WEBVTT
00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:25.000
Maurice Levy: This is Maurice Levy speaking to Mrs. Marjorie Anna Boyd
Robertson for the Oral History of Music in Pittsburgh project. It's August
the 15th, 1991. What was your first contact with music? I'm sure through
your father. Right.
00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:45.000
Margery Anna Boyd Robertson: Oh, through, um, Victrola records. I had my
own little Victrola record when I was 4 or 5. There were no toy type
records. We started right in. One of the first things I remember learning
was Dvoraks American Quartet. Levy: Oh, really? Robertson: And Brahms
Hungarian Dances, numbers 5 and 6.
00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:48.000
Levy: And this is when you were. Robertson: Oh, yes. Levy: Seven, eight.
00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:57.000
Robertson: Oh, even younger than that. Levy: Really. Robertson: And then
when my young sisters came along, um, we just had that little record. That
was the kind that you had to...
00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:03.000
Levy: Sure you wind up, wind up and it had the steel needles, right, and
you had to replace the needles after 4 or 5 plays.
00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:11.000
Robertson: And because I was a little older than my sisters, I was the one
that did the handwork.
00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:13.000
Levy: And are you the oldest? Are you the oldest?
00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:14.000
Robertson: Yes, yes. Im the oldest.
00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:17.000
Levy: Is Eileen the youngest?
00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:18.000
Robertson: Yes. And Eileen is the youngest.
00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:20.000
Levy: And there's about ten years difference between you.
00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:56.000
Robertson: Ten. Exactly. Between the two of us. Um, my parents lost a
little girl. Between me and the sister now living, thats next to me. So
that made the younger ones, uh, seemingly younger. They were usually called
the small ones. But we all learned the music. And I can remember when, um,
my father first brought home the Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto. So we
just had that. And then our parents played the symphony's piano four-hand.
So we. Levy: Really? Robertson: Oh, yes.
00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:17.000
Levy: Your mother. Your mother?
Robertson: Oh, yes. Mother was an accompanist from the age of ten. And so
mother played, uh, for the voice lessons of the man who is the director of
the Mozart Club, JP McCollum.
00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:22.000
Robertson: And, um, she was ten years old at the time.
00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:25.000
Levy: So you grew up with music? Of course.
00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:26.000
Robertson: We grew up with music.
00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:32.000
Levy: Music was around you all the time. Robertson: Always. Levy: And I'm
sure your parents took you to a lot of concerts when you were young.
00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:49.000
Robertson: Well, yes. Uh, when it was, uh, convenient, I think, because,
of course, there were times that we were too small to go, and we were on a
Friday night. It would be visiting orchestras at that time, but there
wasn't a Pittsburgh Symphony.
00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:53.000
Levy: That was between after Victor Herbert and the thing went into hiatus
for a number of years.
00:02:53.000 --> 00:03:17.000
Robertson: That's exactly right. So we had the visiting orchestras. I
remember very much when Yehudi Menuhin played here for the first time, and
my parents came home Friday evening from the concert, very excited there.
Without a doubt, all mother and the four girls were going to the Saturday
matinee and we did. Here is this.
00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:20.000
Levy: How old was he?
00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:35.000
Robertson: I can tell you what he played the Brahms Violin Levy: Concerto.
Robertson: Concerto. Right. And that was Saturday afternoon. By Monday
evening, the piano score of the violin Concerto was on my mother's side.
00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:38.000
Levy: He was he was five years younger than you.
00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:45.000
Robertson: All right then I think he was maybe 9 or 10. And he.
00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:48.000
Levy: Played in short pants.
00:03:48.000 --> 00:04:01.000
Robertson: Oh, yes. Yes, yes. And then I don't know how familiar you are
with names and organizations here in Pittsburgh. Have you ever heard of the
Art Society? No. And May Beagle.
00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:04.000
Levy: May Beagle? Yes.
00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:23.000
Robertson: All right. Um. Well, she was entertaining, uh, I think at
another time for Yehudi, and my parents were invited. But it was a time
when someone of the children was ill. And so I was privileged to go with my
father and shake hands with this young.
00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:26.000
Levy: Oh, that must have been exciting.
00:04:26.000 --> 00:05:03.000
Robertson: Oh, you can believe it was. And I think sometimes, um, during
mother's last illness, we would enjoy music together and I'd say, oh,
mother, this is so familiar. I'm sure you must have been playing this at
some time when I was a child, because I couldn't account for knowing it.
