July, 2020
Washington – Stay at home this 4th of July, that's the patriotic thing to do.
Instead of watching fireworks, listen to some. Here's a suggestion: Charles Ives' Second Symphony, as explained and conducted by Leonard Bernstein.
In this youtube offering, Bernstein is near the end of his life and you have to wonder if he didn't have one too many before this performance. But he is ever the great teacher. He was the one who rescued the symphony and gave it its first performance a half century after it was written.
It is now regarded as perhaps the greatest American symphony ever written.
How many tunes can you pick out? Many are wonderfully disguised; others are blasted out as a joke. It is hard not to laugh. By the last movement, the listener will be befuddled unless the symphony is understood as a work made to amuse as well as to celebrate Americana.
Do children these days grow up with such wonderful tunes in their ears? I hope so. I did.
