Leonard Bernstein 100

Heute vor 100 wurde der Komponist, Dirigent und Pianist Leonard Bernstein geboren. Daran will ich erinnern. Hier das heutige doodle.

Und natürlich die Aufzeichnung dieses einzigartigen Konzerts im nicht mehr geteilten Berlin, Weihnachten 1989. Für die Feierlichkeiten anlässlich des Falls der Berliner Mauer ließ Bernstein im vierten Satz von Beethovens 9. Sinfonie Freiheit statt Freude singen. Damit machte er aus der Ode an die Freude eine Ode an die Freiheit. „Ich bin sicher, Beethoven würde uns zustimmen“, so Bernstein.  Das Konzert wurde in über 20 Ländern im Fernsehen übertragen und sein Biograph Humphrey Burton kommentierte für CBS, die ganze Welt beobachte die Euphorie Berlins und Bernstein stelle als amerikanischer Jude das Herz der Feierlichkeiten dar. Bernstein selbst sagte dazu, dass er an diesem Abend einen historischen Moment erlebt habe, der unvergleichbar sei gegenüber anderen Erlebnissen seines langen, langen Lebens. Keine 10 Monate später war er gestorben. Sein Grab befindet sich auf dem Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York City.

(Quelle)

Zeitgeist

GERMAN WORDS WITHOUT ENGLISH EQUIVALENT

Engelsgeduld: (lit.: angel’s patience) great amount of patience

Feierabend: (lit.: party-evening) the rest of the day that remains after work

Fernweh: the desire/longing to travel to faraway places/ foreign countries

Fingerspitzengefühl: (lit.: fingertips-feeling) good skill in handling things/ sensitivity and empathy

Fremdschämen: (lit.: foreign shame) shame that arises from the compassion with someone who made a fool of himself

Geborgenheit: more than safety, protection and invulnerability, it symbolises peace, warmth and calm you feel especially when you’re with the people you’re close to (e.g. family, friends)

Gemütlichkeit: feeling of comfort

Habseligkeiten: valuable and personally important possessions

Innerer Schweinehund: (lit.: inner pig-dog = weaker self) the part of a person that they have to overcome to be productive

Kitsch: objects with superficial beauty that are actually useless but are appreciated nonetheless

Konfliktfähigkeit: (lit.: conflict ability/skill) ability to deal with conflict / ability to constructively solve interpersonal conflicts

Kummerspeck: (lit.: grief/sorrow bacon (fat)) gained weight from emotional overeating (especially after a breakup)

Lebenslüge: (lit.: life’s lie) a lie that you tell yourself to make life more bearable

Mitdenken: (lit.: with-thinking) ability to think for yourself and do more than what you were demanded to do / trying to find a conceptional solution to a problem together with other people

Sehnsucht: intense inner longing for somebody, something or a place

Schnapsidee: (lit.: schnapps idea) a ridiculous and crazy plan/idea you have while you are drunk or an idea that is so stupid that people think you had it while being drunk

Sprachgefühl: (lit.: language feeling) feeling/sense of language, instinctive feel for a certain language / intuitive feeling of what is linguistically appropriate

Stehaufmännchen: (lit.: little stand up man) someone who doesn’t give up and begins anew

Torschlusspanik: (lit.: gate-closing-panic) the fear of missing something important / not being able to do some things (because you’re too old)

Verschlimmbessern: (lit.: verschlimmern=exasperate, verbessern=improve) improve something for the worse / make something worse but with having had the intention of improving it

Vorführeffekt: (lit.: demo effect) the effect that something you’re actually able to do doesn’t work when you want to demonstrate it to other people

Waldeinsamkeit: (lit.: forest loneliness/solitude) the seclusion/solitude of the forest

Warmduscher: (lit.: warm showerer/ somebody who showers with warm water) a wimp / a person that doesn’t like to leave their comfort zone

Weltschmerz: (lit.: world pain (world weariness)) gratuitous melancholia / kind of feeling experienced by someone who believes that physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind / the feeling of anxiety caused by the ills of the world

Zeitgeist: (lit.: time-spirit, spirit of the time ) the dominant set of ideals and beliefs that motivate the actions of the members of a society in a particular period in time