“It’s the Leonard Bernstein centennial this year and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has been celebrating,” reports Scott Simon at Saturday’s (5/12) National Public Radio. At a BSO concert of Bernstein’s music last weekend, Simon interviewed Music Director Marin Alsop and Jamie Bernstein, the composer’s daughter, onstage. Alsop: When I was 9 years old, my dad took me to a Young People’s Concert. This guy came out, and he was so cool…. I turned to my dad and said, ‘You know, I want to be the conductor.’ … J. Bernstein: Our house was full of interesting, lively, creative, funny people…. I went to sleep listening to my parents and their friends laughing and carrying on and roaring around the piano. Alsop: If we look at the musical development of [West Side Story], it’s incredible. Bernstein, he’s thinking, ‘All right: I have to somehow express conflict… in the smallest amount of musical material?’ So he picks … the most conflicted interval … a tritone. J. Bernstein: Those three notes, in fact, are the key to the entire score of West Side Story: ‘Ma-ri-a!’ … It’s amazing.”
Posted May 14, 2018
