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The Unanswered Question - Six Talks at Harvard by Leonard Bernstein

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All technical and musical matters have been discussed by other reviewers, so I'm just going to say that this collection of lectures is a delight to watch and listen. Some of them run nearly 3 hours, but I never become bored of them. Bernstein, with his contageous energy, enthusiasm and excellent communication skills, shares his views and thoughts with such pleasant ways; it is just irresistible. Just to prove my point, my husband, who has no musical background and had no idea what the maestro was talking about when he watched the first lecture with me, gave a delightful cry of amazement each time Bernstein demonstrated on the piano. Needless to say, he was glued to the screen and watched it till the end without a hint of boredom.
The lectures are highly intellectual, and to understand what he's talking about, you need musical background, but even if you don't understand at all, it is still very enjoyable.
Humphrey Burton writes in his Bernstein's biography that Bernstein was having such good time being with young people at Harvard, he kept on delaying and delaying to complete these lectures. You can see that the maestro enjoys so much sharing what he knows with not only Harvard students but with all the world. His theme is universality of music and brotherhood of human kind through music. Some of his thoughts and ideas are so very unique and different; they amuse me at the same time make me think.

Even though the questions are not all answered (the more he talks, the more questions arise, I have to admit), his spirit is well delivered, and that alone makes this DVD a treasure worth having.

Leonard Bernstein's approach to explaining music, its
composition, its structure, its tonalities, its historical
context and influence is incredible in this series.
You will never think of Debussy in the same way
again after you hear Bernstein's discussion of him.
If you thought that Debussy was just some flowery
French aesthete writing gossamer chords and haunting
tonalities, then Bernstein will open your mind to
his true significance. In similar fashion, Bernstein
makes Wagner's profound genius and contribution to
the furtherance of music and its development into
later forms completely understandable.
Then Bernstein conducts the orchestra, the Boston
Symphony Orchestra in several of the pieces. His
interpretaion of the "Prelude and Liebestod" from
_Tristan und Isolde_ is incredible...perhaps the
slowest, but most intense, compelling, emotional
version I have ever heard.
If you wish to truly understand music, its
structural, tonal, chordal underpinnings and the
effects which can be produced by the artistic
genius of composition and insightful, empathetic
interpretation, this series is a required course
in artistic "grammar."

Its quite interesting that in the late 20th century, there was a progresive tendency to look for a number of grand schemes, many of which would be familiar to you guys, perhaps some of which would not be. One obvious example is that tremendous effort to find an underlying theory of physics which would combine relativity and quantum mechanics - another are more obscure attempts to reconcile set theory with certain models within category theory which had been giving trouble to a certain set of number theoretians - etc, etc.

But the human dimension to this appeared, almost as one man in the form of Chomsky. His book, "Aspects of the theory of Syntax" was the tip of the iceberg of a huge number of papers published on the deep structure of language while he was working at MIT. This appeared to offer clues as to aspects of the structure of ANY human language, an utterly amazing claim. Some of his later works give clues to the possible existence of a universal paradigm for language which has massive implications for people in so many disciplines, I couldn't begin to enumerate.

This all started, by the way, on the route to attempting the final cataloguing of the North American indian languages, some of which had only one remaining speaker. The task was huge and unapproachable until Chomsky evolved a system for abbreviating certain grammatic structures, which, to his surprise, evolved into a powerful predictive theory.

Anyone exposed to this at the time would have been impressed, but what was to follow was even more amazing. Chomsky's ideas swiftly melded with other theories of semantics and syntax transformations in different fields, and became de-rigeour for many PhDs in computer science and anthropology, uniting what was up until that time two very, very different disciplines. Citations to his work began to appear everywhere, and in the most amazing places.

An illustration of what was to follow THAT is basically contained here. no less, a unified theory of language and music!

[You ought to get this - it is undoubtedly a brilliant scholarly work in any case, even if you don't concur with Bernstein on all points - and few would exactly agree with him on all, nor, importantly, would you need to, to benefit from this.]

The argument presented is quite intuitive, but is nontheless compelling. Music is shown as being a byproduct of our humanity, extended from need in whatever form, as an infant, or an adult, from utility into sophisticaion, and finally inspiration. Bernstein makes sure the listener is in no doubt that there is something way, way beyond necessity in our provision for the experience of music. His explanation of the physics of music is flawless, and ... awe inspiring. And, watching the man traverse this enormous gap between logic, physics, liguistics, and the unnameable majesty of Beethoven and Debussy (both of which he performs as a conductor, and is moved greatly and visibly) is utterly breathtaking. I would doubt that anyone watching his exposition of the 6th would be any less moved in this way.

