Jamie Bernstein: ‘Sondheim was like an uncle’ and West Side Story a ‘fourth sibling’

Leonard Bernstein with his daughter Jamie. Picture: Getty

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM

@sophiassocials

 

Classic FM met with Jamie Bernstein to discuss her father, the new West Side Story remake, and her familial-like relationship with the late Stephen Sondheim...

Jamie Bernstein is an author, writer, narrator, and the eldest child of the American composer-conductor, Leonard Bernstein.

Her memoir Famous Father Girl, published in 2018, shared an intimate, undisguised portrait of her father as the musical genius, but also complex human being that he was.

Now with her father’s musical, West Side Story brought to the big screen for the second time in multi award-winning fashion, we sat down with Jamie to discuss the musical that she and her younger brother and sister, Alexander and Nina, refer to as the “fourth sibling”.

West Side Story (2021). Picture: Alamy

West Side Story

“I couldn’t wait to see the new film!” Jamie told Classic FM. “My brother and sister and I finally got to go to a private, very COVID-conscious screening last April, and we just were crazy for it.

“What was really fantastic for us was that musically, it was the best possible outcome. It was just stellar all the way through and filled with superstar performers.”

The high-profile music team working on the 2021 remake was made up of the talents of both the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. They were directed by Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and the Academy Award-nominated composer David Newman, was the orchestrator and arranger.

“How I wish my dad was around to see this film, to hear this film and hear how his music sounds in it,” Jamie revealed.

“I also so wish that my father and Steven Spielberg could have met each other because they have a lot in common. They’re both incredibly warm-hearted people. They love to reach out and communicate and make connections and they’re really peas in a pod.

“I’m sorry they didn’t get to meet in real life, but they sort of did meet through the film.”

Steven Spielberg directs West Side Story (2021). Picture: Alamy

Jamie also told Classic FM about her familial-like relationship with the late composer Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics to West Side Story.

“Steve was always there, just like West Side Story was, and for the exact same reason – because he was there working with my father. But he wasn’t just a work colleague, he was really a friend of the whole family.

“He would come and visit us in the summers, come out to our country house in Connecticut for the weekend. He really hung out with us. For my siblings and I, he was like another uncle.

“We were always a little careful around Steve because you wouldn’t want to rile him; he was a scary dude when we were young! But, interestingly enough in the last 20 years of his life, he kind of mellowed out and became genuinely avuncular and was very affectionate with the three of us. He often invited us over to his house to have dinner or play anagrams and word games, which we all love so much. We got to really hang out with him in this very relaxed and affectionate way quite a lot in the last years of his life.”

Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim at the opening night of West Side Story on Broadway in 1957. Picture: Getty

Sondheim was also at the pre-screening of West Side Story in April. “He actually had his own private screen with nobody else there because they were so keen to keep him safe from COVID, since he was 90,” Jamie adds.

At the end of the screening, Sondheim told Steven Spielberg how much he adored the film. He thought it was sensational. He was over the moon and he said to Spielberg, “I can't wait to see it at the public premiere when there's a full audience”.

But Sondheim died three days before that New York premiere, so he missed it.

“It was heartbreaking, we missed him so badly,” Jamie says sadly. “It was very bittersweet that night.”

Jamie Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim far left. Picture: Getty

One of Sondheim’s most emotive examples of his lyric-writing is in the song ‘Somewhere’ from West Side Story.

In the Broadway musical, it’s part of a dream-like sequence. In the 1961 film, it’s a duet sung between Tony and Maria as they long for a place where they can be together. However, in the 2021 remake, the song is sung solo by the character Valentina (played by Rita Moreno) on a generational level, as the older character mourns the missed opportunities for the young people in the film.

“‘Somewhere’ has taken on a personality in the world all unto itself,” Jamie tells Classic FM, “because it’s become such an anthem and expresses all our collective longing for a world where we take care of each other and are kind to each other. A world where love rises above hatred, which is what West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet are about.

“It’s not only in Sondheim’s lyrics, but it’s in my father’s music too.

“Musically, the great thing about West Side Story is that it doesn’t need to go in a box,” Jamie concludes.

