When Bernstein Conducted Stravinsky Modern Music?

When Bernstein Conducted Stravinsky Modern Music
Leonard Bernstein referred to Igor Stravinsky as “the last great father-figure of Western music” in his eulogy for Stravinsky. Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ComSE was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who was born on June 17, 1882 and passed away on April 6, 1971.

Igor Stravinsky – Wikipedia

In 1972, before to his tribute performance in London, which took place a year after the death of the composer.
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. He was born on June 17, 1882, and passed away on April 6, 1971. He eventually became a naturalized citizen of France and the United States. It is generally agreed upon that he is one of the most significant and influential composers to have worked throughout the 20th century.

It is remarkable that Stravinsky’s creative career encompassed such a wide variety of styles. His first three ballets, “The Firebird” (1910), “Petrushka” (1911), and “The Rite of Spring” (1913), which were all commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and originally performed in Paris by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, were the beginning of his rise to renown on a global scale (1913).

The most recent of them revolutionized the way that later composers thought about rhythmic structure. It was also primarily responsible for Stravinsky’s continuing image as a musical revolutionary who pushed the frontiers of musical design. During the 1920s, he transitioned out of his “Russian phase” and into a time in which he focused on composing neoclassical music.

Traditional musical styles were frequently utilized in the compositions that were produced during this time period (concerto grosso, fugue and symphony). They frequently paid homage to the works of older masters, such as J.S. Bach and Tchaikovsky, for example. In the 1950s, Stravinsky began using the method of serialization.

His works during this period had characteristics with examples of his earlier output. These characteristics included rhythmic vigor, the building of long melodic ideas out of a few two- or three-note cells, and purity of form, of instrumentation, and of speech.

What is Bernstein musical style?

Leonard Bernstein and Jazz “The ultimate common denominator of the American musical style is jazz,” as the saying goes. Bernstein’s life was permeated with jazz from an early age, and the genre had a significant bearing on the development of his own musical style.

What is the title of Bernstein’s first musical?

Bernstein and Jerome Robbins started working together on Fancy Free in the fall of 1943. Fancy Free is a ballet that tells the story of three young sailors who are home on leave at the period of World War II in New York City.

Which of Bernstein musical is the most well known?

5. Bernstein’s Most Renowned and Remarkable Piece of Work and His Best Composing Achievement is “West Side Story” West Side Story is widely regarded as Bernstein’s most famous and notable piece of work and as his greatest composing achievement. The revolutionary musical that debuted in 1957 took its cue from Romeo and Juliet, which was written by William Shakespeare.

Maria, “Jet Song,” “America,” and “Somewhere” were among of the songs that were featured on the Broadway score.
Bernstein composed the music for West Side Story, which received overwhelmingly positive reviews and was subsequently adapted into a movie that took home ten Oscars.
Stephen Sondheim was the lyricist for the score.

Not only was Bernstein a talented composer, but he also valued passing on his knowledge to aspiring musicians. At Brandeis University, he established the Creative Arts Festival as its founder. He was concerned about world peace and frequently gave concerts on the topic of international concord.

Between the years 1958 and 1969, he served as the Director of the New York Philharmonic.
Because of his sickness, he took early retirement in 1990, and he passed away just one week later, having left behind his wife and three children.
The illustrious career of Leonard Bernstein is still being honored, and the music that he composed, which was both beautiful and inspiring, will continue to carry on his legacy.

“This will be our response to violence; we will compose music significantly more passionately, brilliantly, and devotedly than ever before.” — Leonard Bernstein Discover more about the School of Musical Theatre offered by the New York Film Academy, which can be found in the heart of New York City’s Broadway theater district.

What was Stravinsky’s musical style?

A selection from Wikipedia’s Schools page in 2007. Performers and composers are also relevant topics to discuss.

