All language subtitles for Antonia_ A Portrait of the Woman (2022 Restoration) (1080p_24fps_H264-128kbit_AAC).inglés

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a after b

yes i want to be sure that the streets

are very very soft here let's try it at

b boston

b

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clarinets and bassoon also

diminish it diminish those quarters

diminish the quarters please

once more boston and also when you have

an accent

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it doesn't stay forty

boston

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soft and softer

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thank

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yeah i want to practice this

this particular thing

one footed up the body

uh-huh

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yeah yeah yeah that's an eight

little nicer warmer tone if you can huh

one

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i was born in holland in rotterdam

i hope that i'm in holland and i lived

there until i was five

with foster parents after two years of

age

and then i was brought to california

and

my musical life well my musical life

i suppose it began

when i was 10 years old from simple

reason that i used to bite my nails

and the doctor said to my stepmother i

think if you let her play the piano

she'll stop biting her nails

and on such slim beginnings

i

became a musician i was crazy about the

piano right from the start and my first

teacher was a girl across the street who

was 12 years of age

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the first thing i remember anybody

saying about me was that oh she could

play in the dark she could play in the

dark without a light

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and

i always thought i was extremely clever

to put my foot down on the pedal and

just

manufacture all these great big ones and

and play lots of mistakes but i got the

general gist of it and i felt that it

was great

but of course it was with lots of pep

and lots of temperament lots of

expression and just terrible as far as

technique was concerned but i was very

very small my age and so i was

considered wonderful

and then

my stepmother was one who went around to

different

sciences and religions and so forth

so since i was

the only child well

foster child i had to go to

and so then we went to these

spiritualistic meetings

and they had messages from

yonder you know

and uh

the advantage to me was that the mediums

would go into trance and then say that

list was standing in back of me

oh and then at another time they'd say

beethoven was standing in back of me

and that's where my great passion for

beethoven started i think

and of course i enjoyed this

tremendously because

they told me i was going to be a great

musician and that liszt had said i would

be a great musician

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me

my

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i was so glad to play for these uh

these spiritualistic meetings because

then women would come and hold me in

their arms

that's the only way i got any affection

and and then i would sort of dream about

having an automobile accident in front

of somebody's house just so they picked

me up and the affection

those were the

beginnings and then of course the music

is one reason why it's everything in my

life because

the music was the thing that saved my

reason my sanity

and and i used to cry and stroke the

piano

and say that at least doesn't hurt

little children

and then i swore that when i grew up i

was going to be nice to little children

because i

i didn't have a very happy childhood

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oh yes then a very important part in my

conducting preparation was that we used

to go to band concerts sunday afternoon

lakeside park

and

professor paul steindorf you're sitting

right by his picture

not here there

he was the conductor of the band

concerts and again i thought

what a wine magic wand could do a stick

little stick

and i'm got tremendous crush on him

but when i talked to him about wanting

to be a conductor he said

oh that's not possible you'll never

never have an opportunity that's not

possible

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there's a bunch of the orchestras

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thank you

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one what

is this

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for the best

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we got interrupted because of the gates

