gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor) (10/18/90)
The first time I ever saw Leonard Bernstein was on television. During one of his "Young People's Concerts," he was in the process of trying to talk about either modal harmony or parallel fifths (I don't recall which, since I was pretty young), when he sat down at the piano and demonstrated a simple sequence of two chords composed entirely of fifths. He played them forward (ascending), and then backwards. The sequence *did* seem fairly familiar to me. Just at the point when I'd have figured out where I knew that sequence from, he broke into a spirited and totally unexpected version of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me." He went flying into a foot stomping, head-shaking first verse and chorus from a complete, dead stop (something one sees conductors do with some regularity when driving an orchestra, I guess), complete with vocals. I was absolutely stunned-particularly because this was a *grownup* doing this on television. It sure had the desired effect, though-it was, I think, the first moment that I really felt like all that high culture nonsense was somehow using the same materials as the music I *really* liked. I think that it was also the most explicit display of violence and energy that I'd ever seen a conductor do, which always left me wondering about whether they might actually do that about all that ponderous, boring symphonic stuff. I think that I shall always remember Leonard Bernstein at the moment when he finished his Kinks performance, pushed that hair back out of his eyes and smiled broadly at an audience of cheering kids. I know, I should remember all the passion and high art of it, but that's my honest image of him. -- a cooling system/burns out in the ukraine/trees and umbrellas/protect us from the new rain/armies of engineers/to analyze the soil/the food we contemplate/the water that we boil/i can't run/but i can walk much faster than this/gregory alan taylor/heurikon/madison, WI 53717/(608) 828-3385
thode@nprdc.navy.mil (Walt Thode) (10/23/90)
I didn't get to see the "Young People's Concerts" although unfortunately
not because I'm too young, but because they weren't shown where I grew
up. However, some of them have been recorded and described in books.
My own favorite (which I'd love to see sometime) was the "What is Jazz"
edition, which was recorded by Columbia. The part I remember, similar
to Gregory Taylor's memory, was where LB illustrates the iambic
pentameter of the classic blues by comparing it to Shakespeare, and then
breaks into a blues vocal using some of the lines from MacBeth:
"I will not be afraid of death and bane
Till Burnham Forest comes to Dunsinane."
I only got to hear it on record, but my reaction to it was similar to
Gregory's to LB doing the Kinks' music.
LB will be missed!
--Walt Thode Internet: thode@nprdc.navy.mil
UUCP: {everywhere_else}!ucsd!nprdc!thoderesmgt04@spacm1.uucp (10/23/90)
In article <942@heurikon.heurikon.com>, gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor) writes: > I think that it was also the most explicit display > of violence and energy that I'd ever seen a conductor do, which always > left me wondering about whether they might actually do that about all > that ponderous, boring symphonic stuff. Classical music lovers (people who realize that that "ponderous, boring, symphonic stuff" isn't) can only shake their heads at this. While it wouldn't be fair to say that I like the Kinks as much as the next person, I *do* like "You really got me", but I can only ask you to take my word that the symphonic repertoire is full of pieces that have more energy and violence, if that's what you want, than anything by the Kinks, X, Black Flag, etc. It's just done differently, within a different framework. It's as hard to get pop music lovers to listen to classical music as it is to get most classical folks to home in on Mahler. All I can say is that if you take the time you'll get the reward. As far as Lenny goes, it's a great shame that he died so young, but it's an even greater shame that he could have been alive today had he not smoked cigarettes. It has always been a remarkable fact of the human condition that people who are especially talented in one area have a corresponding blind spot somewhere else. -- Bill Robertson "Lots of people can sing louder and longer than Elvis, too, but who cares?" Eval Knievel
rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu (R o d Johnson) (10/24/90)
In article <1989.27241379@spacm1.uucp> resmgt04@spacm1.uucp writes: >In article <942@heurikon.heurikon.com>, gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor) writes: >> I think that it was also the most explicit display >> of violence and energy that I'd ever seen a conductor do, which always >> left me wondering about whether they might actually do that about all >> that ponderous, boring symphonic stuff. >Classical music lovers (people who realize that that "ponderous, >boring, symphonic stuff" isn't) can only shake their heads at this. I'm a quote classical music lover unquote and I can do more than that. I can bet you, oh, a doughnut that Gregory Taylor is too, for instance, and that he was writing with a kind of fond irony about what he felt as a Young Person being exposed to this stuff for the first time. I don't know about you, but my responses were similar to Gregory's--we don't always react with great sophistication when we're eight or ten years old. Personally, I always went for the LOUD parts. >As far as Lenny goes, it's a great shame that he died so young, but it's >an even greater shame that he could have been alive today had he not smoked >cigarettes. Then again, it was his life to spend, and if he felt that cigarettes were integral to his pleasure in life, who are we to deny it? Lenny wasn't some sort of scarce resource to be husbanded like petroleum. -- Rod Johnson * rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu * (313) 650 2315 "I happen to sweat profusely." -- Ted Kaldis