Reading
Michael Wagner, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Harvard Glee Club, New York Philharmonic, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Leonard Bernstein (Speaker), David Evitts (Baritone), Ezio Flagello (Bass), Henryk Szeryng (Violin), Rafael Kubelík (Piano), René Kollo (Tenor), Tatiana Troyanos (Mezzo-soprano), Tom Krause (Baritone)
℗ 1974
Leonard Bernstein at Harvard, The Norton Lectures 1973: "The Unanswered Question" - Musical Phonology
- 02:01First of All
- 01:40Perhaps the Principal Thing
- 00:53Let Me Start
- 01:52This is Not Just a Sentimental Anecdote
- 02:29From this Time
- 02:52But How do we Investigate
- 01:29Now You Can See
- 02:31Universality is a Big Word
- 02:46Other Linguists
- 02:12I Began by Imagining Myself
- 02:06Well, Then I Thought
- 02:03Let's Make a Simple Analogy
- 01:33Maybe Even a Divine One
- 02:22But Where do these Notes Come from?
- 02:08This Acoustical Phenomenon
- 01:52All These Upper Notes
- 02:33The First Overtone
- 01:56But More of that Later
- 02:21But Let's Not Make the Mistake
- 02:12And that's how the Tempered Clavichord
- 02:01Now this is a Substantive Universal
- 01:43But Let's be Careful
- 01:37And there is Always that Blue Note
- 01:51But Even these Twelve Tones
- 02:16I Trust You Realize
- 02:32And Again Comes a Great Leap
- 01:38Now this Means
- 02:28This Is Not to Say that There Were No Drastic Changes
- 02:55But Meanwhile we are Still in the Golden Age
- 01:28So, we're in the Midst of a Chromatic Adventure
- 01:34And All by Those Progressions
- 01:57Now, I Must Point Out
- 01:32Do you Realize
Leonard Bernstein at Harvard, The Norton Lectures 1973: "The Unanswered Question" - Musical Syntax
- 01:44Every Once in a While
- 02:24Last Week
- 02:09Amen, says Noam Chomsky
- 02:49I Suppose What Chomsky is Really After
- 01:36So, Let's Pull Up Our Socks
- 02:08All Right, Let's Try Another One
- 02:12Why Am I Taking Your Time
- 01:48Well Then
- 01:53I Think it Follows
- 01:50But First, What are These Principles
- 01:36Tranformational Grammar
- 01:02But Now Just Think of that Sentence
- 01:49Since this is not a Linguistics Class
- 01:51Take the Passive Transformation
- 01:51Well, it hasn't Brought us There
- 01:44Good - Now Just as Three Notes are Linked Together
- 01:49Now let's Go Back
- 02:27Now We Are Ready
- 02:05Now I Wanna Take You
- 01:49Well, Transformation, Deletion, Embedding, Pronominalization
- 02:16I Am Sure I Don't Have to Trouble
- 01:31Here I Go
- 01:55I Have Asked Myself
- 01:43I Became so Fascinated
- 02:01Let's Take one Such Utterance
- 01:29Now Imagine
- 02:33Now Let's See
- 01:21Mozart's G Minor Symphony
- 02:27Now Our Job is
- 01:26That Introductory Accompaniment
- 01:55What Does this Three-Note Design Mean
- 02:13The Reason I Pick Symmetry
- 02:05Now From Here On
- 01:10And Once Again, We Are Back
- 01:43By Far the Chief Transformational Principle
- 01:58You See, One of the Great Failings
- 01:46Most People Hearing Mozart's Opening
- 01:59So What Your Ask
- 02:32And if You are Still not Convinced
- 01:20These Ambiguities
- 01:59For Instance, in this Same First Movement
- 01:14So All these Syntactic Transformations of the Same Material
- 01:55He Talks About this Sonnet
- 01:35Because Now it's Time
- 02:09But Now Let's Listen to
- 02:03Listen to the Whole Exposition
- 02:08Development Coming Up
- 02:03The Circle of Fifths Again
- 01:18And That Was all One Single Sentence
Leonard Bernstein at Harvard, The Norton Lectures 1973: "The Unanswered Question" - Musical Semantics
- 02:37The Other Day
- 01:13The First Would Show Us One Meaning
- 02:23Think of this Famous Passage
- 01:53A Linguist Would Say
- 02:06Well, I Replied, Chomsky Would Say
- 01:50Of Course, That Last Metaphorical Leap
- 01:44Terrific, Said My Blonde Inquisitor
