Symphonic Dances From West Side Story Program Notes Template
Leonard Bernstein Born Louis Bernstein ( 1918-08-25)August 25, 1918, U.S. Died October 14, 1990 ( 1990-10-14) (aged 72), New York, U.S. Occupation, Years active 1940–1990 Spouse(s) ( m. 1951; d. 1978) Signature Leonard Bernstein (; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the US to receive worldwide acclaim.
According to music critic, he was 'one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history.' His fame derived from his long tenure as the music director of the, from his conducting of concerts with most of the world's leading orchestras, and from his music for, his, and a range of other compositions, including three symphonies and many shorter chamber and solo works. Bernstein was the first conductor to give a series of television lectures on classical music, starting in 1954 and continuing until his death. He was a skilled pianist, often conducting piano concertos from the keyboard. As a composer he wrote in many styles encompassing symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music and pieces for the piano. Many of his works are regularly performed around the world, although none has matched the tremendous popular and critical success of West Side Story.
Leonard Bernstein and in rehearsal, ca. 1940–1949 After he left Curtis, Bernstein lived in New York. He shared an apartment with his friend and often accompanied Green, and in a comedy troupe called The Revuers who performed in. He took jobs with a music publisher, transcribing music or producing arrangements under the pseudonym Lenny Amber.
(Bernstein in German = Amber in English.) In 1940, Bernstein began his study at the 's summer institute, in the conducting class of the orchestra's conductor,. Bernstein's friendships with Copland (who was very close to Koussevitsky) and Mitropoulos were propitious in helping him gain a place in the class.
Other students in the class included, who also became a lifelong friend. Koussevitsky perhaps did not teach Bernstein much basic conducting technique (which he had already developed under Reiner) but instead became a sort of father figure to him and was perhaps the major influence on Bernstein's emotional way of interpreting music. Bernstein later became Koussevitzky's conducting assistant and would later dedicate his, to him. On November 14, 1943, having recently been appointed assistant conductor to of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, he made his major conducting debut at short notice—and without any rehearsal—after guest conductor came down with the flu. The program included works by, and 's with soloist, solo cellist of the orchestra. Before the concert Bernstein briefly spoke to Bruno Walter, who discussed particular difficulties in the works he was to perform. The next day, The New York Times carried the story on their front page and their editorial remarked, 'It's a good American success story.
The warm, friendly triumph of it filled and spread far over the air waves.' He became instantly famous because the concert was nationally broadcast on, and afterwards Bernstein started to appear as a guest conductor with many U.S. From 1945 to 1947, Bernstein was the Music Director of the New York City Symphony, which had been founded the previous year by the conductor. The orchestra (with support from the Mayor) was aimed at a different audience than the New York Philharmonic, with more modern programs and cheaper tickets. Also in regard to a different audience, in 1945 Bernstein discussed the possibility of acting in a film with —playing opposite her starring role as the composer's patron.
In addition to becoming known as a conductor, Bernstein also emerged as a composer in the same period. In January 1944 he conducted the premiere of his in Pittsburgh. His score to the ballet choreographed by opened in New York in April 1944 and this was later developed into the musical with lyrics by Comden and Green that opened on Broadway in December 1944. Bernstein at the piano, making annotations to a musical score Around the time he was appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein composed the music for two shows. The first was for the operetta, which was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by based on 's. The second was Bernstein's collaboration with the choreographer, the writer, and the lyricist to produce the musical.
The first three had worked on it intermittently since Robbins first suggested the idea in 1949. Finally, with the addition of Sondheim to the team and a period of concentrated effort, it received its Broadway premiere in 1957 and has since proven to be Bernstein's most popular and enduring score.
In 1959, he took the New York Philharmonic on a tour of Europe and the Soviet Union, portions of which were filmed. A highlight of the tour was Bernstein's performance of 's, in the presence of the composer, who came on stage at the end to congratulate Bernstein and the musicians. In October, when Bernstein and the orchestra returned to the U.S., they recorded the symphony for Columbia.
He recorded it for a second time with the orchestra on tour in Japan in 1979. Bernstein seems to have limited himself to only conducting certain Shostakovich symphonies, namely the numbers 1, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 14. He made two recordings of Shostakovich's, one with the New York Philharmonic in the 1960s and another recorded live in 1988 with the (one of the few recordings he made with them, also including the ). 1960–1969 In 1960 Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic held a Mahler Festival to mark the centenary of the composer's birth. Bernstein, Walter and Mitropoulos conducted performances.
