Conversation between Elizabeth Paepcke and Bruce Berger, circa 1988

Elizabeth Paepcke

Interviewed by Bruce Berger

Circa 1988

2018.002.1340

 

Bruce Berger [00:00:01] Nobody’s really written much about Harold Ross and Aspen, as far as I know. And you knew him when he came out here?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:00:12] Mhm.

 

Bruce Berger [00:00:12] And he came out here to fish or…?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:00:17] No.

 

Bruce Berger [00:00:18] Or what did he come out for?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:00:23] He came out at our invitation.

 

Bruce Berger [00:00:25] Oh, he did?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:00:29] In the winter. It was in the very early years. ’46 or ’47… wait a minute… it must have been… it was for some special occasion. The FIS was in ’50. It was before that. So, it must have been in ‘4-… we came here in ’45, and ’47, I think it was, was the opening of the ski lift, and when Governor Knous came up here for the dedication of that. It was in the winter. It was before the Goethe Festival, I’m sure, so it was… other than that, I can’t remember exactly. The Historical Society may have something on this. We invited him out because it was the opening, I’m sure, of the ski lift, the first ski lift. And Lowell Thomas was invited out here at the same time too. Lowell Thomas, in fact, wanted to put in a broadcasting system. He offered to do it, and he said to Walter, “If I broadcast here, I’ll do it here once a week during the winter,” (because he loved Colorado) “and I’ll reach an audience of 3 million people.” And Walter said, “For God’s sake, don’t!” And Lowell said, “Why not?” Walter answered by saying, “We haven’t a police department, adequate police department. We don’t have adequate sewage. We don’t have adequate housing. How could we take care of these people? And our hospital is totally inadequate, and without these things, you couldn’t possibly take care of the tourists who’d flock here. If you broadcast from Aspen once a week, your popular broadcast, it would be disastrous.” So I can’t remember whether that was as late as ’50 for the FIS that Lowell came, but Harold Ross came before that, I’m sure, at our behest. At the opening of the ski lift, I think. And because we had met Harold in New York…

 

Bruce Berger [00:04:31] Oh.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:04:32] …so we knew him there and heard from him that he was actually born in Aspen.

 

Bruce Berger [00:04:41] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:04:42] And he was born in Aspen to a father who was, I think, the lawyer for one of the gold mining companies up here. And Harold, I think, left Aspen at a very early age when his father moved to Silverton, taking Harold with him. So Harold really didn’t know Aspen from the time of his earliest childhood.

 

Bruce Berger [00:05:15] He hadn’t been back at all then, before you invited him.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:05:18] He really hadn’t. He came up here and went skiing. It was quite funny. At that time, we were living in the first house we owned here in Aspen, which I helped rebuild and decorate, the old Lamb house, which is across Triangle Square here.

 

Bruce Berger [00:05:38] Oh. Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:05:45] I remember Harold arriving at a party in our house, which we gave for VIPs who were here at that time, with the most absurd wife that you can imagine. I’ve forgotten what her name was. It was something like Estrella or something absolutely ridiculous. And she walked into the living room in a black velvet tea gown, sort of dragging on the floor, and stretched out her hands to me in the most absurd manner, with an accent that was so false, saying, “Oh, Mrs. Paepcke, it is such a pleasure to meet you.” And I just looked at this creature and couldn’t believe it, you know. Some blonde being, the mascara, the eyelashes, and a floozy if I ever saw one. And this was Harold’s wife. And Harold, with his mouth sort of twisted on one side, was enjoying the whole scene of my evident disapproval and this floozy wife of his. And he just thought it was hilarious. To really bring this story to a dénouement, at the end of Harold’s stay here with his wife, we put them up at the Jerome Hotel, which by then was rebuilt and redecorated. So it was just prior… it must have been ’48… just prior to the Goethe Festival. I walked into the bar, and in the bar were a lot of newspaper reporters, and with her arm around one of them stood Harold Ross’ wife with sort of a jockey cap over her golden curls and jodhpurs on that were way out like butterfly wings. And she was saying to this cowboy, “Isn’t it nice?” in a typical Bronx accent, “Isn’t it nice to relax and be vulgar?”

 

Bruce Berger [00:08:24] Do you suppose Harold married her for humorous reasons?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:08:28] Harold told me the story of the beginning of his life, and why he had the attitude that he did towards most things, and especially women. When they were living in Silverton, there was a red-light district just the way there was in Aspen. The eastern part of Aspen was all red-light district for the miners, and Silverton was the same. And Harold’s mother was very prim and proper, and they had a sewing bee, which was quite Victorian and de rigueur in those days. And so the best women in Silverton all joined this sewing bee with Harold’s mother. And they met, I don’t know how many times a month, in the Ross house. And at this particular moment which Harold spoke of, he was about 8 or 9 years old, and he earned his money by going around Silverton delivering groceries at people’s houses, as well as in the red-light district, which his mother didn’t realize. And the mayor of Silverton suddenly announced that he was going to marry the main madam of one of the whorehouses. Consternation in Silverton, especially amongst the ladies of the sewing bee. So they shut the door when they were having afternoon coffee or tea and cake. And Harold, of course, lay on the floor, and with his ear buttoned to the crack under the door, and heard the following conversation amongst the ladies, the gist of which was: how were they going to receive the wife of the mayor? This was an awful problem for them. How were they going to possibly do that? Having the religious beliefs that they had very firmly in their mind, and especially their attitude towards whorehouses in the red-light district, and here was one of the main madams who was suddenly going to be Mrs. Mayor. Well, it was evidently a heated argument. Now, Harold felt personally, as a young boy, these women were hypocrites, stuck up, snobbish for no reason whatsoever, and that when he delivered groceries they were penurious and hardly ever tipped him. The minute he went to the red-light district, the women were generous. They always tipped him. They offered him cakes. They offered him candy. They invited him in to a warm house. He said he found them delightful. So at that moment, he made his decision that the real women in this world were those that came from the red-light district, and those that were prim and proper, like his mother, were really the satanic group.