Igor Stravinsky Игорь Стравинский

Background information
Birth name	Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky
Born	June 17, 1882, Oranienbaum (now Lomonosov, Russia)
Died	April 6, 1971, New York City, NY, USA
Occupation(s)	Composer, Conductor, Pianist
Notable instrument(s)
Orchestra Wind instruments

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian composer who was best known for three compositions from his earlier, Russian period: L’Oiseau de feu (“The Firebird”) (1910), Petrushka (1911), and Le sacre du printemps (“The Rite of Spring”). He was born on June 17, 1882 and passed away on April 6, 1971.

His full name in Russian is Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (Russian: Igor_ Fedorovic Stravin (1913).
These risky and cutting-edge ballets ultimately brought the genre into the 21st century.
Stravinsky wrote music in a variety of styles, including primitivist, neo-classical, and serial.
He composed works for ensembles in a wide variety of classical styles, ranging from opera and symphonies to piano miniatures and pieces for jazz band.

His compositions span the whole range of classical music. Stravinsky rose to reputation as a pianist and conductor, performing frequently during the first performances of his own compositions. He was a writer who created a theoretical treatise titled Poetics of Music with the assistance of Alexis Roland-Manuel.

In this work, he notably asserted that music was incapable of “saying anything except itself.” Conversations with Stravinsky is a collection of articles that were compiled from a number of conversations conducted by Robert Craft with the composer.
Over the course of the subsequent decade, they worked together on a total of five volumes.

Many people, both in the West and in his own country of Russia, believe that Stravinsky was the most important composer of 20th-century music. This opinion is shared by Stravinsky, who epitomizes the international spirit of the Russian people. According to a list compiled by Time magazine, he is one of the 100 most important individuals of the 20th century.

Why is Stravinsky important for music history?

His work with Serge Diaghilev for the Ballet Russes, which included “The Firebird” (1910), catapulted Igor Stravinsky into the public eye almost immediately. Other works include “The Rite of Spring” (1913), which is credited with inciting “one of the most legendary first-night riots in the history of musical theater,” and “The Rake’s Progress,” which was also written by Stravinsky (1951).

Did Leonard Bernstein ever conduct Stravinsky?

Fifty years after the composer’s passing, a box set of recordings has been released that pairs Stravinsky with the conductor who championed his works. Credit. Images courtesy of CBS and Getty Publication date: May 6th, 2021 4 August 2021 Latest Version On the morning of April 6, 1971, a pleasant spring day in New Haven, Connecticut, I was running a bit behind schedule when I arrived at the main building of the Yale School of Music for a piano lesson.

However, I did not proceed past the front door. Someone had posted a little note card to the wall that said, ” Igor Stravinsky passed away today.” I was taken aback by those four words. Up to this point, Stravinsky had been an essential figure throughout the entirety of the musical landscape of the 20th century.

It was written in 1913, yet his “Rite of Spring” was already a part of the modernist movement, which at the time appeared like ancient history. However, during the very same semester in 1971, we were taking an analysis class where we were studying the score of what was still a relatively new piece — his extraordinary “Requiem Canticles,” which was written in 1966 — in an effort to comprehend the manners in which he had adapted the 12-tone technique to serve his own purposes.

He appeared to nearly personify the totality of contemporary music in all of its myriad forms.
After he had left, what could possibly take place? When I was in my early teens, I became a fan of Stravinsky after listening to the recording of his composition “Firebird” over and over again, which he conducted.

The spring of 1966 was the time when I got the closest to seeing him in person. I had recently finished high school and was taking in all of the events that were being held as part of a Stravinsky festival that was being put on by the New York Philharmonic.

At the conclusion of the last concert, the composer took the stage to conduct a performance of his “Symphony of Psalms.” I can’t tell you how many other musicians I’ve come across since then who have expressed their jealousy over the fact that I was there on that particular day.
The first performance, which was led by Leonard Bernstein and concluded with “The Rite of Spring,” was attended by Stravinsky in its entirety by the audience.

Even in this day and age, that particular work has the capacity to astonish. Back then, when it was not as familiar, the music appeared to be absolutely mind-blowing, particularly in Bernstein’s cryptic and volcanic performance, which was nevertheless unified and hauntingly beautiful.

