BERNIE AT NINETY

Courtesy CBS

I'm no fan of Leonard Bernstein's music, but there's no denying his lasting influence as a cultural emissary nonpareil. And as a recent Newsweek article suggests, we could certainly benefit from a bit of Bernsteinian perspective right about now:

"Today, when high and low culture sneer at each other across a gulf of incomprehension and politically useful ill will, Bernstein seems a glorious freak: the avatar of a democratic cultural dream that elitism and populism can commune, not to cancel each other out but to their mutual benefit. This is not what Tocqueville had in mind when he predicted that the sprawling patchwork nature of our society doomed us to mediocre, middle-ground art. But not even the prophetic Tocqueville could see Lenny Bernstein coming...

"Anybody reading the papers can see how vicious the culture wars have grown. Just about any personal quality with a whiff of distinction—a hobby, a vegetable preference—can get you branded an elitist and a threat to our values. Remember how, in a desperate bid for self-preservation, John Kerry pretended four years ago he didn't speak French? Or consider how, at this year's Republican convention, Barack Obama was mocked by the multimillionaire former mayor of New York City and prominent opera buff Rudy Giuliani for being 'cosmopolitan.' Maybe Tocqueville was right about us."

WTF, Rudy?! At what point did it become politically acceptable to use culture as a divisive, even a derisive force? We can all hope that an Obama administration would bring a bit more cultural sensitivity to the political dialogue. But perhaps what we need in addition to that is a Bernstein (or two or three) for the twenty-first century... someone with the clout and charisma to address a wide audience, but also with sufficient artistic merit so as to actually enhance our experience of culture, to demystify it and make the case for its relevance in contemporary public life. And most importantly, given this painfully divisive/derisive political climate, to push a philosophy of cultural inclusion rather than further division and dissociation.

For example, while I don't think Bernstein ever presented a particularly compelling appraisal of what jazz was, he was one of the first members of the so-called cultural elite who was even willing to address it, and hence make it credible for others of that milieu to do so. Likewise, his appropriation of popular elements into his own music never much appealed to my aesthetic, but I can appreciate the importance of that music in helping to lift the veil of academic elitism that impeded the serious study of popular music for many, many decades. And though his flirtation with the classical avant-garde was relatively brief, Bernstein premiered Messiaen's Turangalila and recorded orchestral music by Ligeti, Feldman and others. All these endorsements point to what was perhaps most impressive about Bernstein as a public figure: he was able to inspire a greater appreciation of the past while simultaneously clearing a path for the important voices of the future.

So how about a moment to show some respect... Bernstein performing Beethoven. If you ask me, and I'll assume that you did, this is both of them at their best: