{"id":374804,"date":"2018-08-25T08:55:18","date_gmt":"2018-08-25T07:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-centenary-of-leonard-bernstein-part-2\/"},"modified":"2018-08-25T08:55:18","modified_gmt":"2018-08-25T07:55:18","slug":"the-centenary-of-leonard-bernstein-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-centenary-of-leonard-bernstein-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The centenary of Leonard Bernstein\u2014Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h4>One of the greatest musical figures of the 20th century<\/h4>\n<h2>The centenary of Leonard Bernstein\u2014Part 2<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Fred Mazelis<br \/>\n    <br \/>25 August 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p><em>This is the second and concluding part of a series on the life and career of Leonard Bernstein, born 100 years ago August 25. The first part can be accessed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/08\/24\/bern-a24.html\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The great success of <em>West Side Story<\/em> in 1957 was soon followed by Leonard Bernstein\u2019s inaugural appearance on the podium with the New York Philharmonic as its \u201cmusic-director-elect.\u201d For the next 11 years, his life was largely consumed with all the duties associated with leading one of the world\u2019s major orchestras, including programming, performance, auditions and a host of administrative and publicity tasks.<\/p>\n<div class=\"imageFull\" style=\"width:480px; oveflow:hidden;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/asset\/f7cffee1-b4e1-4abd-bf35-49404ab7708A\/image.jpg?rendition=image480\" srcset=\"\/asset\/f7cffee1-b4e1-4abd-bf35-49404ab7708A\/image.jpg?rendition=image960 2x\" width=\"480\" style=\"width:480px;\" \/><span>Leonard Bernstein<\/span><\/div>\n<p>Bernstein quickly placed his stamp on the Philharmonic. In the first few years he programmed series of concerts on American music of the 20th century, the contemporary avant-garde, and above all the music of his illustrious predecessor as conductor of the Philharmonic, Gustav Mahler, who had led the orchestra exactly 50 years earlier, from 1909 to 1911.<\/p>\n<p>Mahler\u2019s works, including song cycles and his nine symphonies (plus an uncompleted tenth), are now performed regularly, but before these emotional and lengthy works were championed by Bernstein they had appeared relatively rarely on concert programs. A Mahler symphony was on every Philharmonic program between December 31, 1959 and February 21, 1960. Not everyone was pleased. Well-known critics Irving Kolodin and Howard Taubman were openly dismissive when Bernstein led Mahler\u2019s \u201cResurrection\u201d Symphony with the New York City Symphony in 1947.<\/p>\n<p>The early Bernstein years at the Philharmonic also saw much touring, including a famous trip to the Soviet Union in 1959. The conductor also programmed&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/08\/25\/bern-a25.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 One of the greatest musical figures of the 20th century The centenary of Leonard Bernstein\u2014Part 2 By Fred Mazelis 25 August 2018 This is the second and concluding part of a series on the life and career of Leonard Bernstein, born 100 years ago August 25. The first part can be accessed here. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-374804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}