ISAREL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA BOOK HAND SIGNED BY ZUBIN MEHTA 1986

THE ISAREL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA edited by Michael Ohad, published by Keter publishing house in Jerusalem in 1986. This book review the historical development of the orchestra since the establishment in 1936. This book is hand signed by ZUBIN MEHTA. Excellent condition,like new. Hardcover with dust jacket. The book contains 290 with photos. Size: 10x7 inch.  

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Zubin Mehta AC (born 29 April 1936) is an Indian conductor of Western classical music. He is music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and conductor emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Mehta's father was the founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, and Mehta received his early musical education from him. When he was 18, he enrolled in the Vienna state music academy, from which he graduated after three years with a diploma as a conductor. He began winning international competitions and conducted the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic at age 21. Beginning in the 1960s, Mehta gained experience by substituting for celebrated maestros throughout the world. Mehta was music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1967 and of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1962 to 1978, the youngest music director ever for any major North American orchestra. In 1969, he was appointed Music Adviser to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and in 1981 he became its Music Director for Life. From 1978 to 1991, Mehta was music director of the New York Philharmonic. He was chief conductor of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence from 1985 to 2017. He is an honorary citizen of both Florence and Tel Aviv and was made an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera in 1997 and of the Bavarian State Opera in 2006. The title of Honorary Conductor was bestowed on him by numerous orchestras throughout the world. More recently, Mehta made several tours with the Bavarian State Opera and kept up a busy schedule of guest conducting appearances. In December 2006, he received the Kennedy Center Honor and in October 2008 he was honored by the Japanese Imperial Family with the Praemium Imperiale. In 2016, Mehta was appointed Honorary Conductor of the Teatro San Carlo, Naples. Contents 1 Early years and education 2 Conducting career 2.1 1960s 2.2 1970s–1980s 2.3 1990s 2.4 2000s 2.5 2010s 3 Personal life 4 Honours and awards 5 Films 6 Educational projects 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links Early years and education Mehta was born into a Parsi family in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, during the British Raj, the older son of Mehli (1908–2002) and Tehmina (Daruvala) Mehta.[1][2] His native language is Gujarati.[3] His father was a self-taught violinist who founded and conducted the Bombay Symphony Orchestra and later the American Youth Symphony, which he conducted for 33 years after moving to Los Angeles.[1] His father had previously lived in New York to study with violinist Ivan Galamian, a noted teacher who also taught Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman.[1] His father returned to Bombay as an accomplished violinist of the Russian school.[1] Mehta has said that on many occasions when he conducts in the U.S., someone approaches him to say, "You don't know how much I loved your father!".[1] Mehta has described his childhood as surrounded by music at home all the time, and has said he probably learnt to speak Gujarati and sing around the same time. He says his father had a strong influence on him, and he listened to his quartet daily after his father returned from the USA after the Second World War.[4] Mehta was first taught to play violin and piano by his father. When he reached his early teens, his father allowed him to lead sectional rehearsals of the Bombay Symphony, and at sixteen, he was conducting the full orchestra during rehearsals.[5] Mehta graduated from St. Mary's School, Mumbai and went on to study medicine at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, at the urging of his mother, who wanted him to take up a more "respectable" profession than music.[5] At age eighteen, he dropped out after two years to move to Vienna, one of Europe's music centers, in order to study music under Hans Swarowsky at the state music academy.[5] He lived on $75 per month, and was a contemporary of conductor Claudio Abbado and conductor-pianist Daniel Barenboim. He remained at the academy for three years, during which time he also studied the double bass, which he played in the Vienna Chamber Orchestra.[5] Swarowsky recognized Mehta's abilities early on, describing him as a "demoniac conductor" who "had it all".[6] While still a student, after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he organized a student orchestra in seven days and conducted it in a concert at a refugee camp outside Vienna.[6] Mehta graduated in 1957 when he was 21 with a diploma in conducting.[5] In 1958 he entered the Liverpool International Conductor's Competition with 100 contestants and took first prize. The prize included a year's contract as associate conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, which he conducted in 14 concerts, all of which received rave reviews.[5][7] He then was a 2nd-place prizewinner at the summer academy at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts.[7] At that competition he attracted the notice of Charles Munch, then the conductor of the Boston Symphony, who later helped his career.[5] In 1958, he boldly programmed an all-Schoenberg concert, which did so well that he accepted further bookings.[6] That same year he also married a Canadian voice student, Carmen Lasky, whom he met in Vienna.[6] Conducting career 1960s During 1960 and 1961, Mehta was asked to substitute for celebrated maestros throughout the world, receiving high critical acclaim for most of those concerts.[6] In 1960, he conducted a series for the Vienna Symphony and later that summer made his New York conducting debut leading the New York Philharmonic.[5] [Mehta] has the capacity to control every sound made by an orchestra, and he does this with the simplest of gestures, every one of which has an immediate and perceptible effect. He has a talent for conveying a mood of serenity, or of serene grandeur, to both orchestra and audiences that is rare indeed among the younger generation of conductors. —Music critic Winthrop Sargeant, on Mehta's 1967 New York debut at Carnegie Hall[8] In 1960, with the help of Charles Munch, Mehta became the chief conductor and Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 1967. By 1961, he had already conducted the Vienna, Berlin and Israel Philharmonic orchestras.[7] In 1962, he took the Montreal Symphony on a concert tour to Russia, Paris and Vienna. Mehta was most apprehensive about his concert in Vienna, which he said was considered the "capital of Western music". His single concert there received a 20-minute ovation, 14 curtain calls, and two encores.[9] In 1961, he was named assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (LAP), although the orchestra's music director designate, Georg Solti, was not consulted on the appointment, and resigned in protest.[10] The orchestra had been without a permanent conductor for four years when Mehta started directing it.[5] Mehta was named Music Director of the orchestra and held the post from 1962 to 1978. When he began his first season with the orchestra in 1962, he was 26, the youngest person ever to hold that title.[5] And as he had also conducted the Montreal Symphony during those early years, he became the first person ever to direct two North American symphony orchestras at the same time.[5] As the LAP's first conductor in four years, Mehta worked to polish its overall sound to something closer to the Vienna Philharmonic's. He succeeded in making its sound warmer and richer by fostering competition among the musicians, shifting assignments, giving promotions and changing seating arrangements.[6] He also inspired the musicians; 21-year-old cellist Jacqueline du Pré said, "He provides a magic carpet for you to float on." Cellist Kurt Reher recalls Mehta's first rehearsal with the orchestra: "within two beats we were entranced. It seemed this young man had the ability, the musical knowledge of a man of 50 or 55."[6] In 1965, after Mehta's debut with the Metropolitan Opera's performance of Aida, music critic Alan Rich wrote, "Mehta brought to the conducting of the score a kind of bedazzlement that has no peer in recent times ... It was a lunging, teeming, breathless performance that still had plenty of breath."[5] He subsequently conducted the Met in performances of Carmen, Tosca, and Turandot. For Montreal's Expo 67, he conducted both the Montreal and the Los Angeles orchestras together for a performance of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.[5] Also that year he conducted the world premier of Marvin David Levy's Mourning Becomes Electra.[5] By May 1967, his schedule was becoming overcrowded and he resigned his Montreal post. That fall he took the 107-member Los Angeles Philharmonic on an eight-week tour, including engagements in Vienna, Paris, Athens, and Bombay.[5] By 1968, his popularity kept him busier than the year before, including 22 weeks of concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, three operas at the Met, television appearances in the U.S. and Italy, five recording sessions, and guest appearances at five festivals and with five orchestras.[5] Time magazine put him on its cover in January 1968.[6] In 1969 his schedule remained equally active.[5] In 1970 Mehta performed with Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention on Zappa's "200 Motels" and Edgar Varese's Intergrales, at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion basketball stadium with an audience of 12,000. There is no authorized recording, though some bootlegs exist. 1970s–1980s In 1978, Mehta became the Music Director and Principal Conductor of the New York Philharmonic and remained there until his resignation in 1991. Mehta with Isaac Stern at Lincoln Center, 1980 He became music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) in 1977. He began the first of many guest appearances with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) in 1961. In 1966, he toured with the orchestra, and during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, he rushed back to Israel to conduct several special concerts to "demonstrate solidarity" with its people.[11] He was appointed IPO's Music Advisor in 1969, Music Director in 1977, and was made its Music Director for Life in 1981.[12] During his five-decade connection with the IPO, he has conducted it in thousands of concerts in Israel and abroad.[1] He conducted concerts with the IPO in South Lebanon in 1982, after which Arabs rushed onstage to hug the musicians.[13] He conducted it during the Gulf War in 1991, when the audience brought gas masks; in 2007, it played for an entirely Arab audience in Nazareth.[13] He claims to have a "deep kinship" with Israel's musicians and the "spirit and tradition of the Jewish people".[11] He adds that conducting the IPO is "something I do for my heart".[11] Recalling those earlier years, he says, "How I would love to see that sight again today, of Arabs and Jews hugging each other. I'm a positive thinker. I know this day will come."[13] In 1978, Mehta left the Los Angeles Philharmonic to become music director for the New York Philharmonic (NYP).[13] Among the reasons he wanted to direct the NYP was that it allowed him to experiment with new ideas, such as taking the orchestra to Harlem. There, they played at the Abyssinian Baptist Church each year. Accompanying the orchestra with Mehta for various concerts were Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, and Kathleen Battle.[13] He stayed with NYP until 1991.[13] From 1985 to 2017, Mehta was chief conductor of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence.[14] From 1998 until 2006, he was music director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. The Munich Philharmonic named him its Honorary Conductor. Since 2005, Mehta has been the main conductor of the Palau de les Arts, the new opera house of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències in Valencia, Spain. While he was the conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Mehta commissioned Ravi Shankar's Concerto No. 2 for sitar and orchestra. Following New York performances, the concerto was later recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.[15]: vii [16][17] 1990s In 1998 he went to Munich where he began directing the Bavarian State Opera, because, he said, it provided "another panorama for me, to be involved in the running of an opera house".[13] In 1990, he conducted the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in the first ever Three Tenors concert in Rome, joining the tenors again in 1994 at the Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles. In between those appearances, he conducted the historic 1992 production of Tosca in which each act took place in the actual setting and at the actual time specified in the score. This production starred Catherine Malfitano in the title role, Plácido Domingo as Cavaradossi and Ruggero Raimondi as Baron Scarpia. Act I was telecast live from Rome's Basilica of Sant'Andrea della Valle on Saturday, 11 July, at noon (Central European Daylight Saving Time); act II was telecast later that evening from the Palazzo Farnese at 9:40 p.m.; act III was telecast live on Sunday, 12 July, at 7:00 am from the Castel Sant'Angelo, also known as Hadrian's Tomb. Mehta conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Mumbai, October 2008 In June 1994, Mehta performed the Mozart Requiem with the members of the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at the ruins of Sarajevo's National Library, in a fundraising concert for the victims of armed conflict and remembrance of the thousands of people killed in the Yugoslav Wars. On 29 August 1999, he conducted Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection), at the vicinity of Buchenwald concentration camp in Weimar, with the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra sitting alongside each other. He toured India (Mumbai) in 1984 with the New York Philharmonic, and again in November–December 1994 with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, along with soloists Itzhak Perlman and Gil Shaham. In 1997 and 1998, Mehta worked in collaboration with Chinese film director Zhang Yimou on a production of Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot, which they took to Florence and to Beijing, where it was staged in its actual surroundings in the Forbidden City, with over 300 extras and 300 soldiers, for nine historic performances. The making of this production was chronicled in the documentary The Turandot Project, which Mehta narrated. Mehta was a guest conductor for the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra.[18][19] 2000s Zubin Mehta, 2010 On 26 December 2005, the first anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, Mehta and the Bavarian State Orchestra performed for the first time in Chennai (formerly Madras) at the Madras Music Academy. This tsunami memorial concert was organized by the German consulate in Chennai along with the Max-Mueller Bhavan/Goethe-Institut. 2006 was his last year with the Bavarian State Orchestra. 2010s In 2011, Mehta's performance with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at The Proms in London was picketed and interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters,[20] which caused the BBC to halt the live radio relay of the concert, the first such incident in Proms history. In September 2013, Mehta appeared with the Bavarian State Orchestra at a special concert, Ehsaas e Kashmir, organized by the German Embassy in India, at Mughal Gardens, Srinagar. Mehta and the orchestra renounced their usual fees for this concert.[21] In October 2015, he returned to Chennai to perform with the Australian World Orchestra (AWO) at the Madras Music Academy.[22][23] In 2016, the Harbin Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed two concerts conducted by Mehta in the frame of 33rd Harbin Summer Music Festival at Harbin Concert Hall.[24] In December 2016, the Israel Philharmonic announced that Mehta would conclude his tenure as music director in October 2019.[25] He now has the title of music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic. In August 2022 Mehta will be conducting the Australian World Orchestra (AWO) in Sydney and Melbourne at Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House and Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne. He will also be conducting the AWO at the Edinburgh International Festival and the BBC Proms 2022.[26] Personal life Mehta's first marriage was to Canadian soprano Carmen Lasky in 1958. They have a son, Mervon (since April 2009, Executive Director of Performing Arts for The Royal Conservatory in Toronto), and a daughter, Zarina. In 1964 they divorced.[27] Two years after the divorce, Carmen married Mehta's brother, Zarin Mehta, formerly the Executive Director of the New York Philharmonic. In July 1969, Mehta married Nancy Kovack, an American former film and television actress.[28] A permanent resident of the United States, Mehta retains his Indian citizenship.[29] One of his close friends was Ravi Shankar, whom he first met in the 1960s when Mehta directed him with the Montreal Symphony. Their friendship continued after they were both living in Los Angeles and later in New York. "This was a wonderful period in my life and Zubin and I really had a great time."[15]: vii  His second daughter Alexandra was born in Los Angeles in 1967, the result of an affair Mehta had between his two marriages.[30] His son Ori was born in the 1990s as the result of an extra-marital affair in Israel during Mehta's second marriage.[31][30] Honours and awards Then U.S. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush stand with the Kennedy Center honourees in the Blue Room of the White House during a reception Sunday, 3 December 2006. From left, they are singer and songwriter Smokey Robinson; Andrew Lloyd Webber; country singer Dolly Parton; film director Steven Spielberg; and Zubin Mehta. In 1965, he received an honorary doctorate from Sir George Williams University, which later became Concordia University.[32] Mehta's name is mentioned in the song Billy the Mountain on the 1972 album Just Another Band from L.A. by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. Cellist Kurt Reher, who played when Mehta conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic, was also a guest musician with The Mothers of Invention.