Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic are excellent. Bernstein recorded these for CBS from 1958 to 1972.
My three daughters and I just finished watching all 25 programs in this Special Collector’s Edition 9-DVD Set. Each program is a little under an hour, and we watched one together each Saturday morning.
Bernstein was a prodigiously talented conductor, and he was also a gifted pianist, composer, and music lecturer. And to top it all off, he was skilled at teaching children about music. He makes complex musical topics easy to understand—simple enough for children to understand. And it’s not just for kids: I learned something new in every single episode.
I highly recommend his Young People’s Concerts (not his ethics or politics). You can read some of the scripts here, and you can view some of these concerts online for free. For example, here’s one called “Who Is Gustav Mahler?” (script):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJeRlfibzcs
Lennie was teaching elementary-grade children at this level in 1960. Today (post-“Sesame Street”) these lectures would challenge the comprehension and attention span of many college students. Kids who are accustomed to the relentless cartoon repetition of Daniel Tiger and Yo Gabba Gabba wouldn’t know what to do in auditorium seats, listening to Leonard Bernstein explain Mahler for fifty minutes.
And since evangelicals love to ape every worldly trend, the dumbing down of everything has also unleashed disaster in the church. E.g.:
https://baptistnews.com/culture/item/30471-adult-coloring-books-emerging-as-popular-spiritual-practice
Wow! We’ve been seeking to build up Christ’s church here in New York with prayer, the ministry of the Word, worship, evangelism, discipleship, etc. How did we miss this essential “coloring book ministry” to adults? Sad!
Andy, you might also be interested in the Bernstein lectures, The Unanswered Question, a six-part lecture series filmed at Harvard about the development of music. [Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6]
I’ve also benefited from Rob Kapilow’s book and the accompanying audio, All You Have to Do Is Listen: Music from the Inside Out.
And Michale Tilson Thomas has done some things for PBS where he unpacks and then performs a particular composer’s work. I’ve enjoyed those.
Thanks for this recommendation.