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Bernstein Harvard Lecture III: 'Musical Semantics'

Presented by Pikes Peak Library District at PPLD -Library 21c, Colorado Springs CO

Feb 14 2018

In a series of lectures filmed at Harvard University in 1973, legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein examines music from every age and place in the search for a worldwide, innate musical grammar, using analogies between music and linguistics.

Semantics is the study of meaning in language, and here Bernstein begins to explain "meaning" in music, proposing it as metaphorical. Musical metaphors may be intrinsic, related to structure; or extrinsic, related to extra-musical ideas. Bernstein guides listeners through the opening of Beethoven's 6th symphony to uncover some of these musical metaphors.

These screenings at Library 21c are free and open to the public as part of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic’s The Best of All