Talk2011

Bernstein Meets Broadway

Library Of Congress. Music Division

Music

At the Library of Congress

Clips are not offered for this film: the Library of Congress states its rights in its own words, not as a public licence, which leaves reuse unclear.

About

The composer Leonard Bernstein once wrote that his now-famous "West Side Story" of 1957 included a plea for racial tolerance as materials reveal in the Bernstein Collection in the Music Division of the Library of Congress. This lecture traces Bernstein's composer-activism back to "On the Town" of 1944, which was his first Broadway show and grew out of a fruitful collaboration with Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Jerome Robbins. Produced with a racially integrated cast during WWII, On the Town crossed race lines boldly, and it did so in an era when racial segregation held firm yet faced increasing resistance. In the historical literature about Broadway, the show's racial advances have been ignored. Fusing musical and cultural history, this lecture draws upon manuscripts for "On the Town" in the Bernstein Collection to explore political activism embedded in the show, as well as to consider Bernstein's early fascination with the blues. 00:16 Sue Vita, Music Division, 2:10 Ann Walters Robinson, President of the American Musicological Society, 7:50 Carol Oja, Harvard University, 32:45 "It's Gotta Be Bad to Be Good," Samara Oster and David Sawicki, 39:05 "Ain't Got No Tears Left," Samara Oster and David Sawicki, 49:58 Questions

Archive
Library of Congress, in Library of Congress: talks and concerts
Licence or status
Rights statement at the Library of Congress, as the Library of Congress states it.
Credit
Library of Congress
Language
English
Country
United States
Who can watch
The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed