- In the year of William F. Buckley Jr's 100th birthday, a look back.

- Ronald Reagan's experiences are rooted in the American way, and his career could not have been shaped other than in America.

- As host of "Firing Line" and editor of "National Review," William F. Buckley Jr. was perhaps the most important voice of the conservative movement for half a century.

(soft classical music) He was also a devotee of classical music and an amateur musician himself.

In 1994, 18-year-old Lawrence Perelman, an aspiring pianist, wrote Buckley a letter, offering to perform for him.

The response changed his life.

- So every six or eight months, for the next seven years, I came back and would play recitals at the Buckley house.

The mentor-protege relationship for Bill was second to none.

- [Margaret] In his new book, "American Impresario," Perelman documents their friendship, which lasted until Buckley's death in 2008.

- [Crowd] America first, America first!

- 17 years later, with modern American conservatism losing ground to the MAGA movement, what does Lawrence Perelman say now?

- [Narrator] "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, the Fairweather Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Cliff and Laurel Asness, The Meadowlark Foundation, and by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. (dramatic music) - Lawrence Perelman, welcome to "Firing Line."

- Thank you, Margaret.

Thanks for having me.

And please call me Larry.

With Bill Buckley, once you became friends with Bill, he went from Mr. Buckley to, "Call me Bill."

And that was kind of the turning point.

So being here with you on "Firing Line," we're at a turning point, I think.

- Larry, you have a new book out entitled "American Impresario," and it tracks your friendship with William F. Buckley, Jr. from the time you first wrote to him when you were 18 years old, to the day that William F. Buckley Jr. died 17 years ago.

You describe him organizing concerts, including many where you performed as a pianist, but you also refer to him as an impresario of the conservative movement.

What about the term impresario made it so fitting for Bill and the Bill you knew?

- For me, when putting together this book and coming up with a title, I thought very, very carefully about what did Bill do for America, and for me, the organizing aspect as an impresario, the organizer of concerts, yes, that's what we think in terms of musical aspect, but being an organizer of an entire movement, an entire revolutionary movement in America, was extraordinary.

- Well, you write that impresarios are also producers of nations.

The founding fathers are impresarios in this respect, and the Constitution being the vision for the nation.

You go on to say that Bill Buckley had his imprint on the nation in that it led to the election of Ronald Reagan, halcyon days of the 1980s, the end of the Soviet Union.

- Absolutely.

I mean, to think that a single individual accomplished all of those things is extraordinary.

I mean, for me, think about it.

I mean, I was an '80s kid growing up in Minnesota with parents who came from the Soviet Union, and shining bright for me was this man, this larger-than-life figure, who was responsible for that.

If not for William F. Buckley Jr., there would be, I believe, no Ronald Reagan, there would have not been an end to the Soviet Union, and we wouldn't have the freedoms that we had.

- You mentioned that your parents fled the Soviet Union.

They were Jews.

- Yes.

- Who fled the Soviet Union and made a life for themselves in America.

Your mother encouraged you to write letters to famous people, people of stature, CEOs, politicians, performers.

You moved to New York City to study piano at first, and you wrote one of those letters to William F. Buckley, Jr. At what point did he emerge for you as someone of import that was worth sending one of these important letters?

- Well, my mom told me it's possible to write to anyone.

So when I moved to New York in 1994, I didn't have many friends at all.

I was reading one of Bill's books, "Happy Days Were Here Again," where he was kind of lamenting the early '90s and remembering the Reagan years.

And in this book, there were incredible columns about classical music.

And I knew he loved classical music, but I was suddenly realizing, look, I mean, he studied to be a pianist.

And there was a moment that I was sitting in my apartment and I thought, "My hero is here."

The man who was responsible in some way for emboldening Soviet Jews to come to America, to make it here, defeating communism, he's right here in New York City.

I'm gonna write him a letter, but not only am I gonna write him a thank you letter, but I'm going to offer him a piano recital as a thank you present.

And a week and a half later, this was in the fall of 1994, I got a letter from William F. Buckley, Jr.