[33] At the Israel Prize ceremony in 1991, Mehta was awarded a special prize in recognition of his unique devotion to Israel and to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1995, he became a Laureate of the Wolf Prize in Arts. In 1999, Mehta was presented the "Lifetime Achievement Peace and Tolerance Award" of the United Nations. The Government of India honoured Mehta in 1966 with the Padma Bhushan and in 2001 with India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan.[34] In September 2006 the Kennedy Center announced Mehta as one of the recipients of that year's Kennedy Center Honors, presented on 3 December 2006. In February 2007, Mehta was the recipient of the Second Annual Bridgebuilder Award at Loyola Marymount University. Mehta is an honorary citizen of Florence and Tel Aviv. He was made an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera in 1997. In 2001 he has bestowed the title of "Honorary Conductor" of the Vienna Philharmonic and in 2004 the Munich Philharmonic awarded him the same title, as did the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 2006. At the end of his tenure with the Bavarian State Opera he was named Honorary Conductor of the Bavarian State Orchestra and Honorary Member of the Bavarian State Opera, and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Wien, appointed him an honorary member in November 2007. Also in 2007 Mehta received the prestigious Dan David Prize. Conductor Karl Böhm awarded Mehta the Nikisch Ring – the Vienna Philharmonic Ring of Honor. In October 2008, Mehta received the Praemium Imperiale (World Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu), Japan. In March 2011, Mehta received the 2,434th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In October 2011 he received the Echo Klassik in Berlin, for his life's work.[35] In September 2013, President of India Pranab Mukherjee awarded him the Tagore Award 2013 for his outstanding contribution towards cultural harmony.[36] In January 2019, the Los Angeles Philharmonic named Mehta as their Conductor Emeritus.[37] In February 2019, the Berlin Philharmonic made Mehta an honorary member as an expression of gratitude for their long association.[38] In September 2019, President of Slovenia Borut Pahor conferred the Golden Order of Merit on Zubin Mehta for his contribution to music and the inspiring effort to connect people and nations with this form of art.[39] In November 2020, the World Jewish Congress presented Mehta with their fifth Teddy Kollek Award for the Advancement of Jewish Culture.[40] In September 2022, received Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia from the Governor General David Hurley in recognition of his eminent service to the Australia-India bilateral relationship and humanity-at-large, particularly in the fields of classical music and philanthropy.[41] srael Philharmonic Orchestra From Jump to navigationJump to search Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta, 70th anniversary celebrations Charles Bronfman Auditorium (Heichal Hatarbut), home of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv Zubin Mehta conducting the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra at the Jamshed Bhabha Theater (NCPA) in Mumbai Bronisław Huberman, a Polish-Jewish violinist who founded the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (abbreviation IPO; Hebrew: התזמורת הפילהרמונית הישראלית, ha-Tizmoret ha-Filharmonit ha-Yisra'elit) is an Israeli symphony orchestra based in Tel Aviv. Its principal concert venue is Heichal HaTarbut. Contents 1 History 2 Awards and recognition 3 Music advisors 4 Music directors 5 Boycott controversies 6 American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra 7 See also 8 References 9 External links History The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was founded as the Palestine Symphony Orchestra by violinist Bronisław Huberman in 1936, at a time of the dismissal of many Jewish musicians from European orchestras.[1] Its inaugural concert took place in Tel Aviv on December 26, 1936, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Its first principal conductor was William Steinberg. Its general manager between 1938 and 1945 was Leo Kestenberg, who, like many of the orchestra members, was a German Jew forced out by the rise of Nazism and the persecution of Jews. During the Second World War, the orchestra performed 140 times before Allied soldiers, including a 1942 performance for soldiers of the Jewish Brigade at El Alamein. At the end of the war, it performed in recently liberated Belgium. In 1948, after the creation of the State of Israel, the orchestra was renamed as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1955, the Orchestra played for Pope Pius XII at the Vatican, in appreciation for the assistance the Pope had given to Jewish victims of Nazism during World War Two.[2] Particular conductors notable in the history of the orchestra have included Leonard Bernstein and Zubin Mehta. Bernstein maintained close ties with the orchestra from 1947, and in 1988, the IPO bestowed on him the title of Laureate Conductor, which he retained until his death in 1990. Mehta became the IPO's Music Advisor in 1969. The IPO did not have a formal music director, but instead "music advisors", until 1977, when Mehta was appointed the IPO's first Music Director. In 1981, his title was elevated to Music Director for Life.[3] In December 2016, the Israel Philharmonic announced that Mehta is to conclude his tenure as music director as of October 2019.[4] Principal guest conductors of the orchestra have included Yoel Levi and Gianandrea Noseda. With Mehta, the IPO has made a number of recordings for Decca. With Bernstein, the IPO recorded his own works and works of Igor Stravinsky, for Deutsche Grammophon. The IPO has also collaborated with Japanese composer Yoko Kanno in the soundtrack of the anime Macross Plus. The initial concerts of the Palestine Orchestra in December 1936, conducted by Toscanini, featured the music of Richard Wagner.[5] However, after the Kristallnacht pogroms in November 1938, the orchestra has maintained a de facto ban on Wagner's work, due to that composer's antisemitism and the association of his music with Nazi Germany.[6] The Secretary-General of the orchestra is Avi Shoshani. The IPO has a subscriber base numbering 26,000.[7] Commentators have noted the musically conservative tastes of the subscriber base,[8] although the IPO is dedicated to performing new works by Israeli composers, such as Avner Dorman. Among the orchestra's education initiatives are the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, a partnership between the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Tel Aviv University. Created by Zubin Mehta and philanthropist Josef Buchmann to educate orchestral musicians to supply the artistic future of the IPO and other o Bronisław Huberman (19 December 1882 – 16 June 1947) was a Polish violinist. He was known for his individualistic interpretations and was praised for his tone color, expressiveness, and flexibility. The Gibson ex-Huberman Stradivarius violin, which bears his name, was stolen twice and recovered once during the period in which he owned the instrument. Huberman is also remembered for founding the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (then known as the Palestine Philharmonic) and thus providing refuge from the Third Reich for nearly 1,000 European Jews.[1][2] Contents 1 Biography 2 Palestine Symphony Orchestra 3 Stradivarius theft 4 Honours 5 Recordings 6 Students 7 References 8 External links 9 Further reading Biography Huberman was born in Częstochowa, Poland. In his youth he was a pupil of Mieczysław Michałowicz and Maurycy Rosen at the Warsaw Conservatory, and of Isidor Lotto in Paris. In 1892 he studied under Joseph Joachim in Berlin. Despite being only ten years old, he dazzled Joachim with performances of Louis Spohr, Henri Vieuxtemps, and the transcription of a Frédéric Chopin nocturne. However, the two did not get along well, and after Huberman's fourteenth birthday he took no more lessons. In 1893 he toured the Netherlands and Belgium as a virtuoso performer. Around this time, the six-year-old Arthur Rubinstein attended one of Huberman's concerts. Rubinstein's parents invited Huberman back to their house and the two boys struck up what would become a lifetime friendship. In 1894 Adelina Patti invited Huberman to participate in her farewell gala in London, which he did, and in the following year he actually eclipsed her in appearances in Vienna. In 1896 he performed the violin concerto of Johannes Brahms in the presence of the composer, who was stunned by the quality of his playing. He married the German actress Elza Galafrés (also described as a singer[3] and ballerina).[4] They had a son, Johannes, but the marriage did not last. She later met the Hungarian composer and pianist Ernő Dohnányi, but neither Huberman nor Dohnányi's then wife would consent to divorce. Elza and Dohnányi nevertheless had a child out of wedlock in 1917, and in 1919, after Huberman had granted her a divorce, she married Dohnányi, who then adopted Huberman's son Johannes.[5][6] In the 1920s and early 1930s, Huberman toured around Europe and North America with the pianist Siegfried Schultze and performed on the most famous stages (Carnegie in New York, Scala in Milan, Musikverein in Vienna, Konzerthaus in Berlin....). Over the course of many years, the duet Huberman-Schultze were regularly invited in private by European Royal Families. Countless recordings of these artists were done during that period at the "Berliner Rundfunk" and were unfortunately destroyed during the Second World War. In 1937, a year before the Anschluss, Huberman left Vienna and took refuge in Switzerland. The following year, his career nearly ended as a result of an airplane accident in Sumatra in which his wrist and two fingers of his left hand were broken. After intensive and painful retraining he was able to resume performing. At the onset of the Second World War, Huberman was touring South Africa and was unable to return to his home in Switzerland until after the war. Shortly thereafter he fell ill from exhaustion and never regained his strength. He died in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland, on 16 June 1947, at age 64. Palestine Symphony Orchestra In 1929 Huberman first visited Palestine and developed his vision of establishing classical music in the Promised Land. In 1933, during the Nazis' rise to power, Huberman declined invitations from Wilhelm Furtwängler to return to preach a "musical peace", but wrote instead an open letter to German intellectuals inviting them to remember their essential values. In 1936 he founded the Palestine Symphony Orchestra (which upon the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 was renamed the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra). For the orchestra, Huberman recruited leading Jewish musicians from Europe, showing "the prescience to realize that far more than a new job was at stake for these artists" — for "if it hadn't been for Huberman, dozens of musicians and their families — nearly 1000 people in all — would nearly certainly have died if they had stayed in countries including Germany, Austria, Poland and Hungary."[1] He was assisted by violinist Jacob Surowicz.[7] Conductor William Steinberg, then known as Hans Wilhelm Steinberg, trained the orchestra. The first concert, on 26 December 1936, was conducted by Arturo Toscanini; Huberman had invited the Italian maestro when he heard of his refusing to perform in Germany to protest the Nazi takeover.[2] The 2012 documentary film Orchestra of Exiles by writer, director and producer Josh Aronson recreates Huberman's work creating the orchestra through interviews and reenactments.[8] Featuring interviews with Zubin Mehta, Pinchas Zukerman, Joshua Bell, and many other notable musicians, the film details how Huberman rescued nearly 1000 Jewish musicians and their families and created the Palestine Symphony Orchestra. The film also details how famous Jews and leading historical figures, such as Albert Einstein, were vital in creating the orchestra. Stradivarius theft Before 1936, Huberman's principal instrument for his concerts was a 1713-vintage Stradivarius "Gibson," which was named after one of its early owners, the English violinist George Alfred Gibson. It was stolen twice. In 1919, it was taken from Huberman's Vienna hotel room but recovered by the police within 3 days. The second time was in New York City. On 28 February 1936, while giving a concert at Carnegie Hall, Huberman switched the Stradivarius "Gibson" with his newly acquired Guarnerius violin, leaving the Stradivarius in his dressing room during intermission. It was stolen either by New York City nightclub musician Julian Altman or a friend of his.[9] Altman kept the violin for the next half-century. Huberman's insurance company, Lloyd's of London, paid him US$30,000 for the loss in 1936. Altman went on to become a violinist with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. and performed with the stolen Stradivarius for many years. In 1985, Altman made a deathbed confession to his wife, Marcelle Hall, that he had stolen the violin. Two years later, she returned it to Lloyd's and collected a finder's fee of US$263,000. The instrument underwent a 9-month restoration by J & A Beare Ltd., in London. In 1988, Lloyd's sold it for US$1.2 million to British violinist Norbert Brainin. In October 2001, the American violinist Joshua Bell purchased it for just under The instrument, which is now known as the Gibson-Huberman, was the focus of the 2012 documentary The Return of the Violin by the Israeli television director Haim Hecht which featured interviews with musicians such as Joshua Bell, Zubin Mehta, Holocaust-survivor Sigmund Rolat and many other musicians
Leonard Bernstein (/ˈbɜːrnstaɪn/ BURN-styne;[1] August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American conductor to receive international acclaim. According to music critic Donal Henahan, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history".[2] Bernstein was the recipient of many honors, including seven Emmy Awards,[3] two Tony Awards,[4] sixteen Grammy Awards[5] including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Kennedy Center Honor.[6] As a composer he wrote in many genres, including symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music and works for the piano. His best-known work is the Broadway musical West Side Story, which continues to be regularly performed worldwide, and has been adapted into two (1961 and 2021) feature films. His works include three symphonies, Chichester Psalms, Serenade after Plato's "Symposium", the original score for the film On the Waterfront, and theater works including On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide, and his MASS. Bernstein was the first American-born conductor to lead a major American symphony orchestra.[7] He was music director of the New York Philharmonic and conducted the world's major orchestras, generating a significant legacy of audio and video recordings.[8] He was also a critical figure in the modern revival of the music of Gustav Mahler, in whose music he was most passionately interested.[9] A skilled pianist,[10] he often conducted piano concertos from the keyboard. He was the first conductor to share and explore music on television with a mass audience. Through dozens of national and international broadcasts, including the Emmy Award-winning Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic, he made even the most rigorous elements of classical music an adventure in which everyone could join. Through his educational efforts, including several books and the creation of two major international music festivals, he influenced several generations of young musicians. A lifelong humanitarian, Bernstein worked in support of civil rights;[11] protested against the Vietnam War;[12] advocated nuclear disarmament; raised money for HIV/AIDS research and awareness; and engaged in multiple international initiatives for human rights and world peace. Near the end of his life, he conducted an historic performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in Berlin to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. The concert was televised live, worldwide, on Christmas Day, 1989.[13] Contents 1 Early life and education 1.1 1918–1934: Early life and family 1.2 1935–1940: College years 1.2.1 Harvard University 1.2.2 Curtis Institute of Music 2 Life and career 2.1 1940s 2.1.1 New York Philharmonic conducting debut 2.1.2 Symphony No. 1: Jeremiah, Fancy Free, and On the Town 2.1.3 Rising conducting career 2.1.4 Israel Philharmonic Orchestra 2.1.5 First television appearance 2.1.6 Summer at Tanglewood 2.2 1950s 2.2.1 Compositions in the 1950s 2.2.1.1 Theatrical works 2.2.1.1.1 Peter Pan 2.2.1.1.2 Trouble in Tahiti 2.2.1.1.3 Wonderful Town 2.2.1.1.4 Candide 2.2.1.1.5 West Side Story 2.2.1.2 Serenade, Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, and On The Waterfront 2.2.2 First American to conduct at La Scala 2.2.3 Omnibus 2.2.4 Music director of the New York Philharmonic 2.2.4.1 Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic 2.2.4.2 United States Department of State tours 2.3 1960s 2.3.1 New York Philharmonic Innovations 2.3.1.1 Bernstein and Mahler 2.3.1.2 Opening Lincoln Center 2.3.2 Metropolitan Opera debut 2.3.3 An Artist's Response to Violence 2.3.4 Kaddish and Chichester Psalms 2.3.4.1 Vienna Philharmonic debut 2.4 1970s 2.4.1 Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers 2.4.2 The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard 2.4.3 Dybbuk 2.4.4 Songfest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra 2.4.5 International conducting and recordings 2.5 1980s 2.6 International fame 2.7 Ode to "Freedom" 2.8 Founding of Pacific Music Festival 2.9 Last concert 3 Personal life 4 Death and legacy 5 Social activism 5.1 Rostropovich 5.2 Philanthropy 6 Influence and characteristics as a conductor 7 Recordings 8 Influence and characteristics as a composer 9 Bibliography 10 Videography 11 Awards 12 References 12.1 Citations 12.2 Sources 13 Further reading 14 External links Early life and education This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Leonard Bernstein" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) 1918–1934: Early life and family Born Louis Bernstein in Lawrence, Massachusetts, he was the son of Ukrainian-Jewish parents, Jennie (née Resnick) and Samuel Joseph Bernstein, both of whom immigrated to the United States from Rivne (now Ukraine).[14][15][16] His grandmother insisted that his first name be Louis, but his parents always called him Leonard. He legally changed his name to Leonard when he was eighteen, shortly after his grandmother's death.[17] To his friends and many others he was simply known as "Lenny".