During the standing ovation, Stravinsky, who had been seated towards the front of the first tier, got to his feet, grinned broadly, and extended his gratitude to Bernstein and the other members of the orchestra.
He had stayed seated during the break, and the stewards had prevented other students, including myself, from approaching him.

However, I was able to go near enough to enthusiastically wave at him; I believe he spotted me. I always thought of Stravinsky and Bernstein as being inextricably connected. Stravinsky was the greatest living composer, and Bernstein was his best (and most renowned) defender.

This reputation has persisted to this day: Sony has published a box set that combines the works of these two artists in order to mark the 50th anniversary of Stravinsky’s passing. The number of CDs included in Bernstein’s Stravinsky discography is also disappointingly low; the Sony box set has only six of them.

Bernstein did not conduct as many works by Stravinsky as he could have, not even in the concert hall. This is in contrast to the thorough approach that he took to other composers’ works, such as the symphonies of Mahler. Sony Music Entertainment is responsible for this image.

Credit for the Image. Photograph by Sam Falk for The New York Times Credit for the Image. Photograph by Sam Falk for The New York Times Bernstein led accounts of pieces that clearly compelled him beginning in the 1950s, when Stravinsky was still a challenging composer for most audiences. These pieces included “The Rite of Spring” and “The Firebird,” as well as seminal works from Stravinsky’s Neo-Classical period, such as the Symphony in Three Movements, the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, Symphony of Psalms, and more.

Bernstein is credited with helping to popularize Stravinsky’s music Even on one of Bernstein’s Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts in 1958, which began with Haydn’s Symphony No.104 and was followed by the Stravinsky, the “Rite,” which is considered Bernstein’s trademark work, continued to make an appearance.

Bernstein may have believed that it was best to introduce “The Rite of Spring” to pupils at a young age so that they might have a true sense of what “classical” music can sound like.
Do you think anything like that would be acceptable to air on a modern instructional program? A couple of the recordings included in the Sony box set are considered to be classics.

These recordings include two different interpretations of Bernstein’s “Rite.” The first interpretation was recorded in 1958 with the Philharmonic, and the second interpretation, recorded in 1972 with the London Symphony Orchestra, was considered to be more weighty and heaving.

‘Symphony of Psalms,’ recorded in 1972 with the London Symphony Orchestra and the English Bach Festival Chorus, and ‘Oedipus Rex,’ an opera-oratorio recorded later that year with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, some excellent singers (including the tenor René Kollo as Oedipus and the mezzo-soprano Tatiana Troyanos as Jocasta), and the Harvard Glee Club, are the two lesser-known recordings That version of “Oedipus” was recorded in Symphony Hall in Boston in 1973, in connection with Bernstein’s delivery of the Norton Lectures at Harvard.

Bernstein discusses the intentional stylistic incongruities in Stravinsky’s Neo-Classical works in the sixth and final lecture of that series, titled “The Poetry of Earth.” He singles out “Symphony of Psalms,” which is scored in an unusual manner for four-part chorus and an orchestra with just lower strings (no violins or violas), woodwinds (except for clarinets), brass and percussion, including two pianos.

Latin adaptations of three different psalm texts are sung by the chorus; the music pays homage to the tradition of holy vocal works, but does so through the lens of a minimalistic modern aesthetic.
According to Bernstein’s lecture, the opening movement, which is a setting of words from Psalm 38 (“Hear my petition, O Lord”), is a “prayer with teeth in it, a prayer built of steel.” It defies our assumptions and breaks us down with the irony that it embodies.

Bernstein brings those qualities to life in his recording, beginning with what he described as the “brusque, startling, pistol-shot of a chord” that opens the movement, which is then immediately followed by “some kind of Bachian finger exercises.” Bernstein said that these qualities come to life right from the beginning of the movement.

The tempo is moderated in an audacious way.
The musical textures are gloomy and heavy while still retaining a dry and transparent quality.
On the surface, the choristers come off as grave and unmoved, yet upon closer inspection, one can hear a plaintive and almost frantic edge to their singing.
Even in the solemnly lovely slow second movement, the performance develops in this manner, with Bernstein concentrating on Stravinsky’s acidic and hard-edged harmonics.

