__NOTOC__ Year 100 (C) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Traianus and Frontinus (or, less frequently, year 853 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 100 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Events

By place

Roman Empire

Emperor Trajan and Sextus Julius Frontinus become Roman Consuls.

Bricks become the primary building material in the Roman Empire.

Pliny the Younger advances to consulship, giving his panegyric on Trajan in the process.

The Roman Army reaches 300,000 soldiers.

Tiberius Avidius Quietus' rule as governor of Roman Britain ends.

Timgad (Thamugas), a Roman colonial town in North Africa is founded by Trajan.

Trajan creates a policy intended to restore the former economic supremacy of Italy.

Europe

Lions have become extinct in the Balkans by this date.

Asia

Pakores (last king of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom) takes the throne.

Paper is used by the general populace in China, starting around this year.

The Kingdom of Himyarite is conquered by the Hadramaut.

Americas

The Hopewell tradition begins in what is now Ohio circa this date.

Teotihuacan, at the center of Mexico, reaches a population of 50,000.

The Moche civilization emerges, and starts building a society in present-day Peru.

By topic

Arts and sciences

In China, the wheelbarrow makes its first appearance.

Main hall, Markets of Trajan, Rome, is made (until 112).

Religion

Appearance of the first Christian dogma and formulas regarding morality.

The Gospel of John is widely believed to have been written around this date.

The compilation of the Kama sutra begins in India.

The Temple of the God of Medicine is built in Anguo, China.

The Fourth Buddhist Council is convened circa this year.

Births

Justin Martyr, Christian apologist (approximate date)

Marcus Cornelius Fronto, Roman grammarian, rhetorician and advocate (d. 170)

Deaths

Agrippa II of Judea

Josephus, Jewish historian (b. 37)

References

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thumb|right|Heinrich Schütz, c. 1650-1660 (Leipzig), by Christoph SpetnerHeinrich Schütz (October 8 (JC), 1585 - November 6, 1672) was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi. He wrote what is thought to be the first German opera, Dafne, performed at Torgau in 1627, of which the music has since been lost. He is commemorated as a musician in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church on July 28 with Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. He was buried in the Dresden Frauenkirche but his tomb has been destroyed.

Life

He was born in Köstritz, the eldest son of Christoph Schütz and Euphrosyne Bieger. In 1590 the family moved to Weißenfels, where his father Christoph managed the inn "Zum Ring". When Schutz was staying at the inn, his musical talents were discovered by Moritz von Hessen-Kassel in 1599. After being a choir-boy he went on to study law at Marburg before going to Venice from 1609–1612 to study music with Giovanni Gabrieli. Gabrieli is the only person Schütz ever referred to as being his teacher. He also inherited a ring from Gabrieli shortly before the latter's death. He subsequently had a short stint as organist at Kassel before moving to Dresden in 1615 to work as court composer to the Elector of Saxony. In 1619 Schütz married Magdalena Wildeck who had been born in 1601. She produced two daughters before her death in 1625: Anna Justina born in 1621 and Euphrosyne born in 1623.

In Dresden Schutz sowed the seeds of what is now the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, but left there on several occasions; in 1628 he went to Venice again, most likely meeting Claudio Monteverdi there - he may have studied with him. In 1633 he was invited to Copenhagen to compose the music for wedding festivities there, eventually returning to Dresden in 1635. He again conducted an extended visit to Denmark in 1641. In 1655, the year that his daughter Euphrosyne died, he accepted an ex officio post as Kapellmeister at Wolfenbüttel.

Schutz died in Dresden from a stroke in 1672 at the age of 87.

His pupils included Christoph Bernhard and Matthias Weckmann.

Style

Schütz's compositions show the influence of his teacher Gabrieli (displayed most notably with Schütz's use of resplendent polychoral and concertato styles) and of Monteverdi. Additionally, the influence of the Netherlandish composers of the 16th century is prominent in his work. His best known works are in the field of sacred music, ranging from solo voice with instrumental accompaniment to a cappella choral music. Representative works include his three books of Symphoniae sacrae, the Psalms of David (Psalmen Davids), the Sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz (the Seven Last Words on the Cross) and his three Passion settings. Schütz's music, while starting off in the most progressive styles early in his career, eventually grows into a style that is simple and almost austere, culminating with his late Passion settings. Practical considerations were certainly responsible for part of this change: the Thirty Years' War had devastated the musical infrastructure of Germany, and it was no longer practical or even possible to put on the gigantic works in the Venetian style which marked his earlier period.

Schütz was one of the last composers to write in a modal style. His harmonies often result from the contrapuntal alignment of voices rather than from any sense of "harmonic motion"; contrastingly, much of his music shows a strong tonal pull when approaching cadences. His music includes a great deal of imitation, but structured in such a way that the successive voices do not necessarily enter after the same number of beats or at predictable intervallic distances. Schütz's writing often includes intense dissonances caused by the contrapuntal motion of voices moving in correct individual linear motion, but resulting in startling harmonic tension. Above all, his music displays extreme sensitivity to the accents and meaning of the text, which is often conveyed using special technical figures drawn from musica poetica, themselves drawn from or created in analogy to the verbal figures of classical rhetoric.

Almost no secular music by Schütz has survived, save for a few domestic songs (arien) and no purely instrumental music at all (unless one counts the short instrumental movement entitled "sinfonia" that encloses the dialogue of Die sieben Worte), even though he had a reputation as one of the finest organists in Germany.

Schütz was of great importance in bringing new musical ideas to Germany from Italy, and as such had a large influence on the German music which was to follow. The style of the north German organ school derives largely from Schütz (as well as from the Dutchman Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck); a century later this music was to culminate in the work of J.S. Bach. After Bach, the most important composer to be influenced by Schütz was Brahms, who is known to have studied his works.

Works

[[Image:Heinrich Schutz by Rembrandt.jpg|thumb|Rembrandt: Portrait of an anonymous musician, 1633 (Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). In Schütz-research regarded as inauthentic and not portraying Heinrich Schütz.]] The following are major published works; most of these contain multiple pieces of music; single published works are listed in the complete complete work list, as are major unpublished works such as the Seven Last Words, and the Passions according Matthew, Luke and John. There are over 500 total surviving individual pieces by Schütz.

Il primo libro de madrigali (first book of madrigals) (opus 1, Venice, 1611)

Psalmen Davids (Book 1) (opus 2, Dresden, 1619)

Historia der ... Aufferstehung ... (The Resurrection) (opus 3, Dresden, 1623)

Cantiones sacrae (opus 4, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1625)

Becker Psalter (opus 5, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1628, revised 1661)

Symphoniae sacrae (Book 1) (opus 6, Venice, 1629)

Musikalische Exequien (opus 7, Dresden, 1636)

Kleine geistliche Konzerte (Book 1) (opus 8, Leipzig, 1636)

Kleine geistliche Konzerte (Book 2) (opus 9, Leipzig, 1639)

Symphoniae sacrae (Book 2) (opus 10, Dresden, 1647)

Geistliche Chor-Music (opus 11, Dresden, 1648)

Symphoniae sacrae (Book 3) (opus 12, Dresden, 1650)

Zwölf geistliche Gesänge (opus 13, Dresden, 1657)

Historia, der ... Geburt ... Jesu Christi (The Nativity), (Dresden, 1664)

Königs und Propheten 119er Psalm ... (Psalm 119, Psalm 100, and German Magnificat: "Swan Song"] (opus ultimum, Dresden, 1671)

Sources

Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1947. ISBN 0393097455

Wolfram Steude, Zum gegenwärtigen Stand der Schütz-Ikonographie., in: Schütz-Jahrbuch 1985/86. Kassel, Bärenreiter, 1986, p. 50-61. ISBN 3-7618-0778-3

Basil Smallman: Heinrich Schütz, The Master Musicians, 2000.

Tamsin (née T.D.) Jones, "Passions in Perspective: An Analytical Discussion of the Three Passions of Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) against their Historical and Stylistic Backgrounds" (Ph. D. thesis, University of Birmingham, 2000)

Heinrich Schütz: "Geistliche Chor-Music, Op. 11." Edited by Andrew Thomas Kuster. Ann Arbor, MI, 2005. ISBN 1411642430.

References

External links

Germany Fed. Rep. 1972 stamp devoted to Heinrich Schütz

Category:1585 births Category:1672 deaths Category:People from the District of Greiz Category:Baroque composers Category:German composers Category:Opera composers Category:German classical organists Category:People celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendar Category:Classical composers of church music Category:Deaths from stroke Category:17th-century German people Category:Madrigal composers

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Unsere Besten ("Our Best") was a television series shown in German public television (ZDF) in November 2003, similar to the BBC series 100 Greatest Britons.

In subsequent years, a dozen similar rankings were compiled, mostly titled the "favourite (topic) of the Germans", with topics including books, places, songs, actors, comedians, sports persons (extra list for soccer players), inventions, and TV broadcasts (extra list for Olympic games).

The Greatest Germans

The intention initially was to find out "Who are the greatest Germans?" (Wer sind die größten Deutschen?), with more rankings to follow later. The German public was allowed to vote (via postcard, SMS or Internet) for the most important Germans—historical or contemporary—from a list of more than 300 people, plus additional suggestions.

This pre-determined list of candidates was created for two reasons:

to exclude controversial figures from certain eras of German history, like Adolf Hitler and Erich Honecker.

to decide beforehand who was to be considered as "German" in the first place, due to the complications of German history and its changing frontiers, which could have excluded such people as Mozart and Romy Schneider (Austria) or Albert Schweitzer (France).

