Classic Ross Amico

Tag: White House

Carter’s Love of Music A Final Appreciation

On this national day of mourning, one final appreciation of President Carter’s love of the musical arts. As I’d previously noted, Carter enjoyed a broad array of music from all genres. Reminiscences in the press in recent days remind us of the White House Jazz Festival, the president’s lifelong ties to gospel and country music, and his friendships with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. Many describe him as the Rock ‘n’ Roll President. But Carter seems to have held classical music especially dear, dating back to at least his days at the U.S. Naval Academy. (His roommate was a pianist, and the two pulled their resources to build a considerable collection.) That said, both he and Rosalynn had already been instilled with an appreciation of classical literature, art, and music, which the president attributed, with gratitude, to the efforts of Julia Coleman, a high school teacher in Plains, Georgia.

Of necessity, anybody who wants to get into the White House had best not come across as too high brow on the campaign trail, but once Carter was elected, it was no secret he spent long hours in the company of the longhairs. It’s said that classical music played on a turntable in the Oval Office up to ten hours a day. Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Copland, Schumann. He expressed a particular fondness for the recordings of Andrés Segovia. His taste in opera ranged from “Madama Butterfly” to “Tristan und Isolde.”

Vladimir Horowitz, Rudolf Serkin, Leontyne Price, and the Juilliard String Quartet all performed at the Carter White House. The president collaborated with PBS in the development of broadcasts of some of these recitals. The budget for the National Endowment of the Arts, created as an independent agency of the federal government by an act of Congress and signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, doubled under the Carter presidency.

I’m not saying that Carter loved classical music more than any other, but clearly the genre played an active and important role in his everyday existence.

In 1978, at the opening the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art, he remarked, “We have no ministry of culture in this country, and I hope we never will. We have no official art in this country, and I pray that we never will. No matter how democratic a government may be, no matter how responsive to the wishes of its people, it can never be government’s role to define exactly what is good, or true, or beautiful. Instead, government should limit itself to nourishing the ground in which art and the love of art can grow.”

Carter recognized the civilizing influence of art in a healthy society. He was a living example of the kind of hope, sanity, and appreciation that a belief in greater things can instill.

Rest in peace, Mr. President.

January 9, 2025
Horowitz Plays the White House for Carter & More

In 1978, Jimmy Carter invited Vladimir Horowitz to play at the White House. As noted by Jim Lehrer, this was not for some special state occasion, but rather because of Carter’s genuine appreciation for the pianist, whose records he once scrimped to purchase back when he was a young man serving in the U.S. Navy.

It was not Horowitz’s first appearance at the White House. He was invited for the first time by Herbert Hoover in 1931. In 1986, he returned to play for President Reagan. He also allowed some encores to be broadcast from a Carnegie Hall recital, in honor of FDR’s birthday, in 1942.

I provide two links to the Carter recital below. The second is far and away of better quality, but the first includes the president’s opening remarks, which last a little over two minutes.

Carter had an affection for all kinds of music and strove to celebrate it over the course of his presidency. You can tell he held Horowitz particularly dear.

Watch here for the opening remarks:

The actual performance portion in better quality:

January 5, 2025
Jimmy Carter’s White House Music Scene

Jimmy Carter was a good friend of Willie Nelson. I remember watching an interview once in which he suggested Nelson smoked weed on the roof of the White House. But Carter liked all kinds of music and invited musicians of all stripes to visit, shake hands, receive medals, and perform.

One of these was Leontyne Price, who made several noteworthy appearances at the White House and Camp David. Price, who had received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and opened the Metropolitan Opera House at its current location at New York City’s Lincoln Center in 1966 (with Samuel Barber’s “Antony and Cleopatra”), was enlisted to perform, on March 26, 1979, at the banquet that celebrated the Camp David Accords, before President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel. On October 6, 1979, she was asked to welcome Pope John Paul II on his first papal visit to the White House, singing to an audience of 6,000 on the South Lawn that included the Pope, the president, the nine justices of the Supreme Court, the assembled House and Senate, state governors, and others. “She’s by far the most accomplished singer we ever had,” Carter noted in his diary.

While a great fan of country music, jazz, blues, folk, sacred music, and rock (among others), he understood the broader cultural significance and civilizing influence of classical music. He and Rosalynn both received a sound music education in high school and were instilled with a working knowledge of the classics, the way it used to be. In turn, their daughter Amy was given violin lessons, often with Rosalynn at the piano. During the Carter presidency, classical music played in the Oval Office for eight to ten hours a day.

You can learn more about the President’s varied musical tastes and his interactions with famous musicians here:

https://www.whitehousehistory.org/music-at-jimmy-carters-white-house

PHOTO: The Carters and Price at the White House in 1978

December 30, 2024
Stravinsky’s White House Dinner & JFK Tribute

On this date 60 years ago, Igor Stravinsky went to dinner at the White House. You’ll find an amusing account of the evening here:

https://www.whitehousehistory.org/igor-stravinsky-at-the-white-house

“Despite such criticism – which was entirely typical of Stravinsky’s unfiltered personality – he clearly remembered the visit with fondness and gratitude. In January, 1964 he commemorated John F. Kennedy – who had been assassinated on November 22, 1963 – by composing ‘Elegy for J.F.K.,’ a vocal piece with words by W.H. Auden. ‘I felt that the events of November were being too quickly forgotten,’ the composer told The New York Times, ‘and I wished to protest.’”

Leonard Bernstein was also in attendance at the dinner. Bernstein’s “Fanfare for JFK” was heard for the first time on the eve of Kennedy’s inauguration, also on this date, though one year earlier. It’s only 40 seconds long, so if you blink, you’ll miss it.

In 1978, Bernstein gave the opening speech at the first Kennedy Center Honors, at which the honorees included Marian Anderson, Richard Rodgers, George Balanchine, Fred Astaire, and Arthur Rubinstein:

I’ll spare you the entirety of Bernstein’s “Mass,” commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy for the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971, but here’s the piece’s hit tune, “A Simple Song”

Where are our Bernsteins and Stravinskys – or for that matter our Marian Andersons, Richard Rodgerses, George Balanchines, Fred Astaires, and Arthur Rubinsteins – and provided they can be identified, why are they not honored at the White House, or even on television?

January 19, 2022

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