- 02:16In Fact, When You Think of the Number
- 02:42All Right, First Let's Look Briefly
- 01:48Playing, That's the Word
- 02:31But Does This Stravinskian Game Concept
- 02:03There Are Three Specific Ways
- 01:59Now, Having Defined My Usages of Metaphor
- 01:06And Here We Are in Trouble
- 01:45Are We Feeling What Beethoven Supposedly Felt
- 02:23We Will Never Know
- 01:40Now, If We Accept This General Idea
- 01:47In Our Last Lecture
- 01:47We All Recognize Antithesis
- 01:24It Can And It Does
- 02:14And Again, as in the Poem
- 02:46In Fact, it Has Been Authoritatively Suggested
- 02:51We Can Expand the Idea
- 02:51What Do You Suppose
- 02:16What' Seriously Striking
- 02:42So Why the Pastorale on this Lecture
- 01:41Let's Begin at the Beginning
- 01:48But What of the More Obvious Melodic Material
- 02:38But to Develop How
- 02:13Now We Have an Insight
- 01:53But Wait
- 02:05But Why Were Just Those Two Notes Added
- 02:48The Metaphor Arises
- 02:11But in the Ensuing Four Bars
- 02:05But That's Not the Main Event
- 01:58Well, That's the Beginning
- 02:00That's One of the Questions
- 02:04This Interference of the Two Frequencies
- 01:40But What Are We to Say
- 01:39It Is To Be Found
- 02:03Now That's One Way of Looking
- 01:36At This Point
- 02:42Even if You Can Succeed
Leonard Bernstein at Harvard, The Norton Lectures 1973: "The Unanswered Question" - The Delights and Dangers of Ambiguity
- 01:41When I First Wrote Down the Title
- 02:02Part of the Danger
- 01:32The Idea of Ambiguity
- 02:06Similarly, in Our Second Lecture
- 02:53Then What's the Magic Secret
- 01:52Enough of Ambiguity
- 02:07The Irony of All This
- 01:53But, Mind You
- 01:29Where Music Was Concerned
- 01:58Only Think Of
- 02:53And Chopin Well We Can't Ignore Chopin
- 01:56And Then, in The Same Little Mazurka
- 01:34Foolish Questions
- 01:56Let Me Try to Read You
- 01:45Listen To This
- 01:30They Began to Intermingle
- 01:39The Pivotal Point
- 01:50So There Is a Dramatic Change
- 02:31So it is After All Not So Surprising
- 01:40Now If You Noticed
- 01:44You See, the Music Is Trying Hard
- 01:33So That Instant in Musical Time
- 03:01Now Romeo Is All Stirred Up
- 02:30What a Piece
- 01:50Quite Unconsciously Borrowed
- 02:26My Purpose In All This
- 02:15Is It, Says Wagner
- 01:23Every Diminished Seventh Chord
- 02:54Now the Remarkable Thing Is
- 02:54And This Is What Gives Tristan
- 19:05Prelude and Love-Death (From "Tristan and Isolde")
- 02:25That May be the Slowest Performance
- 01:38But Ultimately
- 01:41Poetry Has Begun to Show
- 01:37And When Debussy
- 02:35It's Lovely, This Dreaming
- 01:45For Example, Do You Remember
- 01:17In Fact, the Ending of this Piece
- 02:07Let Me Show You Briefly
- 01:24This New Episode that Proceeds
- 02:29For Instance, Hardly Have We Had Time
- 01:53Because the Scale
- 01:51It's Almost Exactly What Happens
- 01:35Literally Translated
- 01:34But Notice, Too, that the Example
- 01:32Both Works Have Definitive Beginnings
- 01:51Listen As I Play
- 01:04Some Crazy Modern Music
Leonard Bernstein at Harvard, The Norton Lectures 1973: "The Unanswered Question" - The Twentieth Century Crisis
- 00:18Our Lecture Tonight
- 06:34IV. Feria
- 01:38What a Way to Enter the Twentieth Century
- 01:28But 1908, if the Truth to be Told
- 02:19These Troubling Presentiments
- 02:11So, now in 1908
- 02:30This Is Atonality
- 00:28A Charming Idea
- 05:23The Unanswered Question
- 02:16I that Luminous Final Triad
- 01:59I Have Recently Been Reading
- 03:02We Have Already Referred to Some of Those
- 01:57In Any Case
- 02:46But For All These Reasons
- 02:31Son of Tristan
- 02:20Now You Look at Those First Two Bars
- 01:56Of Course, There Are Lots
- 01:40It's as Though a New Covenant
- 02:22Trouble is, That the New Musical Rules
- 02:53The Kind of Tonal Feeling
