Christmas Tidings

East Berlin Encore: East Germans gave Leonard Bernstein a 10-minute standing ovation after he conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on Christmas Day to celebrate East Germany’s peaceful revolution. The concert, which was broadcast in the United States and other countries, followed a similar performance that Bernstein had given the day before in West Berlin. The flamboyant American composer-conductor was awarded a gold “star of friendship between peoples” by East German Culture Minister Dietmar Keller, who hailed him as a political and musical ambassador. “This is a historic moment for me, unlike any other in my long, long life,” Bernstein, 71, said with tears in his eyes as he accepted the award. In a tribute to the opening of East Germany’s borders and the crumbling of Communist rule, Bernstein assembled an international orchestra and a choir of both East and West German singers.