The Unanswered Question Set

Leonard Bernstein examines music from every age and place in the search for a worldwide, innate musical grammar. Folk music, pop songs, symphonies, tonal, atonal, well-tempered and ill-tempered works find a place in these discussions. All of them, Mr. Bernstein suggests, are grounded in a universal music language.

Using analogies between music and linguistics, Mr. Bernstein shows how this language can be understood as an aesthetic surface. Drawing on his insights as a master composer and conductor, he also explores what music means below the surface. Finally, Mr. Bernstein analyzes the crisis of twentieth-century music, finding its roots in all that has gone before.

Includes:

Lecture 1-Musical Phonology

Lecture 2-Musical Syntax

Lecture 3-Musical Semantics

Lecture 4-The Delights and Dangers of Ambiguity

Lecture 5-The Twentieth Century Crisis

Lecture 6-The Poetry of Earth