Bernstein Breaks Down Beethoven


In the mid-1950s, the Amer­i­can com­pos­er Leonard Bern­stein made sev­er­al appear­ances on Omnibus, a tele­vi­sion show ded­i­cat­ed to cov­er­ing the sci­ences, arts and human­i­ties. Dur­ing his vis­its, Bern­stein walked audi­ences through the art of mak­ing music. Take for exam­ple the clip above where he breaks down the mak­ing of Beethoven’s Fifth Sym­pho­ny. Just how did Beethoven craft it? And what deci­sions did he need to make along the way? What parts to include? And not to include? You can see the pro­gram here. Oth­er episodes focus on the work of Bach, and also the worlds of Jazz, Opera, Amer­i­can Musi­cals, and the con­duc­tor’s craft. Hap­pi­ly, all sev­en of Bern­stein’s appear­ances have been col­lect­ed in a new­ly released DVD col­lec­tion, which you can find on Ama­zon. Hat tip to Mike.

via The New York Times

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Classical Bits

A few resources for clas­si­cal music lovers. They come rec­om­mend­ed by Robert B, one of our faith­ful read­ers.

  • ArsAntiguaPresents.com offers a series of free audio pro­grams of music from the Renais­sance, Baroque, and Clas­si­cal eras, all per­formed on peri­od instru­ments. This mon­th’s edi­tion focus­es on Mozart’s Salzburg Sym­phonies. You can start lis­ten­ing via mp3 right here.
  • Art of the States fea­tures work by Amer­i­can com­posers that can be oth­er­wise hard to find. To get a quick taste, you can start lis­ten­ing to works by John Cage right here.
  • Final­ly, the Petruc­ci Music Library is the largest and most active site ded­i­cat­ed to offer­ing free, down­load­able clas­si­cal music scores. Want the com­plete score for Bach’s Bran­den­burg Con­cer­tos? You can start here.

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Django at 100

Djan­go Rein­hardt, one of Europe’s finest jazz gui­tar play­ers, would have turned 100 on Jan­u­ary 24. It’s fair­ly aston­ish­ing to think that he mas­tered the gui­tar as he did, ele­vat­ing it to a lead jazz instru­ment, despite being self taught, and hav­ing lost the use of two fin­gers in a fire. (More on that in the LA Times.) Above, we fea­ture Djan­go and his group, Quin­tette du Hot Club de France, per­form­ing “J’At­tendrai” (I Will Wait) in 1939. As you’ll note, he only has two fin­gers mov­ing on the frets.

Notre Dame Marching Band Performs “This Too Shall Pass”

The Notre Dame March­ing Band hit the field (a real field), where they per­formed OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass.” The per­for­mance was arranged by Notre Dame’s direc­tor of bands, Dr. Ken Dye. And it was all record­ed live on the spot. You can watch the video in a larg­er for­mat here. Inci­den­tal­ly, if you’re not famil­iar with OK Go’s music, you can watch them per­form an acoustic ver­sion here.

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Bob Dylan at the White House

Once they were part of the counter cul­ture. Now they’re get­ting the red car­pet treat­ment in the estab­lish­ment. (Not that I have a prob­lem with that!) Last night, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and oth­ers per­formed in the East Room of the White House. It was all part a pro­gram called “A Cel­e­bra­tion of Music from the Civ­il Rights Move­ment,” which will air on PBS on Feb. 11 at 8 p.m. ET. Above we have an audio record­ing of Dylan per­form­ing the time­less “The Times They Are A‑Changin.” You can also watch a sam­ple of the oth­er per­for­mances here.

A Young Glenn Gould Plays Bach

Great find by Robert B., who cap­tions this clip: “the teenage Glenn Gould at his Cana­di­an home.” Gould is play­ing here J.S.Bach’s Par­ti­ta #2. Give this a minute to get going. It’s a pret­ty awe­some dis­play of Gould’s tal­ents. Thanks for shar­ing Robert…

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Dewey Music: Putting a Friendly Face on Public Domain Music

As we’ve men­tioned in the past, Archive.org hosts some won­der­ful free, pub­lic domain media. Many of their clas­sic films appear in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Movies. And they also pro­vide access to lots of free pub­lic domain music (includ­ing a large Grate­ful Dead con­cert archive). Thanks to a new site, Dewey Music, you can now sort through this exten­sive music cat­a­logue with greater ease and find the free gems faster. Dewey Music was cre­at­ed by six indus­tri­ous col­lege stu­dents, and we thank them.

via Boing­Bo­ing

The Beatles as Teens (1957)

We take you back to The Bea­t­les (who were still The Quar­ry­men) in 1957. George Har­ri­son is 14, John Lennon is 16, and Paul McCart­ney is 15. Ringo is not yet in the pic­ture. Then, on a rather relat­ed note, check out Jim­my Page, 13, Play­ing Gui­tar on a BBC Tal­ent Show in 1957.

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