Bernstein’s Symphony #3 (“Kaddish”) uses atonality in a post-romantic exploration of the limits of faith
Back in December 1960 I wrote an “A-B credit” term paper for Senior English, on Mahler’s influence on modern composers. I needed the “A” (when grades were currency – we didn’t have blockchain or bitcoin). I did the work on a kitchen table, rather than a bedroom desk.
Then in February 1963, when I had returned to full time at GWU (after six months at NIH). I did a near all-nighter writing an “annotated bibliography” of the same term paper I would write for the official English composition course. What are my blogs now but one enormous bibliography?
We usually think of two sets of composers who followed Mahler’s style. One is Shostakovich (the 4th and 8th symphonies really do sound like Mahler) and the other comprises (sometimes) works of composers like Havergal Brian and even Benjamin Britten, and in the US, Leonard Bernstein, who after all made all the lesser known Mahler works standard repertoire in the 60s.
score posting bt Cmaj7; 1962 performance which I had on a Columbia KS record; the work would be slightly abridged later but I prefer the original version.
Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony #3, “Kaddish” was completed in 1963, and dedicated to the memory of President John Kennedy (the fall following my term paper). A kaddish is a formal prayer sequence in a synagogue. The work is organized into three “kaddishes” and a finale. Musically, each of the four movements is binary, with a slow and then fast section, except that the second kaddish ends with a mezzo-soprano section that sounds like pure Mahler. The finale opens with a slow section (repeating earlier themes) that again echoes the Mahler Ninth; there follows a violent choral fugue that builds up to a tremendous climax and ends on an inconclusive dissonance (basic tonality G, but the work had begun in F# Minor).
The three kaddishes explore the relationship between Man and God, and the “bargain” which is tin. God expects suffering and the loss of self. At one point, God seems to have lost control, and then the speaker realizes they are dreaming. The music is ultimately about the desire to belong to God forevern however unfair it sometimes seems.
The original version ran close to an hour and was performed by the Israel Philharmonic, then Boston Symphony, and finally NY Philharmonic and recorded for Columbia’s prestigious vinyl KS series, which I had (and would eventually be rereleased by Sony on CD). Jennie Tourel (mezzo-soprano) and Felicia Montealegre (narrator offering prayers) performed in the recording. Bernstein shorted the text and music and offered a shorter version in 1977 (which I have on DG CD, but I prefer the original). Bernstein also dropped the requirement that the narrator be a woman.
Sameul Pisar wrote his own text for the work, with emphasis on the Holocaust, oppression of the vulnerable (especially pertinent in today’s political climate with Black Lives Matter and with the ovetaking of Pride day by the BLM and Covid issues), and even nuclear weapons. YouTube offers a 56-minute performance with Pisar, Pavla Vykopalova, soprano, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony with Eliahu Inbal, and the Czech Philharmonic Choir (Brno) and boychoir.
The work often builds themes on rising intervals of fourth and temporarily uses docecaphonix passages. Those passages sometimes also remind me of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck.
The work also shows the value of flexibility, in mixing spoken text with signing and orchestra (as in the Debussy recently).
There is an earlier (2011) legacy discussion of this work and some other Bernstein music (the Concerto for Orchestra). See also Jan 12, 2018 for discussion of “Age of Anxiety”.
(Posted: Sunday, June 14, 2020, at 6 PM)