Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein West Side Story. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. West Side Story , theatre music by American composer Leonard Bernstein that premiered August 19, 1957, in Washington, D.C., before moving to Broadway for a second opening on September 26, 1957. The musical is a 20th-century American adaptation of the Shakespearean tale of Romeo and Juliet. It has become one of the most frequently performed of all American musicals, and many consider it to be the definitive Bernstein composition. For the creation of this musical, Bernstein was joined by lyricist Stephen Sondheim, playwright Arthur Laurents, choreographer Jerome Robbins, and impresario Harold Prince. It ran for 732 performances, and it might have won the 1958 Tony Award for best musical had its competition not been The Music Man . In 1961, adapted for the silver screen, West Side Story took 10 Academy Awards, including best picture. Bernstein’s score blended various styles, including jazzy sounds evocative of the decade in which the music was written, as well as Latin rhythms. Additionally, he drew upon some of the time-honoured techniques of opera composition. For example, in the song “Tonight,” he has several characters reflect on their hopes and expectations for the night to come. For each individual, Bernstein crafted music that mirrors those visions, whether romantic or sultry or combative. Why did Bernstein build West Side Story around 'The Devil's Interval'? West Side Story is one of the world's most famous musicals. It's packed with great tunes and catchy rhythms, but there's an interval with a dark history at its heart. Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story is based on and built around music's most unsettling interval, the ‘Devil's Interval’. Why would a composer do that? First things first: What is the Devil's Interval? If you're a classical music buff, you'll know that ‘The Devil's Interval’ is a nickname for a musical interval called a tritone. What is a tritone? Picture: Classic FM. In a nutshell, a tritone is an augmented fourth interval (between C and F sharp). It's an interval between two notes separated by three whole tones. For an in-depth explanation, have a look at our tritone analysis: Why is it called the Devil's interval? The interval is so dissonant that it acquired the nickname diabolus in musica – the devil in music. Instinctively, the human ear looks for harmony in music, and this jarring interval does the exact opposite of this. When used in music it frequently resolves itself by jumping to the nearby perfect fifth (one semi-tone away) for a musical resolution. It seems a bit odd that Leonard Bernstein decided to use this ugly interval as one of his main motifs in West Side Story . But this was no accident: he knew exactly what he was doing. Where do we hear the Devil's interval in West Side Story ? Frankly, it's everywhere. Blink and you'll miss a tritone. It forms the basis of some of the music's most iconic motifs. The most identifiable use of the tritone in West Side Story is in ‘Maria’. At 0.32 you'll hear the recognisable tritone jump: ‘The Jets’ gang also have their own motif that pops up throughout the music. Unsurprisingly, the tritone takes centre stage. Why does Bernstein use the tritone? He uses this interval as the central idea that ties the whole score together. It's worth noting at this point that Bernstein did something very different with West Side Story – he revolutionised the art of writing a musical. He wrote it as if it were an opera, with character motifs, musical foreboding and a musical narrative running through the score. The tritone forms the basis of romantic songs, conflict songs, and the themes that intertwine the score together. It's also famously used in the unresolved ending of the musical, where two alternating tritones play out against each other. Conductor Marin Alsop described the tritone as: “An interval that requires a resolution, and without resolution it just hangs there and makes you uncomfortable.” In theory terms, it therefore serves two purposes: 1. It creates dissonance 2. When resolved, it creates one of the most satisfying harmonic resolutions. This is Bernstein's tool to create a truly evocative score. Why does it work so well? Not only does Bernstein use this interval to tie the entire musical together, but the interval itself tells a story, and it adopts different meanings in different situations. In different instances Bernstein will decide to either resolve the tritone or leave it unresolved. Leaving the tritone unresolved hints at violence and the danger around the corner, but resolving it hints at optimism and a different outcome for the characters. For example: Resolved tritones: Tony's tritone in ‘Maria’ The tritone resolves straight on to the perfect 5th. Picture: Classic FM. In ‘Maria’, the music couldn't be