The first subject of conversation was the doughnuts that sat on the table between us. We both decided they were very good. William Vollinger gave his full attention to them, and ate quite a few in succession with the obvious, spontaneous pleasure one so often sees in children and so rarely sees in adults. While watching the doughnuts disappear I was prompted to ask something that had not occurred to me before: “How did your teaching children for so many years affect you and your creative works?” Vollinger’s point of focus instantly changed from the table to some distant place, seemingly light years away. Sitting upright and alert, as children often do when they are deep in their own thoughts, he replied:

“It made me understand people better, and my music is about people. People are the next best thing to God and way better than planets! When I was at Manhattan School of Music and began to write texts, I had no ability to delineate character. Now I always delineate characters. The second piece on my new recording, ‘Emmanuel Changed’, is about a boy I used to teach who started fights in my chorus class. But the next year, Emmanuel was different, fitting in rather than standing out. Then he moved away. And people don’t usually change!”

His words and gestures made it quite clear that while he was teaching children to become adults, the children were teaching him to be, or perhaps remain, in the best sense of the words, a child. He continued, “I had to change from introvert to extrovert to teach. When New York teachers are evaluated, there’s at least one negative and one positive comment. An early evaluation was entirely negative except for “Mr. Vollinger makes attractive bulletin boards.” A late one was entirely positive except for “Mr. Vollinger needs to change his bulletin boards!” But I was a good teacher by the time I retired! Now I teach composition and music of diverse cultures at Nyack College, and the school and students are truly wonderful!”

I asked him how his works are conceived. His reply began after a long pause, giving me the impression that he was simply thinking out loud, and had forgotten he had a listener. “An idea. Words. Music. That’s the order. The music changes the words and the words change the music. Sometimes I’ve written words and music simultaneously. But ideas come first, and I jot them down for future reference, like these recent ideas:

“1. Hearing a song in your mind that won’t go way and trying to make it do so.

“2. ‘You’re never too old to start something new’, for a tenor who started voice lessons in his late-50s and won a big prize.

“3. Two reviews of the same motel on the Internet: one good, one bad: A two-song cycle!”

In regard to setting the words of others to music he remarked, “When music and words are combined well, you think deeper than when they’re separate. Well, I want to be clear in what I’m saying, so I’ve tried to find new ways to combine words and music. I did things like notating pitches without rhythms and alternating speaking and singing in the same sentence, with key words sung and others spoken. I recently collaborated on a chamber opera with soprano Liana Valente, ‘Let’s Talk’, in which she arrives late for her own recital, sings quotes from four different arias she’s performed (her anecdotes being the words of the arias), and then telling the audience why she really sings. And she sang it flawlessly! Speaking and singing are similar but different. When we speak we use glissandi and we aren’t in meter. I’ve come up with a compromise in a lot of my recent music: The speech is notated in a meter to sound as natural as possible, and the instruments match the speech rhythms. It sounds less like rap than you think, because rap is words bent to the music, but mine is music bent to the words. Then they provide the initial structure. I try very hard to have the words determine the music. Claudio Monteverdi’s brother Giulio said, ‘Let the word be harmony’s mistress, not her handmaid.’ So when I’ve worked with poets like the late Gerald Rich, hymn-poet Richard Leach, and English poet Jenny Joseph, the words determine the music. Jenny Joseph is particularly exacting and precise. The English language, which usually has plenty of words, needs more words for love. She has an interest in agape love as I do. I am looking forward to setting her magnificent meditation on that word, ‘The Torrent’, for the Gregg Smith Singers this coming season.”

Vollinger’s mixture of popular and traditional references led me to ask for his definition of Pop Art:

“Pop Art: Commonplace things that are put where culture belongs. Pop Art, with postmodern irony, makes you wonder which is which. Pop Art raises a question. But it gives no answer. It’s nihilism in the guise of a giant chocolate chip cookie. I want to say something, not say something about nothing. My music does have a pop coloring, because it’s colloquial, accessible, and direct. My wife says it belongs in the kitchen more than the bedroom!”

