100 YEARS OF BERNSTEIN
VSO’s Spring Festival celebrates legendary composer’s work and connection to the city
The first blockbuster event this spring is the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s annual festival. The usual VSO practice is to focus on the work of a single composer, buttressed by works exploring interconnections with that major figure.
This year it’s Leonard Bernstein (1918-90). Why him? There’s a facile answer: it’s the centenary of his birth, so lots of organizations are in party mode. But in Vancouver there are further compelling reasons to celebrate. First and foremost, music director Bramwell Tovey has a special affinity for Bernstein and his music. Subbing for Bernstein as conductor at a critical point in Tovey’s developing career was a big deal, and Tovey certainly treasures his Bernstein connection.
He has also become a sterling advocate for Bernstein’s sometimes wonderful, sometimes problematic music. He conducts not just obvious hits but goes out of his way to secure contemporary airings of some more troublesome works. For example, Tovey ’s readings here and in L.A. of Bernstein’s “flop musical” Candide were glorious.
But Vancouver’s Bernstein connection goes beyond maestro Tovey. In the mid-1940s the VSO was one of a handful of orchestras prepared to give Bernstein podium time. Compared to the VSO’s previous conductor, the very old school Allard de Ridder, 20-something Lennie wasn’t just a breath of fresh air, he was a musical hurricane.
The 1950s and ’60s were Bernstein’s glory decades. At the height of his fame he brought the New York Philharmonic to Vancouver in 1960 to play the just-opened Queen Elizabeth Theatre, returning the next year to conduct a “difficult” program that included Hindemith and Bernstein’s own Jeremiah Symphony (in the PNE Forum!)
During his final visit with the New York Phil in 1967, he introduced Vancouver to Ives’ Second Symphony and Mahler’s Fourth.
Bernstein wrote the book on what we now call outreach: engaging with the community through lectures and broadcasts to bring new listeners to classical music. His TV shows were particularly groundbreaking. He even tried out a kids concert here, telling his adoring New York audience, “We even gave two young people’s concerts during the tour — one in Chicago and one in Vancouver, Canada — and they were marvellous fun for us to do. You see, we had never before given this kind of concert anywhere but here in New York; so that was a new experience.”
Bernstein’s life was not an easy one: personality, principles and politics got in the way.
His flamboyance made him enemies, and his politics were increasingly at odds with the direction of U.S. society. In 1970, a well-meaning fundraiser for the Black Panthers was pilloried by writer Tom Wolfe, who coined the term “radical chic” for the occasion. Joan Peyser wrote a poisonous biography just in time for Bernstein’s 70th birthday.
VANCOUVER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SPRING FESTIVAL
When: Saturday to March 26 Tickets and info: vancouversymphony.ca
Conventional wisdom says that the best of Bernstein’s music was created between the Jeremiah Symphony (1942) and the Chichester Psalms (1965). For our festival, Tovey has a nice sample of vintage works on tap, starting with Chichester Psalms (Saturday). We get to hear a selection of the best bits from West Side Story (March 24), coupled with Mahler Four, the very symphony Bernstein introduced to Vancouver in 1967.
Before that, on March 19, there’s the Serenade (1954) featuring violinist Augustin Hadelich, and the Second Symphony (1949). The latter is quintessential Bernstein, too good to ignore, too non-conforming to make for easy programming.
First, it’s a musical working out of ideas and situations from W. H. Auden’s The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue, starting with the premise “four lonely individuals (three men and one woman) meet in a bar.” It flirts with postwar jazz and there’s a big (BIG!) part for solo piano which offers all the difficulty of a concerto, but little of the obvious glory: a symphony with piano, not a symphonic concerto.
Very Bernstein.