.  Sometimes I meet somebody who says, “I like your music,” and I don’t even know who he is, or who she is.  My hope is that my music will reach most people — I mean the greatest public possible.  Not for glory, but just because I like to feel that I am not just addressing a small group of people.  I’m not interested in that.

BD:    Is there a balance between an entertainment value and an artistic achievement in music, or in your music?

BJ:    There probably is, yes!  I would like you to define what you mean by entertainment.  The pleasure that you get out of it, is that it?

BD:    Pleasure, or pleasures.

BJ:    Yeah, well there’s nothing wrong with pleasure!  I’m not against pleasure at all.  That part of it I certainly would agree to that.  I seek to produce pleasure with my music; I don’t like it to be painful.

BD:    But obviously your pleasure is going to be different than other kinds of pleasures.

BJ:    Oh, sure, absolutely.  That’s evident.

BD:    Are you optimistic about the future of music?

BJ:    Not very, no.  If I stop to think about it, I don’t quite see where we’re going, nor do I see where we are going in general.  I mean I don’t quite see where music stands.  In fact, it’s something that I don’t want to think about too much, because it would sort of result, logically, in my stopping to write sometimes.  But I can’t do that!

BD:    Sounds like a paradox.

BJ:    Yeah, yeah, absolutely.  But I think a paradox can be healthy, too.

BD:    Tell me the joys and sorrows of writing for the human voice.

BJ:    I don’t know if you realize how important that’s for me.  It’s both a problem and a joy that I have dealt with all my life, through all kinds of works.  I have written about it, in fact, outside of music also.  In fact, it has led to opera at this point.  I have now reached my third opera.  I was in Chicago in 1976 with an opera at the University of Chicago.  We also went to Minneapolis and Washington and Philadelphia.  It was a French production of an opera I wrote called The Riverside Pavilion.  It’s to a Chinese text.  There was sort of a French package that came over; there was Peter Brook and myself.

As noted  in the bio-credit at the bottom of this webpage, I presented a program on WNIB for her 65th birthday, and then again for her 70th. I sent her a note about the second program, and she made this lovely reply . . .

This interview was recorded on the telephone on July 17, 1991.  Portions were used (along with recordings) on WNIB later that year and again in 1996.  The transcription was made and posted on this website in 2009.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here.

Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001.  His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.