Leonard Bernstein at Harvard [videorecording] : "the unanswered question," Norton lectures 1973.

Boston Symphony Orchestra ; Vienna Philharmonic (in lecture 5) ; Leonard Bernstein, conductor.

Producer, Douglas Smith ; written by Leonard Bernstein.

Lectures recorded by Amberson Video in cooperation with WGBH, Boston at Harvard University, 1973.

DVD video; Dolby digital sound, orchestral performances in stereo.

Lecture 1. Musical phonology (104 min.) Explores the origins and development of music and language, with a performance of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550 -- Lecture 2. Musical syntax (95 min.) Compares the structures of music and speech, and discusses the multiple transformations of which both are capable, with examples from Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550 -- Lecture 3. Musical semantics (142 min.) Demonstrates layers of meaning in Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F. Major, op. 68 -- Lecture 4. The delights and dangers of ambiguity (142 min.) Explorations of new tonal fields by composers of the romantic era. Musical illustrations from Berlioz, Wagner, and Debussy -- Lecture 5. The twentieth century crisis (133 min.) Arnold Schoenberg's movement toward atonality and Gustav Mahler's anticipation of the crisis in twentieth-century music. Includes performances of Ives, Ravel, and Mahler -- Lecture 6. The poetry of earth (177 min.) Examines how Igor Stravinsky kept tonality viable while experimenting freely with dissonance. Includes a complete performance of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex.

In these lectures Leonard Bernstein examines music from every age and place in the search for a worldwide, innate musical grammar.

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