ABSTRACT
LAIRD: So to you, every composer is to some extent eclectic. BERNSTEIN: Every painter, every poet, everybody. LAIRD: You've got to be basing your work on what's coming before it. BERNSTEIN: Otherwise you don't exist. Who are you if you are not the
Those familiar with Bernstein, his career and output, and the music he invokes in his defense hear much that can be debunked. What Bernstein offers is not the usual definition of eclecticism and he evinces pride at what many might consider the derivative nature of his music. To call Stravinsky the most eclectic composer ever stretches credibility, and Beethoven surely was a more original composer than Bernstein suggests. Bernstein overstates the parallels between The Rite of Spring (1913) and works by Scriabin and Ravel. The "Danse sacrale" owes something to Scriabin's Fifth Piano Sonata (1907), but few direct comparisons can be made.2 The "Introduction" of Part Two of the Rite is similar in affect and sonority to the "Prelude ala nuit" of Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole (1908), but there are no direct quotations. 3 And finally, when asked if Copland were his greatest influence, Bernstein launched into a lengthy defense of eclecticism and invoked the name of several compositional icons, thereby comparing his own works with those of Beethoven and Stravinsky.
