Leonard Bernstein - "The Unanswered Question" 1. Musical Phonology [1973 at Harvard] Norton Lectures - No. 1 of 6

Introduction to the Norton Lectures
Bernstein Website [Norton Lectures]

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At the beginning of his first Norton Lecture, Leonard Bernstein explained the importance of "inter-disciplinary values - that the best way to 'know' a thing is in the context of another discipline." In these six lectures, Bernstein communicated his ideas of the universality of musical language through wide-ranging analogies to linguistics, aesthetic philosophy, acoustics as well as music history. However, while many of his ideas are intellectually challenging, the great achievement of the lectures is that through their breadth they make complex musical concepts accessible to a general audience.

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Leonard Bernstein was invited to become the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University in 1971. This one-year position had previously been held by such notable musical figures as Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland, and by poets such as e.e. cummings and W.H. Auden. The professorship required Bernstein to live on campus for one school year, counsel students and, most significantly, deliver of a series of six public lectures. Bernstein, a "Harvard man" himself, was pleased and honored to become a part of this distinguished tradition.


Bernstein began his residency at Harvard in the fall of 1972. He immersed himself in the academic culture with enthusiasm, and his popularity with students resulted in his being named "Man of the Year" by Harvard's student newspaper. His daughter Jamie was an undergraduate at Radcliffe at the time, so his involvement in the University's student life had special meaning for him.

Bernstein was scheduled to give the six lectures in the spring of 1973, but with a full schedule of various composing projects and conducting engagements, he postponed the lectures until the fall. Preparing for the lectures was no small undertaking, and Bernstein wanted to have the time to make the most of this unique opportunity.

Because the lectures embraced such a wide variety of disciplines, Bernstein faced the challenge of organizing his ideas into a coherent progression of six talks. Also, every word had to be written out and memorized because each of the lectures was to be presented twice: live at the University and then in a subsequent taping session for television.

At the end of the Lecture there is a live performance of the work analyzed: Mozart's Symphony No. 40 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein.



I have enclosed a translation into Spanish of the complete FIRST lecture, the link of which is within the RS Link List above. I ripped the audio file for each chapter and added a subsequent TXT file with the translation into Spanish. This is for the benefit of those Spanish-speaking members who might wish to fully understand Mr. Bernstein's contents. Mr. Bernstein infers that he is before an audience of trained musicians and that the basics are common knowledge. His language is quite technical, so it might be difficult for those who need translation. Eventually I will place a subtitle file for these as I prepare them.
For the audio and translation only, please CLICK HERE

Enjoy!