It was, I'll never forget, it was in this glistening white envelope with his name in light blue in the upper left hand corner.

And it was really like a moment out of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," where I was opening up the envelope like Charlie's opening up the chocolate bar, and inside, in the back of my mind, I was thinking it will be a form letter.

But it wasn't a form letter, it was an actual letter inviting me to play at his house the following spring.

- [Margaret] Which became the first time you met William F. Buckley, Jr. You went to his maisonette on 73rd Street, on the upper east side of Manhattan.

- Yeah.

- And then what?

- Well, imagine, I had just turned 19, and to take a trip across to the East Side.

I hadn't been to the East Side many times from the West Side.

And I walk up to these incredible iron doors.

They were really Narnian stature doors.

And I pressed the button, and the door opens, and my hero is standing right there.

Through the eyes of a 19-year-old, it was quite extraordinary.

To this day, I see it in my mind's eye.

And we walked in, it was really out of a movie set.

These kind of places do not exist today.

It reflected every bit of the great man and what I expected.

And, you know, expectation and reality, it fit perfectly in terms of the world that I expected.

And I sat down at the piano and I played a recital for him.

And in between, we talked about my parents, fleeing the Soviet Union, all of these topics.

And he was completely normal.

He was not someone who put on any airs.

He was not, intimidating in terms of, this was William MF Buckley, Jr., but he was completely comfortable in his own skin and put me at ease.

And that stayed in my mind for years, as we'll discuss.

It was a transformative experience for me, just that letting me into his house.

- Describe for us sort of your journey in piano as a pianist and as a performer.

- So as I like to say, today I'm a recovering pianist.

But growing up in Minnesota and studying very seriously to be a concert pianist, I showed talent as a young kid, and never a prodigy, but I showed talent.

I was always very, very musical.

And I was obsessed with the music industry, with classical music.

And I dedicated, really, my life to practicing and to conservatory, to competitions, everything.

But always in the back of my mind there is kind of this idea of what does classical music need to do to be more relevant?

How do we increase visibility for classical music?

And that journey for me as a pianist has created discipline for me throughout my life.

But there was a realization when I was around 20, and after playing for Bill, I realized, you know what, I'm gonna move back to Minnesota, finish up college there.

I was a political science major and music major at Macalester, not on National Review's list of conservative colleges, by the way.

So that journey for me, from pianist to really also becoming kind of a young impresario in the classical music business was something that was tremendously important.

And I learned a lot from Bill.

- You were invited back to his house once you returned to New York.

- Yep.

- And you became a regular performer at Buckley's regular parties.

What was it about playing in the Buckley home and the Buckley apartment and the city that meant so much to you?

- Look, I mean, it was a dream come true.

And I thought about, you know, how do we continue this friendship?

So I asked Bill, we were having lunch and I said, you know, "It would be great to play piano for you."

And he said to me, "You know what, what are you working on?"

And I said, I'm working on "Opus 110," and for the uninitiated, Beethoven sonata, this is the penultimate sonata by Beethoven.

It's an amazing work.

And he looked at me and he said, "How quickly could you have it ready?"

I said, "Just let me know, I'll do it."

That afternoon, he emails me back, this was December of 2000, and he said, "How about Monday?"

It was a Friday.

"Can you have it ready?"

And I said, "Absolutely."

So I practiced over the weekend, got it ready.

I played, and it was an other worldly experience, truly, to be around these 25 kind of who's who of New York, "National Review" editors, friends of Pat Buckley's, Pat, who was one of the great socialites of New York City.

It was surreal to be in my early 20s doing this.

And after that recital, Bill, I could tell, really liked my playing.

So I said, "Bill, how about you pick any piece you want me to learn, within reason.

I'm pretty good, but pick any piece you want me to learn, and I'll play it."

So every six or eight months for the next nearly decade, for the next seven years, I came back and would play recitals at the Buckley House.

And it became a centerpiece of my life, but in many ways it also became a centerpiece for Bill.

