Leonard Bernstein – Jeremiah Click here to watch The name of Leonard Bernstein is much in the news right now because of the controversy surrounding the casting of Bradley Cooper in the forthcoming biopic Maestro. By the way, this casting is robustly supported by all of Bernstein’s children – no pushover they – so who are we to complain? Bernstein himself was a controversial figure, often in the news for activities which were not always musical so it is hardly surprising that there should continue to be contention surrounding his legacy. What is beyond dispute is that Leonard Bernstein was a great man of music. Some of my indelible musical memories came under his spellbinding baton, whether conducting his beloved New York Phil, his even more beloved Israel Phil, or his less beloved but insistent support of the Vienna Phil. Bernstein was a great conductor, a superlative pianist, a inimitable composer of both concert and theatre music (West Side Story, anyone?), and probably the greatest musical pedagogue America ever produced. Ask almost any American musician what their inspiration was and they will tell you their introduction to classical music came from Bernstein’s landmark television series for CBS, his Young People’s Concerts 1958-1972. If anyone ever deserved a biopic, it’s Leonard Bernstein. Now let’s hope the filmmakers don’t screw it up. Here’s a little snippet of Bernstein conducting his own music, the Jeremiah Symphony, more formally Symphony No.1 (1942) by Leonard Bernstein with the Israel Philharmonic in 1977. National Gallery films Click here to join You need to become a member to watch the revelatory short films from London's National Gallery but it’s worth it. £65 buys you a year of both in-person and online membership and gives you access to all its treasures including their exclusive on-demand films. The Gallery has just started a new series which they’re releasing on a monthly basis, a deep dive into a single work by the Gallery’s curators who are all knowledgable, personable and refreshingly keen to share their expertise. This newest offering is Artemisia Gentileschi's Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria: A Defiant Reflection of the Artist, a 10-minute show-and-tell from artist historian and educator Carlo Corsato as he unveils the profound significance behind Artemisia's masterpiece, looking at the layers of symbolism and personal history embedded within the painting, going deeper into the life and artistry of one of the most remarkable female artists of the Renaissance. Artemisia Gentileschi's personal history serves as a backdrop to the exploration of her self-portrait. It showcases how Artemisia found agency and success in her career, overcoming societal expectations and gaining recognition as a professional artist. This is an excellent introduction to an important artist and to the film series itself. The Tempest and Othello - Globe Player Click here to join If you haven’t already discovered the delights of streaming Shakespeare’s Globe productions online I suggest you do so now. They will keep you warm in the long winter nights ahead. I just reacquainted myself with The Tempest on this platform. This 2013 production has the marvellous cast of Roger Allam as Prospero, Jessie Buckley as Miranda, Joshua James as Ferdinand and Colin Morgan as Ariel, on the magical island and it is, indeed, “full of noises”. While you’re on the Globe’s site, do watch the 2007 production of Shakespeare’s devastating tragedy Othello starring Eamonn Walker, Tim McInnerny and Zawe Ashton. Joining the Globe Player is a bit of a chore but once you’ve done it you’ll have a choice of more than 40 titles as part of your subscription at no extra charge. Audra Macdonald – Summertime Click here to watch Audra Macdonald has won 10 Tony Awards. Ten. And she deserved every one of them. It’s worth mentioning also that she’s won Emmy and Grammy Awards too. No superlative is sufficient for this fabulous star of the American musical theatre. Here is her definitive performance of the showstopper from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Let Freedom Ring! – Audra Macdonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell Click here to watch “Summertime”, above, is an excerpt from this live television programme at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC honouring the memory of Dr Martin Luther King. This programme, Let Freedom Ring!, which is highly political and won’t be to everyone’s taste, has several more treats buried within it including "Make Someone Happy” and “Climb Every Mountain” from Macdonald and “I’m Feeling Good” and “The Impossible Dream (The Quest”) from that other great musical star Brian Stokes Mitchell. If you have time to dig for their fine performances of these and other songs, watch the whole programme. It’s not just the perfection of their singing, nor just the musicality of their presentation, just pay particular attention to the absolute conviction they each give to every line of every lyric. They finish this concert with their great duet from Ragtime “On The Wheels of a Dream”. No more need be said. Goosebumps all round. A Personal Farewell to the Emerson Quartet Last week at the Aspen Music Festival I heard many concerts and many standout musicians – Gil Shaham, Robert McDuffie, Yefim Bronfman among them – and one opera. That’s what music festivals are for, after all. They were all splendid. But one concert was more special than the others because it was the last performance by the internationally lauded Emerson String Quartet. It was