further away from the discordant sound that the tritone normally creates. This is because the tritone is only there for a moment before it moves up a semi-tone to create a perfect fifth interval. Tony is filled with wonder having just met Maria, and his optimistic jump up from the tritone seems to brush away any unharmonic sound that comes with the tritone. The reality remains however, just like Tony's unfortunate end (spoiler), so the tritone is an integral part of the melody. Even in the most optimistic and romantic of moments in the music, Bernstein keeps the tritone present as an ominous reminder of darker things to come. Unresolved tritones: Jets motif and finale. The Jets motif doesn't resolve its tritone jump, it sits unresolved and does exactly what a tritone is known to do, create dissonance. From its first appearance, these unresolved tritones create the jarring harmony that mirrors the trouble to come in the plot. The Jets motif. Picture: Classic FM. At the end of the musical, after Tony's death, two tritone intervals sit next to each other, again with no resolution. It defines the plot's incompleteness: an unresolved interval, yearning to reach up to a musical resolution that it never quite gets. It's subtle, but packs a big punch. Best Of Broadway: Bernstein's 'West Side Story' Carol Lawrence (right) sings "I Feel Pretty," along with (left to right) Elizabeth Taylor, Carmen Gutierrez and Marilyn Cooper, in the 1957 original Broadway cast recording of West Side Story . Sony Music Photo Archives/Sony Music Photo Archives hide caption. Carol Lawrence (right) sings "I Feel Pretty," along with (left to right) Elizabeth Taylor, Carmen Gutierrez and Marilyn Cooper, in the 1957 original Broadway cast recording of West Side Story . Sony Music Photo Archives/Sony Music Photo Archives. Hear The Music. Maria. Embed. One Hand, One Heart. Embed. Sung by Larry Kert (as Tony) and Carol Lawrence (as Maria). West Side Story , first staged in 1957, proved to be Leonard Bernstein's masterpiece. The lyrics were by a newcomer named Stephen Sondheim. It's a modern-day, big-city adaptation of the story of Romeo and Juliet in which Tony, a former gang leader on the verge of adulthood, and Maria, a girl newly arrived from Puerto Rico, are the star-crossed lovers. The rival street gangs — the Jets and Sharks — stand in for the Montagues and Capulets. West Side Story transcends the limits of the musical genre without attempting to be opera. A Classic Musical, But Is The Music Classical? West Side Story is classical music, but it isn't opera by any means. It is musical theater done in an elaborate manner, musically very rich, and that's what makes it classical. I don't think it could have been anything else with Leonard Bernstein as the composer. Later, Bernstein himself came back and recorded West Side Story , but it wasn't as compelling as this original Broadway cast recording, in part because in the original, the music was fresh and challenging, and also because the voices were chosen carefully. The demands made in this music are operatic without requiring operatic voices. The structure of the music and the melodic contours are very sophisticated. Carol Lawrence, Larry Kert, Chita Rivera and the rest were fine singing actors, not classical vocalists or operatic stars. They were naturals. This particular recording of the original Broadway cast was made just three days after the show opened in New York. The freshness comes across on CD more than 50 years later, as the singers know they're at the beginning of a great show. West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein. Photo by Paul de Hueck. Composer, conductor, pianist, teacher, thinker, and adventurous spirit, Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) transformed the way Americans and people everywhere hear and appreciate music. Bernstein's successes as a composer ranged from the Broadway stage- West Side Story , On the Town , Wonderful Town , and Candide -to concert halls all over the world, where his orchestral and choral music continues to thrive. His major concert works include three symphonies-subtitled Jeremiah (1944), The Age of Anxiety (1949), and Kaddish (1963)-as well as Prelude, Fugue and Riffs (1949); Serenade for violin, strings and percussion (1954); Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1960); Chichester Psalms (1965); Mass: A Theater Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers (1971); Songfest (1977); Divertimento for orchestra (1980); Halil for solo flute and small orchestra (1981); Touches (1981) and Thirteen Anniversaries (1988) for solo piano; Missa Brevis for singers and percussion (1988); Concerto for Orchestra: Jubilee Games (1989); and Arias and Barcarolles (1988). Bernstein also wrote the one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti in 1952, and its sequel, the three-act opera A Quiet Place , in 1983. He