The composer's widow, attended some of Bernstein's rehearsals. In 1960 Bernstein also made his first commercial recording of a and over the next seven years he made the first complete cycle of recordings of all nine of Mahler's completed symphonies. (All featured the New York Philharmonic except the 8th Symphony which was recorded with the following a concert in the in London in 1966.) The success of these recordings, along with Bernstein's concert performances and television talks, was an important, if not vital, part of the revival of interest in Mahler in the 1960s, especially in the U.S. Other non-U.S. Composers that Bernstein championed to some extent at the time include the Danish composer (who was then only little known in the U.S.) and, whose popularity had by then started to fade. Bernstein eventually recorded a complete cycle in New York of Sibelius's symphonies and three of Nielsen's symphonies (Nos. 2, 4, and 5), as well as conducting recordings of his violin, clarinet and flute concertos.
He also recorded Nielsen's 3rd Symphony with the after a critically acclaimed public performance in Denmark. Bernstein championed U.S. Composers, especially those that he was close to like, and. He also started to more extensively record his own compositions for Columbia Records.
This included his three symphonies, his ballets, and the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story with the New York Philharmonic. He also conducted an LP of his 1944 musical, the first (almost) complete recording of the original featuring several members of the original Broadway cast, including and. (The 1949 film version only contains four of Bernstein's original numbers.) Bernstein also collaborated with the experimental jazz pianist and composer resulting in the recording ' (1961).
In one oft-reported incident, in April 1962 Bernstein appeared on stage before a performance of the with the pianist. During rehearsals, Gould had argued for tempi much broader than normal, which did not reflect Bernstein's concept of the music. Bernstein gave a brief address to the audience starting with 'Don't be frightened; Mr Gould is here.'
And going on to 'In a concerto, who is the boss (audience laughter)—the soloist or the conductor?' (Audience laughter grows louder). The answer is, of course, sometimes the one and sometimes the other, depending on the people involved.' This speech was subsequently interpreted by, music critic for The New York Times, as abdication of personal responsibility and an attack on Gould, whose performance Schonberg went on to criticize heavily. Bernstein always denied that this had been his intent and has stated that he made these remarks with Gould's blessing.
In the book Dinner with Lenny, published in October 2013, author Jonathan Cott provided a thorough debunking, in the conductor's own words, of the legend which Bernstein himself described in the book as 'one. That won't go away'. Throughout his life, he professed admiration and friendship for Gould. Schonberg was often (though not always) harshly critical of Bernstein as a conductor during his tenure as Music Director.
However, his views were not shared by the audiences (with many full houses) and probably not by the musicians themselves (who had greater financial security arising from Bernstein's many TV and recording activities amongst other things). In 1962 the New York Philharmonic moved from to Philharmonic Hall (now ) in the new.
The move was not without controversy because of acoustic problems with the new hall. Bernstein conducted the gala opening concert featuring vocal works by Mahler, Beethoven and Vaughan Williams, and the premiere of Aaron Copland's, a serial-work that was merely politely received.
During the intermission Bernstein kissed the cheek of the President's wife, a break with protocol that was commented on at the time. In 1961 Bernstein had conducted at President 's pre-inaugural gala, and he was an occasional guest in the Kennedy White House. Years later he conducted at the funeral mass in 1968 for the late President Kennedy's brother. On November 23, 1963, the day after the, Leonard Bernstein conducted the and the Schola Cantorum of New York in a nationally televised memorial featuring the 'Resurrection Symphony' No. This was the first televised performance of the complete symphony.
Mahler’s music had never been performed for such an event, and since the tribute to JFK, Mahler symphonies have become part of the standard repertoire for national mourning. In 1964 Bernstein conducted 's production of 's at the in New York. In 1966 he made his debut at the conducting 's production of the same opera with as Falstaff. During his time in Vienna he also recorded the opera for Columbia Records and conducted his first subscription concert with the (which is made up of players from the Vienna State Opera) featuring Mahler's with Fischer-Dieskau and.
He returned to the State Opera in 1968 for a production of and in 1970 for 's production of Beethoven's. Sixteen years later, at the State Opera, Bernstein conducted his sequel to Trouble in Tahiti, A Quiet Place.
With the orchestra. Bernstein's final farewell to the State Opera happened accidentally in 1989: following a performance of 's, he unexpectedly entered the stage and embraced conductor in front of a cheering audience. With his commitment to the New York Philharmonic and his many other activities, Bernstein had little time for composition during the 1960s. The two major works he produced at this time were his dedicated to the recently assassinated President and the which he produced during a sabbatical year he took from the Philharmonic in 1965 to concentrate on composition. To make more time to composition was probably a major factor in his decision to step down as Music Director of the Philharmonic in 1969, and to never again accept such a position elsewhere.