As Pop Art and television are organs of the same corporate, conglomerate, commercial beast, it was interesting to learn of the composer’s viewing habits: “I watch television almost daily, for maybe an hour or so. I watch history. I watch ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ (a masterpiece of agape character delineation, like Rembrandt). Also ‘The Honeymooners’ (quoted in ‘Raspberry Man’). Oh yes, and televangelists—no matter what color they make their hair—if they help me! I used to watch a lot of cartoons, too. ‘Raspberry Man’ resembles the music Scott Bradley wrote for ‘Tom and Jerry’ cartoons: ‘ding ding ding, ding ding ding, whooooooo splat, heh heh heh, dooDOOdoodle-oo dooDOOdoodle-oo dooDOOdoodle-oo doo DOO doo, weeeeeeeeeeeooooooouhhh,’ etc. And sometimes I still like commercials, which you also hear in ‘Raspberry Man’, a story about a guy who stood outside Jack Dempsey’s Broadway Restaurant in New York City in the ’60s and ’70s and stuck his tongue out at anybody who passed by, including me. At the time, superficial as I was, I thought he was just funny. Now I feel for him. So the piece is funny and touching. I think it’s my best piece. But I’m expecting better!”

His comments about commercials brought another impromptu question to mind. I asked about Schubert’s statement, “What I feel in my heart I give to the world and that is an end to it,” compared with Philip Glass’s statement, “The first thing I knew about music is that you sold it.” William Vollinger’s reply was:

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. Schubert and Glass are both right, but definitely Schubert’s statement takes precedence. My music doesn’t belong to me. It is for other people, not for money—not for standing ovations. The medieval idea of genius was a spirit that stood at the side of a river. But the Renaissance made man the measure, so genius was applied to people, not spirits. Matisse said, ‘Do I believe in God? Yes, when I am working.’ As my colleague Greg Pascuzzi puts it, ‘Frequently with artists and musicians you have arrogance coupled with an inferiority complex, rather than confidence coupled with humility.’ And yet music also is a business. Burying your talent is an ingrown form of selfishness. Fear is selfishness. I may not feel like it, but I’m obligated to promote what I create. I need to ‘be fruitful AND multiply,’ not to promote me, but music.”

Composers are always asked who their favorite composers are, and how this admiration is reflected in their own work. I couldn’t help but ask. His answer: “Haydn is my favorite. He’s good. He’s happy, like me. He’s clever. Unlike the “St. Matthew Passion”, “The Creation” doesn’t make me cry. But it’s full of God’s glory, the only glory that exists. One time, when no one was in the hallway of my school, I stood in front of pictures of the ‘great’ composers on my bulletin board, and put my hand on Haydn’s good face and prayed, ‘God, show me something I have in common with Haydn.’ Immediately I heard in my mind, ‘Your middle names are the same as his first names.’ My full name is William Francis Joseph Vollinger. So I’m a Franz Josef too! That had never occurred to me until that moment.

“My favorite piece of music is Handel’s ‘Hallelujah’ chorus. I listen to it constantly. It’s joyful in a way that tells you God isn’t purple, but golden! What I like is the trumpet’s not coming in on the beginning like I might have done; the sudden quiet of ‘the kingdom of this world,’ followed by a leap of a 10th, all those reiterated rarefied ‘King of Kings’ and ‘Lord of Lords,’ and the jump-for-joys at the end!

