LEONARD BERNSTEIN AT 100 1 LEONARD BERNSTEIN AT 100 New York Content & Review Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. Marie Carter Table of Contents 229 West 28th St, 11th Floor Trudy Chan New York, NY 10001 Patrick Gullo 2 A Welcoming USA Steven Lankenau +1 (212) 358-5300 4 Introduction (English) [email protected] Introduction 8 Introduction (Español) www.boosey.com Carol J. Oja 11 Introduction (Deutsch) The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc. Translations 14 A Leonard Bernstein Timeline 121 West 27th St, Suite 1104 Straker Translations New York, NY 10001 Jens Luckwaldt 16 Orchestras Conducted by Bernstein USA Dr. Kerstin Schüssler-Bach 18 Abbreviations +1 (212) 315-0640 Sebastián Zubieta [email protected] 21 Works www.leonardbernstein.com Art Direction & Design 22 Stage Kristin Spix Design 36 Ballet London Iris A. Brown Design Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited 36 Full Orchestra Aldwych House Printing & Packaging 38 Solo Instrument(s) & Orchestra 71-91 Aldwych UNIMAC Graphics London, WC2B 4HN 40 Voice(s) & Orchestra UK Cover Photograph 42 Ensemble & Chamber without Voice(s) +44 (20) 7054 7200 Alfred Eisenstaedt [email protected] 43 Ensemble & Chamber with Voice(s) www.boosey.com Special thanks to The Leonard Bernstein 45 Chorus & Orchestra Office, The Craig Urquhart Office, and the Berlin Library of Congress 46 Piano(s) Boosey & Hawkes • Bote & Bock GmbH 46 Band Lützowufer 26 The “g-clef in letter B” logo is a trademark of 7 4 Songs in a Theatrical Style 10787 Berlin Amberson Holdings LLC. Deutschland 7 4 Songs Written for Shows +49 (30) 2500 13-0 2015 ℗ & © Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. 48 Vocal [email protected] www.boosey.de 48 Choral 49 Instrumental 50 Chronological List of Compositions 52 CD Track Listing Leonard Bernstein at 100 2 3 Leonard Bernstein at 100 A Welcoming Leonard Bernstein’s essential approach to music was one of celebration; it was about making the most of all that was beautiful in sound. This was how he shared the music he conducted–and it was most certainly the impulse galvanizing the music he composed. As his 100th birthday (in 2018) approaches, we have an unprecedented opportunity to reciprocate the celebration by sounding out his marvelous notes for all the world to hear. As a kid, I could respond easily to my father’s music. I loved the Overture to Candide, with its splashy, exuberant orchestrations and its kaleidoscopic mix of catchy melodies. I loved the widely spaced clarinets that begin the “Lonely Town” ballet music from On the Town; even at the age of four, I would get a lump in my throat, hearing that wistful, melancholy sound. When I got older, I was better able to appreciate the ingenious sophistication of my father’s compositions. The fugue in the “Cool” ballet from West Side Story: wow! The intricate choral work in the “Kaddish” symphony: amazing! The wildly fluctuating rhythms in the Profanation from the “Jeremiah” symphony: crazy! But the essential, visceral joy in my father’s notes remained as palpable to me as ever. The 7/8 jump of the opening tune in Chichester Psalms who could sit still? Not me. The Leonard Bernstein Centennial is a perfect occasion for everyone to bring their collective sense of celebration to my father’s music, which itself so deeply celebrates the best aspects of our own humanity. My brother Alexander, my sister Nina, and I invite you all to join in the festivities. –Jamie Bernstein Photo: Paul de Heuck, courtesy The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc. Leonard Bernstein at 100 4 5 Leonard Bernstein at 100 Introduction (English) early years, Bernstein made his first major forays were quite different. Fancy Free featured three by Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony into composition, writing chamber music with a sailors on shore leave in a bar, showing off their Orchestra. In both works, Bernstein explored modernist edge. His Piano Sonata (1938) reflected physical agility as they competed for the attention personal challenges in a world emerging from Leonard Bernstein–celebrated as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century his ties to Copland, with links also to the music of two women. The men were tightly bound to one trauma. Facsimile concentrated on a romantic –ushered in an era of major cultural and technological transition. He led the way in of Hindemith and Stravinsky, and his Sonata for another. Fancy Free fused gymnastics, vaudeville, tangle of two men and one woman who “grappled and cartoons with modern ballet, Latin rhythms, and with abstract psychological ideas,” as Life Magazine advocating an open attitude about what constituted “good” music, actively bridging the gap Clarinet and Piano (1942) was similarly grounded swing dances. On the Town also centered around described it at the time. The ballet portrayed between classical music, Broadway musicals, jazz, and rock, and he seized new media for its in a neoclassical aesthetic. The composer Paul three sailors, and dance was again central to telling “moods of passion, jealousy and boredom that potential to reach diverse communities of