Leonard Bernstein - The Unanswered Question

Unanswered Question 1-6: Bernstein Lectures (6pc) Release Date: 11/20/2001

Label: Kultur Video Catalog #: 1570

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Ludwig van Beethoven , Hector Berlioz , Richard Wagner ... Conductor: Leonard Bernstein Number of Discs: 6

Works on Recording
Notes and Reviews

Leonard Bernstein examines music from every age and place in the search for a worldwide, innate musical grammar. Folk music, pop songs, symphonies, tonal, atonal, well-tempered and ill-tempered works find a place in these discussions. All of them, Mr. Bernstein suggests, are grounded in a universal musical language. Using analogies between music and linguistics, Mr. Bernstein shows how this language can be understood as an aesthetic surface. Drawing on his insights as a master composer and conductor, he also explores what music means below the surface. Finally, Mr. Bernstein analyzes the crisis of twentieth-century music, finding its roots in all that has gone before. Written and delivered in 1973 when Leonard Bernstein was Charles Eliot Read more Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University, with performances by Mr. Bernstein, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic. 780 minutes.

1. Musical Phonology: Explores the origins and development of music and language, with a performance of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550. 104 minutes.
2. Musical Syntax: Compares the structures of music and speech, and discusses the multiple transformations of which both are capable, with examples from Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550. 95 minutes.
3. Musical Semantics: Demonstrates layers of meaning in Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68. 142 minutes.
4. The Delights and Dangers of Ambiguity: Explorations of new tonal fields by composers of the Romantic era. Musical illustrations include: Berlioz's "Romeo Alone" and "The Ball at the Capulets" from Romeo & Juliet, Wagner's "Prelude und Liebestod" from Tristan & Isolde, and Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune. 142 minutes.
5. The Twentieth Century Crisis: Arnold Schoenberg's movement toward atonality and Gustav Mahler's anticipation of the crisis in twentieth-century music. Includes performances of Ives's The Unanswered Question, Ravel's "Feria" from Rapsodie Espagnole, and Mahler's Symphony No. 9 in D major, 4th movement. 133 minutes.
6. The Poetry of Earth: Examines how Igor Stravinsky kept tonality viable while experimenting freely with dissonance. Includes a complete performance of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex. 177 minutes.

Region: 1
Duration: approx. 13 hours
Picture Format: 4:3
Sound: Dolby 2.0 Read less