“The whole fun of West Side Story is that it has elements of musical theatre, elements of opera, bebop jazz, Latin Caribbean; all of these genres are mixed together into a work of art that really redefined the context in which it was originally presented on Broadway.

“It just exploded the boundaries in such a wonderful way that really nobody could go back after that.”

The Bernstein family: Felicia, Leonard, Alexander, and Jamie (seen pointing at the music). Picture: Getty

Family and the new Bradley Cooper film

It is clear from the way Jamie speaks about music that she is incredibly passionate about the art form, but also gifted with an innate understanding of musical theory, thanks to her upbringing.

“As children, my brother, sister and I all took piano lessons”, Jamie told Classic FM, “but we didn’t really like our piano lessons. We never practised except in that sickening half hour before the piano teacher came to the house on Tuesday afternoons, when we tried to remember what we were supposed to have practised last week.

“My brother used to get stomach aches right before his piano lesson. And he says that to this very day, around 4pm on a Tuesday afternoon, he still gets a similar feeling,” Jamie laughs.

“Aside from the piano, the three of us are very musical. We’re always talking about music and singing along to whatever comes up on the radio – we feel music really viscerally.

“But because of this bright light that we lived under, we couldn’t even imagine doing it ourselves. Well, I did try, but I never could shut off the voice in my head that would say ‘Who do you think you are and what do you think you’re doing?’.”

Jamie and Leonard Bernstein in 1980. Picture: Getty

The ‘bright light’ of her father will be illuminating the big screen once again, but this time in the form of an upcoming film about the composer, and his family, starring Bradley Cooper.

“We’re in regular communication with Bradley Cooper, because he’s very interested in achieving a kind of authenticity about [Leonard Bernstein].

“He’s starring in the film, co writing the screenplay and he's directing. He’s doing everything. He’s a total immersion guy, and he’s just maniacally immersed in all things Leonard Bernstein, so he’s asking us lots of questions all the time and has been very generous with his whole process.

“It’s incredibly strange and disconcerting, to have this young movie star portraying our dad at several ages. Bradley portrays my dad when he was in his 20s, 40s, 50s, and then in his final years, too, so he’s going to be going through many transformations.

“It’s not a biopic, strictly speaking, it doesn’t tell the story of Leonard Bernstein from birth to death – it’s not that kind of a film at all. In fact, it’s a portrait of our parents’ marriage. It’s about something very specific and very personal for us. We’re really struck by the fact that this was the aspect of the story that Bradley decided to focus in on and we’re very excited about Carey Mulligan as our mother Felicia; I promise you she is going to send it to the moon in a rocket.

“It’s going to be amazing.”

Bernstein and his wife Costa Rican-American actress Felicia Montealegre. Picture: Getty

Jamie is due to speak at the Jewish Music Institute on 10 March 2022 about her father, alongside speakers representing other Jewish musical figures including, Yehudi Menuhin.

“It’s important we never miss the opportunity to celebrate them,” Jamie says ahead of her appearance at the fundraising gala.

“My father’s parents were both from Ukraine, so these last few weeks, I've had some very intense feelings about where we all came from.

“Back at the turn of the 20th century, which is when my grandparents finally had to emigrate, because there were pogroms and terrible anti semitism. At that time, the country was not a very welcoming environment for Ukrainians who were Jewish.

“There are so many Jewish musicians in the world whose ancestors came from Ukraine. That whole area produced incredible prodigies and geniuses who were able to get out into the world and share their art with the rest of us.

“Today my heart swells with hope that everyone in Ukraine will be okay. There’s a great line from my dad, about what music does in times like these.

“After President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, my father conducted a performance of Mahler's Second Symphony, the resurrection, which was broadcast nationally as a gesture of comfort to everyone.

“A couple days later he was speaking about the circumstances and my dad said: ‘This will be our reply to violence. To make music more intensely, more beautifully, and more devotedly, than ever before.’”

Ukrainian pianist plays a final Chopin melody before fleeing ruined home near Kyiv

Irina plays piano in her destroyed hometown of Bila Tserkva. Picture: TikTok @kkkarysia

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM London

@sophiassocials

 

Irina Maniukina plays her piano amidst a destroyed home, one last time, before being forced to flee. 

Irina Maniukina brushes the ashes off the keys of her grand piano, as she sits down to make music in her family home one last time.

In a TikTok video filmed by her daughter, Karina, the 48-year-old mother of two takes a deep breath of composure, before she starts to play Chopin’s Étude Op. 25, No. 1 (Aeolian Harp). As she performs, the camera pans around the destroyed house, showing debris, smashed glass, and rubble.

Hours earlier, a bomb landed just 30 feet away from her home in Bila Tserkva, south of Kyiv. Through the blown-out windows in another TikTok video posted by Karina, you can see her neighbours gathered around a huge crater in the ground.

In a pinned video comment, Karina writes: “Do not judge, my mother is a professional pianist and decided to play to let go of this case.”

The video, which has been watched almost 2 million times on the platform, has been shared across other social media channels, and commenters have drawn comparisons to the film The Pianist.

Composer Howard Goodall drew comparisons to the November Uprising, also known as the Polish-Russian War 1830-1. The BAFTA-winning musician suggested it was particularly poignant that Irina played Chopin, as he also had to leave his home country when Russians invaded.

Prior to the bomb explosion outside their house, Karina said there was no warning; no plane sounds, no air sirens, just an “orange and black” cloud when the blast hit.

“After the explosion, everything was smashed and in ashes,” Karina said. “I looked around the house and saw that a fire was starting in my brother’s room. I had already called my mother and they rushed as quickly as possible. They couldn’t drive straight to the house. Since the wires just lay on the road.

“They ran into the house and all together ran to put out the fire.

“After that, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and my mother decided to gather her thoughts and sit down at the piano.”

Houses destroyed during Bila Tserkva air strikes. Picture: Getty

Karina said the performance “wasn’t a sad moment”, as the music helped her remember all the good times they had in that house.

“[My mother has] been playing all her life and she even graduated as a pianist,” said Karina. “She [played because she] wanted to forget about the war and her worries for our safety [in that moment].”

The family were then forced to flee from their home, and last week, made the 300-mile journey to the western Ukrainian city, Lviv.

They’re currently looking for an apartment, but Karina has shared that “they’re all occupied”.

Lili Boulanger - Her Music and Her Life

One of the most treasured composers in France is the younger sister of Nadia Boulanger, Lili Boulanger (1893 – 1918). While the older sister lived a long and fruitful life as one of the most important pedagogues, bearing her influence upon musicians from Aaron Copland to Astor Piazzolla to Daniel Baremboim, Lili’s short life is remembered only by her surviving works.

Six years younger than Nadia, Lili was a child prodigy and accompanied her sister to her classes at the Paris Conservatoire. Studying with prominent French composer and organist, Louis Vierne, Lili could play the piano, violin, cello and harp. Accordingly to Nadia, Gabriel Fauré used to bring his latest songs and read them together with Lili. Though illness since young had kept her from rigorous practice, she was a keen musician whose curiosity brought her to the latest works of Debussy and compositional classes with the greatest teachers of the time. At the age of nineteen, in 1913, Lili made history as the first woman winner of the Prix de Rome; she later visited Rome and wrote some of her best works at the Villa Medici.

The Prix de Rome was one of the most prestigious prizes at that time, offering scholarship through fierce competition in various fields. The Music Composition prize was awarded almost yearly from 1803 to 1968, often gracing such famous names as Hector Berlioz, Charles Gounod, Claude Debussy, Florent Schmitt, et cetera, and the list goes on. Lili’s winning work in 1913 was her cantata Faust et Helene (she had 31 votes out of 36 jurors), of which many recordings have been made in recent years.

Her stay stopped short by the war, she returned to France and continued her work. In the midst of the difficult times, she managed to compose a great deal of music while caring for wounded soldiers. Completing as many works as she could, she finally succumbed her fight with Crohn’s Disease, an intestinal inflammation and died at the tender age of 24. She dictated her last work Pie Jesu to her sister during her last days.

Lili’s knowledge of the prevailing style of that time gave her a wide and varied vocabulary to express her musical ideas. Her command in choral writing ranked as one of the best, while her instrumental works add a unique colour and elegance to the repertoire. Her writing was mature beyond her age, with instrumentation and treatment of voices that resemble Debussy and Massanet.

Still widely known in France, there are no shortages of recordings of Lili’s works. The Faust et Helene, among other choral works, are still being performed and recorded. Her works for violin and piano are in print and widely distributed, while a foundation set up by recent scholars have kept alive the memory of Lili and her sister Nadia. A manuscript of an unfinished Theme and Variation has recently been discovered, completed and recorded by French scholar and pianist Emile Naoumoff.

Discography

Recommended works:
Faust et Hélène, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, and orchestra
Psaume 24, for tenor, choir, organ, and orchestra
Psaume 130, for alto, tenor, choir, organ, and orchestra
4 Melodies for soprano, tenor and piano
3 Pieces for piano
Nocturne for violin and piano

Piano Practice: Etudes from Planet Impossible

by Hermione Lai , Interlude

Erard piano, c. 1830

Virtuosity is totally intoxicating. To me, there is nothing ambivalent in a performance of a piece of music of such complexity that only the most exceptional artists can tackle it. It’s like an athletic event of the most demanding physicality, and in the case of musical performance, at the highest level of craftsmanship and artistic skill. It was the violinist Niccolò Paganini who first personified the exciting concept of virtuosity. He could extract sounds and effects from his instrument that nobody had been able to imagine. Paganini was capable of such virtuosity that otherworldly powers were ascribed to him. Contemporaries had no qualms suggesting that Paganini had made a pact with the devil. When Franz Liszt heard him in performance, he decided to equal Paganini’s skill on the piano. Liszt’s quest was aided by a piano of better mechanical opportunity and greater dynamic range supplied by the instrument builder Érard.

Franz Liszt

Érard introduced the so-called repetition mechanism, which allowed for more rapid repetition and at the same time increased sensitivity to key touch, which enhanced the possibilities for musical expression. Paris became the center of piano building and virtuoso performance, with “dozens of steel-fingered, chromium-plated virtuosos playing there, including Kalkbrenner, Herz, Hiller, Hünten, Pixis, Thalberg, Dreyschock, and Cramer… There was Dreyschock with his octaves and Kalkbrenner with his passage-work, and Thalberg with his trick of making two hands sound like three.” Heinrich Heine ranked the mightiest piano virtuosos, calling “Thalberg a king, Liszt a prophet, Chopin a poet, Herz an advocate, Kalkbrenner a minstrel, Mme Pleyel a sibyl, and Döhler a pianist.” The cult of the piano virtuoso was exploding in Paris, and as they attempted to outperform each other, etudes of staggering difficulties started to appear. In this blog, we will listen to a brief survey of mind-boggling etudes from the planet impossible. 

Liszt: Transcendental Etudes No. 4: ‘Mazeppa’

Franz Liszt was the undisputed superstar, and his performance style was described as “containing abandonment, a liberated feeling, but even when it becomes impetuous and energetic in his fortissimo, it is still without harshness and dryness. He draws from the piano tones that are purer, mellower and stronger than anyone has been able to do; his touch has an indescribable charm.” The reviewer doesn’t actually focus on pianistic pyrotechnics, but on his delicate touch and charm, and “even his handsome profile.” Apparently, Liszt’s performances induced fainting spells among female listeners, which were subsequently dubbed “Liztomania” by Heinrich Heine. This “Liszt-Fever,” as it was called, was thought to have been a medical condition that was extremely contagious.

Franz Liszt, 1858

Heinrich Heine offered an alternate explanation. “A physician, whose specialty is female diseases, and whom I asked to explain the magic our Liszt exerted upon the public, smiled in the strangest manner, and at the same time said all sorts of things about magnetism, galvanism, electricity, of the contagion of the close hall filled with countless wax lights and several hundred perfumed and perspiring human beings, of historical epilepsy, of the phenomenon of tickling, of musical cantharides, and other scabrous things, which, I believe have reference to the mysteries of the Bona Dea (An ancient Roman goddess associated with chastity and fertility). Perhaps the solution of the question is not buried in such adventurous depths, but floats on a very prosaic surface. It seems to me at times that all this sorcery may be explained by the fact that no one on earth knows so well how to organize his successes, or rather their ‘Mise-en-scène,’ as our Franz Liszt.” Seemingly, Liszt already understood that presentation was everything. 

