3rd Symphony (Bernstein)

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The . Symphony No. 3 , called Kaddish (English: "Kaddish", German: prayer for the dead ), was in 1963 by Leonard Bernstein for orchestra, mixed choir, boys' choir and soprano solo commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra composed.

Work description

In the symphony, Bernstein addresses the Jewish prayer Kaddish , from which he uses parts. The rest of the text comes from himself.

The symphony is divided into three parts:

  • "Invocation" (Kaddish 1),
  • “Examination according to the law” / “Din Torah” (Kaddish 2) and
  • "Scherzo - Finale" (Kaddish 3).

The piece takes about 40 minutes.

Invocatio

An aged man turns to his father to speak his kaddish. The choir sings the man's first prayer for the dead. Then the man makes his demands to the father: order and peace on earth, his gift.

Din Torah

Translatable with testing by his law , it calls an account of the Father for allowing too much to happen. The second prayer for the dead follows.

final

Supported by the request / demand for a new covenant. Finally, after the third kaddish, it comes to that.

history

The premiere of the first version took place on December 10, 1963 in Tel Aviv . The work is dedicated to US President John F. Kennedy , who was shot a few weeks before the premiere.

Bernstein initially insisted on a female speaker role, but later revised this and revised the text in 1977. This revised version was premiered on August 20, 1977 under the direction of the composer at the Carinthian Summer Festival in the Villach Congress Center (today the Villach Congress Center).

In the reception area, the text was repeatedly reworked for recordings and performances. Jamie Bernstein, a daughter of the composer, edited the text for the recording of Leonard Slatkin, as did the Holocaust survivor Samuel Pisar (1929–2015) in 2003 , whom Bernstein had already asked for a new version of the text.

Discography

literature

  • Andrew Bernard: Two Musical Perspectives of Twentieth-Century Pacifism - An analytical and historical view of Britten's War Requiem and Bernstein's Kaddish Symphony , typescript. Diss (DMA), University of Washington 1990, pp. 182-225.
  • Jack Gottlieb: The Music of Leonard Bernstein - A Study in Melodic Manipulations , typescript. Diss. (DMA) University of Illinois 1964, pp. 119-137.
  • Alexander Niemeyer: Music and memory with Ernest Bloch and Leonard Bernstein: Cultural semiotics and didactic studies on the memory-cultural potential of music , Paderborn, Univ. Diss., 2014, pp. 487-663 [electronic resource (open source), link: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:466:2-17132 ].
  • Karen Rasmussen, "Transcendence in Leonard Bernstein's Kaddish Symphony", in: The Quarterly Journal of Speech 80.2 (1994), pp. 150-173. [electronic resource (licensed), link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00335639409384065 ].
  • Thomas Röder; Klaus Meyer: "The symphonies of Leonard Bernstein", in: Leonard Bernstein - The composer , ed. by Reinhold Duseln and Helmut Loos, Bonn: Boosey & Hawkes 1989, pp. 75-92 [ ISBN 978-3-87090-207-0 ].
  • Alexandra Scheibler: "I believe in people" - Leonard Bernstein's religious attitude as reflected in his works , Hildesheim: Olms 2001 (= studies and materials for musicology, vol. 22), p. 83ff. [ ISBN 978-3-48711-344-9 ].
  • David M. Schiller: "'My Own Kaddish' - Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 3", in: Key Texts in American Jewish Culture , ed. by Jack Kugelmass, Rutgers University Press 2003, pp. 185-196 [ ISBN 978-0-81353-221-9 ].
  • Ulrich Walker: "Crisis scenarios and Weltanschauungsmusik: Bernstein's symphonies", in: Leonard Bernstein and his time, ed. by Andreas Eichhorn, Laaber: Laaber 2017, pp. 86-102 [ ISBN 978-3-89007-768-0 ].

Filmography

Web links