Text b leonard bernstein

Leonard Bernstein is a renowned American conductor, composer and pianist. He was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on the 25th of August 1918. He began his piano lessons at about the age of ten. He studied piano, conducting and orchestration. Conducting became his major interest. Koussevitzky was so impressed by his talent that he asked him to be his assistent conductor of the New York PO. Replacing Walter who was indisposed he conducted the orchestra in works by Schumann, Strauss and Wagner. The concert was widely published and it launched Bernstein’s conducting career in the USA and abroad.

Shortly thereafter he appeared with the Pittsburgh and Boston orchestras, and he was engaged as conductor of the New York City Orchestra (1945 – 48). He first conducted the Israel PO in 1947, served as its music adviser in 1948 – 49. In the 1940s and early 1950s he also conducted orchestras in London, Vienna, Paris, Milan and elsewhere in Europe. Bernstein returned to the New York PO in 1957 as co-conductor with Mitropoulos. In the following year he was appointed musical director and chief conductor, holding these posts until 1969, when he was made laureate conductor for life. During this time with the New York PO he toured extensively with the orchestra in Latin America, Asia and the USA. Numerous national television appearances, most notably as introducer and conductor of the young people’s concerts brought him enormous popularity. He has written “The Joy of Music” (1954) and “The Infinite Variety of Music” (1959). In 1973 he gave lectures at Harvard University; they were published as “The Unanswered Question” (1976).

From his earliest years as a conductor and pianist Bernstein had been pursuing a parallel career as a composer. The Clarinet Sonata was his first published composition, and the song cycle “I Hate Music” was first performed at New York Town Hall in November 1943. His First Symphony, performed in spring 1944 in Boston and New York, was chosen by the New York Music Critics Circle as the best new American orchestral work of 1943 – 44. And in the same season his first ballet “Fancy Free” with choreography by Robbins was introduced by Ballet Theater at the Metropolitan Opera House. During the 1950s Bernstein composed mainly for the stage and screen, but the 1960s saw two large-scale concert works: the Symphony no.3 and the “Chichester Psalms”, commissioned by Chichester Cathedral for the 1965 music festival. For the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts, Washington, DC (September 1971), he was commissioned, at the suggestion of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, to write a dedicatory work “Mass”. The score for “West Side Story” – a virtuoso mixture of Latin American dance rhythms, big-band jazz and expressive love-songs – is a particularly impressive achievement.

Proper Names

Leonard Bernstein [’lenqd ’bWnstQin]

Lawrence [’lOrqns]

Tanglewood [’txNglwud]

the New York PO (… Philharmonic Orchestra)

Bruno Walter [’brHnq ’wOltq]

Richard Strauss [’rihArt ’StrQus]

Pittsburgh [’pitsbWg]

Israel [’izreiql]

Milan [mi’lxn]

Dimitrios Mitropoulos [di’mitriqs ’mitrO‘pOulqs]

the Metropolitan Opera House [… ,metrq’pOlitqn …]

“Chichester Psalms” [’tSitSistq ’sRmz]