Henryk Siemiradzki: Chopin concert

Still to this day, virtuosity is often considered negatively, “as a performance aimed at a public that outwardly demonstrates exceptional agility in terms of instrumental or vocal technique, especially as related to speed of execution. Such displays are both admired as demonstration of a divine gift and condemned as a diabolical perversion of musical practice.” In the exciting world of the piano virtuoso, Frédéric Chopin held a special position. He was described as “greater than the greatest of pianists, he is the only one.” And an admirer added “not only do we love him, we love ourselves in him.” Liszt and Chopin began their careers at roughly the same time, and whatever has been written down in the history books, they never really enjoyed a close personal friendship. Their professional and personal lives often intersected and overlapped, to be sure, as they appeared together in concerts and as part of events organized for charity, with their performances always the center of attention. Reviews referred to them as the two greatest virtuosos of the day, artists “both of whom have attained the same lofty standard and sense with equal depth to the essence of art.”

Chopin: Etude Op. 10, No. 4 “Torrent étude”

To be sure, as their relationship as friends and fellow artists developed they did hold shared admiration for each other’s talent. Liszt wrote about Chopin, “never was there a nature more imbued with whims, caprices, and abrupt eccentricities. His imagination was fiery, his emotions violent, and his physical being feeble and sickly. Who can possibly understand the suffering deriving from such a contradiction?” And tellingly he added, “Chopin’s character is composed of a thousand shades which in crossing one another become so disguised as to be indistinguishable.” Long after Chopin’s death, Liszt commented to Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, “no one compares to him; he shines lonely, peerless in the firmament of art.” Liszt never highlights the technical aspects of Chopin’s compositions, but focuses instead—as Schumann would do—on the depths of artistic expression. In a sense, virtuosity becomes a necessary evil for complex musical and personal expressions. Chopin, in turn, was critical of the purely pyrotechnical elements of many of Liszt’s compositions for the piano, but he was clearly aware of the magnetic powers of performance offered by Liszt. As he almost jealously writes to Ferdinand Hiller in 1833, “I hardly even know what my pen is scribbling, since at the moment Liszt is playing one of my etudes and distracting my attention from my respectable thoughts. I would love myself to acquire from him the manner in which he plays my etudes.” 

Leopold Godowsky

Heralded as the “Buddha of the Piano” among musical giants, Polish-American pianist and composer Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938) once wrote, “I love the piano and those who love the piano. The piano as a medium for expression is a whole world by itself. No other instrument can fill or replace its own say in the world of emotion, sentiment, poetry, imagery and fancy.” Musically speaking, the Chopin etudes really can’t be improved upon. However, Godowsky used them as the basis for creating over fifty monumentally difficult studies that have achieved legendary status among enthusiastic pianists. Fashioned over a number of years, these Studies reflect “Godowsky’s success as a piano pedagogue, his interest in resolving technical problems and developing pianistic vocabulary, his ambition to perfect his own mechanism, his encyclopedic knowledge of piano literature, the need to extend his own repertoire, and his unusual fascination in arranging piano works.” As a famed critic in the 1960’s wrote, “they are probably the most impossibly difficult things ever written for the piano. These are fantastic exercises that push piano technique to heights undreamed of even by Liszt.”

Chopin-Godowsky: Etude No. 25 in A-flat major

Shortly before his death in 1938, Godowsky wrote on the process of arrangement, “To justify myself in the perennial controversy which exists regarding the aesthetic and ethical rights of one composer to use another composer’s works, themes, or ideas as a foundation for paraphrases, variations, etc., I desire to say that it depends entirely upon the intention, nature and quality of the work of the so-called ‘transgressor.’ Since the Chopin Études are universally acknowledged to be the highest attainment in étude form in the realm of beautiful pianoforte music combined with mechanical and technical usefulness, I thought it wisest to build upon their solid and invulnerable foundation to further the art of pianoforte playing. Being averse to any tampering with the text of any master work when played in the original form, I would condemn any artist for taking liberties with the works of Chopin or any other great composer. The original Chopin Studies remain as intact as they were before any arrangements of them were published; in fact, numerous artists claim that after assiduously studying my versions, many hidden beauties in the original Studies will reveal themselves to the observant student.” 

