May 4, 2018 08:35 PM
https://www.weeklystandard.com/joseph-ho...ind-at-100
EXCERPT: . . . f there is a single motif that unifies the Bernstein saga, it was his desire to resolve the oxymoron “American classical music.” Beginning in the mid-19th century, Europe’s musical traditions were vigorously appropriated by a profusion of American orchestras and opera troupes (the New York Philharmonic was founded in 1842). But classical music in America remained Eurocentric: a colonial outpost prodigious in scale. Bernstein’s determination to change all that was never more explicit than during his momentous Philharmonic decade.
[...] Young, eclectic, and irreverent, Bernstein had a remedial agenda not merely for New York but also for the nation. There were two critical objectives. The first was to identify and promote an American canon so that American orchestras would eventually emphasize American works; until that happened, the United States could only claim a second-rate musical high culture, however abundantly stocked with world-class imported goods. The second objective was to carve a role for new music: There needed to be a contemporary canon, American and not, that audiences could embrace. That Bernstein was himself a composer looking for the way forward and himself an American musician looking for a rooted identity were crucial factors. More than the Russian-born Koussevitzky, more than the English-born Stokowski, Leonard Bernstein tackled the oxymoron head-on. He was fired by personal urgency....
MORE: https://www.weeklystandard.com/joseph-ho...ind-at-100
EXCERPT: . . . f there is a single motif that unifies the Bernstein saga, it was his desire to resolve the oxymoron “American classical music.” Beginning in the mid-19th century, Europe’s musical traditions were vigorously appropriated by a profusion of American orchestras and opera troupes (the New York Philharmonic was founded in 1842). But classical music in America remained Eurocentric: a colonial outpost prodigious in scale. Bernstein’s determination to change all that was never more explicit than during his momentous Philharmonic decade.
[...] Young, eclectic, and irreverent, Bernstein had a remedial agenda not merely for New York but also for the nation. There were two critical objectives. The first was to identify and promote an American canon so that American orchestras would eventually emphasize American works; until that happened, the United States could only claim a second-rate musical high culture, however abundantly stocked with world-class imported goods. The second objective was to carve a role for new music: There needed to be a contemporary canon, American and not, that audiences could embrace. That Bernstein was himself a composer looking for the way forward and himself an American musician looking for a rooted identity were crucial factors. More than the Russian-born Koussevitzky, more than the English-born Stokowski, Leonard Bernstein tackled the oxymoron head-on. He was fired by personal urgency....
MORE: https://www.weeklystandard.com/joseph-ho...ind-at-100