Rhode Island-based cellist, Theodore Mook performs at La Grua Center on Saturday, January 7 with three French cello sonatas. He’ll be bringing pianist Michael Bahmann to complete the duo. As a part of La Grua Center’s Music Advisory Committee, we are eager to see him in action. We sat down with him for a quick interview about Saturday’s concert. Here is an excerpt from that conversation:
What first got you into music?
My grandmother, a second generation American transplant from the Black Forest, taught piano, played the cello and exposed me to chamber music with her frequent chamber music soirées. I was not a convert, and became a rock and jazz guitarist instead, until one day in high school I heard the Beethoven Op. 135 String Quartet, and my fate was sealed.
Who/What inspired you to become a musician?
The music. Starting with Frank Zappa, Bill Evans, John McLaughlin, then turning to Beethoven, Bach, Bartok, Stravinsky, expanding outward as each new composer opened new vistas. Not just listening to music, but playing it, being in it. As a cranky adolescent, I figured the only satisfying way to spend time in the music was to become a musician.
What are your favorite musical memories?
Separate special moments are my favorites. To name a few: performing a St. Matthew Passion at Emanuel Church in Boston, a Daphnis and Chloe at Carnegie Hall, a Beethoven 3rd Symphony at Caramoor, and, as a listener, a Brandenberg 3rd at Marlboro, conducted by Pablo Casals. The physical world fell away, my body disappeared and the music became vividly architectural, almost visible in the air. I perceived the lines, harmonies, timbres and rhythms as a living cathedral. I appreciated (in reverse) Goethe’s quote that architecture is frozen music.
As a Broadway veteran with over 25 years in the pits, any behind the scenes story almost too good to be true?
Oh boy. So so many stories – even the categories of stories would take too long to list: actor pranks, musician pranks, mishaps, oops mistakes, stop the show mistakes. As Mick Jagger sez, start me up, I’ll never stop. Keep me away from the wine.
At the Music Matters performance in January, you and pianist Michael Bahmann will perform works from three French composers. What connects these different works more than a century apart?
It’s a process – is there really even a connection? At first you might think that some sort of genetic similarity connects the pieces. Of course, the three French sonatas connect because they’re French – even with the Onslow’s very pronounced German accent. Each composer’s personality exerts its own expressive euphony into each work and we work very hard to differentiate the pieces – Poulenc’s playfulness, Debussy’s steely terseness and Onslow’s darker intimacy. These descriptions are short hand, the impressions are too fleeting for labels, but in the end, because of some of the quirky pitch relationships in all three pieces, both Michael and I agree that a German would never ever write some of this stuff.
Finally, if you could only choose one album to listen for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Nope. Couldn’t pick one – I’d rather listen to the music in my head, which runs pretty much constantly and varies from day to day, plus, it drowns out all the voices. But if I had to make the choice, it would depend on when I made it. Today, probably Keith Jarrett’s Solo Concerts Bremen/Laussane, ECM records, 1973, to which I am listening right now.
