The Little Drummer Boy: An Essay on Mahler by Leonard Bernstein (1985): Cast

Leonard Bernstein’s 1985 television essay marks the 125th anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s birth. Filmed in Israel, Vienna and London, it blends biographical commentary with musical excerpts from Mahler’s works taken from Bernstein’s own recordings. Bernstein conducts the Israel Philharmonic, London Philharmonic and Wiener Philharmoniker, and features soloists Janet Baker, Christa Ludwig, Edith Mathis, Lucia Popp and Walton Groenroos, highlighting pieces from Mahler’s nine symphonies, Das Lied von der Erde and the Wunderhorn songs.

• PB Co-director Peter Butler
• HB Co-director Humphrey Burton

• LB Leonard Bernstein as themselves
• JB Janet Baker as themselves
• CL Christa Ludwig as themselves
• EM Edith Mathis as themselves

• The Pirates of Penzance 1994
• Boris Godunov 1990
• Beethoven Symphony No. 9 1977
• The Unanswered Question I: Musical Phonology 1976

Also known as

• Bernstein on Mahler