After 40 years, principal harpist Ann Hobson Pilot officially retired from the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the end of this summer's Tanglewood season. But she has probably her highest-profile nights with the BSO still to come. Tonight the orchestra conducted opens its season under the baton of James Levine with a program that includes the premiere of John Williams' "On Willows and Birches," a piece in two movements written especially for Pilot. She'll repeat the performance when the BSO opens the Carnegie Hall season on Oct. 1. And on Oct. 3, she'll play it again at Symphony Hall as they orchestra offers a harp-centric program in her honor, also featuring works by Debussy and (with Levine, no surprise) Elliott Carter.
"I loved 'Birches' immediately. I loved the rhythmic pulse of it, it's kind of fun and flashy and dancelike," Pilot said. "'Willows,' the first piece, I had to warm up to it a bit, but now I love that one also. It's more impressionistic, a lot of glissandos, but it's very beautiful."
"I have played concertos with the orchestra before... but there never has been a program like the Oct. 3 one, where I play so much. The entire second half is devoted to me, that's what's different and challenging for me," Pilot said. "The Carter is difficult in its own way but it goes in spurts. I play a flurry of difficult rhythms and notes and pedals and all, and then there are pages where I don't play, whereas the John Williams piece I am playing almost throughout. That presents other issues, like endurance."
BSO photo of Levine and Pilot by Michael J. Lutch
But she said the physical demands of the harp have nothing to do with the decision to retire. "It's strictly that time of my life. I don't have any physical issues...I felt that 40 years was long enough. My husband, I might also add, has been trying to get me to retire for years, because he's already retired," she said with a laugh. "The most important thing to me was to retire while I was still playing well and not wait until my playing deteriorated so that everybody would be happy that I left."
Pilot, 65, grew up in Philadelphia and came to the BSO from the National Symphony in 1969 at the behest of Arthur Fiedler. (She started as second harp and became principal in 1980.) When she arrived, she was not the first African-American to play with the orchestra, but she was the only one at the time. And there weren't many women, either. Which was the bigger issue?
"Certainly it was more being African American than being a woman. When I joined the BSO, there were four women and zero African Americans, and it was the same thing when I joined the National Symphony," she said. "The issue was that more than the woman issue. But I feel like I was treated fairly in Washington and I certainly have been treated well and fairly here in Boston. There have been incidents with individuals, but the organization as a whole has been very good to me. ... I just came in and did my job for 40 years and went home and had a life outside of this."
No one felt she didn't belong on the stage, she told me, or "if they did they kept it to themselves. ... I was always treated well and never got a sense from anybody that they thought I didn't belong. I think it's because I always tried to make sure my playing was up to snuff and carried myself in a certain way, so that would not be challenged at all."
Asked for a musical highlight of her 40 years, she named Ozawa-era memories. "I have loved some of the tours that the BSO has gone on, especially the tours with Seiji back when we were going to Japan and Hong Kong and Vienna. Some of the Mahler symphonies we did in the Vienna hall were just memorable experiences."
For her own playing, she names the "wonderful, very flashy" concerto for harp by Alberto Ginastera, which she has played several times with the BSO.
"The funny thing is, I know that Jimmy Levine loves to work. The more work, the more he considers it having fun. That's why some of his concerts are so long. And when we were planning (the Oct. 3 concert), he said, 'Why don't you play the John Williams?' 'Why don't you put the Elliott Carter on there?' Ok. And he said, 'How about the Debussy?' And I said, 'Mmm, well, ok, fine.' And then he actually said, 'We could also do the Ginastera concerto.' And I said, 'I don't think so.' That piece is 24 minutes long, which meant the entire program would be me. I had to draw the line there."
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