Leonard Bernstein

Bernstein, Leonard (1918–90), composer. Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard and the Curtis Institute of Music, he had earned recognition as a symphonic conductor and composer of the ballet “Fancy Free,” about three sailors on the town in wartime New York, before adapting that ballet into a musical comedy called On the Town (1944). In 1950 Bernstein wrote music for Peter Pan, then scored a major success with Wonderful Town (1953). His comic operetta Candide (1956) failed to run, but its score, including the famous overture, has endured triumphantly. West Side Story (1957) marked a complete change of venue and tone and remains his most‐produced work. Because of Bernstein's busy schedule conducting and recording classical music, he did not return to the theatre for twenty years, but suffered a quick failure with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (1976). Stanley Green noted, “Bernstein has shown a certain eclecticism in his work for the theatre that has made it less of an individual expression than highly technical, remarkably effective music with each score sounding almost as if it were the work of a different man.” His nontheatrical compositions covered a wide range, including opera and a Mass. Autobiography: Findings, 1982; biography: Leonard Bernstein, Humphrey Burton, 1994.

• Period: Contemporary (1950- )
• Country: USA
• Born: August 25, 1918 in Lawrence, MA
• Died: October 14, 1990 in New York, NY
• Genres: Ballet, Chamber Music, Choral Music, Concerto, Film Music, Keyboard Music, Opera, Orchestral Music, Symphony, Music Theater, Vocal Music

Biography

As composer, conductor, and educator, Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) emerged as one of a handful of figures in the twentieth century who truly changed the face of music. As a composer, Bernstein left a far-reaching legacy that includes three symphonies, a film score of singular distinction, (On the Waterfront), and an important body of stage works, including one of the cornerstones of American musical theater, West Side Story (1957). The first American-born conductor to attain international superstardom, Bernstein made a profound impression on audiences; his podium manner was dynamic, even flamboyant, to an extent never before witnessed. Bernstein's extroverted manner attracted much criticism from those who dismissed him as a mere exhibitionist; his advocates, however, far outnumbered his detractors.

Born in Lawrence, MA, Bernstein made his mark first as a composer. He attended Harvard University, where he studied with Walter Piston among other distinguished figures. Occasionally he wrote popular songs on the side using the pseudonym Lenny Amber ("amber" being the English translation of the word "Bernstein"). His works of the 1940s, both weighty and light, brought him considerable acclaim; the single year of 1944 saw the premieres of two especially well-received scores, the Symphony No. 1, "Jeremiah", and the ballet Fancy Free. During his sometimes rocky tenure (1958-1969) as music director of the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein brought that ensemble to a new level of prestige and popularity: every Bernstein concert and recording became a much-anticipated event. Through his association with the New York Philharmonic and a neverending stream of guest engagements worldwide, Bernstein became particularly renowned as an interpreter of Mahler and Copland; he did much to carve out the prominent place in the orchestral concert repertory that both composers now maintain. Already well-known by the time he took over the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein became truly famous in 1958, with the first of his series of televised Young People's Concerts, fondly remembered by many as their introduction to the world of classical music. Among the first group of students to receive training at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, Bernstein soon became the institution's guiding light, serving as teacher and mentor for generations of musicians. Though he remained a giant of the podium until the very end, Bernstein curtailed his conducting activities in later years in order to spend more time composing. Little of Bernstein's music from the 1970s on has attained the same level of popularity achieved by his earlier works; still, it comprises a distinguished, substantial body of work that includes Mass (1971), the opera A Quiet Place (1983), and the song cycle Arias and Barcarolles (1988). ~ AMG, All Music Guide

Discography

Candide Buy this CD	Candide Buy this CD	Candide Buy this CD	Johannes Brahms: Violin Concerto; Double Concerto Buy this CD	Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 1/Academic Festival Overture Buy this CD
Igor Stravinsky: Le Sacre Du Printemps/The Firebird Buy this CD	Marc Blitzstein: Symphony: "The Airborne"/Dusty Sun Buy this CD	Beethoven: Symphonie No. 6 "Pastorale"; Ouvertüren "Coriolan" & "König Stephan" Buy this CD	Beethoven: Symphonie No. 6 "Pastorale"; Ouvertüren "Coriolan" & "König Stephan" Buy this CD	Brahms: 4 Symphonien Buy this CD

