Recordo que o espaço deste blogue se destina ao arquivo histórico do programa de rádio UNO que fiz para a Rádio Jornal do Centro e TSF entre 1989 e 1993, uma hora semanal com música e texto. Experimentalmente algumas edições estiveram aqui disponíveis e tenciono a médio prazo dar início à publicação de todos os programas, desde o primeiro ao último.

Entretanto, e sempre que houver tempo e oportunidade, aproveitarei para falar de música, na medida, naturalmente, das minhas modestas possibilidades nesta área. Assim, gostaria de hoje vos deixar aqui a transcrição da parte final da última de uma série de conferências que Leonard Bernstein deu na Universidade de Harvard, The Unanswered Question - Norton Lectures 1973. Nesta sexta e última conferência da série, intitulada The Poetry of Earth, Bernstein parte da oposição entre a música de Schönberg e de Stravinski, proposta por Theodor Adorno em Die Theorie der modernen Musik (1976) e faz, justificando, a sua defesa da música de Stravinski, exemplificando com a audição da ópera-oratória de Stravinski Oedipus Rex, com libretto de Jean Cocteau, baseado em Sófocles, obra composta em 1926-7 e estreada em Paris em 1927. Na parte final, que em breve editarei neste blogue em versão portuguesa, Bernstein condensa as suas conclusões numa profissão de fé, num credo, que me tocou muito especialmente, numa situação em que continuava a  preocupar-me uma perspectiva niilista e céptica das coisas da arte e também da vida. As palavras de Leonard Bernstein vieram ao meu encontro como de uma fonte muito próxima e calorosa, mais viva, custa-me dizê-lo, do que outras coisas que pareciam então rodear-me temporal e espacialmente nessa circunstância particular.

"I have indeed come to the valedictory moment and I don't like it - there's still so much to be said and no time for saying it - there are so many of those underlying strings waiting to be tied up, so many cans of worms have been opened, and a lot of those slippery little beasts are still wriggling around, as much further argumentation and clarification to be accomplished for at least six more lectures - maybe there'll be six more someday, or sixty more - perhaps you'll give them - I hope! But my main purpose now is that there are still summaries to be made, conclusions to be drawn, the present musical moment to be generalised upon and the future to be guessed at. All of this is clearly impossible to achieve in the five minutes I have allotted myself for this farewell address, so I must take a short cut. Let me condense my feelings into a sort of credo.

I believe that a great new era of eclecticism is at hand - eclecticism in the highest sense. And I believe it has been made possible by the rediscovery, the reacceptance of tonality, that universal earth out of which such diversity can spring, and no matter how serial or stockastic, or otherwise intellectualised music may be, it can always qualify as poetry as long as it is rooted in earth. I also believe, along with Keats, that the poetry of earth is never dead as long as Spring succeeds Winter and man is there to perceive it.

I believe that from that earth emerges a musical poetry which is by the nature of its sources tonal.

I believe that these sources cause to exist a phonology of music which evolves from the universe known as the harmonic series, and that there is an equally universal musical syntax which can be codified and structured in terms of symmetry and repetition and that by metaphorical operation there can be devised particular musical languages that have surface structures noticeably remote from their basic origins, but which can be strikingly expressive as long as they retain their roots in earth.

I believe that our deepest affective responses to these languages are inate ones but do not preclude additional responses which are conditioned or learned, and that all particular languages bear on one another and combine into always new idioms perceptible to human beings, and that ultimately these idioms cannot all merge into a speech universal enough to be accessible to all mankind, and that the expressive distinctions among these idioms depend ultimately on the dignity and passion of the individual creative voice.

And finally, I believe that all these things are true and that Ives's Unanswered Question has an answer. I'm not longer sure what the question is, but I do know the answer - and the answer is 'Yes'.

I leave you with that 'Yes', and with my thanks, and my warmest affection."