However, the inclusion of Nikolaus Kopernikus, who spoke and wrote German, in the list of scientists caused controversy in Poland where he is revered as a national hero — the Polish Senate declared him an "exceptional Pole" on 12 June 2003. Similarly the inclusion of Mozart and Freud was criticized in Austria.

For the final Top Ten, an additional round was held, in which each candidate was promoted by an "ambassador" (most of them journalists) that would explain the work and importance of his/her favourite.

Guido Knopp for Konrad Adenauer

Margot Käßmann for Martin Luther

Gregor Gysi for Karl Marx

Alice Schwarzer for die Geschwister Scholl, Sophie and Hans Scholl

Friedrich Nowottny for Willy Brandt

Götz Alsmann for Johann Sebastian Bach

Peter Sodann for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Wolf von Lojewski for Johannes Gutenberg

Helmut Markwort for Otto von Bismarck

Nina Ruge for Albert Einstein

The final list appeared as shown below (in descending order). Several rather unknown figures ranked relatively high, no doubt because of temporary popularity and organized votes from fan groups (15.), or in case of 125., just an entry by organized Internet forum members to honour one of their members.

Final list

#Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of West Germany 1949-1963 (1876-1967) #Martin Luther, leader of the reformation, father of Protestantism (1483-1546) #Karl Marx, political economist, philosopher (1818-1883) #Sophie and Hans Scholl, White Rose young anti-Nazi students (1921/1918-1943) #Willy Brandt, West German chancellor from 1969-1974, implemented the Ostpolitik (1913-1992) #Johann Sebastian Bach, composer (1685-1750) #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writer (1749-1832) #Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of movable type printing in Europe (1400-1468) #Otto von Bismarck, politician responsible for creation of German Empire in 1871, and hence its first chancellor (1815-1898) #Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist who discovered the general theory of relativity (1879-1955) #Adolph Kolping, priest (1813-1865) #Ludwig van Beethoven, composer (1770-1827) #Helmut Kohl, West German chancellor from 1982-1998, important figure for Germany's Reunification (born 1930) #Robert Bosch, inventor and industrialist (1861-1942) #Daniel Küblböck, singer (born 1985) #Konrad Zuse, computer inventor (1910-1995) #Josef Kentenich, priest (1885-1968) #Albert Schweitzer, physician and philanthropist (1875-1965) #Karlheinz Böhm, actor and charity activist (born 1928) #Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composer (1756-1791) #Helmut Schmidt, West German chancellor from 1974-1982 (born 1918) #Regine Hildebrandt, politician (1941-2001) #Alice Schwarzer, feminist journalist (born 1942) #Thomas Gottschalk, TV host (born 1950) #Herbert Grönemeyer, musician (born 1956) #Michael Schumacher, racing driver (born 1969) #Ludwig Erhard, west German chancellor, creator of the Wirtschaftswunder in the 1950s (1897-1977) #Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, physicist (1845-1923) #Günther Jauch, television celebrity and journalist (born 1956) #Dieter Bohlen, television celebrity and music producer (born 1954) #Jan Ullrich, athlete (cycling) (born 1973) #Steffi Graf, athlete (tennis) (born 1969) #Samuel Hahnemann, physician (1755-1843) #Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian and Nazi victim (1906-1945) #Boris Becker, athlete (tennis) (born 1967) #Franz Beckenbauer, athlete (football), coach and organiser (born 1945) #Oskar Schindler, industrialist, Jews' saviour (1908-1974) #Nena, singer (born 1960) #Hans-Dietrich Genscher, politician (born 1927) #Heinz Rühmann, actor (1902-1994) #Harald Schmidt, comedian (born 1957) #Frederick II of Prussia ("Frederick the Great") king (1712-1786) #Immanuel Kant, philosopher, leading figure of the Enlightenment (1724-1804) #Patrick Lindner, singer (born 1960) #Hartmut Engler, singer (Pur) (born 1961) #Hildegard von Bingen, nun, writer and musician (1098-1179) #Heino, singer (born 1938) #Richard von Weizsäcker, Federal President from 1984-1994 (born 1920) #Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, military officer and Anti-Hitler activist (1907-1944) #Marlene Dietrich, actress and singer (1901-1992) #Robert Koch, physician (1843-1910) #Joschka Fischer, Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor from 1998-2005 (born 1948) #Karl May, writer (1842-1912) #Loriot (Vicco von Bülow), satirist (1923-2011) #Albertus Magnus, scholar (1200-1280) #Rudi Völler, athlete (football) (born 1960) #Heinz Erhardt, comedian (1909-1979) #Roy Black, singer and actor (1943-1991) #Heinz-Harald Frentzen, racing driver (born 1967) #Wolfgang Apel, animal rights activist (born 1951) #Alexander von Humboldt, scientist (1769-1859) #Peter Kraus, singer (born 1939) #Wernher von Braun, rocket scientist (1912-1977) #Dirk Nowitzki, athlete (basketball) (born 1978) #Campino, singer (Die Toten Hosen) (born 1962) #Franz Josef Strauß, politician (1915-1988) #Sebastian Kneipp, physician (1821-1897) #Friedrich Schiller, writer (1759-1805) #Richard Wagner, composer (1813-1883) #Katarina Witt, athlete (figure skating) (born 1965) #Fritz Walter, athlete (football), captain of 1954 world championship winners (1920-2002) #Nicole, singer (born 1964) #Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, priest (1831-1910) #Otto Lilienthal, aviation pioneer (1848-1896) #Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, editor (1909-2002) #Thomas Mann, writer (1875-1955) #Hermann Hesse, writer (1877-1962) #Romy Schneider, actress (1938-1982) #Sven Hannawald, athlete (ski jumping) (born 1974) #Elisabeth of Bavaria ("Sissi"), royal consort (1837-1898) #Willy Millowitsch, actor and comedian (1909-1999) #Gerhard Schröder, Chancellor from 1998-2005 (born 1944) #Joseph Beuys, artist (1921-1986) #Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900) #Rudi Dutschke, student leader in the 1960s (1940-1979) #Karl Lehmann, priest (born 1936) #Beate Uhse, erotica entrepreneur (1919-2001) #Trümmerfrauen ("rubble women"), rebuilding Germany after the war #Carl Friedrich Gauss, mathematician and physicist (1777-1855) #Helmut Rahn, athlete (football), scorer of winning goal in 1954 (1929-2003) #Albrecht Dürer, artist (1471-1528) #Max Schmeling, athlete (boxing) (1905-2005) #Karl Benz, automobile pioneer (1844-1929) #Frederick II, emperor (1194-1250) #Reinhard Mey, singer-songwriter (born 1942) #Heinrich Heine, writer (1797-1856) #Georg Elser, Hitler assassin (1903-1945) #Konrad Duden, linguist (1829-1911) #James Last, composer (born 1929) #Uwe Seeler, athlete (football) (born 1936) #Jenny de la Torre Castro, "Angel of the Homeless" (born 1954) #Erich Gutenberg, economist (1897-1984) #Emanuel Lasker, chess champion (1868-1941) #Rudolf Steiner, philosopher (1861-1925) #Edith Stein, theologian (1891-1942) #Farin Urlaub, musician (Die Ärzte) (born 1963) #Xavier Naidoo, singer (born 1971) #Nicolaus Copernicus, astronomer (1473-1543) #Adam Riese, mathematician (1492-1559) #Gottlieb Daimler, automobile pioneer (1834-1900) #Erich Kästner, writer (1899-1974) #Rosa Luxemburg, politician (1871-1919) #Bertolt Brecht, writer (1898-1956) #Theodor Heuss, politician (1884-1963) #Otto I the Great, monarch (912-973) #Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst (1856-1939) #Christine Licci, Citibank chief (born 1964) #Wilhelm Busch, writer (1832-1908) #Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, politician (born 1921) #Udo Lindenberg, musician (born 1946) #Eugen Drewermann, theologian (born 1940) #Ferdinand Sauerbruch, physician (1875-1951) #Peter Maffay, musician (born 1949) #Josef Frings, cardinal archbishop of Cologne (1887-1978) #Silke Fritzen, entry pushed by a group of internet users #Max Planck, physicist (1858-1947) #Johannes Rau, politician, Federal President 1999-2004 (1931-2006) #Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Brothers Grimm , linguists (1785-1863 and 1786-1859) #Baron Münchhausen, legendary nobleman and entertainer (1720-1797) #Wilhelm II, last German emperor (1859-1941) #Rudolf Augstein, journalist and publisher (1923-2002) #Heinrich Böll, writer (1917-1985) #Ralf Schumacher, racing driver (born 1975) #Anne Frank, teenage diary writer and Nazi victim (1929-1945) #Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor ("Barbarossa"), monarch (1122-1190) #Sigmund Jähn, cosmonaut, first German in space (born 1937) #Franziska van Almsick, athlete (swimming) (born 1979) #Clemens August Graf von Galen, theologian and resistance fighter (1878-1946) #Ludwig II, "the Fairy tale King", king of Bavaria (1845-1886) #Carl Friedrich Zeiss, physicist (1816-1888) #Hildegard Knef, actress and singer (1925-2002) #Levi Strauss, entrepreneur and inventor (jeans) (1829-1902) #Sepp Herberger, football coach of the 1954 world cup winning team(1897-1977) #Klaus Kinski, actor (1926-1991) #Werner von Siemens, physicist and entrepreneur (1816-1892) #Ferdinand Porsche, automobile constructor (1875-1951) #Peter Scholl-Latour, journalist (born 1924) #August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, writer of national anthem lyrics (1798-1874) #Siegfried and Roy, illusionists and tiger tamers (born 1939 and 1944) #Christoph Langen, athlete (bobsledding) (born 1962) #Michelle, singer (born 1974) #Manfred von Ardenne, physicist (1907-1997) #Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, universal scholar (1646-1716) #Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860) #Kurt Tucholsky, writer (1890-1935) #Karl (born 1920) and Theo Albrecht (born 1922), entrepreneurs (Aldi) #Joseph Ratzinger, cardinal (born 1927) (became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005) #Werner Heisenberg, physicist (1901-1976) #Harald Juhnke, actor (1929-2005) #Till Eulenspiegel, literary figure as joker and jester, first appeared 1510/1511 (-) #Götz George, actor (born 1938) #Rudolf Diesel, inventor (1858-1913) #Stefan Raab, TV host and musician (born 1966) #Hans Albers, singer and actor (1891-1960) #Nina Hagen, singer (born 1954) #Johannes Kepler, astronomer (1571-1630) #Hans Rosenthal, TV host (1925-1987) #Rupert Neudeck, physician and charity activist (Cap Anamur) (born 1939) #Dieter Hildebrandt, comedian (born 1927) #Marie-Theres Kroetz Relin, actress and housewife (born 1966) #Kilian Saum, priest (born 1958) #Hans Söllner, singer (born 1955) #Gregor Gysi, (East) German politician (born 1948) #Arminius, der Cherusker, Germanic leader in battle vs. Romans (-) #Günter Grass, writer (born 1927) #Inge Meysel, actress (1910-2004) #Hans Hartz, musician (1943-2002) #Karl Lagerfeld, fashion designer (born 1933 or 1938) #Oliver Kahn, athlete (football) (born 1969) #Gerd Müller, athlete (football) (born 1945) #Ferdinand von Zeppelin, airship pioneer (1838-1917) #Nikolaus August Otto, inventor (1832-1891) #Grete Schickedanz, Quelle mail-order entrepreneur (1911-1994) #Clara Zetkin, women's rights activist (1857-1933) #Hannah Arendt, journalist and philosopher (1906-1975) #Roman Herzog, Federal President 1994-1999(born 1934) #Hermann Oberth, rocket physicist (1894-1984) #Karl Valentin, comedian (1882-1948) #Frank Schöbel, East German singer (born 1942) #Jakob Fugger, entrepreneur (1459-1525) #Henry Maske, athlete (boxing) (born 1964) #Helmut Zacharias, violinist (1920-2002) #Michael Ballack, athlete (football) (born 1976) #Bernhard Grzimek, animal scientist and filmer (1909-1987) #Richard Strauss, composer (1864-1949) #Edmund Stoiber, politician (born 1941) #Klaus Störtebeker, pirate (ca. 1370-1401) #Peter Frankenfeld, Radio and Television personality (1913-1979) #Mildred Scheel, physician and charity activist (1932-1985) #Claudia Schiffer, model (born 1970)