And she'd say, oh, no, I don't think so. But I do know that there would be,
uh, people who had come to practice with mother. And so I think I was
learning things. I didn't realize it.
00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:07.000
Levy: So that was in 19 about 1925.
00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:09.000
Robertson: Did you think he was?
00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:24.000
Levy: Yeah, well, if he was about eight years old.
00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:33.000
Robertson: No, I can't say. One year. Um, the MTNA and the NASM.
00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:37.000
Levy: We have to know what the Music Teachers National Association.
00:05:37.000 --> 00:06:16.000
Robertson: Well, this was before the NASM, which is a National Association
of Schools of Music, was formed. And uh, that winter, well, their, their
conventions were always between Christmas and New Years. And that winter it
was up in Buffalo, New York. Um, the winter of 1915 I think this was. Would
be very easy to find out. But nevertheless, I seem to have a faint memory
of being up there at that time.
00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:20.000
Levy: Right. So you went to other concerts, though?
00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:48.000
Robertson: Yes. Every once in a while there would be an occasion where I
would go either with alone, with my father or alone with mother. Now, there
was always a week of German opera here in Pittsburgh, and sometime I think
it was during, I'm going to say, about 1923. There was a week of Wagner.
The Earharts were neighbors of ours. Are you familiar with the name
Earhart?
00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:51.000
Levy: Yes, Earhart. It, wasn't he the head of the music at the Pittsburgh
Public Schools?
00:06:51.000 --> 00:07:17.000
Robertson: That's right, that's right. Well, they were friends and
neighbors. And so that particular week, the Earhart's babysat for my
parents, and my parents sat babysat for their son. And in that way, both
couples heard most of the operas. And my mother took me to the
Meistersinger.
00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:20.000
Levy: Oh, so was it a week generally of Wagner?
00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:29.000
Robertson: Well, I just know it was a German opera company, and I remember
that because that was the first grand opera I'd ever heard.
00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:33.000
Levy: Right. You recall that.
00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:49.000
Robertson: And I remember that. But recently I read about operas that were
here in Pittsburgh, and there was absolutely no mention of that German
opera company. And but I know and I'm guessing that it was at the old
Nixon. I mean, the original Nixon where the Alcoa building.
00:07:49.000 --> 00:08:22.000
Levy: Where the Alcoa. Robertson: Right. Levy: Oh, so the the Carnegie
Music Hall was not used? Uh oh. It would be the Nixon would have, of
course, the stage, uh, accoutrements for an opera while the Carnegie Music
Hall wasn't. Of course, it was primarily a concert, a concert hall. Uh, so
that's you recall any other any other things like that?
00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:58.000
Robertson: And sometimes I was privileged to attend a concert. With both
parents. And then as I was entering my teen years, I was able to be the
babysitter. So that immediately freed my parents to go to all the Friday
night concerts and. And then very often they would bring home friends that
they'd met, and we'd sit around and they'd sit around and discuss the
concert afterwards. And I always enjoyed that.
00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:09.000
Levy: And of course, you did your mother maybe play some of the things
that she had heard, if she. Because you had an extensive music collection
at home, didn't you?
00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:51.000
Robertson: Well. We had a lot of it, I think was mother's. Now she very
often as a gift my father would give her a volume from the Ditson's. I
think it was called Ditson Musician's Library. And since she had done so
much kind of work for singers. There were the whole volume of the Wolf
songs, the Brahms songs, two volumes I remember of Russian songs. And I
became very much interested in trying to play those. And in that way I
became very much interested in lieder. To this day it's a.
00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:56.000
Levy: Schubert.
Robertson: Schubert, Schubert and Schumann. Yes.
00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:10.000
Levy: It's not as often it performs as it used to be. Robertson: No. Levy:
I guess the last significant one, the, Elly Ameling, came to the Y and she
sang, oh, good bit of lieder.
00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:34.000
Robertson: I know. And now Jessye Norman's coming this October. But I have
no idea what her programme will be, but I wish, I just keep hoping. Well, I
can't go to the concerts now, but I hope that WQED FM records it and then
later on I'll be able to hear what she does because I know she does do
lieder.
