Posted on 08/25/2012 6:38:13 PM PDT by EveningStar
Leonard Bernstein is described by Wikipedia as "an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer and pianist."
Today would have been his 94th birthday. He was born August 25, 1918 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He died October 14, 1990 in New York City at the age of 72.
He was one of the greatest of 20th century musicians (see the aforementioned Wikipedia article).
Lenny, as he was known, was also involved in left wing politics. He could be quite the leftist jackass. For example, decades ago, he held a now infamous party for the Black Panthers in his Park Avenue penthouse.
Lenny may have been a fool in the world of politics, but as a musician, he was truly wonderful.
I say we need MORE violins on television!
ROFL! :)
Greatest musician in American history? Probably.
I had the privilege of knowing Uncle Lenny fairly well, and he PERSONIFIED the joie de vivre in music. Yeah, you never EVER mentioned politics to The Maestro, but outside of that he was actually a fun guy.
People know him as a conductor, and he was one of the greatest, but his true gift was as a pianist and composer.
“West Side Story” is THE American music-drama.
His performance of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue”, with himself as piano soloist/conductor is one of the glories of performance history.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxb7yNG0DGc
(Its in 2 parts, the link is to part 1)
I rather like the Bernstein Mass. It's an interesting piece to perform.
Less than a year later, he met the Ultimate Judge, and if I had had any power to condemn or pardon, it would have availed nothing at that point. I doubt I'll be meeting him on the other side.
With artistic talent like that I care not about his politics. It doesn’t change the fact Uncle Lenny was arguably the greatest musician this nation ever produced.
Besides, Gilels, Richter, Berman, Rodhovienskiy, Kondrashin, Sultanov, etc were all Soviet Communists
Lang Lang, Yundi Li, etc. are Chinese Communists
Elisabeth Schwartzkopf, Wilhelm Backhaus, Karl Böhm, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Wilhelm Fürtwängler, Herbert von Karajan, Wolfgang Windgassen, etc, were all Nazis
Who gives a crap? They all made glorious MUSIC, which is all that matters.
SAX too
With me its a tossup between him and Duke Ellington.
Probably looks better than he smells.
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I haven’t watched that video yet. But there is an amazing one of him conducting the choral finale to Mahler’s second. It is just awesome as he envelops himself in the emotionally charged music. He brings the listener along with him. Truly amazing.
And as you note: what would the status of Mahler be without LB? Probably still waiting to be re-discovered and that would be tragic.
With me its a tossup between him and Duke Ellington.”
Fascinating debate, and I think you have narrowed it to the two finalists. But I think LB has to win. His work as a public intellectual, basically bringing musicology to the masses, his lectures at Harvard, all of that is amazing and important work. Moreover, the versatility of his compositions, comparing West Side Story to say his Age of Anxiety symphony...Bernstein truly mastered music in its entirety.
Ellington’s output is astonishing and vast.
But I think Bernstein has the slight edge here....
I'm with you. I might also mentioned Gieseking and certainly the odious Wagner.
One of the popular features of every issue was one of my original social satire poems or political doggerel. Below is an article and poem of mine exactly as it was published in the May, 1970 issue.
(An interesting sidelight is that one of my subscribers was the late Thomas Ayers, president and CEO of Commonwealth Edison, based in Chicago, Illinois. I never put two and two together till many years later that I read he was the father of Obama's best bud, Bill Ayers. Young Bill was already planting bombs in 1969 with the radical Weathermen organization).
Here's the article and my poem.......
"Mrs. Leonard Bernstein, wife of the conductor, recently gave a party in her plush Manhattan apartment to raise defense money for twenty-one Black Panthers and other militants indicted on charges of plotting to kill New York policemen and to dynamite midtown department stores, police stations and railroads.
Mrs. Bernstein, who founded the womens' division of the New York Civil Liberties Union, invited a group of Panthers to the party to talk and mix with her elegant leftist society friends. The Panthers, who openly despise the wealthy socialites, nevertheless accepted their monetary contributions to aid in the revolutionary movement. During the party, Donald Cox, Panther 'Field Marshal', gave a little speech outlining his organization's goals, which include violent overthrow of the government and the imposition of a communist economic system in the U.S.
Then everyone at the party had a good time among the expensive furnishings, the elaborate flower arrangements, the cocktails and the hors d'oeuvres.
THE ELEGANT SLUMMERS
Mrs. B sat on the floor, clad in pantsuit by Dior
As she welcomed all the Panthers to her upper-crust soiree
It was a social plummet for Mrs. Sidney Lumet
But one must admit the whole affair was charmingly chi-chi
Dear Mrs. Peter Duchin learned gobs of revolution
As she nibbled pate foie gras dipped in rare imported cheese
Nouveau Riche and Broadway Star stuffed themselves with caviar
As they ooh-ed and aah-ed at all the latest Marxist theo-ries
Midst the cocktails and canapes, chandeliers and velvet drapes
The Panthers knocked the Country and the System and the Pigs
Socialistic plans were told, communism was extolled
And the ones that cheered the loudest were the wealthy New York prigs
Then somebody passed the hat, out came the wallets fat
And the guests donated to the revolutionary crew
Mrs. Lumet gave a sigh, "Oh, these fabulous Masai
I haven't had so darn much fun since the days of my debut"
They do have fun and games, these effete New York names
As they undermine the system that provides them with their dough
But there is a shining ray - if the Panthers get their way
The fortunes of these dilletantes will be the first to go"
(Note: Mrs. Sidney Lumet was Gloria Vanderbilt, mother of CNN's Anderson Cooper by another husband).
Just think, I wrote the above 42 years ago....and the "picture" painted still holds true today both in ideology and reality.
Leni/MinuteGal
When Bernstein did a TV special in 1960 on Mahler’s centennial he mentioned that most people didn’t know who Mahler was. In America it was Bernstein who popularized Mahler.
Ping to # 36
Hmmmm ???? Interesting. Like the poem Leni!
Today he is de-composing.
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