1970–1979. Leonard Bernstein by After stepping down from the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein continued to appear with them in most years until his death, and he toured with them to Europe in 1976 and to Asia in 1979. He also strengthened his relationship with the —he conducted all nine completed Mahler symphonies with them (plus the adagio from the 10th) in the period from 1967 to 1976. All of these were filmed for Unitel with the exception of the 1967 Mahler 2nd, which instead Bernstein filmed with the in in 1973. In the late 1970s Bernstein conducted a complete Beethoven symphony cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic, and cycles of Brahms and Schumann were to follow in the 1980s.
Other orchestras he conducted on numerous occasions in the 1970s include the, the, and the. In 1970 Bernstein wrote and narrated a ninety-minute program filmed on location in and around Vienna as a celebration of Beethoven's 200th birthday. It featured parts of Bernstein's rehearsals and performance for the Otto Schenk production of, Bernstein playing the and the with the and the young amongst the soloists. The program was first telecast in 1970 on Austrian and British television, and then on CBS in the U.S. On Christmas Eve 1971.
The show, originally entitled Beethoven's Birthday: A Celebration in Vienna, won an and was issued on DVD in 2005. In the summer of 1970, during the Festival of London, he conducted in St. Paul's Cathedral, with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Like many of his friends and colleagues, Bernstein had been involved in various left wing causes and organizations since the 1940s. He was blacklisted by the and in the early 1950s, but unlike others his career was not greatly affected, and he was never required to testify before the.
His political life received substantial press coverage though in 1970, due to a gathering hosted at his Manhattan apartment on January 14, 1970. Bernstein and his wife held the event seeking to raise awareness and money for the defense of several members of the against a variety of charges. Initially covered the gathering as a item, but later posted an editorial harshly unfavorable to Bernstein following generally negative reaction to the widely publicized story. This reaction culminated in June 1970 with the appearance of ', an essay by satirist featured on the cover of the magazine. The article contrasted the Bernsteins' comfortable lifestyle in one of the world's most expensive neighborhoods with the politics of the Black Panthers.
It led to the popularization of ' as a critical term. Both Bernstein and his wife Felicia responded to the criticism, arguing that they were motivated not by a shallow desire to express fashionable sympathy but by their concern for. Bernstein's major compositions during the 1970s were his; his score for the ballet; his orchestral vocal work; and his U.S. Bicentenary musical written with lyrics by which was his first real theatrical flop, and last original Broadway show. The world premiere of Bernstein's MASS took place on September 8, 1971.
Commissioned by for the opening of the in Washington, D.C., it was partly intended as an anti-war statement. Hastily written in places, the work represented a fusion not only of different religious traditions (Latin liturgy, Hebrew prayer, and plenty of contemporary English lyrics) but also of different musical styles, including classical and rock music. It was originally a target of criticism from the Roman Catholic Church on the one hand and contemporary music critics who objected to its Broadway/populist elements on the other. In the present day, it is perhaps seen as less blasphemous and more a piece of its era: in 2000 it was even performed in the Vatican. In 1972 Bernstein recorded 's, with in the title role and as Don Jose, after leading several stage performances of the opera at the. The recording was one of the first in stereo to use the original spoken dialogue between the sung portions of the opera, rather than the musical that were composed by after Bizet's death. The recording was Bernstein's first for and won a.
Bernstein was appointed in 1973 to the Chair as Professor of Poetry at his alma mater, Harvard University, and delivered a series of six televised lectures on music with musical examples played by the. However, these lectures were not televised until 1976. Taking the title from a work, he called the series; it was a set of interdisciplinary lectures in which he borrowed terminology from contemporary linguistics to analyze and compare musical construction to language.
The lectures are presently available in both book and DVD form. The DVD video was not taken directly from the lectures at Harvard, rather they were recreated again at the WGBH studios for filming. This appears to be the only surviving Norton lectures series available to the general public in video format. Wrote in 2007 on the forums about the linguistic aspects of the lecture: 'I spent some time with Bernstein during the preparation and performance of the lectures. My feeling was that he was onto something, but I couldn't really judge how significant it was.' Bernstein played an instrumental role in the exiling of the world-renowned cellist and conductor, from the in 1974. Rostropovich, a strong believer in free speech and democracy, was officially held in disgrace, his concerts and tours both at home and abroad cancelled, and in 1972 he was prohibited to travel outside of Russia.
During a trip to USSR in 1974, Massachusetts Senator and his wife Joan, urged by Bernstein and others in the cultural scene, brought up Rostropovich's situation to Soviet Union Communist Party Leader. Two days later, Rostropovich was granted his exit visa. States in his biography that wanted Bernstein to host in the show's first season (1975–76). Chase was seated next to Bernstein at a birthday party for and made the request in person. However, the pitch involved a Bernstein-conducted SNL version of, and Bernstein was uninterested.
