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Symphony No. 1 (“Jeremiah”)
Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, MA on August 25, 1918 and died in New York City on October 14, 1990. His career centered on musical composition and conducting, but he was also a gifted pianist. He preferred to call himself simply “musician.” Bernstein was, as his biography in the New Grove Dictionary puts it, “the most famous and successful native-born figure in the history of classical music in the USA”. His influence on a generation of musicians was immeasurable. Furthermore, his body of work successfully spanned and connected the sometimes disparate worlds of the concert music and musical theater. His legacy continues through his music, recordings, videos, and many books. Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 (“Jeremiah”) was composed in 1942 and was premiered on January 28, 1944, at the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh with the composer conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The mezzo-soprano soloist was Jennie Tourel. In 1944 it received the New York Critics’ Circle Award as the best American composition. The work is scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, mezzo-soprano, and strings.


As we approach the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth, a re-evaluation of his work as a composer is underway. His legacy as a conductor and educator have long been assured, and his score for the musical, West Side Story, has long been recognized for the masterpiece of musical theater that it is. But his reputation as a composer of concert music has been less secure. Not that his musical gifts were ever in question, but the span of his creative life as a composer was beset my certain self-doubt, precipitated in part by the rise in academic circles of atonality and serialism—the legacy of Schoenberg and his disciples, as well as the advent of electronic music. Bernstein, while respecting the austerity and abstraction of modernist techniques, was too deeply wed to the legacy of both European and American composition rooted in long-standing traditions to make these an integral part of his compositional style.


His musical style, taking the long view, was always eclectic. The symphonies of Mahler and Shostakovich mixed freely with the Americanism of Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, and others, spiced by the traditions of the music of the synagogue that formed the musical world in which Bernstein grew up. Bernstein’s awareness and sensitivity to current events, politics, informed his choices as a composer. Even more important to him was his ambivalent attitude toward religious faith, as witnessed by the titles of his three symphonies composed between 1942 and 1963: “Jeremiah,” “Age of Anxiety,” and “Kaddish.” The first and third of these bear specific reference to Bernstein and his crisis of faith in a world dominated by the tragedy of wars and human suffering. The ultimate expression of his, which Bernstein also believed this crisis of faith to be not only personal, but to be the fundamental issue facing the world. The concept of the loss and recovery of faith found its ultimate expression in his epic 1971 “Mass,” composed for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.


The premiere of Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 took place in the Syria Mosque, a 3,700-seat auditorium built for the Shriners in 1911 (dedicated 1916) in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood. Many concerts by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, as well as other cultural and political events, took place there until the building was taken down in 1991.


The “Jeremiah” Symphony is dedicated to the composer’s father, Samuel J. Bernstein. According to the composer’s own program notes:


In the summer of 1939 I made a sketch for a “Lamentation” for soprano and orchestra. This sketch lay forgotten for two years, until in the spring of 1942 I began a first movement of a symphony. I then realized that this new movement, and the scherzo that I planned to follow it, made logical concomitants with the “Lamentation.” This the symphony came into being, with the “Lamentation” greatly changed, and soprano supplanted by a mezzo-soprano. The work was finished on 31 December 1942 and is dedicated to my father.

The Symphony does not make use to any great extent of actual Hebrew thematic material. The first theme of the Scherzo is paraphrased from a traditional Hebrew chant, and the opening phrase of the vocal part in the “Lamentation is based on a liturgical cadence still sung today in commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon. Other resemblances to Hebrew liturgical music are a matter of emotional quality rather than of notes themselves.

As for programmatic meanings, the intention is again not one of literalness, but of emotional quality. Thus the first movement (“Prophecy”) aims only to parallel in feeling the intensity of the prophet’s pleas with his people; and the scherzo (“Profanation”) to give a general sense of the destruction and chaos brought on by the pagan corruption within the priesthood and the people. The third movement (“Lamentation”), being a setting of poetic text, is naturally a more literary conception. It is the cry of Jeremiah, as he mourns his beloved Jerusalm, ruined, pillaged, and dishonored after his desperate efforts to save it. The text is from the book of Lamentations. (From the Boosey & Hawkes published score, © 1992)


A translation of the Hebrew verses Bernstein set from the Book of Lamentations follows:


CHAPTER 1.1-3 How doth the city sit solitary, That was full of people! How is she become as a widow? She that was great among the nations. And princess among the provinces. How is she become tributary!

She weepeth sore in the night, And her tears are on her cheeks; She hath none to comfort her Among all her lovers; All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, They are become her enemies.

Judah is gone into exile because of affliction. And because of great servitude; she dwelleth among the nations, she findeth no rest. all her pursuers overtook her Within the narrow passes.


CHAPTER 1.8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned... How doth the city sit solitary ...a widow.


CHAPTER 4.14-15 They wander as blind men in the streets, they are polluted with blood, so that men cannot touch their garments. Depart, ye unclean! they cried unto them, Depart, depart! touch us not... 


CHAPTER 5.20-21 Wherefore dost thou forget us forever, and forsake us so long time?... Turn thou us unto thee, o lord...



Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2017

Symphony No. 1 (“Jeremiah”)
Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, MA on August 25, 1918 and died in New York City on October 14, 1990. His career centered on musical composition and conducting, but he was also a gifted pianist. He preferred to call himself simply “musician.” Bernstein was, as his biography in the New Grove Dictionary puts it, “the most famous and successful native-born figure in the history of classical music in the USA”. His influence on a generation of musicians was immeasurable. Furthermore, his body of work successfully spanned and connected the sometimes disparate worlds of the concert music and musical theater. His legacy continues through his music, recordings, videos, and many books. Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 (“Jeremiah”) was composed in 1942 and was premiered on January 28, 1944, at the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh with the composer conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The mezzo-soprano soloist was Jennie Tourel. In 1944 it received the New York Critics’ Circle Award as the best American composition. The work is scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, mezzo-soprano, and strings.


As we approach the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth, a re-evaluation of his work as a composer is underway. His legacy as a conductor and educator have long been assured, and his score for the musical, West Side Story, has long been recognized for the masterpiece of musical theater that it is. But his reputation as a composer of concert music has been less secure. Not that his musical gifts were ever in question, but the span of his creative life as a composer was beset my certain self-doubt, precipitated in part by the rise in academic circles of atonality and serialism—the legacy of Schoenberg and his disciples, as well as the advent of electronic music. Bernstein, while respecting the austerity and abstraction of modernist techniques, was too deeply wed to the legacy of both European and American composition rooted in long-standing traditions to make these an integral part of his compositional style.


His musical style, taking the long view, was always eclectic. The symphonies of Mahler and Shostakovich mixed freely with the Americanism of Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, and others, spiced by the traditions of the music of the synagogue that formed the musical world in which Bernstein grew up. Bernstein’s awareness and sensitivity to current events, politics, informed his choices as a composer. Even more important to him was his ambivalent attitude toward religious faith, as witnessed by the titles of his three symphonies composed between 1942 and 1963: “Jeremiah,” “Age of Anxiety,” and “Kaddish.” The first and third of these bear specific reference to Bernstein and his crisis of faith in a world dominated by the tragedy of wars and human suffering. The ultimate expression of his, which Bernstein also believed this crisis of faith to be not only personal, but to be the fundamental issue facing the world. The concept of the loss and recovery of faith found its ultimate expression in his epic 1971 “Mass,” composed for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.


The premiere of Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 took place in the Syria Mosque, a 3,700-seat auditorium built for the Shriners in 1911 (dedicated 1916) in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood. Many concerts by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, as well as other cultural and political events, took place there until the building was taken down in 1991.


The “Jeremiah” Symphony is dedicated to the composer’s father, Samuel J. Bernstein. According to the composer’s own program notes:


In the summer of 1939 I made a sketch for a “Lamentation” for soprano and orchestra. This sketch lay forgotten for two years, until in the spring of 1942 I began a first movement of a symphony. I then realized that this new movement, and the scherzo that I planned to follow it, made logical concomitants with the “Lamentation.” This the symphony came into being, with the “Lamentation” greatly changed, and soprano supplanted by a mezzo-soprano. The work was finished on 31 December 1942 and is dedicated to my father.

The Symphony does not make use to any great extent of actual Hebrew thematic material. The first theme of the Scherzo is paraphrased from a traditional Hebrew chant, and the opening phrase of the vocal part in the “Lamentation is based on a liturgical cadence still sung today in commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon. Other resemblances to Hebrew liturgical music are a matter of emotional quality rather than of notes themselves.

As for programmatic meanings, the intention is again not one of literalness, but of emotional quality. Thus the first movement (“Prophecy”) aims only to parallel in feeling the intensity of the prophet’s pleas with his people; and the scherzo (“Profanation”) to give a general sense of the destruction and chaos brought on by the pagan corruption within the priesthood and the people. The third movement (“Lamentation”), being a setting of poetic text, is naturally a more literary conception. It is the cry of Jeremiah, as he mourns his beloved Jerusalm, ruined, pillaged, and dishonored after his desperate efforts to save it. The text is from the book of Lamentations. (From the Boosey & Hawkes published score, © 1992)


A translation of the Hebrew verses Bernstein set from the Book of Lamentations follows:


CHAPTER 1.1-3 How doth the city sit solitary, That was full of people! How is she become as a widow? She that was great among the nations. And princess among the provinces. How is she become tributary!

She weepeth sore in the night, And her tears are on her cheeks; She hath none to comfort her Among all her lovers; All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, They are become her enemies.

Judah is gone into exile because of affliction. And because of great servitude; she dwelleth among the nations, she findeth no rest. all her pursuers overtook her Within the narrow passes.


CHAPTER 1.8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned... How doth the city sit solitary ...a widow.


CHAPTER 4.14-15 They wander as blind men in the streets, they are polluted with blood, so that men cannot touch their garments. Depart, ye unclean! they cried unto them, Depart, depart! touch us not... 


CHAPTER 5.20-21 Wherefore dost thou forget us forever, and forsake us so long time?... Turn thou us unto thee, o lord...



Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2017