References

Other editions

:Other countries have produced similar shows, see also: Greatest Britons spin-offs

External links

* unserebesten.zdf.de at archive.org

Germany Category:Lists of German people Category:Lists of people by nationality

cs:Naši nejlepší de:Unsere Besten fr:Unsere Besten gl:Unsere Besten nl:Unsere Besten pnb:وڈے جرمن pt:Unsere Besten fi:Unsere Besten vi:Unsere Besten

Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim. According to The New York Times, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history."

His fame derived from his long tenure as the music director of the New York Philharmonic, from his conducting of concerts with most of the world's leading orchestras, and from his music for West Side Story, as well as Candide, Wonderful Town, On the Town and his own Mass.

Bernstein was also the first conductor to give numerous television lectures on classical music, starting in 1954, continuing until his death. In addition, he was a skilled pianist, often conducting while performing piano concertos simultaneously.

As a composer he was prolific, writing symphonies, ballet music, operas, chamber music, pieces for the piano, other orchestral and choral works, and other concert and incidental music, but the tremendous success of West Side Story remained unequaled by his other compositions.

Biography

Early life

He was born Louis Bernstein in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the son of Ukrainian Jewish parents Jennie (née Resnick) and Samuel Joseph Bernstein, a hair-dressing supplies wholesaler originating from Rovno (now Ukraine). Despite his surname he was not related to film composer Elmer Bernstein. His family spent their summers at their vacation home in Sharon, Massachusetts. His grandmother insisted that his first name be Louis, but his parents always called him Leonard, which they preferred. He officially changed his name to Leonard when he was fifteen, shortly after his grandmother's death. However to his friends and many others he was simply known as "Lenny."

His father, Sam Bernstein, was a businessman and owner of a bookstore in downtown Lawrence; it is standing today on the corners of Amesbury and Essex Streets. Sam initially opposed young Leonard's interest in music. Despite this, the elder Bernstein took him to orchestra concerts in his teenage years and eventually supported his music education. At a very young age, Bernstein listened to a piano performance and was immediately captivated; he subsequently began learning the piano seriously when the family acquired his cousin Lillian Goldman's unwanted piano. As a child, Bernstein attended the Garrison Grammar School and Boston Latin School. As a child he was very close to his younger sister Shirley, and would often play entire operas or Beethoven symphonies with her at the piano. He had a variety of piano teachers in his youth including Helen Coates who later became his secretary.

After graduation from Boston Latin School in 1935, Bernstein attended Harvard University, where he studied music with, amongst others, Edward Burlingame Hill and Walter Piston, the author of many harmony and counterpoint textbooks. Although he majored in music with a final year thesis (1939) entitled "The Absorption of Race Elements into American Music" (reproduced in his book Findings), Bernstein's main intellectual influence at Harvard was probably the aesthetics Professor David Prall, whose multidisciplinary outlook on the arts Bernstein shared for the rest of his life. One of his friends at Harvard was philosopher Donald Davidson, with whom he played piano four hands. Bernstein wrote and conducted the musical score for the production Davidson mounted of Aristophanes' play The Birds in the original Greek. Bernstein reused some of this music in the ballet Fancy Free. During his time at Harvard he was briefly an accompanist for the Harvard Glee Club. Bernstein also mounted a student production of The Cradle Will Rock directing its action from the piano as the composer Marc Blitzstein had done at the premiere. Blitzstein, who heard about the production, subsequently became a friend and influence (both musically and politically) on Bernstein.

Bernstein also met the conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos at this time. Although he never taught Bernstein, Mitropoulos's charisma and power as a musician was a major influence on Bernstein's eventual decision to take up conducting. Mitropoulos was not stylistically that similar to Bernstein, but he probably influenced some of Bernstein's later habits such as his conducting from the keyboard, his initial practice of conducting without a baton and perhaps his interest in Mahler. The other important influence that Bernstein first met during his Harvard years was composer Aaron Copland, whom he met at a concert and then at a party afterwards on Copland's Birthday in 1938. At the party Bernstein played Copland's Piano Variations, a thorny work Bernstein loved without knowing anything about its composer until that evening. Although he was not formally Copland's student as such, Bernstein would regularly seek advice from Copland in the following years about his own compositions and would often cite him as "his only real composition teacher".

After completing his studies at Harvard in 1939 (graduating with a B.A. cum laude), he enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. During his time at Curtis, Bernstein studied conducting with Fritz Reiner (who anecdotally is said to have given Bernstein the only "A grade" he ever awarded), piano with Isabelle Vengerova, orchestration with Randall Thompson, counterpoint with Richard Stöhr, and score reading with Renée Longy Miquelle. Unlike his years at Harvard, Bernstein appears to not to have much enjoyed the formal training environment of Curtis, although often in later life he would mention Reiner when discussing his important teachers.

1940–1950

After he left Curtis, Bernstein lived in New York. He shared a flat with his friend Adolph Green and often accompanied Green, Betty Comden and Judy Holiday in a comedy troupe called The Reviewers who performed in Greenwich Village. He took jobs with a music publisher, transcribing music or producing arrangements under the pseudonym Lenny Amber (the German meaning of his name in English). During this period in New York City, Bernstein enjoyed an exuberant social life that included relationships with both men and women. In 1940, Bernstein began his study at the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer institute, Tanglewood, in the conducting class of the orchestra's conductor, Serge Koussevitzky.

Bernstein's friendships with Copland (who was very close to Koussevitsky) and Mitropoulos were important in him being recommended for a place in the class. Other students in the class included Lukas Foss who also became a lifelong friend. Koussevitsky perhaps did not teach Bernstein much basic conducting technique (which he had already developed under Reiner), but instead became a sort of father figure to him, and was perhaps the major influence on Bernstein's emotional way of interpreting music. Bernstein later became Koussevitzky's conducting assistant and would later dedicate his second symphony, "The Age of Anxiety" to him.

