Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Leonard Bernstein

Bernstein Villa-Lobos TV’s Lost Art

Like so much else in the United States, the standards of broadcast television have eroded beyond recognition since the days of Leonard Bernstein’s “Young People’s Concerts” first aired on CBS from 1958 to 1972. The most celebrated American conductor – communicative, charismatic, and cool – introduced classical music to receptive kids in living rooms across the nation. Such was the network’s belief in this Saturday morning program that for three years it was broadcast in prime time. Later, it was shown on Sunday afternoons. The shows were syndicated in more than 40 countries, and the series was honored with five Emmys.

It’s sad to reflect that there was once a time when those who set the standards for network television actually saw it as part of the medium’s mission to educate and to elevate. How quaint of legislators and executives of our grandparents’ generation to want that.

Of course, at the same time, the Flintstones were hawking cigarettes…

Inevitably, the lure of lucre would trump public service, and the presence of educational and artistic programming would dwindle. I’m thankful that remnants of this sort of thing were still around in the ‘70s and ‘80s, though mostly thanks to PBS – now under fire by small minds and empty souls determined to undermine anything that truly does make this country great.

Here, on the birthday of Brazilian master Heitor Villa-Lobos, Bernstein sums up the composer’s musical aims in four minutes in this “Young People’s Concerts” broadcast of 1963:

Then he conducts Villa-Lobos’ biggest hit, “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5.”

On an earlier broadcast, in 1960, Bernstein conducted the composer’s second-biggest hit, “The Little Train of Caipira,” from “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 2”

Happy birthday, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and requiescat in pace, American sanity.

March 5, 2025
Overtures! KWAX Radio’s Sweet Start to 2025

You don’t really hear too many sparkling curtain-raisers by Auber or Suppé or Offenbach, to open concerts anymore, which is a pity. But the music still lives on, at least on drive-time classical radio and during fundraising campaigns. And a little bit this morning, anyway, on “Sweetness and Light.”

I thought for the first show of the new year, it might be fun to listen to an hour of overtures. A good overture always whets the appetite and fills one with anticipation of exciting things to come.

Of course, nostalgic soul that I am, I’ll also be looking back and sharing a few fond recollections. One of the selections I’ve programmed will be from one of the very earliest classical records I ever owned – a spontaneous gift from the collection of a favorite uncle, who noted the enjoyment I received from it while listening to it on his state-of-the-art stereo system, on a Saturday afternoon, probably in the late 1970s. It’s the classic album of Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic in “William Tell” and other favorite overtures.

Hard to believe in this post-CD era that there was actually a time when music-lovers – in the case of my uncle, a classic rocker (before there was such a category) and an audiophile with a soft spot for Richard Rodgers, “Rhapsody in Blue,” and the Moog – would actually listen to an entire album of overtures in a sitting. The practice seems hopelessly antiquated in this era of attention-deficit clicks.

Of course, I can’t go all froth, so in addition to audience favorites by Ambroise Thomas and Gioachino Rossini and crowd-pleasers by Mikhail Glinka and Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek, we’ll experience the full power of the fin de siècle orchestra in works by Carl Nielsen and Edward Elgar.

Think of it collectively as a preamble to your weekend, with hopes for more smiles than tears in 2025, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it wherever you are at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

January 4, 2025
Chamber Orchestra Blooms Under Hayes’ Baton

This was my kind of concert!

Yesterday afternoon, at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts’ Perelman Theater, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia was conducted by David Hayes in a program of 20th century classics.

Aaron Jay Kernis’ “Musica Celestis” (1990-91) takes its inspiration from medieval mystic and composer Hildegard von Bingen – a work in the holy schmoly, “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis”/Alan Hovhaness mode, with perhaps a little Barber’s “Adagio” tossed into the mix. Both Kernis’ and Barber’s works are arrangements of movements from their respective string quartets. This has always been my favorite Kernis piece, with perhaps his “Superstar Etude No. 1” (in the style of Jerry Lee Lewis) a guilty pleasure. Kernis himself was in attendance for yesterday’s performance. The program was a repeat of one previously presented on Friday night.

Béla Bartók’s Divertimento for String Orchestra (1939) was next, the first movement, a game of Baroque solo-tutti table tennis; the second an atmospheric tiptoe through the dank corridors of Dracula’s castle (Hayes, in some spoken remarks, compared it to the scene in every horror movie where you think, “Don’t open that door!”); and the third, a frenzied village dance, more determined in character than in any way euphoric. This is not your standard 18th century entertainment or diversion! But you’ll have this, with Nazism swallowing Europe and the world teetering at the brink of war. (Germany invaded Poland only weeks after the work’s completion.)

The concert concluded with Leonard Bernstein’s “Serenade, after Plato’s ‘Symposium’” (1954) – scored for violin, harp, string orchestra, and percussion – essentially Bernstein’s violin concerto. Plato’s work is all about love, with dinner guests waxing philosophical on the multifarious aspects of Eros; but drink is involved, so things eventually devolve into a more worldly appreciation of the grape. Whether intentional or not, something of Bernstein’s character is reflected in the work’s debauched trajectory.

Dionysian Sandy Cameron was the soloist, wearing a silver tunic, cross-laced “Demetrius and the Gladiators” boots, and diaphanous, ankle-length chlamys. It was her “Megalopolis” moment. Cameron moshed and swayed, contorted and smiled to the music, while meeting all the work’s technical and emotional challenges. Aristophanes never sounded so much like Korngold.