And I never took it for granted, but as I was writing this book, I realized just how important music was for him, and the fact that it went back to his childhood when he actually wanted to be a concert pianist and how it became really, for him, to say lifeline would be too much, but it was something where outside of the politics of every day and his work, it was something where we could go back and really focus in on the culture.

- And another time, when you performed at Steinway Hall, he actually wrote about your performance in "National Review."

He wrote, "Some might think that this kind of a thing happens in New York all the time, but not quite.

New York is a great, endless stage for star players of music and in dance and in drama, but the kind of thing Larry Perelman did cannot be regularly scheduled, because dazzling acts of artistic adventure happen only in very special moments like tonight's."

- It's very humbling hearing those words read.

I was turning 30 almost 20 years ago, and I sent out invitations to a select group of friends about this recital, playing the last three Beethoven sonatas.

And it's a pretty tough thing to play the last three Beethoven sonatas.

It's a big program.

He came, he enjoyed the evening, and then a few days later, I get an email from him with a little writeup.

He said, "I wrote a little something about your concert."

And I read it, and I had tears in my eyes.

It's one of the few reviews I've ever had of my playing in my life.

I don't need many other reviews.

William F. Buckley Jr's review is enough.

- By this point, you became close enough with Buckley that he invited you to any "Firing Line" taping that you wanted to enjoy.

And so you went to several, including an interview with the harpsichordist and pianist, Rosalyn Tureck.

Here they are talking about Tureck's performing Bach in Buckley's home.

Take a look.

- Bach more often than not expected to be heard in a room about the size, right?

The so-called house concert.

- Yes.

- And this "Goldberg" that you did at my house was a room about the size, right?

- [Rosalyn] Yes.

- Now, to what extent does Bach depend on the intimacy of this kind of an atmosphere?

Not at all, does he?

- The music itself, I think, does not depend on the smallness of a room, but the danger in our time, and here again, is something where we must find a balance, is that, for instance, the clavichord can be heard in a room of this size, but it certainly cannot be heard in Carnegie Hall, or in in the Royal Festival Hall in London, which is where I play all the time.

- What is it about the house concert, as Buckley refers to it, the house concert that makes it a unique venue for this kind of music?

- It's the proximity.

The proximity to the artist, and that interaction.

Because when you're in a hall with hundreds of people or thousands of people, it's impossible to really connect on that level.

When you're in a house and there are only 30 people there, you're on, you're kind of on the firing line, really, with everything.

But you're also, the intimacy of the experience, and Bill loved that.

And those recitals that I gave and that Tureck gave and others gave, they gave him so much pleasure, but he was able to bring people in who weren't great music lovers and try to make them into great music lovers.

So it is very rare today, I think, to have that salon experience.

And when you have influencers, in the old style idea of influencers coming in, those friends at that level, what he was able to do with that was amazingly special.

- Your friendship with Buckley brought you into his inner circle of friends.

You write about brushing shoulders with Charlton Heston, with Rush Limbaugh, with Tom Wolf.

Give us a glimpse of that world.

- I mean, again, when I go back to kind of my mind's eye in the early 20s and being invited to these events, I mean, it was awe-inspiring to be in those kind of situations.

I was tremendously privileged.

But it showed a trust.

I think that what Bill understood was his power, and his superpower was friendship, okay?

The mentor-protege relationship for Bill was second to none in that he knew that if he was giving younger people an opportunity the way he was given an opportunity, they were going to go down the road, right?

Basically promulgating his values, his vision in some way.

That is what he did through this.

So I wasn't the only one.

There were others in this circle.

And having that trust, he was entrusted by his elders.

I was entrusted by him.

And those experiences of being around someone like Henry Kissinger at a dinner party, I mean, I looked over and I said, "I can't believe I'm sitting at a table with Henry Kissinger."

But it prepared me in my life to be able to talk to anyone.

It was the greatest education.

And you realized everyone was the same.

In that room, in the Buckleyverse, in a way, everyone was an equal.