György Ligeti

The Hungarian composer György Ligeti composed his cycle of devilishly difficult 18 études for solo piano between 1985 and 2001. Ligeti continues in the tradition of the virtuoso piano writing seen in Chopin, Liszt and Godowsky, and his etudes are considered “the most important additions to the solo-piano repertoire in the last half-century.” Technically way beyond the abilities of mere mortals, these works are shaped from influences taken from “the polyrhythmic player-piano studies of Conlon Nancarrow to the music of sub-Saharan Africa, chaos theory to the minimalism of Steve Reich. In the Études, Ligeti effectively created a new pianistic vocabulary, while remaining exuberantly himself—the moments when the music seems to evaporate in the highest reaches of the keyboard, or flounders in its lowest depths.” The 18 études are arranged in three books of six works each.

Ligeti: Etude No.13 “The Devil’s Staircase”

Originally, Ligeti had only wanted to compose twelve studies, following in the footsteps of Debussy’s Études, but he “enjoyed writing the pieces so much that he embarked on a third book.” Sadly, Book 3 is incomplete as the composed fell ill and died a couple of years later. Ligeti gave the various etudes titles containing a mixture of technical terms and poetic descriptions. In Book 1 we find “Désordre,” a study in fast polyrhythms moving up and down the keyboard, with the right hand playing only white keys while the left hand is restricted to black keys. In “Touches bloquées” two different rhythmic patterns interlock. One hand plays rapid, even melodic patterns while the other hand blocks some of the keys by silently depressing them. “Automne à Varsovie” pays homage to the annual festival of contemporary music in Warsaw Poland, and in Book II we find among others “Galamb Borong,” “Fém,” “Der Zauberlehrling,” and “L’escalier du diable” (The Devil’s Staircase). This hard-driving toccata that moves polymetrically up and down the keyboard might be the most terrifying work in the entire piano repertoire.

Charles-Valentin Alkan

In his day, Charles-Valentin Alkan (1819- 1888) was mentioned in the same breath with Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt. Not only was Alkan—he was born of Jewish parentage as Charles-Valentin Morhange—one of the most celebrated pianists of the nineteenth century, he was also a most unusual composer, “remarkable in both technique and imagination.” Alkan gave his first public concert as a violinist at age seven. By that time, he already had been a student at the Paris Conservatoire for almost 2 years, and during his piano audition the examiners reported, “This child has amazing abilities.” By age fourteen, Alkan had composed a set of piano variations on a theme by Daniel Steibelt, published as Opus 1. He soon performed in the leading salons and concert halls of Paris, and made friends with Franz Liszt, Eugène Delacroix, George Sand and Frédéric Chopin. He continued to publish piano music, including the Trois Grandes Etudes, one for the left hand, one for the right hand, and the third for both hands together. Robert Schumann commented on these pieces as follows, “One is startled by such false, such unnatural art…the last piece titled ‘Morte’ is a crabbed waste, overgrown with brush and weeds…nothing is to be found but black on black.” By the age of 25, Alkan had reached the peak of his career, with Franz Liszt providing glowing reviews of his performances and even recommending him for the post of Professor at the Geneva Conservatoire. And his “Train Journey” must be one of the most demanding etudes in the piano repertoire.

Jean-Amédée Lefroid de Méreaux

We could seemingly go on forever and find fiendishly difficult and often musically satisfying etudes by Alexander Scriabin, Anton Rubinstein or Moritz Moszkowski, to name only a selected few. But I wanted to conclude this blog with an etude by the relatively little-known Jean-Amédée Lefroid de Méreaux (1802-1874). A French composer, pianist, piano teacher, musicologist and music critic, he was initially groomed to enter the legal profession, but he also received first prize in a piano competition at the Lycée Charlemagne. Desperate to pursue a career in music, he was allowed to take harmony lessons from Anton Reicha at the Conservatoire de Paris, and he published his first works at the age of 14. Today, he is probably best known for his 60 Grandes Études, Op. 63, compositions of immense technical difficulty. Marc-André Hamelin considered them more difficult than those of Charles-Valentin Alkan. However, he also calls them unmusical. This simple statement underscores the idea that rapid velocity, large intervals within very short periods of time, escalations of ornamentation and variations, notes doubled an octave apart are “processes of pointless acrobatics and soulless agility.” We all know that virtuosity can be seen as an elaborate magic trick, but does this make it any less exciting? Even the digital midi version of the “Scherzo alla Neapolitana” offers plenty of excitement, don’t you think?