00:10:34.000 --> 00:11:05.000
Levy: Yeah. It's. Yes. It's not as it's not as frequently performed as it
should be. It's probably not a high form of the art [?]. Right. Well, let's
you recall anything else from your own personal. Well, I think that'll
probably come out when we start talking about your father. Uh, he was, uh,
uh, when you were born. Uh, he was 37 years old.
00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:16.000
Robertson: That's right. Yes. Now, my father was the son of Presbyterian,
of a Presbyterian minister, and his wife, who was born in a little town up
here in Westmoreland County near Greensburg.
00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:24.000
Levy: I know that town. Pleasant. Unity. Pleasant. Do you really? I have a
friend who was born there.
00:11:24.000 --> 00:12:20.000
Robertson: Well. Um. He was a graduate of what was then Western University
of Pennsylvania, but which is now the University of Pittsburgh. In 1894, at
that time, he was 18 years old, and very often in later years, he would
meet some of his classmates who were grandfathers. And I know one time he
had occasion to be up at the University of Michigan talking to Doctor Sink
and Doctor Moore, who were his good friends up at that institution. And
Doctor Moore happened to say, now, this building was made possible by a
grant from a dear old man of the class of 96. My father said, be careful
there. But talking about these dear old men. I was 94.
00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:30.000
Levy: So that's charming. And he became the organist and choir director of
the North Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church.
00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:44.000
Robertson: That is right. And that was when he was still a junior, I
believe in, in college. Levy: Really. Robertson: Right. Because you see, at
that time, the university was over on Perrysville Avenue.
00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:48.000
Levy: Oh, really?
Robertson: Yes, yes, that's where it was.
00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:54.000
Levy: You're right. There's nothing. And you lived on the. You lived on
the North Side? Robertson: Oh, no. Levy: Where did you live?
00:12:54.000 --> 00:13:19.000
Robertson: Well, we lived, uh, either in Squirrel Hill or in Oakland. We
moved on Lathrop Street, which was a residential area at that time, and it
was exactly a half mile from the school on Bellefield Avenue. And so my
father was within walking distance of the Institute. And of course, they
were within easy walking distance of the Mosque. So it.
00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:40.000
Levy: Was right. The Mosque was at. The Mosque was built uh, 75 years ago.
About. I think they, you know, they're talking about tearing it down. And I
think they use the thing. I don't know the exact figures, but it was
probably built after the turn of the century. Robertson: Oh that's right.
Yes. Levy: You remember going to what concerts did you.
00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:42.000
Robertson: Well, symphonies were always there.
00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:47.000
Levy: The symphonies were were there. But but the opera was in at the
Nixon instead of at the Mosque.
00:13:47.000 --> 00:14:16.000
Robertson: I remember that it was Downtown, because I know I was
disappointed that mother had to take me home before we came to the grand
finale, because they were going to return for the evening opera, you see,
and she had to get home, get dinner and get back again.
00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:20.000
Levy: Well, in Oakland, you had access to a lot of public transportation.
00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:26.000
Robertson: We did. And, uh, right down at the foot of the hill and the
library and museum and.
00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:43.000
Levy: Everything was in walking. So he was there at that church for 38
years. Robertson: 38 years. Levy: What do you recall from his experience at
that church? You recall the things that some of the things he used to talk
about.
00:14:43.000 --> 00:16:26.000
Robertson: Well, of course, um, Sundays he left home about 9:00 and.
Church had its service in the morning. Afterwards he brown bagged it, took
lunch and we if we were with him, we'd all eat together in what was called
the choir room, and we'd have lunch together there. Then he always started
to work on the choir music, or on some. One of his projects might have been
transcriptions or whatever book or whatever he was working on at the time,
and he would work in the choir room until the Sunday Sunday school met, and
that would be about 2:00 in the afternoon, as I recall. Then after the
Sunday school met. Oh, and during the Sunday school he directed an
orchestra. And it was not made up necessarily of people from the church,
because people who were interested in playing on an amateur basis in the
orchestra were members of the orchestra. When Sunday School was over, then
the orchestra rehearsed until 4:30 in the afternoon. Um, he went out, got
it was two street cars cross town and then the Fifth Avenue car to get
home. Mother had dinner already every Sunday at 6:00, and by 7:00 he was
going back down the hill for the evening service at the church. And that
kept up for years. I don't know when the church discontinued the evening
services, but not after he'd been there for close to 30 some years. I
believe.
