[43] First Movement: Getting Together, Jim Tilley

New York Philharmonic Concert, April 6, 1962, first piano
concerto of Johannes Brahms, Leonard Bernstein, conductor,
and Glenn Gould, master pianist, strongly differing views
on interpretation of the original score, the controversy aired
in public. “Who’s in charge?” Bernstein wondered. “I am,”
claimed Gould, in whose performance, one of his last, whites
and blacks, sharps and flats, moved at Glenn’s tempi, not
Leonard’s. Now, more than sixty years later, little good music
from Congress, sharply worded speeches the dynamics
of the day, falling flat on the ears of the other side, radically
different interpretations of the annotated score, the founders’
constitution constantly playing out before the Supreme Court,
a divisive struggle over who should be the next conductor,
acclaimed virtuosos needed, nowhere to be found.