[18] His father was the owner of The Samuel Bernstein Hair and Beauty Supply Company. It held the New England franchise for the Frederick's Permanent Wave Machine, whose immense popularity helped Sam get his family through The Great Depression.[19] In Leonard's early youth, his only exposure to music was the household radio and music on Friday nights at Congregation Mishkan Tefila in Roxbury, Massachusetts. When Leonard was ten years old, Samuel's sister Clara deposited her upright piano at her brother's house. Bernstein began teaching himself piano and music theory and was soon clamoring for lessons. He had a variety of piano teachers in his youth, including Helen Coates, who later became his secretary. In the summers, the Bernstein family would go to their vacation home in Sharon, Massachusetts, where young Leonard conscripted all the neighborhood children to put on shows ranging from Bizet's Carmen to Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance. He would often play entire operas or Beethoven symphonies with his younger sister Shirley. Leonard's youngest sibling, Burton, was born in 1932, thirteen years after Leonard.[20] Despite the large span in age, the three siblings remained close their entire lives. Sam was initially opposed to young Leonard's interest in music and attempted to discourage his son's interest by refusing to pay for his piano lessons. Leonard then took to giving lessons to young people in his neighborhood. One of his students, Sid Ramin, became Bernstein's most frequent orchestrator and lifelong beloved friend.[citation needed] Sam took his son to orchestral concerts in his teenage years and eventually supported his music education. In May 1932, Leonard attended his first orchestral concert with the Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fiedler. Bernstein recalled, "To me, in those days, the Pops was heaven itself ... I thought ... it was the supreme achievement of the human race."[21] It was at this concert that Bernstein first heard Ravel's Boléro, which made a tremendous impression on him.[22] Another strong musical influence was George Gershwin. Bernstein was a counselor at a summer camp when news came over the radio of Gershwin's death. In the mess hall, a shaken Bernstein demanded a moment of silence, and then played Gershwin's second Prelude as a memorial.[citation needed] On March 30, 1932, Bernstein played Brahms's Rhapsody in G minor at his first public piano performance in Susan Williams's studio recital at the New England Conservatory. Two years later, he made his solo debut with orchestra in Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor with the Boston Public School Orchestra.[citation needed] 1935–1940: College years Bernstein's first two education environments were both public schools: the William Lloyd Garrison School, followed by the prestigious Boston Latin School,[23] for which Bernstein and classmate Lawrence F. Ebb wrote the Class Song.[24] Harvard University In 1935, Bernstein enrolled at Harvard College, where he studied music with, among others, Edward Burlingame Hill and Walter Piston. His first extant composition, Psalm 148 set for voice and piano, is dated in 1935. He majored in music with a final year thesis titled "The Absorption of Race Elements into American Music" (1939; reproduced in his book Findings). One of Bernstein's intellectual influences at Harvard was the aesthetics Professor David Prall, whose multidisciplinary outlook on the arts inspired Bernstein for the rest of his life. One of his friends at Harvard was future philosopher Donald Davidson, with whom Bernstein played piano duets. Bernstein wrote and conducted the musical score for the production Davidson mounted of Aristophanes' play The Birds, performed in the original Greek. Bernstein recycled some of this music in future works. While a student, he was briefly an accompanist for the Harvard Glee Club as well as an unpaid pianist for Harvard Film Society's silent film presentations.[25] Bernstein mounted a student production of The Cradle Will Rock, directing its action from the piano as the composer Marc Blitzstein had done at the infamous premiere. Blitzstein, who attended the performance, subsequently became a close friend and mentor to Bernstein.[26] As a sophomore at Harvard, Bernstein met the conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos. Mitropoulos's charisma and power as a musician were major influences on Bernstein's eventual decision to become a conductor.[27] Mitropoulos invited Bernstein to come to Minneapolis for the 1940–41 season to be his assistant, but the plan fell through due to union issues.[28] Bernstein met Aaron Copland on the latter's birthday in 1937; the elder composer was sitting next to Bernstein at a dance recital at Town Hall in New York City. Copland invited Bernstein to his birthday party afterwards, where Bernstein impressed the guests by playing Copland's challenging Piano Variations, a work Bernstein loved. Although he was never a formal student of Copland's, Bernstein would regularly seek his advice, often citing him as his "only real composition teacher".[29] Bernstein graduated from Harvard in 1939 with a Bachelor of Arts cum laude. Curtis Institute of Music After graduating from Harvard, Bernstein enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. At Curtis, Bernstein studied conducting with Fritz Reiner (who anecdotally is said to have given Bernstein the only "A" grade he ever awarded); piano with Isabelle Vengerova; orchestration with Randall Thompson; counterpoint with Richard Stöhr; and score reading with Renée Longy Miquelle.[30] In 1940, Bernstein attended the inaugural year of the Tanglewood Music Center (then called the Berkshire Music Center) at the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home.[31] Bernstein studied conducting with the BSO's music director, Serge Koussevitzky, who became a profound lifelong inspiration to Bernstein.[32] He became Koussevitzky's conducting assistant at Tanglewood[33] and later dedicated his Symphony No. 2: The Age of Anxiety to his beloved mentor.[34] One of Bernstein's classmates, both at Curtis and at Tanglewood, was Lukas Foss, who remained a lifelong friend and colleague. Bernstein returned to Tanglewood nearly every summer for the rest of his life to teach and conduct the young music students. Life and career 1940s Leonard Bernstein and Benny Goodman in rehearsal, ca. 1940–1949 Soon after he left Curtis, Bernstein moved to New York City where he lived in various apartments in Manhattan. Bernstein supported himself by coaching singers, teaching piano,[35] and playing the piano for dance classes in Carnegie Hall. He found work with Harms-Witmark, transcribing jazz and pop music and publishing his work under the pseudonym "Lenny Amber". (Bernstein means "amber" in German.)[36] Bernstein briefly shared an apartment in Greenwich Village with his friend Adolph Green. Green was then part of a satirical music troupe called The Revuers, featuring Betty Comden and Judy Holliday. With Bernstein sometimes providing piano accompaniment, the Revuers often performed at the legendary jazz club the Village Vanguard.[37][38] On April 21, 1942, Bernstein performed the premiere of his first published work, Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, with clarinetist David Glazer at the Institute of Modern Art in Boston. Carnegie Hall playbill, November 14, 1943 Radio announcement: 0:23 New York Philharmonic conducting debut On November 14, 1943, having recently been appointed assistant conductor to Artur Rodziński of the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein made his major conducting debut at short notice—and without any rehearsal—after guest conductor Bruno Walter came down with the flu.[39] The challenging program included works by Robert Schumann, Miklós Rózsa, Richard Wagner, and Richard Strauss.[citation needed] The next day, The New York Times carried the story on its front page and remarked in an editorial, "It's a good American success story. The warm, friendly triumph of it filled Carnegie Hall and spread far over the air waves."[citation needed] Many newspapers throughout the country carried the story, which, in combination with the concert's live national CBS Radio Network broadcast, propelled Bernstein to instant fame.[40] Over the next two years, Bernstein made conducting debuts with ten different orchestras in the United States and Canada, greatly broadening his repertoire and initiating a lifelong frequent practice of conducting concertos from the piano.[41] Symphony No. 1: Jeremiah, Fancy Free, and On the Town On January 28, 1944, he conducted the premiere of his Symphony No. 1: Jeremiah with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra with Jennie Tourel as soloist.[citation needed] In the fall of 1943, Bernstein and Jerome Robbins began work on their first collaboration, Fancy Free, a ballet about three young sailors on leave in wartime New York City. Fancy Free premiered on April 18, 1944, with the Ballet Theatre (now the American Ballet Theatre) at the old Metropolitan Opera House, with scenery by Oliver Smith and costumes by Kermit Love.[42] Bernstein and Robbins decided to expand the ballet into a musical and invited Comden and Green to write the book and lyrics. On the Town opened on Broadway's Adelphi Theatre on December 28, 1944. The show resonated with audiences during World War II, and it broke race barriers on Broadway: Japanese-American dancer Sono Osato in a leading role; a multiracial cast dancing as mixed race couples; and a Black concertmaster, Everett Lee, who eventually took over as music director of the show.[43] On the Town became an MGM motion picture in 1949, starring Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin as the three sailors. Only part of Bernstein's score was used in the film and additional songs were provided by Roger Edens.[44] Photo of Bernstein by Carl Van Vechten (1944) Rising conducting career Bernstein conducting the New York City Symphony (1945) From 1945 to 1947, Bernstein was the music director of the New York City Symphony, which had been founded the previous year by the conductor Leopold Stokowski. The orchestra (with support from Mayor Fiorello La Guardia) had modern programs and affordable tickets.[45] In 1946, he made his overseas debut with the Czech Philharmonic in Prague. He also recorded Ravel's Piano Concerto in G as soloist and conductor with the Philharmonia Orchestra. On July 4, 1946, Bernstein conducted the European premiere of Fancy Free with the Ballet Theatre at the Royal Opera House in London.[citation needed] In 1946, he conducted opera professionally for the first time at Tanglewood with the American premiere of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, which was commissioned by Koussevitzky. That same year, Arturo Toscanini invited Bernstein to guest conduct two concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, one of which featured Bernstein as soloist in Ravel's Piano Concerto in G.[46] Israel Philharmonic Orchestra In 1947, Bernstein conducted in Tel Aviv for the first time, beginning a lifelong association with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, then known as the Palestine Symphony Orchestra. The next year he conducted an open-air concert for Israeli troops at Beersheba in the middle of the desert during the Arab-Israeli war. In 1957, he conducted the inaugural concert of the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv. In 1967, he conducted a concert on Mount Scopus to commemorate the Reunification of Jerusalem, featuring Mahler's Symphony No. 2 and Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with soloist Isaac Stern. The city of Tel Aviv added his name to the Habima Square (Orchestra Plaza) in the center of the city.[citation needed] First television appearance On December 10, 1949, he made his first television appearance as conductor with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. The concert, which included an address by Eleanor Roosevelt, celebrated the one-year anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly's ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and included the premiere of Aaron Copland's "Preamble" with Sir Laurence Olivier narrating text from the UN Charter. The concert was televised by NBC Television Network.[47] Summer at Tanglewood In April 1949, Bernstein performed as piano soloist in the world premiere of his Symphony No. 2: The Age of Anxiety with Koussevitzy conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Later that year, Bernstein conducted the world premiere of the Turangalîla-Symphonie by Olivier Messiaen, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Part of the rehearsal for the concert was recorded and released by the orchestra. When Koussevitzky died in 1951, Bernstein became head of the orchestra and conducting departments at Tanglewood. 1950s Bernstein, c. 1950s The 1950s comprised among the most active years of Bernstein's career. He created five new works for the Broadway stage; he composed several symphonic works and an iconic film score; he was appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic with whom he toured the world, including concerts behind the Iron Curtain; he harnessed the power of television to expand his educational reach; and he married and started a family. Compositions in the 1950s Theatrical works Peter Pan In 1950, Bernstein composed incidental music for a Broadway production of J. M. Barrie's play Peter Pan.[48] The production, which opened on Broadway on April 24, 1950, starred Jean Arthur as Peter Pan and Boris Karloff in the dual roles of George Darling and Captain Hook. The show ran for 321 performances.[49] Trouble in Tahiti In 1951, Bernstein composed Trouble in Tahiti, a one-act opera in seven scenes with an English libretto by the composer. The opera portrays the troubled marriage of a couple whose idyllic suburban post-war environment belies their inner turmoil.[50] Ironically, Bernstein wrote most of the opera while on his honeymoon in Mexico with his wife, Felicia Montealegre. Bernstein was a visiting music professor at Brandeis University from 1951 to 1956. In 1952, he created the Brandeis Festival of the Creative Arts, where he conducted the premiere of Trouble in Tahiti on June 12 of that year.[51] The NBC Opera Theatre subsequently presented the opera on television in November 1952. It opened on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre on April 19, 1955, and ran for six weeks.[52] Three decades later, Bernstein wrote a second opera, A Quiet Place, which picked up the story and characters of Trouble in Tahiti in a later period. Wonderful Town In 1953, Bernstein wrote the score for the musical Wonderful Town on very short notice, with a book by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The musical tells the story of two sisters from Ohio who move to New York City and seek success from their squalid basement apartment in Greenwich Village. Wonderful Town opened on Broadway on February 25, 1953, at the Winter Garden Theatre, starring Rosalind Russell in the role of Ruth Sherwood, Edie Adams as Eileen Sherwood, and George Gaynes as Robert Baker. It won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Actress.[53] Candide In the three years leading up to Bernstein's appointment as music director of the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein was simultaneously working on the scores for two Broadway shows. The first of the two was the operetta-style musical Candide. Lillian Hellman originally brought Bernstein her idea of adapting Voltaire's novella.[54] The original collaborators on the show were book writer John Latouche and lyricist Richard Wilbur. Candide opened on Broadway on December 1, 1956, at the Martin Beck Theatre, in a production directed by Tyrone Guthrie. Anxious about the parallels Hellman had deliberately drawn between Voltaire's story and the ongoing hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee, Guthrie persuaded the collaborators to cut their most incendiary sections prior to opening night.[55] While the production was a box office disaster, running only two months for a total of 73 performances,[56] the cast album became a cult classic, which kept Bernstein's score alive. There have been several revivals, with modifications to improve the book. The elements of the music that have remained best known and performed over the decades are the Overture, which quickly became one of the most frequently performed orchestral compositions by a 20th century American composer; the coloratura aria "Glitter and Be Gay", which Barbara Cook sang in the original production; and the grand finale "Make Our Garden Grow". West Side Story The other musical Bernstein was writing simultaneously with Candide was West Side Story. Bernstein collaborated with director and choreographer Jerome Robbins, book writer Arthur Laurents, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim.[57] The story is an updated retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, set in the mid-1950s in the slums of New York City's Upper West Side. The Romeo character, Tony, is affiliated with the Jets gang, who are of white Northern European descent. The Juliet character is Maria, who is connected to the Sharks gang, recently arrived immigrants from Puerto Rico.[58] The original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957, and ran 732 performances. Robbins won the Tony Award for Best Choreographer, and Oliver Smith won the Tony for Best Scenic Designer.[59] Bernstein's score for West Side Story blends "jazz, Latin rhythms, symphonic sweep and musical-comedy conventions in groundbreaking ways for Broadway".[60] It was orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal following detailed instructions from Bernstein. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in musical theatre. In 1960, Bernstein prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, titled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, which continues to be popular with orchestras worldwide.[61] A 1961 United Artists film adaptation, directed by Robert Wise and starred Natalie Wood as Maria and Richard Beymer as Tony. The film won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture and a ground-breaking Best Supporting Actress award for Puerto Rican-born Rita Moreno playing the role of Anita.[62] A new film adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg opened in 2021.