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The Joy of Music Leonard Bernstein with a Foreword by Tim Page. Pompton Plains, NJ: Amadeus Press, 2004 315 pp $22.95 ISBN 1-57467-104-9 (Softcover)
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Pianist. Composer. Conductor. Educator. Author. These were several of the many hats Leonard Bernstein wore during his lifetime. His was a life dedicated to communicating; to inspiring; and to teaching. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his book The Joy of Music, originally published in 1959, reprinted in 2004 with a foreword by Washington Post music critic, Tim Page.
The Joy of Music is a collection of essays by Bernstein that strive to illuminate the meaning of music through "a happy medium" as Bernstein describes it, between music appreciation, discussing music in extra-musical terms, and theoretical musical analysis. Part I, Imaginary Conversations, consists of three essays in dialogue form: "Bull Session in the Rockies," "Whatever Happened to the Great American Symphony," and "Why Don't You Run Upstairs and Write a Nice Gershwin Tune?" "Bull Session ..." delves in to the elements that make Beethoven a great composer; and the ambiguity that arises when one attempts to discuss music in non-musical terms. Bernstein turns his attention to the symphony in the second essay; he puts American symphonists of the mid-20th century in the context of their European forebears, and tries to predict how the symphonic form will develop during the last half of the 20th century....