Everyone was an equal and given an opportunity to communicate.

It was a magical experience.

- You mentioned friendship, and it was at a San Francisco dinner party that Milton Friedman says, "Bill Buckley's greatest talent was for friendship."

Where did that talent come from?

- I think that the friendship talent, again, it goes back to, in many ways, his faith, in terms of trust and respect.

So when we look at the letter writing, right, I would not be sitting here had I not written to Bill, but really it's because Bill wrote back to me.

So as others were shedding friendships later in life, "Oh, I have too many people," this or that, he was constantly curious.

He was constantly creative.

So he sought out all of these proteges, all of these friends, through the many people who wrote to him.

And it wasn't just simply, here's a letter or something.

When he took an interest, as Milton Friedman said, he became a real friend.

- The virtue of friendship that you described, that you were touched by, that changed your life, informed his politics.

I mean, Bill had friendships, deep friendships, with people with whom he agreed philosophically and politically, and with people who were on the exact opposite side of the intellectual spectrum, from Norman Mailer to Kenneth Galbraith.

- Yes.

- Do you suspect that this gift for friendship is what informed his ability to convene and transcend and really engage in a rigorous and serious contest of ideas?

- I think so.

I think that openness.

Bill was open to other ideas, not just his.

I think he got that also from the family dinner table and from debating at Yale.

I mean, let's remember that he, and was one of the great debaters of the 20th century, and he knew how to take a side of an issue that he disagreed with, right?

And make it his own.

So that talent, that ability, and that intellectual respect for another human being's ideas allowed him to go into the arena with anyone and then have friendships outside.

Maybe the greatest line that Bill ever said to me was at the end of one of our dinner parties, I asked him a very direct political question.

And he looked at me and he said, "Larry, politics is my vocation, not my avocation."

And that has stayed with me for decades now.

- So he didn't answer the question.

- He did not answer the political question.

He wanted to make a point that the political night was over for him, that he was now in the avocation part of the evening, and that we, I think everyone can learn from this, especially our political class today.

How about we take a moment and just move away from politics being our avocation all the time.

All we do is talk about politics.

And here, Bill Buckley, Mr.

Politics, Mr. Conservative, right?

Mr.

Firing Line, Mr. Everything, writing three columns a week, 1,500 episodes of "Firing Line," "National Review" editing, speaking everything about politics.

He considered his avocations to be most important, and that made him the great renaissance man.

- Let's go to the last concert, the final concert you performed for Bill Buckley, and the one you didn't perform for Bill Buckley.

He asked you to play "The Diabelli Variations" for his siblings and himself in February of 2008, just weeks before he died.

- Yeah, I mean, looking back, it's always very emotional, because that tradition that I had with Bill, every six or eight months, he would choose a different piece.

And he asked me on a few occasions to learn "The Diabelli Variations."

And I honestly, I hated "The Diabelli Variations," because I heard it once as a kid and I said, "I don't really want to hear this piece or learn this piece."

But for Bill, it was kind of an obsession.

He kept bringing it up.

And then after Bill had some serious health trouble, I decided I'm gonna learn it.

(playful classical music) So I spent a lot of time, about nine months learning it.

So in February of 2008, I went to the last gathering of his siblings, what turned out to be is the last gathering of his siblings.

He just sent me an email and he said, "I want to hear the Diabelli.

Do you have it ready?"

And I said, "Yes, I do."

I came over and I played the Diabelli for them.

Bill was absolutely kind of in another world with it.

And he asked me to come back the next week to play the Diabelli again.

And we planned for February 26th.

I came out on the train, we had dinner.

- This is to his country house where he was- - Country house.

This was in Stanford, Connecticut, Wallacks Point, as they call it.

I had heard that he's kind of, again, kind of shaky and everything, but he was in and sitting in his study.

I walked in, and it was just Bill as I always knew.

I'm a half glass full kind of guy.

And as ill as he was, he was suffering from emphysema, he had an oxygen tank, all these things.

But through all of that, there was Bill Buckley.