[63] Serenade, Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, and On The Waterfront In addition to Bernstein's compositional activity for the stage, he wrote a symphonic work, Serenade after Plato's "Symposium"; the score to the Academy Award-winning film On The Waterfront; and Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, composed for jazz big band and solo clarinet. First American to conduct at La Scala In 1953, Bernstein became the first American conductor to appear at La Scala in Milan, conducting Cherubini's Medea, with Maria Callas in the title role. Callas and Bernstein reunited at La Scala to perform Bellini's La sonnambula in 1955. Omnibus On November 14, 1954, Bernstein presented the first of his television lectures for the CBS Television Network arts program Omnibus. The live lecture, entitled "Beethoven's Fifth Symphony", involved Bernstein explaining the symphony's first movement with the aid of musicians from the "Symphony of the Air" (formerly NBC Symphony Orchestra). The program featured manuscripts from Beethoven's own hand, as well as a giant painting of the first page of the score covering the studio floor. Six more Omnibus lectures followed from 1955 to 1961 (later on ABC and then NBC) covering a broad range of topics: jazz, conducting, American musical comedy, modern music, J.S. Bach, and grand opera. Bernstein with members of the New York Philharmonic rehearsing for a television broadcast Music director of the New York Philharmonic Bernstein was appointed the music director of the New York Philharmonic in 1957, sharing the post jointly with Dimitri Mitropoulos until he took sole charge in 1958. Bernstein held the music directorship until 1969 when he was appointed "Laureate Conductor". He continued to conduct and make recordings with the orchestra for the rest of his life.[64] Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic Bernstein's television teaching took a quantum leap when, as the new music director of the New York Philharmonic, he put the orchestra's traditional Saturday afternoon Young People's Concerts on the CBS Television Network. Millions of viewers of all ages and around the world enthusiastically embraced Bernstein and his engaging presentations about classical music. Bernstein often presented talented young performers on the broadcasts. Many of them became celebrated in their own right, including conductors Claudio Abbado and Seiji Ozawa; flutist Paula Robison; and pianist André Watts. From 1958 until 1972, the fifty-three Young People's Concerts comprised the most influential series of music education programs ever produced on television.[65] They were highly acclaimed by critics and won numerous Emmy Awards.[66] Some of Bernstein's scripts, all of which he wrote himself, were released in book form and on records.[67] A recording of Humor in Music was awarded a Grammy award for Best Documentary or Spoken Word Recording (other than comedy) in 1961.[68] The programs were shown in many countries around the world, often with Bernstein dubbed into other languages, and the concerts were later released on home video by Kultur Video. Bernstein at the piano, making annotations to a musical score United States Department of State tours In 1958, Bernstein and Mitropoulos led the New York Philharmonic on its first tour south of the border, through 12 countries in Central and South America. The United States Department of State sponsored the tour to improve the nation's relations with its southern neighbors.[28] In 1959, the Department of State also sponsored Bernstein and the Philharmonic on a 50-concert tour through Europe and the Soviet Union, portions of which were filmed by the CBS Television Network. A highlight of the tour was Bernstein's performance of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, in the presence of the composer, who came on stage at the end to congratulate Bernstein and the musicians. 1960s New York Philharmonic Innovations Bernstein's innovative approach to themed programming included introducing audiences to lesser performed composers at the time such as Gustav Mahler, Carl Nielsen, Jean Sibelius, and Charles Ives (including the world premiere of his Symphony No. 2). Bernstein actively advocated for the commission and performance of works by contemporary composers, conducting over 40 world premieres by a diverse roster of composers ranging from John Cage to Alberto Ginastera to Luciano Berio.[69] He also conducted US premieres of 19 major works from around the globe, including works by Dmitri Shostakovich, Pierre Boulez, and György Ligeti.[70] Bernstein championed American composers, especially with whom he had a close friendship, such as Aaron Copland, William Schuman, and David Diamond. This decade saw a significant expansion of Bernstein and the Philharmonic's collaboration with Columbia Records, together they released over 400 compositions, covering a broad swath of the classical music canon. Bernstein welcomed the Philharmonic's additions of its first Black musician, Sanford Allen, and its second woman musician, Orin O'Brien. Bernstein also shared the Philharmonic's commitment to connecting with as many New Yorkers as possible. That vision became a reality with the launch of the Concerts in the Parks in 1965, which Bernstein conducted often. Another milestone was the Philharmonic's first visit to Japan in 1961, when Bernstein led acclaimed Philharmonic concerts and engaged in cultural exchange. Over the years he led the Orchestra on tours to 144 cities in 38 countries. He initiated the Philharmonic's informal Thursday Evening Preview Concerts, which included Bernstein's talks from the stage, a practice that was unheard of at the time.[71][72] In one oft-reported incident, on April 6, 1962,[73] Bernstein appeared on stage before a performance of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor to explain that the soloist, Glenn Gould, had chosen an idiosyncratic approach to the work. Bernstein explained that while he did not totally agree with it, he thought Gould's interpretation was an artistically worthy exploration.[74] Bernstein questioned: "In a concerto, who is the boss: the soloist or the conductor?"[75] The incident created a stir that reverberated in the press for decades. Bernstein and Mahler In 1960, Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic introduced American audiences to the music of Gustav Mahler, beginning with a festival marking the centennial of the composer's birth. The composer's widow, Alma, attended some of Bernstein's rehearsals. In that same year, Bernstein made his first commercial recording of a Mahler symphony (the Fourth). Over the next seven years, he recorded the entire Mahler symphony cycle with the New York Philharmonic (except for the 8th Symphony, which was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra). The combination of concert performances, television talks, and recordings led to a renewed interest in Mahler, especially in the United States.[76] Bernstein claimed that he identified with the works on a personal level, and once wrote of the composer: "I'm so sympathetic to Mahler: I understand his problem. It's like being two different men locked up in the same body; one man is a conductor and the other a composer ... It's like being a double man."[77][78] Leonard Bernstein during a visit to Finland, 1959 Opening Lincoln Center On May 14, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower broke ground for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. On September 23, 1962, the New York Philharmonic moved from Carnegie Hall to its new home, Philharmonic Hall (now David Geffen Hall). Bernstein conducted the gala opening concert featuring works by Mahler, Beethoven, and Vaughan Williams, as well as the premiere of Aaron Copland's Connotations. Metropolitan Opera debut In 1964, Bernstein conducted at The Metropolitan Opera for the first time in Franco Zeffirelli's production of Verdi's Falstaff. In subsequent years, Bernstein returned to The Met to conduct Cavalleria Rusticana (1970) and Carmen (1972), as well as at the Centennial Gala in 1983.[79] An Artist's Response to Violence In 1961, Bernstein composed a fanfare for President John F. Kennedy's pre-inaugural gala, at which Bernstein conducted. Bernstein in Amsterdam, 1968 On November 23, 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic and the Schola Cantorum of New York in a nationally televised memorial featuring the Mahler's Symphony No. 2: "Resurrection". Later that week, in a speech to the United Jewish Appeal, Bernstein said: "This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before."[80] After President Kennedy's brother Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, Bernstein conducted at the funeral mass, featuring the "Adagietto" movement from Mahler's Symphony No. 5.[81] Kaddish and Chichester Psalms Due to his commitment to the New York Philharmonic and his many other activities, Bernstein had little time for composition during the 1960s. Nevertheless, he was able to compose two major works. Bernstein's Symphony No. 3: Kaddish was written in 1963; Bernstein dedicated the work: "To the Beloved Memory of John F. Kennedy." The work features a large orchestra, a full choir, a boys' choir, a soprano soloist, and a narrator. "Kaddish" refers to the Jewish prayer recited for the dead. Bernstein wrote the text of the narration himself; his wife, Felicia Montealegre, narrated the US premiere of the work.[82] In 1965, Bernstein took a sabbatical year from the New York Philharmonic in order to concentrate on composition, during which he composed Chichester Psalms. Commissioned by the Dean of Chichester Cathedral, Walter Hussey, the work premiered at Philharmonic Hall in New York City on July 15, 1965, conducted by Bernstein himself, and subsequently at Chichester Cathedral, conducted by John Birch. For his text, Bernstein chose excerpts from the Book of Psalms in the original Hebrew.[83] In 2018, Bernstein's Centennial year, Chichester Psalms was cited as the 5th-most performed concert work worldwide.[84] Vienna Philharmonic debut In 1966, Bernstein began a lifelong rich relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic, conducting concerts as well as making his debut at the Vienna State Opera in Luchino Visconti's production of Falstaff with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the title role. Bernstein was largely responsible for restoring the works of Mahler to the Vienna Philharmonic's core repertoire. Bernstein recorded Mahler's Symphonies numerous times with the orchestra.[85] He returned to the State Opera in 1968 for a production of Der Rosenkavalier and in 1970 for Otto Schenk's production of Beethoven's Fidelio. 1970s Leonard Bernstein by Allan Warren During the 1970s, Bernstein's company, Amberson, in partnership with Unitel, produced and coordinated filmed recordings of his symphonic concerts around the world. For the remainder of his life, Bernstein preferred to derive his audio recordings from live performances. Nearly 80% of Bernstein's recordings with his new recording partner, Deutsche Grammophon, were recorded live.[86] Bernstein's major compositions during the 1970s were his Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers; his score for the ballet Dybbuk; his orchestral vocal work Songfest; and his U.S. bicentennial musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, which was his last Broadway show and his only theatrical flop. Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers In 1966, Jacqueline Kennedy commissioned Bernstein to compose a work for the inauguration of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Bernstein began writing Mass in 1969 as a large-scale theatrical work based on the Tridentine Mass of the Catholic Church, and in 1971, Bernstein invited the young composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz, who had recently opened the musical Godspell off-Broadway, to collaborate as co-lyricist. The world premiere took place on September 8, 1971, conducted by Maurice Peress, directed by Gordon Davidson, and choreographed by Alvin Ailey.[87] Bernstein's score combines elements of musical theater, jazz, gospel, blues, folk, rock, and symphonic music, and the libretto combines Latin and English liturgy, Hebrew prayer, and additional lyrics written by Bernstein and Schwartz.[88] Mass received both rapturous and critical reactions, from audiences and music critics alike. While some members of the Catholic Church praised the piece's expression of contemporary crises of faith, others considered it blasphemous. (In 2000, Pope John Paul II requested a performance of Mass at the Vatican itself.)[89] President Richard Nixon declined to attend the premiere due to its anti-Vietnam War message.[90] Viewpoints on Mass continue to evolve over time, and Edward Seckerson wrote in 2021, 50 years after its premiere: "Put simply, no other work of Bernstein's encapsulates exactly who he was as a man or as a musician; no other work displays his genius, his intellect, his musical virtuosity and innate theatricality quite like MASS."[91] The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard In the 1972–73 academic year, Bernstein was appointed to the Charles Eliot Norton Chair as Professor of Poetry at his alma mater, Harvard University. Bernstein prepared and delivered six lectures entitled The Unanswered Question. The interdisciplinary lectures explored such elements as tonality, harmony, and form through the lens of Noam Chomsky's linguistic theories. Bernstein provided musical examples from the piano, and pre-recorded musical works with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.[92] Amberson arranged for the lectures to be videotaped at the WGBH studios in Boston. The six lectures were broadcast on PBS in 1976, and subsequently released on home video[93] and published as a book.[94] Dybbuk Bernstein collaborated with Jerome Robbins to create Dybbuk, a ballet based on S. Ansky's play of the same name. The ballet depicts Ansky's tale of a young woman possessed by a malicious spirit, known in Jewish folklore as a "dybbuk". Dybbuk was premiered by the New York City Ballet at the New York State Theater on 16 May 1974, with Bernstein conducting. A revision of the choreography and the score was made later the same year, titled Dybbuk Variations. It received its premiere in November 1974.[95] Songfest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra Bernstein's Songfest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra premiered on October 11, 1977, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C, with the composer conducting the National Symphony Orchestra. The work was intended as a tribute to the 1976 American Bicentennial but was not finished in time. The work sets an array of texts by thirteen American poets spanning three centuries. Bernstein deliberately selected the widest possible array of literary voices to express the nation's essential diversity; the poets include June Jordan, Julia de Burgos, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes.[96] On July 4, 1985, Bernstein conducted a nationally televised performance of Songfest as part of the National Symphony's annual A Capitol Fourth concert.[97] International conducting and recordings After becoming Conductor Laureate of the New York Philharmonic in 1969, Bernstein took advantage of his freed-up schedule to increase the pace of his world travel, conducting twenty-nine orchestras throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and making live recordings with them for both Unitel GmbH & Co.KG and Deutsche Grammophon.[98] Bernstein founded Amberson Productions in 1969. In partnership with Unitel, Amberson created many video productions of concert performances, starting with Verdi's Requiem Mass in St. Paul's Cathedral with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1970, produced and directed by Humphrey Burton. Burton would go on to collaborate with Bernstein on his music video projects for the rest of Bernstein's life.[99] In 1972, Bernstein recorded Bizet's Carmen, with Marilyn Horne in the title role and James McCracken as Don Jose, after leading several stage performances of the opera at The Metropolitan Opera.[100] The recording was one of the first in stereo to use the original spoken dialogue between the sung portions of the opera. The recording was Bernstein's first for Deutsche Grammophon and won a Grammy.[101] In working with Unitel and Deutsche Grammophon, Bernstein made a host of video and audio recordings with such orchestras as Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma della Rai, and Orchestre National de France. Among the many noteworthy Amberson productions with Unitel were Bernstein conducting Mahler's Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" with the London Symphony Orchestra at Ely Cathedral in 1973, and Fidelio at the Vienna State Opera in 1978.[102] One particularly noteworthy film was "Bernstein on Beethoven: A Celebration in Vienna," which Bernstein wrote and narrated in 1970. The film is an in-depth exploration of Beethoven on the composer's 200th birthday, filmed on location in and around Vienna.[103] It features excerpts of Bernstein's rehearsals and performance of Fidelio at the Vienna State Opera, directed by Otto Schenk (which was later revived and filmed in 1978); Bernstein playing the Piano Concerto No. 1 and conducting from the piano; and a performance of Symphony No. 9 with the Vienna Philharmonic, featuring the young Plácido Domingo among the soloists. The show, produced and directed by Humphrey Burton, was broadcast around the world and won an Emmy Award.[104] During the 1970s, Bernstein recorded his symphonies and other works with the Israel Philharmonic on Deutsche Grammophon. In May 1978, the Israel Philharmonic played two U.S. concerts under his direction to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Orchestra under that name. On consecutive nights, the Orchestra, with the Choral Arts Society of Washington, performed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and at Carnegie Hall in New York. In the late 1970s, Bernstein conducted a complete Beethoven symphony cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic, and cycles of Brahms and Schumann were to follow in the 1980s. Other orchestras he conducted on numerous occasions in the 1970s include the Israel Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In October 1976, Bernstein led the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and pianist Claudio Arrau in an Amnesty International Benefit Concert in Munich. To honor his late wife and to continue their joint support for human rights, Bernstein established the Felicia Montealegre Bernstein Fund of Amnesty International USA to provide aid for human rights activists with limited resources.[105] In 1979, Bernstein conducted the Berlin Philharmonic for the first time, in two charity concerts for Amnesty International involving performances of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. The invitation for the concerts had come from the orchestra and not from its principal conductor Herbert von Karajan. There has been speculation about why Karajan never invited Bernstein to conduct his orchestra. (Karajan did conduct the New York Philharmonic during Bernstein's tenure.) The full reasons will probably never be known—reports suggest they were on friendly terms when they met, but sometimes practiced a little mutual one-upmanship.