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• Born: Aug 25, 1918 in Lawrence, Massachusetts
• Died: Oct 14, 1990 in New York, New York
• Occupation: Actor, Director
• Active: '50s-2000s
• Major Genres: Music, Children's/Family
• Career Highlights: On the Waterfront, On the Town, West Side Story
• First Major Screen Credit: On the Town (1949)

Biography

Composer, conductor, and educator Leonard Bernstein made significant contributions to virtually all areas of popular culture, including motion pictures, by way of music in the course of a five-decade career, from the 1940s through the 1980s. Born in Massachusetts in 1918, his musicial ability initially manifested itself through the piano -- composition and conducting came a little later. The major influences on his musical sensibilities included George Gershwin and Aaron Copland, and he later became one of the definitive interpreters of both men's music. By his early twenties, Bernstein had developed aspirations as both a conductor and composer. He wrote with some success for both the concert hall and the musical stage during the early '40s, including a critically acclaimed first symphony and the ballet Fancy Free (1944), written in collaboration with choreographer Jerome Robbins. The latter work quickly evolved into the Broadway success On the Town (1944), done in collaboration with Robbins and the writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green (who were also in the cast), all of whom were to enjoy long professional relationships with Bernstein.

He pursued a multitiered career over the next decade and a half, serving as assistant conductor with the New York Philharmonic, and also under one of his principal mentors, Serge Koussevitzky, at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, while continuing to write for the concert hall and also composing for the Broadway stage. It did take Bernstein nearly a decade to repeat his first success in the latter arena; however, the 1950 musical adaptation of Peter Pan, based on the work of J.M. Barrie, starring Jean Arthur and Boris Karloff, was not a success, though it did last long enough to generate a cast recording. But Wonderful Town (1953), adapted from Ruth McKenney's My Sister Eileen with Comden and Green, and starring Rosalind Russell and Ernie Kovacs, was a hit, running 559 performances and winning five Tony Awards. The operetta Candide (1956), a collaboration with author Lillian Hellman based on Voltaire's work, was a commercial failure on its original run, closing after a two-month run. It was revived in several different incarnations during the 1970s and '80s, initially without Bernstein's direct involvement; during the late '80s, however, following Hellman's death, he returned to the work and prepared a "final revised version" of the piece, which he also recorded. Ironically, in the intervening years, the Candide overture had become a successful concert work in its own right, and one spritely section of the overture became the familiar theme music used by talk-show host Dick Cavett for his ABC and PBS programs, which is how millions of Americans came to know that piece of music.

But it was a year after the failure of Candide, in 1957, that Bernstein reached the pinnacle of his success as a theater and popular composer. West Side Story, written in collaboration with lyricist Stephen Sondheim and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, took the theater world by storm, redefining the nature of the Broadway musical with its youth, energy, and subject matter. The musical enjoyed a long run, both on Broadway and on tour, generating a career's worth of hits in the process, hits that, in those more innocent and less culturally stratified times, were known equally well by parents and their children: "Tonight," "Maria," "I Feel Pretty," "Jet Song," "America," "Something's Coming," and "Somewhere" were as well known as any rock & roll or pop hits of the day. Indeed, a few of them over the ensuing decade and a half entered the repertories of rock & roll groups as different as Jay & the Americans, the Nice, and Yes. The show yielded innumerable productions and revivals across the decades that followed, in addition to a celebrated film version in 1961.

