In the editorial, “Leonard Bernstein, Still Brilliant at 100”, author Miles Hoffman leads the audience into his argument that Leonard Bernstein is a remarkable composer by opening with pathos, an appeal to emotion, that humanizes the controversial character of Bernstein. Later, he establishes ethos or credibility as a musician who is informed to critique Bernstein’s compositions. Through his use of the aristotle appeals, Hoffman is able to apply a variety of rhetorical strategies and argument tools, including the establishment of practical wisdom and altering the audience’s mood, which allow him to craft a truly persuasive argument.
The author opens the editorial with an emotional appeal in order to shift the mood of the writing. The appeal presents a brief description of the author’s feelings regarding the one hundred year anniversary of Bernstein’s existence and also the thirty year anniversary of his death. Through this, Hoffman explains that the recent resurgence of talk about Bernstein made him re-examine the world without the famous composer and also analyze Bernstein’s ability and legacy. The writer uses this tactic to generate sympathy from the audience. He establishes that his personal response of sorrow and nostalgia to the anniversary of the composer’s death persuaded him to write this editorial in memoriam of Bernstein’s achievements.
Now, the audience can better trust the author and view his intentions as genuine and not resulting from hidden intentions, furthering the author’s ethos. After this opening line, the use of pathos is continued through the author’s witty retort to one common criticism of Bernstein: his enormous ego. Hoffman protests, “if that’s indeed what Bernstein thought, he was at least in part going by the evidence” (Hoffman). In this editorial, humour is an effective tactic because the author’s purpose is not necessarily to inspire action, but rather, to simply change the audience’s view of a specific person. Therefore, the mood shift from argumentative to humorous may put the audience in a more relaxed state that is conducive to persuasion.
After the author makes his opening statement, he switches his primary appeal from pathos to ethos in order to establish himself as a credible source of musical knowledge. The author demonstrates his experience as a musician, and specifically one familiar with Bernstein, when he mentions that he played under Bernstein on multiple occasions as a member of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington (Hoffman). In Jay Heinrichs Thank You For Arguing, Heinrichs suggests to show off your experience in order to establish practical wisdom or getting your audience to “believe you know your particular craft” (Heinrichs 70).
In the editorial, Hoffman effectively employs this tactic in order to better convince the audience that he is qualified to actually dissect compositions and analyze musical ability from an academic perspective. Hoffman also incorporates a tool that requires an author to appear to take the middle ground in order to gain practical wisdom. He achieves this through a juxtaposition between the character flaws of his subject, Leonard Bernstein, and many of the composer’s appealing qualities. The best example of this tactic is shown through one extremely long sentence detailing every “contradiction” (as the author puts it) present in Bernstein’s traits, calling him both “a generous, humane, thoughtful human being and also a silly, childishly self-indulgent one” and concluding the sentence by claiming he “was a man of unfulfilled dreams and ambitions” (Hoffman).
Not only does this strategy humanize Bernstein as a man who faced the struggles of an everyday citizen, but it also frames the author’s viewpoint as rational or a middle ground between the two extreme views of the composer’s character. Hoffman acknowledges both the positive and negative aspects of Benstein, and in the process, persuades the audience to find that the moderate opinion falls somewhere in the middle: Bernstein is neither horrible nor perfect.
Now that the author has successfully contrasted the claims of Bernstein’s poor character, Hoffman goes on to argue why he finds the composer to be so brilliant through an analysis of some specific Bernstein pieces that demonstrate a unique style and remain relevant in modern times. In this section, Hoffman claims that Bernstein’s originality can be seen through his use of various musical stylings in combination, noting that one of Bernstein’s pieces known as the “Cool Fugue”, is a perfect example of this; “what could be more traditionally classical than a fugue?” he asks “but there it is in the middle of a Broadway show” (Hoffman).
The author uses several terms in this section of the argument that require prior knowledge in music to understand such as “fugue”. If the audience was unaware that a fugue would not traditionally be found in the score of a Broadway show, it would not comprehend Hoffman’s argument. However, the author strategically established his ethos as a musician in the section prior so the audience would be able to trust Hoffman’s logic regardless of their prior knowledge on the subject.
Hoffman’s character or credibility was especially essential in this editorial because much of the argument relied on the audience’s desire to trust his opinion, seeing as the writing was absent of any statistics or reliable opinions from other musicians. While this lack of logical appeal may have weakened some specific points made in the article, the overall nature of the piece remained persuasive due to the effective use of several ethos and pathos appeals. Even still, the use of these rhetorical appeals, while individually convincing, would not have been nearly as compelling had they not been arranged correctly. The order in which the author arranged his ideas made his logic easy to follow and combated any of the potential lacking areas in the case.
