Invoking Spirit of Bernstein

Tom Cothran, who assisted Leonard Bernstein on his Norton Lectures and was practically their ghost writer, once characterized his contribution as preventing these televised series of six talks at Harvard University in 1973 from becoming even more embarrassing than they already were. Bernstein, in a hugely defensive mood after the critical rejection of his wildly eclectic Mass a couple of years earlier, wanted to prove that tonality and eclecticism were rooted as deeply in our beings as language.

He did so with extravagant academic hooey, inexactly borrowing from Noam Chomsky’s linguistic theory--”I believe that from the Earth emerges a musical poetry, which is by nature of its sources tonal” and “these sources cause to exist a phonology of music.” Now the Philharmonic Society of Orange County has chosen Bernstein as the patron saint of its new Eclectic Orange series. This weekend, at Segerstrom Hall, was the peculiar ordination.

The Bernstein Norton Lectures were rudimentary multimedia events, which included videotaped performances. For his last lecture, “The Poetry of the Earth,” Bernstein used Stravinsky’s oratorio “Oedipus Rex” as an example of how Stravinsky-ized Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi and Russian folk music could congeal into something original and contemporary. Bernstein--in academic tweeds, bow-tie and boots--sincerely peered into the camera and theorized. But, the minute he sat at the piano, his musical examples piled revelation upon riveting revelation. Following the lecture, Bernstein presented a videotaped, semi-staged performance he made for the occasion with the Boston Symphony; it was fabulous.

The procedure was reversed Saturday night. First, the Bernstein Harvard lecture was screened with some updated computer effects. Then “Oedipus Rex” was performed live in concert by the National Symphony, with Leonard Slatkin conducting.

The enhancements on the video tended to underscore Bernstein’s desperation. Where Bernstein in his original lectures liked to project the scores, this new version graphically underscored his points with projection of text. Occasionally, modern images were added to make a point--including one of Sarajevo--and Bernstein’s own image was dramatically enhanced with music-video-type framing devices. That technique carried over into the live performance as well, with text of the oratorio, which is sung in Latin but presented with English narration, flashed on the screen in varying typefaces and colored backgrounds to add its own bit of drama.

The result was almost impossible to make work, since the lecture was far more about Bernstein than it was about Stravinsky. The effect of Bernstein croaking out excerpts from the oratorio in a voice ugly beyond description is also without description. The music in all its power and drama somehow comes to inexplicably vivid life--and seeing it on a large screen made it even larger than life. Slatkin’s performance was human in scale and somewhat bland. All that rhythmic accenting that Bernstein prepared us for simply wasn’t there.

The performance itself sounded thrown together. The men of the Pacific Chorale read their music with literal correctness. Mezzo-soprano Michelle De Young was a nicely florid Jocasta, but dramatically slight. Tenor Stanford Olsen was the wooden Oedipus. John Relyea was similarly sonorous in the bass and baritone parts of Creon, Tiresias and the Messenger. John Duykers had theatrical presence if less vocal security as the shepherd. John-David Keller was the excitable, overamplified narrator. Slatkin’s performance was neatly organized but not more. The National Symphony is a much improved orchestra under him, but this wasn’t its moment.

The irony of this program and the Norton Lectures was that Bernstein was ultimately right, but for the wrong reasons. The eclecticism that he argued for is the way of the musical world at the end of the 20th century and hardly seems to need defense anymore. Eclectic Orange--in which the Kronos Quartet, Purcell’s “King Arthur” and Paco Pena are bedfellows--makes perfect sense, but not because there is a deep structural connection. We are restless and now, I think, delight more in musical differences.

The further irony is that Slatkin is a conductor with a sympathy for eclecticism. Among the works he is currently presenting on tour is William Bolcom’s new Sixth Symphony, a work by one of America’s most successful eclectic composers.

Still, Dean Corey--whose concept this concert was and who heads the Philharmonic Society--has dared to make a statement, and that alone is rare and valuable. By being willing to question the nature of the musical experience, he, in fact, properly acknowledges an essential aspect of Bernstein’s example.