Leonard Bernstein was born into a family full of “constant fighting” between his parents—Russian immigrants Jennie and Samuel Bernstein (Peyser 21). His father escaped Ukraine at the age of sixteen and struggled in the United States, working menial jobs until he finally built a successful business in distributing beauty products (Peyser 20). Thus, Leonard grew up with the understanding that financial stability was essential to one’s future; therefore, to his parents, music and arts were a waste of time because art-based careers had little job security. When Bernstein was ten years old, his Aunt Clara was undergoing a divorce and “left an old upright piano in the Bernstein house.” The close presence of the piano motivated Bernstein to take …show more content…
. . [having] a marvelous education . . . great teachers . . . [and studying] the piano . . . with Helen Coates and Heinrich Gebhard” (Peyser 64). Thus, he auditioned and was accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music to begin studying conducting with Fritz Reiner, a demanding teacher with high standards, after being recommended by Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos (Peyser 65). However, Bernstein soon learned that his idol, Russian conductor Serge Koussevitzky, would begin teaching conducting courses at his summer music festival at Tanglewood Music Center; he applied and was accepted, allowing him to develop a close friendship with Koussevitzky (Peyser 76). Here, Bernstein was able to effectively apply his learning and develop his skill through conducting its student orchestra (Peyser 83). Studying with two globally known conductors, who were both homosexuals, indirectly led to Bernstein’s eventual understanding that his sexual orientation would not undermine his goal to become a prominent musician (Teachout). His connection to Koussevitzky concretely led to the turning point of Bernstein’s musical career: Bernstein was appointed Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic in 1943 because Artur Rodzinski, the philharmonic’s music director, “admired Koussevitzky” and “Koussevitzky believed in [Bernstein]” (Peyser
The Piano Lesson written by August Wilson is a work that struggles to suggest how best African Americans can handle their heritage and how they can best put their history to use. This problem is important to the development of theme throughout the work and is fueled by the two key players of the drama: Berniece and Boy Willie. These siblings, who begin with opposing views on what to do with a precious family heirloom, although both protagonists in the drama, serve akin to foils of one another. Their similarities and differences help the audience to understand each individual more fully and to comprehend the theme that one must find balance between deserting and preserving the past in order to pursue the future, that both too greatly honoring or too greatly guarding the past can ruin opportunities in the present and the future.
Though Jelly Roll Morton began his career without formal training, he grew to live an influential life. His piano style, musical notations on paper, and creative compositions thrived in the 1910s and the 1920s and even weaved its way into the later eras as musicians used Morton’s music as the foundation for their own. Even past his death, Jelly Roll Morton remains a legendary figure. His works are meticulously preserved and displayed in the prestigious Smithsonian Museum and universities around the world continue his legacy by teaching students about Jelly Roll Morton and his influential career.
Ginsberg’s mother often made up bedtime stories with strong Communist ideas like: 'The good king rode forth from his castle and, saw the suffering workers and healed them.'" Ginsberg was equally critical of his father. "My father would go around the house," Allen once said, "either reciting Emily Dickinson and Longfellow under his breath or attacking T. S. Eliot for...
Composers effectively reflect and communicate how universal human experiences can explicitly modify an individual’s understanding and acceptance of one’s sense of identity and maturation. Goldsworthy’s novel Maestro, Don McLean’s song ‘Vincent’ and Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia all inter-relate within the deeper realisation of the impact the appreciation of art, and the development of understanding the concept of love acting as a compelling emotion can create towards one’s self-image.
Leonard Bernstein is widely known not only as one of the greatest American conductors, but also as a composer whose creativity and passion was spread over a wide range. His social and cultural influences helped shape his career into a musical icon and his music rekindled the American spirit. Above all, he will be remembered as one of the most amazing and influential musical personalities of the twentieth century.
Warhol, Andy. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (from A to B and Back Again). Orlando: Harcourt, 2006. Print.
