Great Barrington — The plot sounds like something out of a spy novel or the film “TheRed Violin”: A retired Boston Symphony trombonist comes into possession of a long-forgotten musical score purchased for 50 cents over half a century ago from a streetcorner cut-out bin. It appears to bear the signature of one of the most important French composers of the 19th century, and its chain of custody, spanning well over a century, links together a succession of custodians going back to 1915, its dedicatee (also a trombonist) having joined the Boston Symphony in its first year of operation.
Ronald Barron, principal trombonist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1975 until 2008, will tell the story of this discovery—and the years of research that followed it—in an oral presentation, with musical examples, titled “Saint-Saëns, Stewart and the BSO, A Personal Discovery,” in the Kellogg Center at Simon’s Rock, November 11, at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free.
I spoke with Mr. Barron by telephone this week to get a quick summary of his story. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
What sent you diving down this mysterious rabbit hole?
It all started when my friend Herb gave me an old score of a piece of music I was very familiar with called “Cavatine for trombone and piano” by Camile Saint-Saëns. It’s a little, five-minute piece. I had recorded it back in 1975. It’s very popular among trombonists (only because Saint-Saëns wrote it, really. It’s not a great piece.). Herb had purchased it in 1952, but he really hadn’t used it much, and it had what he thought was Saint-Saëns’ signature at the end of it. It had both the trombone part and the piano part in the same binding, so he wasn’t really able to use it. But he had kept it all these years and wanted to give it to me for safe keeping.
The score was dedicated to George W. Stewart. Herb wasn’t sure who Stewart was, but I found out quickly that George Stewart was an original member of the Boston Symphony. So that connection was intriguing to me.
And the signature proved to be authentic, in actual fact. So then I just had to quickly figure out how Stewart and Saint-Saëns met each other, and why.
And I found out that George Stewart, among other things, being somewhat of a businessman and manager—what we might call an empresario—had left the Boston Symphony after 10 years and had been a very important musical employer. He was music director, not only in St. Louis in 1903 for the World’s Fair, but also in San Francisco in 1915.
And that is when he had invited Saint-Saëns to come to San Francisco and be a guest of honor and compose a piece for the fair and spend time there as the great composer he was recognized to be. And, as a thank-you note, Saint-Saëns wrote this little piece to Stewart. And he sent it back to Stewart when he returned to Paris in August of 1915.
And Herb had come into this score because he bought it at a cut-out bin, on the street, in Boston, in 1952. He paid 50 cents or a dollar for it and then gave it to me. And the confluence of personnel—the little piece, first of all, that I had recorded—and the fact that Stewart and I had both been in the Boston Symphony—it just was all too intriguing for me. And that began my research, which has led to the presentation which I will give on November 11.
It intrigued me, and it ended up making connections in the music business from that period in history, which led directly to people that influenced me and I knew in my professional life. And that was, in the end, quite intriguing.
The presentation will make those connections.
And it trickles down to my trombone teacher in the 1960s, when I went to school in Cincinnati, and it goes through members of the Souza Band and the famous Boston cornettist Walter M. Smith and other people who were Boston Symphony colleagues of mine who knew Walter Smith in the 1930s. I had the occasion to meet Walter’s first-born son that he named after George Stewart: George Stewart Smith. Unfortunately, all the people I’ve been talking about have passed away since I began this project. They were previous generation.
I use musical examples in the presentation, which make it a little bit more interesting than just hearing me talk for an hour.
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Hear a free talk from retired BSO principal trombonist Ron Barron at Simon’s Rock in the Kellogg Center on November 11, at 7:30 p.m.