Apart from any of this, Bernstein entertains enormously. There are parts of his explantions that truly defy you not to laugh. He has an honesty and self effacement that is quite unusual, this comes out particularly in his efforts to sing, which he pokes quite a bit of fun at. It's obvious how passionately his audience is involved. (He describes at length a discussion with a student after one lecture in the next one - and its clear that both student and teacher really have learned quite a bit but have obviously been a little combatative, at least, at first)

From there on, you might care to differ a bit. The history of the 20th Century is described rather neatly as the showdown between Schoenburg and Stravinsky, two schools of thought, two very different philosophies. He enters this very complex consideration fairly gently. I agree with his approach - and understanding of the environment of the early 20th century is essential if one is to understand its music - and so he described Debussy, who is ... sort of.. at the end of the Waagnerian era, stretching ambiguity and tonal resources to the uttermost. Can one go further? Yes indeed, and here we have the entry of the Viennese school of 12 tone technique, illustrated with Schoenburgs six little piano pieces. But oddly enough, Bernstein shows very clearly that the appearance of 12 tone technique is not unequivically Schoenburgs' alone, but appears in the guise of mists and mirages in Chopin, Wagner, even Beethoven, but grasped once and for all by Schoenburg.

Given another five or so lectures, one might imagine that one could explore the use of bitonality, not just in the context of the Rite of Spring (which is most EXCELLENTLY explained), but the mid century English composers, who use this technique. Such people as Holst, Grainger, Williams, Strauss, and of course, Britten. But there isn't time. The end point of these complications is the resolution into a robust defence of neo-classicism, such as the ebony concerto, and of course, Oedipux Rex. But I think that this is a sad way to end - Rex is a sombre, hard work, and doesn't quite illustrate the end that either Schoenburg or Stravinsky seem to have unknowingly appointed for that part of the 20th century. In this, Bernstein may have overlooked that really recent developoments in Europe, that of an emerging new impressionism (even, perhaps, Romanticism), exemplified by Xenakis, Maderna, Berio, and others, who in some sense share some parts of both ends of the bipolar world which was the basis for all this in the middle part of that century.

All this is debatable. For instance, not a mention is given to either those very radical spirits like Varese, who seemed to eschew both ends equaly - or those, like Sibelius, Delius or Neilson, who didn't seem to mind either way, and continued to write what is now known as the mid century symphonic repertoire.

That is a long, long story, and could form the basis of a lot of commentary. Where, for instance, is Shostakovich in all this? Or Bartok, for that matter? I think this is all dealt with elsewhere, but I would have given a great deal to have seen these composers discussed at length.

But this set of lectures is so valuable as a signpost, I would never do anything other than highly, highly recommend it.It's absolutely magnificent.

Flushed and slightly dissheveled from his passionate tryst with the writings of revolutionary linguist and critic Noam Chomsky, Leonard Bernstein offers an uncannily lucid, moving, and colorful series of "Six Talks At Harvard," charting the human biological foundations of our need for music and meaning. Musical examples throughout at the piano and podium. Transcribed with great loss of depth in a silent book of the same name. Profound. END

...but the kitchen sink.

This series of talks presented by Leonard Bernstein at Harvard in 1973 has many fascinating components, but the overall thesis seems like an argument in search of a point. Bernstein is always interesting and enthusiastic in these sorts of things, but he also tends to ramble and drag in everything but the kitchen sink in order to buttress his points. He attempts to connect his musical theory of "innateness" to the development of speech patterns--unnecessarily in my view, and the connection is never really fully explained. In the end he concludes the 20th century characteristics in art--of irony, existentialism, and self-reference--are a result of the horrors of modern times, of the Holocaust, the two world wars, and the nuclear age. It's a premise put forth in his "Age of Anxiety" Symphony and I didn't buy it then either. Never does he explain *why* one leads to the other, he just seems to assume the relationship is evident. And, I hate to appear to be upstaging Bernstein, but I think I have a simpler and easier-to-defend thesis (and it's not my original idea, either).

I agree the modern artistic age is characterized by irony, references (self and other) and a revisiting of the old in new clothes. However, I don't see any link to the "horrors of the 20th century" as to why we can't directly say "I love you" when we mean "I love you." Rather, I think the reason irony and assorted deconstructionist techniques sprang up in the 20th century is because we finally had the history and the heritage for them to exist and make sense. Musical language was direct in Mozart's time, in Bach's time, in Beethoven's time, because they were inventing it. By the time we reach Mahler, it is fully developed and we find ourselves in the process of "deconstructing" it (or he did). Before that time, there wasn't the heritage and history *to* deconstruct. To make my point, jazz, despite coming of age in the ashes of World War I, didn't become ironic and deconstructionist through the first half of the 20th century, until the 1950s. Its deconstruction was borne not from any of the horrors of the Holocaust or the atom bomb, but from its own accumulation of tradition and technique. Ditto the cinema. In short, you can't deconstruct until there's construction.