On November 14, 1943, having recently been appointed assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, he made his major conducting debut at sudden notice —and without any rehearsal—after Bruno Walter came down with the flu. The next day, The New York Times carried the story on their front page and their editorial remarked, "It's a good American success story. The warm, friendly triumph of it filled Carnegie Hall and spread far over the air waves." He became instantly famous because the concert was nationally broadcast, and afterwards started to appear as a guest conductor with many US orchestras. The program included works by Schumann, Miklos Rozsa, Wagner and Richard Strauss's Don Quixote with soloist Joseph Schuster, solo cellist of the orchestra. Before the concert Bernstein briefly spoke to Bruno Walter who discussed particular difficulties in the works he was to perform. It is possible to hear this concert (apart from the Wagner work) on a recording of the CBS radio broadcast that has been issued on CD by the orchestra. From 1945–47 Bernstein was the Music Director of the New York City Symphony Orchestra which had been founded the previous year by the conductor Leopold Stokowski. The orchestra (with support from the Mayor) was aimed at a different audience with more modern programs and cheaper tickets than the New York Philharmonic.

In addition to becoming known as a conductor, Bernstein also emerged as a composer in the same period. In January 1944 he conducted the premiere of his Jeremiah Symphony in Pittsburgh. His score to the ballet Fancy Free choreographed by Jerome Robbins opened in New York in April 1944 and this was later developed into the musical On the Town with lyrics by Comden and Green that opened on Broadway in December 1944.

After World War II, Bernstein's career on the international stage began to flourish. In 1946 he made his first trip to Europe conducting various orchestras and recorded Ravel's Piano Concerto in G as soloist and conductor with the Philharmonia Orchestra. In 1946, he conducted opera for the first time, with the American première at Tanglewood of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, which had been a Koussevitzky commission. That same year, Arturo Toscanini invited Bernstein to guest conduct two concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, one of which again featured Bernstein as soloist in the Ravel concerto.

In 1947, Bernstein conducted in Tel Aviv for the first time, beginning a life-long association with Israel. The next year he conducted an open air concert for troops at Beersheba in the middle of the desert during the Arab-Israeli war. In 1957, he conducted the inaugural concert of the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv; he subsequently made many recordings there. In 1967, he conducted a concert on Mt. Scopus to commemorate the reunification of Jerusalem. During the 1970s, Bernstein recorded his symphonies and other works with the Israel Philharmonic for Deutsche Grammophon.

In 1949, he conducted the world première of the Turangalîla-Symphonie by Olivier Messiaen, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Part of the rehearsal for the concert was released on CD by the orchestra. When Koussevitzky died two years later, Bernstein became head of the orchestral and conducting departments at Tanglewood, holding this position for many years.

1951–1959

After much personal struggle and a turbulent on-off engagement, he married Chilean actress Felicia Cohn Montealegre on September 10, 1951. One suggestion is that he chose to marry partly to dispel rumors about his private life to help secure a major conducting appointment, following advice from his mentor Dimitri Mitropoulos about the conservative nature of orchestra boards. Bernstein's sexuality has been a matter of speculation and debate. Arthur Laurents (Bernstein's collaborator in West Side Story) said that Bernstein was "a gay man who got married. He wasn't conflicted about it at all. He was just gay." Shirley Rhoades Perle, another friend of Bernstein's, said that she thought "he required men sexually and women emotionally." But the early years of his marriage seem to have been happy, and no-one has suggested they didn't love one another. They had three children, Jamie, Alexander, and later Nina. There are reports though that Bernstein did sometimes have brief extramarital liaisons with young men, which several family friends have said his wife knew about.

In 1951, Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic in the world première of the Symphony No. 2 of Charles Ives which was written around half a century earlier but never performed. Throughout his career Bernstein often talked about the music of Ives who died in 1954. The composer, old and frail, was unable (or some reports say "unwilling") to attend the concert, but his wife attended. He reportedly listened to a radio broadcast of it on a radio in his kitchen some days later. A recording of the "premiere" was released in a 10 CD box set Bernstein LIVE by the orchestra, but the notes indicate it was a repeat performance from three days later, and this is perhaps what Ives heard. In any case reports also differ on Ives' exact reaction, but some suggest he was thrilled and danced a little jig. Bernstein recorded the 2nd symphony with the orchestra in 1958 for Columbia and 1987 for Deutsche Grammophon. There is also a 1987 performance with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra available on DVD.

Bernstein was a visiting music professor from 1951–56 at Brandeis University and he founded the Creative Arts Festival there in 1952. He conducted various productions at the first festival including the premiere of his opera Trouble in Tahiti and Blitzstein's English version of Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera. The festival was named after him in 2005, becoming the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts. In 1953 he was the first US conductor to appear at La Scala in Milan, conducting Maria Callas in Cherubini's Medea. The same year he produced his score to the musical Wonderful Town at very short notice, working again with old friends Comden and Green who wrote the lyrics.

In 1954 Bernstein made the first of his television lectures for the CBS arts program Omnibus. The live lecture, entitled "Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony", involved Bernstein explaining the work with the aid of musicians from the former NBC Symphony Orchestra (recently renamed the "Symphony of the Air") and a giant page of the score covering the floor. Bernstein subsequently performed concerts with the orchestra and recorded his Serenade for Violin with Isaac Stern. Further Omnibus lectures followed in 1955-8 (later on ABC and then NBC) covering Jazz, Conducting, American Musical Comedy, Modern Music, J.S. Bach and Grand Opera. These programs were made available in the USA in a DVD set in 2010.

In late 1956 Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic in concerts that were to have been conducted by Guido Cantelli, who had tragically been killed in an air crash in Paris. This was the first time Bernstein had conducted the orchestra in subscription concerts since 1951. Partly due to these appearances, Bernstein was named the Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1957, replacing Dimitri Mitropoulos. He began his tenure in that position in 1958 having held the post jointly with Mitropoulos in 1957-8. In 1958 Bernstein and Mitropoulos took the New York Philharmonic on tour to South America. In his first season in sole charge Bernstein included a season-long survey of American classical music. Themed-programming of this sort was fairly novel at that time compared to the present day. Bernstein held the Music Directorship until 1969 (with a sabbatical in 1965) although he continued to conduct and make recordings with the orchestra for the rest of his life and was appointed "Laureate Conductor".

He became a well-known figure in the United States through his series of fifty-three televised Young People's Concerts for CBS, which grew out of his Omnibus programs. His first Young People's Concert was televised a few weeks after his tenure as principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic began. He became as famous for his educational work in those concerts as for his conducting. The Bernstein Young People's Concerts were the first, and probably the most influential series of music appreciation programs ever produced on television, and were highly acclaimed by critics. Some of Bernstein's music lectures were released on records, with at least one winning a Grammy award. The programmes were shown in many countries around the world, often with Bernstein dubbed into other languages. Twenty-five of them were released on DVD by Kultur Video.

Prior to taking over the New York Philharmonic Bernstein produced the music for two shows. The first was for the operetta Candide which was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman based on Voltaire's novel. The second was Bernstein's collaboration with the choreographer Jerome Robbins, the writer Arthur Laurents and the lyricist Stephen Sondheim to produce the musical West Side Story. The first three had worked on it intermittently since Robbins first suggested the idea in 1949. Finally, with the addition of Sondheim to the team and a period of concentrated effort, it received its Broadway premiere in 1957 and has since proven to be Bernstein's most popular and enduring score.

In 1959, he took the New York Philharmonic on a tour of Europe and the Soviet Union, portions of which were filmed by CBS. A highlight of the tour was Bernstein's performance of Dmitri Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, in the presence of the composer, who came on stage at the end to congratulate Bernstein and the musicians. In October, when Bernstein and the orchestra returned to the US, they recorded the symphony for Columbia. He recorded it for a second time with the orchestra on tour in Japan in 1979. Bernstein seems to have limited himself to only conducting certain Shostakovich symphonies: 1, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 14. He made two recordings of Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony, one with the New York Philharmonic in the 1960s and another one recorded live in 1988 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the only recording he ever made with them (along with Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1).

1960–1969

In 1960 Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic held a Mahler Festival to mark the centenary of the composer's birth. Bernstein, Walter and Mitropoulos conducted performances. The composer's widow, Alma attended some of Bernstein's rehearsals. In 1960 Bernstein also made his first commercial recording of a Mahler symphony (the fourth) and over the next seven years he made the first complete cycle of recordings of all nine of Mahler's completed symphonies. (All featured the New York Philharmonic except the 8th Symphony which was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra following a concert in the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1966.) The success of these recordings, along with Bernstein's concert performances and television talks, was an important part of the revival of interest in Mahler in the 1960s, especially in the US.

Other non-US composers that Bernstein championed to some extent at the time include the Danish composer Carl Nielsen (who was perhaps then only a little known in the US) and Jean Sibelius, whose popularity had perhaps by then started to fade. Bernstein eventually recorded a complete cycle in New York of Sibelius's symphonies and three of Nielsen's symphonies (Nos. 2, 4, and 5), as well as conducting recordings of his violin, clarinet and flute concertos. He also recorded Nielsen's 3rd Symphony with the Royal Danish Orchestra after a critically acclaimed public performance in Denmark. Bernstein championed US composers, especially those that he was close to like Aaron Copland, William Schuman and David Diamond. He also started to more extensively record his own compositions for Columbia Records. This included his 3 symphonies, his ballets and the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story with the New York Philharmonic. He also conducted an LP of his 1944 musical On The Town, the first (almost) complete recording of the original featuring several members of the original Broadway cast, including Betty Comden and Adolph Green. (The 1949 film version only contains four of Bernstein's original numbers.)

