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MOS Composer of the Month: Previous Page, Next Page, Index |
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Composer of the Month - May, 2005 Leonard Bernstein, 1918-1990
Reared in Boston, educated at the Boston Latin School and Harvard, where he studied not music but language and philosophy, Bernstein was one of the great intellectuals of the music world. For many years, he was known chiefly as the greatest orchestral conductor alive, with his long term of conducting the New York Philharmonic as a means of promoting his love of classical music. In 1985 the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Grammy award. His international conducting career was epitomized by his becoming the first American to conduct opera at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, with Maria Callas in Cherubini's Medea. In 1987 he was named Honorary President of the London Symphony Orchestra. His many years of affinity with Israel won him the title of Laureate Conductor with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 1988. With so many years at the baton, it is small wonder that he hit the ground running as a composer. In 1943, his Symphony No. 1 (Jeremiah) won him the New York City Music Critics' Award. Besides symphony, his compositions included opera (Trouble in Tahiti), movie scores (On the Waterfront), and ballet (Dybbuk). Of his many compositions, his Broadway scores have earned him the most acclaim and will be remembered by generations to come. The landmark musical West Side Story represents one of his finest works, with its romance and color retelling the classic tale of star-crossed lovers in a modern metropolitan setting. The 2005 Spring Concert of the MOS includes Somewhere, a song of hope and vision, from this great musical. Bernstein revealed his comedic side in the musical setting of Voltaire's classic satirical novel Candide. He was a masterful teacher. His 1972-3 poetry lectures at Harvard were immediately published as "The Unanswered Question." He taught many years at Tanglewood, and using it as a model helped create the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. Bernstein devoted much of his energy to the cause of world peace. In 1989, he helped celebrate the reunification of Germany by conducting the Celebration Concerts on both sides of Berlin Wall as it was being dismantled. Always sensitive to the opportunity for drama, Bernstein closed his life in dramatic fashion. His musical career had begun in earnest as one of only five students in Serge Koussevitzky's first conducting master class at Tanglewood in 1940. In 1990, he was so ill he had to cancel all his public appearances, but he insisted on preserving one. He returned to Tanglewood to conduct a Koussevitzky memorial concert with Koussevitzky's own orchestra. He was deathly ill and this performance was certainly not up to his own musical standards. But the audience knew they were present at Bernstein's final concert, and they honored him for his life. He died within two months, nearly fulfilling his long-stated desire to die at the podium. For further reading on Leonard Bernstein: Click here for more information about the MOS Composer of the Month feature. |
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MOS Composer of the Month: Previous Page, Next Page, Index
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