In this musical essay, Leonard Bernstein recollects and relives his
experiences with the music of the great Viennese composer and conductor
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). Bernstein filmed all of Mahler's ten symphonies
for Unitel as well as Das Lied von der Erde and the Songs from Des Knaben
Wunderhorn. The vocal soloists of these productions, Dame Janet Baker,
Christa Ludwig, Edith Mathis, Lucia Popp and Walton Groenroos, underscore
Leonard Bernstein's elucidations with appropriate music examples. The
recordings with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra were made in Tel Aviv,
those with the London Symphony Orchestra in the Cathedral of Ely and those
with the Wiener Philharmoniker in the Grosser Musikvereinssaal in Vienna,
in which Gustav Mahler himself conducted.
The Little Drummer Boy illustrates the fundamental concepts of Leonard
Bernstein's interpretation of Mahler's works, and exposes not only the
building material and framework of Mahler's brilliant structures, but also
the tensional pulls within them. Searching for the musical roots and the
hidden truths guiding the composer, Leonard Bernstein discovers the key to
Mahler's music in the composer's repressed Jewishness. Starting from the
song Der Tambourg'sell (From Des Knaben Wunderhorn, written in 1899),
Leonard Bernstein spans a broad arch over all the symphonies and concludes
with Mahler's last and greatest song, the Lied von der Erde (1910).
