50 years ago today: Leonard Bernstein delivers the first of six lectures, collectively titled “The Unanswered Question,” while serving as Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University.
Tag: Leonard Bernstein
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The Shofar in Classical Music and Film
The other day, for Rosh Hashanah, I posted a photo of Leonard Bernstein playing the shofar at a rehearsal for his “Mass” at the Kennedy Center in 1971. A lot of Bernstein’s concert music grapples with a crisis of faith in the modern world, so it’s hardly surprising that, in composing, he would often recall and incorporate into his mature works reminiscences of the synagogue and the traditions of his youth and apply them in addressing more universal humanistic concerns.
The shofar, typically fashioned from a ram’s horn, is especially significant during the Jewish High Holy Days, ten days of awe and repentance, as it is sounded on Rosh Hashanah to welcome the new year and again to conclude Yom Kippur services, marking the end of a day of fasting and prayer.
More broadly, anyone with a passing familiarity with the Judeo-Christian tradition, even if merely through the viewing of Hollywood biblical epics, likely has had some exposure to the instrument. Generally speaking, whenever you see “trumpet” or “horn” mentioned in an English translation of the Bible, what’s meant is the shofar. The instrument is often associated with the voice of God, the end of the world, or the raising of the dead. Its clarion blast accompanies celebratory or cataclysmic events. Its presence is noted to enhance a sensation of awe in the face of the sublime.
The opening of Bernstein’s “West Side Story” evokes the call of the shofar – which makes sense when you consider that the show was originally conceived as “East Side Story,” with the clashing factions Jews and Irish Catholics in Lower East Side Manhattan. To bring it more in line with contemporary urban gang warfare of the 1950s, the setting was moved uptown to San Juan Hill (Lincoln Square), and the rival gang membership reimagined as white American and Puerto Rican immigrant.
Less obvious is the reason Bernstein emulates the shofar in “Candide!”
Bernstein was far from the only one to recognize the shofar’s expressive potential. The ram’s horn has been embraced by many composers, whether employing the actual instrument or suggesting it, as Bernstein did, in their orchestrations.
Not surprisingly, some seized upon the shofar when treating biblical subjects. Sir Edward Elgar, a Roman Catholic, employs one in his oratorio “The Apostles” – though the part is usually taken by a flugelhorn.
Sir William Walton’s cantata “Belshazzar’s Feast” opens with a suggestion of the shofar on the trombones.
In his Requiem, Hector Berlioz, an atheist, conceived of four spatially separated brass bands to convey the effect of blaring shofars at the end of the world.
“The Gates of Justice,” David Brubeck’s plea for racial harmony, includes a part for shofar. However, in performance, the part is often taken by a French horn.
Of course, Elmer Bernstein employed the shofar in his film score for “The Ten Commandments.” John Williams paid homage when he gave Bernstein’s shofar calls to the Ewoks in “Return of the Jedi.”
Jerry Goldsmith included the instrument in his music for “Planet of the Apes” and “Alien.”
Another film composer, Franz Waxman, emulates the shofar in his oratorio “Joshua,” during the siege of Jericho.
Then there’s a whole genre of shofar concerto, explored by a number of contemporary composers, among them Ofer Ben-Amots, Miguel Kertsman, and Meira Warshauer.
Composers Herman Berlinski, Alvin Curran, and Matthew H. Fields have used the shofar, or suggested the shofar, in their works for their own expressive ends.
Yes, yes, shofar so good. The instrument’s range may be comparatively limited, but it more than makes up for the fact through its powerful associations.
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Rosh Hashanah Bernstein & the Shofar
Shana tova! Rosh Hashanah begins at sunset.
Here’s Leonard Bernstein playing the shofar during a rehearsal for his nonsectarian, humanistic “Mass” at the Kennedy Center in September 1971. It’s been observed that there are echoes of the shofar’s tekiah in both “West Side Story” and “Candide.” Many other classical composers have been influenced by and have emulated this distinctive call on the ram’s horn. Some have even employed the horn itself.
