Leonard Bernstein Centenary

[Barbirollians]

The Serenade for violin and orchestra is probably my favourite of his works apart from West Side Story . Mass I cannot abide .

[teamsaint]

I wonder what the problems are that so many people seem to have with Mass ?( with reference also to Pulcers post on another thread).

Narration?
Eclectic style?
Rock musical elements?
Overt religious lyrical content in (american)English ?

Just curious. in particular the rock musical elements wouldn't usually appeal to me, but the work's other qualities transcend this problem for me.
More than anything, what makes the whole thing work, for me, is the slick ,witty and effective setting of the text, along with what I think is quite a bold approach to trying something different.
I might have a little spend on that 3 CD Pulcers mentioned .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I wonder what the problems are that so many people seem to have with Mass ?

It's badly written.

[teamsaint]

It's badly written.

Oh.
Well thats that sorted then.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oh.
Well thats that sorted then.

Happy to help.

[Stanley Stewart]

Its the 'radical chic' which makes me squirm although I still have a copy on my shelves!
However, I still regularly return to LB's 4DVD set, Omnibus. the historic TV broadcasts, for refreshment.

[Pulcinella]

I wonder what the problems are that so many people seem to have with Mass ?( with reference also to Pulcers post on another thread).

Narration?
Eclectic style?
Rock musical elements?
Overt religious lyrical content in (american)English ?

Just curious. in particular the rock musical elements wouldn't usually appeal to me, but the work's other qualities transcend this problem for me.
More than anything, what makes the whole thing work, for me, is the slick ,witty and effective setting of the text, along with what I think is quite a bold approach to trying something different.
I might have a little spend on that 3 CD Pulcers mentioned .

Possibly all of the above, ts, but I'll give it another airing when the CDs turn up.
Parts of it make me cringe, as the 'blues' do in Tippett 3, for example.

Perhaps just too 'in yer face' for me.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Parts of it make me cringe, as the 'blues' do in Tippett 3, for example.

- YES! It's that "Geography teacher at the sixth-form disco" aspect; I don't object to "Rock musical elements" in a work at all - it's the naff attempts at "rocky/folky" Music that LB produces that demonstrate that he didn't really know what was going on in the best folk-rock traditions; the same with the "Tape" Music opening: it sounds like somebody who doesn't know much about Tape Music (and doesn't like what little he does know) producing a clichéd generalization of the genre. The narration is toe-curling - but then that in Kaddish isn't much better; but there the Musical substance of the rest of the work is much, much better. "Overt religious lyrical content in (American) English" works fine in Godspell - because the Music is much, much better than what Bernstein serves up in Mass.

The idea of the work doesn't put me off the work; I applaud the "bold approach to trying something new" - it's the trite, third-rate-at-best-and-that's-being-generous Music that's the problem.

[teamsaint]

Not sure the criticism around not being aware of what was going on in folk -rock traditions is really a fair accusation. Folk rock had only been around for about 5 years when he was writing Mass. It would be fair to say of course that there was more interesting music being made using purely folk,rock, and folk rock traditions at that point, but I'm not sure that is really the point. Just because somebody uses elements of rock music in a wide ranging work, doesn't mean we expect it to be up there with the greatest rock music, or to be state of the art.

Whether you find the narration toe curling might depend in this case on a willingness to suspend ( some element) of disbelief.
In Kaddish, I find it thought provoking to be confronted so overtly with a belief system ( and the personal difficulties played out within that system) different to my own. And the medium and message seem to me to work well together.

[Pulcinella]

Interesting that you should mention Godspell, as I had just come across a reference to it in Burton's book on Bernstein, looking for some background on Mass (appallingly unhelpful index!). [Looks like I only got to p119, as that's where I found a bookmark; I must read the rest!]
I don't think I knew or had realised that Stephen Schwartz, of Godspell fame, worked with Bernstein on Mass.
This is from Schwartz's Wiki entry:

In 1971, he wrote music and lyrics for Godspell, for which he won several awards, including two Grammys. For this musical's Toronto production in 1972, he asked Paul Shaffer to be the musical director, thus starting Shaffer's career. Godspell was followed by the English-language texts, in collaboration with Leonard Bernstein, for Bernstein's Mass, which opened the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.