A major period of upheaval in Bernstein's personal life began in 1976 when he decided that he could no longer conceal his bisexuality and he left his wife Felicia for a period to live with the musical director of the classical music radio station in San Francisco, Tom Cothran. The next year she was diagnosed with lung cancer and eventually Bernstein moved back in with her and cared for her until she died on June 16, 1978. Bernstein is reported to have often spoken of his terrible guilt over his wife's death. Most biographies of Bernstein state that his lifestyle became more excessive and his personal behavior sometimes cruder after her death.
However, his public standing and many of his close friendships appear to have remained unaffected, and he resumed his busy schedule of musical activity. In 1978, Bernstein returned to the Vienna State Opera to conduct a revival of the production of Fidelio, now featuring and in the lead roles. At the same time, Bernstein made a studio recording of the opera for and the opera itself was filmed by Unitel and released on DVD by Deutsche Grammophon in late 2006. In May 1978, the played two U.S. Concerts under his direction to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Orchestra under that name. On consecutive nights, the Orchestra, with the, performed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Bernstein's at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and at in New York. In 1979, Bernstein conducted the for the first time, in two charity concerts for involving performances of Mahler's.
The invitation for the concerts had come from the orchestra and not from its principal conductor. There has been speculation about why Karajan never invited Bernstein to conduct his orchestra.
(Karajan did conduct the New York Philharmonic during Bernstein's tenure.) The full reasons will probably never be known—reports suggest they were on friendly terms when they met, but sometimes practiced a little mutual. One of the concerts was broadcast on radio and was posthumously released on CD by Deutsche Grammophon. One oddity of the recording is that the trombone section fails to enter at the climax of the finale, as a result of an audience member fainting just behind the trombones a few seconds earlier. 1980–1990 Bernstein received the award in 1980. For the rest of the 1980s he continued to conduct, teach, compose, and produce the occasional TV documentary. His most significant compositions of the decade were probably his opera, which he wrote with and which premiered (in its original version) in Houston in 1983; his Divertimento for Orchestra; his for flute and orchestra; his Concerto for Orchestra 'Jubilee Games'; and his song cycle Arias and Barcarolles, which was named after a comment President had made to him in 1960.
With on PBS Beethoven TV series (1982) In 1982 in the U.S., aired an 11-part series of Bernstein's late 1970s films for Unitel of the Vienna Philharmonic playing all nine Beethoven symphonies and various other Beethoven works. Bernstein gave spoken introduction and actor was also featured on the programs, reading from Beethoven's letters. The original films have since been released on DVD by Deutsche Grammophon.
In addition to conducting in New York, Vienna and Israel, Bernstein was a regular guest conductor of other orchestras in the 1980s. These included the in Amsterdam, with whom he recorded Mahler's First, Fourth, and Ninth Symphonies amongst other works; the in Munich, with whom he recorded Wagner's; Haydn's; Mozart's and; and the orchestra of in Rome, with whom he recorded some Debussy and Puccini's. In 1982, he and founded the as a summer training academy along the lines of Tanglewood. Bernstein served as artistic director and taught conducting there until 1984.
Around the same time, he performed and recorded some of his own works with the for Deutsche Grammophon. Bernstein was also at the time a committed supporter of nuclear disarmament. In 1985 he took the in a 'Journey for Peace' tour around Europe and to Japan. In 1985, he conducted a recording of, the first time he had conducted the entire work. The recording, featuring what some critics felt were miscast opera singers such as, and in the leading roles, was nevertheless an international bestseller.
A TV documentary showing the making of the recording was made at the same time and is available on DVD. Bernstein also continued to make his own TV documentaries during the 1980s, including The Little Drummer Boy, in which he discussed the music of Gustav Mahler, perhaps the composer he was most passionately interested in, and The Love of Three Orchestras, in which he discussed his work in New York, Vienna, and Israel. In his later years, Bernstein's life and work were celebrated around the world (as they have been since his death). The Israel Philharmonic celebrated his involvement with them at Festivals in Israel and Austria in 1977. In 1986 the mounted a Bernstein Festival in London with one concert that Bernstein himself conducted attended by the. In 1988 Bernstein's 70th birthday was celebrated by a lavish televised gala at Tanglewood featuring many performers who had worked with him over the years.
In December 1989, Bernstein conducted live performances and recorded in the studio his operetta with the. The recording starred, and in the leading roles.
The use of opera singers in some roles perhaps fitted the style of better than some critics had thought was the case for West Side Story, and the recording (released posthumously in 1991) was universally praised. One of the live concerts from the in London is available on DVD. Candide had had a troubled history, with many rewrites and writers involved. Bernstein's concert and recording were based on a 'final' version that had been first performed by in 1988. The opening night (which Bernstein attended in Glasgow) was conducted by Bernstein's former student. Bernstein's grave in Green-Wood Cemetery On December 25, 1989, Bernstein conducted 's in East Berlin's as part of a celebration of the fall of the. He had conducted the same work in West Berlin the previous day.
