“It was more than 50 years overdue, but Leonard Bernstein’s score of Mahler’s ‘Das Lied von der Erde’ was finally returned to the Vienna Philharmonic on Tuesday,” writes Michael Cooper in Tuesday’s (3/28) New York Times. “Bernstein used the score, which bears the stamp of the Vienna Philharmonic, when he conducted the piece for his debut with that orchestra in 1966—and then kept it for the rest of his life. Upon his death in 1990 it was given to the New York Philharmonic, which keeps a large collection of his marked-up scores. Both the Vienna Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic are celebrating their 175th anniversaries this year, and they collaborated on a joint exhibition of treasures from their archives. When it opened last month in New York, officials from both orchestras chuckled over the Viennese stamp on a New York artifact. Now the exhibition has moved to Vienna, where it is going on display at the Haus der Musik through January. On Tuesday—the 175th anniversary of the Vienna Philharmonic’s first concert, which was held on March 28, 1842—officials from the New York Philharmonic and members of the Bernstein family gave the score back to Vienna.”
Posted March 28, 2017