performed in Aspen’s Harris Hall, which they had inaugurated in 1993. I was there. But the Emersons’ history goes back further than that. 40 years ago, four young men had a radical idea. They were young, did I already say that? Very young. The original members of the Emerson String Quartet, Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, had met at Juilliard in 1975, both violinists’ sons. They were in their early 20s and realised that they were blessed with similar, almost identical ideas about music. What was good, what wasn’t, and what they wanted their fledgling partnership to be. They started in the quartet repertoire by alternating First and Second Violin parts, a practice that is usually abandoned once student days are over but these two loved the variety and continue the practice to this day, in the only quartet I know that does. They alternated in their final concert too. A couple of false starts at the beginning quickly gave way to the perfect combination when they were joined by Lawrence Dutton on viola and David Finckel on cello. And, suddenly, just like that, they were the Emerson String Quartet, universally known as “The Emersons”, choosing the name because they liked the social ideas of the American idealist and thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson. Dutton had been a student at Aspen in 1975/76 and, ever since he joined the quartet he has revelled in the Emersons annual appearances in the Festival. “I fell in love with Aspen right from the start. We made so many friends, played with such great musicians, had so much fun climbing mountains, teaching, learning from everybody. I met my wife in Aspen (violinist Elizabeth Lim-Dutton), and we’ve been together now for 36 years. It’s such a special place, unlike any other. It’s only right that we’re now coming back for our last season.” Back to that radical idea 40 years ago. It may not seem so radical today - bold, yes, not insane - but in March 1981 it seemed crazy. They decided to play all six Bartok quartets in one long concert as an homage to Bartok’s centenary, a marathon which had never been attempted before. “Everyone thought it wouldn’t work,” recalls Setzer, “but it became one of those magical evenings when people got more and more into it.” The concert at Alice Tully Hall was a triumph, discussed and emulated throughout the chamber music world, even by people who weren’t there. The Emersons followed up with cycles of Beethoven and Shostakovich and became, at the beginning of the digital era, the preferred quartet of Deutsche Grammophon for whom they have recorded virtually the whole of the quartet repertoire, including a number of original compositions composed for them. They continue to perform the Bartok Quartets although they admit that continuing to perform them in one big push is punishing, “We have to prepare very carefully, almost like athletes. It requires not only stamina, but being able to keep all those pieces in top shape in our fingers at one time.” Awards poured in and the extraordinary musical and personal empathy they display in performance must sometimes have been tested by their success. It is very difficult for a solo musician - travelling constantly, playing in a different city every night, learning new music, rehearsing all day, performing in unfamiliar halls, staying in hotels for weeks on end, away from family and friends, missing familiar food and the comforts of home – so imagine those endless challenges multiplied by four. It’s a miracle that the Emersons still enjoy each other’s company and love playing together. In 2012, David Finckel left the quartet to play music in other forms, usually with his wife, the pianist Wu Han, a seismic event which could easily have presaged the breakup of such a tightknit group. Instead, they were joined by Welsh-born cellist Paul Watkins, decades younger, who fitted into the quartet seamlessly and brought new and innovative ideas which were welcomed by the others. “We knew immediately that Paul was one of the finest musicians we had ever played with,” says Larry Dutton. Those of us who have been coming to Aspen nearly as long as The Emersons have so many memories of individual concerts which astounded us and fun events we enjoyed together. Writer and critic Harvey Steiman spotlights his particular favourites, “Already a fixture in Aspen, the Emerson Quartet played the entire set of 15 Shostakovich string quartets over eight seasons from 1999 to 2007. Deutsche Grammophon was there to record them right there in Harris Hall. The live performances are etched in my memory as textbook examples of precision and emotional detail, some of the most jaw-dropping and evocative chamber music I've ever been present to enjoy. The full-set album of this miracle is something I treasure.” Me too, to coin a phrase. Now it’s nearly all over. The Emersons, now grey-haired, are retiring at the end of this year and it is difficult to imagine the chamber music world without them although Dutton points out that they sit at the centre of their era, having grown out of the Juilliard and Budapest Quartets, and progenitors of the younger, newer quartets who are following them. I met the Emersons when they first played at the Aspen Music Festival and became an instant groupie which I have remained to this day. Musically they were a revelation, socially they were a riot. We ate, partied and laughed together for nearly 40 years. It can’t be over, can it?
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
May 2024
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