[106] One of the concerts was broadcast on radio and was posthumously released on CD by Deutsche Grammophon. One oddity of the recording is that the trombone section fails to enter at the climax of the finale, as a result of an audience member fainting just behind the trombones a few seconds earlier.[citation needed] 1980s Bernstein received the Kennedy Center Honors award in 1980. For the rest of the 1980s he continued to conduct, teach, compose, and produce the occasional TV documentary. His most significant compositions of the decade were probably his opera A Quiet Place, which he wrote with Stephen Wadsworth and which premiered, in its original version, in Houston in 1983; his Divertimento for Orchestra; his Ḥalil for flute and orchestra; his Concerto for Orchestra "Jubilee Games"; and his song cycle Arias and Barcarolles, which was named after a comment President Dwight D. Eisenhower had made to him in 1960. International fame Bernstein with Maximilian Schell on PBS Beethoven TV series (1982) In 1982 in the U.S., PBS aired an 11-part series of Bernstein's late 1970s films for Unitel of the Vienna Philharmonic playing all nine Beethoven symphonies and various other Beethoven works. Bernstein gave spoken introduction and actor Maximilian Schell was also featured on the programs, reading from Beethoven's letters.[107] The original films have since been released on DVD by Deutsche Grammophon. In addition to conducting in New York, Vienna and Israel, Bernstein was a regular guest conductor of other orchestras in the 1980s. These included the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, with whom he recorded Mahler's First, Fourth, and Ninth Symphonies amongst other works; the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, with whom he recorded Wagner's Tristan und Isolde; Haydn's Creation; Mozart's Requiem and Great Mass in C minor; and the orchestra of Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, with whom he recorded some Debussy and Puccini's La bohème. In 1982, he and Ernest Fleischmann founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute as a summer training academy along the lines of Tanglewood. Bernstein served as artistic director and taught conducting there until 1984. Around the same time, he performed and recorded some of his own works with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for Deutsche Grammophon. Bernstein was also at the time a committed supporter of nuclear disarmament. In 1985 he took the European Community Youth Orchestra in a "Journey for Peace" tour across Europe and Japan. Conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra, 1985 In 1984, he conducted a recording of West Side Story, the first time he had conducted the entire work. The recording, featuring what some critics[who?] felt were miscast opera singers such as Kiri Te Kanawa, José Carreras, and Tatiana Troyanos in the leading roles, was nevertheless an international bestseller. A TV documentary The Making of West Side Story about the recording was made at the same time and has been released as a DVD. Bernstein also continued to make his own TV documentaries during the 1980s, including The Little Drummer Boy, in which he discussed the music of Gustav Mahler, perhaps the composer he was most passionately interested in, and The Love of Three Orchestras, in which he discussed his work in New York, Vienna, and Israel. In his later years, Bernstein's life and work were celebrated around the world (as they have been since his death). The Israel Philharmonic celebrated his involvement with them at festivals in Israel and Austria in 1977. In 1986 the London Symphony Orchestra mounted a Bernstein Festival in London with one concert that Bernstein himself conducted attended by the Queen. In 1988, Bernstein's 70th birthday was celebrated by a lavish televised gala at Tanglewood featuring many performers who had worked with him over the years. During summer 1987, he celebrated the 100th anniversary of Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau. He gave a masterclass inside the castle of Fontainebleau.[108] In December 1989, Bernstein conducted live performances and recorded in the studio his operetta Candide with the London Symphony Orchestra. The recording starred Jerry Hadley, June Anderson, Adolph Green, and Christa Ludwig in the leading roles. The use of opera singers in some roles perhaps fitted the style of operetta better than some critics had thought was the case for West Side Story, and the posthumously released recording was universally praised. One of the live concerts from the Barbican Centre in London is available on DVD. Candide had had a troubled history, with many rewrites and writers involved. Bernstein's concert and recording were based on a final version that had been first performed by Scottish Opera in 1988. The opening night, which Bernstein attended in Glasgow, was conducted by his former student John Mauceri. Ode to "Freedom" On December 25, 1989, Bernstein conducted Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in East Berlin's Schauspielhaus as part of a celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. He had conducted the same work in West Berlin the previous day. The concert was broadcast live in more than twenty countries to an estimated audience of 100 million people. For the occasion, Bernstein reworded Friedrich Schiller's text of the Ode to Joy, using the word Freiheit (freedom) instead of the original Freude (joy).[109] Bernstein, in his spoken introduction, said that they had "taken the liberty" of doing this because of a "most likely phony" story, apparently believed in some quarters, that Schiller wrote an "Ode to Freedom" that is now presumed lost. Bernstein added, "I'm sure that Beethoven would have given us his blessing."[citation needed] Founding of Pacific Music Festival In the summer of 1990, Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas founded the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. Like his earlier activity in Los Angeles, this was a summer training school for musicians modeled on Tanglewood and is still in existence. At this time, Bernstein was already suffering from the lung disease that would lead to his death. In his opening address Bernstein said that he had decided to devote what time he had left to education. A video showing Bernstein speaking and rehearsing at the first Festival is available on DVD in Japan. In the same year, Bernstein received the Praemium Imperiale, an international prize awarded by the Japan Arts Association for lifetime achievement in the arts. Bernstein used the $100,000 prize to establish The Bernstein Education Through the Arts (BETA) Fund.[110] He provided this grant to develop an arts-based education program. The Leonard Bernstein Center was established in April 1992, and initiated extensive school-based research, resulting in the Bernstein Model, the Leonard Bernstein Artful Learning Program.[111] Last concert Bernstein conducted his last concert on August 19, 1990, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. The program consisted of Benjamin Britten's Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.[112] He suffered a coughing fit during the third movement of the Beethoven symphony, but continued to conduct the piece until its conclusion, leaving the stage during the ovation, appearing exhausted and in pain.[113] The concert was later issued in edited form on CD as Leonard Bernstein – The Final Concert by Deutsche Grammophon.[114] Also included was Bernstein's own Arias and Barcarolles in an orchestration by Bright Sheng. However, poor health prevented Bernstein from performing it. Carl St. Clair was engaged to conduct it in his stead.[115] Personal life After much personal struggle and a turbulent on-off engagement, Bernstein married actress Felicia Cohn Montealegre on September 10, 1951. One suggestion is that he chose to marry partly to dispel rumors about his private life to help secure a major conducting appointment, following advice from his mentor Dimitri Mitropoulos about the conservative nature of orchestra boards.[106] Bernstein had expressed the same internal conflict and sought similar advice from Aaron Copland in April 1943, suggesting he could resolve it by marrying his then "girl-friend ... my dentist's daughter".[116][36][35] (Adolph Green asked Bernstein about the status of this idea in a letter five months later.[117]) In a private letter published after both had died, Bernstein's wife within a year of their marriage acknowledged his homosexuality. Felicia wrote to him: "You are a homosexual and may never change—you don't admit to the possibility of a double life, but if your peace of mind, your health, your whole nervous system depend on a certain sexual pattern what can you do?"[118] Arthur Laurents (Bernstein's collaborator in West Side Story) said that Bernstein was "a gay man who got married. He wasn't conflicted about it at all. He was just gay."[119] Shirley Rhoades Perle, another friend of Bernstein, said that she thought "he required men sexually and women emotionally".[120] But the early years of his marriage seem to have been happy, and no one has suggested Bernstein and his wife did not love each other. They had three children, Jamie, Alexander, and Nina.[121] There are reports, though, that Bernstein did sometimes have brief extramarital liaisons with young men, which his wife[120] and children[122] knew about. A major period of upheaval in Bernstein's personal life began in 1976 when he decided that he could no longer conceal his homosexuality. He left his wife Felicia for a period to live with the musical director of the classical music radio station KKHI in San Francisco, Tom Cothran.[123] The next year Felicia was diagnosed with lung cancer, and eventually Bernstein moved back in with her and cared for her until she died on June 16, 1978.[106] Bernstein is reported to have often spoken of feeling terrible guilt over his wife's death.[124] Most biographies of Bernstein state that his lifestyle became more excessive and his personal behavior sometimes more reckless and crude after Felicia's death. However, his public standing and many of his close friendships appear to have remained unaffected, and he resumed his busy schedule of musical activity. His affairs with men included a ten-year relationship with Kunihiko Hashimoto, a Tokyo insurance employee. The two met when the New York Philharmonic was performing in Tokyo. Hashimoto went backstage and they ended up spending the night together. It was a long distance affair, but according to letters, they both cared about each other deeply. Dearest Lenny: Letters from Japan and the Making of the World Maestro by Mari Yoshihara (Oxford University Press, 2019) goes into detail about their letters and relationship including interviews with Hashimoto. The book also includes other letters Bernstein received from Japanese fans.[125] Bernstein had asthma, which kept him from serving in the military during World War II.[126] Death and legacy Bernstein's grave in Green-Wood Cemetery Bernstein, 1968 Bernstein announced his retirement from conducting on October 9, 1990.[127] He died five days later, in his New York apartment at The Dakota, of a heart attack brought on by mesothelioma.[128] He was 72 years old.[2] A longtime heavy smoker, he had emphysema from his mid-50s. On the day of his funeral procession through the streets of Manhattan, construction workers removed their hats and waved, calling out "Goodbye, Lenny".[129] Bernstein is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York,[130] next to his wife and with a copy of Mahler's Fifth Symphony opened to the famous Adagietto lying across his heart.[131] On August 25, 2018 (his 100th birthday), he was honored with a Google Doodle.[132] Also for his centennial, the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles created an exhibition titled Leonard Bernstein at 100.[133][134][135] Social activism While Bernstein was very well known for his music compositions and conducting, he was also known for his outspoken political views and his strong desire to further social change. His first aspirations for social change were made apparent in his producing (as a student) a recently banned opera, The Cradle Will Rock, by Marc Blitzstein, about the disparity between the working and upper class. His first opera, Trouble in Tahiti, was dedicated to Blitzstein and has a strong social theme, criticizing American civilization and suburban upper-class life in particular. As he went on in his career, Bernstein would go on to fight for everything from the influences of "American Music" to the disarming of western nuclear weapons.[136] Like many of his friends and colleagues, Bernstein had been involved in various left-wing causes and organizations since the 1940s. He was blacklisted by the US State Department and CBS in the early 1950s, but unlike others his career was not greatly affected, and he was never required to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.[137] His political life received substantial press coverage though in 1970, due to a gathering hosted at his Manhattan apartment at 895 Park Avenue[138] on January 14, 1970. Bernstein and his wife held the event seeking to raise awareness and money for the defense of several members of the Black Panther Party against a variety of charges, especially the case of the Panther 21.[139] The New York Times initially covered the gathering as a lifestyle item, but later posted an editorial harshly unfavorable to Bernstein following generally negative reaction to the widely publicized story.[140][141] This reaction culminated in June 1970 with the appearance of "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's", an essay by journalist Tom Wolfe featured on the cover of the magazine New York.[142] The article contrasted the Bernsteins' comfortable lifestyle in one of the world's most expensive neighborhoods with the anti-establishment politics of the Black Panthers. It led to the popularization of "radical chic" as a critical term.[143] Both Bernstein and his wife Felicia responded to the criticism, arguing that they were motivated not by a shallow desire to express fashionable sympathy but by their concern for civil liberties.[144][145] Bernstein was named in the book Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television (1950) as a Communist along with Aaron Copland, Lena Horne, Pete Seeger, Artie Shaw and other prominent figures of the performing arts. Red Channels was issued by the right-wing journal Counterattack.[146] Rostropovich Bernstein played an instrumental role in the release of renowned cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich from the USSR in 1974. Rostropovich, a strong believer in free speech and democracy, had been officially held in disgrace; his concerts and tours both at home and abroad cancelled, and in 1972 he was prohibited to travel outside of the Soviet Union. During a trip to the USSR in 1974, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy and his wife Joan, urged by Bernstein and others in the cultural sphere, mentioned Rostropovich's situation to Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Union Communist Party Leader. Two days later, Rostropovich was granted his exit visa.[147][148] Philanthropy Among the many awards Bernstein earned throughout his life, one allowed him to make one of his philanthropic dreams a reality. He had for a long time wanted to develop an international school to help promote the integration of arts into education. When he won the Praemium Imperiale, Japan Arts Association award for lifetime achievement in 1990,[149] he used the $100,000 that came with the award to build such a school in Nashville, that would strive to teach teachers how to better integrate music, dance, and theater into the school system which was "not working".[150] Unfortunately, the school was not able to open until shortly after Bernstein's death. This would eventually yield an initiative known as Artful Learning as part of the Leonard Bernstein Center.[151][152] Influence and characteristics as a conductor This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Leonard Bernstein in rehearsal of his "Mass", 1971 Bernstein was one of the major figures in orchestral conducting in the second half of the 20th century. He was held in high regard amongst many musicians, including the members of the Vienna Philharmonic, evidenced by his honorary membership; the London Symphony Orchestra, of which he was president; and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, with which he appeared regularly as guest conductor. He was probably the main conductor from the 1960s onwards who acquired a sort of superstar status similar to that of Herbert von Karajan, although unlike Karajan he conducted relatively little opera and part of Bernstein's fame was based on his role as a composer. As the first American-born music director of the New York Philharmonic, his rise to prominence was a factor in overcoming the perception of the time that the top conductors were necessarily trained in Europe. Bernstein's conducting was characterized by extremes of emotion with the rhythmic pulse of the music conveyed visually through his balletic podium manner. Musicians often reported that his manner in rehearsal was the same as in concert. As he got older his performances tended to be overlaid to a greater extent with a personal expressiveness which often divided critical opinion. Extreme examples of this style can be found in his Deutsche Grammophon recordings of "Nimrod" from Elgar's Enigma Variations (1982), the end of Mahler's 9th Symphony (1985), and the finale of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony (1986), where in each case the tempos are well below those typically chosen. A skilled pianist, he used to perform the piano parts himself and conduct orchestras from the keyboard (for instance, when he conducted Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue). Bernstein performed a wide repertoire from the Baroque era to the 20th century, although perhaps from the 1970s onwards he tended to focus more on music from the Romantic era. He was considered especially accomplished with the works of Gustav Mahler and with American composers in general, including George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, Roy Harris, William Schuman, and of course himself. Some of his recordings of works by these composers would likely appear on many music critics' lists of recommended recordings. A list of his other well-thought-of recordings would include, among others, individual works from Haydn, Beethoven, Berlioz, Schumann, Liszt, Nielsen, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Hindemith, and Shostakovich.