00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:28.000
Levy: Was it a large. It must have been a very large congregation.
00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:33.000
Robertson: It was a very large congregation, I think mother told me at one
time there were over a thousand.
00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:35.000
Levy: A thousand families.
00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:39.000
Robertson: Or a thousand people in the church. Yes.
00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:43.000
Levy: And, uh, where were what was his musical training?
00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:50.000
Robertson: This I'm not sure about it. I think there was a lot of.
00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:52.000
Robertson: Self teaching. Really.
00:16:52.000 --> 00:17:09.000
Robertson: I do know he when the the father and my grandfather had a
pastorate in Poland, Ohio, and my father would bicycle into Youngstown,
Ohio for organ lessons. Now, that much I'm sure about.
00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:18.000
Levy: So. So your father was, uh. He lived in Ohio. For how long?
00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:21.000
Robertson: It just depended upon where the pastorates were.
00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:27.000
Levy: Well, he your your grandfather moved around as pastors did, from
congregation to congregation, right?
00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:49.000
Robertson: Thats it exactly. Of course, I know he was in Pleasant Unity.
I know he was in Poland, Ohio. By the time my father was going to the
university. His his church was in Irwin, PA, the Presbyterian Church in
Irwin. After that, I don't know. We'd have to look in in family records to
find out where he went.
00:17:49.000 --> 00:18:00.000
Levy: So the at the university, of course, he just he took a bachelor's
degree. He just took a regular undergraduate. Wasn't necessarily wasn't
music. Robertson: Oh, no. Levy: It wasn't musical training.
00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:07.000
Robertson: In fact he was going to go in for languages. Yes. Oh, and he
was he was very good at languages.
00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:20.000
Levy: And that probably helped him in, in the, uh, the text because much
of the music was in German. In French. Right, right. The lyrics and so
forth.
00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:30.000
Robertson: Have you ever seen his. Sorry. Have you ever seen his [?] The
one with Doctor Raymond Schneider?
00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:47.000
Levy: No, no, I'm going to go back. And I didn't know what to look at the
library. His library is so comprehensive that that if I didn't know where
to begin. And I thought, you you can be my guide through it, but I will.
And.
00:18:47.000 --> 00:19:03.000
Robertson: Well, in that, you will note that each man, Doctor Raymond
Schneider and my father. Translated the German chorale words to English,
you'll find their translations.
00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:08.000
Levy: So his his foreign language training was of great value.
00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:10.000
Robertson: Oh, indeed it was. Yes, yes.
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:20.000
Levy: The things, the technical aspects of music like transcription,
things that that that many people went to music school for, he picked up on
his own.
00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.000
Robertson: He must have, and this is where I don't know, I simply do not
know.
00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:38.000
Levy: He was he was determined, used loosely, but a near genius to to do
that without I mean, he had such musical instincts. Is that a good way to
describe him?
00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:45.000
Robertson: I just don't know, I, I just guess I accepted the fact that he
was able to he was.
00:19:45.000 --> 00:20:25.000
Levy: He was well, he was musical. There's no question about that. It's
like the youngster who sits down at the piano. We don't know how they do
it, but they do it, right. Yeah. Right. You know, they they sit and they
play the music and they don't have the, the maturity of, of an adult, but
they have the musical instincts. They, they know that they know the tempo.
And without being able to read music, I mean. Right. Isn't that true? And
so he was that kind of a person. So he's got these duties at the church. In
the meanwhile, he he went on the faculty of the Western Theological
Seminary. Right.
00:20:25.000 --> 00:21:49.000
Robertson: Uh, that was for the period of 19. Let me see, 1903 to 1937. It
ended only with his death. And, uh, there again I thought, well, let me
see. He was about 28, wasn't he? 1903. And he was born in 75? Yes, just 28,
28 years. When he evidently told this Doctor Breed, as I understand it,
about some, um, hymnology collection that was going to be available in
Philadelphia. And this Doctor Breed went to the president of the seminary
and said, I have found, uh. I have the wording someplace. He's found the
man who could teach the course in Hymnology. And that was when my father
started there. Now he went every Monday evening. They had a chapel service.
