“The Best Diplomats Are Often the Great Musicians”: Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Play Berlin

2014 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
New York Philharmonic

The Frustrated Activist

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Abrams Ansari
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
New Left ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
Civil Rights Movements ◽  
Political Commitments

This chapter presents an account of the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, who, although constrained significantly by the ideological climate of the 1950s, refused to silence himself politically. Beginning in the last years of the decade, he became increasingly vocal in his support for New Left causes, including the antiwar, antinuclear, and civil rights movements. On State Department–funded conducting tours with the New York Philharmonic, he tried to use music, particularly the Americanist tradition, to challenge US foreign policy. In his compositions, he remained true to musical Americanism, striving earnestly in his art music to continue Copland’s prewar approach. He found a fruitful outlet for his political commitments in his works for musical theater, but his art music compositions present a much more complex and fraught picture. Bernstein was attempting to resist and undermine political nationalism, while simultaneously advancing cultural nationalism. But in the binarized climate of Cold War America, this would not prove easy.

scholarly journals Modernist Music for Children

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 488-517
Author(s):  
David H. Miller
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Anton Webern ◽  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
Christian Science ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
Christian Science Monitor ◽  
Middlebrow Culture ◽  
Lincoln Center ◽  
Rhetorical Force

On several occasions in the midcentury United States, the music of Anton Webern was reimagined as music for children. In 1936 conductor and musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky published the score of Webern’s op. 10/4 on the children’s page of the Christian Science Monitor. In 1958 Webern’s op. 6/3 was featured in a New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concert, the first conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Eight years later, Webern’s Kinderstück (Children’s Piece) received its posthumous premiere at Lincoln Center, performed by a nine-year-old pianist. In each case children served as a marker of accessibility, meant to render Webern’s music more palatable to adult audiences; thus was Webern’s music subsumed within the middlebrow circulation of classical music. Although recent scholarship has considered the intersections between modernist music and middlebrow culture, Webern’s music has remained absent from these discussions. Indeed, Webern’s terse, abstract, and severe compositions might at first appear ill suited to middlebrow contexts. Yet, as these three historical moments make clear, children served as a potent rhetorical force that could be used to market even this music to a broad audience of adults.

The Return of Two Maestros

Dearest Lenny ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 42-55
Author(s):  
Mari Yoshihara
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Rapid Rise ◽  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
Her Family ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
November Steps

In 1970, Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic returned to Japan for the second tour, again with Seiji Ozawa. The tour was organized partly in conjunction with the Osaka Expo ’70, symbolizing Japan’s rapid rise as an economic power and the expansion of the classical music fan base in the nation. Seiji Ozawa, now an international maestro in his own right, led the tour along with Bernstein and conducted Toru Takemitsu’s November Steps. During the tour, Kazuko Amano and her family enjoyed their second encounter with Bernstein, but her joyful time was cut short by her domestic obligations.

Time Marches On

2019 ◽  
pp. 221-254
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Crist
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Outer Space ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
The Real ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
Time Out ◽  
Time Changes

This chapter first picks up and develops three strands in Dave Brubeck’s biography, which were introduced in the opening chapters of the book: the Quartet’s work with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, Brubeck’s involvement in issues of civil rights, and Dave and Iola Brubeck’s efforts to bring The Real Ambassadors to fruition. The balance of the chapter considers the early critical reception of Time Out, sketches the outlines of its four sequels (Time Further Out, Countdown: Time in Outer Space, Time Changes, and Time In), and examines the circumstances surrounding the dissolution of the Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1967.

scholarly journals Leonard Bernstein's Jewish Boston: Cross-Disciplinary Research in the Classroom

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-33
Author(s):  
CAROL J. OJA ◽  
KAY KAUFMAN SHELEMAY
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
New Yorker ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
Immigrant Experiences ◽  
Low Culture ◽  
Prep School ◽  
American Society ◽  
Iconic Status

AbstractLeonard Bernstein is most often perceived as the quintessential New Yorker—music director of the New York Philharmonic from 1958 to 1969 and composer of Broadway shows that made New York their focus. Yet his grounding in the greater Boston area was powerful. He was born in 1918 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and raised in various Jewish neighborhoods within Boston. The young Leonard went to Boston Latin, a prestigious public prep school, and graduated from Harvard in 1939.This article explores a team research project, made up of Harvard graduate students and undergraduates, which delved into the urban subcultures and post-immigrant experiences that shaped Bernstein's youth and early adulthood. It considers the synergy between an individual and a community, and it examines the complexities of blending pedagogy with research, analyzing the multilayered methodologies and theoretical strategies that were employed.Given Bernstein's iconic status, his life and career illuminate a broad range of questions about the nature of music in American society. Fusing the techniques of ethnographic and archival research, our team probed Bernstein's formative connections to Jewish traditions through his family synagogue (Congregation Mishkan Tefila), the ethnic geography that defined the Boston neighborhoods of his immigrant family, the network of young people involved in Bernstein's summer theatrical productions in Sharon, Massachusetts, during the 1930s, and the formative role of the city's musical venues and institutions in shaping Bernstein's lifelong campaign to collapse traditional distinctions between high and low culture.

scholarly journals Comparative analysis of musical-enlightenment concepts of L. Bernstein and D. Kabalevsky in Russian music education

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-630 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia V. Mishina ◽  
Zilia M. Yavgildina ◽  
Rufina Ildarovna Samigullina ◽  
Tamara Yu. Melnik
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Pedagogical Practice ◽  
Leonard Bernstein ◽  
Educational Work ◽  
Russian Music ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Epistolary Texts

The aim of this study is to compare the activities of Kabalevsky and Bernstein—two musicians who made a significant contribution to the musical education of the younger generation, reveals the principles, methods, forms of educational work and covers the subject of television programmes. In particular, the pedagogical and musical-enlightenment concept of the outstanding composer, scientist Dmitry Kabalevsky was widely spread in our country. Also, the achievements of American composer, lecturer, teacher Leonard Bernstein in the field of musical enlightenment differ in originality and are rarely used in Russian musical pedagogical practice.  In accordance with the aim of the study, the following theoretical methods were used: analysis of the literature, epistolary texts, the repertoire of the concert programmes of the New York Philharmonic orchestra; generalisation of historical data on musical and educational activities of Kabalevsky and Bernstein, comparison of methods and techniques of music education, biographical method.   Keywords: Conversation, enlightenment, Dmitry Kabalevsky, Leonard Bernstein, TV

‘CONTACT!’: New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Milton Court Concert Hall, London

Tempo ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (274) ◽  
pp. 64-65
Author(s):  
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Chamber Music ◽  
Small Groups ◽  
Concert Hall ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
The Uk

The New York Philharmonic Orchestra, under its Music Director Alan Gilbert, spent a week in residence at the Barbican Centre in April, giving four concerts and various other events. Among them was ‘CONTACT!’, a concert of chamber music performed by members of the NYPO in the Guildhall's Milton Court Concert Hall on 18 April 2015. There were five pieces for various small groups. Three were new to the UK, and I will focus on these.

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