[153] His recordings of Rhapsody in Blue (full-orchestra version) and An American in Paris for Columbia Records, released in 1959, are considered definitive by many, although Bernstein cut the Rhapsody slightly, and his more 'symphonic' approach with slower tempi is quite far from Gershwin's own conception of the piece, evident from his two recordings. (Oscar Levant, Earl Wild, and others come closer to Gershwin's own style.) Bernstein never conducted Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F, or more than a few excerpts from Porgy and Bess, although he did discuss the latter in his article Why Don't You Run Upstairs and Write a Nice Gershwin Tune?, originally published in The New York Times and later reprinted in his 1959 book The Joy of Music. In addition to being an active conductor, Bernstein was an influential teacher of conducting. During his many years of teaching at Tanglewood and elsewhere, he directly taught or mentored many younger conductors, including John Mauceri, Marin Alsop, Herbert Blomstedt, Edo de Waart, Alexander Frey, Paavo Järvi, Eiji Oue, Maurice Peress, Seiji Ozawa (who made his American TV debut as the guest conductor on one of the Young People's Concerts), Carl St. Clair, Helmuth Rilling, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Jaap van Zweden. He also undoubtedly influenced the career choices of many American musicians who grew up watching his television programmes in the 1950s and 60s. Recordings This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Audio recording for CBS of the Symphony No. 3 by Danish composer Carl Nielsen in Copenhagen, 1965 External audio audio icon Leonard Bernstein conducts the Columbia Symphony Orchestra with Glenn Gould in: Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.2 in B Flat Major, Op. 19 Bach's Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052 in 1957 Here on archive.org Bernstein recorded extensively from the mid-1940s until just a few months before his death. Aside from those 1940s recordings, which were made for RCA Victor, Bernstein recorded primarily for Columbia Masterworks Records, especially when he was music director of the New York Philharmonic between 1958 and 1971. In the late 1950's he also joined forces with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra and Glenn Gould in a recording of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 19 and Bach's Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor, BWV 1052 for Columbia Masterworks (ML 5211, 1957).[154] His typical pattern of recording at that time was to record major works in the studio immediately after they were presented in the orchestra's subscription concerts or on one of the Young People's Concerts, with any spare time used to record short orchestral showpieces and similar works. Many of these performances were digitally remastered and reissued by Sony Classical Records (the successor to American Columbia/CBS Masterworks following Sony's 1990 acquisition of Columbia/CBS Records) between 1992 and 1993 as part of its 100 volume, 125-CD "Royal Edition", as well as its 1997–2001 "Bernstein Century" series. The rights to Bernstein's 1940s RCA Victor recordings became fully owned by Sony following its 2008 acquisition of Bertelsmann Music Group's (BMG), and now controls both the RCA Victor and Columbia archives. The complete Bernstein Columbia and RCA Victor catalog was reissued on CD in a three-volume series of box sets (released in 2010, 2014, and 2018, respectively) comprising a total of 198 discs under the mantle "Leonard Bernstein Edition". His later recordings (starting with Bizet's Carmen in 1972) were mostly made for Deutsche Grammophon, though he would occasionally return to the Columbia label. Notable exceptions include recordings of Gustav Mahler's Song of the Earth and Mozart's 15th piano concerto and "Linz" symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic for Decca Records (1966); Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and Harold in Italy (1976) for EMI; and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (1981) for Philips Records, a label that like Deutsche Grammophon was part of PolyGram at that time. Unlike his studio recordings for Columbia Masterworks, most of his later Deutsche Grammophon recordings were taken from live concerts (or edited together from several concerts with additional sessions to correct errors). Many replicate repertoire that he recorded in the 1950s and 60s. In addition to his audio recordings, many of Bernstein's concerts from the 1970s onwards were recorded on motion picture film by the German film company Unitel. This included a complete cycle of the Mahler symphonies (with the Vienna Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra), as well as complete cycles of the Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann symphonies recorded at the same series of concerts as the audio recordings by Deutsche Grammophon. Many of these films appeared on LaserDisc and are now on DVD. In total Bernstein was awarded 16 Grammys for his recordings in various categories, including several for posthumously released recordings. He was also awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1985. Influence and characteristics as a composer Further information: List of compositions by Leonard Bernstein Bernstein was an eclectic composer whose music fused elements of jazz, Jewish music, theatre music, and the work of earlier composers like Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, George Gershwin, and Marc Blitzstein. Some of his works, especially his score for West Side Story, helped bridge the gap between classical and popular music.[citation needed] His music was rooted in tonality but in some works like his Kaddish Symphony and the opera A Quiet Place he mixed in 12-tone elements. Bernstein himself said his main motivation for composing was "to communicate" and that all his pieces, including his symphonies and concert works, "could in some sense be thought of as 'theatre' pieces".[155] Place Léonard-Bernstein, a square in the 12th arrondissement of Paris According to the League of American Orchestras,[156] he was the second most frequently performed American composer by U.S. orchestras in 2008–09 behind Copland, and he was the 16th most frequently performed composer overall by U.S. orchestras. (Some performances were probably due to the 2008 90th anniversary of his birth.) His most popular pieces were the Overture to Candide, the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, the Serenade after Plato's "Symposium" and the Three Dance Episodes from On the Town. His shows West Side Story, On the Town, Wonderful Town and Candide are regularly performed, and his symphonies and concert works are programmed from time to time by orchestras around the world. Since his death many of his works have been commercially recorded by artists other than himself. The Serenade, which has been recorded more than 10 times, is probably his most recorded work not taken from an actual theatre piece.[citation needed] Despite the fact that he was a popular success as a composer, Bernstein himself is reported to have been disillusioned that some of his more serious works were not rated more highly by critics, and that he himself had not been able to devote more time to composing because of his conducting and other activities.[129] Professional criticism of Bernstein's music[by whom?] often involves discussing the degree to which he created something new as art versus simply skillfully borrowing and fusing together elements from others.[citation needed] In the late 1960s, Bernstein himself reflected that his eclecticism was in part due to his lack of lengthy periods devoted to composition, and that he was still seeking to enrich his own personal musical language in the manner of the great composers of the past, all of whom had borrowed elements from others.[157] Perhaps the harshest criticism he received from some critics in his lifetime though was directed at works like his Kaddish Symphony, his MASS and the opera A Quiet Place, where they found the underlying message of the piece or the text as either mildly embarrassing, clichéd or offensive.[citation needed] Despite this, all these pieces have been performed, discussed and reconsidered since his death. The Chichester Psalms, and excerpts from his Third Symphony and MASS were performed for Pope John Paul II, including at World Youth Day 1993 in Denver on August 14, 1993, and at the Papal Concert to Commemorate the Shoah on April 7, 1994, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the Sala Nervi at the Vatican. Both performances were conducted by Gilbert Levine. Bibliography Bernstein, Leonard (1993) [1982]. Findings. New York: Anchor Books. ISBN 978-0-385-42437-0. — (1993) [1966]. The Infinite Variety of Music. New York: Anchor Books. ISBN 978-0-385-42438-7. — (2004) [1959]. The Joy of Music. Pompton Plains, New Jersey: Amadeus Press. ISBN 978-1-57467-104-9. — (2006) [1962]. Young People's Concerts. Milwaukee; Cambridge: Amadeus Press. ISBN 978-1-57467-102-5. — (1976). The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-92001-5. — (2013). The Leonard Bernstein Letters (paperback). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-20544-2. Videography The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard. West Long Branch, New Jersey: Kultur Video. VHS ISBN 1-56127-570-0. DVD ISBN 0-7697-1570-2. (videotape of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures given at Harvard in 1973.) Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic. West Long Branch, New Jersey: Kultur Video. DVD ISBN 0-7697-1503-6. Bernstein on Beethoven: A Celebration in Vienna/Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1. West Long Branch, Kultur Video. DVD Leonard Bernstein: Omnibus – The Historic TV Broadcasts, 2010, E1 Ent. Bernstein: Reflections (1978), A rare personal portrait of Leonard Bernstein by Peter Rosen. Euroarts DVD Bernstein/Beethoven (1982), Deutsche Grammophon, DVD The Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala (1983), Deutsche Grammophon, DVD 00440-073-4538 Bernstein Conducts "West Side Story" (1985) (retitled The Making of West Side Story in re-releases) Deutsche Grammophon. DVD "The Rite of Spring" in Rehearsal Mozart's Great Mass in C minor, Exsultate, jubilate & Ave verum corpus (1990), Deutsche Grammophon. DVD 00440-073-4240 "Leonard Bernstein: Reaching for the Note" (1998) Documentary on his life and music. Originally aired on PBS's American Masters series. DVD Awards Leonard Bernstein receiving the Edison Classical Music Award in 1968 Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Leonard Bernstein Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1951[158] Fellow at the MacDowell 1962, 1970, 1972[159] Sonning Award (Denmark), 1965 Ditson Conductor's Award, 1958 George Peabody Medal – Johns Hopkins University, 1980 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, 1987 Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal (UK), 1987 Edward MacDowell Medal, 1987[160] Knight Grand Cross Order of Merit (Italy), 1989 Grammy Award for Best Album for Children Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition Grammy Award for Best Classical Album Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award Tony Award for Best Musical Special Tony Award Japan Arts Association Lifetime Achievement Award Gramophone Hall of Fame entrant[161] Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur, 1986 Bernstein is also a member of both the American Theater Hall of Fame[162] and the Television Hall of Fame.[163] In 2015, he was inducted into the Legacy Walk.[164] ****** Symphony No. 3 "Kaddish" is a programmatic choral symphony by Leonard Bernstein, published in 1963. It is a dramatic work written for a large orchestra, a full choir, a boys' choir, a soprano soloist and a narrator. "Kaddish" refers to the Jewish prayer that is chanted at every synagogue service for the dead but never mentions "death." The symphony is dedicated to the memory of John F. Kennedy who was assassinated on November 22, 1963, just weeks before the first performance of the symphony. Leonard Bernstein wrote the text of the narration himself, but struggled with his own motivation for the aggressiveness of the text. In 2003, after talks with Bernstein shortly before his death, Holocaust survivor Samuel Pisar added a new narration about his personal experiences and how his family suffered and were murdered in the Holocaust, and his subsequent struggle with his belief. The Bernstein estate allowed this version to be used only with Samuel Pisar as recitator before his 2015 death.[1] Contents 1 Instrumentation 2 Structure 2.1 I : Invocation – Kaddish 1 2.2 II : Din-Torah – Kaddish 2 2.3 III : Scherzo – Kaddish 3 – Finale. Fugue-Tutti 3 Performance 4 Recordings 5 References Instrumentation The revised version is scored for: speaker soprano solo mixed choir (SATB) boys' choir orchestra:[2] 4 flutes (3rd doubling alto flute, 4th doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, alto saxophone, clarinet in E-flat, 2 clarinets in B-flat and A, bass clarinet in B-flat, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon 4 horns, trumpet in D, 3 trumpets in C , 3 trombones, tuba 5 timpani, 4 percussionists playing: vibraphone, xylophone, glockenspiel, 3 side drums (snare drum, field drum, tenor drum), bass drum, Israeli hand drum, 2 suspended cymbals, 1 pair crash cymbals, finger cymbals, antique cymbals (E, G, B, C), tamtam, 3 bongos, 3 temple blocks, wood block, sandpaper blocks, rasp, whip, ratchet, triangle, maracas, claves, tambourine, chimes harp, piano, celesta strings consisting of first and second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses. Structure I : Invocation – Kaddish 1 The text begins with a narrator addressing "My Father" (i.e., God). He/she states that he/she wants to pray a kaddish. After the initial approach to the Father in prayer, a chorus sings his kaddish in Aramaic. At the end, the narrator repeats the final words of the prayer: Amen! Amen! Did You hear that, Father? Sh’lama raba! May abundant peace Descend on us. Amen. The speaker then questions why He would allow such disorder in mankind's lives, suggesting that surely He must have the power to change it. II : Din-Torah – Kaddish 2 The prayer escalates into a confrontation with the Father (who never replies in the symphony), and in a "certain respectful fury", accusing him of violating his promise with mankind. One of the more poignant texts from the symphony comes from this movement: Are You listening, Father? You know who I am: Your image; that stubborn reflection of You That Man has shattered, extinguished, banished. And now he runs free—free to play With his new-found fire, avid for death, Voluptuous, complete and final death. Lord God of Hosts, I call You to account! You let this happen, Lord of Hosts! You with Your manna, Your pillar of fire! You ask for faith, where is Your own? Why have You taken away Your rainbow, That pretty bow You tied round Your finger To remind You never to forget Your promise? "For lo, I do set my bow in the cloud ... And I will look upon it, that I May remember my everlasting covenant ..." Your covenant! Your bargain with Man! Tin God! Your bargain is tin! It crumples in my hand! And where is faith now—Yours or mine? The speaker calms down, speaks softly and suggests that he comfort God. A soprano solo conveys a lullaby, intended to help the speaker rock God gently to sleep, after which the speaker will help God dream. III : Scherzo – Kaddish 3 – Finale. Fugue-Tutti The scherzo is a fast-tempo dream sequence. God has fallen asleep and the narrator paints a dream. God is no longer in control and the narrator has full power to bring God on this journey through his own imagination. The speaker begins by painting what God has made: This is Your Kingdom of Heaven, Father, Just as You planned it. Every immortal cliché intact. Lambs frisk. Wheat ripples. Sunbeams dance. Something is wrong. The light: flat. The air: sterile. Do You know what is wrong? There is nothing to dream. Nowhere to go. Nothing to know. The narrator then proceeds to show God that he is in control of this dream. Now behold my Kingdom of Earth! Real-life marvels! Genuine wonders! Dazzling miracles! ... Look, a Burning Bush Look, a Fiery Wheel! A Ram! A Rock! Shall I smite it? There! It gushes! It gushes! And I did it! I am creating this dream! Now will You believe? A burning bush and gushing rock refer to some of the miracles described in the Book of Exodus. The narrator next places a rainbow in the sky, in parallel to the story of Noah, when God placed a rainbow in the sky to institute a new covenant with man. In loud triumph and anger, the speaker declares: Look at it, Father: Believe! Believe! Look at my rainbow and say after me: MAGNIFIED ... AND SANCTIFIED ... BE THE GREAT NAME OF MAN! After showing God the problems in the world, he helps God believe in the new arrangement. The music builds to an amazing climax, crowned with the entrance of a boy's choir singing the phrase "Magnified and sanctified be His great name, Amen" in Hebrew. The pace of the music slows down, as the narrator has finished his dream. He wakes God and God then confronts the reality of the image. The narrator, satisfied that God has seen His errors, beams: Good morning, Father. We can still be immortal, You and I, bound by our rainbow. That is our covenant, and to honor it Is our honor ... not quite the covenant We bargained for, so long ago. The narration ends with a commitment from both sides, God and Human, to "Suffer and recreate each other." Though there is a resolution to the struggle, the music does not end triumphant and grand. Instead, it ends in a final kaddish by the choir and the final chord is dissonant, suggesting that all is still not right and more work must be done. Performance The symphony was first performed in Tel Aviv, Israel, on December 10, 1963, with Bernstein conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Jennie Tourel (mezzo-soprano), Hanna Rovina (narrator) and the choruses under Abraham Kaplan. In this original version of the Kaddish Symphony, Bernstein specified that the narrator be female. The work was generally received with great enthusiasm in Israel. The American premiere of the work took place soon afterwards on the afternoon of January 31, 1964, in Boston with Charles Münch conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New England Conservatory Chorus and the Columbus Boychoir, again with Tourel (mezzo), but now with Bernstein's wife, Felicia Montealegre as narrator.[3] The American reactions to the work were decidedly mixed, ranging from highly favorable to vitriolic. In 1977 Bernstein revised the symphony, saying: "I was not satisfied with the original (version). There was too much talk. The piece is ... (now) tighter and shorter." With the revision, Bernstein no longer specified the gender of the narrator, and recordings featuring both male and female narrators have been made. In the first recording below (which is of the original version for female narrator), the narrator was Bernstein's wife, Felicia Montealegre, whereas in the second and third recordings below (which were of the revised work), the narrators were men, Michael Wager and Willard White. During a performance of the Kaddish Symphony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on March 17, 1981, reportedly Bernstein wept profusely. This strong emotion did not interfere with his conducting of the piece. Later he reported privately that he had seen, floating above the stage in front of the great organ pipes, the spirits of John and Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Felicia, who had died in 1978.