The paradoxical choral treatment of the phrase “alleluia” that Stravinsky composed, which starts the third movement with chords that sound wistful and even forlorn, conveys an impression of moving poignancy to the listener. At first, I had the impression that Bernstein had gone a little too far with his strategy, and that the performance as a whole was quite near to becoming boring.

Not so. It has quickly become my go-to rendition. Credit for the Image. Entertainment Provided by Sony Music Bernstein recorded “Oedipus Rex” primarily so that he could use it to illustrate a few points in his concluding lecture for Norton on the topic of aesthetic misalliances. He contended that Stravinsky’s composition of this take on ancient Greek tragedy, which employs a Latin translation of Jean Cocteau’s French version, somehow discovered resonances with Verdi’s “Aida,” and that this was due to Stravinsky’s use of a Latin translation of Cocteau’s work.

Bernstein acknowledged the possibility that this would appear inconsistent. But what really important, as he went on to explain, is that “the basic metaphor contained in ‘Aida’ registered, stayed, and linked with the analogous profound metaphor in ‘Oedipus Rex'” The music for the play “Oedipus” opens with a four-note motif that is densely harmonized by both the chorus and the orchestra.

In this theme, the people of Thebes entreat Oedipus to save the city from a dreadful epidemic. Bernstein makes a compelling case in his lecture that the theme can be traced back to a plaintive phrase that Aida sings, in which she asks the princess Amneris, who is both her captive and her competitor in love, to have compassion on her.

Bernstein’s rendition of this opening blast is forceful and agonizing, and it is performed at a slightly slower tempo than Stravinsky’s original recording. Bernstein keeps that solemn tone for the entirety of the composition, making the most of the sections with winding Verdian lyricism, juicing every crunchy chord, and letting the chorus and orchestra flail away with clipped rhythmic intensity when the situation calls for it.

In addition, the Bernstein chamber piece “L’Histoire du Soldat” and the Octet for Wind Instruments, both of which were recorded by Bernstein in 1947 with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, are presented in bracingly clear interpretations on the Sony box.
I like the performances of the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, with Seymour Lipkin as the piano soloist, and “Petrushka” (the 1947 version), with the New York Philharmonic.

Both of these recordings are from 1947. (As an added bonus, there is also an audio of Bernstein talking about Stravinsky and the ballet he created called “Petrushka.”) It so happened that my most recent face-to-face interaction with Bernstein likewise revolved on the “Rite.” In the summer of 1987, at Tanglewood, three years before he passed away, he spent a week practicing the work with a big orchestra consisting of college-age members.

Even though the rehearsals were off-limits to the general public, I was able to go since I was working at the time as a freelance reviewer for The Boston Globe.
There were moments when I even sat onstage behind the performers just to have a better view of Bernstein conducting the orchestra with his back to them.

Credit for the Image. Heinz H. Weissenstein/Whitestone Photo courtesy of the BSO Archives These exceptionally talented young artists could hardly believe that the most famous classical musician in the world was instructing them, and more specifically, on this particular composition.

In spite of the fact that he was notorious for being highly passionate and a gusher of excitement, Bernstein was precise, rigorous, and amazingly explicit with his descriptions of the music when he was conducting the rehearsals.
Bernstein criticized the performance of the bassoons in a particular section because he felt it was too twitchy and lively.

He stated that it was not a fanfare in his response. Have you ever heard a Russian choir sing in notes that were stretched out? He was looking for a character and sound that was low and resonant. He found it. And all of the guys understood. During the portion of the show titled “Spring Rounds,” he stated that the music had to be “an array of moans and wails and troll noises.” His statements prompted a general nodding of heads, and the playing of the orchestra became more animated.

Is Bernstein’s Stravinsky collection too small for a 50th anniversary?

