Leonard Bernstein means excellence as far as American-school orchestra conductors go. His exuberance borders on histrionics, at times, with his flamboyant, vital mannerism. His physical relationship with his orchestra turns it into a virtuoso’s instrument that can play just about anything, especially if that anything is a tour de force of music like works by Mahler, or Strauss. Bernstein’s real innovation, compared to Koussevitzky, Stokowski, Reiner, Mitropoulos is that Bernstein was born in America, not in Europe.
The life and art journey of Leonard Bernstein, legendary orchestra conductor and a giant of contemporary music. His charisma and passionate love for music made the history of Broadway, jazz, and symphony, and is only equal to that for his beloved wife of almost thirty years, C...
Paolo Isotta wrote a memorable description of him in 1988: “while on the podium, he looked like a dancer, raptured in objectless enthusiasm as he involved orchestras and audiences into performances of extraordinary vitality.”
As a conductor, he is noted, indeed, for exuberance and vitality, which never overflow into instinctual brutalism. Mahler, which is probably the one he felt closest to, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss, Schumann, and obviously the great American composers of earlier generations, like Ives and Copland, are the authors that allowed Bernstein to exalt his talent, thanks to his understanding of musical structure and timbre blends.
Bernstein was also so much more than a conductor: he was a composer of both Broadway theatre and of classical form. To be fair, his musicals sounded very classical, and his classical compositions did have something Broadway about them. On the Town and West Side Story are the two pieces that granted Leonard Berstein a forever place into the history of music. Bernstein was also the greatest musical educator ever. In the words of Virgil Thomson “The ideal educator on any kind of music”. His CBS programmes on musical education for young Americans, employing real orchestras, are the best examples of TV pedagogy.
A twenty-five-year-old Jerome Robbins, in autumn 1943, approaches a young Bernstein and asks him to write music for a ballet on three seamen who will spend 24 hours in New York before going to war. On the Town is Bernstein’s hymn to his adoptive city. It is full of Gershwin references as well as to cultivated music. One of the greatest musical ever.
The highest point of a lifetime’s commitment, West Side Story is Bernstein’s attempt to write national musical theatre that would be deeply and truly American: a hybrid of jazz and classical. Unfortunately, this particular attempt wouldn’t work, but the musical is still a masterpiece in its own right.
Bernstein teaching young Americans the secrets of classical music on CBS.
Commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in DC, Bernstein composed a Latin mass that will be torn to pieces by critics, because too similar to Broadway music. In fact, Bernstein’s enthusiastic eclecticism and his attempt to blend symphony form with jazz and Broadway represent one of the highest moments in late-nineteenth century music, of its greatness, and of its limits.
“It’s all about sex”—apparently that’s what Bernstein said once about it, and he remains one of the greatest interpreters of this opera and of its savage Dionysian spirit.
Mahler, First Symphony, First Movement. Now almost seventy, Bernstein conducts the Dutch orchestra into a performance of seduction that satiates both flesh and soul.
(Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra ) Ha quasi settant’anni, Bernstein, quando dirige l’orchestra olandese nella prima di Mahler, ma è ancora un gigante nel costruire questo suo suono di seduzione, appagante carne e spirito.
