Leonard Bernstein was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was the first conductor born and educated in the United States of America to receive world-wide acclaim. He is perhaps best known for his long conducting relationship with the New York Philharmonic, which included the acclaimed Young People's Concerts series, and his compositions including West Side Story, Candide, and On the Town. He is known to baby boomers primarily as the first classical music conductor to make many television appearances, all between 1954 and 1989. Additionally he had a formidable piano technique and was a highly respected composer. He is one of the most influential figures in the history of American classical music, championing the works of American composers and inspiring the careers of a generation of American musicians.
Conductor/composer.
Died at home of a heart attack due to progressive lung failure.
Was also a concert pianist.
Caused a stir in April of 1962 when he informed the audience at a concert that he assumed no responsibility for the performance they were about to hear of Johannes Brahms "D Minor Concerto" with soloist Glenn Gould.
Served as music director of the New York Philharmonic from 1958-69; took a one-year sabbatical in 1964-65. Was named laureate conductor for life when he stepped down from the music directors post.
Conducted the world premiere of Charles Ives "Second Symphony" in 1951.
Graduated from Harvard.
Was the first American-born and American-trained conductor to be appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic and to conduct at Milans La Scala Opera House.
He made his professional conducting debut on November 14, 1943, without even rehearsing the orchestra because there had not been enough time. He created a sensation partly because one of the pieces he conducted was Richard Strauss s enormously complicated symphonic poem "Don Quixote".
Because of his many appearances on television, Bernstein became the most popular and famous conductor in the US, and one of the most famous in the world, seen and loved by millions of families who tuned in to his pioneering "New York Philharmonic Young Peoples Concerts" . Through these concerts, children all over the world were introduced to classical music.
He selected November 14, 1954, as the date for his first television lecture (the famous "Omnibus" (1952) episode featuring Ludwig van Beethoven s "Fifth Symphony"), because he had made his professional conducting debut 11 years previously on the same date, and he felt it brought him good luck.
Such world-famous musicians as pianist Andre Watts , conductor Seiji Ozawa and conductor Kenneth Schermerhorn were first introduced to the general public on his "New York Philharmonic Young Peoples Concerts" .
Was great friends with Aaron Copland
He was the first conductor to conduct more than 1,000 concerts with the New York Philharmonic.
He made at least one television appearance either conducting or teaching music (or both), nearly every year from 1954 until the year he died . He is very likely the only symphony conductor ever to have done so.
Was appointed assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic in 1943 and made his debut on November 14 of that year, substituting for Bruno Walter on short notice. Awoke the next morning to find himself famous.
A sickly infant, he sometimes turned blue from asthma. He became a prodigious pianist, conductor, composer and lecturer, although he suffered from asthma throughout his life. Audiences often heard him wheezing above the orchestra.
The production of Candide was awarded a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 2000 (1999 season) for Outstanding Musical Production.
He was one of the first conductors in the 20th century to record a performance of Georges Bizet s "Carmen" without the recitatives that composer Ernest Guiraud added to the opera to replace the dialogue after Bizets death. Bernsteins production restored the spoken dialogue to its rightful place.
It has been mistakenly assumed by some that all of Bernsteins "New York Philharmonic Young Peoples Concerts" have been issued on VHS and DVD. They have not. There were more than 50 "Young Peoples Concerts" broadcast on CBS-TV between 1958 and 1973. Only the 25 concerts that the Bernstein family deemed the best were issued. The rest, as of 2004, have yet to be issued or even re-broadcast on television.
In collaboration with conductors Bruno Walter and Dimitri Mitropoulos , both former conductors of the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein was the first conductor to lead an all-Gustav Mahler symphonic cycle in New York, in 1961. It was that cycle that spurred the revival of interest in Mahlers symphonies, which is still going on today.
He led the New York Philharmonic in 40 works that they had never performed before.
Won three Tony Awards: in 1953, as Best Composer and his music as part of a Best Musical win for "Wonderful Town;" and in 1969, a Special Tony Award. He was also Tony-nominated on two other occasions: in 1957, his music as part of a Best Musical nomination for "Candide;" and in 1958, his music as part of a Best Musical nomination for "West Side Story."
He was the first conductor to make stereophonic recordings with the New York Philharmonic.
Did not begin playing the piano until age ten.
