Leonard Bernstein

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 The suddenness of this appointment, coming after two somewhat directionless years, was superseded only by the dramatic events of November 14, 1943.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. □

BERNSTEIN, LEONARD 1918-1990

Symphony conductor, composer

Career Launched

Leonard Bernstein's career was launched on 14 November 1943. He was twenty-five, four years out of Harvard, a recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, an assistant conductor at the New York Symphony Orchestra, and otherwise undistinguished except for his energy, his good looks, and a vaguely defined artistic potential. Bruno Walter, director of the New York Symphony, was stricken with stomach cramps on 13 November, and the musical director was out of town, so the next day's conducting chores fell to Bernstein by default. His performance was so impressive that the New York Times praised his brilliance in an editorial.

Movies and Plays

During the 1950s Bernstein was a very busy man. He was a conductor, a concert pianist, a composer, and an impresario. He wrote the musical score for the movie On the Waterfront (1954), starring Marlon Brando; he collaborated with Lillian Hellman and Richard Wilbur on the Broadway stage production of Candide (1956); he recorded music, as a conductor and as a pianist, at a furious pace; he wrote the hit Broadway musical West Side Story (1957); and he became director of the New York Philharmonic in 1958. It was a spectacular decade for Bernstein, who was applauded as much for his charm as for his genius. He had the ability to make classical music appealing and enjoyable to large audiences, and he exploited that talent fully.

Critics

Throughout the decade critics found fault with Bernstein's performances while always taking care to note his potential. In 1952 Irving Kolodin wrote in the Saturday Review that "his [Bernstein's] piano playing is hardly good enough to be imposed on us," and Time speculated that perhaps he would be better off concentrating on one of his many skills rather than attempting to develop them all. In 1955 Winthrop Sargeant wrote in the New Yorker that Bernstein's conducting style "suggested he was enacting the stellar role in a public crucifixion" but then admitted that his stage presence added interest to the evening.

New York Philharmonic

When Bernstein took over the New York Philharmonic his performance was so energetic that the critics were unanimously supportive. He instituted a lecture/performance format for many of the orchestra's presentations that was extremely successful. His Young People's Concerts, designed to attract youthful listeners, were so popular that clubs were formed in cities where the concerts were televised so that groups could watch together. The Saturday-evening telecasts of Philharmonic programs had been carried by 130 stations nationwide before Bernstein; in his first year the number of those stations doubled. Donations increased, and requests were received for transcripts of Bernstein's remarks to the audience before performances: for the first time in its history the orchestra began to hope for an operating profit.

International Tour

Bernstein's greatest success of the decade came with the Philharmonic's seventeen-nation European tour, culminating with eighteen concerts in the Soviet Union. It was unheard of in the Soviet Union for a conductor to speak to his audience, but Bernstein ignored tradition and introduced each of the works the orchestra performed, via a translator. The response in Moscow was so enthusiastic that the audience insisted that a Charles Ives piece be played twice so that they could appreciate what Bernstein had told them about the music. Throughout Europe audiences reacted as if they had witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime event. "A new god has come to Athens," a Greek lady was reported to have exclaimed after his performance.

Appeal

Harold C. Schonberg, writing in Harper's, summed up Bernstein's appeal. It was due to three attributes, he argued: first, Bernstein was an American, and serious-music audiences were hungry for one of their own to appreciate; second, he had an academic background that allowed him to explain lucidly the music he played; and finally, he was a formidable public figure—a personality. The mix went over well in a decade in which the concept of good public relations dominated. Bernstein was hardly the successor to Arturo Toscanini in terms of talent, but he had a measure of the Maestro's appeal.