Bernstein's relationship to movies was far less consistent than his work for Broadway. This was due in part to his temperament as a serious composer, unaccustomed to the assembly line methods typical of Hollywood production, and to his career being based in New York and Boston, and also the nature and unique exigencies of the motion picture business, to which some creative artists cannot adjust. His first indirect contact with the film business took place in 1944 when MGM provided some of the financing for the stage production of On the Town in return for the film rights, which it decided to exercise in the second half of the 1940s. The studio's involvement with the show was a godsend in terms of getting it preserved in some lasting reincarnation onscreen, but for Bernstein it proved a decidedly mixed blessing. MGM liked the show and the book, and brought Comden and Green out to Hollywood to adapt the screenplay, but the music was another matter. They ended up using very little of Bernstein's music for reasons that were as much a matter of business as aesthetics. As Adolph Green explained some 50 years later, during a conversation while walking on Broadway, "MGM wanted their own music in the movie, under their copyright and publishing, as much as possible. And in a way that was understandable, from their point of view -- even though the show had been successful, there were no real 'hits' from On the Town, and they felt they weren't giving up anything in having a new score written that they believed would be more commercial." As a result, in the Stanley Donen/Gene Kelly-directed 1949 film, apart from the opening sequence containing the musical monolog/aria "I Feel Like I'm Not Out of Bed Yet" and the big production number "New York, New York," Bernstein's music was mostly gone, replaced by material written by MGM staff composer Roger Edens (with some contributions from Saul Chaplin and Conrad Salinger). Matters were very different for Bernstein a dozen years later, however, when West Side Story was brought to the screen in 1961 by director/producer Robert Wise. That show overflowed with hits and had already yielded a best-selling cast recording, something that On the Town -- which dated from 1944, before the advent of the LP -- had never enjoyed or had an opportunity to generate. As a result, the movie not only left Bernstein's music intact, but reveled in it. Ironically, by that time Bernstein had been forced to leave the Broadway stage behind, a result of the circumstances behind the single most important career development of his life. As a condition of his accepting the post of music director of the New York Philharmonic -- the most prestigious symphony orchestra in the United States -- and becoming the first American-born conductor to lead a major American orchestra, Bernstein had to relinquish his ties to Broadway.

Almost dead-center between the films of On the Town and West Side Story, however, Bernstein got in one great, even phenomenal inning of his own on a Hollywood soundstage, with the only dramatic film score of his career, for Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954). It was a towering achievement, one of the finest bodies of music ever written for a motion picture, for a movie that was (to use a phrase from the script) loaded to the gunnels with great dialogue, phenomenal acting, and Academy Award-caliber work from top to bottom, the score was still one of the highlights and earned Bernstein an Oscar nomination. That was, itself, an unusual honor from the normally insular Hollywood community for an East Coast-based composer. The entire soundtrack, though very modernistic, sings with achingly memorable passages, from the mournful, menacing, subdued opening theme through the love theme, and the savage, brutal sections accompanying the violence that permeates the world of hero Terry Malloy (played by Marlon Brando). It was a very forward-looking score on a number of levels. Parts of the soundtrack actually anticipate elements of West Side Story, which was still a couple of years in Bernstein's future and some sections of the music incorporated elements of jazz, which was very unusual for a Hollywood movie in 1954. The whole score resonated with the same youthful, brash boldness that permeated Bernstein's stage and concert works, and the music burst in every bar with the confidence not only borne of youth (he was 35 when he took the film assignment), but also a decade's worth of experience working with some of the best orchestras in the world (he'd already recorded with the New York Philharmonic, albeit billed for contractual reasons as the "Stadium Symphony Orchestra of New York"). Bernstein scored a hit his first time out as a film composer, and he could easily have gotten more movie work. He would never have signed a long-term contract with a studio, but there were producers who would have commissioned scores from him for specific individual projects. On the Waterfront was one of the most successful and honored films of its era, and anyone involved with it who was willing had any future that they wanted in the film business. But he found the process of film composition as practiced in Hollywood, with the music's inevitable subservience to the editing of the movie, to be frustrating. In connection with On the Waterfront, he was able to salvage those parts of the score that had been left on the cutting room floor in the concert suite that he subsequently prepared, which became a popular work in its own right. Ironically, the On the Waterfront score, even though it had been composed by Bernstein under a contract that reportedly reserved its use exclusively to that movie, ended up reappearing uncredited in at least one subsequent film. About two minutes of the music, all of it very distinctive, was tracked into the score for the 1958 Gerd Oswald-directed thriller Screaming Mimi, released by Columbia Pictures, the same studio that had released On the Waterfront. The composer was apparently unaware of that reappearance of his music; by 1958, he had other pursuits to focus on. And having come to Hollywood and proved he could score movies with (or even better than) the best of them, he never looked back at the film business again.