 

Bruce Berger [00:12:20] {laughter} That’s wonderful. {break in recording}

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:12:25] This girl that I just talked about, who was such a horror, was his second wife. His first must have been very nice, because I met Harold’s daughter by his first wife, and she was really a sweetheart, so her mother must have been a different type. And Harold, I think, married again.

 

Bruce Berger [00:12:58] What was Harold himself like?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:13:03] Harold was wonderful. Of course, he had a devastating sense of humor. He was acerbic. I found him utterly charming. But he stood up to the rest of the world and looked at the world with the face of the laughing God. I saw him with his former brother-in-law, whose name I’ve forgotten, who came from Monument, Colorado. And he was a typical small-town politician, constantly waving the American flag and making speeches on almost any subject he touched. Harold held a dinner to show him off. So Harold was sitting there next to me in the Jerome Hotel, and he’d call over to his brother-in-law and say, “Give us the speech that you made last 4th of July in Monument to the assembled bourgeoisie,” using Mencken’s word. And this man, poor man, would stand up and make the most absurd speech you’ve ever listened to. It was all stars and stripes, and backbone and courage, and energy and brotherhood, and the flag will wave forever, and we’re all Christians together. Each time Harold would give me a kick under the table to emphasize some particular cliché that he found absolutely devastating. That was Harold.

 

Bruce Berger [00:16:34] Unbelievable. What did he do when he was here?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:16:47] You know, I can’t remember exactly. I think he went fishing, and he went around interviewing old characters, you know, around here.

 

Bruce Berger [00:16:58] Oh, people that he’d known in boyhood that were still here. He was a skier also?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:17:08] You know, I just don’t remember.

 

Bruce Berger [00:17:10] What did he think of Aspen, after so much time away?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:17:15] Well, look, Aspen was nothing in those days. We were just beginning to build it up.

 

Bruce Berger [00:17:21] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:17:22] So Harold applauded everything that we did.

 

Bruce Berger [00:17:25] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:17:26] And when we were in New York, we looked him up frequently, and we used to have dinner with him at the 21 Club.

 

Bruce Berger [00:17:39] And did he come back several times?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:17:45] As I remember he did.

 

Bruce Berger [00:17:47] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:17:52] But not often.

 

Bruce Berger [00:17:53] Mhm. But this sort of initiated his renewing his contact with Aspen?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:18:02] Yes, because Walter insisted that he come. Or asked him to.

 

Bruce Berger [00:18:08] Yeah. Did he ever participate in the Institute?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:18:14] In those days, we didn’t even really have the Institute.

 

Bruce Berger [00:18:16] Oh that’s true. If this was pre-Goethe, then it would have been…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:18:22] The Institute really didn’t come into being until ’49 or ’50.

 

Bruce Berger [00:18:29] Mhm. Doesn’t sound like it was quite his thing anyway.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:18:34] No, Harold would never have been… he’d love to stand off and just enjoy humanity and their foibles.

 

Bruce Berger [00:18:46] It sounds like he was a real practical joker.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:18:51] Well, I wouldn’t call him a practical joker. I just said that he had a wildly analytical sense of humor.

 

Bruce Berger [00:19:07] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:19:11] And so he prodded people into showing off foibles which he knew they had.

 

Bruce Berger [00:19:26] Can you remember some other incidents?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:19:31] Those are really the two main ones.

 

Bruce Berger [00:19:34] The ones that stand out.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:19:36] After all, I’m now 86, and my memory’s not as keen as it was.

 

Bruce Berger [00:19:41] Well, it’s better than mine. I can’t remember things that well that happened way back.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:19:47] These were sort of outstanding.

 

Bruce Berger [00:19:49] Mhm. His house is on the historic…. it’s got historic designation doesn’t it?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:19:59] I think they’d like to make it so, and I’m perfectly willing to have them do so.

 

Bruce Berger [00:20:07] Did he go back…?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:20:09] …but he was never in this house.

 

Bruce Berger [00:20:12] Oh, in this house? No, I meant the house he was born in.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:20:16] Oh, the house that he was born in. I don’t know which one…

 

Bruce Berger [00:20:20] I’m told there’s a little plaque on it. I haven’t gone to see it. But you don’t know anything about the house itself or whether he went to look at it or…?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:20:29] I really have no memory of that.

 

Bruce Berger [00:20:31] But he did see people that he knew here from…?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:20:35] I think, that whose names he remembered, who were still living.

 

Bruce Berger [00:20:41] Yeah. And was Francis Whitaker in town then?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:20:52] Yes. She is. I saw her the other day.

 

Bruce Berger [00:20:55] No, no, not Francis Herron, but Francis Whitaker, the blacksmith.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:21:00] Oh, Francis is here. Yes.

 

Bruce Berger [00:21:02] The reason I ask is because his brother was a writer at The New Yorker.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:21:08] Yes.

 

Bruce Berger [00:21:09] Who wrote under the name of Frimbo.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:21:11] Yes.

 

Bruce Berger [00:21:12] Uh huh.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:21:13] That surprised me when I read that.

