Presented by Saul Lilienstein
Music Historian, Smithsonian Affiliates in D.C., Johns Hopkins University, Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center
Vienna was a linguistic crossroads for Czech, German, Hungarian, and Yiddish languages. By the end of the 19th century and into the 20th it had become the most prominent center of Jewish culture in Europe.
Vienna, the city of music, was surely not 'tone-deaf' to the sounds of these cultures. This music-filled presentation will highlight works of Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Sulzer, Brahms, Mahler, Bock & Harnick, and Imre Kalman. Saul Lilienstein will focus on a Jewish awareness that can be recognized in some of the great music we think of today as distinctly Viennese.
Register to receive the Zoom link. Barring technical issues, this talk will be posted on our Program Recording Archives.
Thank you to Harriet Meier, M.D. for sponsoring this program in memory of her parents, Irving and Lola Lewin.
We also extend a special thank you to Andrew R. Ammerman for sponsoring our Fall 2024 program lineup. He dedicates the semester’s learning in loving memory of Josephine and H. Max Ammerman and Stephen C.
A former student of Leonard Bernstein, Saul Lilienstein holds B.A. and M.S. degrees in music from Queens College. Lilienstein was for many years the Artistic Director and Conductor of Maryland’s Harford Opera Theatre and then of Operetta Renaissance in Baltimore, conducting and producing in all well over fifty operas. He initially came to the attention of Maryland audiences as Director of Music for The Handel Choir of Baltimore and the Harford Choral Society. Concurrently and continuing over the decades, Saul was the hidden presence in the choir loft of the Chizuk Amuno Congregation, directing the music.
Today, he continues as a highly regarded Professor of Music in the Washington area. His is a familiar voice at the Smithsonian Institution, Johns Hopkins University, at the Goethe Institut, for symphonic concerts at the Kennedy Center, opera lectures for Washington National Opera, and at music symposiums in New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Palm Beach. Lilienstein’s subjects range from the Origins of Opera to the Origins of Jazz, from Bach and Beethoven to Music of the Gypsies, from Immigrant Cultures to Music of The Beatles. He has now completed over eight-five highly acclaimed Commentaries on CD for The Washington National Opera, analyzing the repertoire in the most extensive series of its kind in the English language.
Lilienstein's essays on music have appeared in newspapers throughout the country, in journals, and in anthologies.