collaborated with choreographer Jerome Robbins on three major ballets- Fancy Free (1944), Facsimile (1946), and Dybbuk (1975). He received an Academy Award nomination for his score for On the Waterfront (1954). As a conductor, Bernstein was a dynamic presence on the podiums of the world's greatest orchestras for almost half a century, building a legacy that endures and continues to grow through a catalogue of over 500 recordings and filmed performances. Bernstein became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1958, a position he held until 1969. Thereafter as permanent Laureate Conductor he made frequent guest appearances with the orchestra. Among the world's great orchestras, Bernstein also enjoyed special relationships with the Israel Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic, both of which he conducted extensively in live performances and recordings. He won 11 Emmy Awards for his celebrated television work, including the Emmy award-winning Young People's Concerts series with the New York Philharmonic. As teacher and performer, he played an active role with the Tanglewood Festival from its founding in 1940 till his death, as well as with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute and Pacific Music Festival (both of which he helped found) and the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival. Bernstein received many honors, including the Kennedy Center Honors (1980); the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Gold Medal (1981); the MacDowell Colony's Gold Medal; medals from the Beethoven Society and the Mahler Gesellschaft; New York City's Handel Medallion; a special Tony Award (1969); dozens of honorary degrees and awards from colleges and universities; and national honors from Austria, Italy, Israel, Mexico, Denmark, Germany, and France. In 1985 the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences honored Bernstein with the Lifetime Achievement GRAMMY Award. His writings were published in The Joy of Music (1959), Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts (1961), The Infinite Variety of Music (1966), and Findings (1982). As the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, Bernstein also delivered six lectures at Harvard University in 1972-1973 that were subsequently published and televised as The Unanswered Question . In 1990, he received the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Arts Association awarded for lifetime achievement in the arts. Bernstein died on October 14, 1990. Bibliography. Resources for further West Side Story reading and study. Please note this list is not exhaustive. Barrios, Richard. West Side Story: The Jets, the Sharks, and the Making of a Classic. New York, NY: Running Press, 2020. Berson, Misha. Something’s Coming, Something Good: West Side Story and the American Imagination . Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2011. Dash, Irene G. Shakespeare and the American Musical . Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010. Garebian, Keith. The Making of West Side Story . Toronto, Canada: ECW Press, 1995. Guernsey Jr., Otis L., ed. Autumn 1985. “Landmark Symposium: West Side Story.” the Dramatists Guild Quarterly 22, no. 3. Hurwitz, David. Bernstein’s Orchestral Music: An Owner’s Manual . Milwaukee, WI: Amadeus Press, 2011. Jaensch, Andreas. Leonard Bernsteins musiktheater: auf dem weg zu einer Amerikanischen oper [Leonard Bernstein’s musical theater: on the way to an American opera]. Kassel, Germany: Bärenreiter, 2003. Jowitt, Deborah. Jerome Robbins: His Life, his Theater, His Dance . New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2004. Laird, Paul R. Leonard Bernstein: A Guide to Research . New York, NY: Routledge, 2002. Lawrence, Greg. Dance with Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins . New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2001. Mauceri, John. Celebrating West Side Story: North Carolina School of the Arts, A 50th Anniversary Production. Winston-Salem, NC: North Carolina School of the Arts Press, 2007. Shawn, Allen. Leonard Bernstein: An American Musician . Yale University Press, September 2014. Simeone, Nigel. Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story (Landmarks in Music Since 1950) . Ashgate Publishers, U.K. 2009. Sondheim, Stephen. Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954 – 1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines[,] and Anecdotes . New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Vaill, Amanda. Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins . New York, NY: Broadway Books, 2006. Wells, Elizabeth. West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical . Scarecrow Press, November 2010. Williams, Mary E., ed. Readings on West Side Story . Literary Companion Series to American Literature, edited by Bonnie Szumski. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 2001.