Music Popularization for Youth on Television from the 1960s to the 1990s between the United States and Europe

This essay examines some televised musical popularization programs aimed at a young or inexperienced audience, produced between the 1960s and the 1990s. I focus in particular on four series: 1. Young People’s Concerts with Leonard Bernstein (CBS, 1958-1972); 2. Les Musiciens du soir (ORTF, 1972-78); 3. Tutto è musica (RAI, 1980-81); and 4. Orchestra! (BBC, 1991). These four programs, each based on a different pedagogical objective, represent four distinctive ways of making music accessible. The long-lived Young People’s Concerts series made popular by Bernstein had the professed educational goal of spreading knowledge of classical music (or what the conductor preferred to call “exact music”) among young people, in an attempt to enrich and refine their tastes. The communicative strategy consisted in formulating a clear, straightforward and captivating verbal text – the scripts for the shows, written by Bernstein himself, were later published as a book – and in very carefully calibrating the pacing and breaks between moments of dialogue, musical pieces, and shots of the audience. The shows Les Musiciens du soir and Tutto è musica had more social, inclusive aims. The first was focused on showcasing the activities of French amateur bands and choirs to highlight how important it is for human beings and their social relationships to make music together, even outside of professional spheres. The second similarly championed the idea of music as a cultural good that is essential to the lives of all citizens, not only the most gifted of us. At the same time, however, the Italian program was also focused on the idea of music as a “language” to be learned in the sense of both listening and production, and was thus much more “didactic” in its aims (some episodes amounted to veritable lessons in the grammar of music). The televisual logic characterizing the French and Italian programs was quite similar: dialogues or monologues in the studio alternated with interviews and exterior shots and footage. Finally, Orchestra! was a highly effective example of edutainment: the episodes delved into the structure and history of individual musical instruments and compositional forms, and presented multiple different potential interpretations of the same piece. The result was a mix of education and entertainment involving conductor Georg Solti, comedian and pianist Dudley Moore, and all the members of the orchestra. The paper outlines the general structure of the four programs and analyzes some excerpts in depth. In addition to each program’s educational goals, I also address its specific nature, that is, the logic and strategies of communication that it employed.