“The composer I respect the most is Bach (left brain: A+, right brain: A+), particularly the Chaconne for unaccompanied violin. So much in so little! Harmonies that keep repeating when they’re not heard anymore, like a spirit! One instrument, one man, crying out to God with redemptive agony and ecstasy! I recently wrote a funny/serious piece about an oil-covered pelican for John Reeks, a wonderful clarinetist from New Orleans (my favorite city). I wanted to put Bach’s Chaconne in my piece. But when I got to that part, I couldn’t get the harmonies. I felt miserable: ‘Who do I think I am, Bach?’ Then the thought came to me, ‘Put in a pedal tone,’ and that worked, and I began to hear everything I needed and the music took off. So I prayed, ‘God, I really couldn’t do that before, so it had to be You! Thank You!’ I just realized these three composers are all from the 18th century, which is where my harmonic vocabulary lies. But there are other composers, too! As far as my admiration and its reflection in my music, certainly it is the case in ‘The Pelican’. But this has always been a touchy point for me. My wife, Chalagne, used to say that you wouldn’t insult me if you said you didn’t like my music, but you would insult me if you told me who it sounded like! I always wanted to be original—desperately! I was confusing originality with identity. So when I was young, I took a painter for my model, Matisse, because I wanted to simplify my music the way he simplified his art. Then if people came up to me to say who my music sounded like, they couldn’t. Not all of that was wrong. The wheat had to be separated from the tares. Now, instead of ‘originality,’ I prefer ‘exploring new territory.’ Balanchine said, ‘We do not create, we only arrange what God has already created.’ You could be an atheist and see truth in that. I get excited when composers get beyond themselves and bring back something new. Imitating isn’t the same as creating. It’s second-hand. Plaster casts may educate an artist, but not inspire them. Academic art isn’t just confined to 19th-century art salons. It can be heard in 21st-century concert halls: Music expertly crafted, but imitative more than innovative, even when called ‘modern’; the difference between current and new. Re-hearing familiar forms is easier than trying to hear something unfamiliar, although both require work. Exploring new territory is not easy because it can’t be imitated. You’re on your own. But you’re never alone.”

As it is fashionable for new works to be prefaced with lengthy explanations, I asked our composer what he thought of the idea, “If a work of art needs to be explained it has already failed in its purpose.” He replied, “That’s often said, but it could shut down all music and art appreciation classes! I used to not like Rembrandt’s work because his people looked paunchy and ordinary. Then I read something that Kenneth Clark said, that the genius of Rembrandt was in taking ordinary people and giving them an inner spirituality. If I hadn’t read that, I might still not like Rembrandt. And he’s now my favorite painter. Music is not a universal language. You have to understand a musical language to appreciate it. That might require teaching. Try listening to Chinese opera for the first time! I think the real questions are: To what degree is the art really saying something? And what is being said? ‘Content’ means what is being said. ‘Form’ means how it’s being said. Riefenstahl’s ‘Triumph of the Will’ has excellent form, but horrendous content. ‘If the light that’s in you be darkness, how great a darkness.’ If the work of art is really saying something, and the explanation helps rather than obscures the listener’s understanding, it’s good. But if the music isn’t saying much, talking about it can be self-justification. The concern should be more for listener than composer. A lot of modern music has intellectual processes that aren’t easily heard, but analyzed, as if a lecture was a performance: left brain, not right brain. But both sides of the brain think, verbal thought and non-verbal thought. For me, composing is a concentrated form of listening.”

In regard to the listener’s listening, Vollinger mentioned a few of his recordings that might be of interest to our knowledgeable readership. “The recording that Richard Gilbert produced in the ’70s on Grenadilla of ‘More than Conquerors’ was so wonderfully performed by Bruce Fifer, Larry Sobol, and Peter Basquin. Some people consider it my best piece. Also, I am thankful for the marvelous job Linda Ferreira did both in making possible and singing on the Capstone recording of ‘Sound Portraits’. She understands my work well and sings it with great insight and beauty. She’s also provided me with text. I’m grateful too for Bob Lord and Parma recordings for reissuing the entire Capstone catalog, which Richard Brooks faithfully ran all these years. So now a lot of us composers have our works in print again! And I’m grateful that Bob heard ‘Raspberry Man’ in Santa Fe at the National SCI conference and said it was the highlight of his trip to the Southwest, and subsequently recorded it. He selected stellar musicians from the Juventas Ensemble to perform it; they matched my speech quite flawlessly. While we’re on gratitude, there is also one particular musician I am truly indebted to for nearly 40 years now, maestro—and composer—Gregg Smith. Gregg Smith has done so much for the cause of modern choral music. Besides being a great talent, he’s a musical omnivore. Most important, he’s an expansive and generous soul!”

I noticed during the course of this interview that William Vollinger never stopped to correct a word, never stammered, never changed the course of a thought once begun. I remembered reading that Haydn, our composer’s favorite composer, once told a friend that at times, when writing “The Creation”, he wrote with a “divine certainty.” William Vollinger had only been talking, not writing music, but there seemed to be in the measured current of his thoughts and their expression something of that element. Something he shares with Haydn besides his middle names.