Why Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’? The Batman soundtrack explained

 

Tiffin Boys' Choir sing in The Batman. Picture: Warner Bros. Pictures / Alamy

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM London

@sophiassocials

 

We break down the classical music heard in the new Batman film, and the voices behind the soundtrack... 

The first sound audiences hear when sitting down to watch DC’s new big screen comic book offering, The Batman, is the opening of Schubert’s Ave Maria.

The track, performed by Tiffin Boys’ Choir, a world-renowned school choir from London, UK, can be heard accompanying someone’s heavy breathing as the first scene of the film plays out after an unusually silent film credits opening.

Ave Maria is heard three more times in the film, and Schubert’s melody is continuously weaved into the soundtrack in a twisted villainous arrangement.

But why this piece of music, what’s its significance to the story line, and what themes does the song represent? We take a closer look at this musical prayer and the other music featured in the new Batman film.

Warning: Spoilers ahead... 

What is the meaning behind ‘Ave Maria’ in The Batman?

Robert Pattinson stars as the title role in The Batman alongside actor and musician Paul Dano, who portrays the film’s main villain, the Riddler. Director, Matt Reeves, wrote the part of the Riddler for the new Batman film with Dano in mind to play the part.

In the comic books, the Riddler is depicted as one of the most notorious criminal masterminds in Gotham City, and is most associated with his obsession with riddles, puzzles, and death traps, which assert his intelligence over both Batman, and the police force.

In this new film, one puzzle the audience has to solve is the association of Schubert’s Ave Maria with this character.

The villain’s main theme is even a twisted minor key version of Schubert’s melody, giving the song even more play-time than its already three-time film appearance.

The theme uses the first six-note pattern of Schubert’s melody, but instead of rising to the major third on the fourth note of the phrase, the Riddler’s theme only rises to the minor third, creating an uneasy sonic atmosphere, before a falling semitone leads us back to the phrase’s starting note.

The unedited version of Schubert’s Ave Maria is heard three times in The Batman.

Firstly in the opening scene, while the Riddler watches his first victim, Mayor Don Mitchell Jr., and his family through a window. Secondly, in archive footage found in the city’s old orphanage, the song is performed by a children’s choir while Batman’s father (Thomas Wayne) gives an electoral speech. Finally, the song is sung by the Riddler himself while locked up in Arkham State Hospital.

While it’s not uncommon for film villains to sing their own themes (see Die Hard), the Riddler’s reason for singing this song is more one of vengeance, a theme that weaves through The Batman.

The Riddler reveals that he was an orphan in his ‘face off’ with Batman in Arkham State Hospital, and thanks to pinboard footage we see during an earlier scene, we can place the Riddler as a child in the children’s choir that sings Ave Maria.

This piece of music is subsequently suggested to be very important to the Riddler’s character, as it was the song he and his peers at the orphanage sang the day soon-to-be mayor, Thomas Wayne, announced the ‘renewal fund’; a billion pound investment into the city, part of which would go to the orphanage.

Wayne however, was murdered a week later, meaning the money promised to the orphanage from the renewal fund was never invested, and the orphaned children had to continue living in squalor while the criminals and corrupt police in the city profited.

What does Ave Maria represent in The Batman?

The Riddler’s children’s choir sings Ave Maria to Schubert’s melody, one of the Latin prayer’s most common modern-day settings. The lyrics for Ave Maria (Hail Mary in English), revere Jesus’ mother, the Virgin Mary, in the Christian religion.

Schubert’s melody and the Latin prayer text is a popular choice for funerals, making the repetitive appearance of the song throughout the film an eerie one.

