# Leonard Bernstein on Music (Unanswered Question lecture, etc)



## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

I have been watching my DVD copies of Leonard Bernstein's 1973 lecture series under the general title of "The Unanswered Question" (intentionally adopting the title from Ives). I have ordered his young persons series and Omnibus. I think it is quite clear that Bernstein is a brilliant and charming speaker, who is obviously passionate about his subject and has thought a great deal about it. (Feel free to disagree.) But I am wondering how this material stands up after more than 4 decades. I am curious about what others think about any of these, or other commentaries by Bernstein. (Again, this is inherently an opinion-oriented thread. There may well be disagreement, but there isn't really a "right" answer.)

Here is an NY Times article from 2002 to start us off: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/02/a...s-unsolved-by-a-man-with-all-the-answers.html

(If this has been discussed before here at TC, the only thread I could find was one with 2 posts, one suggesting a serious error (not described) in episode 2, and the second asking what it was, with no further posts.)


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

I love Lenny. I have the Young Person's Series as well as the Lectures, and pretty much everything from Lenny that has ever been on the market. I can listen to Lenny talk all day long about music. 

That said, I don't agree with everything he ever said, but I think the vast majority when it comes to actual "music discussion" rather than "personal beliefs" (Like Mahler couldn't have finished his 10th symphony because he said everything he had to say in the 9th kind of stuff) still stands just fine today.


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## Armanvd (Jan 17, 2017)

IMO He's A Wise Man And A Great Conductor. He Had and Has A Big Impact On Me , I've Learned A Lot From Him.
He's Talked About Things You Don't Find In Books (At Least Not In My Recollection) And I Wish There Was A Wonderful Music Teacher Like Him Alive So I Could Learn More About Music. If You Know Someone Please Do Tell Me. Specially If There's Someone Who Relates Music To Linguistics.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

The DVD's series where he talks about music is second to none, very interesting watching.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

He's not afraid of big, sweeping ideas. You may decide they don't all hold up, but your thinking about music will be deepened no matter what. Very worthwhile series.


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## Francis Poulenc (Nov 6, 2016)

Those lectures are poetry. Their value is not so much in what they teach (and they do teach a great deal), but in the pleasure of watching them.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I still remember his explication of Beethoven's Ninth on Omnibus. All the more galling when CBS declined to show Ozawa conducting the choral part to open the Sapporo Olympics 35 years later. Probably had the most distinctive voice in CM. Didn't always agree with him (or his music), but certainly had a huge effect on CM education for years.


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## lehnert (Apr 12, 2016)

I adore Lenny, both as a conduct and a speaker. I think his lectures are fascinating and he was really able to "infect" people with his passion. I learned a great deal from him and I believe that his ideas still stand today.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

I have not watched all the Harvard lectures but most of them and I really liked what I heard. The general consensus on their merit is not known to me, but either way I learned a lot from them. Bernstein had an uncanny knack for lecturing if you ask me.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

In both the Young People's Concerts and the Harvard lectures, Bernstein repeated discusses what he sees as the connection between language and music. In the Young People's Concerts (in the program about folk music in classical music), he gives a long sequence of associating what he sees as language characteristics to the associated "folk" music. (Italian, for example, has an emphasis on long vowels, and the music accordingly has long, sonorous melodies; Spanish has an emphasis on consonants, and accordingly Spanish music is quick and clipped, etc.). In the opening Harvard lectures, he goes into a very long sequence in which he compares elements of language to musical elements (admitting the imperfection of relating notes to syllables, bars to words and movements to a sentence), particularly invoking studies of a common root language and presupposing a common root musical formation. I am not sure how well it all holds up, and the theories about a root language have grown even more contentious in the intervening years. (Among other points, I would suggest that a paragraph rather than a sentence more appropriately forms the expression of a single idea, and thus a movement.) Particularly in the Young People's Concerts, he sometimes seems to be too quick to adopt an overly broad statement or simplistic explanation, perhaps in part because he is so consciously aware of his less sophisticated audience (although I would say that they seem much more sophisticated than an equivalent audience would be today). Any thoughts on all of this?

(The best presentation so far in the Young People's Concerts, I think, is the one on humor in music.)


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## JohnD (Jan 27, 2014)

There's a Young Person's Series show where he sings a bit of a Beatles song. I wish I could remember which song it was.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

JohnD said:


> There's a Young Person's Series show where he sings a bit of a Beatles song. I wish I could remember which song it was.


I will see if I can find it on the back of the box, do you know the volume number?


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

JohnD said:


> There's a Young Person's Series show where he sings a bit of a Beatles song. I wish I could remember which song it was.


I think that is one of the early installments, if you can call what he does singing. (As many have pointed out, the one musical gift that Bernstein lacked was a decent singing voice.)

That may only have been a snippet. According to the booklet, he sings "And I Love Her" in installment 15: "What is Sonata Form?"


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## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

I still can't forgive Bernstein for calling Ives "a Sunday composer". Maybe this is because English is my second language and I don't understand the semantics as well as I should, but it seems incredibly condescending and disrespectful. Even now years after I've heard that said it makes me angry.