During his thirty-eight year life, Mendelssohn traveled the world as a concert pianist and musical director. Mendelssohn served as the conductor for the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig from 1835-1840, and then from 1845-1847, he also served the Berlin Philharmonic in various positions from 1840-1844. Felix Mendelssohn also founded the Leipzig Conservatory in Germany, with faculty including Robert Schumann.
this paper I will discuss Gershwin’s life as a child and his upbringing and how his music
Wilson demonstrates how one should accept and respect the past, move on with their life or slow down to pay respects to their family?s history, by describing the struggle over a symbolic object representing the past like the piano. Often people will sulk in the past and struggle with themselves and the people around them when they cannot come to terms with their personal history or a loss. Others will blatantly ignore their personal history and sell valuable lessons and pieces of it for a quick buck to advance their own lives. Berniece and Boy Willie in The Piano Lesson are great examples of these people. Through these contrasting characters and supernatural occurrences, Wilson tells the tale of overcoming and embracing a rough and unsettling family history.
August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, tells a story of a family haunted by the pain of their past and their struggle to find peace to move forward. The story begins with character Boy Willie coming up from the south visiting his sister Bernice. Boy Willie introduces the idea of selling the family’s heirloom, a piano, to raise enough money to buy the land on which his ancestors were enslaved. However, both Boy Willie and his sister Berniece own half a half of the piano and she refuses to let Boy Willie sell it. Through the use of symbolism, Wilson uses his characters, the piano and the family’s situation to provide his intended audience with the lesson of exorcising our past in order to move forward in our lives. Our past will always be a part of our lives, but it does not limit or determine where we can go, what we can do, or who we can become.
Their mother insisted that she had no musical talent as an excuse to not be involved in the male competition. Later Werner also learned the piano and used his musical talents as a social vehicle during the course of his life. This manly competition carried out in many other activities in the house.
this requires much loss and pain. The strive of the American culture for the attainment of such social luxuries is of great courage, will-power, faith and pride. During a time when the first World War had ended and the country was in a state of isolation, there were people within its borders that had an undying belief in what this country stood for. Though often overlooked and underappreciated in their time, artists had an advantage of using the suffering of the country and its industrial growth as a concentration for their bodies of work.
Every person has a past, every race has a heritage, and every family has a legacy. In Wilson’s play, four protagonists, Boy Willie, Berniece, Doaker and Wining Boy are all wounded by their traumatic pasts’ and have only have one reminder of their family history – the piano. During the beginning of the play, Wilson describes the setting and illustrates a piano that is dominating the parlor and gathering dust in the Charles’ home. The piano is covered with carvings of events and “mask-like figures resembling totems.” Wilson then begins to describe the carvings as “graceful” and rendering a “power of invention that lifts them out of the realm of craftsmanship and into the realm of art.” Nevertheless, to the Charles’ family, the piano is not just an ornately carved piano but rather the only symbol of their family legacy; the only way to understand the piano is to go back to the period of slavery. In the play, Doaker begins to reveal the family history to Boy Willie and explains the significance of the piano. During the slave period, Boy Willie and Bernice’s' grandfather's (Willie Boy) was owned by a man named Robert Sutter. Sutter had traded their grandmother and uncle for the piano as a present for his wife, Miss Ophelia. After getting tired of the piano, Miss Ophelia missed her slaves so much, Sutter made Willie Boy hand-carve the faces of his wife and son's faces all over the piano. However, Willie Boy didn't end there; he carved all of his ancestors onto the piano and “all kinds of things that happened with [the] family.” Miss Ophelia became ecstatic when she saw the piano, because “now she had her piano and her niggers too.” When she looked at the carvings in the piano, she could see all the faces of the slaves she missed and the...
So Ludwig Beethoven was lucky with his music career he got to continue with it, but he was a rather lonely and sad man. he would argue constantly with his brothers, his publishers, housekeepers, and because he was shy and short tempered he was never married. Though there was a women that he was in love with. She was already married though. Her name was Antoine Brentano and he wrote her a letter that took him two days, explaining his love for her, although the letter was never
After my brother died, I never saw that look of pure joy in my father’s eyes. I would try so hard to impress him. I played the violin, cello, piano, and even the flute hoping to please him but it was all in vain. I never saw even a glimmer of pride in his eyes. I would often ask. ”Daddy are you proud of me?” and he would sigh and say of course he was, but his tone sounded like that of a tired old man whose daughter was exhausting him. I just wished my brother were there to teach me how to play as he did.