 

Bruce Berger [00:21:15] Well, I wondered whether Harold Ross and Francis Whitaker here had any connection, or whether Francis came after this period?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:21:24] Francis came afterwards as I recall.

 

Bruce Berger [00:21:26] I know that he had lived in Carmel before then, so they may have missed…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:21:34] Sorry, I don’t… I really couldn’t tell you.

 

Bruce Berger [00:21:36] Well, I’ll call up Francis about that. Getting to the music, I’m curious to know what music there was in Aspen before the Goethe?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:21:48] There was nothing.

 

Bruce Berger [00:21:48] Well, somebody, I think… I heard it last year… somebody told me that you and Walter had brought out some people?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:21:57] Oh, yes, we did.

 

Bruce Berger [00:21:59] Just privately.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:22:00] Right from the beginning. We brought out some… we brought in a string quartet from Chicago. It was practically a disaster, as far as the audience was concerned. People weren’t attuned to that kind of thing. And Walter supported Richard Dyer-Bennet, who had a beautiful tenor voice and usually accompanied himself with a guitar, and had a lovely wife. She was really a beauty, and I think she was Romanian, if I remember… long black hair. They seemed like children that had just jumped out of an apple tree. You know, he was blond and English, and she was dark and hair down to her hips.

 

Bruce Berger [00:22:56] Mhm. Nature children.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:22:57] And we loaned them the house on the other end of this pathway, the old house farmhouse. And that’s where he gave guitar lessons. And he also did concerts in the Wheeler Opera House, which by then we’d tried to restore.

 

Bruce Berger [00:23:20] When would this have been?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:23:22] This would have been after the Goethe Festival.

 

Bruce Berger [00:23:26] Oh, afterwards. Because I heard that… well, in the two years before the Goethe Festival that…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:23:34] I might have been a little before.

 

Bruce Berger [00:23:35] …that…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:23:36] It might have been a little before.

 

Bruce Berger [00:23:38] …that Dorothy Maynor was here, and maybe…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:23:41] Well, she, Dorothy Maynor came for the Goethe.

 

Bruce Berger [00:23:43] She didn’t come before that?

 

Bruce Berger [00:23:44] No.

 

Bruce Berger [00:23:45] Oh.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:23:46] No. Dorothy Maynor, Herta Glaz were both here for the Goethe Festival.

 

Bruce Berger [00:23:52] Mack Harrell…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:23:53] Mack Harrell and Mitropoulos… in spite of what appeared this summer in the Aspen program that said that Thomas Mann and Bruno Walter were here. They were never in Aspen.

 

Bruce Berger [00:24:09] Well, I sort of wondered about that.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:24:11] Look, I don’t know who ever put that in, except somebody who knows the names of Thomas Mann and Bruno Walter, and that was all they could think of.

 

Bruce Berger [00:24:26] Well, it doesn’t sound right, but…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:24:28] It wasn’t.

 

Bruce Berger [00:24:29] Well, I’ll tell Marty about it, and we’ll keep it out of…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:24:32] Oh, please do!

 

Bruce Berger [00:24:33] Although I’m doing the thing next year, so that would be the place to…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:24:36] If I had more time, I could write letters to this effect, but I haven’t time to write these letters.

 

Bruce Berger [00:24:43] Well, I’ll pass that on anyway.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:24:45] Please pass it on.

 

Bruce Berger [00:24:45] And see that they…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:24:46] Why do that? When we had Mitropoulos who at that time was head of the Minneapolis Symphony, which was world famous. Poor Minneapolis has suffered ever since then, ever since Mitropoulos died.

 

Bruce Berger [00:25:03] Oh. Uh-huh.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:25:05] Mitropoulos was a great conductor, and he brought the whole Minneapolis Symphony here for the Goethe Festival.

 

Bruce Berger [00:25:14] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:25:15] And that’s when Herta Glaz came.

 

Bruce Berger [00:25:18] Yeah.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:25:19] And we got Dorothy Maynor who was a wonderful singer and was Black. We did that on purpose because at the Goethe Festival, we were trying to make it international as well as interracial, which at that time nobody was willing to do. In fact, Dorothy Maynor stayed in our house with us, and with her husband, who had the wonderful name of Shelby Rooks. He was the colored minister of the Episcopal Church in Harlem.

 

Bruce Berger [00:26:04] Really? Shelby Rooks, how do you spell that?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:26:08] Rooks. R-O-O-K-S.

 

Bruce Berger [00:26:09] Like it sounds.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:26:10] Like it sounds. They were a wonderful couple, but Dorothy… we couldn’t put them in the Jerome Hotel because at that time it was very difficult. We didn’t want people to insult her. They were still doing that in…

 

Bruce Berger [00:26:31] Oh, yes.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:26:32] …in ’48. And in ’49.

 

Bruce Berger [00:26:34] And a lot later than that.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:26:38] In fact, when Dorothy came to visit us in Chicago, she could stay at the Bismarck Hotel, but she was not allowed within the doors of the Drake Hotel where we were living at that particular moment. And Dorothy called up Walter and said would he please meet her at the front door of the hotel? And when I called the hotel and wanted to know… this was in the ’50s, and I called up the Drake Hotel where we were… at that time, Walter had an apartment, and said that we would like to have dinner downstairs, and it just suddenly occurred to me that we had a guest joining us, a wonderful singer who happened to be Black. And the hotel management said, “Oh, Mrs. Paepcke, please don’t do that to us. We just had an incident.” So we had it up our apartment, but Walter had to meet her at the front door of the Drake Hotel.