And there again, it was early in the evening. He'd be teaching all day till
5:00. Go home. Supper was always right, ready because he had to go
immediately over to the chapel and play. Or. No, he'd directed one of the
earliest a capella choirs. He had the Cecilia Choir at the seminary, and
that was for the services.
00:21:49.000 --> 00:22:00.000
Levy: And it says here that he, uh, he, uh, many people first became
acquainted to Palestrina because he. Robertson: Oh, yes. Levy: He
introduced it in that choir.
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:03.000
Robertson: And the Russian.
Levy: And the Russian, the Russian literature.
00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:04.000
Robertson: Right.
00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:07.000
Levy: Things like Mussorgsky and things like that, I suppose. Right.
00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:16.000
Robertson: And then on Tuesdays he, uh, taught in at the PMI in the
morning.
00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:23.000
Levy: PMI is the Pittsburgh Musical Institute. We have to tell the people
listening to the tape, you and I know what it is.
00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:24.000
Robertson: Right, I forget about that.
00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:25.000
Levy: Because that's okay.
00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:28.000
Robertson: We're so used to these initials.
00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:33.000
Levy: And he was and he was one of the founders of the Pittsburgh Musical
Institute.
00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:42.000
Robertson: Yes he was. That's right. Then he taught the seminary classes
in the afternoon.
00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:56.000
Levy: So those are the. So here he is. He's working at a church. Yes. He's
at the Western Theological Seminary. He's at the Pittsburgh Musical
Institute. So what did he do with all his spare time there? I'm just
kidding.
00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:00.000
Robertson: No, no.
Levy: He must have been enormously busy person.
00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:06.000
Robertson: He was. And one thing he could not stand was wasting time.
00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:07.000
Levy: He didn't believe in idleness, did he?
00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:35.000
Robertson: Absolutely not. And. But Eileen and I were trying to
reconstruct, um, we think that the Pittsburgh Musical Institute was founded
in 1916. I have a picture which I'm going to show you of my father's
studios in the old Jenkins Arcade. I know that he was a charter tenant of
that building. And those pictures are dated 1913.
00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:49.000
Levy: Is that where the PMI was at? Robertson: No, no no, no. Levy: Why
why was he at the Jenkins Arcade?
00:23:49.000 --> 00:24:03.000
Robertson: And this was in the Jenkins Arcade. I guess it was a convenient
location in Pittsburgh, right down the harbor. Levy: Sure was. Robertson:
You see, between what they called Old Allegheny, which is now the North
Side, and City of Pittsburgh.
00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:07.000
Levy: Sure. It was centrally located. You just had to walk across the
Sixth Street Bridge and you were there.
00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:37.000
Robertson: There you were. And walk was what they did. So then there were
four men who. Who organized the Pittsburgh Musical Institute. And so we
don't know whether he was at the studio in the Jenkins Arcade until the PMI
was started three years later, or how long he'd been teaching before he
went to the Jenkins Arcade. He had to have been self-supporting.
00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:45.000
Levy: Now, did he teach organ? Did he teach an organ? There was an organ
in his. In his studio?
00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:46.000
Robertson: Oh yes, it shows it in the picture.
00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:47.000
Levy: And did he teach piano?
00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:50.000
Robertson: And piano. There are two pianists.
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:57.000
Levy: What was he involved with any other instrument? I mean, in terms of.
Robertson: No. Levy: He didn't. He more or less.
00:24:57.000 --> 00:24:58.000
Robertson: No winds, no strings.
00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:00.000
Levy: He stayed more or less with the keyboard.
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:01.000
Robertson: Very definitely.
00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:17.000
Levy: Keyboard. But I'm sure that he, because of his great background, he
knew the other instruments. Robertson: Oh he had to. Levy: He had a lot of
conducting. Conducted the orchestra at the church and so forth. Were there
other were there other orchestras that he was involved with? Do you
recall?
00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:20.000
Robertson: Well, at the PMI.
00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:22.000
Levy: The PMI. Would there be there would be student orchestras there. Is
that it?
00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:42.000
Robertson: Well there again uh, they they were supplemented by people from
all professions. We had people in all walks of life, in different careers
that were interested in good music and sought out these orchestras.
00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:55.000
Levy: So the people who came there, uh, were not only people who were
maybe career oriented, but people who would just, for an avocation, wanted
to one of the master music through that way.