[citation needed] The Kaddish Symphony was often narrated by Samuel Pisar until his death in 2015; he wrote a new text for it describing his experience with the Holocaust, when all of his family suffered, and most perished.[1] Pisar wrote this version of the text for the Kaddish Symphony "in memory of Leonard Bernstein, a beloved friend." The first performance in France took place in 1994, and was carried out by the Formation Symphonique of the Chœur et Orchestre des Grandes Écoles with Mari Kobayashi as soloist and Michael Lonsdale as the narrator. In November 2017, Kaddish was performed in three concerts by the New York Philharmonic to commemorate Bernstein's 100th birthday at David Geffen Hall, with Tamara Wilson (soprano), Jeremy Irons (narrator), and Leonard Slatkin conducting.[4] Recordings Recording of the US premiere (first version) with Charles Munch conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New England Conservatory Chorus and the Columbus Boychoir with Jennie Tourel (mezzo-soprano) and Felicia Montealegre (narrator) (Kipepeo) recorded in 1964 and released in 2017 Premiere studio recording (first version) with Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic, Columbus Boychoir and Camerata Singers with Jennie Tourel (mezzo-soprano) and Felicia Montealegre (narrator) (Columbia Masterworks, Stereo KS 6605) Premiere recording (revised version), with Bernstein conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Vienna Boys' Choir with Montserrat Caballé (soprano) and Michael Wager (narrator) (Deutsche Grammophon 463462) Gerard Schwarz conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir, Liverpool Cathedral Choir and Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Choir with Yvonne Kenny (soprano) and Willard White (narrator) (Naxos 8559456) Yutaka Sado conducting the French Radio Orchestra and Chorus with Karita Mattila (soprano) and Yehudi Menuhin (narrator) (Erato2564 69655-6) recorded in 1999 and released in 2008. Leonard Slatkin conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the BBC Singers, London Oratory School Schola, with Ann Murray (soprano) and Jamie Bernstein (narrator) (Chandos CHSA 5028) ***** Hanna Rovina (Hebrew: חנה רובינא‎; 15 September 1888[1] – 3 February 1980), also Robina, was an Israeli actress. She is often referred to as the "First Lady of Hebrew Theatre".[2] Contents 1 Biography 2 Acting career 3 Awards and recognition 4 See also 5 References Biography Hana Rovina was born in Byerazino, in the Igumensky Uyezd of the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus), to David Rubin, a timber merchant and Sarah-Rivka Rubin. She had one sister, Rahel and one brother, Zvi. She trained as a kindergarten teacher at a course for Hebrew-speaking kindergarten teachers in Warsaw (prior to the First World War).[3] She had a daughter, Ilana, born in 1934, with the Hebrew poet Alexander Penn.[4] Acting career She began her acting career at the "Hebrew Stage Theatre" of Nahum Tzemach. She joined Habima Theatre in 1917 just as it was being launched, and participated in its first production, a play by Yevgeny Vakhtangov. She became famous for her role as Leah'le, the young bride who is possessed by a demon in The Dybbuk by S. Ansky.[5] In 1928, Rovina and the other actors of Habima immigrated to Mandate Palestine. Habima became the flagship of the new national theatre movement, and Rovina was recognized as the movement's leading actress.[6] The image of Rovina in her role as Leah in the Moscow performance of The Dybbuk, in a white dress, with her long black braid, became an icon of the emergent Hebrew theatre.[7][8] Rovina's dressing room at Habima Theatre Rovina took her acting very seriously and tried to live the life of the character, as prescribed by the Stanislavski School. Nisim Aloni wrote a play, Aunt Liza, especially for her and Rovina played the lead.[9] Rovina made high demands of her audience. She frequently stopped a play in the middle if she felt that the audience was not attentive enough. In one instance, she stopped the play Hannah Senesh in the middle of a scene and told the teenagers in the hall to stop eating sunflower seeds.[citation needed] Awards and recognition Rovina was awarded the Israel Prize for theatre in 1956.[7][10] She remained active on stage until her death, in 1980.[11] She died in Ra'anana, aged 91. **** Hanna Rovina 1888–1980 by Dorit Yerushalmi A promotional portrait of Hanna Rovina, looking concerned with her hand touching her face Reproduction of Hanna Rovina in a 1929 Habima Theatre Production. In Brief Called the "High Priestess of the Hebrew theater," Hanna Rovina was awarded the Israel Prize for Theater Arts in 1956 for her contributions to the Habimah stage and her commitment to reviving the Hebrew language. Rovina began her acting career only when she was almost thirty years old in Moscow. After immigrating to Israel, Rovina acted only with Habimah, apart from one guest performance at the Cameri Theater. The major source of her stage fame and glory was the role of Leah in The Dybbuk. From the diaries that Rovina kept, one can learn that family life was hard for her and she only found joy in her role as an actress. A year before her death, Habimah named its large auditorium after her. Contents 1 Early Life and Family 2 Acting Career 3 Personal Life 4 Bibliography In April 1956, when Hanna Rovina was awarded the Israel Prize for Theater Arts, the judges’ comments stressed the central role she had played in the history of Hebrew theater: In her life as an actor, Hanna Rovina embodied the development of Hebrew theater. She was a mixture of rare gifts as a woman artist, from Leah in The Dybbuk, the heroic symbol of the birth of Hebrew theater as well as the birth of the Hebrew actress, to Medea, her last role (directed by Peter Frye, premiered in November 1955).... Her path was that of an oath of loyalty to the vision of Hebrew theater. The vengeful Medea, who murders her two children in revenge against her husband’s infidelity, was not typical of the gallery of roles Rovina filled. All the critics heaped praise on her acting and the Israel Prize judges averred that See Also: Bracha Peli, 1983 Encyclopedia: Bracha Peli In Medea her distinct and unique gifts as a “tragic actress”—gifts so rare in our times—were clearly revealed anew: the purity of approach, the measured design, the strong, clear cut, a courageous plunge into the depths of a pained, tempestuous soul—all this in order to understand the character, to illuminate her and give expression to her. She cast her spirit of splendor and the grace of her mercy and art over the horror (Guy, 1995). Early Life and Family The daughter of David and Sarah-Rivka Rubin, Hanna Rovina was born in Berezino in the region of Minsk. She had one sister, Rahel, and a brother, Zvi. Her father, a Habad hasid, was a timber merchant who set great store on educating his daughters and sent them to the “Heder ha-metukan,” headed by the Hebrew teacher Moshe Rubinchek. Hanna left her parental home upon completing her studies at the Russian municipal school. After working for two years as a nursemaid she went to Warsaw to study at the Hebrew seminary for teachers and kindergarten teachers directed by Yehiel Halperin. Completing her studies summa cum laude, she was employed to teach at the seminary’s kindergarten. In Warsaw, she first met Nahum Zemach, who wanted to establish a society of Lovers of Hebrew and put on plays in that language. On the outbreak of World War I, after spending two lively years in the big city, Rovina returned home for a short while and from there set off for Baku, where she had been offered a position as a kindergarten teacher. She arrived in Moscow in the spring of 1917, after a long correspondence with Zemach, who urged her to join the studio which later became Habimah. Her career as an actress caused a rift with the world of her family. Because of his orthodoxy, her father never saw her perform. However, she maintained an ongoing correspondence with her family, who in 1925 immigrated to the United States and settled in St. Louis. While Habimah was in New York, her sister informed her that her father was dying and she managed to see him before his death. In March 1945, when she returned to Tel Aviv from a tour of the Allied camps in Cairo and Italy, she received a telegram from her sister reporting their mother’s death. Rahel, who immigrated to Israel in 1948, settled with her husband and her children in the moshav Beit Herut in Samaria. The sisters had a very close relationship. Acting Career Hanna Rovina standing onstage, wearing dramatic makeup, hands caressing her face Actress Hanna Rovina as Leah'le in The Dybbuk, circa 1920s. Hanna Rovina onstage, leaning back against a table, surrounded by male actors looking shocked and concerned Actress Hanna Rovina in The Dybbuk, 1922. Hanna Rovina began her acting career only when she was almost thirty years old. Her first role was the old mother in The Oldest Daughter, a sketch by Shalom Asch, one of four pieces in an evening entitled Beginning Party, directed by Vakhtangov (première, October 1918, Moscow). Her last role, which she performed only ten times, was the queen-mother in Shakespeare’s Richard III, directed by David Levin (prèmiere, November 1976, Tel Aviv). Even in the final decades of her life, she refused to give up the stage, fighting for her right to be given a part. The dramatist and director Nissim Aloni, who created Aunt Lisa especially for her, described her stage presence in writing about her performance as King’s mother in Eddy King: “Even when she was eighty-seven, in Eddy King, she had the same stance and the same glory that nobody else possessed.” Rovina was never an actress who was “absorbed” into the dramatic character, but rather an actress who harnessed the part to explore an aspect of her own stage personality. In all her parts she gave expression to her strong individuality. In the course of six decades, she played scores of parts, including queens and mothers larger than life, which suited and embodied her public persona. Thus, for example, in the 1938/1939 season she played Isabella, the Catholic queen of Spain, in The Conversos by Max Zweig, who opposes Torquemada the Inquisitor (Aharon Meskin), dares to defend the conversos and finally kneels before him, a broken woman; the eponymous Mirele Efros, in Gordin’s play, who in her interpretation was transformed into a noble, impressive creature—“a Jewish queen,” in the words of the critics; Dolores, in Karl Czapek’s The Mother, who loses her husband and sons in war, speaks to the ghosts of the dead, cries out “Accursed War!” and hides her sole surviving son. But when the motherland is again in danger, she does not hesitate to thrust a gun into his hand and send him to the battlefront. These and many other roles fitted well into the nationalist story that was unfolding in the country. In this context, the role of the mother whose son, Danny, fell in battle, in Yigal Mossinsohn’s On the Plains of the Negev (1949) stands out in particular. See Also: Amichai Pardo in Rina Yerushalmi's "Romeo and Juliet," 1993 Encyclopedia: Hebrew Drama: Representation of Women Without a doubt, the major source of her stage fame and glory was the role of Leah in The Dybbuk by S. An-Ski, directed by Vakhtangov (prèmiere January 22, 1922, Warsaw). However, she was given this part only at the last moment, when Shoshana Avivit, who had initially been cast in the part, announced that she was leaving the company. From the moment Rovina appeared on stage it became impossible to separate her either from the character, from The Dybbuk or even from Habimah itself. Her white dress, her long black braid, her carefully made-up face, her blazing eyes, her deep voice, the repertoire of body movements into which Vakhtangov wove motifs from the Judeo-Austrian tradition, all transformed her into an icon—a symbol of purity and sanctification that was, as it were, a combination of the Madonna and the crucified. Critics were overwhelmed by Vakhtangov's theatrical idiom and in their words of praise they related to the remarkable contribution of Leah-Rovina. Thus M. Zagorski maintained that “She is the most wonderful character in the production. An outstanding graphic sketch, without any colorful adornments, only economical use of modes of expression. In her acting: clarity, crystal transparency and the voice of the heart.” Critic A. Kugel wrote: “The wonderful gifts of actress Rovina stand out in an exceptional manner … only a very talented and wide-awake actress could act as precisely and subtly as she does. To mingle two voices as one in the way she does is a miracle of technical maturity.” Theater people, authors and intellectuals in the European cultural centers through which Habimah wandered between 1926 and 1931 were enchanted by the powerful idiom that Vakhtangov bestowed on The Dybbuk and Leah-Rovina became the artistic symbol of the performance. The excellent reviews that she reaped established her status as the star of the company and, with the addition of two further roles—the mother of the Messiah in The Eternal Jew and the Messiah in The Golem—as a national symbol. Public figures, poets and authors sang the praises of the first Hebrew actress and bestowed on her the title of “Mother of the Nation.” Her status in Habimah was undisputed and over the years she played the best female roles, including Mother Courage, Lady Macbeth, Linda, the wife of Willy Loman, in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Laura in Strindberg’s The Father. She played Leah in The Dybbuk in every revival of the play until 1957, when Habimah participated in a festival in Paris. In contrast to the cultural significance of the revival in Israel and the accompanying emotions it aroused in both critics and audiences, the Paris reviews were catastrophic and the public “voted with its feet,” condemning the production to failure. Personal Life President Zalman Shazar with actress Hanna Rovina, 1949. Rovina’s private life is a fascinating story in itself. Her first and only marriage was to Moshe Halevi (1895–1975), an actor and member of the Habimah collective. The power struggles between him and Nahum Zemach, and especially his desire to direct, finally led him in 1924 to leave Habimah and go to Erez Israel, where he founded the Ohel, which later became the Theater of Erez Israel Laborers. Rovina remained in Moscow. In the summer of 1925, more than half a year after their separation, she visited him in Erez Israel and asked him to acknowledge paternity of the child she was bearing. Halevi refused and divorced her. Rovina was thirty-seven years old when she terminated her pregnancy and returned to Moscow. During Habimah’s peregrinations, the actor Ari Vershaber was her partner and they were considered an official couple. During Habimah’s tour of the United States Rovina met Chaim Weizmann, later the first president of Israel, and his letters give some indication of the relationship between them. It is hard to determine the extent to which Weizmann’s opinion influenced Rovina, but during a severe crisis that Habimah experienced in New York (which ultimately led to a split in the company) Rovina steadfastly led those who opined that the company should set out for Erez Israel in order to fulfill the Zionist vision. During her mid-forties, Rovina met the bohemian poet Alexander Penn (1906–1972) and a great love blossomed between them. However, his love of women and alcohol led to ups and downs in their relationship, and they never married. Their daughter Ilana was born on February 10, 1934. Penn and Rovina separated and Ilana hardly knew her father. Like most of the children of Hebrew actors, Ilana was raised by nursemaids and sent to a kibbutz whenever her mother traveled abroad. From the diaries that Rovina painstakingly kept, one can learn that family life was hard for her and that she found enjoyment neither in the role of mother, grandmother nor mother-in-law, but only in her role as an actress. Throughout her career Rovina acted only with Habimah, apart from one guest performance at the Cameri Theater in Nathan Alterman’s Kinneret, Kinneret (1961). A year before her death, Habimah decided to name its large auditorium after her. While she longed to die on stage, she defeated death in many of her parts. Nissim Aloni best expressed this in The Gypsies of Jaffa, in which she played Madam Zara the Gypsy fortune-teller, a part he created especially for her. “That’s how my fate turned out. To perform magic in this bewitched world … I changed wigs, sang, danced the polka and the fox-trot. Now—when I have to perform my magic—the magic of life and death—perhaps my last trick, I’m finished, can’t do it … I am myself bewitched.” On February 4, 1980, Rovina’s coffin lay in state in the Habimah auditorium. Shimon Finkel eulogized her on behalf of “the family of actors”: “We’re saying goodbye to you, High Priestess of the Hebrew theater. You are the very symbol of national revival and of the renaissance of the Hebrew language.” In 2010, a monument dedicated to Rovina was unveiled in Tel Aviv. ***** Jennie Tourel (June 22 [O.S. June 9] 1900[1][2] – November 23, 1973) was an American operatic mezzo-soprano, known for her work in both opera and recital performances. Jennie Tourel Contents 1 Early years 2 Singing career 3 Teaching and later years 4 Notes 5 References Early years Tourel was born in Vitebsk in the Russian Empire (now in Belarus), with the surname Davidovich. As a young girl she played the flute, then studied piano. After the Russian Revolution, her Jewish family left Russia and settled temporarily near Danzig. They later moved to Paris, where she continued to study piano and contemplated a concert career. She then began to take voice lessons with Reynaldo Hahn and Anna El-Tour, and decided to devote herself to professional singing. She was said to have changed her last name to Tourel by transposing the syllables of El-Tour's name, but she denied this.[1] Singing career Jennie Tourel made her European operatic debut at the Opéra Russe in Paris in 1931, and subsequently sang at the Opéra-Comique in Paris as Carmen, (April 9, 1933) also singing Mignon, Jacqueline (Le médecin malgré lui), Djamileh in 1938, Charlotte (Werther) and Marcellina (The Marriage of Figaro) in 1940. She created three roles at the Salle Favart: Labryssa in Tout Ank Amon (May 5, 1934), Missouf in Zadig (June 24, 1938) and Zouz in La nuit embaumée (March 25, 1939).