The concert was broadcast live in more than twenty countries to an estimated audience of 100 million people. For the occasion, Bernstein reworded 's text of the, substituting the word Freiheit (freedom) for Freude (joy). Bernstein, in his spoken introduction, said that they had 'taken the liberty' of doing this because of a 'most likely phony' story, apparently believed in some quarters, that Schiller wrote an 'Ode to Freedom' that is now presumed lost. Bernstein added, 'I'm sure that Beethoven would have given us his blessing.' In the summer of 1990, Bernstein and founded the Pacific Music Festival in, Japan.
Like his earlier activity in Los Angeles, this was a summer training school for musicians modeled on Tanglewood, and is still in existence. Bernstein was already at this time suffering from the lung disease that would lead to his death. In his opening address Bernstein said that he had decided to devote what time he had left to education. A video showing Bernstein speaking and rehearsing at the first Festival is available on DVD in Japan. In 1990, Leonard Bernstein received the Praemium Imperiale, an international prize awarded by the Japan Arts Association for lifetime achievement in the arts. Bernstein used the $100,000 prize to establish The Bernstein Education Through the Arts (BETA) Fund, Inc. Leonard Bernstein provided this grant to develop an arts-based education program.
The Leonard Bernstein Center was established in April 1992, and initiated extensive school-based research, resulting in the Bernstein Model, the Leonard Bernstein Program. Bernstein made his final performance as a conductor at on August 19, 1990, with the Boston Symphony playing 's 'Four Sea Interludes' from, and 's. He suffered a coughing fit during the Third Movement of the Beethoven Symphony, however the maestro continued to conduct the piece until its conclusion, leaving the stage during the ovation, appearing exhausted and in pain.
The concert was later issued on CD as Leonard Bernstein – The Final Concert by Deutsche Grammophon (catalog number 431 768). He announced his retirement from conducting on October 9, 1990, and died of a heart attack five days later, brought on.
He was 72 years old. A longtime heavy smoker, he had battled from his mid-50s. On the day of his funeral procession through the streets of Manhattan, construction workers removed their hats and waved, calling out 'Goodbye, Lenny.' Bernstein is buried in, New York, next to his wife and with a copy of lying across his heart. Social activism While Bernstein was very well known for his music compositions and conducting, he was also known for his outspoken political views and his strong desire to further social change. His first aspirations for social change were made apparent in his producing (as a student) a recently banned opera, by, about the disparity between the working and upper class.
His first opera, was dedicated to Blitzstein and has a strong social theme, criticizing American civilization and suburban upper-class life in particular. As he went on in his career Bernstein would go on to fight for everything from the influences of 'American Music' to the disarming of western nuclear weapons. Bernstein was named in the book: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television (1950) as a Communist along with Aaron Copland, Lena Horne, Pete Seeger, Artie Shaw and other prominent figures of the performing arts. Red Channels was issued by the right-wing journal Counterattack and was edited by Vincent Hartnett, who was later found to have libeled and defamed the noted radio personality. Philanthropy Among the many awards Bernstein earned throughout his life one allowed him to make one of his philanthropic dreams a reality. He had for a long time wanted to develop an international school to help promote the integration of arts into education.
When he won the Japan Arts Association award for lifetime achievement, he used the $100,000 that came with the award to build such a school in Nashville, that would strive to teach teachers how to better integrate music, dance, and theater into the school system which was 'not working'. Unfortunately, the school was not able to open until shortly after Bernstein's death. In a 1990 Rolling Stone interview Bernstein outlined his conception of a school called The Academy for the Love of Learning. I and a musician friend named Aaron Stern have conceived of an institution called the Academy for the Love of Learning.
West Side Story
We haven't done too much with the idea yet, but it's registered as a nonprofit corporation, and besides the obvious attempts to get music and kids together, there will be the overriding goal of teaching teachers to discover their own love of learning. The was completed in 1998 and is located in Santa Fe, New Mexico where it continues to explore Bernstein's dream of integrated arts in education by offering courses in transformational learning.
Artful Learning is based on Bernstein's philosophy that the arts can strengthen learning and be incorporated in all academic subjects. The program is based on 'units of study,' which each consist of four core elements: experience, inquire, create, and reflect. After two decades of research and implementation across the United States, Artful Learning Schools demonstrate that Units of Study that utilize rigor, cognitive complexity and deep understanding through a commitment to collaborative and independent learning demonstrate high levels of student engagement and academic achievement. This list is; you can help. Bibliography. Bernstein, Leonard (1993) 1982. New York: Anchor Books.