Nor did he ever need to. In 1952, Bernstein started making regular appearances on television as a musical educator on the CBS arts series Omnibus, which began the process of turning him into a popular culture figure. The On the Waterfront score and Oscar nomination, and, later, the massive stage success of West Side Story, only heightened his celebrity. In 1957, he assumed the music directorship of the New York Philharmonic -- itself a highly visible cultural position -- and soon after he started presenting his Young People's Concerts. These were broadcast on CBS for nearly 15 years, originally as part of the network's Saturday morning schedule and later in primetime, and they earned Bernstein an Emmy award for Best Musical Contribution for Television. By the 1960s, he was a media celebrity many times over, winning three more Emmys for Outstanding Classical Performance, in addition to hosting numerous network specials on music. In the course of his career, he was a friend and/or collaborator to nearly every major musical and cultural figure in Hollywood or on Broadway, and even far beyond the boundaries of either. In 1966 on a CBS network special, Bernstein introduced Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys performing his most serious composition to date, a subdued, lyrical, surreal piece entitled "Surf's Up," at the piano; this was at a time when most classical conductors wouldn't even allow their names, much less their images, to be publicly associated with anything to do with rock & roll music. In the '70s, he gave several Norton lectures at Harvard, which were captured on video and have been released commercially (as Bernstein at Harvard). And during the 1980s, he returned to such early career triumphs as West Side Story in concert performances that were captured on video for posterity, involving all-star operatic singing casts and major orchestras, and assembled his last adaptation of Candide. He also conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood during the summer season and left behind numerous televised performances with the Boston Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, and, most especially, the Israel Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, with which he developed special professional relationships. And in 1998, some eight years after his death, he was the subject of an American Masters portrait, entitled Leonard Bernstein: Reaching for the Note. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Leonard Bernstein: Reaching for the Note Buy this Movie	The Art of Conducting: Great Conductors of the Past Buy this Movie	Leonard Bernstein: The Gift of Music Buy this Movie	Mozart: Clarinet Concerto - Symphony No. 25 Buy this Movie
Leonard Bernstein: The Little Drummer Boy Buy this Movie	Leonard Bernstein: Bernstein in Paris - Berlioz Requiem Buy this Movie	Mahler: Symphony No. 7 Buy this Movie	The Unanswered Question: Musical Phonology Buy this Movie

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(b Lawrence, ma, 25 Aug 1918; dNew York, 14 Oct 1990 ). American conductor, composer and pianist. He studied at Harvard and the Curtis Institute and was a protégé of Koussevitzky. In 1944 he made his reputation as a conductor when he stepped in when Bruno Walter was ill; thereafter he was associated particularly with the Israel PO(from 1947), the Boston SO and the New York PO (musical director, 1958-69), soon achieving an international reputation, conducting in Vienna and at La Scala. During his tenure the New York PO flourished as never before. A gifted pianist, he often performed simultaneously as soloist and conductor. At the same time, he pursued a career as a composer, cutting across the boundaries between high and popular culture in his mixing of Mahler and Broadway, Copland and Bach. His theatre works are mostly in the Broadway manner: they include the ballet Fancy Free (1944) and the musicals Candide (1956) and West Side Story (1957). His more ambitious works, many of them couched in a richly chromatic, intense post-Mahlerian idiom, often have a religious inspiration, for example the ‘Jeremiah’ Symphony with mezzo (1942), ‘Kaddish’, with soloists and choirs (1963) and the theatre piece Mass (1971).