It was my Bill Buckley, our friend.

And we had just such a beautiful evening, and he went to sleep and it was kind of difficulty- - It was his last supper.

- It was his last supper.

And the next morning I got up, I went to practice piano, and I'm sitting there practicing the Diabelli, and I went up to the room where I was staying, and it was a just, I heard real, you know, cries for help in the house.

I ran downstairs, I found one of the maids, and she was saying to me, "Padre no more, Padre no more."

And I ran out to his study and Bill was there.

- [Margaret] Yeah.

- And it was, to be there at that moment, in a way, changes you.

You know, it changed me- - How?

- Well, not only in terms of mortality, but in terms of thankfulness for everything a person has done for you.

Because there's one thing when a person passes away and you're distant and you're not able to see, but it's another thing when the person who has really transformed your life is actually right there in front of you.

- How did he transform your life?

- Well, look, I mean, he answered my letter, and answering that letter led to everything else in my life in New York.

- We're now this year at the 100th anniversary celebration of Buckley's birth.

- Yes, exactly.

- 17 years past his death.

Of course, you know, Buckley was this renaissance man who was a prolific author, publisher, performer, influential in political circles.

You know, I think it's not very difficult to know what the Bill Buckley from 2008 would think of the current Republican party and what is left of the conservative movement.

But I wonder if you and those contemporaries and those peers, that set of friends and fellow travelers who spent so much time with Buckley in those days, have you talked about what this modern, contemporary MAGA moment means for the country, and what do you think about it?

- You know, I have a lot of contemporaries who were proteges of Bill's, and it is fascinating to see kind of the, it runs the gamut in terms of opinions about this.

Because Bill Buckley himself went through a lot of transformation, and there was many different Bill Buckleys.

- Yeah.

- So it's hard to say exactly what Bill would think of the moment, because Bill had his own revolutionary tendencies, you know, in terms of how he fought Yale, you know, when he wrote "God and Man at Yale," the fact, let's say the McCarthy years, there are a lot of different elements here, and he- - Where he ended up being a defender of McCarthy.

- Of course, of course he was a defender of McCarthy's.

- But have you and your contemporaries that other proteges of Buckley's talked about what you think Bill would think of this moment?

- So I could see something where Bill, of course, would be absolutely against everything that's happening in Russia and very much pro-Ukraine.

In terms of my colleagues, it's fascinating to see some that think that Bill would actually be part of this moment, and others who would say that he would absolutely be not part of this moment.

And how you can look at, let's say, overreach of NATO or other things.

So it's hard for me to kind of like, project onto Bill Buckley.

- But what you're saying is his proteges and other disciples are actually split.

- They are split.

It's much like what is in conservatism and the Republican party today, there is a split.

- You close the book by highlighting elements of Buckley's character that you feel are lacking too often in America today.

- Yep.

- What do you think the country has lost in the decade since Bill's death?

- We go back to friendship in some ways.

And what we can learn from Bill is that you can have anyone as a friend.

You can disagree vehemently on Russia, on Ukraine, on all of these things, but come together in some way, still believing in the nation, still believing in America.

And that quiet patriotism, the ability of communication, the power of the letter, correspondence, the mentor protege, the cross-generational inter-religious relationships, all of these elements that Bill embodied, I feel like are under assault in certain ways and have an opportunity to come back.

And so my little part as a disciple of Bill's kind of to evangelize these things is with the hope that people will take a look and say, "You know what, maybe I should answer that letter.

Maybe I should speak with someone who I don't necessarily agree with, but find something common."

And it might sound quaint for people, but this was William F. Buckley Jr., a giant of the 20th century who was doing it, and something worked.

- Larry Perelman, for your book, and for joining me on "Firing Line," thank you so much for your contribution.

- Thank you very much for having me.

It's a great honor to be here.

(uplifting music) - [Narrator] "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Cliff and Laurel Asness, The Meadowlark Foundation, and by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (ethereal music) (mellow music) - [Narrator] You're watching PBS.