Bernstein, Leonard (1993) 1966. The Infinite Variety of Music. New York: Anchor Books. Bernstein, Leonard (2004) 1959. The Joy of Music. Pompton Plains, New Jersey: Amadeus Press.
Bernstein, Leonard (2006) 1962. Young People's Concerts. Milwaukee; Cambridge: Amadeus Press. Bernstein, Leonard.
Bernstein, Leonard. Videography. The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard. West Long Branch, New Jersey: Kultur Video. (videotape of the given at Harvard in 1973.). Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic. West Long Branch, New Jersey: Kultur Video.
Bernstein on Beethoven: A Celebration in Vienna/Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. West Long Branch, Kultur Video. DVD. Leonard Bernstein: Omnibus – The Historic TV Broadcasts, 2010, E1 Ent.
Bernstein: Reflections (1978), Euroarts. Bernstein/Beethoven (1982), Deutsche Grammophon, DVD. Bernstein Conducts 'West Side Story' (1985) (retitled The Making of West Side Story in re-releases) Deutsche Grammophon. DVD. 'The Rite of Spring' in Rehearsal. 'Leonard Bernstein: Reaching for the Note' (1998) Documentary on his life and music.
Originally aired on PBS's American Masters series. DVD Awards.
Join us for our Bernstein Bash concert on Saturday 5/31 at 8pm and Sunday 6/1 at 3pm, both in Mandel Hall. Here are our ever popular program notes! Program Notes for BERNSTEIN BASH “The greater the composer,” Leonard Bernstein once said, “the better case you can make out for his eclecticism.” Indeed, the composer himself was an enthusiastic proponent of eclectic pursuits both in his career and his compositional style. Donning an exceptional array of hats throughout his life, Bernstein simultaneously inhabited the identities of conductor, author, activist, educator, pianist, radio broadcaster, and composer of Broadway musicals, operas, film scores, ballets, choral pieces, and symphonic works. His musical oeuvre cumulatively traverses the realms of religious and secular, esoteric and accessible, solemn and satirical, tonal and serial, national and cosmopolitan, classical and popular. Tonight’s program offers a sampling of these many compositional guises.
Framed by the opening and closing numbers of Candide, an operetta whose different incarnations likewise framed Bernstein’s career, the program also presents the numerologically inspired twelve-tone Dybbuk symphonic suite, the Symphonic Dances taken from the immensely popular West Side Story, and the diversely styled Chichester Psalms for mixed chorus and orchestra. Born to Jewish Ukrainian immigrant parents in 1918, Bernstein was not raised to be a musician. The young boy was captivated by piano performances from a young age, however, and showed immediate interest in playing the instrument when his family inherited his aunt’s old piano. Bernstein’s family eventually grew to encourage his musical talents, finding qualified piano teachers and supporting his passionate focus on music throughout his teenage years. Bernstein entered Harvard University in 1935, majoring in music but pursuing a wide range of subjects that surely influenced his later intellectual and artistic eclecticism. After college he began graduate work at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, studying piano, orchestration, counterpoint, score reading, and conducting. Though Bernstein was not thrilled with his time spent at Curtis, he was quite successful there; he is rumored to have received the only “A” grade his conducting teacher Fritz Reiner ever granted a student.
Leonard Bernstein
Bernstein continued to find promising musical opportunities following graduation, first through a conducting class at Tanglewood with Serge Koussevitzky and later as assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic. The moment that launched Bernstein into national stardom, however, was an unexpected one: Bruno Walter, then the Philharmonic’s principal director, came down with the flu before a nationally broadcast performance in November 1943, and the young conductor was asked to step in with little time to prepare. This debut performance was unanimously well received, and Bernstein gained immediate renown as an up-and-coming American conductor. He began to accept guest conducting posts around the country, and eventually became the New York Philharmonic’s director in 1958. His time at the helm of the renowned institution was outstandingly successful: the Philharmonic’s audience tripled during his tenure and became a year-round ensemble, earning a reputation for its innovative programming and unique musical interpretations. Perhaps most notably, however, Bernstein was simultaneously the youngest director in the ensemble’s history and the first American to hold the prestigious position. Indeed, Bernstein is widely credited with earning American musical directors a place on the international stage; previously (and perhaps still), conductors born and trained in the States were considered less qualified than their European counterparts.
Bernstein served as director of the Philharmonic until 1969. That year he was named Laureate Conductor for Life. Simultaneous with an international conducting career that alone would take many pages to summarize, Bernstein was busy composing a vast array of music.
