"Life without music is unthinkable." Leonard Bernstein

The anniversary of the death of Leonard Bernstein on October 14 has me thinking about what made him great as a musician and a man.  I admire him as a teacher, composer, performer, conductor, and a man who tried to use music to bring people together.

Bernstein was one of Marin Alsop's mentors.  Here she talks about the first time she met him.



I must admit that I'm a bit jealous of Marin Alsop because she attended the live performances of Leonard Bernstein's Young Peoples Concerts even before she met him personally.  I loved watching those programs on TV when I was a kid.  Now I have a collection of 10 DVDs from that series, and I watch them over and over.  Recently I discovered that some of these videos have been posted on Youtube, and I enthusiastically recommend them to people of all ages.


Bernstein said that he loves words in addition to music, and most of his compositions include singing.  His well known "West Side Story" is a Romeo and Juliet type play/opera set in a slum in New York City.  Here is a beautiful duet sung by the star crossed lovers.





I saw the film as a teenager, and some of my friends saw it three or four times.  Even now, the song brings tears to my eyes.


Bernstein was an outstanding jazz pianist.  In this clip, he plays piano and conducts an orchestra simultaneously for a beautiful, lively performance of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."



I find this performance spellbinding.  I just can't walk away from it.


I first realized what a great conductor Bernstein was when I attended a concert in which he conducted Elgar's Enigma Variations, a piece that I didn't particularly like.  However, when Bernstein conducted it, I loved it.  That says a lot about him.  I love so many performances that Bernstein conducted that It's very hard to choose one to include here.  I decided to focus on his conducting the final movement of Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony for several reasons.  Bernstein was responsible for a comeback of Mahler's music, which had been neglected for years.  I had a long lived antipathy to Mahler's music, derived in part from my experience playing second violin in his Symphony #1 (a dismal part to play) and, more strongly, my perception that Mahler's music was just too big for me to relate to.  Once again, Bernstein made me love this music by conducting it and talking about it.  The following video clip shows him conducting and explaining the very end of Mahler's Ninth.





That was quite a journey  -- walking with a tortured man to his death.  I would be scared to take that walk by myself, but Bernstein helps me by showing me the surrender and peace at the end of life.


Bernstein conducted with his whole body and his whole being.  To watch him conduct is to see the music embodied.  He becomes the music he conducts.



It takes a special talent to laugh and make others laugh about one's personal, artistic predicament.  Bernstein once had a real predicament when he conducted a piano concerto in which the pianist was the notoriously eccentric Glenn Gould.  Bernstein preceded the performance with a disclaimer in which he spoke about his need to "submit to a soloist's totally new and incompatible concept."




Leonard Bernstein revealed himself and his thoughts on music vividly in his writing.  Here are some quotes from him that I particularly like.

"Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable."

"Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action. Our most emotionally active life is lived in our dreams, and our cells renew themselves most industriously in sleep.  We reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillnessevery human being is great; he is free from the experience of hostility; he is a poet, and most like an angel." 

"To be a success as a Broadway composer, you must be Jewish or gay. I'm both."

"Life without music is unthinkable. Music without life is academic. That is why my contact with music is a total embrace."

I'll end as I began, with a clip of Marin Alsop talking about her mentor, Bernstein.  She speaks of his greatness as a musician and a human being.

Lang Lang at the Intersection of Art and Money

I love Lang Lang, the young wunder-pianist from China.  I go to hear him in person whenever possible, and I've bought several of his CDs.  I think he is incredibly talented.  He plays standards of the repertoire that I've heard many times, and he makes them new in his own way.  I especially love the way he plays Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4, the second movement, based on the Orpheus and Euridyce story.  I think he interprets it in a very Chinese  way, and one of my Chinese friends agrees.  Here he plays the last part of that movement.  He plays so gently and affects the listener's heart so strongly.

 He is especially well liked by people like me who love to hear him talk.  He has such a mesmerizing effect on his audiences.  He sounds so humble and so personal at the same time, in a way similar to Yo Yo Ma.  I've heard him give Q and A sessions after concerts, and he appears quite open and honest with the audience.

His life story is an interesting one.  He was brought up in poverty by parents who strongly wanted him to succeed and gave up the little creature comforts they had to pay for him to live and study in Beijing when he was only a small child.  Lang Lang has told his story repeatedly and lovingly in ads for his music when he worked for Deutsche Grammophone and in two "as told by" books. His CDs and DVDs sell like hotcakes.  He endeared himself to a worldwide audience when he played at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Lang Lang recorded for a long time on the DG label.  DG has a history of hiring the very best artists, making the very best recordings of them, and educating people about them on their website.  Here Lang Lang talks about the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio on the album "Tchaikovsky / Rachmaninof Piano Trios," another of my favorite recordings by Lang Lang.

Lang Lang no longer works for DG.  Recently, in a move that shook up the classical music community, Sony "bought" Lang Lang from DG for a mere $3 million (3,000,000 USD).  Lang Lang has caught on to the entrepreneurial spirit in a big way, as noted by the magazine  Success.  He is promoting three products on his website , which I am presenting in order from the sublime to the ridiculous.

First is a series of Lang Lang Youth Pianos made by Steinway.

Lang Lang said that as a child, he dreamed of playing the Steinway, and he wants other children to have the chance to do so.  The Lang Lang series pianos bear the star's signature in Chinese and English (simplified to LL) and gold stars on the vertical piano cover and  sometimes inside the piano.

Next, as described on his website,is a silk scarf in "regal blue and black with a vibrant illustration of a classical piano in fuchsia" priced at a mere $150.




The third item blew me away.  I thought, "At least Lang Lang is endorsing goods related to the arts, not athletic shoes, a la Michael Jordan."

Enter the Adidas originals for Lang Lang, a limited edition pair of shoes worn by Lang Lang himself, but presumably not at performances in the concert hall.  As quoted on the Adidas website, Lang Lang says "As an international pianist I combine both artistry and enthusiasm for sports – especially football...Therefore the linking of sports and culture is a very natural combination.”  These black shoes bear Lang Lang's Chinese signature in gold on the heel, a golden silhouette of a pianist playing a concert piano on the side, and golden piano pedals printed on the sock liners. 

Lang Lang sounds just as humble and sincere in his commercials as he does in his talks about music.  I don't know what to make of his brash money making, but I still believe that he is an incredibly good musician.