 

Bruce Berger [00:27:42] Terrible.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:27:43] Terrible.

 

Bruce Berger [00:27:46] Well, that’s particularly interesting inviting her here, in that the program was so German, honoring Goethe, and with a lot of German music.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:27:56] Well, you see, because Goethe was an internationalist. He believed in the dignity of man as an individual.

 

Bruce Berger [00:28:02] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:28:03] And that is why… the whole reason for the Goethe Festival. To break down these barriers that were being set up after the Second World War where every one of the allies were beginning to hate each other. You know, the Americans in England were called the “Army of Occupation.”

 

Bruce Berger [00:28:27] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:28:30] And the Americans were calling the English “limeys” and the French “frogs” and the Italians, you know, “WOPs.” And it was incredible the prejudice against… nation to nation.

 

Bruce Berger [00:28:46] Even among the allies.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:28:47] Amongst the allies. And so therefore, it seemed terribly timely to have this in some place to honor Goethe at his 200th anniversary of his birth, the bicentennial. So it was Bob Hutchins of the University of Chicago, and my husband was a trustee at that time of the University of Chicago. And Bob and Walter were great friends. And Bob persuaded Walter and said, “Walter, you know, we don’t want it in Chicago. That’ll just vitiate the whole festival. People will come, and they’ll stay a few days and then will leave. Let’s do it up in the mountains, up in Aspen, and there they can’t leave.”

 

Bruce Berger [00:29:39] That’s true.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:29:40] When they’re once there, they have to stay.

 

Bruce Berger [00:29:43] Mhm. Well, that was a wonderful idea. And did you invite people internationally, then, deliberately to…?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:29:50] Yes. Yes. All kinds of…

 

Bruce Berger [00:29:52] Ortega and…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:29:54] But I was the one who… I haven’t done much in my life, but that is one thing you can put to my credit: that is that I was the one who asked Walter to invite Albert Schweitzer.

 

Bruce Berger [00:30:07] Oh, really? That must have been a thrilling experience.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:30:12] Well, that is what really put the Goethe Festival on the map.

 

Bruce Berger [00:30:15] Oh, I’m sure it was.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:30:16] Not Goethe. It was the fact that we brought over Albert Schweitzer.

 

Bruce Berger [00:30:20] Mhm. Oh, yeah. And I heard that he thought that Aspen was a suburb of Chicago?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:30:26] Yes. That’s true. Because he couldn’t stand the altitude. That’s why he never went to Switzerland.

 

Bruce Berger [00:30:34] Oh, and he wouldn’t have come if he had known?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:30:38] No.

 

Bruce Berger [00:30:38] Did he fare all right at this elevation?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:30:40] I don’t think so. I think he had great trouble sleeping.

 

Bruce Berger [00:30:44] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:30:45] And he only stayed only the first part of the Goethe Festival. He didn’t stay the whole time.

 

Bruce Berger [00:30:56] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:30:57] He and Mrs. Schweitzer both came.

 

Bruce Berger [00:30:59] Mhm. Well Jim Hume had indicated that there was some music here just about…

 

Unidentified Female [00:31:07] Mrs. Paepcke?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:31:09] Yes, Susan dear.

 

Unidentified Female [00:31:11] Hi. Do you want me to cut down all those white flowers that have the tiny little buds that are all growing back there?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:31:18] Oh, you mean the yarrow?

 

Unidentified Female [00:31:19] Yeah, the yarrow.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:31:20] Yes, go ahead and cut the little flowers off.

 

Unidentified Female [00:31:24] Okay, I’ll do that now.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:31:27] And the other thing is, you can start from the far end, digging up all the poppies, and I’ll show you how far to go. I really ought to come show you.

 

Unidentified Female [00:31:38] Okay. {break in recording}

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:31:43] …he would agree with Walter that expenses had to be cut because Walter was paying everything of the deficits out of his pocket, and he couldn’t do that with the plan to establish the Aspen Institute. We didn’t have that much money. We sold our ranch, which I adored, on the eastern slope, Perry Park Ranch, which was 5000 and some acres, in order to make the Aspen Institute possible. And we made sacrifice after sacrifice to be able to do this. Walter had to raise all the money for the music, as well as the International Design Conference at that time, and the Aspen Institute. So then he went around asking for money and saying, “Will you give money to the music?” and people’d say no. And then he said, “Well then, how about… are you interested in philosophy and the well-rounded life? Perhaps you would give to the Institute?” And they said no. Well, he went to all his design friends and people in the box manufacturing business and said, “How about the Aspen Design Conference?,” which was making him miserable. So poor Walter was in a bind, and he went to Dick and he said, “Look, we have to cut the expenses down.” Dick would go to the musicians, and they made an outcry about having to reduce any part of it, quite rightly. But they did not realize the exact status of Walter’s financial position, and Dick didn’t tell them why. Walter felt that perhaps the orchestras should be kept small, that the musicians who came should be high in quality, but kept small. And Walter had put in as director one of them, and that was Victor Babin. And the musicians resented this fact that Walter had chosen somebody of their number, who was a peer of theirs, no matter how good a director he was or how knowledgeable he was about music, that he would choose Victor Babin over their heads. And this caused jealousies and disruption and everything, of which Dick Leach… I blame a lot on him of having caused this whole trouble. And later on, when Walter was dying, Mack Harrell and Reggie Kell, who was the, you know, clarinetist, the great clarinetist…

 

Bruce Berger [00:35:34] Yes.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:35:35] …had really spearheaded the revolt against Walter. And we went that summer… it was the summer before my daughter, my eldest daughter, was married. We took the children to Hawaii for one last trip together before she was married in September on the ranch. While we were gone, this whole thing erupted, and the musicians wanted to run their own show, and Walter said, “Fine, you do it, but I no longer will stand the deficit.” And Dick Leach sort of egged this on, that they should run it themselves. Well, he was pretty soon thrown out by the very musicians that somehow he had fomented.

