A Fresh Look at Bernstein’s Serenade with Karen Gomyo

Leonard Bernstein is making a comeback. Not that he ever really went away — his work as a composer and conductor especially have remained present in the public consciousness since his death in 1990. But since the release of 2023’s biopic Maestro, interest in Bernstein’s life and work is on the rise once again.

The Calgary Philharmonic will tap into this interest with the upcoming concert Bernstein’s Serenade with Karen Gomyo. Alongside Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8, the October concert features Bernstein’s Serenade (After Plato’s “Symposium“), a 1954 composition based on Plato’s exploration of (and praise for) the idea of love.

Though perhaps traditionally not as visible as other pieces in the violin repertoire, Serenade, much like Bernstein himself, is also enjoying something of a resurgence. During the year of centennial celebrations in 2018 that marked the anniversary of the composer’s birth, the piece was performed 276 times by 139 orchestras on five continents, and in 2019, it became the first of Bernstein’s works to be performed in Antarctica.

“It’s an exciting piece and one that offers a lot for audiences to look forward to,” says renowned violinist Karen Gomyo, the concerto’s soloist for the Calgary Phil performance this fall. “It’s essentially based on a Greek party – imagine seven intoxicated philosophers debating the nature of love!”

Each of the piece’s five movements – named after the philosophers Aristophanes, Socrates, and Agathon, among others, and inspired by their respective speeches in Plato’s Symposium – has something different to say about love, and because of this the Serenade’s musical themes are as wide-ranging as the views of the speakers they represent.

“It’s at once groovy, flamboyant, dreamy, dramatic, passionate, capricious, intimate, [and] tender,” Gomyo explains.

From the player’s perspective, working through each of these moods and motifs is “a blast,” and an opportunity for Gomyo to act as an interpreter of Bernstein’s iconic work. While Bernstein himself is incredibly well-loved, and his works are recognizable to a wide range of audiences, for Gomyo this mission of interpretation remains a consistent one, no matter the work in question, the composer who wrote it, or how well-known the piece might be.

“We keep giving it our all in both preparation and performance, trying to ever-deepen our understanding of the composer’s intentions and to try to make new discoveries within a score no matter how many times we think we’ve looked at it!”

In the case of the Serenade, this work of interpretation involves a bit of reading between the lines. The piece isn’t programmatic – its music doesn’t tell one specific story – and as Gomyo notes, there is evidence to suggest that some of the piece’s musical material actually predates Bernstein’s decision to create a work inspired by the Symposium in the first place. However, there is still an underlying sense of a narrative throughout the piece, with each movement’s philosopher picking up where the previous one left off, and other nods to their characters built into the music.

“There are moments, for example, at the start of the second movement, where a colleague told me, ‘these are Aristophanes’ hiccups’!” says Gomyo. “And you could totally imagine this to be true because he is known as a clown among these speakers, and if any of these men were to be assigned a musical ‘tease’ it would be him!”

Of the Serenade’s speakers, Agathon (and by extension, the piece’s fourth movement) is Gomyo’s favourite, “simply because it’s so beautiful!” The movement sees the strings’ simple underlying melody joined by a theme in the solo violin, and as Gomyo describes, “you can just imagine and feel Agathon’s praise of Eros, the god of love, as a creature of beauty and grace, gentle and generous in spirit, as one who inspires art because art is born out of love.”

Despite these nods to the philosophers though, much of the piece remains open to interpretation, providing a space where Gomyo says “both player and audience can have fun with [their] imaginations.”

For Gomyo this imagination includes prioritizing the idea of love, an idea which is central not only to the Serenade, but also to Bernstein’s broader collection of work, and to his career as a whole. “I take liberty in finding my own interpretation within the character of each movement,” she explains, “maybe making up my own stories based on the dialogues and personalities of the speakers I imagine the music to be expressing, but with always keeping in mind Bernstein’s larger wish and message of love.”

In returning to the idea of Bernstein’s enduring impact on the musical landscape, Gomyo credits his personal magnetism and the timelessness of his works with some of that success. However, she also turns to his work in music education (his televised Young People’s Concerts introduced countless people to the works of great composers) and his efforts towards increased diversity and inclusivity within the world of classical music – an area which Gomyo notes “seems only recently to have finally garnered global awareness and motivate[d] change” – as key facets of his continuing legacy.

And of course, his music itself remains at the centre of that legacy. For many – Gomyo included – it sparks memories or holds personal significance: “I was absolutely obsessed with his West Side Story when I first arrived in [New York],” Gomyo explains. “I was eleven and had just moved from Montréal with my mother. It was my introduction to the cultural melting pot that is New York, and the music of West Side Story was like the embodiment of the exuberance and diversity which is so unique to [the city].”

That same exuberance and diversity also exemplify Bernstein’s broader musical style, which has proven successful time and time again in capturing an audience’s attention. Gomyo describes it as “accessible, yet tasteful and sophisticated,” combining elements of classical music, jazz, and musical theatre in a way that “just works.”

“It’s fresh in a way that still feels relevant today, and it’s modern but not in a hyper-intellectual or avant-garde way. Yet he takes us through the whole spectrum of emotions, and I believe this is what ultimately speaks to us.”

As Gomyo prepares to perform Bernstein’s Serenade in Calgary, she is excited for the audience to engage with this lesser-known piece of the composer’s work, hoping that listeners – including those who might be hearing the piece for the first time – will “enjoy the many emotions and [the] imagination this piece will take them through.”

“There is such a special energy in this music which I hope will be a fun experience for the audience.”

The performance also presents an exciting opportunity for collaboration for Gomyo herself. While she holds a longstanding relationship with the Calgary Philharmonic. This season, she returns as a Naomi + John Lacey Virtuoso Program artist, and in 2022 she performed Samy Moussa’s award-winning Violin Concerto alongside the orchestra and conductor Karen Kamensek. Her performance of the Serenade will mark her first time working with Music Director Rune Bergmann. As the concert approaches, Gomyo is anticipating the opportunity to work with a group of collaborators both old and new on this nuanced, engaging piece:

“I’m really excited about seeing and playing together with the orchestra musicians again, some of whom have become friends, and to experience what maestro Bergmann will bring out from the fabulous group of musicians on this occasion!”