Leonard Bernstein’s Young Peoples Concert No. 5

Bernstein delighted in bringing audiences this Young Peoples Concert each year, and we have been enjoying his presentation in recent weeks for its educational and artistic value. Watching the conductor interact with the music students and his orchestra is an education itself, and many times he performs along with the artists. Bernstein admits that there are many talented young musicians today, or in the 50s. Thankfully, he has chosen them for us, not letting us find them by our own judgment, which of course, could never match his own.

The Young Peoples Concert No. 5 performed January 4th, 1959 with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in Lincoln Center includes a harpist, cellist, flutist, clarinetist, and a composer, all between the ages of 14 to 24.

The first artist to perform was a young harpist, 14-years old, Heidi Lehwalder, from Seattle, Washington. Ms. Lehwalder not only had musical influence from her mother who played with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, but she studied with noted teachers.

Carlos Salzedo was a world-famous master harpist as was his student Lynne Wainwright Palmer whom Lehwalder also studied with.

Bernstein complimented her musical maturity saying that although she was only 14, “In her rhythm and sureness of attack and tonal color, she sounds exactly like her master Salzedo.”

Lehwalder played the first movement of Handel’s Concerto in B-flat and conducted by Bernstein.

Many serious young listeners in the audience were no doubt taking mental notes and dreaming of the day when they might be able to audition for the concert series, or even have a career of their own playing with an orchestra.

Ludwalder performed a second piece, the Introduction and Allegro, for harp, flute, and strings by Ravel. She was joined by flutist, Amos Eisenberg, 24, from Israel, who was studying flute on a scholarship with the Manhattan School of Music. Also playing with Ludwalder and Eisenberg was clarinetist, Weldon Berry, Jr., 16, from Philadelphia. This composition was conducted by guest conductor Claudio Abbado from Italy. Including a guest conductor with the Young Peoples Concerts is an added attraction.

Miss Shulamith Ran, 16, is a rare combination of solo pianist and composer. Originally from Israel, at the time of the concert she was in New York to study composition and piano at the Mannes College of Music. She chose to play her composition Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, an amazing composition of sharps and flats that sounds as if it could have been visually influenced by an abstract painting. But no wonder, since she began composing to Hebrew poetry at age 7. Guest conductor for the performance was Pedro Calderon of Argentina.

Cellist, Stephen Kates, 20, of New York performed next with Czech guest conductor Zdenek Kosler. Together they performed Part Two of Barok’s Rhapsody No. 1, originally written for violin and orchestra. Kates’ father, David, was a member of the Philharmonic in the viola section. Kates also gave an encore playing the solo cello introduction to the William Tell Overture by Rossini conducted by Bernstein, undoubtedly the highlight of the afternoon’s performances. The young audience that had been listening attentively, respectfully, studiously, reacted to the crescendo climax of the overture that is popularly known as the theme to the Lone Ranger, becoming animated and finding it hard to sit still. An appropriate ending to the event nevertheless.