(PS: I think we're probably on the wrong thread!)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It would be fair to say of course that there was more interesting music being made using purely folk,rock, and folk rock traditions at that point, but I'm not sure that is really the point.

It is for me - when the results are this bad. I don't listen to the composer's extra-Musical intentions; I listen to the Music that results - McGonagall's intentions when writing about the Tay Bridge disaster (or about anything) do not make the resulting verse any the less execrable.

Just because somebody uses elements of rock music in a wide ranging work, doesn't mean we expect it to be up there with the greatest rock music, or to be state of the art.

I do - and in your post you asked what the problem for "so many listeners" was with this work. If a composer uses "elements of Rock", then it's got to be "up there with the greatest", otherwise it's just patronising - and, in the genuine meaning of the word, snobbish. After all, in WSS, LB produced "Latino" Music that's "up there with the best" examples of those traditions.

Whether you find the narration toe curling might depend in this case on a willingness to suspend ( some element) of disbelief.

No it isn't (for me) - if the Music were worth listening to, the narrator could read from the 'phone book. I don't need extra-Musical excuses - "this Music is bad, but what he meant to do was ... " - I need something worth hearing. Mass is badly written - that's my "problem" with it.

[teamsaint]

I do - and in your post you asked what the problem for "so many listeners" was with this work. If a composer uses "elements of Rock", then it's got to be "up there with the greatest", otherwise it's just patronising - and, in the genuine meaning of the word, snobbish. After all, in WSS, LB produced "Latino" Music that's "up there with the best" examples of those traditions.


No it isn't (for me) - if the Music were worth listening to, the narrator could read from the 'phone book. I don't need extra-Musical excuses - "this Music is bad, but what he meant to do was ... " - I need something worth hearing. Mass is badly written - that's my "problem" with it.

We'll have to differ about things like the rock elements. Where a composer is using elements, style cues, I don't really expect them to produce something cutting edge.If he could have done that, or wanted to, then he would have made great rock albums, which he didn't, and presumably didn't want to do. I'd just see them as a pointer to mood or scene setter, or similar. ( And I think I'm pretty picky about rock music.......)

As to the narration, I don't think it is to do with extra musical excuses. It's just about it being part of the whole. I don't find suspending disbelief here difficult, as it sometimes can be. Of course if you feel the music is that bad, then perceived failures of the other elements, such as the narration and religious content almost inevitably follow. I just don't think the music is as bad as you clearly think it is, and do think that the work has many redeeming features, some humour being one of them.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

We'll have to differ about things

- and I'm genuinely glad that you respond so well to a work I detest by a composer whose earlier work (up to Chichester Psalms) I greatly enjoy, and whose conducting was a really important force in my Musical development - and which still deeply impresses me.

[teamsaint]

- and I'm genuinely glad that you respond so well to a work I detest by a composer whose earlier work (up to Chichester Psalms) I greatly enjoy, and whose conducting was a really important force in my Musical development - and which still deeply impresses me.

Oh I expect liking Mass is just a passing phase.........and I do feel I enjoy it in spite of a number of things. which was in part the start point for my question.
Anyway, I've been spending a good deal of time listening to his recordings ( of other composers) recently, which has mostly been wonderful. Time pressures can be a pain though.....

[Suffolkcoastal]

I was at the 2012 Prom performance of the Mass, it's a work I've known for over 30 years and one that I still enjoy listening to. I'm aware of it flaws, however there are parts that are really moving, the Sanctus in particular. Bernstein's attempt to bring together a considerable number of the various musical genre prevalent in the US & 'western music' in the late 1960's and create a coherent whole out of it was never realistically a task that was going to be totally successful, I think that would be beyond any composer's ability.
I've borrowed & played through the vocal score many times and even sung the Celebrant's opening 'number' 'A Simple Song', which isn't that simple at all! What interested me was the attempt to apply more 'classical' structure to the non-classical elements & vice-versa to mirror what he perceived as 'Man's' crisis of faith not just in religious terms but faith in himself, something that seems to have been very much in Bernstein's thoughts during the 1960's in the only two larger scale works he completed during that decade, the 'Kaddish Symphony' & 'Chichester Psalms'.