In February of 1983, with Bob Bernhardt conducting, the Louisville Orchestra premiered Claude Baker's The Glass Bead Game. Commissioned by the orchestra, and recorded as part of the First Edition series of albums, Baker's work was inspired by the German Hermann Hesse's Das Glasperlenspiel: the author's final novel, rejected for publication in Berlin in 1942, and leading to the writer being blacklisted by the Nazis in 1943.
In this conversation, Baker talks about finding inspiration in literature and revisiting the piece with the orchestra that premiered it.
The Louisville Orchestra performs The Glass Bead Game on Saturday, October 4th in Whitney Hall with Robert Spano conducting. Both Baker and composer Christopher Theofanidis will be my guests for the Concert Talk. That starts at 6:15pm on stage at Whitney Hall.