works:
Operas

• Trouble in Tahiti (1952), rev. as A Quiet Place (1983)

Musicals

• On the Town (1944)
• Wonderful Town (1953)
• Candide (1956)
• West Side Story (1957)

Other dramatic music

• Fancy Free, ballet (1944)
• Facsimile, ballet (1946)
• On the Waterfront, film score (1954)
• Mass, theatre piece (1971)
• Dybbuk, ballet (1974)

Orchestral and choral music

• Sym. no.1, ‘Jeremiah’ (1942)
• Sym. no.2, ‘The Age of Anxiety’ (1949)
• Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, cl, jazz ens (1949)
• Serenade, vn, str, harp, perc (1954)
• Sym. no.3, ‘Kaddish’ (1963)
• Chichester Psalms (1965)
• Slava!, ov. (1977)
• Songfest (1977)
• Divertimento (1980)
• Halil (1981)

Chamber and instrumental music

• Cl Sonata (1942)
• Seven Anniversaries, pf (1943)
• Four Anniversaries, pf (1948)
• Brass Music (1948)
• Five Anniversaries, pf (1954)
• Touches, pf (1981)

Solo vocal music

• I Hate Music (1943)
• La bonne cuisine (1947)
• Two Love Songs (1949)
• Piccola serenata (1979)

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Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) was an American composer, conductor, and pianist. His special gifts in bridging the gap between the concert hall and the world of Broadway made him one of the most glamorous musical figures of his day.

Leonard Bernstein was born Louis Bernstein in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on August 25, 1918, to Russian-Jewish immigrants. He changed his name to Leonard at the age of sixteen. The family soon moved to Boston, where Leonard studied at Boston Latin School and Harvard University. Although he had taken piano lessons from the age of 10 and engaged in musical activities at college, his intensive musical training began only in 1939 at the Curtis Institute. The following summer, at the Berkshire Music Festival, he met Serge Koussevitsky, who was to be his chief mentor in the early years.

On Koussevitsky's recommendation two years later, Artur Rodzinski made Bernstein his assistant conductor at the New York Philharmonic. The suddenness of this appointment, coming after two somewhat directionless years, was superseded only by the dramatic events of November 14, 1943. With less than 24 hours' notice and no rehearsal, Bernstein substituted for the ailing Bruno Walter at Carnegie Hall and led the Philharmonic through a difficult program which he had studied hastily at best. By the concert's end the audience knew it had witnessed the debut of a born conductor. The New York Times ran a front-page story the following morning, and Bernstein's career as a public figure had begun. During the next few years he was guest conductor of every major orchestra in the United States until, in 1958, he became music director of the New York Philharmonic.

Bernstein's multi-faceted career might have filled several average lives. It is surprising that one who had never given a solo recital would be recognized as a pianist; nevertheless, he was so recognized from his appearances as conductor-pianist in performances of Mozart concertos and the Ravel Concerto in G.

As a composer, Bernstein was a controversial figure. His large works, including the symphonies Jeremiah (1943), Age of Anxiety (1949), and Kaddish (1963), are not acknowledged masterpieces. Yet they are skillfully wrought and show his sensitivity to subtle changes of musical dialect. He received more praise for his Broadway musicals. The vivid On the Town (1944) and Wonderful Town (1952) were followed by Candide (1956), which, though not a box-office success, is considered by many to be Bernstein's most original score. West Side Story (1957) received international acclaim. Bernstein's music, with its strong contrasts of violence and tenderness, sustains - indeed determines - the feeling of the show and contributes to its special place in the history of American musical theater.

His role as an educator, in seminars at Brandeis University (1952-1957) and in teaching duties at Tanglewood, should not be overlooked. He found an even larger audience through television, where his animation and distinguished simplicity had an immediate appeal. Two books of essays, Joy of Music (1959) and Infinite Variety of Music (1966), were direct products of television presentations.

