Re: Help Requested on Bernstein's narration "HOW A GREAT SYMPHONY WAS WRITTEN" on SONY


angelglow2000@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
grammatim wrote:
Anyone with an international conducting career was of course able to
communicate competently in at least those languages! Probably at least
Russian also.

As for the language issue, I
don't think one needs to speak a foreign language commandingly to
conduct. Most music markings universally understood (usually Italian or
German) and would have been rotely memorized at the beginning of one's
music studies. I think the child in the street must understand allegro,
andante, scherzo, etc. For more idiosyncratic directions, a minimal
phrase vocabulary would suffice: doucement, dolce, etc. Finally, minimal
translations can be made by the few members of the orchestra who
understand the conductor's language. Not that Bernstein would have had
no knowledge of these languages. He knew some German and quoted Thomas
Mann in German during a recorded Harvard lecture; while, of course, many
years conducting the Vienna Phil. it would have been unlikely he did not
master German, if he had not done so already. His late wife was fluent
in French and probably other Romance languages. Still it's possible
Bernstein phonetically learned the translations of his English script in
Italian and French, though I may be wrong.

I take it you've never attended an orchestra rehearsal. Or any other
kind of rehearsal.

I have no idea what you mean by "phonetically learned the translations."

.

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