THE GREAT LEONARD BERNSTEIN THEN AND LATER

LEONARD BERNSTEIN
WAS CREATIVITY
AT ITS PEAK

" Tomorrow's triumphant product is much more likely to emerge from the quirky mind of an inspired lunatic than a buttoned-down, Brooks Brothers male, age 46.5 years, who is trying to cope with the statistical revelation that women are making most of the important buying decisions. "

………… Tom Peters recommends nine areas managers need to go beyond straitjacket thinking in his money spinner " Crazy times call for crazy organizations "

The Tom Peters Seminar is a radical new view of how business can work if organizations are willing to make imagination the source of value.

It is much easier to provide examples of creativity than it is to identify causes.

Nonetheless, we take Leonard Bernstein for my blog debate on creativity.


WHY CREATIVITY OR FRESHNESS OF THINKING IS A MUST FOR MBA GRADS

My blog debate on creativity results from a set of interactive activities meant to heighten MBA grad awareness about emerging global realities and the individual and organizational adaptations necessary to thrive.

Many OB topics (organizational history and design, career management, etc.) would be covered in a new context, and most others (motivation, leadership, teams, diversity, etc.) are framed and foreshadowed by my research authored in my blog.

Open systems thinking is modeled throughout. The positive momentum created by this search and the changes in individuals’ orientation to the management studies help to establish a new, more active learning culture.

LEONARD BERNSTEIN WAS A PARAGON OF CREATIVITY

The varied forms of Leonard Bernstein's musical creativity have been recognized and enjoyed by millions. These lectures, Mr. Bernstein's most recent venture in musical explication, will make fascinating reading as well.

Virgil Thomson says of the lectures: "Nobody anywhere presents this material so warmly, so sincerely, so skillfully. As musical mind-openers they are first class; as pedagogy they are matchless".

Mr. Bernstein considers music ranging from Hindu ragas through Mozart and Ravel, to Copland, suggesting a worldwide, innate musical grammar.

Folk music, pop songs, symphonies, modal, tonal, atonal, well-tempered and ill-tempered works all find a place in these discussions.

Each, Mr. Bernstein suggests, has roots in a universal language central to all artistic creation.

CREATIVITY IS BALANCING THE UNBALANCED

Using certain linguistic analogies, he explores the ways in which this language developed and can be understood as an aesthetic surface.

Drawing on his insights as a master composer and conductor, Mr. Bernstein also explores what music means below the surface: the symbols and metaphors which exist in every musical piece, of whatever sort.

And, finally, Mr. Bernstein analyzes twentieth century crises in the music of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, finding even here a transformation of all that has gone before, as part of the poetry of expression, through its roots in the earth of human experience.

Charming, witty, entertaining and shot through with a touch of irony - that's the richness of sound expressed by the exalted Leonard Bernstein through the medium of music.

The union of violin, violoncello and piano is so perfect that the string instruments are in no way condemned to play a secondary role.

Bernstein avoids any dominance on the part of the piano.

Every crescendo is perfect, every instrumental effect meaningful.

NEXT WEEK - A STRUGGLE BETWEEN EFFICIENCY AND CREATIVITY - HOW TOP FIRMS MANAGE THE YIN AND YANG OF DISCIPLINE AND IMAGINATION

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