00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:36.000
Robertson: Now, for instance, I can think of our flute players. This is
just offhand, uh, one of the flute players was with the, uh. Cant think
of the name of it. Well, one was a baker. The other was with the telegrams.
I've forgotten the Levy: Western Union. Robertson: Western Union. That's
right. Um, one of the clarinetists was a printer. A French horn player was
a banker, uh, a trombonist. Uh, I don't know what he was at the time. I
know him now as a retired city fireman. Um, did you happen to know Carl
McVicker at Westinghouse High School?
00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:37.000
Levy: I talked with Carl McVicker.
00:26:37.000 --> 00:27:38.000
Robertson: You did? Yes. All right, well, Carl McVicker sat right behind
me in the trumpet section. He was a trumpeter, and. Well, that's just to
name a few. And, of course, uh, I know one of the cellists was a student at
the university. We had other university students. We had violin students.
The PMI orchestra for a number of years was a string orchestra. And then I
think it was in 1930 that it became a full orchestra, and that brought in
more people from the outside because, of course, um, there was no. There
were no winds or brass instruments taught at the Institute until I think
I'm right, until it offered with Pitt the degree of Bachelor of Music. That
was just a few years before my father died.
00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:43.000
Levy: So now where was the Pittsburgh Musical Institute located?
00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:50.000
Robertson: Well, now, that's an interesting story. You know where the PAA
is? The Pittsburgh Athletic Association.
00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:51.000
Levy: At the corner of Fifth and Bigelow.
00:27:51.000 --> 00:29:02.000
Robertson: Right. Then in the next block going east is Masonic Temple.
Levy: That's right. Robertson: In the next block, there were some large
private homes. And that block took up to Ruskin Avenue. The Ruskin was not
yet built. On Bellefield Avenue, going. That's sort of a right angle to
Fifth Avenue. Uh, there were also big old houses. The PMI acquired about
the second house in, on Fifth Avenue from the in the block next to the
Masonic Temple, and moved that old house clear across the square. That was
then to house the Ruskin Apartments, and it was put back to back with the
building on Bellefield Avenue. You might go in for a lesson, as I did,
because I was studying violin at the time, and you'd be facing Fifth
Avenue, and even as you took your lesson, the house would be moving around
so that by the time you finished, you might be facing a side street or,
um.
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:17.000
Levy: So it was on. It was between Ruskin and the Bell and Bellefield?
Yes. Yeah, I interestingly enough, that became the one building became the
music building for the University of Pittsburgh.
00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:18.000
Robertson: But not until years later.
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:22.000
Levy: Yeah, well, because WQED went in there first 1948.
00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:29.000
Robertson: But before that it had been the residence, I believe, of the
Chancellor of Pitt. Levy: Oh, really? Robertson: Yes.
00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:41.000
Levy: So that was Oakland, really. Still was the center one of the centers
of culture, whatever that term means, right?
00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:43.000
Robertson: And I wish that.
00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:48.000
Levy: Well, your father then could walk then, since you lived in he
walked. He walked to the Institute.
00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:53.000
Robertson: Well, at first, until 1922, we lived in Squirrel Hill.
00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:55.000
Levy: So where'd you live in Squirrel Hill?
00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:57.000
Robertson: Well, on Denniston Avenue.
00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:03.000
Levy: Oh, yeah. Mhm. Near Fifth or Forbes?
00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:04.000
Robertson: Near Forbes.
00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:06.000
Levy: Near Forbes.
00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:11.000
Robertson: We lived in two blocks on Denniston. Then we moved.
00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:32.000
Levy: Probably only had about a five minute streetcar ride or ten minute
streetcar ride to Oakland from there. Robertson: Right. Levy: Now the what
other things you remember about the Pittsburgh Musical Institute? You
recall anything else? About how many students did they have? Would you say?
Just a guess.
00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:35.000
Robertson: I have no idea, truthfully, because it.
00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:40.000
Levy: Was in the hundreds in each each each term?
00:30:40.000 --> 00:31:40.000
Robertson: I just, I really could not give a figure at all because even
though in a sense it was second home to us, we were in and out all the
time, uh, taking lessons and not practicing, but taking lessons. And then
we'd be in junior recitals. So we were back and forth pretty much of the
time, especially when we moved to Oakland. But until I, uh, started to work
for my father in the fall of 1930, I didn't have that much contact with
other students.