Bernstein had his greatest impact as a conductor. His appearances abroad - with or without the Philharmonic - elicited an excitement approaching frenzy. These responses were due in part to Bernstein's dynamism, particularly effective in music of strong expressionistic profile. It is generally agreed that his readings of 20th century American scores showed a fervor and authority rarely approached by those of his colleagues. His performances and recordings also engendered a revival of interest in Mahler's music.

There was some surprise when, in 1967, Bernstein resigned as music director of the Philharmonic. But it was in keeping with his peripatetic nature and the diversity of his activities that he should seek new channels of expression. After leaving the Philharmonic, Bernstein traveled extensively, serving as guest conductor for many of the major symphonies of the world including the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic. He became something of a fixture in those cities in the last few decades of his life.

More controversially, he also became caught up in the cultural upheaval of the late 1960s. He angered many when he claimed all music, other than pop, seemed old-fashioned and musty. Politically, too, he drew criticism. When his wife hosted a fund-raiser for the Black Panthers in 1970, charges of anti-Semitism were leveled against Bernstein himself. He had not organized the event, but the press reports caused severe damage to his reputation. This event, along with his participation in anti-Vietnam War activism led J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to monitor his activities and associations.

In 1971 Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. It was, according to biographer Humphrey Burton, "the closest [Bernstein] ever came to achieving a synthesis between Broadway and the concert hall." The huge cast performed songs in styles ranging from rock to blues to gospel. Mass debuted on Broadway later that year.

Later Bernstein compositions include the dance drama, Dybbuk (1974); 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (1976), a musical about the White House that was a financial and critical disaster; the song cycle Songfest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra (1977); and the opera A Quiet Place (1983, revised 1984).

In the 1980s Bernstein continued his hectic schedule of international appearances and social concerns. He gave concerts to mark the fortieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and a benefit for AIDS research. On Christmas Day, 1989, Bernstein led an international orchestra in Berlin, which was in the midst of celebrating the collapse of the Berlin Wall. In a typically grand gesture, Bernstein changed the words of "Ode to Joy" to "Ode to Freedom."

Despite health problems, Bernstein continued to tour the world in 1990 before returning to Tanglewood for an August 19th concert. He had first conducted a professional orchestra there in 1940, and this performance, 50 years later, was to be his last. He died in New York, on October 14, 1990, of a heart attack brought on by emphysema and other complications.

Further Reading

Humphrey Burton, Leonard Bernstein (1994) is a comprehensive biography with extensive comment from his friends and family. A more sensational biography is Joan Peyser, Bernstein: A Biography (1987). David Ewen, Leonard Bernstein (1960; rev. ed. 1967), is a solid biography and more comprehensive than John Briggs, Leonard Bernstein: The Man, His Work, and His World (1961). Evelyn Ames, A Wind from the West (1970), a sometimes-romanticized account of the New York Philharmonic's European tour of 1968, is valuable for its intimate detail.

For more information on Leonard Bernstein, visit Britannica.com.

Bernstein, Leonard (b Lawrence, Mass., 25 Aug. 1918, d New York, 14 Oct. 1990). US composer and conductor. As a ballet composer, he worked mainly with the choreographer Jerome Robbins in the 1940s and 1950s, writing the music for Robbins's Fancy Free (1944), Facsimile (1946), and Dybbuk Variations (1974). For his part, Robbins choreographed all Bernstein's musicals, including On the Town (1944), Wonderful Town (1953), Candide (1956), and most successfully of all, West Side Story (1957). The latter, a collaboration between Bernstein, Robbins, Arthur Laurents (librettist), and Stephen Sondheim (lyricist), is regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of American musical theatre.

(1918-1990), conductor, composer, pianist, author, and educator. Bernstein, born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, showed musical talent at a young age. He graduated from Harvard University, where he studied with Edward Burlingame Hill and Walter Piston, and continued his studies with Fritz Reiner at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. During the summers of 1940 and 1941, he worked at Tanglewood with Serge Koussevitzky, who became his mentor. In 1943, he became assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic. On November 14, 1943, Bernstein stepped in for the ailing Bruno Walter to conduct a nationally broadcast Philharmonic program. His vigorous, charismatic, and thoroughly prepared performance brought him overnight fame.

