Oral History Program Dr. Clair W. Johnson Interviewed by Allen Betz 4 September 1974 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Dr. Clair W. Johnson Interviewed by Allen Betz 4 September 1974 Copyright © 2025 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Johnson, Clair W., an oral history by, Allen Bentz, 4 September 1974, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Dr. Clair W. Johnson, conducted by Allen Betz on September 4, 1974. In the interview, Dr. Johnson talks about instrumental music in Utah and his experiences with and knowledge of the Utah Symphony. Due to the poor quality of the original audio, only the intelligible parts of the interview are included in this transcript. AB: This is an interview for the oral history library at Weber State College with Dr. Clair W. Johnson at 2:00, Wednesday the 4 of September 1974, at his home in Ogden, Utah. Dr. Johnson, can you tell me anything about your early experiences in life? CJ: Well, what time? AB: Very general, very general. CJ: Like what kind of stuff? AB: Where you were born, when you were born. CJ: I was born in Mapleton, Utah in 1902, 5 of May. My father and mother were both school teachers. I suppose that had a lot of influence on my choices, to have two of them in my life. My father was a good musician, he was a supervisor of music out at Price, and then they moved to Springville, Utah finally, and then he became art supervisor [at Springville High School, now Springville Museum of Art] and I guess for 25 years he was art supervisor there. He almost singlehandedly built that art exhibit and gallery into what it has become now, a national sign of the arts. So, I went off to school at Price, then at Springville, I graduated from Springville High School and got most of my early musical training at BYU. After that, I went to the Northwestern University in Chicago and the Julliard 1 School of Music and Art in New York. I studied at the U of U before that; I had taken some summer classes. Then I went to the University of Southern California, then completed my graduate work and received my PhD there. [Unintelligible for 22 seconds] AB: Do you remember anything in particular about music in Utah or in the area of Ogden and Salt Lake in the earlier part of your life? CJ: Yes, I think the outstanding event of my musical life was when the great artists came through and played in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Great names like Paderewski and Caruso. Different bands always came through on tour, and there were opera companies and other celebrities, and they sort of set the standard of what music could do in our lifetime. Music at that time in Utah was very provincial. We were sort of a backwoods state at that time. So, it was only these great outside events that came though that really gave the face of what music could be. Of course, we had phonograph records in our home and we always had the [unintelligible] performances off the phonograph records, but you could compare high school bands and orchestras and what was played out of [unintelligible] and junior high. Folks [unintelligible] not off today. Motivations were small. [Unintelligible for eight seconds] until the [unintelligible]. Then we have, I’d say, great organizations in many of the high schools in Utah. But in my day, largely that wasn’t the case. [Unintelligible] So, there’s been a tremendous growth in the field of instrumental music right there in my own time, and that’s been an interesting thing to watch. [To watch how] music has progressed, and 2 also the instrumental fine artists [unintelligible] in the schools of Utah in the past century [unintelligible]. Of course I pray to God that education will be useful and we’ll have music in the state and in the west, for development all over the United States, not only in Utah. But Utah has [advanced] in many ways, and if I understand, development taking place here is taking place throughout the nation. Just a tremendous growth of music in the schools and in the community. It’s given us the necessary [unintelligible] symphony [unintelligible], opera company, ballet. It never existed in that form, not in Utah. Everything had to be [unintelligible], but now [unintelligible]. Music does that. AB: Are there any particular organizations, such as high school organizations or college musical organizations from a long time ago that you remember or that you feel were significant? CJ: Well, not from a long time ago. What do you mean by a long time? 50 years? AB: At any time before the Utah Symphony. CJ: Well, we did have some outstanding organizations. Some of the big high schools, like East High in Salt Lake, West High in Salt Lake, and some of those that have had a good cultural background and musical traditions that had been built up by extensive years under good teachers. They were all ready [to] develop larger [unintelligible] and better [unintelligible] in the high schools. Understandably, you have good private teachers for people to be individually trained much more than in the rural community. There you found, I’d say, outstanding development at a lot of the high schools. 