 

Bruce Berger [00:36:34] Why did the musicians throw him out if he was switching to their side?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:36:39] Well, because he wanted too much money…

 

Bruce Berger [00:36:42] Oh.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:36:43] …as manager.

 

Bruce Berger [00:36:44] Oh, I see.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:36:46] And then later on, they received all the files from Walter, of all his correspondence, and they realized how wrong they were. So they didn’t do it that year, but two years later, when Walter was dying, they both came to see me, Reggie Kell and Mack Harrell, and said, “We’ve made a grave mistake.”

 

Bruce Berger [00:37:12] Hmm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:37:14] “Walter was right, and we now realize it.” And could I tell Walter, who at that time was there in Chicago and dying of cancer. And Mack died of cancer himself, skin cancer, 7 years later.

 

Bruce Berger [00:37:33] Hmm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:37:35] And Reggie gave up playing the clarinet.

 

Bruce Berger [00:37:39] Yes. I never understood that.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:37:42] I don’t either. I don’t either.

 

Bruce Berger [00:37:44] Anyway, he went to Carbondale and did art at the…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:37:46] He started to build clarinets or do something… I don’t know.

 

Bruce Berger [00:37:52] But, well they felt that they should have cut back on the Festival, you mean? After they saw the correspondence?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:38:00] Well, after they saw the correspondence, they realized that Walter… how much Walter was giving, what a hole he’d gotten himself into over it, and that perhaps the whole thing ought to be small, but great in quality. And Victor Babin went on to be director in Cincinnati.

 

Bruce Berger [00:38:24] Uh-huh. How was Dick Leach involved in making it difficult for Victor Babin to run the Festival?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:38:31] Well, I don’t remember that, but I just remember that Dick Leach was really terrible. Walter almost had a nervous breakdown. In fact, he felt so badly about this whole thing that in that fall he couldn’t swallow and digest his food. And he went to a doctor, and the doctor said he was DoD, whatever that is. Closed, you know, automatically.

 

Bruce Berger [00:39:01] Hmm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:39:02] And that’s why he couldn’t swallow or digest. And then he recommended our going to Europe or anywhere where Walter didn’t have business.

 

Bruce Berger [00:39:14] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:39:15] Since we had South America.

 

Bruce Berger [00:39:19] What was that?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:39:21] All the Container Corporations. During the war, Walter founded all those companies in Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia.

 

Bruce Berger [00:39:31] Oh, is that how Eduardo Hellmund got into things?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:39:34] Yes, in the beginning.

 

Bruce Berger [00:39:35] Yeah. Not to digress on that, but…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:39:38] Oh, please don’t.

 

Bruce Berger [00:39:40] No, I was just curious about that. But, so it sounds like Dick Leach was playing both sides against each other.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:39:47] That was it. And the funny thing is that I knew, in the area, a woman who was since knighted by the German government, the Bavarian government, and she was a handwriting expert. And one evening Walter and I had dinner with her, and I told Walter that she was a handwriting expert. And so Walter drew out of his pocket a letter from Dick Leach, and he handed it to her. And she said, “Oh, I’ve seen this handwriting before.” And I said, “You’ve seen it before?” And she said, “Yes,” that he had sent a Christmas card to a mutual friend of ours, who was a great friend of her father’s, and she had found the handwriting so extraordinary that she kept it for her files, because she said this is a man who is so enamored of himself that he would do anything in the world to further his own interests at the expense of others. And she gave a devastating, even worse than what I said, explanation of Dick Leach’s handwriting.

 

Bruce Berger [00:41:20] Oh, that’s fascinating.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:41:21] It was fascinating. So Walter felt better then about his own analysis and his own troubles with Dick Leach. He’d just made a misjudgment.

 

Bruce Berger [00:41:32] He saw that he had no…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:41:34] That it really wasn’t his fault.

 

Bruce Berger [00:41:35] …no guilt in the thing, that it was really Dick Leach’s character.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:41:40] That had really started the whole thing.

 

Bruce Berger [00:41:43] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:41:43] Now the MAA has since developed its own pattern and as much as I can recall at the present, the quality has really suffered.

 

Bruce Berger [00:42:02] Mhm. Is that because it’s gotten too big? Too diffuse?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:42:07] That’s a good way to put it.

 

Bruce Berger [00:42:09] Yeah. A lot of people have said that. I’ve interviewed a lot of musicians for this project, and they’re unanimous in saying that they can’t get to concerts. It’s overextended. They don’t have free time anymore.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:42:25] And they don’t have rehearsal time.

 

Bruce Berger [00:42:27] They don’t have rehearsal time, and students are playing too much, and everybody’s just doing too much, and they can’t absorb the music.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:42:34] That’s it. And Gordon Hardy… the Board were in charge of finding the new director. Can you believe anything so stupid?

 

Bruce Berger [00:42:45] Well, he just goes on forever, sustaining his own…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:42:50] That’s exactly it. That’s why I, with 23 others, resigned.

