Getty Images In 1971, the first time Maurice Peress conducted Leonard Bernstein’s “MASS,” the monumental piece echoed the life and death of John F. Kennedy, the social upheaval of the 1960s, and the morass of Vietnam. Spectators today might see “MASS” in a very different light — as a tragic commentary on U.S. involvement in…
There’s always some nostalgia baked into a Broadway musical, that old-fashioned and always-dying art form that reached its apex in middle of the 20th century. It’s there in the subject matter, too: Even the freshest “Guys and Dolls” puts you in vintage New York; “Gypsy” is ever in the late days of vaudeville; and even…
● Alan Jay Lerner: A Lyricist’s Letters Edited by Dominic McHugh Oxford University Press, 336 Pages, $39.95 Sometimes the Yiddishkeit of a creative talent comes through only in private writings. Playwright and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner won immortality with the stage musicals “My Fair Lady,” “Camelot,” and “Gigi,” which are filled with British and French…
(JTA) — A bronze sculpture of Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), one of the last century’s towering musical figures, was unveiled last week at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). The sculpture, by artist Penelope Jencks, is the second in a series planned depicting Tanglewood’s most iconic music figures, according to a statement…
Although marred by unexplained omissions and bowdlerizations, the publication of “The Leonard Bernstein Letters” brought to mind a dinner I attended at Bernstein’s Fairfield, Conn., home around 30 years ago. Unlike the interviewer, Jonathan Cott, author of “Dinner With Lenny: The Last Long Interview With Leonard Bernstein,” I did not ask the maestro any portentous…
The Leonard Bernstein Letters Edited by Nigel Simeone Yale University Press, 624 pages, $38 No one ever questioned Leonard Bernstein’s gifts. His innate musicality was apparent prodigiously early, as were his verbal intelligence, his energy, and his limitless self-confidence. Almost everyone who knew the young Bernstein assumed he would achieve great things. Whether his later…
As this fall’s concert season kicks off, Manhattanites in search of classical performances with a dollop of Yiddishkeit will have a delightful array of choices, starting with the genial ghost of beloved Austrian Jewish violinist Fritz Kreisler, which presides over the New York Philharmonic’s Opening Gala. On September 27 at Avery Fisher Hall, Itzhak Perlman…
• Aaron Copland owed much of his career to Serge Koussevitzky. • Leonard Bernstein was in Tanglewood’s first class and became a Koussevitzky protégé and a worldwide symbol of Tanglewood. • Paul Fromm was insired by Koussevitsky to create the Fromm Music Foundation to support new music. • Erich Leinsdorf inaugurated Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary…
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