3 AB: Are there any specific teachers in this area that you remember from that period of time? CJ: Well, a man from Lehi had a fine high school band taking some top brackets in the music contents that he had. And Art [last name unintelligible], he’s been gone many years now, but he was able to raise the standards of music in Lehi. Also Kenneth Wilmington, West High. [Unintelligible for 12 seconds] Then we have Carbon High and D.M. Williams that came to the top too. They’d been back to the Midwest and heard some of the better bands there in the high schools and came back to Utah and decided they could do the same thing. Ed Lindon was also on my first retreat at Springville, developed the famous Carbon High band that went almost all over the nation. [First name unintelligible] Monson [unintelligible], he developed a fine program out at Price, down at East and West High in Salt Lake. I think those are probably the outstanding ones that I remember from those years. They’d teach a higher level of musicians than I had ever heard before. AB: Were there any professional orchestras in the area before the Utah Symphony? CJ: Well, not professionally. I mean, people who made their living entirely [unintelligible]. It was against amateurs and [unintelligible] professionally, [unintelligible] most of a living in the activity. There were some, but they were theater orchestras, they did the theater sounds or soundtracks. Every major theater in Utah had a good orchestra. Maybe it was only eight or 10 people, but they were top musicians. They prepared all the musical scores and background music for every movie that’s made in Utah for many years. [They were] some of our finest musicians for [unintelligible] situation. 4 They were well playing musicians. I remember many of them. At about the end of that period, I played in some of those orchestras, and I know what fine musicians they were. They changed shows about once a week, or maybe [more often], but they had to develop and prepare a whole repertoire of that [kind] of music that everyone knew that was part of the town. That made encouragement to a lot of young men and women to go ahead and prepare themselves for these jobs. Back then, of course, we had dance halls too. These dance halls [unintelligible], or you could [find] a job [with] some of the better orchestras right there [unintelligible]. So, there are very fine bandstands. They’re nothing like the bandstands of today; they were more like Paul [unintelligible] era. I played in the Saltair orchestra [unintelligible] on the trombone, so I got a lot [unintelligible] for the dance program. Then before that, most of our public dances, [unintelligible] they were played by thirty- or forty-piece military bands. [Unintelligible] The military band, they [were a] jazz orchestra that came along. We had military bands that played all the big junior proms, all the darn big dances, and they’d do it in the summer. All these big military bands, fine musicians, led by men like Colin Sweaky, James Jefferson, John Held in Salt Lake, Marvin Strong had a band. After that, [unintelligible] jail bail for two years, and they had maybe seven, eight, nine musicians. Mark Humble was [unintelligible] production. But that was a long time. [Unintelligible for 13 seconds] AB: Were there any amateur concert orchestras? 5 CJ: Well, I think only in connection to the schools. I don’t remember any amateur concert orchestras. There were bandstands, we used to play bandstands, but I don’t recall any amateur orchestras. AB: Did the Utah Symphony exist at all before Maurice Abravanel? CJ: I think the Utah Symphony had its beginnings with a WPA officer, with the Works Progress Administration. They were helping unemployed musicians, helping the unemployed situation during the Depression. Plenty of these other programs [unintelligible]. But I don’t know, let’s see now, [unintelligible] Reginald Beales. He was a good violinist in Salt Lake, and I think he was the first director of the WPA orchestra. They called [unintelligible] working [unintelligible]. It became, after a few years, the beginning of the Symphony, and it was continuous from the time of Beales right on down till today. I never played in it. I had nothing to do with it at the time of Beales. They got [unintelligible]. They didn’t have enough work actually or enough concerts to do employment [unintelligible], and as much employment on a regular basis here in the Symphony [unintelligible] today. [Unintelligible] the employment [unintelligible] most of them have to have a solid impact. But it was not continuous, and we had men like Hans Henriot, who I think he was from Germany, a fine musician and conductor. That’s about the time that I became [unintelligible]. I played in it two seasons, but I think Henriot was in charge maybe both seasons, but we did have guest conductors. You know, we had men like, let’s see, [unintelligible] conductor. I’ll think of his name in a minute. 6 Anyway, that [unintelligible] didn’t [unintelligible] so he brought in the worldfamous conductor here and gave it all [unintelligible] to the musicians. [Unintelligible] steady growth from the time of its first conception, from the WPA group until [unintelligible] Abravanel came in and took it over. You’ve got a good, sound person now. [Unintelligible] maybe not great artists or great musicians when they began, but they developed and they progressed. I think that people don’t think about him when they go to those concerts. People [unintelligible] about him, you know, right from the very beginning. I knew that [was] a great tribute to him, because of his position in leadership. He could hold those people together and make them the best. Now most [unintelligible] he did a fine symphony in case [unintelligible] any of the [unintelligible] incredible job. There are others who deserve much credit, [others who] Abravanel [was] kind of standing on. [Unintelligible] Robert Stevens I’m sure got promoted, and the University of Utah, they [unintelligible] employment, provide employment to many of the musicians who were connected with the Symphony and make the [unintelligible] start at home base [unintelligible] years [unintelligible for 15 seconds] University of Utah did. AB: In what types of places did the Utah Symphony play before Abravanel came? CJ: Well, [unintelligible] on the U of U campus. I think I played the year before Abravanel came, and then the first year when he came. Over that time, I think they sort of graduated from [name unintelligible] Hall on the U campus and began playing in the Tabernacle. They also played down at [unintelligible] Weber State. Well, Ogden [unintelligible] big band [unintelligible]. But even under Reginald 7 Beales, they [unintelligible]. Under the WPA program there had to be a [unintelligible], and that was one of the [unintelligible] state [unintelligible]. AB: So, then they did play in Ogden and throughout the state quite a long time ago? CJ: [Unintelligible] AB: Where did they play in Ogden? CJ: That would have been over at Ogden High School. That was the only high school I know that [unintelligible] Weber campus. I doubt that they ever played downtown [unintelligible]. AB: Were there any other musical organizations that sponsored touring artists or anything of the sort at this time? CJ: You mean locally? AB: Not necessarily. CJ: Well, there’s been concerts [unintelligible] that brought in the great artists of the world for many years. I don’t want to think about it, but [unintelligible] to the world for many years. [Unintelligible] if anything, developing [unintelligible]. AB: Did the orchestra itself bring in outside artists? CJ: No, not that at that time. That was probably [unintelligible]. AB: During the period of about 1949 and 1950, the Symphony almost went broke. Do you remember anything about this at all? CJ: No, my memory of it is that they were always broke. [Unintelligible] the concert [unintelligible] to pay their members with, benefits and all. Between most of the bigger artists [unintelligible], they play so many weeks of the season, and Utah [unintelligible for eight seconds] labor of love and a [unintelligible] job. One 8 remarkable thing that I thought about too, the Ogden [unintelligible] with us in their symphony, from time to time. [Unintelligible] all their names [unintelligible] Weber College [unintelligible] symphony. AB: Are there any persons that you know that who are members of the Symphony that are remarkable or interesting? CJ: That are what? AB: Remarkable in any way. CJ: Well, I don’t know. [Unintelligible] outstanding in their own way. [Unintelligible] I think they probably would [unintelligible] double bass player [unintelligible for 13 seconds] symphony [unintelligible] first chair [unintelligible] time [unintelligible] we got three [unintelligible] pulled out first chair [unintelligible] went from Weber right into the Symphony and has been a second chair ever since about 1938. That’s a long time. AB: What percentage of the orchestra would you say was locally educated? CJ: Well, maybe they were educated elsewhere and moved here. [Unintelligible] I wouldn’t know about that. Most of them are local residents [unintelligible] most of it here [unintelligible] the Ogden area [unintelligible] the symphony. [Unintelligible] Bonnie Bennett, she went to Weber College. Last I heard [unintelligible] she was down here in both piano and violin and [unintelligible] symphony and had been [unintelligible] for the second violin section [unintelligible] pianist. She is entirely local [unintelligible] many of the other [unintelligible]. I think most of them really came [unintelligible]. They brought in sounds like the bassoon, the [unintelligible] bassoon. [Unintelligible] an outsider [unintelligible]. Most of them [unintelligible]. 9 So, some of them I don’t know [unintelligible] in a high school, where [unintelligible]. I think majority of the first trombone players [unintelligible] years ago. On the second trombone, I’m [unintelligible] I’d say that three fourths of these people were locally trained and [unintelligible] make sure to [unintelligible]. AB: When did Maurice Abravanel first come to Utah? CJ: Well, I don’t know. I can’t [unintelligible]. I’m sure they could give that to you down at the office there [unintelligible]. AB: How did the Symphony first start getting connected with Weber College and the University of Utah? CJ: Well, I don’t know about the University of Utah, but I know at Weber College, ‘cause we were always [unintelligible] interested and worked hard at promoting fine music and [unintelligible] in the community. One of the best days to promote that [unintelligible] was to bring [unintelligible for six seconds] pay the temp fee, 200 dollars, to come to it. [Unintelligible for seven seconds] pay them 200 out of our lecture series [unintelligible] the students and they registered. Each quarter they’d [unintelligible] pay a 50 cent lecturing artist, and then in turn we’d bring the Utah Symphony here, help pay their way, pay them a couple hundred dollars or whatever we could in order to bring these folks and events onto the Weber College campus, also with the hope that we’d make ourselves the cultural center of the community. It hadn’t always been that way. Ogden High has a fine auditorium and there is becoming actually [unintelligible] looking to [unintelligible] to provide the culture for the community. We felt at the college that we should be the ones who 10 should provide culture and bring great events, great master works and artists for our community, so we set out to do that. We had to [unintelligible] Ogden High for many years, but as soon as we got our own fine arts center, well, then we had the problem pretty much solved. That’s when it all began was bringing the Symphony here along with our other opera and [unintelligible] year. Of course, they were glad for the work because I believe the manager [unintelligible] the job at the fine art [unintelligible] so they could pay the [unintelligible] keep the [unintelligible] together. That was the great struggle with getting that to work without any assistance from the state, without any assistance from the government, it’s just something [unintelligible] support themselves. AB: Have you ever known any of the business managers? CJ: [Unintelligible] of them. Gregory has been in there [unintelligible] years. AB: Was there anybody before him? CJ: Yes, but I don’t recall who that might have been. AB: How did the Utah Symphony come into the convocation series at Weber College? CJ: Well, I think mainly through the efforts of Mr. Martino. He took over the lecture and artist series after he became chairman, and he went right on with [unintelligible]. But for a long time we had the idea that we should bring everything that we could during the daytime program, because the students were just now coming out who were paying the [unintelligible] coming out [unintelligible], so they went with the national [unintelligible] for us to bring 11 [unintelligible] the student [unintelligible] to bring ‘em right in during the daytime [unintelligible] the convocation series. AB: How do you feel about the musical repertoire of the Symphony? The older repertoire as opposed to the newer repertoire in relation to the amount of modern music or concert music that they have performed? CJ: Well, I feel that they strike a good balance there between contemporary and what you call older music, but I [unintelligible] contemporary. What’s amazing to me is how those young people can play them. They’re very difficult technically to play, I mean [unintelligible] difficult for any conductor and programming. You can lean too far to one side, classic and pre-classic, too far to the other side to the contemporary field, and you lose songs on both sides. Well, I think what the Symphony has done [unintelligible] keeping with [unintelligible] all over the country [unintelligible] programs. [Unintelligible] plenty of new works and [unintelligible] works at the same time. That’s a good repertoire of [unintelligible] classics so people can [unintelligible]. AB: Have they always done this? CJ: Yes, I think [unintelligible] always done this and done it very well. AB: What about the technical facility of the orchestra? How do you feel this compares with other orchestras? CJ: Well, you can’t compare the Utah Symphony to Philadelphia Symphony, [unintelligible] that’s available in the world, and some of the other [unintelligible] because the Utah Symphony compared to the Philadelphia Symphony [unintelligible] being very kind saying a thing like that [unintelligible]. I think that 12 they’ve done wonders in that Symphony [unintelligible] very difficult technically with their [unintelligible] Philadelphia. AB: What about some of the orchestras in, say, the smaller cities, like Denver possibly, or…? CJ: Well, [unintelligible] I think are comparable with [unintelligible] because similar [unintelligible]. That would be a much better comparison. AB: To what degree do you think the orchestra has improved in the past 25 to 30 years? CJ: Well, it’s hard to measure that. [Unintelligible] I mention it, but I don’t know. I’d say the improvement has been steady. [Unintelligible] nobody would understand if I’d say it was 100 percent better, because that measurement [unintelligible] developed [unintelligible] from the time Abravanel came, as I mentioned before, because some of the [unintelligible] developing from [unintelligible] into [unintelligible] how they developed individually and collectively as a group. I think they’ve done all that they possibly can. AB: What about the size of the group, has that changed any in the past 30 years? CJ: Oh yes, it [unintelligible] symphony capable of playing [unintelligible] symphony [unintelligible] organization. AB: Well, thank you very much, Dr. Johnson. CJ: Thank you. It’s interesting to think about these things. 13