By the year he received the Laureate Conductor title—which was no means the end of his most productive conducting or composing years—he had written a wide range of works including his first three symphonies, the musicals On The Town, Wonderful Town, and West Side Story, the Chichester Psalms on tonight’s program, the ballet Fancy Free, the operas Trouble in Tahiti and its sequel A Quiet Place, the film score for the award-winning On The Waterfront, and a myriad of other works. As tonight’s program will demonstrate, Bernstein’s compositional techniques were as diverse as the genres they comprised. He incorporated popular and jazz elements like syncopated rhythms and blue notes into his “serious” works, and employed complex harmonic and formal elements in his “popular” works.
Bernstein advocated for the power of tonal harmony throughout his compositional career. While he also studied and experimented with atonal techniques, tonality’s presence never entirely faded from Bernstein’s sound.
His pieces most often had programmatic titles (his first two symphonies, for example, were titled Jeremiah and Age of Anxiety: essentially he thought of music as a type of universal language—a topic he explored extensively in his Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard University in 1973. Although Bernstein dedicated his life to education, academic study, conducting, performing, and recording, he saw himself as a composer first and foremost. “I write so I can be very close to people, so I can talk very deeply and intimately to a vast number of people, which is otherwise impossible to do.” Overture to Candide In 1953, playwright Lillian Hellman and Bernstein joined forces to write an operetta based on Voltaire’s 1758 novella Candide, a satirical critique of the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. Hellman saw parallels between Candide’s exaggerated portrayal of philosophical optimism—which argued that a perfect God must have created the best of all possible worlds—and certain problematic political ideologies of their own time. The show famously suffered a high turnaround of writers and lyricists, including Lillian Hellman, Richard Wilbur, John Latouche, Dorothy Parker, Stephen Sondheim, John Mauceri, John Wells, and Bernstein himself. The many different iterations of the show spanned 44 years and met varying levels of success with audiences and critics.
Indeed, the sustained efforts of Bernstein and his many esteemed collaborators to create the best of all possible productions is ironically appropriate for a comic operetta that ultimately argued against the possibility of such perfection. Bernstein remained invested in the music and philosophical message of Candide until the very end of his compositional career, continuing to revisit it until the year before his death, when he directed the final recording of the production (in 1989) that became the model for the operetta’s published score. As Bernstein noted, “there’s more of me in that piece than anything else I’ve done.” Candide first opened on Broadway in 1956 to mixed reviews, closing after a relatively feeble 73 performances. While the operetta overall was not immediately grasped by audiences, its music quickly gained a devoted following.
A number of songs from the work, especially the Overture, have acquired a life of their own in concert repertoire. The Overture to Candide begins with a flourish in the brass that immediately transforms into the first energetic and optimistic theme, which contrasts with the more poignant second subject.
Two more melodies are introduced towards the end of the overture, including the melody of the well known “Glitter and Be Gay.” The overture’s themes begin to overlap in a type of bombastic crescendo reminiscent of Rossini’s operatic overtures. The work’s sophisticated orchestration, breakneck speeds, and memorable melodies have insured its success as a standalone piece. Tonight’s program will conclude with the final song from the operetta, “Make Our Garden Grow.” The music revisits the tumult leading up to this final peaceful moment between the young lovers Candide and Cunegonde, fleetingly counteracting the cynicism of Voltaire’s original satirical sentiment.
Dybbuk: Suite No. 2 for Orchestra Bernstein continually grappled with his intersectional identity as a Jew within an increasingly secular American society, in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
Musical reflections on his faith, lifestyle, and cultural heritage were scattered throughout the composer’s career, comprising around twenty works in total that focus on Jewish themes. For example, Bernstein’s first symphony chronicles the story of the prophet Jeremiah, setting texts from the Book of Lamentations in the Hebrew Bible; his third symphony, Kaddish, represents the Jewish prayer chanted at every synagogue service; his Hashkiveinu for solo cantor, mixed chorus, and organ is a characteristic mixture of modern compositional sounds and historically informed tonal material. In 1972, Bernstein began work on a commission from the New York City ballet that would commemorate the 25 th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. He named the ballet Dybbuk (referring in Hebrew to a disembodied spirit existing between two worlds) after the 1920 play by Shlomo Ansky. The original play, as well as Bernstein’s musical interpretation, dealt with such themes as cabalistic rites, Jewish marriage, and demonic possession. Finally opening during the Ballet’s 1974 season, Dybbuk was choreographed by Bernstein’s long-time collaborator Jerome Robbins—a relationship that had begun with the 1944 ballet Fancy Free and established Bernstein’s reputation as a serious composer.
The fifty-minute ballet is a harmonic departure for Bernstein, who was clearly willing to explore more experimental techniques at this mature point in his career (he was 56 at its premiere performance). The work’s basic thematic material is based on tone rows derived from the 22-letter Hebrew alphabet and Hebrew texts sung by tenor and baritone soloists.