I always thought this was Bernstein’s concert masterpiece, though of course there are moments when it is unmistakably the work of the guy who wrote “West Side Story” (already being formulated at the time). Hey, the work has six percussionists.

I’ve been following Hayes on and off over the decades, since his days as a student at the Curtis Institute of Music. Apparently, I haven’t followed closely enough. I always considered him a choral conductor (for years, he was music director of the Philadelphia Singers; later, he directed the New York Choral Society), but his resume is much more diverse. I knew, but I guess must have willfully downplayed the significance of his service on the conducting staff of the Philadelphia Orchestra for a decade, from 2001-11. He kind of dropped of my radar when he moved to New York, and he’s racked up a whole lot of impressive credits since.

Then a couple of years ago I saw him conduct the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s Symphony No. 4 at Alice Tully Hall, on a program that also included works by Jennifer Higdon and Zhou Tian, with all three composers in attendance. Parenthetically, I was sorry to have to miss one of my favorite Hailstork works, the “Sonata da Chiesa,” on the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia’s October concert, with Michael Torke’s “December” and Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, but unfortunately I had scheduling conflicts and was unable to attend.*

At any rate, evidently I wasn’t really paying attention, as David Hayes is all growed-up!

This is Hayes’ first season as music director of the chamber orchestra (succeeding Dirk Brossé). I hope the inclusion of so much worthwhile, wholly accessible 20th century and contemporary music works for the organization, because it really works for me. I could have very happily spent my Sunday afternoon at home (it was a whirlwind round-trip as I had another obligation on Sunday night), but this concert was like classical music shoo-fly pie. Bravo, and more please!

*ERRATA: It was actually a more recent Hailstork work they performed, “Sagrada: Sonata da Chiesa No. 2.” All the more shameful for me to have missed it!

Video excerpt from Bernstein’s “Serenade” from Friday night’s performance:

November 25, 2024
Copland’s Lincoln Portrait Still Inspires Today

Suddenly the pride and optimism of “A Lincoln Portrait” has come to seem so quaint. But I will always carry its idealism in my heart.

Incorporating texts from Lincoln’s speeches, most notably “The Gettysburg Address,” Aaron Copland’s work for speaker and orchestra has been embraced by narrators across the political spectrum, from William Warfield and Carl Sandburg to Margaret Thatcher and Charlton Heston.

Regardless of one’s personal ideology, the work has the power to stir and inspire. When it was performed under the direction of the composer in Venezuela in 1957, in the presence of reigning dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez, it was so passionately received by the audience that it may have contributed to Jiménez’ overthrow and exile only a few days later. So clearly, it can be heady, even incendiary stuff.

Maybe it is, after all, the very thing we need at the present time. The message is one of unity, not division, in serving the greater good and honoring our responsibility to the nation and our fellow citizens in rising to the challenges of “the stormy present.” (“The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.”) The elevating marriage of Lincoln’s words and Copland’s music humbles in its persuasive espousal of the American ideals of fairness and sacrifice. it’s not surprising that the work has appealed to people across the political spectrum. It’s not about partisanship. It’s about embracing the democratic ideals of the United States of America.

This weekend will bring the opportunity to experience the work live, as Copland’s “A Lincoln Portrait” will be the centerpiece of a program on American and often patriotic themes, to be presented this Friday night at 8:00 by the Main Line Symphony Orchestra, at Valley Forge Middle School in Wayne, PA.

Jamie Bernstein, Leonard Bernstein’s daughter, will be the narrator. Also on the program will be her father’s “Candide Overture,” Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto (with Marc Rivetti, assistant concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the soloist), William Schuman’s “New England Triptych” (based on melodies of Revolutionary Era composer William Billings), and selections from John Williams’ “Lincoln” and “The Patriot.”

The conductor will be the orchestra’s music director, Don Liuzzi, whose day job is as principal timpani of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

The program will be repeated at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, PA, on Sunday at 2 p.m.

On Aaron Copland’s birthday (today), it’s a timely reminder of the kind of thinking that really made this country great. For more information on these concerts and upcoming performances of the Main Line Symphony Orchestra, follow the link.

https://www.mlso.org/concerts.htm

Leonard Bernstein conducts “A Lincoln Portrait,” with William Warfield narrating. Watch for Gerard Schwarz as co-principal trumpet. Schwarz would go on to make his own recording of “A Lincoln Portrait,” as music director of the Seattle Symphony, with James Earl Jones as the speaker.

November 14, 2024
Bernstein Conducts Sibelius Birthday Tribute

On his birthday anniversary, here’s Leonard Bernstein in 1966 to conduct probably my favorite symphony, the Symphony No. 5 by Jean Sibelius. I once heard him lead this glorious music at Carnegie Hall, around the time he made his Deutsche Grammophon recording with the Vienna Philharmonic. I’m happy to say, I never got over it. By 1987, Bernstein learned to really savor the nobility of the climactic “swan theme.”

Later, I nearly heard him conduct the Sibelius 1st in Philadelphia, with the student orchestra of the Curtis Institute of Music, but it was toward the end of his life, and sadly he had to cancel due to illness.

I’ve lost track of the Carnegie program, but I’m sure I’ve got it somewhere. Here’s a record of what else was on the concert.

https://www.carnegiehall.org/about/history/performance-history-search?q=&dex=prod_PHS&page=2&event=7794&cmp=Jean%20Sibelius_&pf=Leonard%20Bernstein_

Needless to say, the performance linked above, with the London Symphony Orchestra, is excellent.

BONUS: Glimpse into a Bernstein masterclass on the Sibelius 5th:

August 25, 2024

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