In one oft-reported incident, in April 1962 Bernstein appeared on stage before a performance of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor with the pianist Glenn Gould. During rehearsals, Gould had argued for tempi much broader than normal, which did not reflect Bernstein's concept of the music. Bernstein gave a brief address to the audience starting with "Don't be frightened; Mr Gould is here..." and going on to "In a concerto, who is the boss (audience laughter)—the soloist or the conductor?" (Audience laughter grows louder). The answer is, of course, sometimes the one and sometimes the other, depending on the people involved." This speech was subsequently interpreted by Harold C. Schonberg, music critic for The New York Times, as abdication of personal responsibility and an attack on Gould, whose performance Schonberg went on to criticize heavily. Bernstein always denied that this had been his intent and has stated that he made these remarks with Gould's blessing. Throughout his life, he professed admiration and friendship for Gould. Schonberg was often (though not always) harshly critical of Bernstein as a conductor during his tenure as Music Director. However his views were not shared by the audiences (with many full houses) and probably not by the musicians themselves (who had greater financial security arising from Bernstein's many TV and recording activities amongst other things).

In 1962 the New York Philharmonic moved from Carnegie Hall to Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) in the new Lincoln Center. The move was not without controversy because of acoustic problems with the new hall. Bernstein conducted the gala opening concert featuring vocal works by Mahler, Beethoven and Vaughan Williams, and the premiere of Aaron Copland's Connotations, a serial-work that was merely politely received. During the interval Bernstein kissed the cheek of the President's wife Jacqueline Kennedy, a break with protocol that was commented on at the time. In 1961 Bernstein had conducted at President John F. Kennedy's pre-inaugural gala, and he was an occasional guest in the Kennedy White House. He also conducted at the funeral mass in 1968 for the late President Kennedy's brother Robert Kennedy.

In 1964 Bernstein conducted Franco Zeffirelli's production of Verdi's Falstaff at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 1966 he made his debut at the Vienna State Opera conducting Luchino Visconti's production of the same opera with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Falstaff. During his time in Vienna he also recorded the opera for Columbia Records and conducted his first subscription concert with the Vienna Philharmonic (which is made up of players from the Vienna State Opera) featuring Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with Fischer-Dieskau and James King. He returned to the State Opera in 1968 for a production of Der Rosenkavalier and in 1970 for Otto Schenk's production of Beethoven's Fidelio. Sixteen years later, at the State Opera, Bernstein conducted his sequel to Trouble in Tahiti, A Quiet Place. with the ORF orchestra. Bernstein's final farewell to the State Opera happened accidentally in 1989: following a performance of Modest Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina, he unexpectedly entered the stage and embraced conductor Claudio Abbado in front of a cheering audience.

With his commitment to the New York Philharmonic and his many other activities, Bernstein had little time for composition during the 1960s. The two major works he produced at this time were his Kaddish Symphony dedicated to the recently assassinated President John F. Kennedy and the Chichester Psalms which he produced during a sabbatical year he took from the Philharmonic in 1965 to concentrate on composition. To try and have more time for composition was probably a major factor in his decision to step down as Music Director of the Philharmonic in 1969, and to never accept such as position anywhere again.

1970–1979

After stepping down from the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein continued to appear with them in most years until his death, and he toured with them to Europe in 1976 and to Asia in 1979. He also strengthened his relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra – he conducted all nine completed Mahler symphonies with them (plus the adagio from the 10th) in the period from 1967–76. All of these were filmed for Unitel with the exception of the 1967 Mahler 2nd, which instead Bernstein filmed with the London Symphony Orchestra in Ely Cathedral in 1973. In the late 1970s Bernstein conducted a complete Beethoven symphony cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic, and cycles of Brahms and Schumann were to follow in the 1980s. Other orchestras he conducted on numerous occasions in the 1970s include the Israel Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

In 1970 Bernstein wrote and narrated a ninety-minute program filmed on location in and around Vienna as a celebration of Beethoven's 200th birthday. It featured parts of Bernstein's rehearsals and performance for the Otto Schenk production of Fidelio, Bernstein playing the 1st piano concerto and the Ninth Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic and the young Placido Domingo amongst the soloists. The program was first telecast in 1970 on Austrian and British television, and then on CBS in the US on Christmas Eve 1971. The show, originally entitled Beethoven's Birthday: A Celebration in Vienna, won an Emmy and was issued on DVD in 2005.

Like many of his friends and colleagues, Bernstein had been involved in various left wing causes and organizations since the 1940s. He was blacklisted by the US State Department and CBS in the early 1950s, but unlike others his career was not greatly affected, and he was never required to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. His political life received substantial press coverage though in 1970 due to a gathering hosted at his Manhattan apartment. Bernstein and his wife held the event seeking to raise awareness and money for the defense of several members of the Black Panther Party against a variety of charges. The New York Times initially covered the gathering as a lifestyle item, but later posted an editorial harshly unfavorable to Bernstein following generally negative reaction to the widely publicized story. This reaction culminated in June 1970 with the appearance of "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's", an essay by satirist Tom Wolfe featured on the cover of the New York Magazine. The article contrasted the Bernsteins' comfortable lifestyle in one of the world's most expensive neighborhoods with the anti-establishment politics of the Black Panthers. It led to the popularization of "radical chic" as a critical term. Both Bernstein and his wife Felicia responded to the criticism, arguing that they were motivated not by a shallow desire to express fashionable sympathy but by their concern for civil liberties.

Bernstein's major compositions during the 1970s were probably his MASS: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers; his score for the ballet Dybbuk; his orchestral vocal work Songfest; and his US bicentenary musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue written with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner which was his first real theatrical flop, and last original broadway show. The world premiere of Bernstein's MASS took place on September 8, 1971. Commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., it was partly intended as an anti-war statement. Hastily written in places, the work represented a fusion not only of different religious traditions (Latin liturgy, Hebrew prayer and plenty of contemporary English lyrics) but also of different musical styles including classical and rock music. It was originally a target of criticism from the Roman Catholic Church on the one hand, and contemporary music critics who objected to its Broadway/populist elements on the other. In the present day it is perhaps seen as less blasphemous and more a piece of its era – in 2000 it was even performed in the Vatican.

In 1972 Bernstein recorded Bizet's Carmen, with Marilyn Horne in the title role and James McCracken as Don Jose, after leading several stage performances of the opera at the Metropolitan Opera. The recording was one of the first in stereo to use the original spoken dialogue between the sung portions of the opera, rather than the musical recitatives that were composed by Ernest Guiraud after Bizet's death. The recording was Bernstein's first for Deutsche Grammophon and won a Grammy.

Bernstein was appointed in 1973 to the Charles Eliot Norton Chair as Professor of Poetry at his alma mater, Harvard University, and delivered a series of six televised lectures on music with musical examples played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Taking the title from a Charles Ives work, he called the series "The Unanswered Question"; it was a set of interdisciplinary lectures in which he borrowed terminology from contemporary linguistics to analyze and compare musical construction to language. The lectures are presently available in both book and DVD form. Noam Chomsky wrote in 2007 on the Znet forums about the linguistic aspects of the lecture: "I spent some time with Bernstein during the preparation and performance of the lectures. My feeling was that he was onto something, but I couldn't really judge how significant it was."

A major period of upheaval in Bernstein's personal life began in 1976 when he took the decision that he could no longer repress his homosexuality and he left his wife Felicia for a period to live with the writer Tom Cothran. The next year she was diagnosed with lung cancer and eventually Bernstein moved back in with her and cared for her until she died on June 16, 1978. Cothran himself died of AIDS in 1981. Bernstein is reported to have often spoken of his terrible guilt over his wife's death. Most biographies of Bernstein describe that his lifestyle became more excessive and his personal behavior sometimes cruder after her death. However his public standing and many of his close friendships appear to have remained unaffected, and he resumed his busy schedule of musical activity.

In 1978, Bernstein return to the Vienna State Opera to conduct a revival of the Otto Schenk production of Fidelio, now featuring Gundula Janowitz and Rene Kollo in the lead roles. At the same time, Bernstein made a studio recording of the opera for Deutsche Grammophon and the opera itself was filmed by Unitel and released on DVD by Deutsche Grammophon in late 2006. In May 1978, the Israel Philharmonic played two US concerts under his direction to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Orchestra under that name. On consecutive nights, the Orchestra, with the Choral Arts Society of Washington, performed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and at Carnegie Hall in New York.

In 1979, Bernstein conducted the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for the first and only time, in two charity concerts for Amnesty International involving performances of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. The invitation for the concerts had come from the orchestra and not from its principal conductor Herbert von Karajan. There has been speculation about why Karajan never invited Bernstein to conduct his orchestra. (Karajan did conduct the New York Philharmonic during Bernstein's tenure.) The full reasons will probably never be known – reports suggest they were on friendly terms when they met, but sometimes practiced a little mutual one-upmanship. One of the concerts was broadcast on radio and was posthumously released on CD by Deutsche Grammophon.

1980–1990

Bernstein received the Kennedy Center Honors award in 1980. For the rest of the 1980s he continued to conduct, teach, compose and produce the occasional TV documentary. His most significant compositions of the decade were probably his opera A Quiet Place which he wrote with Stephen Wadsworth and which premiered (in its original version) in Houston in 1983; his Divertimento for Orchestra; his Halil for flute and orchestra, his Concerto for Orchestra "Jubilee Games"; and his song cycle Arias and Barcarolles, which was named after a comment President Dwight D. Eisenhower had made to him in the 1950s.

