Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
Music and Religion in the Lives of Five Great Composers
Speaker
Professor Walter Aaron Clark
Coordinator
Steve Clarey
Richard Wagner’s notorious anti-Semitic screed Das Judenthum in der Musik (Judaism in Music, 1850) assailed Jews as an alien and corrupting presence in German culture. In fact, the past 200 years of Western classical music are inconceivable without the interaction of Judaism and Christianity. European antisemitism will serve as the frame in which to understand the struggles and contributions of Felix Mendelssohn and Gustav Mahler. The ultramodernist Arnold Schoenberg elides Europe with America, as he fled Nazism in 1934 and moved to the U.S., where Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein would play a crucial role in defining the country’s musical identity.
April 2: Felix Mendelssohn
Mendelssohn (1809–1847) was the most remarkable musical prodigy since Mozart. His grandfather was the eminent Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, but his father renounced Judaism and had Felix baptized. Still, racial attitudes in the 1800s cemented the perception of him as a Jewish composer. We survey the legacy of antisemitism in Europe leading up to Wagner, then focus on Mendelssohn’s life and music. A prolific composer, he was a central figure in the transition from the Classical to Romantic periods. As a conductor, he played a leading role in the revival of Bach’s sacred works.
April 16: Gustav Mahler
Mahler (1860–1911) provides a similar bridge from the Romantic to Modern periods in music. Though from a German-speaking family of Jews, he was educated and worked most of his life in the glittering environs of fin-de-siècle Vienna. One of the most celebrated conductors of his day, he nonetheless had to convert to Catholicism before being allowed to conduct the Vienna Court Opera. Only posthumously did he gain renown as an important composer, one now celebrated for his nine symphonies and monumental song cycles.
April 30: Arnold Schoenberg
Schoenberg (1874–1951) picked up where Mahler left off. Just as Kandinsky and Picasso promoted abstractionism in art, so Schoenberg developed a new musical language inspired by German Expressionism and based on an “abstraction” of traditional harmony, i.e., atonality. He eventually developed a “twelve-tone” system to provide the formal coherence typical of traditional tonality. He became a Lutheran in 1898, but with the advent of Nazism, he re-embraced Judaism in Paris before settling in Los Angeles and teaching at UCLA starting in 1935. Works from this period, especially the Kol Nidre and A Survivor From Warsaw, rediscover his religious roots.
May 14: Aaron Copland
Perhaps more than any other classical composer, Copland (1900–1990) defined the sound of America. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, he grew up in New York and pursued advanced studies in Paris. Early on he was attracted to jazz, but during the 1930s his musical compass pointed increasingly toward the traditional music of rural America, the old west and even Latin America. His 1944 ballet Appalachian Spring highlights the Shaker tune “Simple Gifts.” In his ballets, orchestral works and film scores, he developed a musical idiom that expresses the dynamic energy and boundless horizons of the American experience.
May 28: Leonard Bernstein
Bernstein (1918–1990) first came to prominence as guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic in 1943. He later became their principal conductor, a post he used to promote the music of unjustly neglected composers like Mahler and Charles Ives. His innovative Young People’s Concerts introduced a national audience to classical music via the medium of television. He himself became a leading composer of Broadway musicals, as well as serious concert music, including a controversial Mass. We focus on his remarkable achievements as a conductor, composer, pianist and educator.
April 2: Felix Mendelssohn
Mendelssohn (1809–1847) was the most remarkable musical prodigy since Mozart. His grandfather was the eminent Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, but his father renounced Judaism and had Felix baptized. Still, racial attitudes in the 1800s cemented the perception of him as a Jewish composer. We survey the legacy of antisemitism in Europe leading up to Wagner, then focus on Mendelssohn’s life and music. A prolific composer, he was a central figure in the transition from the Classical to Romantic periods. As a conductor, he played a leading role in the revival of Bach’s sacred works.
April 16: Gustav Mahler
Mahler (1860–1911) provides a similar bridge from the Romantic to Modern periods in music. Though from a German-speaking family of Jews, he was educated and worked most of his life in the glittering environs of fin-de-siècle Vienna. One of the most celebrated conductors of his day, he nonetheless had to convert to Catholicism before being allowed to conduct the Vienna Court Opera. Only posthumously did he gain renown as an important composer, one now celebrated for his nine symphonies and monumental song cycles.
April 30: Arnold Schoenberg
Schoenberg (1874–1951) picked up where Mahler left off. Just as Kandinsky and Picasso promoted abstractionism in art, so Schoenberg developed a new musical language inspired by German Expressionism and based on an “abstraction” of traditional harmony, i.e., atonality. He eventually developed a “twelve-tone” system to provide the formal coherence typical of traditional tonality. He became a Lutheran in 1898, but with the advent of Nazism, he re-embraced Judaism in Paris before settling in Los Angeles and teaching at UCLA starting in 1935. Works from this period, especially the Kol Nidre and A Survivor From Warsaw, rediscover his religious roots.
May 14: Aaron Copland
Perhaps more than any other classical composer, Copland (1900–1990) defined the sound of America. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, he grew up in New York and pursued advanced studies in Paris. Early on he was attracted to jazz, but during the 1930s his musical compass pointed increasingly toward the traditional music of rural America, the old west and even Latin America. His 1944 ballet Appalachian Spring highlights the Shaker tune “Simple Gifts.” In his ballets, orchestral works and film scores, he developed a musical idiom that expresses the dynamic energy and boundless horizons of the American experience.
May 28: Leonard Bernstein
Bernstein (1918–1990) first came to prominence as guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic in 1943. He later became their principal conductor, a post he used to promote the music of unjustly neglected composers like Mahler and Charles Ives. His innovative Young People’s Concerts introduced a national audience to classical music via the medium of television. He himself became a leading composer of Broadway musicals, as well as serious concert music, including a controversial Mass. We focus on his remarkable achievements as a conductor, composer, pianist and educator.
Speaker Bio
Walter Aaron Clark is Distinguished Professor of Musicology at the University of California, Riverside, where he is founder and director of the Center for Iberian and Latin American Music. He holds the title of Commander of the Order of Isabel the Catholic, a Spanish knighthood. He teaches courses, including previous Osher classes, that span the entire history of Western classical music from the Middle Ages to the modern era. He received his PhD in musicology from UCLA.
02
16
30
14
28