Leon Botstein is a very busy man. When not writing about music or editing books and teaching, he runs Bard College (and has since 1975 when he was elected its president at age 29), as well as recording internationally, conducting the American Symphony Orchestra and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. He also is brilliantly erudite, drop-dead funny and could hold his own on a late-night talk show.
Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra have been presenting a wonderful series called Classics Declassified for several years at Columbia University’s Miller Theater at 116th Street and Broadway in New York City.
These intimate Sunday afternoon sessions (a bargain at $17, even less for students and seniors) begin with Botstein discussing the composer and symphonic masterpiece du jour, with the orchestra “illustrating” Botstein’s comments with brief musical passages. After an intermission, the ASO performs the work in its entirety and then conductor and musicians take questions from the audience.
On Sunday, the Dear Friend & Conscience and I were in the packed hall as Claude Debussy’s “La Mer” got the Classics Declassified treatment.
“La Mer” occupies a special place in my classical pantheon because it was on the very first album — a boxed set of symphonies that included, among other others Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherezade” and Ravel’s “Bolero” — that I bought at an A&P supermarket at age 13 with money from my newspaper route.
But beyond this wee personal footnote, Debussy revolutionized how people thought about music. Indeed, nothing like “La Mer” had come before but plenty not unlike it came later. (Stravinsky, for one, was deeply influenced by Debussy.)
Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House.