The final two questions in
my interview with Barry Schrader are now live. Barry discusses what may be his magnum opus,
The Barnum Museum,
followed by his take on the current state of synthesizers. There are
some tie ins to his previous work on Atlantis as well as Louis and Bebe
Barron.
"If someone were to ask me what I considered to be my best work, there’s
no question in my mind that I would respond that it’s The Barnum
Museum. Taken as a whole, this is my longest and most ambitious
composition, and one that took me four years to compose. At this time,
it remains my last completed work.
The idea for The Barnum Museum came from a short story by one of my
favorite living authors, Steven Millhauser. Millhauser is a unique
writer, and, so, difficult to classify. He’s been compared to such
authors as Calvino and Borges, as well as other writers classified as
“magical realists,” but I think he’s in a class by himself. The Barnum
Museum is a short story in a collection with the same title. I was
fortunate to get permission from Millhauser and his agents to base the
work on his story. I was especially lucky that Millhauser agreed to a
years-long email correspondence about the work: I would send each
movement to him as I finished it and he would comment on the work and my
ideas behind it. This was invaluable help in my completing the piece.
P. T. Barnum established two museums in New York City in the nineteenth
century. Barnum's American Museum was on the corner of Broadway and Ann
Street from January 1, 1842 to July 13, 1865 when it burned to the
ground. Barnum built a second museum soon after, but it was also
destroyed by fire in 1868. The attractions made the venue a combination
of a zoo, museum, lecture hall, wax museum, theatre, and freak show. At
its peak, the museum was open fifteen hours a day and had as many as
fifteen thousand visitors daily."
Don't miss the
full interview question here. You can also go back to the beginning of
my interview with Barry Schrader here.
And don't forget,
Barry Schrader's Soundtrack to Galaxy of Terror is
currently available for Pre-Order.