Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Bruno Walter

Bernstein’s Borrowed Mahler Score Returns Home

Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

Leonard Bernstein never returned the Vienna Philharmonic’s score of Gustav Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde” (“Song of the Earth”) – the one used by Bruno Walter at the work’s premiere in 1911.

Bernstein borrowed the score in 1966. After he died in 1990, apparently his family donated his collection of scores to the New York Philharmonic. Vienna’s “Das Lied” resurfaced in 2017, when it was put on display as part of an exhibition celebrating the orchestra’s 175th anniversary. It just so happened that the exhibition was co-curated by the Vienna Philharmonic, then also celebrating its 175th year. At a point, representatives from both orchestras noted the original ownership stamp and shared a good chuckle. Oh, that Lenny. Until then, the polite Viennese had never said anything about it.

When the exhibition closed, the New York Philharmonic and the Bernstein family finally returned the score. Vienna took the high road. In a public statement, the Vienna Phil’s chairman issued a statement, “Not only are we thrilled to have back this historic score, which was originally used by Bruno Walter in the first Vienna Philharmonic performance of ‘Das Lied von der Erde,’ but we treasure its special connection to our friend and collaborator Leonard Bernstein, who maintained close relationships with the Vienna and New York Philharmonics and whose memory we cherish.”

Good save.

Lenny had marked it all up, of course. This is why I don’t lend books or recordings – especially to Leonard Bernstein.

Bernstein conducts “Das Lied” in 1972 (with English subtitles)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npy4gjZ81F0

Bruno Walter conducts it live in Vienna in 1952

Christa Ludwig disagrees with Bernstein’s tempo

Return of the manuscript as reported in the New York Times in 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/arts/finally-returning-bernsteins-overdue-mahler.html

July 7, 2024
Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8: A Celebration of Life

This is one of those works that just makes you feel like it’s great to be alive.

Antonin Dvořák composed his Symphony No. 8 over two months, from the end of August to the beginning of November, in happy seclusion at his country home of Vysoká, in 1889. The symphony is his most bucolic, cheery, and lyrical, steeped in the Bohemian folk song he adored.

Dvořák himself conducted its first performance, at the National Theater in Prague, in 1890. He then took it to Frankfurt and Cambridge, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate. The symphony became a great favorite in England. In fact, it was published there, by the London firm of Novello, after the usual disagreements with Simrock, Dvořák’s regular publisher. Simrock preferred shorter, snappier works and insisted on marketing them in German. Dvořák, a proud Bohemian, found this increasingly annoying. Not incidentally, Simrock had also low-balled him on the price (offering one thousand marks, as opposed to the three thousand marks he had paid for the Symphony No. 7).

In 1893, Dvořák was in America, as director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York, when he brought his new symphony to the World’s Columbian Exposition. At the time, the symphony was promoted as his Fourth. It was only in the 1950s, with the publication of Dvořák’s earlier works in the form, that the symphonies were renumbered, which is why there are now nine Dvořák symphonies, as opposed to five. At the world’s fair, Dvořák conducted his Eighth with an expanded Chicago Symphony Orchestra. According to the Chicago Tribune, the performance was met with enthusiasm, marked by “tremendous outbursts of applause.”

The composer claimed that in its writing the melodies simply poured out of him. Here’s my favorite recording of the piece, made with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, assembled specifically for the great Bruno Walter.

Všechno nejlepší k narozeninám! Happy birthday, Dvořák!

PHOTO: Composer and family, relaxing at Vysoká

September 8, 2020

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