Noted musicologist Michael Beckerman looked closely at Leonard Bernstein's views of Antonín Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony in a lecture on Sunday, October 29th, presented by the Dvořák American Heritage Association in celebration of the New York Philharmonic's "New World Initiative" (2016-17) and the centenary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth. Michael Beckerman is Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Music at New York University and Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic for the 2017-18 season, his second year in the position.

Bernstein was both a great champion of the "New World" Symphony, and in some ways, one of its harshest critics. In a series of performances, lectures and both musical and speech recordings over the years he advanced the notion that the symphony was not really "American" in any way. Further, echoing Brahms, he stated that despite the composer's use of beautiful melodies, the work does not have the requisite development of themes representative of the greatest symphonies. Beckerman explored the arguments and their context, taking them on their own terms, and tested their main premises in an illuminating lecture tracing not only Bernstein’s views, but the varying attitudes toward the “New World” symphony over time.

Click here to enjoy a replay of this event on DAHA's YouTube Channel!