A Mosaic of Lectures: Temianka and His Contemporaries
Even though his performance lectures saw a notable outpouring of both support and criticism — often about whether lectures are appropriate for concerts in the first place — Temianka was far from the first to introduce the pre-concert commentary to audiences. A handful of fellow 20th century performers applied similar lectures to their own performances, although their methods and reasons for using lectures differed from Temianka's.
Together, Temianka and his contemporaries create a mosaic of musical commentaries, with each performer's style remaining distinct from the other while still contributing to the greater popularization of music education and live performance commentary as a whole.
Leonard Bernstein and "Young People's Concerts"
Perhaps best known for creating the musical score of "West Side Story," conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein was also responsible for the televised CBS series "Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts," which began airing in 1958 and ran until 1972. In the show, Bernstein would conduct and provide commentary for performances by the New York Philharmonic, surrounded by an audience of families.Many of Bernstein's commentaries have similarities Temianka's own performance lectures, which had also taken shape during the 1950s.
Bernstein would demonstrate musical techniques by playing them out in segments, providing descriptions of the tone or themes present in a piece. In the show's pilot episode, Bernstein has each section of his orchestra play the same piece from the "William Tell" overture to show how different sounds can contribute to an overall feeling of excitement in music, much like how Temianka would demonstrate a performance in individual segments at his own concerts.
History was also a common topic in Bernstein's televised lectures. For example, an episode titled "A Tribute to Sibelius" aired the 100th birthday of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, in which Bernstein conducted the composer's famous patriotic number "Finlandia" and explained its relevance to the time it was premiered — 1900, when Finland had not yet gained independence and was still under the control of the Russian Empire.
Much like Bernstein, who had ventured to take the "Young People's Concerts" program into television (it had run as a concert series for several decades prior), Temianka was a proponent of using the latest technology to provide a better understanding of music for the masses.
In the manuscript for his unpublished book, "Music Appreciation," Temianka laid out his plan for recording the book onto cassette tapes, which had risen in popularity around the time of writing. "It is my purpose to provide a compact textbook, combined with recorded musical excerpts, as well as complete compositions, all recorded on cartridges," Temianka wrote.
Still, there are several distinct differences between Bernstein's "Young People's Concerts" and Temianka's performance lectures.
While Bernstein's lectures focused mainly on music genres, forms and techniques, with historical insights occasionally brought into the discussion, Temianka's commentaries had a much greater emphasis on the backstories of composers and his own personal experiences as a performer and conductor.
Most notably, "Young People's Concerts" were expressly marketed toward families and younger children. Temianka had his own "Symphonies for Youth" program, but he also provided commentary at shows that were more broadly geared toward concertgoers as a whole, such as "Let's Talk Music" or his later "Croissants and Coffee and Chamber Music" series.
This contrast in target audiences may explain why Bernstein was generally less inclined to dive into specific aspects of composers' backgrounds, or his own history as a performer, than Temianka's lectures. Nonetheless, both artists demonstrated an undeniable level of respect for music education in their respective shows.
Walter Damrosch and "Music Appreciation Hour"
By the time Temianka regularly provided commentaries both onstage and over the airwaves, radio had captured the nation's intrigue, with over 82% of Americans listening to radio in 1947.German-born musician Walter Damrosch was at the forefront of a radio program in this era called "Music Appreciation Hour," which was broadcast from 1928 to 1942 on NBC Radio. Much like Temianka with "Sunday Evening Concerts," he saw promise in the radio world and its potential to spread musical awareness among the American population through lectures and performance snippets.
Similar to Bernstein's "Young People's Concerts," Damrosch's show was explicitly geared toward students: one program was for grades 3-4, another for grades 5-6, a third for grades 7-9 and lastly a series for high schoolers and adults, each with different study topics.
Damrosch's commentary accompanied musical performances conducted for the program, which was created with the intent to "supplement rather than supplant local instruction in the appreciation of music," or provide a second source of music education in addition to a school curriculum.
This purpose is where Damrosch's lecture style differs most notably from Temianka's.
Because "Music Appreciation Hour" was designed to run like a school curriculum — even providing notebooks and instruction manuals for classes that tuned in — each commentary was designed to address a specific aspect of music. The program for high schoolers and adults, for instance, focused mainly on the biographies of famous composers, whereas the program for 3rd and 4th graders focused on instruments and the human voice.
In contrast, Temianka's lectures were not attempting to mimic a classroom setting in the way Damrosch was, which gave Temianka the opportunity to lend more holistic insights into a particular movement or piece. He had the freedom to discuss Mozart's childhood just as much as he could address Mozart's musical style or impact on other composers. Even Temianka's radio show focused more on providing a general context for each piece that was presented over the airwaves, as opposed to using songs as examples for a particular case study.
However, Temianka and Damrosch both had an understanding that their lectures and commentaries could not serve as a substitute for formal music classes altogether. Instead, the artists found ways to popularize musical insights that may not be the focus of a typical music education.
Other Contemporaries
Beyond television and radio, some of Temianka's peers provided a form of live commentary at performances called "lecture-recitals." Typically, a lecture-recitalist explains, introduces or verbally annotates the music being performed at a concert by providing some technical or historical background on each piece. Bernstein and Damrosch's programs could be considered a form lecture-recital, but most artists in the mid-20th century presented theirs in person.Approaches to the format varied, however. Aaron Copland, a contemporary of Temianka's sometimes referred to as the "Dean of American Composers," was an avid lecturer by the 1920s. Copland's work provided commentary on specific styles or eras of music, such as "The American Composer Today" or "Music of the Twenties." Many of these lectures were presented in an academic setting, and some were given entirely separate from any musical performances.
Even vocalists, like German American singer Elisabeth Schumann, provided verbal introductions to their performances. In the early 1950s, Schumann gave a series of lecture-recitals that described the factors involved with vocal performance, like how to properly breathe during a concert.
Temianka's verbal annotations may have varied from those of artists like Schumann or Copland in terms of content and delivery — especially since Schumann focused on vocal technicalities and Copland's work was often geared toward academics. But regardless of their differences, Temianka's contemporaries proved that his voice was in good company when sharing music knowledge with listeners, whether on stage or over the air.