Passing on the Flame
January 7, 2010
Last night I went to the memorial for a recently-deceased colleague. There were several fine musical performances and touching personal talks about what the much-missed friend meant to various people. But an eminent composer stood up and talked movingly about the man in terms that laid before us facts about our friend that were universally applicable in our own lives.
He spoke of how people in music need to stay in touch with that initial enthusiasm that got us into this stuff to begin with. Enthusiasm, of course, isn’t everything. That very morning I had begun listening to the 11-hour PBS documentary Leonard Bernstein: An American Life, in which the unique maestro emphasizes how much sweat and toil went into the making of the composer-conductor-pianist he was. However renowned he was for charisma and energy, he commendably wanted the world to know how much grueling effort goes into the making of a Bernstein.
The composer speaking last night told of an interesting technique he has when his energy is flagging as he sits alone in a room with his pencil and music-manuscript paper: he says that, from time to time, he thinks of our departed friend and of how fresh his relationship with the art remained. And it brings him back to the place where he belongs.
In some sense, for those of us who are deeply committed to music as a way of life, this kind of rebooting is the same as returning to our true selves. It is melancholy that the loss of a fellow-traveler on the road was the occasion for this reminder, but if the crowd made up largely of musicians there took the point to heart, then — if for no other reason — our lamented colleague left us a valuable legacy.
Most, if not all, of us would do well to have such a signal to self that reminds us of why we do what we do and live the life we live.
One Fine Insight from 1973
June 10, 2009
A memorable part of Leonard Bernstein’s Norton Lectures at Harvard, in which he gave a masterly elucidation of Mozart’s 40th Symphony, came when he recomposed the first movement as Mozart would have done had he been merely a master of musical materials and not a genius. Everything was perfectly thought-out, symmetrical — but without that spark of life that genius lends.
Ever since that revelation, I have now and then been struck by the same principle being displayed by a great variety of the best composers (whether or not to Mozart’s degree is another question) . To take an example that revealed itself to me a few days ago: Puccini’s “Un bel dì” from Madama Butterfly. It would be difficult to come up with a composer more distant from Mozart in many ways. But in the aspect of creativity that Bernstein was dealing with, they are blood-brothers. Here is a take-home assignment: look at or listen to “Un bel dì” and rethink it as perfectly well-behaved, very regular, tune. My efforts produced a perfectly charming tune for a popular song — which simply revealed why people are so enchanted with the much less predictable tune that Puccini came up with.
To take one example that occurs right off the bat: the mediocre composer (maybe me) might have ended the first phrase, “Un bel dì, vedremo” with “-mo” held for three beats and followed it by a perfectly balanced consequent phrase. But the conflicted Butterfly gets to sing something far more interesting. Just as she utters her “-mo,” the orchestra continues the melody immediately, to be joined by the unhappy geisha two beats later. There are so many intricate things going on here that reward close examination. But for now, I just want to register my delight at this general way of thinking, which I was led to years go by Bernstein’s infectious and intelligent love for Mozart’s great edifice in G Minor.