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

Armanvd said:


> IMO He's A Wise Man And A Great Conductor. He Had and Has A Big Impact On Me , I've Learned A Lot From Him.
> He's Talked About Things You Don't Find In Books (At Least Not In My Recollection) And I Wish There Was A Wonderful Music Teacher Like Him Alive So I Could Learn More About Music. If You Know Someone Please Do Tell Me. Specially If There's Someone Who Relates Music To Linguistics.


I Agree Leonard Bernstein Was A Wonderful Educator, Musician, And Ambassador Of Classical Music. I Wish There Was Someone Like Him Alive Today.


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## Vox Gabrieli (Jan 9, 2017)

Anybody know where I can get the CDs of him conducting Shostakovitch? YouTube is coming up short, so i'll just pay for it.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Bernstein talked too much. Many in the NY Philharmonic couldn't stand him because instead of being disciplined and getting down to business, he liked to bloviate on and on. God, I hate people like that!


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## JohnD (Jan 27, 2014)

JAS said:


> I think that is one of the early installments, if you can call what he does singing. (As many have pointed out, the one musical gift that Bernstein lacked was a decent singing voice.)
> 
> That may only have been a snippet. According to the booklet, he sings "And I Love Her" in installment 15: "What is Sonata Form?"


That must be it. He only "sang" a little bit of it, but the audience got a big kick out of it.


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

hpowders said:


> Bernstein talked too much. Many in the NY Philharmonic couldn't stand him because instead of being disciplined and getting down to business, he liked to bloviate on and on. God, I hate people like that!


Ha, I think people like that are very enterntaining. Had workshops with a professor like that, those consultations/workshops used to finish a few hours later than they should had.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Marinera said:


> Ha, I think people like that are very enterntaining. Had workshops with a professor like that, those consultations/workshops used to finish a few hours later than they should had.


Good. You can always go in my place, next time I'm invited to listen to a bloviator.

Reminds me of my clarinet teacher. An hour and a half lesson consisted of 65 minutes of his talking about politics and 25 minutes of etudes and duets. I always left with a headache.


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

hpowders said:


> Good. You can always go in my place, next time I'm invited to listen to a bloviator.
> 
> Reminds me of my clarinet teacher. An hour and a half lesson consisted of 65 minutes of his talking about politics and 25 minutes of etudes and duets. I always left with a headache.


Ah, thanks, but I have to politely decline your offer, if they talk politics you can keep them. Our 'lectures' were nothing worse than fishing anecdotes from his life, his friends lives and such.

Regarding Bernstein, actually I never even read his interviews, but this thread got me interested. His videos are on youtube, so i'll watch them later.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Marinera said:


> Ah, thanks, but I have to politely decline your offer, if they talk politics you can keep them. Our 'lectures' were nothing worse than fishing anecdotes from his life, his friends lives and such.
> 
> Regarding Bernstein, actually I never even read his interviews, but this thread got me interested. His videos are on youtube, so i'll watch them later.


Those Norton Lectures by Bernstein are legendary. However, there's a time and place. At a Harvard lecture, fine. 
In front of the NY Philharmonic during rehearsal time, no.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Marinera said:


> Ah, thanks, but I have to politely decline your offer, if they talk politics you can keep them. Our 'lectures' were nothing worse than fishing anecdotes from his life, his friends lives and such.
> 
> Regarding Bernstein, actually I never even read his interviews, but this thread got me interested. His videos are on youtube, so i'll watch them later.


It's okay. Thanks anyway. I will post some "help wanted" posters down below in the sub-forums. Maybe I can find somebody else.


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

hpowders said:


> It's okay. Thanks anyway. I will post some "help wanted" posters down below in the sub-forums. Maybe I can find somebody else.


Nevermind, that was really nothing. Try the political sub-forum, you'll have a queue.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Marinera said:


> Nevermind, that was really nothing. Try the political sub-forum, you'll have a queue.


Glad you stopped me. I was just writing the letter, "H" with magic marker. No harm done.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Richard Macduff said:


> Anybody know where I can get the CDs of him conducting Shostakovitch? YouTube is coming up short, so i'll just pay for it.


Is this what you are looking for ?

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/ad...k=&performer=bernstein&medium=all&label=&cat=


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

One of the curious observations made in several Bernstein documentaries is that he was a "frustrated composer," which however odd it might seem is more or less the term they used. Although he liked the attention he got from his broadway music (West Side Story), and some of his lighter and more popular fare, he really wanted to be known as a composer of serious, Mahlerian proportions. He did write a number of large-scale pieces, although I don't know that they have entered the general playing repertoire, and he apparently wanted to do a good deal more. But his problem was that he did not have the focus, for such a long period of time, and he strongly disliked the isolation. He jumped between his varied interests with short-lived attention and enthusiasm, and he needed the interaction with other people.

A second curious observation comes from a documentary about Karajan. Apparently the two conductors has something of a rivalry, even if it was mostly from Karajan's perspective. The statement made by one of the musicians in the Berlin Philharmonic and performed under the baton of both men, was that "Bernstein made great music, but Karajan was great music." That sounds like an interesting distinction, but even after giving it some though, I don't know what it would mean for a person to "be" great music. I suppose it is just a veiled way of saying that, in her opinion, Bernstein was great but Karajan was somehow better.


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