DAVID HATTNER’S MAY PYP PLAYLIST

Posted on May 1, 2018

PYP Musical Director David Hattner shares what’s currently on his playlist. Revamp your own playlist with selections from our PYP Playlist on Twitter on #MusicMonday.

It is a good time to pay tribute to one of America’s greatest geniuses in any field, Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein’s biography is familiar enough. He was known around the world as a composer, conductor, pianist and educator. Few musicians have achieved so much.

Also important was Bernstein’s association with Jacob Avshalomov, which led to one of the great moments in PYP history when, in 1984, Bernstein conducted the combined PYP and New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall.

I thought I would present some works of Bernstein that are somewhat less well known.

A piece I first heard as a high school student has stayed with me for a long time. Facsimile is not one of Bernstein’s best-known works, but it is one of my favorites for its accessibility and beauty. As is usually true, Bernstein himself is the ideal performer.

A work with associations for the PYP directly is Bernstein’s Symphony #1 (Jeremiah). When Bernstein was completing it, he needed the help of fellow composers in New York to get the score copied. Jacob Avshalomov was one of those composers. When the Junior Symphony performed the work in the 1960s, Bernstein sent Mr. A a letter acknowledging the performance of “our Symphony.”

One of Bernstein’s later masterworks was the Chichester Psalms. Written to be premiered at Chichester Cathedral in Sussex, England, Bernstein surprised the festival by setting the work in Hebrew. Chichester Psalms, one of Bernstein’s most beloved works, was written at a time when Bernstein was absorbed in a long list of important projects with the New York Philharmonic, where the work was premiered. This live performance shows that every concert of Bernstein’s was an event.

I hope PYP will be able to perform more of Bernstein’s music in the years to come. He especially loved young people and worked his whole life to make the world a better place for them.

Stay tuned,

Hattner signature

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1. Eight years after leaving PYP, I played viola in the orchestra for Leonard Bernstein's "Mass" in its premiere run at the Kennedy Center in 1971. Bernstein was still writing it as we began rehearsals with Maurice Peress conducting. Eventually Bernstein rehearsed us in the two orchestral Meditations, and after the run he conducted us in two days of recording sessions. I had some trepidation when I heard that he was going to be conducting, but it was wonderful. There was no belittling or browbeating. He appreciated our modest efforts. And he loved to make music. If you have the original cast recording, it's Bernstein as uncredited soloist playing the brief piano solo in one of the meditations. While the tapes were running, he silently left the podium and moved to the Steinway for those few bars, then back to conducting. Normally our orchestral pianist played it.
George Alderson|May 2018|Catonsville, MD

DAVID HATTNER’S MAY PYP PLAYLIST

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