Bernstein, Leonard

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.