Interview with Walter Chapin, Part 5

Here is part five of five of my interview with Walter Chapin, director of the Oriana Consort.

Interview with Walter Chapin, 1/30/09, Café Algiers in Harvard Square, Cambridge, 2:00 pm

(continued from Part 4)

The very last part of the interview! Here are Walter's answers to the little questionnaire I stole from Bernard Pivot.

1. What is your favorite word? Beauty.
2. What is your least favorite word? Schlock.
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Unpredictable; an unpredictable moment of beauty in the arts, or nature, or another person, maybe a child; however beauty comes to you.
4. What turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Insincerity, posturing, people who don’t know where they’re headed.
5. What sound or noise do you love? Rushing water.
6. What sound or noise do you hate? Burglar alarms.
7. What is your favorite curse word? God damn it.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Architecture.
9. What profession would you not like to do? Medicine, much as I respect it. I have unbounded respect for medicine, but I would never want to be a doctor.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
    

I would like to hear what Nadia Boulanger told Bernstein she was hearing when Bernstein visited her during her last days or hours.

Bernstein said, "Est-ce que tu entends la musique?"

And she said, "J'entends la musique - ni commencement - ni fin."

The translation: "Are you hearing music?"

"I am hearing music, music with no beginning and no end."