« Thanks! | Main | conference paper »
October 02, 2006
Bernstein
Oh, I've neglected this blog woefully lately! I have some fun pics of our little vacation, and the "Josquin Club" reunion I'll put up later.
Tim and I have been watching bits of Leonard Bernstein's lectures "The Unanswered Question," named after Charles Ives's work of the same title.
Incredible. He weaves together musical examples and performances with an encyclopaedic knowledge of music and literature, beautifully articulating how music illuminates the ideas of its time-period, especially the nearly-apocalyptic milieu of the twentieth-century. He makes me remember why I wanted to become a musicologist.
After his philosophical discussion of Mahler and the conducting of the finale from Mahler's Ninth, I was struck by the parallels between Mahler's music and Dostoevsky's novels. Agony, death, love, and occasional luminous outpourings, all inextricably tied together in a complex narrative, shattering and satisfying at the same time.
music stuff | By Tim and Jo | 06:24 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://covblogs.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/8536
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Bernstein:
Comments
Hey...didn't Mr. Friberg require Music Theory III or IV students to watch those lectures? I remember being very impressed, though I remember the lectures regarding Mozart better than the ones on Mahler.
Posted by: funke at October 2, 2006 07:26 PM