The Bernstein Centenary celebration at the Brevard Music Festival last month was multi-faceted. I was invited to explore the Bernstein story for a week with Brevard’s exceptional high school orchestra (the festival also hosts college and professional ensembles). The result was the multi-media “Bernstein the Educator” program that I described in my previous blog. I was also … [Read more...] about Bernstein at Brevard — Take Two: The Artist and Politics
Bernstein the Educator
Museums curate the past. They help us to shape and populate our impressions of history. Orchestras do not curate the past. A typical symphonic program (alas) begins with the selection of a soloist. The resulting programs are eclectic: a potpourri. During his historic music directorship of the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein was the rare conductor for whom … [Read more...] about Bernstein the Educator
Furtwangler and the Nazis — Take Two
I am returning to the topic of Furtwangler because my previous blog produced a minor miracle – a thread of responses that yielded heightened understanding of a complex topic. I wrote to William Osborne and Stephen Stockwell: “Thanks so much for this engrossing feedback. Maybe we could summarize that the truth about Furtwangler falls within these two polarities: “1.He … [Read more...] about Furtwangler and the Nazis — Take Two
Furtwangler and the Nazis
This weekend’s Wall Street Journal includes my review of Roger Allen’s “Wilhelm Furtwangler: Art and the Politics of the Unpolitical.” As some readers of this blog may remember, my most controversial and notorious book – “Understanding Toscanini” (1987) – deals rather extensively with the American career of Furtwangler. I also use Wagner’s "Lohengrin" Prelude to illustrate … [Read more...] about Furtwangler and the Nazis
The Gershwin Moment — Part Five: Klemperer, Tibbett, Gerstein
As I’ve had occasion to observe in my various George Gershwin blogs, Gershwin and J. S. Bach are the two composers most malleable in performance. There is no Gershwin style. And if there is, there’s full license to ignore it. The most recent “PostClassical” broadcast on WWFM includes two little-known but … [Read more...] about The Gershwin Moment — Part Five: Klemperer, Tibbett, Gerstein