However, I did not proceed past the front door. Someone had posted a little note card to the wall that said, ” Igor Stravinsky passed away today.” I was taken aback by those four words. Up to this point, Stravinsky had been an essential figure throughout the entirety of the musical landscape of the 20th century.

He appeared to nearly personify the totality of contemporary music in all of its myriad forms. After he had left, what could possibly take place? When I was in my early teens, I became a fan of Stravinsky after listening to the recording of his composition “Firebird” over and over again, which he conducted.

At the conclusion of the last concert, the composer took the stage to conduct a performance of his “Symphony of Psalms.” I can’t tell you how many other musicians I’ve come across since then who have expressed their jealousy over the fact that I was there on that particular day. The first performance, which was led by Leonard Bernstein and concluded with “The Rite of Spring,” was attended by Stravinsky in its entirety by the audience.

During the standing ovation, Stravinsky, who had been seated towards the front of the first tier, got to his feet, grinned broadly, and extended his gratitude to Bernstein and the other members of the orchestra. He had stayed seated during the break, and the stewards had prevented other students, including myself, from approaching him.

This reputation has persisted to this day: Sony has published a box set that combines the works of these two artists in order to mark the 50th anniversary of Stravinsky’s passing.
The number of CDs included in Bernstein’s Stravinsky discography is also disappointingly low; the Sony box set has only six of them.

Credit for the Image. Photograph by Sam Falk for The New York Times Credit for the Image. Photograph by Sam Falk for The New York Times Bernstein led accounts of pieces that clearly compelled him beginning in the 1950s, when Stravinsky was still a challenging composer for most audiences. These pieces included “The Rite of Spring” and “The Firebird,” as well as seminal works from Stravinsky’s Neo-Classical period, such as the Symphony in Three Movements, the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, Symphony of Psalms, and more.

Bernstein may have believed that it was best to introduce “The Rite of Spring” to pupils at a young age so that they might have a true sense of what “classical” music can sound like.
Do you think anything like that would be acceptable to air on a modern instructional program? A couple of the recordings included in the Sony box set are considered to be classics.

Latin adaptations of three different psalm texts are sung by the chorus; the music pays homage to the tradition of holy vocal works, but does so through the lens of a minimalistic modern aesthetic.
According to Bernstein’s lecture, the opening movement, which is a setting of words from Psalm 38 (“Hear my petition, O Lord”), is a “prayer with teeth in it, a prayer built of steel.” It defies our assumptions and breaks us down with the irony that it embodies.

The tempo is moderated in an audacious way. The musical textures are gloomy and heavy while still retaining a dry and transparent quality. On the surface, the choristers come off as grave and unmoved, yet upon closer inspection, one can hear a plaintive and almost frantic edge to their singing. Even in the solemnly lovely slow second movement, the performance develops in this manner, with Bernstein concentrating on Stravinsky’s acidic and hard-edged harmonics.

Not so. It has quickly become my go-to rendition. Credit for the Image. Entertainment Provided by Sony Music Bernstein recorded “Oedipus Rex” primarily so that he could use it to illustrate a few points in his concluding lecture for Norton on the topic of aesthetic misalliances. He contended that Stravinsky’s composition of this take on ancient Greek tragedy, which employs a Latin translation of Jean Cocteau’s French version, somehow discovered resonances with Verdi’s “Aida,” and that this was due to Stravinsky’s use of a Latin translation of Cocteau’s work.

In this theme, the people of Thebes entreat Oedipus to save the city from a dreadful epidemic. Bernstein makes a compelling case in his lecture that the theme can be traced back to a plaintive phrase that Aida sings, in which she asks the princess Amneris, who is both her captive and her competitor in love, to have compassion on her.

Is Stravinsky the greatest composer of all time?

However, I did not proceed past the front door.
Someone had posted a little note card to the wall that said, ” Igor Stravinsky passed away today.” I was taken aback by those four words.
Up to this point, Stravinsky had been an essential figure throughout the entirety of the musical landscape of the 20th century.