The song is also visually associated with death throughout the film, with the first time it plays preempting the death of Mayor Don Mitchell Jr., and the second time preempting the death of Thomas Wayne.

Batman (aka Bruce Wayne) attends the Mayor’s funeral. Picture: Warner Bros. Pictures

There are various settings of the Latin prayer, and it is poignant that the music team chose the Schubert melody for the film, due to the original lyrics associated with this music.

Although today, the Schubert melody is most commonly sung with the Latin prayer lyrics, the German composer originally wrote the tune as part of a setting of seven songs from Walter Scott's popular epic poem The Lady of the Lake.

This melody was from song number six, Ellens dritter Gesang (Ellen’s third song), and the original German lyrics were actually a call to the Virgin Mary for help.

Schubert’s lyrics plead, “Thou canst hear though from the wild; Thou canst save amid despair. Safe may we sleep beneath thy care, Though banish'd, outcast and reviled.”

In Arkham State Hospital, the Riddler recounts in the orphanage, 30 children would sleep in one room, and every winter a baby would die because it was so cold, and the institution was unable to properly care for the infants.

The despair and wish for safety during sleep in Schubert’s lyrics are echoed by the Riddler in his description of his childhood, and perhaps explain why this melody was chosen to soundtrack his character.

What other classical music is heard in The Batman?

The Tiffin Boys’ Choir also perform Henry Purcell’s Dido’s Lament (When I am laid), a song about preparing for death, which is heard during the funeral of Mayor Don Mitchell Jr. As well as appearing on the soundtrack, the choir appear on screen in white chorister robes during the scene.

The school choir have lent their voices to multiple other Hollywood films before including The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and Dumbo (2019).

Another famous choral piece is heard as Batman races back to his penthouse to save his butler, Alfred, played by Andy Serkis, from a bomb threat.

In a dramatic scene, where the action unfolds under the crescendoing soundtrack, the piece playing is Fauré’s Requiem (Requiem Op. 48 7. In Paradisum (I)). Yet again, this is another classical piece of music often played at funerals, and has the viewer concerned that Alfred will die due to the death-associated music playing.

Although Alfred ends up surviving, it is an intensely emotional scene, and pulls at the viewers heartstrings as the huge orchestral and choral melody blocks out all other sound and makes you think you’re about to witness a main character death.

Earlier in the film, we also hear Alfred listening to classical music as he works on trying to break one of the Riddler’s cyphers. As he decodes, the music playing is the second movement of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Piano Concerto No. 5.

Who wrote the music in The Batman?

Away from the featured classical music (and the Nirvana track Something in the Way) the score for the film was composed by Michael Giacchino.

Giacchino told Collider in 2020 that he felt “total freedom to do whatever [he wanted]” when it came to music for the film.

It was clear that director, and Giacchino’s friend, Matt Reeves trusted the composer with the task, as the two have worked on multiple films together such as Cloverfield (2008), Let Me In (2010), and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014).

Giacchino’s mostly minimalistic score, uses mainly strings and brass to emphasise the plot’s overarching theme of vengeance.

Like the Riddler’s theme, The Batman’s theme also centres in on a short phrase. The Batman’s theme is made up of a four-beat phrase, with just two notes, and is a repetitive and somewhat unusually simple theme for the composer.

However, Giacchino’s score uses dynamics and texture to create a theme out of this limited phrase. The music lifts from a mysterious, low four-note pattern to an unstoppable orchestral force incorporating brass and percussion to illustrate the power of the film’s hero.

Arguably the most developed theme, melody-wise, comes in the form of the second protagonist of the film, Catwoman. Her theme is a slinky syncopated smooth shared strings and solo piano melody. The lounge piano style music reflects Catwoman’s job as a hostess at a criminal club, while the stealthy strings illustrate her cat-like tendencies.

The soundtrack was released on 25 February 2022, just over a week before the film, and fans across multiple platforms, from the music alone, were already declaring the movie to be a “masterpiece”, and that this was Giacchino’s best score yet.

With the composer’s award-winning track record, critics are already suggesting The Batman could be on the cards for an Oscars nomination for Best Original Score in 2023.

The Batman is out in cinemas now.