- 01:40Of Course, There Are Those Who Say
- 02:17It Seems Somehow Inevitable
- 02:47Is There Possibly the Beginning
- 02:44And What About Beethoven's Nineth
- 02:40These Are Some of the Problems
- 02:23Now Let's Jump Ahead
- 02:10Let's Put it Another Way
- 01:54First of All, Berg Chose a Tone Row
- 00:52So, All in All
- 02:23Violin Concerto (Excerpt)
- 02:50Fantastic
- 02:47It Comes at a Point
- 02:54II. Allegro, ma sempre rubato -
- 01:21If This Particularly Demanding Lecture
- 02:13If You Really Have Been Thinking
- 02:21But While Restudying this Work
- 01:39The Twentieth Century
- 02:35What Do You Do If You Know All This
- 02:11It's Very Strange, How the Pieces
- 01:59What Exactly Was This News
- 01:55We Emerge From a Cinema
- 02:35As You Listen to This Finale
- 02:41This is Mahler
Leonard Bernstein at Harvard, The Norton Lectures 1973: "The Unanswered Question" - The Poetry of Earth
- 01:53I Know What Your Are Thinking
- 01:27What About This
- 01:46I Am Plaguing You With this Question
- 02:06Of Course What he is Really Talking About
- 01:58But It Was Precisely
- 01:55Now I Have Just Used Two Words
- 02:20In Fact, It Was Satie, Picasso, and Cocteau
- 01:53But Our Scene
- 02:03Even in the Most
- 02:11For Our Purposes
- 01:56Musicologists Are Always Pointing
- 02:20But Bitonality Does Not Only Serve
- 02:10Of Course, Polytonality Can And Does
- 02:21Now What's Going On
- 02:16And While You Are in That Record Shop
- 01:53Of Course, These Asymmetries
- 01:32Brutal It May Be
- 01:59Now, Remember
- 01:59These Are Two Sets
- 02:44Just Cast An Eye
- 02:59Now That Page of Music
- 01:39But the Most Striking Semantic Effect
- 02:11This New Aesthetic Relaxation
- 02:06Even Some Germans
- 01:55You Can See How the Transformation
- 02:09Chomsky Himself Gives a Classic Example
- 02:39Very Important, the Ironic Element
- 02:17So, It Would Seem
- 01:11But This Neoclassic Approach
- 02:06I Think This Is Again a Moment
- 02:34It's the Essence
- 01:20If This Poem Were Rewritten
- 01:46Why Have I Digressed
- 01:37Now Can You Understand
- 01:42Untermeyer Called This
- 01:17Of Course, With the Waste Land
- 01:31But the Thing of It All Is
- 01:35We Are Going to Hear
- 02:45One Has Only Learnt to Get
- 02:23Now I propose Only Because
- 02:58This Union Is Possible Only Because
- 02:22But What Has All This to Do With Stravinsky
- 02:14And This Is the Essence
- 02:02Here Is a Joke
- 01:46Chilling, Shattering, Neoclassic
- 02:04Stravinsky's Own Aesthetic Pronouncements
- 01:31But Of Course He Was Forced
- 02:36And Now We Are Finally Ready
- 02:35And Then Mozart Appears
- 01:46But This Eclecticism Knows No Bounds
- 01:33Now All This I Had Planned to Tell You
- 02:43You Think That's Funny
- 02:56How About That
- 02:41Then Came the Answer
- 01:23But Why This Particular Misalliance
- 01:58My Words Are Poor
- 00:59"Your Are About to Hear a Latin Version of Oedipus the King
- 04:06"Caedit nos pestis"
- 03:29"Liberi vos liberabo"
- 00:26"This is Creon, Brother-In-Law of Oedipus
- 06:39"Respondit Deus"
- 02:44" Oedipus Questions the Fountain of Truth
- 05:23"Dicere non possum"
- 01:11"Gloria!"
- 02:10The Dispute of the Princess Attracts the Attention of Jocasta
- 04:25"Nonn'erubescite, reges"
- 03:21"Ne Probentur Oracula"
- 02:08"Ego senem cecici"
- 00:45The Witness to the Murder Comes Out of the Shadow
- 04:33Act II "Adest omniscius pastor"
- 03:24"Nonne monstru rescituri"
- 01:39And Now You Are Going to Hear That Famous Monolog
- 03:10"Divum locastae caput mortuum!"
- 02:46"Ecce! Regem Oedipoda"
- 02:06Va-le-di-co
- 01:47During that Decade
- 01:43It Was At This Point That I Wrote
- 02:16What Interests Me About It
- 01:51Is it Possible
- 02:52It's As Tough in the Period
- 02:40And I Believe
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