Jewish Americans come from all over...
...and that goes for the Jewish songwriters I've highlighted on this blog too, of course. Flipping through the Wikipedia articles on a smattering of these, I find Germany, Lithuania, England, Poland, Austria, Prussia, Belarus, and of course, broadly, Russia. Often there is no mention of where their parents or grandparents came from, just that they were Jewish and lived in this or that city. But one entry leapt out at me for specifically giving the city from which his parents emigrated--Rovno, which is now Rivne, in Western Ukraine: Leonard Bernstein.
Of course, Bernstein wrote a great amount of music, both for classical venues (Jeremiah, Candide, Kaddish) and for Broadway (West Side Story, On the Town, Wonderful Town), but just as evidently he was best known for conducting, and one piece that he conducted seems particularly appropriate to me, coming in the middle of an attempt to destroy Ukraine. So today I bring you the beginning of the Fourth Movement of Beethoven's Symphony #9, as conducted by Leonard Bernstein as part of a celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. For that occasion, Bernstein changed the word "Freude" (joy) in the text of Schiller's "Ode to Joy" to "Freiheit" (freedom), and the concert was recorded and released as the "Ode to Freedom":
Video posted by OdetoClassical
(Note: The movement begins very, very quietly, but it does not stay very, very quiet, so if you bump up the volume to hear the beginning be ready to lower it again. Also, I do want to encourage you to listen to the whole thing, it is simply wonderful. You can listen to it on YouTube, of course, but if you can get ahold of a CD, or if you can find a good quality stream, it's really worth your time and money.)
Of course, Bernstein wrote a great amount of music, both for classical venues (Jeremiah, Candide, Kaddish) and for Broadway (West Side Story, On the Town, Wonderful Town), but just as evidently he was best known for conducting, and one piece that he conducted seems particularly appropriate to me, coming in the middle of an attempt to destroy Ukraine. So today I bring you the beginning of the Fourth Movement of Beethoven's Symphony #9, as conducted by Leonard Bernstein as part of a celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. For that occasion, Bernstein changed the word "Freude" (joy) in the text of Schiller's "Ode to Joy" to "Freiheit" (freedom), and the concert was recorded and released as the "Ode to Freedom":
(Note: The movement begins very, very quietly, but it does not stay very, very quiet, so if you bump up the volume to hear the beginning be ready to lower it again. Also, I do want to encourage you to listen to the whole thing, it is simply wonderful. You can listen to it on YouTube, of course, but if you can get ahold of a CD, or if you can find a good quality stream, it's really worth your time and money.)
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