<\/p>
I<\/span>n 1958 Leonard Bernstein<\/a> made one of the most radical and controversial decisions of his life. And for once it had nothing to do with sex, drugs or conducting Mahler\u2019s slow movements slower than anyone else. He decided that for one concert each week, on Thursday nights, he and the New York Philharmonic would ditch formal evening dress and wear something slightly more casual.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Slightly more casual, but perhaps no less bizarre. The orchestra would dress up in blue trousers, blue shirts and the sort of collarless blue jackets popular in pre-war barbershop groups. The good thing was that the musicians no longer looked like a huddle of penguins. The bad thing was that the new look was just as strictly imposed, and just as certain to erase individuality, as the bearskins of the Grenadier Guards.<\/span><\/p>\n It was also ridiculed by players, audiences and press alike. And several guest conductors refused to wear it, including Herbert von Karajan \u2013 which was funny, because he was quite happy to wear all sorts of unappealing uniforms in the 1930s. Eventually, Lenny admitted defeat and told everyone to regard the experiment as \u2018Bernstein\u2019s folly\u2019. The penguin look was\u00a0reinstated.<\/span><\/p>\n Since then, unsurprisingly, most of the world\u2019s major orchestras have shied away from modifying too radically their traditional look. Nearly 20 years ago, it\u2019s true, the BBC Symphony Orchestra tried out something its bosses called the \u2018smooth jazz look\u2019, which turned out to be as hip\u2019n\u2019happenin\u2019 as the name suggests \u2013 i.e. not very much at all. It comprised all the blokes buying a black shirt instead of a white one and leaving the top button undone, while the women were permitted \u2013 shock, horror \u2013 to wear trousers, as long as they were (you guessed it) black.<\/span><\/p>\n