In 1982 in the US, PBS aired an 11-part series of Bernstein's late 1970s films for Unitel of the Vienna Philharmonic playing all nine Beethoven symphonies and various other works. Bernstein gave spoken introduction and actor Maximilian Schell was also featured on the programs, reading from Beethoven's letters. The original films have since been released on DVD by Deutsche Grammophon. In addition to conducting in New York, Vienna and Israel, Bernstein was a regular guest conductor of other orchestras in the 1980s. These included the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam with whom he recorded Mahler's First, Fourth, and Ninth Symphonies amongst other works; the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich with whom he recorded Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Haydn's Creation, Mozart's Requiem and Mass in C Minor; and the orchestra of Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome with whom he recorded some Debussy and Puccini's La Boheme.

In 1982, he and Ernest Fleischmann founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute as a summer training academy along the lines of Tanglewood. Bernstein served as Artistic Director and taught conducting there until 1984. Around the same time he performed and recorded some of his own works with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for Deutsche Grammophon. Bernstein was also at the time a committed supporter of Nuclear Disarmament. In 1985 he took the European Community Youth Orchestra in a "Journey for Peace" tour around Europe and to Japan.

In 1985, he conducted a recording of West Side Story, the first time he had conducted the entire work. The recording, featuring what some critics felt were miscast opera singers such as Kiri Te Kanawa, José Carreras, and Tatiana Troyanos in the leading roles, was nevertheless an international bestseller. A TV documentary showing the making of the recording was made at the same time and is available on DVD.

In his later years, Bernstein's life and work was celebrated around the world (as it has been since his death). The Israel Philharmonic celebrated his involvement with them at Festivals in Israel and Austria in 1977. In 1986 the London Symphony Orchestra mounted a Bernstein Festival in London with one concert that Bernstein himself conducted attended by the Queen. In 1988 Bernstein's 70th Birthday was celebrated by a lavish televised gala at Tanglewood featuring many performers who had worked with him over the years.

In December 1989 Bernstein conducted live performances and recorded in the studio his operetta Candide with the London Symphony Orchestra. The recording starred Jerry Hadley, June Anderson, Adolph Green and Christa Ludwig in the leading roles. The use of opera singers in some roles perhaps fitted the style of operetta better than some critics had thought was the case for West Side Story, and the recording (released posthumously in 1991) was universally praised. One of the live concerts from the Barbican Centre in London is available on DVD. Candide had had a troubled history, with many re-writes and writers involved. Bernstein's concert and recording were based on a "final" version that had been first performed by Scottish Opera in 1988. The opening night (which Bernstein attended in Glasgow) was conducted by Bernstein's former student John Mauceri.

On December 25, 1989, Bernstein conducted Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in East Berlin's Schauspielhaus (Playhouse) as part of a celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. He had conducted the same work in West Berlin the previous day. The concert was broadcast live in more than twenty countries to an estimated audience of 100 million people. For the occasion, Bernstein reworded Friedrich Schiller's text of the Ode to Joy, substituting the word Freiheit (freedom) for Freude (joy). Bernstein, in his spoken introduction said that they had "taken the liberty" of doing this because of a "most likely phony" story, apparently believed in some quarters, that Schiller wrote an "Ode to Freedom" that is now presumed lost. Bernstein added, "I'm sure that Beethoven would have given us his blessing."

In the summer of 1990, Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas founded the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. Like his earlier activity in Los Angeles, this was a summer training school for musicians modeled on Tanglewood, and is still in existence. Bernstein was already at this time suffering from the lung disease that would lead to his death. In his opening address Bernstein said that he had decided to devote what time he had left to education. A video showing Bernstein speaking and rehearsing at the first Festival is available on DVD in Japan.

Bernstein made his final performance as a conductor at Tanglewood on August 19, 1990, with the Boston Symphony playing Benjamin Britten's "Four Sea Interludes" from Peter Grimes, and Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. He suffered a coughing fit in the middle of the Beethoven performance which almost caused the concert to break down. The concert was later issued on CD by Deutsche Grammophon.

He announced his retirement from conducting on October 9, 1990, and died of pneumonia and a pleural tumor five days later. He was 72 years old. A longtime heavy smoker, he had battled emphysema from his mid-50s. On the day of his funeral procession through the streets of Manhattan, construction workers removed their hats and waved, yelling "Goodbye, Lenny." Bernstein is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York next to his wife and with a copy of Mahler's Fifth lying across his heart.

Influence and characteristics as a conductor

Bernstein was one of the major figures in orchestral conducting in the second half of the 20th century. He was held in high regard amongst many musicians, including the members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, evidenced by his honorary membership; the London Symphony Orchestra, of which he was President; and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, with which he appeared regularly as guest conductor. He was probably the main conductor from the 1960s onwards who acquired a sort of superstar status similar to that of Herbert von Karajan, although unlike Karajan he conducted relatively little opera and part of Bernstein's fame was based on his role as a composer. As the first American-born music director of the New York Philharmonic, his rise to prominence was a factor in overcoming the perception of the time that the top conductors were necessarily trained in Europe.

Bernstein's conducting was characterized by extremes of emotion with the rhythmic pulse of the music conveyed visually through his balletic podium manner. Musicians often reported that his manner in rehearsal was the same as in concert. As he got older his performances tended to be overlaid to a greater extent with a personal expressiveness which often divided critical opinion. Extreme examples of this style can be found in his Deutsche Grammophon recordings of Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations (1982), the end of Mahler's 9th Symphony (1985), and the finale of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony (1986), where in each case the tempos are well below those typically chosen.

Bernstein performed a wide repertoire from the baroque era to the 20th century, although perhaps from the 1970s onwards he tended to focus more on music from the romantic era. He was considered especially accomplished with the works of Gustav Mahler and with American composers in general, including George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, Roy Harris, William Schuman, and of course himself. Some of his recordings of works by these composers would likely appear on many music critics' lists of recommended recordings. A list of his other well-thought-of recordings would probably include individual works from Haydn, Beethoven, Berlioz, Schumann, Liszt, Nielsen, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Hindemith, and Shostakovich, among others. His recordings of Rhapsody in Blue (full-orchestra version) and An American in Paris for Columbia Records, released in 1959, are considered definitive by many, although Bernstein cut the Rhapsody slightly, and his more 'symphonic' approach with slower tempi is quite far from Gershwin's own conception of the piece, evident from his two recordings. (Oscar Levant, Earl Wild, and others come closer to Gershwin's own style.) Bernstein never conducted Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F, or Porgy and Bess, although he did discuss the latter in his article Why Don't You Run Upstairs and Write a Nice Gershwin Tune?, originally published in The New York Times and later reprinted in his 1959 book The Joy of Music.

In addition to being an active conductor, Bernstein was a very influential teacher of conducting. During his many years of teaching at Tanglewood and elsewhere, he directly taught or mentored many conductors who are performing now, such as Marin Alsop, Herbert Blomstedt, Alexander Frey, Paavo Järvi, John Mauceri, Eiji Oue, Seiji Ozawa (who made his US TV debut as the guest conductor on one of the Young People's Concerts), Carl St.Clair, and Michael Tilson Thomas. He also undoubtedly influenced the career choices of many US musicians who grew up watching his television programmes in the 1950s and 60s.

Recordings

Bernstein recorded extensively from the 1950s until just a few months before his death. Aside from a few early recordings in the mid-1940s for RCA Victor, Bernstein recorded primarily for Columbia Masterworks Records, especially when he was music director of the New York Philharmonic. His typical pattern of recording at that time was to record major works in the studio immediately after they were presented in the orchestra's subscription concerts, with any spare time used to record short orchestral showpieces and similar works. Many of these performances were digitally remastered and reissued by Sony as part of their 100 CD "Royal Edition" and their later "Bernstein Century" series. In 2010 many of these recordings were repackaged in a 60 CD "Bernstein Symphony Edition".

His later recordings (starting with Bizet's Carmen in 1972) were mostly made for Deutsche Grammophon, though he would occasionally return to the Columbia Masterworks label. Notable exceptions include recordings of Gustav Mahler's Song of the Earth and Mozart's 15th piano concerto and "Linz" symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for Decca Records (1966); Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and Harold in Italy (1976) for EMI; and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (1981) for Philips Records, a label that like Deutsche Grammophon was part of PolyGram at that time. Unlike his studio recordings for Columbia Masterworks, most of his later Deutsche Grammophon recordings were taken from live concerts (or edited together from several concerts with additional sessions to correct errors). Many replicate repertoire that he recorded in the 1950s and 60s.

In addition to his audio recordings, many of Bernstein's concerts from the 1970s onwards were recorded on motion picture film by the German film company Unitel. This included a complete cycle of the Mahler symphonies (with the Vienna Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra), as well as complete cycles of the Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann symphonies recorded at the same series of concerts as the audio recordings by Deutsche Grammophon. Many of these films appeared on Laserdisc and are now on DVD.

In total Bernstein was awarded 16 Grammys for his recordings in various categories including several for recordings released after his death. He was also awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1985.

