LEONARD BERNSTEIN
Date of Birth: August 25, 1918
Date of Death: October 14, 1990
Nationality: American
Date of Death: October 14, 1990
Nationality: American
Any great work of art revives
and re-adapts time and space,
and re-adapts time and space,
and the measure of its success is
the extent to which it makes you
an inhabitant of that world --
an inhabitant of that world --
the extent to which it invites you in
and lets you breathe
its strange, special air.
and lets you breathe
its strange, special air.
I'm not interested in having
an orchestra sound like itself.
an orchestra sound like itself.
I want it to sound like the composer.
In the olden days, everybody sang.
You were expected to sing as well as talk.
It was a mark of the cultured man to sing.
Music can name the unnameable
and communicate the unknowable.
and communicate the unknowable.
Technique is communication:
the two words are synonymous in conductors.
the two words are synonymous in conductors.
The key to the mystery of a great artist
is that for reasons unknown,
is that for reasons unknown,
he will give away his energies and his life
just to make sure that one note follows another...
just to make sure that one note follows another...
and leaves us with the feeling
that something is right in the world.
that something is right in the world.
To achieve great things,
two things are needed;
two things are needed;
a plan,
and not quite enough time.
and not quite enough time.
This will be our reply to violence:
to make music more intensely,
more beautifully,
more devotedly than ever before.
It was an initiation into the love of learning,
of learning how to learn . . .
of learning how to learn . . .
as a matter of interdisciplinary cognition-
that is,
that is,
learning to know something
by its relation to something else.
by its relation to something else.
Life without music is unthinkable.
Music without life is academic
That is why my contact with music
is a total embrace.
is a total embrace.
Inspiration is wonderful when it happens,
but the writer must develop
an approach for the rest of the time...
an approach for the rest of the time...
The wait is simply too long.
The joy of music should
never be interrupted by a commercial.
never be interrupted by a commercial.
Stillness
is our most intense mode of action.
is our most intense mode of action.
It is in our moments of deep quiet
that is born every idea,
emotion, and drive
that is born every idea,
emotion, and drive
which we eventually honor
with the name of action.
with the name of action.
Our most emotionally active life
is lived in our dreams,
is lived in our dreams,
and our cells renew themselves
most industriously in sleep.
most industriously in sleep.
We reach highest in meditation,
and farthest in prayer.
and farthest in prayer.
In stillness every human being is great;
he is free from the experience of hostility;
he is a poet, and most like an angel.
LEONARD BERNSTEIN
Howard Goodalls
Twentieth Century Greats
A work of art
does not answer questions,
it provokes them;
and its essential meaning
is in the tension
between the contradictory answers.
I think it is time
we learned the lesson of our century:
we learned the lesson of our century:
that the progress of the human spirit
must keep pace with technological
and scientific progress,
must keep pace with technological
and scientific progress,
or that spirit will die.
It is incumbent on our educators
to remember this;
to remember this;
and music is at the top
of the spiritual must list.
of the spiritual must list.
Music, of all the arts,
stands in a special region,
stands in a special region,
unlit by any star but its own,
and utterly without meaning ...
and utterly without meaning ...
except its own.
The second fiddle.
I can get plenty of first violinists,
but to find someone who can play
the second fiddle with enthusiasm,
the second fiddle with enthusiasm,
that's a problem.
And if we have no second fiddle,
we have no harmony.
LEONARD BERNSTEIN
DOCUMENTARY:
DOCUMENTARY:
"Teachers and Teaching"