of kiev

yes

and now we have graduated from college

in germany and i cried my eyes out

because i didn't want to leave it and

these pressions you know they could not

everybody's always tickled to death to

get out of school and i always cried

when i had to leave school this happened

california or whether it was in germany

and then i had

my american debut i mean my

berlin debut of the big orchestra the

new york

i'm still good

the berlin philharmonic

on january the 10th

1930. i conducted the berlin for them on

it

what was the program the program was the

dvorak

symphony and d minor which i'm about to

conduct here in denver

soon

and the soloist

was a singer

supposed to be a singer singing a big

aria beethoven

but

she did something very strange i don't

know if you want to hear about that

but was it how strange well it was

strange in this way she was crazy to be

a great singer but she

studied and lived in

in italy and she had a lover in italy

and this took place in january yeah and

without telling me she sneaked off to

milano to have to continue her love life

with her

gentleman friend

in milano

and they

shall we say were so energetic about it

that she came back and lost her voice

that happens not to be very good for the

voice in case you don't know that

especially when you're singing a

beethoven area

and i was so mad at her and i so mad at

her and she said you don't know anything

about love she says all you care about

is your music

and and and i said well i i only know

this that when i have a commitment i try

to fulfill it

and so three days before my

world debut of a great big concert an

orchestra with all the critics coming

from all over berlin from germany to dam

because they were so suspicious that i

can do anything

and and from new york and everywhere

i had to have a different soloist three

days before the concert

and so i had a pianist who was in our

school and she played the schumann

concerto which

which um this girl played last night

and and so then

the point was instead of damning the

critics gave such high praise such

tremendous praise

and ap

united states ap

centered around the united states and

and in those days they had rotographer

in new york and it came in the new york

times wrote for a picture of my

conducting the orchestra

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so i lived in the basement of someone

funny little i i paid i think ten

dollars a week

and uh

one day the phone rang

antonia this is mrs prince yes mrs

prince and tony i want to ask you

something

i could get a concert for you

at the metropolitan opera house

but it's going to cost me a thousand

dollars because mrs downs says she's not

about to have someone conduct who's not

known in new york and she said it would

cost her a thousand dollars to put on

somebody not known she said i'm willing

to pay 500. do you think you have enough

friends who could raise the other 500 i

said why of course privately i had no

idea

and of course she could have painted the

whole thing like that but she wanted to

see what i was made of see i said of

course mrs prince and i went crazy with

excitement you see

and so i called up my friend mrs john

jay white in greenwich connecticut her

husband's a stock broker and she was a

very good friend of mine

and i said mrs white mrs white i can

conduct in new york help me help me we

have to fill the second-tier boxes

that's 500 worth and i told her all the

story and she said oh antonia i don't

know what to do i said help me help me

so she got a committee of her best

friends together and you know how they

do in those little society

groups she's called up she said now i

want a box party antonio brico is going

to have

a metropolitan and wouldn't it be fun to

have a supper party and then engage a

box at the metropolitan and the whole

second tier box she got sold to her

grits

and every week that she gets some money

i'd go to see mrs prince with a twinkle

in her eye and i'd say here's some money

toward my how are you doing on your half

are you selling a difference are you

able to sell jesus

you know and i got the whole 500

and i said did you ever get your 500

together and she says yes i managed

and then she said now you have to have a

dress made for this concert so she had

to tailor it and i had to have fittings

and everything she got so steamed up

about this i was her protege for the

year and all of her friends knew mrs

sydney prince had some had a protein

and mrs down said nobody will be

interested in that having a woman

conductor and the minute she announced

it all the press came to my door and

made the front page of the papers and

woman to conduct in the metropolitan and

she just nearly died over the surprise

of all the press and radio and

everything that happened the night of

the concert i always remember she had

her white mink

and she had me in her car with her of

course

and she was much more nervous than i was

i was having a lovely time i was going

to conduct

and so there we were

and this was the most screaming

ovation and success that mrs down said

you may have a second concert without

any money pain in advance and so we had

the second concert and then mrs dowd

said you may have a third concert and i

don't know if you're so disgustingly

young but you don't remember the name of

john charles thomas he was a famous

baritone and he happened to be the solos

for the third concert that mrs downes

wanted me to conduct and he said no

i am not going to sing under a woman

conductor and mrs down said why with all

this fabulous press he said that's the

point then the p that will take all the

attention away from me

so he denied me that third concept of

the metropolitan

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today

yes

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me

come on

she's

uh

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how would it feel to you if you had in