Influence and characteristics as a composer

Bernstein was an eclectic composer whose music fused elements of jazz, Jewish music, theatre music and the work of older composers like Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, George Gershwin, and Marc Blitzstein. Some of his works, especially his score for West Side Story, helped bridge the gap between classical and popular music. His music was rooted in tonality but in some works like his Kaddish Symphony and the opera A Quiet Place he mixed in 12-tone elements. Bernstein himself said his main motivation for composing was "to communicate" and that all his pieces, including his symphonies and concert works, "could in some sense be thought of as 'theatre' pieces." According to the League of American orchestras, he was the second most frequently performed American composer by US orchestras in 2008-9 behind Copland, and he was the 16th most frequently performed composer overall by US orchestras. (Some performances were probably due to the 90th anniversary of his birth in 2008.) His most popular pieces were the Overture to Candide, the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, the Serenade for Violin, Strings, Harp and Percussion and the Three Dance Episodes from On the Town. His shows West Side Story, On the Town, Wonderful Town and Candide are regularly performed, and his symphonies and concert works are programmed from time to time by orchestras around the world. Since his death many of his works have been commercially recorded by artists other than himself. The Serenade, which has been recorded more than 10 times, is probably his most recorded work not taken from an actual theatre piece.

Despite the fact that he was a popular success as a composer, Bernstein himself is reported to have been disillusioned that some of his more serious works were not rated more highly by critics, and that he himself had not been able to devote more time to composing because of his conducting and other activities. Professional criticism of Bernstein's music often involves discussing the degree to which he created something new as art versus simply skillfully borrowing and fusing together elements from others. In the late 1960s, Bernstein himself reflected that his eclecticism was in part due to his lack of lengthy periods devoted to composition, and that he was still seeking to enrich his own personal musical language in the manner of the great composers of the past, all of whom had borrowed elements from others. Perhaps the harshest criticism he received from some critics in his lifetime though was directed at works like his Kaddish Symphony, his MASS and the opera A Quiet Place, where they found the underlying message of the piece or the text as either mildly embarrassing, clichéd or offensive. Despite this, all these pieces have been performed, discussed and reconsidered since his death.

Although he taught conducting, Bernstein was not a teacher of composition as such, and he has no direct composing heirs. Perhaps the closest are composers like John Adams who from the 1970s onwards indirectly adopted elements of his eclectic, theatrical style.

Works

Ballet

Fancy Free, 1944

Facsimile- Choreographic Essay for Orchestra, 1946

Dybbuk (ballet), 1974

Opera

Trouble in Tahiti, 1952

Candide, 1956 (new libretto in 1973, operetta final revised version in 1989)

A Quiet Place, 1983

Musicals

On The Town, 1944

Wonderful Town, 1953

West Side Story, 1957

The Race to Urga (incomplete), 1969

"By Bernstein" (a Revue), 1975

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, 1976

The Madwoman of Central Park West, (contributed to) 1979

Incidental music and other theatre

Peter Pan, 1950

The Lark, 1955

The Firstborn, 1958

Mass (theatre piece for singers, players and dancers), 1971

Film scores

On the Town, (only part of his music was used), 1949

On the Waterfront, 1954

West Side Story, 1961

Orchestral

Symphony No. 1, Jeremiah, 1942

Fancy Free and Three Dance Variations from "Fancy Free,", concert premiere 1946

Three Dance Episodes from "On the Town," concert premiere 1947

Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety, (after W. H. Auden) for Piano and Orchestra, 1949 (revised in 1965)

Serenade for Solo Violin, Strings, Harp and Percussion (after Plato's "Symposium"), 1954

Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs for Solo Clarinet and Jazz Ensemble, 1949

Symphonic Suite from "On the Waterfront", 1955

Symphonic Dances from "West Side Story", 1961

Symphony No. 3, Kaddish, for Orchestra, Mixed Chorus, Boys' Choir, Speaker and Soprano Solo, 1963 (revised in 1977)

Dybbuk, Suites No. 1 and 2 for Orchestra, concert premieres 1975

Songfest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra, 1977

Three Meditations from "Mass" for Violoncello and Orchestra, 1977

''Slava! A Political Overture for Orchestra, 1977

Divertimento for Orchestra, 1980

Halil, nocturne for Solo Flute, Piccolo, Alto Flute, Percussion, Harp and Strings, 1981

Concerto for Orchestra, 1989 (Originally Jubilee Games from 1986, revised in 1989)

Overture to Candide

Choral

Hashkiveinu for Cantor (tenor), Mixed Chorus and Organ, 1945

Missa Brevis for Mixed Chorus and Countertenor Solo, with Percussion, 1988

Chichester Psalms for Boy Soprano (or Countertenor), Mixed Chorus, and Orchestra, 1965 (Reduced version for Organ, Harp and Percussion)

Chamber music

Piano Trio, 1937, Boosey & Hawkes

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, 1939

Brass Music, 1959

Dance Suite, 1988

Vocal music

I Hate Music: A cycle of Five Kids Songs for Soprano and Piano, 1943

Big Stuff, sung by Billie Holiday

La Bonne Cuisine: Four Recipes for Voice and Piano, 1948

Silhouette (Galilee), 1951

Two Love Songs, 1960

So Pretty, 1968

Piccola Serenata, 1988

Arias and Barcarolles for Mezzo-Soprano, Baritone and Piano four-hands, 1988

Piano music

Music for Two Pianos, 1937

Piano Sonata, 1938

7 Anniversaries, 1944

4 Anniversaries, 1948

5 Anniversaries, 1952

Bridal Suite, 1960

Moby Diptych, 1981 (republished as Anniversaries nos. 1 and 2 in Thirteen Anniversaries)

Touches, 1981

13 Anniversaries, 1988

Other music

Other occasional works, written as gifts and other forms of memorial and tribute

"The Skin of Our Teeth": An aborted work from which Bernstein took material to use in his "Chichester Psalms"

"Simhu Na" (arrangement of traditional song)

"Waltz for Mippy III" for Tuba and Piano

"Elegy for Mippy II" for Trombone alone

"Elegy for Mippy I" for Horn and Piano

"Rondo for Lifey" for Trumpet and Piano

"Fanfare for Bima" for Brass Quartet: composed in 1947 as a birthday tribute to Koussevitzky using the tune he whistled to call his cocker spaniel

"Shivaree: A Fanfare" for Double Brass Ensemble and Percussion. 1970. Commissioned by and dedicated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in honor of its Centenary. Musical material later used in "Mass."

Bibliography

Bernstein, Leonard. [1976] The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-92001-5.

Videography

The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard. West Long Branch, New Jersey: Kultur Video. VHS ISBN 1561275700. DVD ISBN 0769715702. (videotape of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures given at Harvard in 1973.)

Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic. West Long Branch, New Jersey: Kultur Video. DVD ISBN 0769715036.

Bernstein on Beethoven: A Celebration in Vienna/Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1. West Long Branch, Kultur Video. DVD

Leonard Bernstein: Omnibus – The Historic TV Broadcasts ,2010, E1 Ent.

Bernstein: Reflections (1978), Euroarts.

Bernstein/Beethoven (1982), Deustche Grammophon, DVD

Bernstein Conducts "West Side Story" (1985) (retitled The Making of West Side Story in re-releases) Deutsche Grammophon, DVD

"The Rite of Spring" in Rehearsal

Awards

Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1951

Sonning Award (Denmark), 1956

Ditson Conductor's Award, 1958

George Peabody Medal – Johns Hopkins University, 1980

Ernst von Siemens Music Prize 1987

Royal Philarmonic Society Gold Medal (UK), 1987

Knight Grand Cross Order of Merit (Italy), 1989

Grammy Award for Best Album for Children

Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance

Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance

Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording

Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance

Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance

Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition

Grammy Award for Best Classical Album

Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award

Tony Award for Best Musical

Special Tony Award

Further reading

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References

External links

Leonard Bernstein official site

Discography

The Leonard Bernstein Collection at the Library of Congress Music Division

Discography at SonyBMG Masterworks

Bernstein's Boston, a Harvard University research project

FBI file on Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts

Gay Great – Leonard Bernstein

Radical Chic, a book by Tom Wolfe describing a gathering at Bernstein's apartment of New York's social elite and the Black Panther Party.

Leonard Bernstein: A Total Embrace of Music, written by Peter Gutmann, music journalist.

Arias and Barcarolles, The Leonard Bernstein Pages

Leonard Bernstein's maximum card from Israel

Obituary, New York Times, October 15, 1990

Leonard Bernstein: American Original (HarperCollins, 2008) Chapters by Alan Rich, Paul Boyer, Carol J. Oja, Tim Page, Burton Bernstein, Jonathan Rosenberg, Joseph Horowitz, Bill McGlaughlin, James M. Keller, John Adams

Category:1918 births Category:1990 deaths Category:20th-century classical composers Category:American classical pianists Category:American conductors (music) Category:American film score composers Category:American musical theatre composers Category:Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery Category:Deaths from pneumonia Category:George Peabody Medal winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:LGBT composers Category:LGBT Jews Category:LGBT parents Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:MacDowell Colony fellows Category:Opera composers Category:People from Lawrence, Massachusetts Category:Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Ballet composers Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Brandeis University faculty Category:Curtis Institute of Music alumni Category:American expatriates in Austria Category:People from Sharon, Massachusetts Category:Jewish American classical composers Category:Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

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Alexandre Hogue (February 22, 1898-July 22, 1994) was an American artist active during the 1930s through the 1960s. He is a realist painter associated with the Dallas Nine; the majority of his works focus on Southwestern and Midwestern landscapes during the Dust Bowl.

bgcolour	#6495ED
name	Alexandre Hogue
birth date	February 22, 1898
birth place	Memphis, Missouri
death date	July 22, 1994
death place	Tulsa, Oklahoma
nationality	American
movement	Dallas Nine; Realist
children	Olivia Marino
awards	}}

Biography

Hogue was born on February 22, 1898 in Memphis, Missouri, to Reverend Charles Lehman Hogue and Mattie Hoover. Soon after, the Hogues moved to Denton, Texas, and later attended the Dallas-based Bryan Street High School in 1918. After a short year at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Hogue moved home to Dallas, where he was employed at the Dallas Morning News as an illustrator. In 1921, Hogue moved to New York City to work at various advertising firms with calligraphy assignments and to study in museums. He traveled back to Texas every summer while in New York to sketch with Charles Franklin Reaugh until he decided to plant himself in Texas in 1925 to paint. In 1931, he began teaching art classes at the Texas State College for Women and went on to become the head of the art department at Hockaday Junior College in 1936. In 1938, Hogue married and started a family with Maggie Joe Watson. During World War II, Hogue worked at North American Aviation. From 1945 to 1963, he became the head of the art department at the University of Tulsa. After his retirement from the University of Tulsa, the institution founded the Alexandre Hogue Gallery in his honor. Hogue remained in Tulsa until his death on July 22, 1994.

