Leonard Bernstein - Das Lied Von Der Erde by Gustav Mahler

[speedystriper]

Great analysis of a great piece of music by a great teacher.

[minasgekos]

mr cool of classical music

[vivienmerchant]

I adore this great musician and I know people who worked with him and they all say how nice he was, apart from the obvious brilliance. Also a great sense of humour. How much I wanted to meet him and to hear/see him live.

[Varese13]

@FilmRomMusDrawingWar It is very melancholy music, but so is a good deal of music from the Romantic era. Of course, Mahler came at the very end of that era and his music reflects a sense of loss that certain creative types often undo as the result of the loss of certainty and the fear of the unknown. Add to this Mahler's personal circumstances as a Czech Jew in highly anti-semitic Austria and the fact of his impending death, and one understands the sadness all the more.

[samisyosam]

And you're just supposed to recreate it. You act like you wrote the shit in the first place. What a pompous ass. You're a conductor, not some inspirational superstar. Wave the stick, pay the respects to the composer and GET OUT OF THE SPOTLIGHT. Fuck, I hate bernstein.

[darkprose]

@samisyosam Jesus, man, you're going to need a half a white valium. Bernstein himself was a composer, one of the greatest in the 20th century, and he had an affinity for Mahler's music---of course we can discuss and disagree as to his interpretations or style of conducting Mahler, but, I don't think you an deny that he was a great pedagogue of music and of Mahler, too, and even when he was off the mark perhaps, his love and passion for Mahler affected people. No small task.

[darkprose]

@samisyosam Also, Mahler wrote probably the most complex music in Western history, I think, and Das Lied is notorious (or at least no less a Mahlerian than Riccardo Chailly has said so) for being difficult to conduct because of the complexity of tempi and so on, so you can just..."recreate" Mahler. All music has to be interpreted, even if it is interpreted coldly or dogmatically or indifferently.

[samisyosam]

@darkprose I'm in favor of precise and dogmatic. I don't stand for people who fill in the blanks or cut corners or say "we're going to switch this part with that part because I think it works better that way" because they think their name is more important on the bill than the original composer. I'll take stravinsky the asshole perfectionist over bernstein and his fluff. Bernstein is a great example of how pleasing the majority only works to the lowest common denominator.

[darkprose]

@samisyosam Maybe just take the whole valium, instead.



[samisyosam]

@darkprose It's the ultimate response to anything you disagree with. Instead of replying with a discussion point or a refutation, you tell the other person to "chill" or "relax" or take a valium. It lets you go straight for the ad hominem jugular. Make the other person seem wrong by painting them out as crazy.

Maybe I should use that line next time I feel like being lazy.

[darkprose]

@samisyosam It's only a good solution when talking with individuals such as yourself. So, yes, I am being lazy---your words are not even worth the effort it takes to read them. Good day.

[samisyosam]

@darkprose Now we're talking on a real youtube-comment-section level.

[paulostroff99]

@darkprose -LB was also a very fine pianist.

[darkprose]

@paulostroff99 Indeed he was!

[paulostroff99]

@darkprose -Thank you for your quick response.,

[samisyosam]

Leonard Bernstein, you are not the composer. Quit acting like you can read his fucking mind. Just conduct it the way it's written.

[FilmRomMusDrawingWar]

I am not comfortable with Das lied von der erde. All songs are prevalently melancholic and sad, even the drunk man ore the scene with picking lotos flowers on the river. I don't want to hear that sad music again. Last movement is overclouding whole piece. It is too much sad.

[MarionCap]

Thank you for this. Maestro Bernstein was the greatest.

[darkprose]

Fuck that Dos Equis bullshit --- THIS is the Most Interesting Man in the World.

[paulostroff99]

@darkprose -But does he drink Mexican beer.

[darkprose]

@paulostroff99 lol...Bernstein? Well, still...

[TedMichaelMorgan]

Bernstein had a wonderful literary awareness that he used well in his lectures on music. I very much enjoy whatever one thinks about this or that interpretation of a work. He was a fine teacher.

[ghanabei]

first time i've heard Bernstein speaking.. yay!!!!

[flylooper]

The Abschied is just a marvel of composition. The thing just hovers in the air at the end, as if suspended , which it is, of course. The soloist ends her final syllable on the 9th of the chord; and throughout one hears the overarching 6th of same, and even the 7th. All these intervals are unstable (and were even more so to contemporary ears in the time Mahler wrote) and they give the listener a sense of how ephemeral life itself is in the greater scheme of things. Just amazing.

[flylooper]

The Abschied is just a marvel of composition. The thing just hovers in the air at the end, as if suspended , which it is, of course. The soloist ends her final syllable on the 9th of the chord; and throughout one hears the overarching 6th of same, and even the 7th. All these intervals are unstable (and were even more so to contemporary ears in the time Mahler wrote) and give the listener a sense of how ephemeral life itself is in the greater scheme of things. Just amazing.

[flylooper]

The Abschied is is just a marvel of composition. The thing just hovers in the air at the end, as if suspended , which it is, of course. The soloist ends her final syllable on the 9th of the chord; and throughout one hears the overarching 6th of same, and even the 7th. All these intervals are unstable (and were even more so to contemporary ears in the time Mahler wrote) and give the listener a sense of how ephemeral life itself is in the greater scheme of things. Just amazing.

[cucusca]

Thank you for posting this extraordinary music.

[lpipmp]

god bless you

[powercopies]

This man is really good at making speeches. He also has something extraordinary beside that.

[taviona]

A gentleman and a scholar (quite literally)

[alexklaus80]

cigarette? pretty cheap shit for aristocrat. like him.

wonder if it's marlboro or camel??

[colourfulwithaU]

I love listening to Bernstein speak.

[ValkiriouS]

Stop Smoking..

[mlkoln]

@ValkiriouS

Idiot!

He stopped smoking in october 1990

 :-(

[LorinTone]

It is the essence of the piece and the interpretation of it that is in question here.

asshole.

Start smoking, maybe you'll grow a brain.

[baldwalrus7]

He really should wipe off that sweaty brow before filming. It looks like he's just come out of a sauna.

[netcowboy]

@baldwalrus7 In modern life, with our hundreds of cable channels, we've forgotten that some things are more important than looking good. I'll take a chain-smoking, perspiring genuine individual over a cosmetically superior specimen any day. There's something called living for something greater than oneself. Bill Gates went weeks without a bath while he was making his billions.

[ulkubassoy1]

fantastic

[willrobinson1229]

I have always wanted someone to articulate what moves me so much about Der Abschied. Bernstein has done that. Thank you for posting!

[EDGJZConglomerate]

@willrobinson1229 Der Abscied is one of Mahler's finest movements and it pains me deep inside everytime I listen to it.

[willcwhite]

Thanks for posting.  Lenny looks so tan here -- just great!

[GoatDaddyVersion2]

...

[DemTheComposer]

Fantasic!

An other pearl from the mind of the Maestro.

I've bought this orchestral score some hours ago... and its a great approach and introduction for a complete analysis in the Mahler's mind.

I am a great worshipper of his direction and hope a day of being able to comprise this that it had known to give from the beginning of its brilliant career to the musicians with he worked.

Excuse, for my "tangled" english... but I'm a sixteen italian student..

[darkprose]

You speak well. Keep Mahler and music alive!

[DemTheComposer]

Thank you!

[elneskog]

this is on cool dude!

[darkprose]

Very much appreciated! Thank you for this. That you, and others like you, share these videos keeps Bernstein's wonderful musical work alive.

[stevenmolotov67]

thanks for posting!