Leonard Bernstein discusses great works of the 20th Century

This clip is from Bernstein's 'The Unanswered Question - Six Talks at Harvard, Lecture 5: The Twentieth Century Crisis'. Bernstein describes Mahler's 9th Symphony as a prophetic vision of death and anguish that will colour the 20th Century, and lists great works from that century that are 'born of despair and protest', from Sartre and Camus to the Beatles.

http://www.thecultureclub.net

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Music

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• Leonard
• Bernstein

[MusicaRicercata]

Bernstein could have honestly made his point with significantly less pointless name-dropping. But hey, how would that remind us what a "culturally-informed genius" Bernstein is? Don't actually bother with any actual analysis or commentary on the works each other; just a few glib, vapid characterizations is fine.

[ttucker23]

@MusicaRicercata To put this in context, this clip is a tiny extract from a lecture series that lasted over 5 hours, during which he puts forward a lot of deep analysis and commentary on many great works of music, from Mozart through to Schoenberg. I liked this clip for the points he makes about the character of art in the 20th century (ie the predominance of despair) and the interesting list of works that he includes in that list.

[luigiperso]

brilliant composer and mind.....who's the dumbass who gave thumbs down?

[soaringvulture]

Bernstein's intellect is overpowering. The shocking thing is that he could boogie, he could play the blues, he could write show tunes and he could knock you out with Rhapsody in Blue. Must have been from another planet.

[MusicaRicercata]

@grizzlytomahawk Yeah, I agree, ad hominems are cruise control for cool when you don't actually have an argument to offer.

[billdakelski]

Let me translate what Bernie the intellectual is trying to say in plain English:

Jean-Paul Sartre, La Nausée: Existentialism i.e. There is no god. and Money is evil (unless it is mine of course).

Albert Camus - Absurdism: the efforts of humanity to find inherent meaning will ultimately fail; there is no god again;

Stoicism: “god” is merely the physical universe there is no spirit.

Nihilism: life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.

Thomas Mann ditto ditto etc etc

[grizzlytomahawk]

@MusicaRicercata And who are you, exactly?

[redhedbedhed]

i smiled ear to ear when he mentioned she's leaving home. i think it's one of the best-ever beatles songs that is often overlooked.

[HappyHumanism]

Reminiscent of Carl Sagan...

[MusicaRicercata]

@Dally3232 Why not just use "early 20th century France"? It's (for the most part) accurate and doesn't come with the baggage of assumptions that comes with the term "impressionism."

[Dally3232]

@MusicaRicercata

I thought you meant that on a metaphysical level.

When I talk about impressionism, I mean the period in which Débussy and Ravel composed. Despite the objections, I find that "impressionism" is a fitting umbrella term for Débussy's works.

Apart from that, if you look for actual analysis by Bernstein, listen to his speech on the first movement of Brahms' 4th. I think I remember it even being here on Youtube if I'm not mistaken.

[MusicaRicercata]

@MusicaRicercata The two "great Impressionists", Debussy and Ravel, are so different from one another that it basically makes no sense to group the two under a similar, specific label, much less to place the two on similar levels. And with regard to the similarity in harmonic idiom, it is for the most part a continuation of change that French music had undergone since the late 19th century.

Also, there was no actual "impressionist" movement and the term as initially used was a pejorative.