 

Bruce Berger [00:42:56] Oh, I know. I talked to Marge Stein about that. She’s been terribly upset by that whole thing. She’s been crazy. And other people, too. Is it the Music School that really caused everything to get so overextended?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:43:15] No. It’s Gordon Hardy.

 

Bruce Berger [00:43:17] It’s Gordon Hardy, but the school, he really expanded the school a lot, and he…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:43:23] Yes, but he just made everything just out of time.

 

Bruce Berger [00:43:28] Mhm. But right in the beginning, weren’t the musicians who came out here followed by certain students? Or maybe they brought them out? So that had already started in a sense?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:43:41] Well, in the beginning, the musicians came out here, we’d give them practically free housing. That cost, plus food, at the Jerome Hotel. They all sat around the Jerome pool with the heads of the Aspen Institute. The public would come in and have lunch there, but the musicians and the Institute people had costs plus… Walter was running in the hotel. And the public who wanted to meet them would come in and meet them at the swimming pool and have lunch together. It didn’t matter who was there. Van Cliburn, I remember coming in.

 

Bruce Berger [00:44:35] Really?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:44:36] Talking to the people.

 

Bruce Berger [00:44:38] I didn’t realize he was ever out here.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:44:41] Yes, he came sort of late-ish.

 

Bruce Berger [00:44:44] Did he play with the Festival ever?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:44:46] No. He gave a solo performance.

 

Bruce Berger [00:44:51] But I should think it would have to stay small if you were going to have all those people gather in one place. You couldn’t…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:44:59] Also, they didn’t pay very much in those days.

 

Bruce Berger [00:45:02] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:45:03] They came here for a summer of playing good music together with fellow peers that they enjoyed playing with. It was a unique place, where they could meet people from the Institute, where it was like one large family.

 

Bruce Berger [00:45:33] Mhm. When did they start bringing students?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:45:38] Right from the beginning.

 

Bruce Berger [00:45:38] Right from the beginning.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:45:42] And we got a lot of students also through Santa Barbara. Lotte Lehmann {?} was running the school out there, but that didn’t work very well.

 

Bruce Berger [00:45:50] I think that Charles Jones talked about her.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:45:53] Yes.

 

Bruce Berger [00:45:54] He came out…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:45:56] It didn’t work because she thought Walter had so much money, that he could subsidize all kinds of students who couldn’t pay, and Walter couldn’t do that.

 

Bruce Berger [00:46:06] Mhm. Was he in favor of there being an actual music school started here?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:46:13] Oh, absolutely.

 

Bruce Berger [00:46:16] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:46:17] Right from the beginning.

 

Bruce Berger [00:46:18] Mhm. But I take it, he didn’t see that it was going to grow so much.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:46:24] No. He didn’t think the orchestra would grow so.

 

Bruce Berger [00:46:28] That it would just, it would really be a chamber festival rather than…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:46:31] It would be a chamber festival.

 

Bruce Berger [00:46:33] Mhm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:46:34] And in the early days, {they played} Beethoven and Mozart and Bach, and so the orchestras were never more than 26 people at the most.

 

Bruce Berger [00:46:44] Mhm. And when did the orchestra start to grow? And become a symphony orchestra?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:46:52] After the Goethe Festival.

 

Bruce Berger [00:46:55] The Denver Symphony came here too, didn’t it?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:46:58] Yes, but they were never very good.

 

Bruce Berger [00:47:00] Oh they weren’t. Okay. So they just provided quantity.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:47:09] Well, Walter at that time was a trustee for the art museum, a director. I mean, he was a trustee of the Denver Art Museum, and he was a trustee of DU, Denver University. We lived at Perry Park Ranch, which is just outside of Denver, and Walter felt that we somehow had to have some ties with Denver. And so he brought the orchestra up here, only once or twice, but I remember when Stravinsky was here. And I think he needed a large orchestra for something that Stravinsky was…

 

Bruce Berger [00:47:59] I see. So they were brought in just for special performances, but they never spent a summer here.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:48:05] No. And we used to use people from the Denver orchestra, when we needed extra. {break in recording}

 

Bruce Berger [00:49:02] I won’t take up too much more of your time, but I wonder what you think of the Festival now, the way it’s gone?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:49:11] Well, I think it’s awful.

 

Bruce Berger [00:49:12] And is it the size, the main culprit?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:49:16] I think the size and the quality.

 

Bruce Berger [00:49:20] That the concerts are not well-prepared, then?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:49:23] No. And it just breaks my heart when the great musicians, who are really good, leave one by one and don’t come back.

 

Bruce Berger [00:49:33] Really? Hm.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:49:37] Well, you take Brooks Smith, who’s been here since the beginning.

 

Bruce Berger [00:49:44] Well, he’s… isn’t he playing every summer and coming back?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:49:50] No. He told me he was selling his house…

 

Bruce Berger [00:49:53] Oh, he is? I didn’t know that.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:49:55] …and he’s leaving, and he’s never coming back.

 

Bruce Berger [00:49:57] Oh, that’s terrible. I interviewed him, and he didn’t tell me that. I think he didn’t want to.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:50:03] And I asked Brooks why, and I don’t think it’s a secret, because he said to me there’s no more quality left.

 

Bruce Berger [00:50:13] Oh. That’s awful.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:50:14] He said, “Why should I continue playing here?”

 

Bruce Berger [00:50:19] That’s really discouraging.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:50:21] Well, that’s what you have, is Kallir, whatever her name is. The pianist who’s always here with Frank, her husband. Lillian.

 

Bruce Berger [00:50:33] Yeah. Lillian Kallir, I think, and Frank…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:50:34] And she always came here every summer.