He appeared to nearly personify the totality of contemporary music in all of its myriad forms.
After he had left, what could possibly take place? When I was in my early teens, I became a fan of Stravinsky after listening to the recording of his composition “Firebird” over and over again, which he conducted.

At the conclusion of the last concert, the composer took the stage to conduct a performance of his “Symphony of Psalms.” I can’t tell you how many other musicians I’ve come across since then who have expressed their jealousy over the fact that I was there on that particular day. The first performance, which was led by Leonard Bernstein and concluded with “The Rite of Spring,” was attended by Stravinsky in its entirety by the audience.

During the standing ovation, Stravinsky, who had been seated towards the front of the first tier, got to his feet, grinned broadly, and extended his gratitude to Bernstein and the other members of the orchestra. He had stayed seated during the break, and the stewards had prevented other students, including myself, from approaching him.

This reputation has persisted to this day: Sony has published a box set that combines the works of these two artists in order to mark the 50th anniversary of Stravinsky’s passing. The number of CDs included in Bernstein’s Stravinsky discography is also disappointingly low; the Sony box set has only six of them.

Credit for the Image.
Photograph by Sam Falk for The New York Times Credit for the Image.
Photograph by Sam Falk for The New York Times Bernstein led accounts of pieces that clearly compelled him beginning in the 1950s, when Stravinsky was still a challenging composer for most audiences.
These pieces included “The Rite of Spring” and “The Firebird,” as well as seminal works from Stravinsky’s Neo-Classical period, such as the Symphony in Three Movements, the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, Symphony of Psalms, and more.

Bernstein may have believed that it was best to introduce “The Rite of Spring” to pupils at a young age so that they might have a true sense of what “classical” music can sound like.
Do you think anything like that would be acceptable to air on a modern instructional program? A couple of the recordings included in the Sony box set are considered to be classics.

Latin adaptations of three different psalm texts are sung by the chorus; the music pays homage to the tradition of holy vocal works, but does so through the lens of a minimalistic modern aesthetic.
According to Bernstein’s lecture, the opening movement, which is a setting of words from Psalm 38 (“Hear my petition, O Lord”), is a “prayer with teeth in it, a prayer built of steel.” It defies our assumptions and breaks us down with the irony that it embodies.

The tempo is moderated in an audacious way. The musical textures are gloomy and heavy while still retaining a dry and transparent quality. On the surface, the choristers come off as grave and unmoved, yet upon closer inspection, one can hear a plaintive and almost frantic edge to their singing. Even in the solemnly lovely slow second movement, the performance develops in this manner, with Bernstein concentrating on Stravinsky’s acidic and hard-edged harmonics.

Not so. It has quickly become my go-to rendition.
Credit for the Image.
Entertainment Provided by Sony Music Bernstein recorded “Oedipus Rex” primarily so that he could use it to illustrate a few points in his concluding lecture for Norton on the topic of aesthetic misalliances.
He contended that Stravinsky’s composition of this take on ancient Greek tragedy, which employs a Latin translation of Jean Cocteau’s French version, somehow discovered resonances with Verdi’s “Aida,” and that this was due to Stravinsky’s use of a Latin translation of Cocteau’s work.

In this theme, the people of Thebes entreat Oedipus to save the city from a dreadful epidemic.
Bernstein makes a compelling case in his lecture that the theme can be traced back to a plaintive phrase that Aida sings, in which she asks the princess Amneris, who is both her captive and her competitor in love, to have compassion on her.

In addition, the Bernstein chamber piece “L’Histoire du Soldat” and the Octet for Wind Instruments, both of which were recorded by Bernstein in 1947 with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, are presented in bracingly clear interpretations on the Sony box. I like the performances of the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, with Seymour Lipkin as the piano soloist, and “Petrushka” (the 1947 version), with the New York Philharmonic.

Even though the rehearsals were off-limits to the general public, I was able to go since I was working at the time as a freelance reviewer for The Boston Globe.
There were moments when I even sat onstage behind the performers just to have a better view of Bernstein conducting the orchestra with his back to them.