Bernstein's First Symphony, subtitled Jeremiah, was chosen by the New York Music Critics' Circle as the best new American orchestral work of 1943-1944. That same season, his ballet, Fancy Free, with choreography by Jerome Robbins, was introduced by the Ballet Theater at the Metropolitan Opera House. Its success led Robbins and Bernstein to use the scenario as the basis for the musical On the Town, which ran for more than a year on Broadway. In 1954, Bernstein composed his only film score, the brooding, expressionist music for On the Waterfront.

In 1957, Bernstein's masterpiece, the musical West Side Story, written with Stephen Sondheim, opened on Broadway to extraordinary critical and popular acclaim. The same year, he was appointed co-conductor, with Dimitri Mitropoulos, of the New York Philharmonic. In 1958, he was named music director and chief conductor, positions he held until 1969, whereupon he was appointed conductor laureate for life. After leaving the Philharmonic, Bernstein remained active as one of the most successful guest conductors in the world.

Bernstein had a profound effect on American music. As the first world-class musician in America to build a career in the United States, he brought a new respect to American musical endeavor. His influence on younger artists cannot be overemphasized.

As a conductor, Bernstein was at his best in the subjective, passionate literature of the romantic and modern eras, and he had a special affinity for the works of Gustav Mahler, whose music he did much to popularize. He was a champion of American music, especially the relatively conservative work of such men as Aaron Copland, William Schuman, and Roy Harris. His podium manner was balletic and demonstrative; some found it flamboyant.

Bernstein wrote three symphonies, four musicals, a violin concerto, an idiosyncratic theatrical Mass (1971), and two interrelated operas, Trouble in Tahiti (1950) and A Quiet Place (1983), as well as other minor pieces. His lighter works are generally considered to be his most successful; Bernstein's "serious" music tends toward the ponderous.

A gifted pianist, he recorded Copland's Piano Sonata, as well as concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, and Ravel, which he conducted from the keyboard. Through the televised New York Philharmonic "Young People's Concerts," which reached millions of viewers, Bernstein became perhaps the most influential music teacher in history. He published several books, the best of which is The Joy of Music (1959), a spirited, informal introduction to the art.

Bibliography:

Joan Peyser, Bernstein: A Biography (1987); Paul Robinson, Bernstein (1982).

Author:

Tim Page

See also Music; Musical Theater.

Bernstein, Leonard (bûrn'stīn, –stēn) , 1918–90, American composer, conductor, and pianist, b. Lawrence, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1939, and Curtis Institute of Music, 1941. A highly versatile musician, he was the composer of symphonic works (the Jeremiah Symphony, 1944; Age of Anxiety, 1949; Kaddish Symphony, 1963), song cycles, chamber music, ballets (Fancy Free, 1944), musicals (On the Town, 1944; Wonderful Town, 1953; Candide, 1956; West Side Story, 1957), opera (Trouble in Tahiti, 1952), and choral music (Chichester Psalms, 1965). His Mass (1971), a “theater piece for dancers, singers, and players,” was performed at the opening of the John F. Kennedy Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. From 1951 to 1956 he taught at Brandeis Univ. He was a soloist and conductor with many orchestras in the United States and abroad. He first conducted the New York Philharmonic in 1943, and from 1958 to 1970 was its musical director. Upon his retirement he was named laureate conductor and frequently appeared with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic.

Bibliography

See his The Joy of Music (1959) and The Infinite Variety of Music (1966); biographies by J. Briggs (1961), J. Gruen (1968), H. Burton (1994), and M. Secrest (1994).

(burn-steyen)

A twentieth-century American composer and conductor. He served for many years as the music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra but is probably best known for his Broadway productions, such as West Side Story.

Quotes:

"Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors."