Comments on: My Cousin Lenny

By: Hawksian

Hawksian — Thu, 04 May 2017 02:44:26 +0000

>>>Ironically, his score for West Side Story will probably be listened to long after Mahler’s Fifth (the work with which he was buried) ceases to be performed.

Change the word ironically to tragically and it would work better.

By: Jesse Joseph

Jesse Joseph — Wed, 03 May 2017 22:55:05 +0000

It just so happens that I played a CD today of Kubelik conducting Mahler’s Fifth. Believe me, Bernstein does not even get near Mahler’s composing talent. Mahler was also the greatest conductor of his time, especially of operas.

By: James

James — Wed, 03 May 2017 07:07:37 +0000

This article made me cry: I have almost never been so depressed by something that I read on the internet. I know a bit of Paula Martinez Cohen’s work and I like it. I know that she is an interesting and serious writer, and I think that she likes Bernstein for many of the same reasons that I do. She does not seem to like classical music very much. This is normal. Classical music does not loom very large in America today and American culture writers tend not to know much about it or to care about it. The traditions of the classical concert are indeed quite “stodgy,” but the core repertoire of the classical tradition is no stodgier than Persuasion, Moby Dick, The Brothers Karamazov or In Search of Lost Time. These novels can seem inaccessible to the contemporary reader, but with effort and perhaps a good teacher the can still have a transformative, pulverizing effect on the reader. I think that most of the people writing in American cultural publications admit, and are affected by the power of old novels. In fact Beethoven and Mahler have the same power to shake us to change our lives and shake us to our very core. Of course it is bad to be snobbish: just as many people will never like Jane Austin, many people are uninterested in classical music, or in music in general. American writers tend to prefer one strand or another of our nation’s extremely rich tradition of popular music, in part because classical music seems like a cultural irrelevance. Leonard Bernstein fought with every fiber of his being to place classical music at the center of American culture, to make it impossible to ignore. He gave excellent performances of the standard repertoire, and his lectures made it accessible to generations of young people; he introduced much interesting and neglected classical music (Nielsen, contemporaries like Copland, Hindemith and Stravinsky; Mahler above all); he tried in his own compositions to forge an organic link between classical music and the popular music of his time. This connection had been real and powerful in the past: think of the influence of the waltz and the minuet on Viennese classicism, of folk song on Britten or Bartok; even the influence of jazz and tin pan alley on the composers of the 1920s, above all Kurt Weil. It was not obvious in America perhaps because classical composers have almost never become the cultural heroes there that they have elsewhere (Bernstein is probably the most famous American classical musician), perhaps because modern popular music was born here. If anyone could have saved American classical music from irrelevance it was Lenny: this article shows why he failed.

West Side Story is an excellent operetta. Time will tell if it has the staying power of Der Fledermaus, The Mikado, The Merry Widow, La Belle Helen, or the Brecht/Weil Threepenny Opera. Even in the United States the can-can from Belle Helene is certainly much better known than anything from West Side Story. In Europe “Da geh ich ins Maxims” is much more famous than “Maria.” West Side Story may speak to us more powerfully than these other operettas because we are closer to the traditions from which it arises: tin pan alley musicals and jazz. Those traditions are dying even faster than classical music. Why should we expect jazz to last any longer than the tango or the waltz? Mahler’s Fifth, like Bernstein’s “serious” compositions, is a very different kind of work. It will cease to be preformed when there cease to be enough classically trained musicians to make up professional symphony orchestras. May that day be long in coming! When it comes, all of Lenny’s work will be forgotten.

I feel that in Europe, including the UK, classical music is more culturally central: no doubt in part because most of the classical repertoire is made up of European composers. Generous state subsides are also to thank. In Europe writers and public figures will often talk at length about their taste for classical music. Merkel gave a long interview about her love for Wagner. Jeremy Corbyn loves Mahler & David MIliband is married to a member of the LSO. The prime minister of the Netherlands is failed classical pianist. French TV news anchors are revealed by gossip magazines to be having affairs with sexy violinists. In America, a talented writer like Paula Martinez Cohen can recognize Bernstein for the American original that he is, but be untouched by the musical tradition that formed the core of his being.

By: Leonard

Leonard — Tue, 02 May 2017 11:43:34 +0000

“it had to do with the snobbism of the classical music world during this period that couldn’t fathom that one wouldn’t want to be dedicated, heart and soul, to a stodgy repertoire”
“Ironically, his score for West Side Story will probably be listened to long after Mahler’s Fifth (the work with which he was buried) ceases to be performed.”
Oh. My. God. This writer is evidently utterly, utterly clueless about music.

By: Don Drewecki

Don Drewecki — Mon, 01 May 2017 17:50:58 +0000

Mahler’s first name was Gustav, not Gustave. This error strikes me as similar to some of the errors in Joan Peyser’s book on LB. The tragedy of LB, for me, is dual: First, the hyper-emotional, hyper-mannered quality of many of his interpretations. Second, that he actually believed he was a serious GREAT composer whose music could stand comparison with any truly great composer’s. His serious compositions are a washout, as one critic wrote. They’re embarrassing to listen to, tedious, loud, banal, tawdry. Then, finally, he imprinted on the American public the idea that conducting is a highly physical, super-romantic experience with endless gyrations and flailing arms and foot-stomping. His best work is mostly the Young People’s Concerts, where the 52-minute time limitation forced him into being concentrated, direct, straightforward. He is at his very best in things like the 1954 Omnibus lecture on Beethoven’s Fifth, his 1960 YPC program on Mahler, and his 1966 one on Modes. That’s the LB I choose to remember, as I struggle to forget Kaddish, Age of Anxiety and MASS.

By: Isaac Segal

Isaac Segal — Mon, 01 May 2017 14:35:46 +0000

As someone who learned much about music from Bernstein’s wonderful TV lectures, I enjoyed being reminded of those days and of his impact on American culture. To paraphrase Archie and Edith, “Mister, we could use another Leonard Bernstein today.”

But the Mahler dig—even apart from the misspelling of his name—was hardly necessary.

In his frustration about a career as a conductor conflicting with his greater aspirations as a composer, as well as his ability to mesmerize audiences and reveal music in new ways (to say nothing of his Jewishness), Mahler was Bernstein before there was Bernstein. And as much as Lenny would want to know that people would still be listening to his music long after he was gone, I doubt he would put his compositions ahead of, or even equal to, Mahler’s.

Bernstein was a musical missionary. But his god was Mahler.

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 01 May 2017 11:36:02 +0000

I too love Lenny for all of his huge contributions to this life. But why take a cheap shot at Mahler 5 and set up some kind of nonsensical competition between that and West Side Story. Lenny would have thought that was silly – s-i-l-l-y – Both works will of course be listened to for many centuries to come – often by the same people…..maybe even you, Paula…