Robert Siegel talks to Ilona Sommer, friend and colleague of the musician known as
Moondog, who died last week. Moondog was born Louis Hardin in Kansas, and blinded as a teenager.
He later moved to New York City and lived on the street, dressed in homemade Viking costumes. He composed more than a thousand pieces of music, mostly classical - although
one of his songs was recorded by Janis Joplin. In 1974 he moved to Germany, and met
Ilona Sommer, who helped him by copying his music and becoming his business manager.
Transcript of broadcast:
Siegel:
Composer Louis Hardin died last week (September 1999) in Munster, Germany, he was 83. Hardin was born in Kansas.
At age 16 a blasting cap went off in his hands, blinding him. At the Iowa school for the blind
he studied music. Later he moved to New York City. There, he wrote poetry and composed music.
He recited and dispensed his writings on a street corner dressed as a Viking, with a home made spear
by his side. He became a fixture on 54th street where he went by the name 'Moondog'.
Moondog's music was tonal, repetitive and straightforward. He said in an interview here
ten years ago that he could only listen to music that was, in his parlance, mistake free.
Hardin:
'I find that the classical composers made so many contrapuntal mistakes, you know, changing
notes and passing notes for the combination of counterpoint, so it's rather painful to hear
these mistakes. The only time I can really relax and enjoy myself is when I hear my own music'
Siegel:
Only listening to your own music?
Hardin:
'That's right because it's freer of these mistakes'
Siegel:
What would be an example of a piece of music marred by contrapuntal mistakes?
Hardin:
'Well, take the first fugue in the Well Tempered Clavichord - Bach makes his first mistake
in the fourth beat of bar two, and within that piece which is only about twenty four bars
long, I've discovered about twenty mistakes. He wrote a lot of music, but he didn't take
the time to go back and eliminate the mistakes. I make many mistakes myself, but I
eliminate them all.'
Siegel:
Ilona Sommer says that Moondog made plenty of exceptions when it came to listening to
the music of other composers. When he died, she says, he was listening to Camille Saint
Saens. Sommer's family took Louis Hardin in twenty five years ago. He lived with them in
Germany. He still had concerts of his compositions in Europe. She calls his music
'conservative'.
Sommer:
'Nobody else, I think, is as conservative as he is, following those real old rules so
strictly, and he always was saying that he believed very much in the art of concealing
art, I think is the expression. The subtlety was in the little, tiny complications which
were not necessarily to be heard. You just saw that it was cleverly struck together if
you looked carefully at it.'
Siegel:
He was a 'street person' in New York. Before we spoke of street people we had more
negative terms for people living outdoors in those days. Did the experience of living
out on the street in New York leave him scarred?
Sommer:
'I don't think so, I don't think so. I think he really lived in his own world and just
was busy with his art. He never complained, for example. Never. Only sometimes he said
to me when there was a storm outdoors ... then he said 'Oh it's great to be indoors
isn't it?''
Siegel:
..and life in Germany - did he adapt well?
Sommer:
'Completely, he had here his work, he was busy, he had friends ....
Siegel:
..and he didn't wear a Viking suit any more?
Sommer:
'No, (laughs) that was partly my influence, but I think he was finally convinced, also,
that that was not so practical any more.
Copyright © 1999 KNPR
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