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The Unanswered Question 1973 3 Musical Semantics Bernstein Norton

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The Unanswered Question 1973 3 Musical Semantics Bernstein Norton .

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37 thoughts on “The Unanswered Question 1973 3 Musical Semantics Bernstein Norton”

  4. This is the kind of lecture that should be on TV at 7pm on mainstream channels
    (maybe not as technical)

    People would get more intelligent, acquire a reasonable culture and learn how to think by themselves.

  8. Actually, sir, I would amend your assessment that "Juliet is like the Sun" is a simile true in only one respect. There is another respect, other than that Juliet is radiant LIKE the Sun. Rather, she instantiates the star called the Sun, Sol, and therefore for us, with respect to radiance, IS THE ONLY Sun, and the other is just "a sunlike star". That's a transformation that is not a deletion, but reveals the power which requires the deletion. That is driven by an "irrational force" where the impression and evaluation of Juliet causes the speaker to feel that way that words then best describe "poetically". It is not merely an external sort of similarity, but a deeply felt DISSIMILARITY between Juliet and the Sun that causes the Sun's very deletion but in name only. For he doesn't see the Sun, at all, except AS Juliet.

  9. These lectures are great. One point of contention I have is the question of the left-hemisphere dominance in his view of music. I suppose he was latching onto Chomsky's work at the time, though. However, Iain MacGilchrist would disagree and I surmise has a more convincing argument suggesting the right-hemisphere is the source of music, and came before language. Ergo, language was informed by music.
    I suppose I could be mistaken, but after seeing (and mulling over) the first two parts, it seems to be his opinion.

  12. I just recently purchased the six DVD set of these lectures. Watching these has provide me some insight into this gifted man. His musical talent – especially how he can so easily play excerpts of music at the piano without looking at keyboard! – absolutely blows me away. Those musical moments with Bernstein playing at the piano are amazing.

    That said, these lectures are not entirely about music, and I have found myself frustrated watching them. Bernstein mentions an undergraduate woman who confronted Bernstein, and asked, "I understand what you say about Chomsky; but I don't understand what this have to do with music?" I feel the same way.

    Bernstein was fascinated with Noam Chomsky's observations about linguistic syntax. He spends a lot of time on Chomsky. I happen to be familiar with Chomsky, because I have applied his "tree diagrams" to learning German. Essentially, Chomsky observed that all languages share similar linguistic rules. There is a "deep meaning" to our sentences, whether they be simple sentences, or in the passive voice, or poetry.

    In these lectures, Bernstein is seeking a definition of "aesthetic" in music. In this case, he is kind of working backwards from Chomsky's approach. He says, there is no meaning to music beyond musical meaning. He is saying that, the "deep meaning of music" can be trivial, but by various musical transformations, composers create "metaphors" which imply the trivial, but avoid the trivial. This is what separates great composers from dull ones.

    It is impressive to see watch this man speaks so eloquently. However, in lectures 2 and 3, Bernstein struck me as someone who was talking to himself, wrestling with an intellectual puzzle of his own, with little regard for his captive audience.

    Whereas Chomsky's work can easily be understood on the level of symbols, Bernstein seems to be thinking out loud, in search of something that he could have formalized into simple rules. His self dialogue – with eidetic/perfect memory recall of passages from Shakespeare, the bible, various philosophers – about "aesthetic" in music, were far too intellectual for me. Nothing should be this complicated.

  13. 1:31:08 OMG that is awful, what Cole Porter (or somebody!) did to Tchaikovsky Symphony #2 Mvt. 4…..really awful. LOL But it doesn't beat what somebody once did to opening of Mozart's 40th…"It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a Mozart…shoot 'em down, shoot 'em down, shoot 'em down-down…"

  16. Part 3 an excellent lecture on the nature of the human being. The flawed and evolving nature of ALL HUMAN BEINGS!! What mr B is asking the listener to do is to forgive, forget and renew our habitual mind and find out how Beethoven attempts to overcome his very own nature. I think the references to the inquisitive student is fictional and only there as a dialogue tool (classic logic, people!) it also captures for better or worse the zeitgeist of his audience. Imagine a man of his age going back to school?

  22. I am only 45 minutes in and I have to give my brain a rest. My head hurts. I will watch the rest in time. I do not know if my vocabulary is even remotely adequate to grasp everything he is saying. I am looking up the meaning of words left right and center… learning always learning. 🙂 What a brilliant mind he had.

  28. Someone mentioned it below, but it bears repeating – look how few women (and also how few younger men) were in the BSO in 1973. We truly have come a very long way in the right direction since then, current political throwbacks hopefully soon to be set aside.

  33. He says that the minor third is the 18th partial, which maybe is true, but isn't it also between the fifth and the sixth? CCGCEG? The major triad is built on a major third at the bottom, but that leaves a minor third on the top between the major third and the fifth.

  34. I really tried to listen to the Symphony without "extrinsic" meanings but i only lasted until 1:38:18 …Not very far, i know but such is the force of the command that Louis has upon my soul…

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