 

Bruce Berger [00:50:44] Claude Frank, that was it.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:50:46] Yes. Every summer. And used this piano in the house to rehearse her students.

 

Bruce Berger [00:50:58] I didn’t realize that some of these people left because they didn’t like the quality of it.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:51:05] Brooks Smith says that.

 

Bruce Berger [00:51:06] Mhm. Well, he’s certainly been here from the beginning and seen it all.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:51:10] I know it. He says, just, it’s weird.

 

Bruce Berger [00:51:14] That is really discouraging. And there’s nothing particularly to do. Is this Gordon Hardy’s problem?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:51:25] I think so. You see, when we resigned over two years ago, there was this thing that Gordon Hardy couldn’t accept, that we felt that the thing on Long Island wouldn’t work, you know? He thought he could run that in the winter and this in to summer, and we said no, that he would have to give up one or the other. And we ought to have a business manager that would have equal stature with himself, and then the president of the board is above both of them. And the music director should be right there, you know, with the business manager. And that is… but Gordon would not have a business manager who had equal stature, but I wouldn’t let the president of the board run the music. I mean, this is the way any orchestra is run, because it’s the board that has to raise the money.

 

Bruce Berger [00:52:45] Mhm. And so he got his way, I take it. And then…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:52:50] Yes. Because the lesser musicians… he went around and told him I don’t know what, but he persuaded them to go with him, I think, because a lot of them were afraid they were going to lose their jobs. That’s my only explanation.

 

Bruce Berger [00:53:12] Well, I’d also heard that he was telling them that the board wanted to interfere with the artistic running…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:53:18] Yes. I mean, absolutely absurd.

 

Bruce Berger [00:53:21] …which I’ve heard that nobody ever had a thought of doing that or even had a plan to…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:53:26] That’s exactly right.

 

Bruce Berger [00:53:26] …or an opinion about it. Other than that it shouldn’t be financially overextended.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:53:33] Exactly. That’s exactly right.

 

Bruce Berger [00:53:34] And this Long Island thing didn’t work anyway, did it? Didn’t it collapse?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:53:38] Of course not.

 

Bruce Berger [00:53:39] I can’t imagine.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:53:40] Can you imagine a thing like that? We pointed that out to him because, after all, Long Island is so close to New York.

 

Bruce Berger [00:53:48] That’s right.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:53:48] If you’ve got all the music you want in New York, why should you go out to Long Island? In the winter, it’s just impossible.

 

Bruce Berger [00:53:56] In the middle of winter, yeah, nobody would go out there to…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:54:00] That’s exactly it.

 

Bruce Berger [00:54:01] …unless you lived in the town where it happened. But I couldn’t imagine just reading about it in the paper. It didn’t make any sense to me. But then I thought, “Well, what do I know?” Just reading the paper. Well, that’s discouraging about the quality of it.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:54:21] I think it’s very discouraging. This summer there was a wonderful orchestral work done, Salome.

 

Bruce Berger [00:54:32] That was the highlight of the summer. I thought that was just…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:54:34] With Vivi Thomas and the Black tenor named Shirley… what was it…? Shirley was his name.

 

Bruce Berger [00:54:43] Yeah. I wasn’t familiar with him.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:54:45] He was absolutely superb. In fact, all four singers were. And I’ve never heard a better Salome, except in Munich, where the Salome herself was not nearly so good, but at the Munich Opera, it was the most beautiful performance I’ve ever seen in my life, in Munich. That was the staging, the singing, everything. But this orchestral production was superb, absolutely superb.

 

Bruce Berger [00:55:23] They started rehearsing that a week early. They put a lot more effort into that than any other programs.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:55:28] Well, it was just superb. Now then we went, Michael Dushinski {spelling?} and I went to some other thing… Tchaikovsky, I think. It was so awful, and the whole… you know, the audience here really doesn’t know.

 

Bruce Berger [00:55:44] They applaud anything.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:55:45] They applaud anything. They stand up and shout because some students stand up who happen to be the students of whoever is conducting or…

 

Bruce Berger [00:55:54] Or they all stand up and yell for their friends.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:55:55] And they all stand up, and they yell and cheer, and it sounds as though it were great. It wasn’t. It was just awful. It was so bad that Michael and I wanted to hiss, and the students in front of us, I could see them laughing during the whole of it.

 

Bruce Berger [00:56:14] Because they knew it was bad?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:56:15] Because they knew it was bad.

 

Bruce Berger [00:56:18] I heard something last summer… I’d been looking forward to the Sibelius Seventh, which you seldom hear, and it was just wrenchingly awful. It was a student orchestra, but it should have been better.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:56:31] It should be. I mean, why make the student orchestra do the Sibelius Seventh?

 

Bruce Berger [00:56:37] Well, it was too difficult for them. They didn’t understand what was going on, and the conductor didn’t bring it off in any way. And I’d wanted friends of mine to hear that it was a good piece, and they went out thinking it was a terrible piece of music. Well, they didn’t even hear the music because it wasn’t played. So yeah, it was pretty uneven, and I take it that hadn’t happened before, that they weren’t…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:57:02] Oh, it was just awful. And then, on the other hand, some of the chamber music, which doesn’t require a conductor or a big orchestra, like Varga’s arrangement for four cellos.

 

Bruce Berger [00:57:17] Oh, yes.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:57:18] And the Vivaldi. It was wonderful, you know, and there were a few pieces like that in the chamber music, that, you know, they can’t spoil because they have somebody good who’s doing it.

