METAMORPHOSES: ORPHEUS IN OEDIPUS. The Harvard Glee Club and Emmanuel Music had a stunning performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex on February 23, 2018 in Sanders Theatre. The performance marked the 90th anniversary of the American premiere of Stravinsky’s piece that featured the Harvard Glee Club and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who commissioned the work. The concert also featured performances of Matthew Aucoin's The Orphic Moment and Harvard Glee Club alumnus and Pulitzer Prize winner John Harbison's Symphony No. 5.
Sanders Theatre
Harvard University
Friday, February 23, 2018 at 8 PM
PHOTOS FROM HGC/EMMANUEL MUSIC REHEARSALS
AND THE PROGRAM PAGE FROM THE 1928 AMERICAN PREMIERE
FEATURING THE BSO & HGC
Click on the thumbnails below to see the full image.
BERNSTEIN, OEDIPUS REX, AND THE HARVARD GLEE CLUB IN 1973
In the 1972-73 academic year, Leonard Bernstein returned to Harvard, his alma mater, to serve as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, with "Poetry" being defined in the broadest sense. The position, first created in 1925, asks faculty members to live on campus, advise students, and most importantly, deliver a series of six public lectures. T.S. Eliot, Aaron Copland, W.H. Auden, e.e. cummings, Robert Frost, Jorge Luis Borges all served as Norton Lecturers. And Bernstein did too.
Delivered in 1973 and collectively titled "The Unanswered Question," Bernstein's lectures covered a lot of terrain, touching on poetry, linguistics, philosophy and physics. But the focus inevitably comes back to music -- to how music works, or to the underlying grammar of music. The lectures run over 11 hours. They're considered masterpieces, beautiful examples of how to make complicated material accessible. In the 6th lecture Bernstein discusses predominantly Stravinsky, whom Bernstein considers the poet of the earth. There is a beautiful performance of Oedipus Rex with Bernstein conducting the Harvard Glee Club.