On December 11, 1962, the day after his 65th birthday, composer and pianist Henry Cowell sat down with WQXR's music director Abram Chasins. The day also marked Cowell's 50th year as a composer and pianist. Unfortunately, a number of the musical selections have been removed from the original interview tape.

The old friends discuss Cowell's earliest work and innovations such as the tone cluster, a musical chord comprising at least three adjacent tones in a scale, and how he came to write and play them. They quickly move on to their first meeting during the Christmas to New Year's break 1929-1930 in Havana, Cuba. There, they were juxtaposed as examples of classical and contemporary composition and performance. Cowell then explains in detail his orchestral work and 15th symphony, Thesis, as well as his world travels. This includes his 1929 concerts in the Soviet Union as the first American composer invited there and his later trip to Tehran to advise the Iranian radio service. Chasins brings up Cowell's presidency of the New Composers Alliance and his founding of the magazine of new compositions, New Music Quarterly. Cowell had especially wanted a venue for scores by composers who were unlikely to get exposure of their work in the mainstream. They conclude with a brief discussion of Cowell's Music 1957.

WNYC archives id: 73472