"THE SYMPHONIC FORM IS DEAD" And Other Observations by a New Elder Statesman

THERE was a birthday bash prepared for the ballroom of the Brussels Hilton, with a lot of U.S. and Belgian officials and all 109 members of the New York Philharmonic Symphony invited. The musicians were not to supply the dance music; they were co-celebrators. The gifts included an original edition of Mahler's unfinished Tenth Symphony and a home stereo installation. Among the decorations: three 100-lb. sculptures of musicians carved in butter.

And the guest of honor? Leonard Bernstein, who--hard to believe--turned 50. Still youthful in appearance, interests and energy (he now jogs with his 13-year-old son Alexander), Bernstein was starting his 1968-69 season with a five-week European tour. At season's end, he ceases to be the Philharmonic's permanent conductor, and plans to de vote most of his time to writing music; his first big project is a new Broadway production based on Brecht's The Exception and the Rule. By virtue of his achievements with the Philharmonic and as composer, author, pianist and TV personality--not to say his new eminence as a 50-year-old--Bernstein is entitled to be called American music's most ar ticulate elder statesman, a status that he will doubtless relish. Last week, before departing for Brussels, he paused at his Park Avenue duplex for a talk with TIME. Some of his observations:

On Being a Conductor

Ever since that day in 1943 when Bruno Walter very nicely got the flu and I had to step in and conduct the Philharmonic, this age thing has changed. At that point, anyone in his 20s or 30s was just laughed at. It all begins much earlier now. There's something else. A conductor is no longer just a man who leads an orchestra. His job includes an educational function, a community leadership function, an institutional responsibility, the setting up of patterns and models that can be followed by other orchestras, and it involves a very complicated set of relationships with the members of your orchestra and to orchestras which one guest-conducts. Can one man do it all any longer? I don't think he can. I think every orchestra knows that by now.

On the Concert Hall as a Museum

Today, the conductor is a sort of curator, and he hangs up these equivalents of masterpieces by Rembrandt, only they're by Beethoven. And he tries to light them as well as possible and put them next to the right other picture, and that's called programming. The whole idea of the concert hall grew up with the idea of the symphony. It began in the 18th century and finished with the beginning of the 20th century: from Mozart to Mahler, roughly. The symphonic form is dead, finished. But why despair about it? Just accept it. That tremendous repertory of masterpieces should go on and on for hundreds of years just as Rembrandts do.

On Playing the Piano

It's still my first love. When I sit at the piano I feel back in the womb.

On the Avant-Garde

Take the case of Lukas Foss, a dear friend whose music I've always loved. He's going through a period now of what seems to me publicly destroying the music he's always loved most--Bach. In some of his compositions he takes a piece by Bach and breaks Coca-Cola bottles over it and makes it fragmented and distorted. It's like watching him publicly clawing the stuff out of his brains to make room for something new. It's as though an avant-garde composer at this point will do anything to clear a space for himself. I don't know that that's going to succeed. There is something so destructive about it.

On the Future of the Musical Theater You can't sit down and say, "I'm now going to write a whole new, different, original thing which is going to change its course." It's got to come from the Broadway musical because that's what is American, that is what we know how to do. That's what is the equivalent of the Singspiel in Austria, out of which Mozart grew, and then Beethoven, Weber, right up through Wagner and Strauss. We have a Singspiel situation here in the United States, and by that I mean a pure entertainment that incorporates elements of vaudeville, operetta, whatever you want. Out of this something can emerge.

Hair is not what I'm talking about. I mean, it takes unbelievable chutzpah to make a show out of laundry lists. There is a song called Sodomy, right? So you take all the words that relate: sodomy, pederasty, anal erotic, or whatever it is, and you list them and that's your lyric, and you put it to a bad rock beat. Then you write a song called Colored Spade, and you say, "I'm a colored spade, Nigra, coon, little Black Sambo . . ." That's another laundry list. lust for shock. At intermission I was collaring people and saying: "Why are you clapping? Why are you laughing? This is horrible!"

On Pop Music

Too many rock groups are too fascinated with electronics. They seem to be saying "Look, that made a nice noise when I pressed that button; let's do it again. Let's put this noise with that one." When you let the machine dictate ideas to you, then it really comes from the outside, not from inside. But when I hear a group like the Cream, which is just sensational, I feel much better about the state of pop music. Those three people are great performers. I mean, they've got a drummer who can really keep time!

On Reaching 50

I feel very young. As a matter of fact, I feel better than I have in a long time as this horrifying birthday arrives. I play better tennis. I have more endurance. I'm happier, in spite of the increasingly ghastly state of the world. I feel that I have enough energy to do whatever it is I am going to do. And I'm looking forward to it.

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