More on this another time. For now, if you observe the holiday, may you be inscribed, and best wishes for a sweet new year!
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9/11, Art, and a World in Crisis
There was some debate at the time as to whether 2000 or 2001 was the proper start of the new millennium. And in 2000, there was a scramble for generators, as anxiety mounted over whether shortsighted computer programming would cause elevators to plummet and airplanes to drop from the skies for Y2K. Whether or not you felt a touch of annoyance at all the knuckleheads in their New Year’s Eve “2000” novelty glasses who believed they really were welcoming in a new millennium (a year early, in fact), in the end it proved to be as immaterial as a lover’s quarrel. Because the 21st century really began on September 11, 2001.
22 years on, we live in the world 9/11 made, or at any rate embodied. We continue to grapple with uncertainty, and anxiety, and hopelessness, as humankind gives in to its baser instincts and lessons seemingly are never learned. War, terrorism, nuclear weapons, disease, heedless technology, and shady politics had been with us already in the 20th century, of course; but with the destruction of the World Trade Center, and the horror of the attacks, brought to us live, in real time, it really did seem as if everything was running off the rails.
In a society where the arts and education are marginalized and brutishness and nihilism are celebrated and exploited as means to power and economic gain, injustice and aggression are on the rise, and we all pay the price.
This is not to diminish the horror and suffering of those who perished in the attacks or their survivors. Nothing I could write could ever do honor to those who died or convey enough sympathy or solace to their families. But none of us who lived through 9/11 emerged unscathed.
In response to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, Leonard Bernstein famously declared, “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
But you know the old philosophical thought experiment: if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?
If beautiful music is made intensely and devotedly, will it still reach those for whom it might prove transformative in a world where it has been dismissed and even denigrated?
In Bernstein’s day, classical music was still on television. It was on the radio. It was not chopped up and presented as a string of pretty tunes to be promoted as “relaxing.” Beethoven, Mahler, and Shostakovich did not write elevator music. These were soulful outpourings of people with their own struggles. Now, outside the concert hall, lamentably, they are mostly silent.
Would classical music have prevented 9/11? Of course not. But anything that promotes reflection and beauty and solace and empathy can only help. Our artistic monuments are what connect us to one another and reassure us and encourage us in how we relate to our fellow human beings. And you don’t have to be a dead white European male to benefit.
The years pass quickly and it doesn’t take long for people to forget. A generation has already reached adulthood that has no firsthand memory of 9/11. Nor of Leonard Bernstein for that matter.
Horror and human tragedy can always be found in abundance, whether the cause be natural, as in the recent earthquake in Morocco, or the wildfires in Maui, or manmade, as in the misery of the war in Ukraine, or any number of mass shootings in public places. At home, in the United States, there are dangerous undercurrents of social and political unrest.
Classical music is not simply the means to a lofty escape. There is a difference between elitism and elevation. The arts are not all ivory tower, after all; they also have a practical application. With the ever-present threat of injustice, oppression, and violence, they are evidence of our shared humanity at its most transcendent.
Also, I expect they make you feel a hell of a lot better about everything than would an empty diet of soul-crushing noise, vapid flash, and glorified violence.
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Bernstein Sibelius & Lost Musical Treasures
Last night, I pulled out my collection of Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic to see if I owned a DVD of the broadcast that introduced a young André Watts in the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1. I do not – though thankfully someone else posted it on YouTube. I decided instead to view “A Tribute to Sibelius,” presented in honor of the composer’s 100th anniversary.
I learned from Bernstein’s spoken introduction that President Johnson declared 1965 “Sibelius Year” in the United States. And yes, there was a time when Sibelius was that popular in America, though I would say it was a few decades earlier. In 1935, the composer’s 70th year, the New York Philharmonic surveyed 12,000 listeners of its Sunday afternoon radio broadcasts to learn their musical preferences. When asked who their favorite composer was, Sibelius was mentioned more than any other. Beethoven came in second. I always suspected I was born too late!
I also thought it was clever of Bernstein to compare Sibelius’ handling of his thematic material to a good detective story, in which clues are planted at the beginning, the true significance of which is only gradually revealed. He demonstrates this by following a three-note motif through its various permutations in the Second Symphony. “Those three innocent scale-notes turning up in a hundred different disguises…. [I]n the end they all link up, so that when the final light dawns, and all is made clear, you feel the thrill of having solved a great mystery, you yourself.” It’s an apt simile, even a brilliant one, in that it makes the listener feel like an active participant. But Bernstein was always an effective popularizer.
The young soloist in the Violin Concerto is the Romanian-born Sergiu Luca, who would later distinguish himself as an early music pioneer. Among Luca’s teachers was Ivan Galamian, who also taught Itzhak Perlman. At the age of 9, Luca made his debut with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra. (At the time, his family was living in Israel.) Like Watts, his U.S. debut was with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormandy – in Luca’s case, playing the Sibelius concerto – which brought him to the attention of Bernstein and led to his appearance on the New York Philharmonic telecast later that year.
Also of interest, from the end credits, I notice that the assistant to the director was none other than John Corigliano, Jr., son of the Philharmonic’s concert master, who went on to become a Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning composer himself. Corigliano won the Oscar for Best Original Score for his music for “The Red Violin.” He also scored “Altered States.”
Assistant to the producer was Mary Rodgers, daughter of Richard Rodgers and composer of “Once Upon a Mattress.” On the side, she also wrote “Freaky Friday.”
But arguably the part of the broadcast that brought me the most amusement was when Bernstein, conducting the Symphony No. 2, in the thrill of the moment, loses his grip on the baton when gearing up for the return of the big tune around 43 minutes in. I was all set to watch him ride it out with nothing but his bare hands, à la Stokowski, but a few seconds later, sure enough, he reaches under his music stand and produces as spare!
Hopefully nobody lost an eye.
Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts were broadcast nationwide on CBS television and were eventually picked up around the world. The series, which ran from 1958 to 1973, received multiple Emmy, Peabody, and Edison Awards.
Crazy to look back at the orchestra now and realize there were no women, much less people of color. I remember reading a piece by Dave Barry once, decades ago, in which he humorously described white jazz clarinetists of yore as snapping their fingers in front of a bunch of guys dressed like dentists. The musicians of the New York Philharmonic from this era are kind of like that, only without the snapping fingers.
Predictably, some of the kids in the audience look a little distracted, though still well-behaved (and well-dressed), but a surprising number of them appear to be genuinely engaged. It’s sad that young people lack these kinds of opportunities anymore to be exposed to this kind of music. Classical music plays less of a part in American life now than it ever has since the rise of broadcast media.
There was a time in our history when people aspired to be better and believed that the way to do that was to acquire an education and expose themselves to the finer things. It was still like that when I was growing up, in the 1970s and early ‘80s. But that’s a long time ago now. From the perspective of the 21st century, we have passed our peak. This sort of television programming, especially from a network, endures only in memory or, if we’re lucky, in archival footage.
It seems like only yesterday that I was listening to the “Grand Canyon Suite” in music class and watching film strips of “Madama Butterfly” and “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” I feel sorry for anyone who has never been exposed to longer-form music, experienced its fantasy or been made to shudder at its ennobling beauty.
There’s so much more to music – and to life – than three-minute cuts manufactured in a recording studio. I don’t think I would have made it this far if I thought that’s all the world had to offer. Are these noble monuments to our shared humanity all really in danger of just fading away?
“A Tribute to Sibelius” (broadcast date: 2/19/65)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx3lJpN6tMU
A transcript of the show, with a sample of Bernstein’s scrawl, in pencil, on a yellow legal pad
And in case you missed it when I shared the link earlier this week, a 16-year-old André Watts plays Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (broadcast date: 1/15/63)
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