{"id":54820,"date":"2018-07-06T15:53:57","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T19:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=54820"},"modified":"2018-07-08T07:33:06","modified_gmt":"2018-07-08T11:33:06","slug":"guide-the-ludwig-van-guide-to-summer-reading-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2018\/07\/06\/guide-the-ludwig-van-guide-to-summer-reading-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"GUIDE | The Ludwig Van Guide To Summer Reading Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Summer
Back by popular demand! Part two of our special on classical music summer reading with a special focus on Lenny Bernstein At 100.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

[For part one of this guide, see HERE<\/a><\/span>]<\/h3>\n

The Leonard Bernstein Letters Edited by Nigel Simeone, Yale University Press 2013 Paperback $31.46;\u00a0 The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard by Leonard Bernstein Harvard University Press 1976\u00a0 Paperback $44.28; Leonard Bernstein:\u00a0 An American Musician by Allen Shawn, Yale University Press 2014, Hardcover $28.92<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part One<\/a> of Ludwig Van\u2019s Summer Reading Guide concerned two books timed to coincide with the two-year global celebration of the birth of Leonard Bernstein. There are countless other books for you to enjoy that were published before Bernstein At 100.\u00a0 In fact, you draw reading material for several summers from the steady stream of Bernsteinabilia<\/em> began appearing shortly after his death in 1990 and will continue to appear as private material in the archives of individuals who knew Bernstein become public.\u00a0 The Bernstein estate released a \u201cfresh\u201d batch of Bernstein correspondence in 2010, for example, and we can anticipate more from Bernstein\u2019s younger associates, such as Stephen Sondheim, who are due for departure in the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

As Peter Oundijan\u2019s fond reminiscence of Bernstein, delivered before conducting Three Dances from Fancy Free in June<\/a>, and Bramwell Tovey\u2019s equally warm memories of the Maestro, which were posted on the TSO website before he conducted Candide last April<\/a> indicate, coming in contact with Lenny left a lasting impact.\u00a0 Concerning his musical influence, it\u2019s nearly impossible to separate the effect of Bernstein\u2019s powerful way of relating to the musicians with whom he interacted from the musicianship itself.<\/p>\n

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This is strikingly apparent in The Leonard Bernstein Letters, <\/em>edited by Nigel Simeone. This discerning selection of 650 out of tens of thousands of letters makes Bernstein\u2019s musical activities the primary criterion for inclusion.\u00a0The letters\u00a0from Bernstein to Aaron Copland, Stephen Sondheim, Adolph Green, David Diamond, Jerome Robbins, Serge Koussevitsky, Marc Blitzstein, Olivier Messiaen, James M Cain, and other major cultural figures, touch on detailed compositional considerations.<\/p>\n

While Bernstein\u2019s letters brim with energy, character and wit, they are only half the thrill of this collection.\u00a0 The letters to Bernstein from the correspondents just mentioned plus<\/em> immortals such as Benjamin Britten, Francois Poulenc, Nadia Boulanger, Bette Davis, Samuel Barber, Andre Previn, Martha Gellhorn and Thornton Wilder, are even more rewarding. In their idiosyncratic, unique voices, they express the range and depth of response that Bernstein evoked in them.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great privilege to witness intimate exchanges between people who meant so much to each other.\u00a0Adolph Green\u2019s letter to his friend Lenny on his 50th-birthday, describing their first meeting nearly 30 years before, is as great a testament to friendship as Michel de Montaigne\u2019s tribute to Etienne de la Boethie*. \u00a0He recalls that within minutes of meeting Lenny, he “felt a sudden, complete, exuberance. The fresh air of 1,00,000 windows opening simultaneously and a sense that my life had been building towards a turning point\u00a0and that it had happened\u2014now. \u00a0[\u2026] We trouped\u00a0the Onata Hills that night, for hours and hours \u00a0[\u2026]\u00a0\u00a0and every moment was a new miracle.\u00a0\u00a0I knew\u00a0as we walked and sang and talked, that you, the boy L.B. was nothing less than a genius.\u00a0 How happy your friendship makes me. \u00a0It fills me with the simple and complicated joy of knowing there can be a meaning to life\u2026”.<\/p>\n

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Evidence of the genius that Green mentions, is still abundantly available in many formats, including CDs, DVDs, Youtube Videos and more.\u00a0 The scripts of some of Bernstein\u2019s television broadcasts make for\u00a0extremely good reading. Though your idea of lakeside diversion might not be a rigorous inquiry into the application of Noam Chomsky\u2019s linguistic theories to music, the text of Bernstein\u2019s 1973 Norton lectures, The Unanswered Question, Six Talks at Harvard, is truly refreshing.\u00a0 Verbatim transcripts of the lectures, accompanied by diagrams he used as aids, plus fragments of scores of works that he referenced, they capture Bernstein\u2019s relaxed, irreverent and self-ironizing voice. \u201cSo what? You ask.\u00a0 Why burden us with all this pedantic hair-splitting?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernstein is the consummate public intellectual, suavely pursuing his admittedly speculative thesis that music has a universal structure that is innate to human understanding. \u00a0Whether his conclusion is justified, or would withstand much scrutiny today is irrelevant, it\u2019s the elegance of his thinking, the nuance of his reflection, and the patient explication of his theories that makes the lectures a thrilling intellectual experience.\u00a0 \u00a0The best way to read the book is in tandem with the videos of the lectures, which not only give you the fiendishly telegenic Bernstein but the Boston Symphony Orchestra\u2019s performances of the pieces he explicates.\u00a0\u00a0 All 11 hours of the lectures are on YouTube, and the boxed set can also be purchased.\u00a0 In case you\u2019re wondering, Bernstein poses an answer to the Unanswered Question (which is \u201cwhither music?\u201d) in the very last moments of the lectures.<\/p>\n