Leonard Bernstein explains some of Chales Ives background before performing his second Symphony in Munich heading the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
What a wise man! What a knowledge! What a Culture! What a Magister! What a great teacher when I was a boy and I saw her TV programs made to another boys and girl, a long time ago, but start from them, I began to study music. I'm very much oblige to you, Mr. Bernstein.... You still continue being alive for musiciens and music lovers.
I believe this is the Bavarian Radio Symphony, and performed in Munich - only because someone else had posted the actual concert as such. (Also, I didn't recognize anyone from the NYPO here.) Nonetheless, it's great to have this pre-concert chat from LB!
Bernstein articulates the problem I always had with most puck even while growing up in that era. Most punk musicians didn't even know how to play their instruments. While it might have been minimalist it was not primitive.
I just finished a biography on Ives by Jan Swafford who points out Bernstein characterizing Ives as a primitive and how incorrect that is. Hearing this speech must be what Swafford was referencing and I have to admit that's a curious way to characterize Ives. His music was more complex than probably any contemporary of his. Hardly primitive. His approach was anti intellectual at heart so maybe that has something to do with it.
@@marcallen4532 I'm not familiar with the Bernard Hermann connection. I know Henry Cowell was also a supporter. The more I listen to Ives, the more I'm astounded at what an original and idiosyncratic voice he had as a composer. Before reading Swafford's bio I was a little lost on his work since it's so personal, but after understanding the transcendental, utopian progressive (in the best sense of the term) optimism, uninhibited experimentalism and mysticism themes and philosophies Ives was coming from, it all made much more sense and opened the door to his art for me. There's a lot going on there philosophically and artistically, esp for a "grandpa". I also don't remember Bernstein ever performing the works like the 4th symphony.
@@brentmarquez4157 Herrmann discovered Ives' self published 114 Songs in 1927 -1928 when he was a teenager of 16 0r 17. He contacted Mr. Ives, met him they befriended one another. He then evangelized for the great man introducing all he encountered to the music -Aaron Copland and Leopold Stokowski among others. Herrmann was later the chief conductor of the Columbia Broadcasting Systems Radio orchestra (The opposite number to Toscanini on NBC) where he championed Ives' music giving numerous broadcast premiers of his music.
Well put! It's not really even clear what Bernstein meant by "primitive". He probably thought he was giving a compliment, by comparing Ives and his music with Picasso and his turn toward "primitivism" (in 1907 with "Les demoiselles d'Avignon"). But that contradicts Bernstein's main point. Ives had heard, assimilated, analyzed, and synthesized a vast spectrum of music, from folk (primitive?) to popular to patriotic to religious to classical. It would have been better if Bernstein had called Ives "fresh and iconoclastic", or "a native/natural talent". And he could strengthened his remarks by citing examples of European composers' use of folk song. A Russian song (roughly 'Glory to the Sun High in the Sky') collected in 1790 was quoted by all of Beethoven, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Arensky, and (in a 20th-century work for brass) Oskar Böhme. As for the originally Portuguese popular song or dance that came to be called "La follia", listing the composers who have quoted it or written variations on it since ca. 1600 requires a whole website!
I don't recognise the hall as one in London, as claimed in the description. Bernstein starts his speech by talking about the driver who collected him from Munich airport, so I'm pretty sure it's Munich, as you suggest.
I think early punk and some early new wave music is very "primal" and genuine. I think if Ives was born in the 50's he would maybe experiment with punk and industrial/electronic music.
7:47 I would have been so nervous, haha, he clearly hadn't plan to have someone do that...they tend to have them rehearsed and they know what to play when they turned from the audience...that first guy, haha...a little cringy...
Did he just dis punk! What a fraud;-) Anyway, what an appropriate use of a captured european audience to inform and prepare them for the forthcoming performance of an american composer. Good stuff.