Leonard Bernstein examines music from every age and place in the search for a worldwide, innate musical grammar. ; Folk music, pop songs, symphonies, tonal, atonal, well-tempered and ill-tempered works find a place in these discussions. ; All of them, Mr. Bernstein suggests, are grounded in a universal musical language. Using analogies between music and linguistics, Mr. Bernstein shows how this language can be understood as an aesthetic surface. ; Drawing on his insights as a master composer and conductor, he also explores what music means below the surface. Finally, Mr. Bernstein analyzes the crisis of twentieth-century music, finding its roots in all that has gone before.
Written and delivered when Leonard Bernstein was Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University, with performances by Mr. Bernstein, The Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic.
Written by: Leonard Bernstein
Executive Producer: ; Harry J. Kraut
Consulting Producer: ; Humphrey Burton
Producer: ; Douglas Smith
This is a 6 DVD Set!
PROGRAMS:
Musical Phonology
Explores the origins and development of music and language, with a performance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in g minor; K. 550
Musical Syntax
Compares the structures of music and speech, and discusses the multiple transformations of which both are capable, with examples from Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in g minor, K. 550
Musical Semantics
Demonstrates layers of meaning in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F Major, op. 68
The Delights and Dangers of Ambiguity
Explorations of new tonal fields by composers of the Romantic era. Musical illustrations include: Hector Berlioz’s Romeo Alone & The Ball at the Capulets from Romeo & Juliet, Richard Wagner’s Prelude und Liebestod from Tristan & Isolde, and Claude Debussy’s Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune
The Twentieth Century Crisis
Arnold Schoenberg’s movement toward atonality and Gustav Mahler’s anticipation of the crisis in twentieth-century music. Includes performances of Ives’ The Unanswered Question, Ravel’s Feris from Rapsodie Espagnole and Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 in D Major; Mvt. 4
The Poetry of Earth
Examines how Igor Stravinsky kept tonality viable while experimenting freely with dissonance. Includes a complete performance of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex
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