 

Bruce Berger [00:57:32] Mhm. And anything the Emerson Quartet does, I think, is flawless, but of course they play it all year other places. It isn’t put together here.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:57:46] But, you see, in the winter, I go every Thursday night to the Chicago Orchestra.

 

Bruce Berger [00:57:51] Well, that would spoil one.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:57:53] So why do I have to go and listen to pieces played here that I hear there that are better played?

 

Bruce Berger [00:58:00] That’s right. Of course, my own alternative is the Phoenix Symphony, and that’s not so great.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:58:08] When do you go down to Phoenix?

 

Bruce Berger [00:58:10] Middle of December. And it’s… I don’t want to be…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:58:16] Why do you go down there?

 

Bruce Berger [00:58:18] Well, I want to get out of here, for one thing. Once it becomes the ski and party town, I don’t like to stay here, and I can rent out the house.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:58:26] I don’t blame you.

 

Bruce Berger [00:58:28] In fact, your ex-renter, Jim Breasted, is going to be in my house next year. And my mother has a place outside of Phoenix. It has five acres of desert, and it’s a good place where I can write.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:58:42] Oh, great.

 

Bruce Berger [00:58:43] And then I love to go out into the desert itself. It’s beautiful country. They’re developing it around Phoenix in the worst way right now. They’re just devastating the desert and…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:58:52] Well, think what they’ve done to Scottsdale.

 

Bruce Berger [00:58:55] Yeah, well, that’s the direction that I am, north of there. And in Scottsdale now, they annexed 125 square miles in one gulp, and they’re bulldozing all the cactus and putting up compounds of “villas” and “ranchettes” and “home-tels” “lake-dominiums.” They have a whole vocabulary.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:59:12] I used to ride horseback at Scottsdale when there wasn’t anything there. There wasn’t anything but desert and the road out from the Jokake Inn.

 

Bruce Berger [00:59:22] That’s where we used to stay, is the Jokake. I didn’t know that you were there.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:59:27] And there wasn’t anything there but Jokake Inn under Camelback and that “Mexican House” which later on Bill Benton bought.

 

Bruce Berger [00:59:38] Oh, you know that place? Yeah, I had friends there, and I’ve visited that several times. I went to parties there over New Years on a couple of occasions. Wonderful place. Who had it before the Bentons? Oh, you went there when the Bentons were there?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [00:59:58] Yes.

 

Bruce Berger [00:59:58] Because they were Chicago people, weren’t they?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:00:01] Yes.

 

Bruce Berger [01:00:02] Did they have any contacts out here? Did they come to Aspen?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:00:10] Oh yes. Bill Benton came here a number of times, on account of Walter.

 

Bruce Berger [01:00:14] Yeah. Well I would… that falls into place, but I didn’t know particularly. But yeah, that was the time to be in Phoenix. And now it’s just… that whole area is devastated.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:00:29] It just shows what overpopulation does.

 

Bruce Berger [01:00:33] I know. And it’s mindless there too.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:00:36] Yes. I just never want to go back to Scottsdale.

 

Bruce Berger [01:00:41] I wouldn’t. You wouldn’t recognize anything. It’s urban now. And…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:00:47] I remember taking walks… I went to Elizabeth Arden’s, I remember, to case it for Walter when they were building the Health Center here.

 

Bruce Berger [01:00:57] Oh, I see.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:00:59] And so I stayed at {unintelligible} 3 weeks, and I’d climb… I’d be the only one… I’d climb Camelback in the afternoon, go up in the cactus. It was the beginning of April, end of March, and the cactus was all blooming. Oh, it was lovely, but I was the only one who walked the trail.

 

Bruce Berger [01:01:23] Mhm. Did you go to the top?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:01:25] Yes.

 

Bruce Berger [01:01:26] Because I stranded my mother on top of that thing once. There is a cliff that goes along there at one level, about halfway up. And I led her up there and then we couldn’t find the way down. And I was young, I could have gone anywhere, but she wasn’t used to that sort of thing, and I think it was a terrible experience for her.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:01:46] Oh, really?

 

Bruce Berger [01:01:47] Yes. We finally came down the tail of the camel and went around, but…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:01:54] Oh, now, what of your… what do you know about Helmut…? We were talking about him earlier and the Container Corporation.

 

Bruce Berger [01:02:08] Helmut?

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:02:11] I don’t know, Ecuador.

 

Bruce Berger [01:02:13] Oh. Oh, you mean Eduardo.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:02:15] Eduardo… Helmut…

 

Bruce Berger [01:02:16] Well, he died a number of years ago. He married one more…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:02:21] He was married to Ellen.

 

Bruce Berger [01:02:21] Yes. And it turned out after they were married that he had two previous marriages he hadn’t told her about, but he married one more time… I think, an Argentine. And the last person that ran into him, and I don’t remember who it was… it wasn’t you, was it? Somebody ran into him in Buenos Aires, and he was a clerk in a sporting goods store.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:02:50] I went down in Buenos Aires several times, but I don’t remember Helmut… Eduardo…

 

Bruce Berger [01:02:55] Well, somebody who went down there, who knew him from this period, ran into him, and then sat next to his wife on the plane or something and said that she was quite grotesque. I don’t remember the details, but it sounded like he…

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:03:12] Now what relation are you to Ellen?

 

Bruce Berger [01:03:13] Pardon? I’m a half-brother.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:03:15] A half-brother.

 

Bruce Berger [01:03:16] Yes. We have the same father and different mothers.

 

Elizabeth Paepcke [01:03:20] I see.