Was the first American-born and American-trained conductor of a major orchestra to become as famous as he did. There had been some American-born conductors before him, including Arthur Fiedler , who conducted the Boston Pops from 1930 to the late 1970s, and Alfred Wallenstein , who became conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1943. However, neither Fiedler nor Wallenstein were trained in the US, as Bernstein was. Bernstein is still the only American-trained US conductor to become so famous that his name is virtually a household word. Fiedler did become very well-known, but the Boston Pops played, and still play, mostly light classics, not pieces like Ludwig van Beethoven s "Ninth Symphony" (as orchestras conducted by Bernstein did). Few other American-born conductors had even a fraction of the impact that Bernstein did, although the Boston Pops recordings have always rivaled Bernsteins in popularity. Bernsteins many talents--conducting, composing, writing, teaching and piano-playing--aroused the admiration of the public, but also envy and resentment from a few major critics, such as Harold C. Schonberg , who was then the music critic of the New York Times. It was not until Bernstein was into his later years that some critics who had previously dismissed him (like Schonberg) began to show a grudging respect for him. Nowadays he is universally acknowledged as perhaps the greatest conductor that the US has ever produced.
Three of his New York Philharmonic albums all won consecutive Grammy Awards between 1962 and 1964, in the category "Best Childrens Album". They were "Peter and the Wolf/ Nutcracker Suite", "Carnival of the Animals/ Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra", and "Leonard Bernstein Conducts for Young People".
Named to then-President Richard Nixon s famed "enemies list" for hosting a fund-raising party in 1970 for the Black Panthers, the Afro-American militant group, with a glamorous Whos Who of the New York City performing arts scene (for that era) in attendance. Journalist/novelist Tom Wolfe covered the event for New Yorker Magazine, later publishing his comments in book form as "Radical Chic".
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 94-98. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1999.
Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.
His last work for the musical theater, "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue", was one of his few failures in the medium. "Candide" had also been a failure when it first opened in 1956, but eventually became a hit in its 1974 revival. "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," with book and lyrics by Bernsteins old friend Alan Jay Lerner , attempted to tell the story of all the US Presidents who had occupied the White House in a single evening. Starring Ken Howard and Patricia Routledge , it had an extremely difficult pre-Broadway try-out period, marked by extensive re-writes, poor reviews and negative audience response. When it ultimately opened on Broadway, in May of 1976, it ran only seven performances. Bernstein ultimately re-cycled much of the music for other works, and the complete score went unrecorded (at Bernsteins insistence) for 24 years. At that time, some ten years after Bernsteins death and 14 years after Lerners, it was recorded and issued as "White House Cantata".
He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6200 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
His musical, "Candide," at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Illinois was awarded the 2011 Equity Joseph Jefferson Award for Musical Production (Large).
In 1945 Bernstein considered acting, and actually discussed the possibility of playing Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in a film, opposite superstar Greta Garbo as the legendary composers friend Mme. von Meck.
He conducted Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart s overture to "The Marriage of Figaro" on four occasions on the long-running "New York Philharmonic Young Peoples Concerts" .
Favorite drink was Ballantines Scotch Whisky. A lifelong heavy smoker, his cigarette of choice was L&M.
Was a fan of The Beatles. Whenever daughter Jamie would bring home a Beatles album, he would urge her to put on the record player and listen to it with his children.
Father of Jamie Bernstein , Alexander Bernstein and Nina Bernstein.
Brother of Shirley Bernstein.
His musical, "Candide," at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California was awarded the 1995 Drama-Logue Award for Production.
In his series "20th Century Greats" , British composer and presenter Howard Goodall made a case for Bernstein as one of the four most important composers of the 20th century, along with Cole Porter , Bernard Herrmann and the Lennon (John Lennon )\McCartney (Paul McCartney ) songwriting partnership.
Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins and his musical, "West Side Story" at the Paramount Theatre in Chicago, Illinois was awarded the 2016 Joseph Jefferson (Equity) Award for Large Musical Production.
But this time, the discrepancies between our views are so great that I,feel I must make this small disclaimer.
Life without music is unthinkable. Music without life is academic. That,is why my contact with music is a total embrace.
To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.
The point is, art never stopped a war and never got anybody a job. That was never its function. Art cannot change events. But it can change people. It can affect people so that they are changed. . . because people are changed by art – enriched, ennobled, encouraged – they then act in a way that may affect the course of events. . . by the way they vote, they behave, the way they think.
Any great art work … revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world - the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.
Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.
This will be our reply to violence:to make music more intensely,more beautifully,more devotedly than ever before.
Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning . . . except its own.
Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time. . . The wait is simply too long.
The gift of imagination is by no means an exclusive property of the artist; it is a gift we all share; to some degree or other all of us are endowed with the powers of fantasy, the dullest of dullards among us has the gift of dreams at night - visions and yearnings and hopes. Everyone can also think; it is the quality thought that makes the difference - not just the quality of logical thinking, but of imaginative thinking. And our greatest thinkers, those who have radically changed our world, have always arrived at their truths by dreaming them; they are first fantasized, and only then subjected to proof.
A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.
The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another…and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world. ”—,Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.
Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.
This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.
To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.
The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another. . . and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world. .