So Bernstein's argument, in my view, doesn't entirely hold water, but is the very sort of Romantic and poetic vision that appeals to him. (On another documentary I have, he waxes poetic on the anguish and turmoil trapped in the person of Gustav Mahler while never bothing to back up his thesis with a shred of documentary evidence.) However, while I don't agree with his conclusion, the journey he takes to get there is fascinating and thrilling, filled with analyses of such landmark works as Mozart's Symphony No. 40, Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony, Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, Berg's Violin Concerto, and Stravinsky's Le Sacre, just to name a few. Also, his discussions of tonality, the "Circle of Fifths" and the evolution of Western harmony are fascinating. There's a certain amount of annoying preening--there are times when he's really milking his little Harvard audience for applause, and you'd think that by that point in his career he wouldn't need it--but this is easy to overlook. The video is clean and the audio is quite good for the time. Overall I do recommend this set highly, but beware Lenny's excessive Romanticisms!

One of the most extraordinary musical geniuses of this century uses his expertise in music and linguistics to develop a riveting series of lectures on the universality of music. Once you've heard this man speak, you understand why he was such a brilliant interpreter of the classical music repertoire. Absolutely brilliant!

If you want a survey of western music that reveals both the deep inner dynamics of music and the external flow and inter-dynamics of the history of music from Mozart to 20th century and that afterwards lifts you to a higher plane of music appreciation and enjoyment, then you've found it here. The ideas Berstein presents and the way he presents them are indeed intriguiing, engrossing and inspired (he exudes with the typical Berstein genious). But the truly moving, revealing and enjoyable parts I find are Bernstein as the conductor (one of the greats of all time in my opinion); the lectures are interspersed with Bernstein's conducting of full length pieces such as the Mozart G minor symphony, Beethovens Sixth Symphony, Belioz, particulary Wagner's Liebestod, Schonberg and Stravinsky -- these are truly marvelous and opens your eyes wider and wider each time to the sense of what music making/conducting is and, indeed, what music is. His analysis of the 20th century crisis in music, with correlation of the significance of Mahler as the end of the tonal era, brings to light the rationale behind major movements as well as imparting a sense of understanding of the philosophical pattern in 20th century music. I highly recommend this to anyone with more than a casual interest in music.

Lenny develops the common analogy with language to explain to a mostly non-musician audience what music is all about. So he talks about music in terms of linguistics ... musical phonology, musical syntax, musical semantics.

In his ramblings on musical syntax, he extensively uses Chomsky's transformational grammar - linguistic transformations from deep structure to surface structure according to grammatical rules - to illuminate musical transformations ... and, as he says, maybe even the secret of the creativity of the human mind in general.

But his ramblings on musical semantics are simply mindblowing --- he likens the variation of musical motives to linguistic metaphor. Just read what some of the best contemporary linguists like Fauconnier/Turner and Lakoff/Johnson write today about conceptual blending and metaphor, and you'll realize that Lenny's intuitions were right on even in 1973.

What a treat, and a feast for gourmet thinkers and listeners!

In its content and presentation, I can only compare this talks to Alan Copland's "What Listen..." book : Simple, direct and useful. But unlike the book, the direct connection that Berstein makes to the viewer on the subject and the depth of its presentation makes this video a must for any Western music lover. The linguistic approach can be applied to any music tradition too. The talk on Syntax is the best.

THE UNANSWERED QUESTION is, simply put, the most intellectually engaging, engrossing, and exciting series of lectures I've ever had the honor of hearing.

Bernstein presents a myriad of ideas, all of which are illustrated with remarkable lucidity and grace. Music, of course, constitutes the central theme of these lessons---the significant time spent on other disciplines (most notably, the evolution of words and their structural implications) is always at the service of a better understanding of our auricular art.

This set would be worth its price for the musical examples alone; in addition to the 10 hours or so of Mr. Bernstein's discourse, you're also getting a spectacular amount of full-length orchestral performances. These segments---under the incomparable baton of Mr. Bernstein (and played, in most cases, by the equally impressive Boston Symphony Orchestra)---are flawlessly produced, and sound wonderful. Mozart's 40th Symphony, Beethoven's 6th, and a complete production of Stravinsky's OEDIPUS REX are just three of many, many great works included here.

This set isn't just for musicologists, but for everyone with fertile minds and open ears. I watched these lectures as an experienced composer, musician, and theorist, and I was NEVER bored. Even mundane topics, like the harmonic series, are brilliantly re-illuminated. I've been watching them with my parents, both of whom are equipped with virtually no musical training, and they have been absorbing just as much as I've been.

Grammarians will find plenty of interesting material here, as well. Bernstein frequently utilizes techniques pioneered by Chomsky (relating to deep structures and the like) to illustrate abstract musical concepts, and the results are nothing short of astonishing.

If it seems I've been waxing hyperbolic about these DVDs, rest assured I haven't been. Buy them, watch them, and you'll see why.