Career

Hogue’s mother had a huge influence on his work; she taught him about “Mother Earth,” which became a key concept to most of his paintings, specifically Mother Earth Laid Bare in 1938. Hogue connected the human body to the natural world, recalling his mother’s words that “...conjured up visions of a great female figure under the ground everywhere- so I would tread easy on the ground." In addition, the effects that the Dust Bowl had on the land that Hogue had grown to love had a profound effect on his works. The loss of the grasslands in the Texas Panhandle influenced his ecocentric views that are displayed in his paintings. Interestingly enough, Hogue claimed that his artistic style was not influenced during his time in the museums of New York City. He has been quoted as saying that he did not do any painting during this time to avoid the inevitable shift in personal style that comes with the analysis of other works. Hogue also refused to be influenced by his companions Franklin Reaugh and Ernest Blumenschein.

Hogue is associated with the Dallas Nine, a group that painted, drew, sculpted, and printed pieces influenced by the Southwestern region of the United States. This idea was unique compared to the movement towards drawing from European traditions. In contrast with the Impressionist or abstract styles, the Dallas Nine created realistic pieces according to their surroundings in the Southwest. The other eight artists included in this movement were Jerry Bywaters, Thomas Stell, Harry Carnohan, Otis Dozier, William Lester, Everett Spruce, John Douglass, and Perry Nichols. These artists and others worked together at the Dallas Artists League in 1932 and were featured in the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. The Dallas Nine movement ended with the beginning of the Abstract Expressionism style that gained further popularity after World War II. However, Hogue used the Southwest region in a much different manner than the other members of the Dallas Nine school. Occasionally, Hogue is labeled as a Regionalist; he struggled with the idea of a Texan identity, like many other citizens of the state. However, he never referred to himself as a Regionalist. By definition his works were of the Regionalist genre, yet Hogue attempted to avoid this category. His realist landscapes of the Dust Bowl were more blaming Texans rather than identifying with them. As before, Hogue believed the destructed state of the land was the fault of the human inhabitants.

As the 1930s began, Hogue’s style began to emerge. He focused primarily on natural processes as well as the world of Native Americans and their relationship with the land. Hogue called himself an “abstract realist,” saying that naturalism is not possible because every artist recreates a realistic landscape and changes it to fit their own idea of what the view really looks like. He argues that naturalism is created in the head of the artist. In the 1960s Hogue’s self-defined style shifted more towards the abstract end. With realism still intact, Hogue did drawings and paintings of realistic images, but from different points of view, such as close- up studies like the Tent Olive images. This can be seen in Hogue’s work and others by the symbol of the tractor in works like The Crucified Land in 1936. The tractor was a key instrument of land destruction that Hogue believed led to the Dust Bowl and its effects. It also represents the move towards machines in the fields instead of farmers, leaving the farmers no opportunity to work. Another device used to express Hogue’s dissatisfaction with the human race is the flesh imagery. By representing the land as the body of a female figure, as in 1938’s Mother Earth Laid Bare, Hogue is relating the maltreatment of the land to murder. Mother Earth Laid Bare also presents another disturbing image of land abuse. Clearly, the earth is related to the body of a woman, Mother Earth; the plow becomes a symbol for the rape of the land. The landscape and the woman are both rendered completely barren by the plow. The land is beyond the point of help as water runs off instead of being absorbed. This is a clear statement by Hogue concerning the social context: we have caused the loss of life and we can never return it to its fertility.

Drought Stricken Area

In Hogue’s 1934 painting Drought Stricken Area, line, texture, and balance all allude to his views on the ecological environment of the 1930s. On the right side of the painting is a strip of land that points back to the horizon line; the line that is created here allows the eye to move from the busy foreground to the barren background. The horizon line and background are completely void of life except for the windmill structure in the far distance. This allows the viewer’s eye to travel along that line to understand the vastness of the damage done to the land by its inhabitants. Also along this line are stumped posts, covered by wind-eroded soil. This references the erosion that contributed to the infertility and uselessness of the soil. The audience is drawn to these covered posts by the line that is formed by the newly eroded soil.

Hogue also utilizes texture to illustrate the state of the land in the Dust Bowl. In the foreground, the soil has a dry, cracked texture, clearly showing the lack of moisture in the ground. This drought-induced texture, however, is centered around man-made structures. The background has almost no structures, and the land is smooth. The foreground is clustered with houses, gates, and a windmill and this is where the ground is the driest. Here, Hogue is blaming people for the drought and Dust Bowl.

In terms of composition, almost all of the objects are placed in the direct foreground. This not only distances man from nature, but also creates a vast landscape that is filled with nothing at all. The lack of any defining marks from the middle to the background create a desolate, empty and barren space. This, once again, is Hogue commenting on the state of the land and the level of destruction done by people.

DeLong argues that the single windmill on the horizon line in the distance makes the space look even more empty and barren. She also notes that farm and the cow have clearly been left to dry out by careless humans. Compared to photography of this time, Hogue’s painting instead instills anger towards humans instead of empathy for their unfortunate situation. Hogue has commented, however, that his paintings are not meant to be negative exactly, but instead to point out the benefits of preserving the land. Drought Stricken Land is an example of psychoreality, in which Hogue uses certain images to highlight the reality of the situation. By over-exaggerating the vast landscape, starving livestock and skyscraper windmill, Hogue is forcing people to consider the reality that he sees. This is the premise of psychoreality, or, thinking about the reality of a situation because of the magnified items presented. Psychoreality distorts the realism that Hogue was known for, yet it still got his ecocentric message across.

Artworks

- 23 Skiddoo, 1964, Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

- Avalanche by Wind, 1944, University of Arizona.

- The Crucified Land, 1939, Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art.

- Drought Stricken Area, 1934, Dallas Museum of Fine Art.

- Drought Survivors, 1936, Musee National D’Art Moderne.

- Dust Bowl, 1933, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

- The Fiftieth, 1961, Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

- Howdy Neighbor, 1936, Alexandre Hogue Gallery, University of Tulsa.

- Irrigation - Taos, 1931, The Art Museum of South Texas.

- J. Frank Dobie, 1931, Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

- Lava Capped Mesa, Big Bend, 1976, Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

- Mother Earth Laid Bare, 1938, Philbrook Art Center.

- Oil in the Sandhills, 1944, Musee National D’Art Moderne, Pompidou Centre, Paris.

- Soil and Subsoil, 1946, Oklahoma Art Center.

- Zinnigo-Zee-Zee, 1972, Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

Exhibitions

- Allied Arts Exhibition of Dallas County, 1930–34, 1937; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, Texas.

- Painting and Sculpture from Sixteen American Cities, 1933; Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York.

- Modern American Painting, 1939; Boyer Galleries, New York, New York.

- Exhibition of Southwestern Painting, 1947; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, Texas.

- Images of Texas, 1983; Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas, Austin, Texas.

- Alexandre Hogue: An American Visionary, Paintings and Works on Paper, 2011; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas.

References

Sources

1. Curlee, Kendall. “Dallas Nine.” The Handbook of Texas Online. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/DD/kjd1.html (accessed February 10, 2008)

2. Dallas Museum of Art. “Alexandre Hogue.” Dallas Museum of Art. http://dallasmuseumofart.org/Dallas_Museum_of_Art/View/Collections/American/ID_010807?ssSourceNodeId=1558 (accessed February 10, 2008).

3. DeLong, Lea Rosson. “Alexandre Hogue.” The Handbook of Texas Online. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/HH/fhoad.html (accessed February 10, 2008).

4. DeLong, Lea Rosson. Nature’s Forms/Nature’s Forces: The Art of Alexandre Hogue. Tulsa, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984.

5. Flores, Dan. “Canyons of the Imagination.” Southwest Art (1989): 70-76.

6. Noverr, Douglas A. “Unlovely Subjects: Four Paintings from the Great Depression.” Landscape 27 no. 2 (1983): 37-42.

7. White, Mark Andrew. “Alexandre Hogue’s Passion: Ecology and Agribusiness in The Crucified Land.” Great Plains Quarterly 26 no. 2 (2006): 67-83.

External links

Alexandre Hogue on Ask Art

Dallas Museum of Art

Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Hogue, Alexandre

Alexandre Hogue Papers, 1968.001 at the Department of Special Collections and University Archives, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Category:1898 births Category:1994 deaths Category:American artists Category:Texas Woman's University faculty Category:University of Tulsa faculty