the whole year four performances

would you like that

all right i have four i have five

performances a year

i'm strong enough to have five

performances a month

i'm essentially a creative artist

and i teach most of the time and i would

like to conduct more than five

performance i'm squeezed

i'm frustrated because i conduct four

five concerts a year sometimes six and

i'd like to conduct five concerts a

month i cannot play my instrument which

is the orchestra i get an opportunity

like last sunday i was extraordinary

happy and that's one that's like giving

a starving person a piece of bread after

days of hunger does that answer your

question i want to conduct professional

orchestras

and i want to conduct in new york i want

to conduct in california all over the

san francisco i want to conduct in

russia yes every single time i hear the

name evgeny svetlana i die inside

because she is a woman in russia

conducting all the time if ginny smith

lon i know enough russian and you do too

that that's a woman's name and it's a

woman conducting everything it isn't

nice and is it that whole time the whole

time yes the whole time

of course you're just i'm just talking

to you now

about it i don't talk about it every day

i don't let everybody know my heart

break

the people closest to me don't

understand

it's a perpetual heartbreak

for symphony you know what they said

about the in the denver symphony ones do

you know that there's a cup club here

called the cactus club

the male club one is a very very

fashionable male club

and the people said how can we have a

woman conducted with cliff can invite

her to the cactus

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and i hate to tell you but the people

who prevented me the most from

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first

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too loud

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i don't know anymore

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in italy they said to me that uh

again a woman

again a woman there was pressure to bear

from certain sides though so that i

conducted in general and she said i'll

tell you that the they're going to the

audience that's going to throw rotten

tomatoes and rock legs at you and i said

no they won't

and so when the concert came

there they were just

they were in the trees it was so packed

and jammed and the concept master was an

all-male orchestra and the concert

master said in first class italian

because i speak italian he said after

the at the intermission of the rehearsal

he said

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i beg your pardon for my thoughts before

the reference

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rest but not on the pedal hand off but

not the foot off

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barbara we need four violas instead of

two otherwise it's one stand on one and

then only a single one

oh yeah well we have them

yeah that's right

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yeah i know it i know it i just felt

that it was getting

i know it i know it i'm not used to what

she's doing in those triplets yet

uh try it try it try and try it

do it hey

just to let it get a little bit faster

try it's because i was con confused

about you see i'm looking at one thing

you're doing all right

one day i happened to make a remark

because some some musicians wanted to

play some ensemble with me i mean about

nine girls they wanted me to conduct

them in some little ensemble and i made

this remark

the remark of all remarks

that if nine girls could play together

why not 19.

and so i got a couple of key women

together and i said how many women

musicians are there in new york they're

stacks of them but they don't get any

chances to play in orchestras

and so i said well we're just going to

see about that so then i got the the

times and the

herald tribune together and i said i'm

going to form a women's symphony

and we're going to announce it and we'll

see what happens will they crawl out of

all the

highways and the byways and corners and

dusted off their instruments and they

said you'll never get enough instruments

but i did

the whole full compliment 100 orchestra

we had our first concert in town hall

and it was a gracious one just to

interest people and to get press

but anyway it made a great success a

great cessation and the new york women

simply was in business for several years

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so

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so

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then finally i said that's fine however

however

i want people to mix in orchestras as

they do in life men and women mixed in

light and they should mix in orchestras

whereupon i change the women's symphony

to a mixed orchestra

i said i wanted it that way i have

proven my point that women can play in

every category of the orchestra and i

want mixed artists and then they said

that was no sensation anymore the board

of directors wasn't so interested

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but there was a period between 1942