In spite of the fact that he was notorious for being highly passionate and a gusher of excitement, Bernstein was precise, rigorous, and amazingly explicit with his descriptions of the music when he was conducting the rehearsals.
Bernstein criticized the performance of the bassoons in a particular section because he felt it was too twitchy and lively.

Is Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring modern?

However, I did not proceed past the front door. Someone had posted a little note card to the wall that said, ” Igor Stravinsky passed away today.” I was taken aback by those four words. Up to this point, Stravinsky had been an essential figure throughout the entirety of the musical landscape of the 20th century.

He appeared to nearly personify the totality of contemporary music in all of its myriad forms.
After he had left, what could possibly take place? When I was in my early teens, I became a fan of Stravinsky after listening to the recording of his composition “Firebird” over and over again, which he conducted.

At the conclusion of the last concert, the composer took the stage to conduct a performance of his “Symphony of Psalms.” I can’t tell you how many other musicians I’ve come across since then who have expressed their jealousy over the fact that I was there on that particular day.
The first performance, which was led by Leonard Bernstein and concluded with “The Rite of Spring,” was attended by Stravinsky in its entirety by the audience.

During the standing ovation, Stravinsky, who had been seated towards the front of the first tier, got to his feet, grinned broadly, and extended his gratitude to Bernstein and the other members of the orchestra.
He had stayed seated during the break, and the stewards had prevented other students, including myself, from approaching him.

This reputation has persisted to this day: Sony has published a box set that combines the works of these two artists in order to mark the 50th anniversary of Stravinsky’s passing.
The number of CDs included in Bernstein’s Stravinsky discography is also disappointingly low; the Sony box set has only six of them.

Bernstein may have believed that it was best to introduce “The Rite of Spring” to pupils at a young age so that they might have a true sense of what “classical” music can sound like. Do you think anything like that would be acceptable to air on a modern instructional program? A couple of the recordings included in the Sony box set are considered to be classics.

Latin adaptations of three different psalm texts are sung by the chorus; the music pays homage to the tradition of holy vocal works, but does so through the lens of a minimalistic modern aesthetic.
According to Bernstein’s lecture, the opening movement, which is a setting of words from Psalm 38 (“Hear my petition, O Lord”), is a “prayer with teeth in it, a prayer built of steel.” It defies our assumptions and breaks us down with the irony that it embodies.

Not so. It has quickly become my go-to rendition. Credit for the Image. Entertainment Provided by Sony Music Bernstein recorded “Oedipus Rex” primarily so that he could use it to illustrate a few points in his concluding lecture for Norton on the topic of aesthetic misalliances. He contended that Stravinsky’s composition of this take on ancient Greek tragedy, which employs a Latin translation of Jean Cocteau’s French version, somehow discovered resonances with Verdi’s “Aida,” and that this was due to Stravinsky’s use of a Latin translation of Cocteau’s work.

In this theme, the people of Thebes entreat Oedipus to save the city from a dreadful epidemic. Bernstein makes a compelling case in his lecture that the theme can be traced back to a plaintive phrase that Aida sings, in which she asks the princess Amneris, who is both her captive and her competitor in love, to have compassion on her.

In addition, the Bernstein chamber piece “L’Histoire du Soldat” and the Octet for Wind Instruments, both of which were recorded by Bernstein in 1947 with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, are presented in bracingly clear interpretations on the Sony box.
I like the performances of the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, with Seymour Lipkin as the piano soloist, and “Petrushka” (the 1947 version), with the New York Philharmonic.

Even though the rehearsals were off-limits to the general public, I was able to go since I was working at the time as a freelance reviewer for The Boston Globe.
There were moments when I even sat onstage behind the performers just to have a better view of Bernstein conducting the orchestra with his back to them.

In spite of the fact that he was notorious for being highly passionate and a gusher of excitement, Bernstein was precise, rigorous, and amazingly explicit with his descriptions of the music when he was conducting the rehearsals.
Bernstein criticized the performance of the bassoons in a particular section because he felt it was too twitchy and lively.