listeners, young and old. Longtime conductor of Bowles praised the clarinet sonata as having a the story. Yet in the Broadway show, the sailors attack… ‘insecure people.’” Symphony No. 2, for “tender, sharp, singing quality,” as being “alive, the New York Philharmonic, renowned composer of works for the concert hall and Broadway tour New York City to find romance–and just as orchestra and piano solo, was based on W. H. stage, glamorous television personality, virtuosic pianist, and committed educator, tough, integrated.” It was a prescient assessment, importantly, they are pursued aggressively by self- Auden’s The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue, a which ultimately applied to Bernstein’s music in all Bernstein was a multi-tasker long before the term was coined. Bernstein–or “Lenny,” as he confident women. On the Town marked Bernstein’s book-length poem. Like Facsimile, the symphony genres. first major collaboration with Betty Comden and probed isolation and loneliness in the modern was often affectionately called–was an extravagantly gifted musician with a common Adolph Green. It also established a life-long tension world. It was written in two large “parts”; “The Bernstein’s professional breakthrough came with touch. He maintained a life-long focus on advocating for social justice, notably civil rights at between his devotion to high art and popular Masque,” one of its internal sections, features an exceptional force and visibility, establishing him as home and peace around the world. culture. Bernstein later recalled that the Russian- infectious jazz-based piano solo. Once again, core a stunning new talent. In 1943, at age twenty-five, American conductor Serge Koussevitzky, another traits of Bernstein’s style were present: confronting Bernstein’s restless creative vision defies traditional including his precocious musicianship, affinity for he made his debut with the New York Philharmonic, of his core mentors, said of On the Town: “Good the realities of contemporary life while negotiating a categories, with a limber affinity to combining styles theater, talent for leadership, and delight in working replacing Bruno Walter at the last minute and boy, Lenushka, it is a noble jezz.” Betty Comden balance between popular and concert idioms. and genres in unexpected ways. He wrote music with young people. inspiring a front-page story in the New York Times. that was often thoroughly accessible on the surface added crisply to that memory: “But don’t do it During this same period, Bernstein composed Bernstein graduated from Boston Latin High In rapid succession, Bernstein produced a major yet presented rewarding challenges for performers. again.” Four Anniversaries (1948) and Five Anniversaries School, then Harvard College (Class of 1939). Two series of compositions, some drawing on his In the process, he shaped works that appealed to own Jewish heritage, as in his Symphony No. 1, Bernstein’s ascent continued in the post-war (1949–51), written for piano solo. Each segment was years later, he received a diploma in conducting musicians of all calibers. “Jeremiah,” which had its first performance with the years, and the geographic range of his activities dedicated to a different friend–a technique related from the Curtis Institute of Music. While an Leonard Bernstein was born in 1918 in Lawrence, composer conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony in broadened as trans-Atlantic travel resumed. In to the musical portraits of Virgil Thomson. undergraduate, Bernstein forged a significant 1946, he debuted in Europe, conducting in Prague Massachusetts, and the family soon after relocated January 1944. “Lamentation,” its final movement, From 1950 until 1958, when Bernstein accepted alliance with Aaron Copland, impressing the and London. That same year he met the Chilean to Boston. His parents, Samuel Bernstein and features a mezzo-soprano delivering Hebrew an appointment as Music Director of the New York older composer with performances of his Piano actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn, whom he Jennie Resnick, were Russian-Jewish immigrants texts from the Book of Lamentations. In April of Philharmonic, he focused on composing music Variations. Bernstein later recalled tossing off the married in 1951. Bernstein’s life-long devotion to the whose upward mobility was rapid. As a child, the that year, Bernstein’s Fancy Free was unveiled by for the stage, together with one film score. This Israel Philharmonic Orchestra also began during young Bernstein studied piano and discovered Variations at college parties. “I could empty a room, Ballet Theatre, with choreography by the young highly productive phase yielded Peter Pan (1950), this period. the sheer fun of working in theater. He directed guaranteed, in two minutes,” he quipped. Marc Jerome Robbins. In December, Bernstein premiered Trouble in Tahiti (1952), Wonderful Town (1953), teenage friends in summer productions of The Blitzstein also became a valued mentor: the two the Broadway musical On the Town, another Two major post-war compositions were the ballet On the Waterfront (1954), Candide (1956), and Mikado, H.M.S.