and 1948 where i wasn't conducting very

much and i was in despair because i

don't care how gifted you are as a

violinist if you never practice you lose

and i knew that here i was stuck

absolutely suck

and then with one of these

archer rubenstein

i i visited him once in hollywood

he was very nice to me and i said mr

rubenstein can't you help me you know

everybody can't you recommend me he says

my dear i'd be glad to recommend you but

i've never heard you conduct how can i

recommend you i said if i conducted

somewhere would you come

if if i got myself conducting somewhere

where you are would you come by but of

course facebook but of course

and so in my range of mind i concocted

something i went to new york

and i happened to know

uh because i conducted new carnegie hall

with a women's symphony i knew of people

and i talked to some of the musicians at

the philharmonic and i said to one of

them in particular

would you be my contractor if i

conducted a rehearsal

in carnegie hall for the sheer purpose

of arthur rubinstein hearing me conduct

of course you will he said

and so we got the date settled i had

found out through the agents when

rubenstein was in town

so i engaged i had the contract and gave

65 extraneous musicians not belonging to

any or 65 musicians thousands of them in

new york i wrote mr rubinstein a letter

and said

then and then and then see and he called

up hazel oberfeld he said

she's gone to all this trouble well i

can't guarantee anything i can't promise

any engagement she said you promise

you're going to hear her you do it

well of course i hear but i can't

promise you goes to all that spent i

can't promise it cost me several hundred

dollars because i paid for the musicians

my trip back and forth and so forth see

so come

friday afternoon see thursday night

rubenstein was playing a concert in

philadelphia

and i was so scared he wouldn't come i

thought i better go be sure he's going

to be there

and so i went and the sold out couldn't

get in well don't ask how i got in i got

in i sneaked in

and i went backstage and i didn't say

anything loads of people correctly and i

stood in front of him like this

and he said antonio brico what are you

doing here when you have to conduct

tomorrow afternoon and i have to be

there i said that's all i wanted to know

but he said i can't stand that

responsibility just me alone i can't

have that he said you must ask someone

else bruno walter is in town why don't

you ask him too oh i said he won't come

he said certainly he'll come

and you ask somebody i don't want to be

the only one so i asked toyoski who was

mike right they have a teacher i call

that bruno valkyr as luck would have if

he was in town

he said of course i'll come then i

forget his name but there was a hugo

slav man who was married

to

borden's milk

of course that's million dollar concern

and he was married to the heiress of

borden's milf and i can't think of this

day like that

and i conducted which i saw and conduct

all the time to something important

because it did so much for me i

conducted the brahms second symphony

and i rehearsed it because the

brunovather said there's no point in it

if you don't rehearse i see how you

rehearse see of course in germany spoke

to me and so i rehearsed judy listen to

this one part will you please

well we have

one that's a bruno vaulter

gave and this tremendous recommendation

and then i sent these recommendations to

sibelius of of bruno bowser and of

rubenstein he got in touch with the

helsinki philharmonic something he told

me he never did because if he ever

started recommending people they'd all

want him to

and the

helsinki philharmonic wired me and said

that because sibelius asked me

um

would i accept a couple of engagements

in finland would i accept in finland

and so then that next winter of 46 the

big winter i conducted in finland in

yugoslavia in london

and in the thing that meant practically

the most in all the world to me my

native land in holland

and two and three and four huh i think

it looks like it

viola you know what that is huh

barbara you know that huh

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all right one two three

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gender accent

all right once more the cut

one two three

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um

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and the more inspiration

there was in the concert

the harder the fall that's normal

that's normal anytime you had any

emotional experience

the aftermath aftermath is always

difficult i find

i know i conducted the very requiem in

carnegie hall

the first time i ever conducted it

i had just one performance oh my word

i'll never forget that i was so

in a state of collapse and there was a

big party given for me

and

i went with and

i uh

was such a daze after the performance

complete days

and there were friends and crying and

there were friends who said the kindest

thing you can do is to take her home

and then a very good friend of mine

stayed all night with me

and i did nothing but cry all night i

wouldn't stay in my room i stayed

i've stayed in the hotel

because it was just like having given

birth to a baby and then they took it

away from you i mean if you're a

violinist and you play a concert you can

uh you can play and play and play it for

yourself but an orchestra requires such

an enormous amount of

money and people

and that's why it's such a fascinating

affair probably

because it slips through your fingers it

isn't anything that you can hold you

can't see it you can't touch it

you can't do anything but just that one

split second and and

as i said the piano you can play and

play in the private of your privacy of

your domain but conducting is a public

affair from the word go you have to have

people

to conduct and

and

people to listen

no i don't think it's the power

i don't think that's it i think it's the

feeling

of a painter with a palette and you

take one color and do this to another

color and do that it's a fluid

proposition

it doesn't stay stagnant

and

there's density to it i feel that

there's

that that's three-dimensional that when

you really dig into interpretation it's

just

it's just uh

now it just speaks to a person in a

certain manner

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as i say you either ride very high and