Although the basic sound of Dybbuk is not immediately reminiscent of Bernstein’s earlier styles, its level of eclecticism certainly is: in addition to its pseudo-twelve tone thematic material, the piece contains elements of jazz and popular song, Stravinskian octatonicism, and orchestral textures reminiscent of Shostakovich, among much more. Though the ballet’s reception was mixed amongst different audiences, Bernstein himself held up the work as one of his personal favorites. It is undoubtedly a multifaceted and highly symbolic work that deserves to be performed—however baffling it may seem upon first hearing. Symphonic Dances from West Side Story We now move back in time to visit music from West Side Story, undoubtedly Bernstein’s most widely recognized and celebrated contribution as a composer. The musical, completed in 1957, was another fruitful collaboration between Bernstein and Jerome Robbins as well as Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway debut as a lyricist.
The most popular of many updates of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story is set in New York City in the 1950s and tells the story of an ill-fated romance between Tony and Maria, members of two rival gangs. The complexly American, historically relevant themes addressed in the musical were perfectly suited for Bernstein’s culturally contemporaneous compositional eclecticism; he incorporated a diverse array of sounds spanning classical, folk, rock, jazz, and Broadway-derived styles. Unlike the previous two works on tonight’s program, West Side Story was an immediate and unqualified success. Its first production ran for over 700 performances before going on tour, with its subsequent London production lasting even longer than that. The musical was adapted for film in 1961.
The movie won ten Academy Awards—the most ever won by a musical film. Despite its diverse musical influences, the score of West Side Story is crafted around a single central interval: a tritone, often spelled as the augmented fourth of a C rising to an F#. Melodically prominent in the Prologue, “Something’s Coming,” “Maria,” “Cool,” and the orchestral Rumble material, this distinctive intervallic theme is also present harmonically and contrapuntally in other sections of the work—for instance in the opening harmonies of “Tonight” and as the countermelody in “One Hand, One Heart.” Interestingly, one of the few instances that the tritone is not included is in the dream scene where Maria dreams of a better world at the climax of the second act. The Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, which Bernstein compiled and orchestrated in 1961, have become almost as well known and widely performed as the musical’s original score. The work’s eight “dances” (Prologue, “Somewhere,” Scherzo, Mambo, Cha-Cha, Meeting Scene, “Cool,” Fugue, Rumble, and Finale) are performed without pause, transitioning adeptly from one section to the next. Chichester Psalms In November of 1964, Bernstein found himself in a difficult place.
On sabbatical from the Philharmonic, struggling with the score of a prospective musical called The Skin of Our Teeth (after Wilder’s play of the same name), and reeling from the deaths of his friend Mark Blitzstein and President Kennedy, Bernstein wrote the following in a letter to a friend: “Skin is stalled. Life, this agonizing November, is a tooth with its skin stripped off. I don’t know what I’m writing. I don’t even know what I’m not writing I can’t get over Kennedy or Marc.
Life is a tooth without a skin.” Bernstein described himself that month as “a composer without a project.” It was just at this moment that the composer received a commission for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival at Chichester Cathedral in the United Kingdom. Hussey, the Cathedral’s dean, requested, “many of us would be very delighted if there was a hint of West Side Story about the music.” And indeed, the Cathedral was given even more Broadway-influenced material than it might have expected: in a quintessentially and skillfully eclectic move, Bernstein decided to adapt the musical material from the failed Skin of Our Teeth, together with one abandoned number from the beginning of West Side Story, into a powerful choral work for boy soprano, mixed chorus, and orchestra.
The seven melodies, none of which were newly composed, were re-combined and re-ordered into three movements, each containing one complete Psalm and excerpts from another one, thematically juxtaposed. Chichester Psalms, containing definite modernist techniques (the influence of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms is obvious) as well as Bernstein’s signature popular sounds, is an ode to diverse influences.
It incorporates Jewish biblical verses into a work inspired by the Christian choral tradition and singing conventions; it sets originally secular Broadway melodies to sacred texts. Introduced by Psalm 108 (“Awake, psaltery and harp, I will rouse the dawn!”), the first movement’s main material derives from Psalm 100 (“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands”). The second movement juxtaposes Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”) sung by “David” and sopranos, with Psalm 2 (“Why do the nations rage?”), sung by the tenors and basses. The third movement sets Psalm 131 (“Lord, Lord, my heart is not haughty”), which moves into the Finale’s Psalm 133 (“Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”). In these final moments, the word Yahad (“together” or “as one”) arrives at a G, the same note of the choir’s “Amen,” and the note the final reminiscent trumpet motif sings at the piece’s conclusion.
The piece is diversely powerful and undeniably optimistic—despite Bernstein’s struggles of the previous year—concluding with a hint of a Picardy (unexpectedly major) third. Notes by Lindsay Wright.