Sources:

Irving Kolodin, Saturday Review, 35 (29 March 1952): 30;

"Lennie's Brainchild," Time, 59 (23 June 1952): 44-46;

David Lindsay, "The Remarkable, Musical Mr. Bernstein," Coronet, 41 (January 1957): 145-148;

Winthrop Sargeant, "Home Grown," New Yorker, 30 (29 January 1955): 69-70;

Harold C. Schonberg, "What Bernstein Is Doing to the Philharmonic," Harper's, 218 (May 1959): 43-48,

Bernstein, Leonard (1918–1990), composer, conductor, teacher, pianist.He was the first American‐born and ‐trained symphonic conductor to achieve peak international celebrity as an interpreter of the mainstream European repertoire. As a composer, he combined American popular influences (including Broadway and jazz) with European forms and genres. As an educator, he tutored a mass public and inspired legions of gifted young musicians. His mentors included the Boston Symphony's Serge Koussevitzky, who inculcated both a belief in America and a pedagogic bent.

Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Bernstein attended Harvard College and Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music. Becoming assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic Symphony in 1943, at twenty‐five, he won notice that November by stepping in at the last moment for the ailing Bruno Walter. Bernstein's early compositions included the Serenade for Violin, Strings, and Harp (1954), perhaps his finest concert work, and such Broadway fare as On the Town (1944); Wonderful Town (1953); Candide (1956); and his crowning creative achievement, West Side Story (1957). In 1958 he became the first American music director of the New York Philharmonic. In this capacity, he enduringly championed the music of Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler (with whose polyglot synthesis or fragmentation he strongly identified). Building on an ingenious series of television “specials” beginning in 1954, he invigorated the Philharmonic's Young People's Concerts as a nationally televised medium for music education. Breaking with traditional “music appreciation,” he refused to sanctify famous music; rather, he dismantled it to see how it worked, or juxtaposed it with popular songs he adored. He campaigned for contemporary music and American music.

After leaving the New York Philharmonic in 1969, Bernstein increasingly based his career in Europe. With the Vienna Philharmonic, he consolidated his reputation as a performer of Beethoven, Brahms, and other European masters. His identification with American music faded; his boyish optimism, which he had retained into middle age, gave way to Old World gravitas and gloom. And yet he is bound to be remembered as a defining American cultural icon, signifying energy, enthusiasm, irreverence, versatility, and eclecticism.
See also Music: Classical Music; Music: Popular Music; Musical Theater.

Bibliography

Leonard Bernstein , The Joy of Music, 1959.
David Schiff , Re‐Hearing Bernstein, Atlantic, June 1993.
Humphrey Burton , Leonard Bernstein, 1994.
Joseph Horowitz , The Teachings of Leonard Bernstein, in The Post‐Classical Predicament, 1995.

Joseph Horowitz

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.

Leonard Bernstein , 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); his brother, B. Bernstein, and B. Haws, Leonard Bernstein: American Original (2008); B. Seldes, Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician (2009).

Bernstein, Leonard (1918–90), Massachusetts‐born composer, conductor, and pianist, graduated from Harvard (1939), conducted the New York City Symphony (1945–48), was on the faculty of the Berkshire Music Center (1948–55) and Brandeis University (1951–56), and was the conductor of the New York Philharmonic (1958–69), along with making world tours and conducting other major orchestras. His works include pieces for piano, brass instruments, and clarinet; song cycles; two symphonies, Jeremiah (1942) and The Age of Anxiety (1949), the latter inspired by Auden's poem; a one‐act opera (music and libretto), Trouble in Tahiti (1952); ballets; a film score; and the musical shows On the Town (1945), Wonderful Town (1953), Candide (1956, 1974), and West Side Story (1957). His books include The Joy of Music (1959); The Infinite Variety of Music (1966); The Unanswered Question (1976), lectures delivered at Harvard; and Findings (1982), collecting a wide variety of writings from the author's school days forward.

Bernstein, Leonard (1918–90) US conductor, composer and pianist. He was conductor with the New York Philharmonic (1957–58) and then musical director (1958–69), winning large audiences and world fame through his recordings. His compositions include three symphonies, the oratorio Kaddish (1963), the Chichester Psalms (1965) and Mass (1971), ballets, and the musicals Candide (1956) and West Side Story (1957).