afterwards you drop very low i have a

habit of living in the present

and i i don't want to think of what's

coming or what was past i just

enjoy so tremendously some people say oh

well in three days it's over or i hate

to think of it i just completely put a

block

in in the past or the future so that the

first time i

was with albert schweitzer for a number

of days i think it was five days

and then he suddenly i just didn't know

where i was going and i didn't know

where i came from i lived so intensely

in that

in that

moment

and uh

and then he came to me says oh i guess

this means goodbye

and i just i just went out of pieces

a terrible time

but that's the way it is

what was it like being with him

to divine for words this is hard to

explain to people they hadn't seen his

eyes since they hadn't seen his eyes

because he was such a

sensational person he was so humble

looking and he wore old sloppy hats and

all of that but when he

looked in your eyes

that's about all you needed to turn you

inside out

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i thought i knew something about bach

until i studied with albert schweitzer

then i realized that there was so much

to learn

we always

had our duties and then while he would

be talking to somebody about tropical

medicine and somebody else about

building the leper

hospital and he'd say to me now in this

particular phrase you do thus and so

and then he would talk to me for hours

at a time at night next to his little

piano with organ pedals and he would sit

there and and

explain everything like that to me and i

played for him

and he

well he talked everything but it isn't

just music i learned from him philosophy

life and so many things impossible to

describe in a few minutes what it meant

to be with a man like that for 15 years

if you wanted something and you got the

first step

the subsequent steps would come and if

you were not meant to do it you wouldn't

even get the first

to the first step

and then if the second step fell into

place and i was even more convinced and

then the next step and so forth

and

i was the first time that

one of my favorite teachers in high

school took me to a symphony concert she

took me to my first symphony concert and

i just did it did it it just

crystallized everything and i was so

absolute beside myself over there

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he was my one of my great piano teachers

and he uh he said it's perfectly

ridiculous

in fact paul steiner said it was

ridiculous he said it was only because

you love me that you want to do this i

said no it isn't

i said i want to

it's not that whether i had the stuff or

not he said that those days he said

women can

be conductors

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i said i said i'd never forgive myself

if i didn't try

but i'd rather die trying

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yes

my soul was there but he was also my

soul was here

when i first came to denver to live he

played that off my arm

and then i just got out of a very thick

bed the only thing was that was the year

when they started sulfur they hadn't had

penicillin yet but they started to have

sulfur and it made me diff

and i couldn't hear i couldn't hear

the high tones

and there was one part

who just jerked me into the time because

it was a precarious situation

was he upset

no he knew i was sick

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mostly russians

asked nancy richter

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cleaner

plainer pianist

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um

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when i was studying piano it was just

when many many great pianists were

rather the end of their lives

polaresci and bauer

and gabriellovic

and joseph huffman

and rahmaninov

and

uh toscanini's son-in-law

one of the younger ones at that time

horowitz

i'll tell you a first-class conductor

who was

and he's pretty old now that was sir

adrian bolt

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i knew him very well in fact he was the

one who

pushed through that i conducted

the london philharmonic he has technique

he has better

he's very great

i met

stravinsky and

i saw but i didn't meet him

ramanell

and of course the baby is

the greatest did sibelius ever hear you

conduct his music

yes

i have wonderful letters from him to

that extent

yes he did

it was he who arranged for me to conduct

in finland as much as i

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did you mean stakovsky

oh no he's the first class to do he was

a first class conductor

now he had marvelous technique

no he was a first class conductor i

didn't agree with all of his

interpretations of the classics

but you hear the music from him and

no he had first class

technique he was

oh monte

there was another

and answer me

you know answer me the swiss

les they're all gone now

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clampers

so

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so

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so

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um

you didn't with onions where are my

scissors here yeah this is the same ones

same ones

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no no you have to

you have to relax

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ah

there it is

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you know my love for you

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foreign

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i'm not so sure i want that in public

ideas

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you