[3] She made her American début at the Chicago Civic Opera in Ernest Moret's Lorenzaccio in 1930. Her career at the Metropolitan Opera was brief: she made her début in May 1937, as Mignon, and appeared for a few seasons in the 1940s as Rosina, Adalgisa and Carmen. In 1940, just before the occupation of Paris by Nazi troops, she went to Lisbon, and eventually emigrated to the United States. She became a naturalized American citizen in 1946. In 1951 she created the role of Baba the Turk in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. She gave the first performances of songs by Leonard Bernstein (including the song cycles I Hate Music, 1943, and La Bonne Cuisine, 1949), Francis Poulenc and Paul Hindemith (notably the revised Marienleben cycle, 1949). Teaching and later years In later years, Jennie Tourel devoted herself to recitals and orchestra engagements, excelling particularly in French repertoire. Her last opera performance was as Doña Marta in the world premiere of Thomas Pasatieri's Black Widow at the Seattle Opera in 1972. She also taught at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, at the Aspen School of Music in Colorado, and at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. One of her most famous students was the soprano Barbara Hendricks, who first met Tourel in Colorado and later worked with her at Juilliard. Her other students included Joanna Bruno. In 1998, Hendricks paid tribute to her teacher with a recording of art songs titled: Récital "Hommage à Jennie Tourel"[4] Tourel died on November 23, 1973, in New York City. Zubin Mehta (born 29 April 1936) is an Indian conductor of Western classical music. He is music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and conductor emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Mehta's father was the founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, and Mehta received his early musical education from him. When he was 18, he enrolled in the Vienna state music academy, from which he graduated after three years with a diploma as a conductor. He began winning international competitions and conducted the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic at age 21. Beginning in the 1960s, Mehta gained experience by substituting for celebrated maestros throughout the world. Mehta was music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1967 and of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1962 to 1978, the youngest music director ever for any major North American orchestra. In 1969, he was appointed Music Adviser to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and in 1981 he became its Music Director for Life. From 1978 to 1991, Mehta was music director of the New York Philharmonic. He was chief conductor of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence from 1985 to 2017. He is an honorary citizen of both Florence and Tel Aviv and was made an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera in 1997 and of the Bavarian State Opera in 2006. The title of Honorary Conductor was bestowed on him by numerous orchestras throughout the world. More recently, Mehta made several tours with the Bavarian State Opera and kept up a busy schedule of guest conducting appearances. In December 2006, he received the Kennedy Center Honor and in October 2008 he was honored by the Japanese Imperial Family with the Praemium Imperiale. In 2016, Mehta was appointed Honorary Conductor of the Teatro San Carlo, Naples. Early years and education Mehta was born into a Parsi family in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, during the British Raj, the older son of Mehli (1908–2002) and Tehmina (Daruvala) Mehta.[1][2] His native language is Gujarati.[3] His father was a self-taught violinist who founded and conducted the Bombay Symphony Orchestra and later the American Youth Symphony, which he conducted for 33 years after moving to Los Angeles.[1] His father had previously lived in New York to study with violinist Ivan Galamian, a noted teacher who also taught Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman.[1] His father returned to Bombay as an accomplished violinist of the Russian school.[1] Mehta has said that on many occasions when he conducts in the U.S., someone approaches him to say, "You don't know how much I loved your father!"[1] Mehta has described his childhood as surrounded by music at home all the time, and has said he probably learned to speak Gujarati and sing around the same time. He says his father had a strong influence on him, and he listened to his quartet daily after his father returned from the USA after the Second World War.[4] Mehta was first taught to play violin and piano by his father. When he reached his early teens, his father allowed him to lead sectional rehearsals of the Bombay Symphony, and at sixteen, he was conducting the full orchestra during rehearsals.[5] Mehta graduated from St. Mary's School, Mumbai and went on to study medicine at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, at the urging of his mother, who wanted him to take up a more "respectable" profession than music.[5] At age eighteen, he dropped out after two years to move to Vienna, one of Europe's music centers, in order to study music under Hans Swarowsky at the state music academy.[5] He lived on $75 per month, and was a contemporary of conductor Claudio Abbado and conductor-pianist Daniel Barenboim. He remained at the academy for three years, during which time he also studied the double bass, which he played in the Vienna Chamber Orchestra.[5] Swarowsky recognized Mehta's abilities early on, describing him as a "demoniac conductor" who "had it all".[6] While still a student, after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he organized a student orchestra in seven days and conducted it in a concert at a refugee camp outside Vienna.[6] Mehta graduated in 1957 when he was 21 with a diploma in conducting.[5] In 1958 he entered the Liverpool International Conductor's Competition with 100 contestants and took first prize. The prize included a year's contract as associate conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, which he conducted in 14 concerts, all of which received rave reviews.[5][7] He then was a 2nd-place prizewinner at the summer academy at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts.[7] At that competition he attracted the notice of Charles Munch, then the conductor of the Boston Symphony, who later helped his career.[5] In 1958, he boldly programmed an all-Schoenberg concert, which did so well that he accepted further bookings.[6] That same year he also married a Canadian voice student, Carmen Lasky, whom he met in Vienna.[6] Conducting career 1960s During 1960 and 1961, Mehta was asked to substitute for celebrated maestros throughout the world, receiving high critical acclaim for most of those concerts.[6] In 1960, he conducted a series for the Vienna Symphony and later that summer made his New York conducting debut leading the New York Philharmonic.[5] [Mehta] has the capacity to control every sound made by an orchestra, and he does this with the simplest of gestures, every one of which has an immediate and perceptible effect. He has a talent for conveying a mood of serenity, or of serene grandeur, to both orchestra and audiences that is rare indeed among the younger generation of conductors. —Music critic Winthrop Sargeant, on Mehta's 1967 New York debut at Carnegie Hall[8] In 1960, with the help of Charles Munch, Mehta became the chief conductor and Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 1967. By 1961, he had already conducted the Vienna, Berlin and Israel Philharmonic orchestras.[7] In 1962, he took the Montreal Symphony on a concert tour to Russia, Paris and Vienna. Mehta was most apprehensive about his concert in Vienna, which he said was considered the "capital of Western music". His single concert there received a 20-minute ovation, 14 curtain calls, and two encores.[9] In 1961, he was named assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (LAP), although the orchestra's music director designate, Georg Solti, was not consulted on the appointment, and resigned in protest.[10] The orchestra had been without a permanent conductor for four years when Mehta started directing it.[5] Mehta was named Music Director of the orchestra and held the post from 1962 to 1978. When he began his first season with the orchestra in 1962, he was 26, the youngest person ever to hold that title.[5] As he had also conducted the Montreal Symphony during those early years, he became the first person ever to direct two North American symphony orchestras at the same time.[5] As the LAP's first conductor in four years, Mehta worked to polish its overall sound to something closer to the Vienna Philharmonic's. He succeeded in making its sound warmer and richer by fostering competition among the musicians, shifting assignments, giving promotions and changing seating arrangements.[6] He also inspired the musicians; 21-year-old cellist Jacqueline du Pré said, "He provides a magic carpet for you to float on." Cellist Kurt Reher recalls Mehta's first rehearsal with the orchestra: "within two beats we were entranced. It seemed this young man had the ability, the musical knowledge of a man of 50 or 55."[6] In 1965, after Mehta's debut with the Metropolitan Opera's performance of Aida, music critic Alan Rich wrote, "Mehta brought to the conducting of the score a kind of bedazzlement that has no peer in recent times ... It was a lunging, teeming, breathless performance that still had plenty of breath."[5] He subsequently conducted the Met in performances of Carmen, Tosca, and Turandot. For Montreal's Expo 67, he conducted both the Montreal and the Los Angeles orchestras together for a performance of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.[5] Also that year he conducted the world premier of Marvin David Levy's Mourning Becomes Electra.[5] By May 1967, his schedule was becoming overcrowded and he resigned his Montreal post. That fall he took the 107-member Los Angeles Philharmonic on an eight-week tour, including engagements in Vienna, Paris, Athens, and Bombay.[5] By 1968, his popularity kept him busier than the year before, including 22 weeks of concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, three operas at the Met, television appearances in the U.S. and Italy, five recording sessions, and guest appearances at five festivals and with five orchestras.[5] Time magazine put him on its cover in January 1968.[6] In 1969 his schedule remained equally active.[5] In 1970 Mehta performed with Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention on Zappa's "200 Motels" and Edgar Varese's Intergrales, at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion basketball stadium with an audience of 12,000. There is no authorized recording, though some bootlegs exist. 1970s–1980s In 1978, Mehta became the Music Director and Principal Conductor of the New York Philharmonic and remained there until his resignation in 1991. Mehta with Isaac Stern at Lincoln Center, 1980 He became music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) in 1977. He began the first of many guest appearances with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) in 1961. In 1966, he toured with the orchestra, and during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, he rushed back to Israel to conduct several special concerts to "demonstrate solidarity" with its people.[11] He was appointed IPO's Music Advisor in 1969, Music Director in 1977, and was made its Music Director for Life in 1981.[12] During his five-decade connection with the IPO, he has conducted it in thousands of concerts in Israel and abroad.[1] He conducted concerts with the IPO in South Lebanon in 1982, after which Arabs rushed onstage to hug the musicians.[13] He conducted it during the Gulf War in 1991, when the audience brought gas masks; in 2007, it played for an entirely Arab audience in Nazareth.[13] He claims to have a "deep kinship" with Israel's musicians and the "spirit and tradition of the Jewish people".[11] He adds that conducting the IPO is "something I do for my heart".[11] Recalling those earlier years, he says, "How I would love to see that sight again today, of Arabs and Jews hugging each other. I'm a positive thinker. I know this day will come."[13] In 1978, Mehta left the Los Angeles Philharmonic to become music director for the New York Philharmonic (NYP).[13] Among the reasons he wanted to direct the NYP was that it allowed him to experiment with new ideas, such as taking the orchestra to Harlem. There, they played at the Abyssinian Baptist Church each year. Accompanying the orchestra with Mehta for various concerts were Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, and Kathleen Battle.[13] He stayed with NYP until 1991.[13] External audio audio icon You may hear Zubin Mehta with the Israel Philharmonic in Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70 in 1968 Here on Archive.org From 1985 to 2017, Mehta was chief conductor of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence.[14] From 1998 until 2006, he was music director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. The Munich Philharmonic named him its Honorary Conductor. Since 2005, Mehta has been the main conductor of the Palau de les Arts, the new opera house of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències in Valencia, Spain. While he was the conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Mehta commissioned Ravi Shankar's Concerto No. 2 for sitar and orchestra. Following New York performances, the concerto was later recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.[15]: vii [16][17] 1990s In 1998 he went to Munich where he began directing the Bavarian State Opera, because, he said, it provided "another panorama for me, to be involved in the running of an opera house".[13] In 1990, he conducted the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in the first ever Three Tenors concert in Rome, joining the tenors again in 1994 at the Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles. In between those appearances, he conducted the historic 1992 production of Tosca in which each act took place in the actual setting and at the actual time specified in the score. This production starred Catherine Malfitano in the title role, Plácido Domingo as Cavaradossi and Ruggero Raimondi as Baron Scarpia. Act I was telecast live from Rome's Basilica of Sant'Andrea della Valle on Saturday, 11 July, at noon (Central European Daylight Saving Time); act II was telecast later that evening from the Palazzo Farnese at 9:40 p.m.; act III was telecast live on Sunday, 12 July, at 7:00 am from the Castel Sant'Angelo, also known as Hadrian's Tomb. Mehta conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Mumbai, October 2008 In June 1994, Mehta performed the Mozart Requiem with the members of the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at the ruins of Sarajevo's National Library, in a fundraising concert for the victims of armed conflict and remembrance of the thousands of people killed in the Yugoslav Wars. On 29 August 1999, he conducted Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection), at the vicinity of Buchenwald concentration camp in Weimar, with the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra sitting alongside each other. He toured India (Mumbai) in 1984 with the New York Philharmonic, and again in November–December 1994 with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, along with soloists Itzhak Perlman and Gil Shaham. In 1997 and 1998, Mehta worked in collaboration with Chinese film director Zhang Yimou on a production of Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot, which they took to Florence and to Beijing, where it was staged in its actual surroundings in the Forbidden City, with over 300 extras and 300 soldiers, for nine historic performances. The making of this production was chronicled in the documentary The Turandot Project, which Mehta narrated. Mehta was a guest conductor for the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra.[18][19] 2000s Zubin Mehta, 2010 On 26 December 2005, the first anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, Mehta and the Bavarian State Orchestra performed for the first time in Chennai (formerly Madras) at the Madras Music Academy. This tsunami memorial concert was organized by the German consulate in Chennai along with the Max-Mueller Bhavan/Goethe-Institut. 2006 was his last year with the Bavarian State Orchestra. 2010s In 2011, Mehta's performance with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at The Proms in London was picketed and interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters,[20] which caused the BBC to halt the live radio relay of the concert, the first such incident in Proms history. In September 2013, Mehta appeared with the Bavarian State Orchestra at a special concert, Ehsaas e Kashmir, organized by the German Embassy in India, at Mughal Gardens, Srinagar. Mehta and the orchestra renounced their usual fees for this concert.[21] In October 2015, he returned to Chennai to perform with the Australian World Orchestra (AWO) at the Madras Music Academy.[22][23] In 2016, the Harbin Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed two concerts conducted by Mehta in the frame of 33rd Harbin Summer Music Festival at Harbin Concert Hall.[24] In December 2016, the Israel Philharmonic announced that Mehta would conclude his tenure as music director in October 2019.[25] He now has the title of music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic. In August 2022 Mehta conducted the Australian World Orchestra (AWO) in Sydney and Melbourne at Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House and Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne. He also conducted the AWO at the Edinburgh International Festival and the BBC Proms 2022.[26] Personal life Mehta's first marriage was to Canadian soprano Carmen Lasky in 1958. They have a son, Mervon (since April 2009, Executive Director of Performing Arts for The Royal Conservatory in Toronto), and a daughter, Zarina. In 1964 they divorced.[27] Two years after the divorce, Carmen married Mehta's brother, Zarin Mehta, formerly the Executive Director of the New York Philharmonic. In July 1969, Mehta married Nancy Kovack, an American former film and television actress.[28] A permanent resident of the United States, Mehta retains his Indian citizenship.[29] One of his close friends was Ravi Shankar, whom he first met in the 1960s when Mehta directed him with the Montreal Symphony. Their friendship continued after they were both living in Los Angeles and later in New York. "This was a wonderful period in my life and Zubin and I really had a great time."[15]: vii  His second daughter Alexandra was born in Los Angeles in 1967, the result of an affair Mehta had between his two marriages.[30] His son Ori was born in the 1990s as the result of an extra-marital affair in Israel during Mehta's second marriage.[31][30][10][11]