Leonard Bernstein--Lenny to his friends--would have been 100 this weekend. A child of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, Bernstein rose to become one of the world's greatest musical icons. He brought us the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story as well as enduring New York serenades.
Distinguished as a conductor, Bernstein led orchestras from Austria to Australia and was the first American to serve as music director for the New York Philharmonic. As a composer, Bernstein was prodigious and multivarious, writing everything from classical symphonies to musicals and opera.
Bernstein's music pushed boundaries--both across genres and between music and the world outside. Bernstein was known for a mesmerizing, all-consuming style on the conductor's podium, engaging with the audience and getting carried away by the music. He teamed up with everyone from choreographers like Jerome Robbins to jazz legends like Louis Armstrong. And he was uncompromising: Marin Alsop, a Bernstein protégé who now serves as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, remarked that Bernstein would "re-examine every piece of music, to bring a fresh approach and new insights."
Bernstein's compositions, meanwhile, were daring, even featuring a wrong note or two. Bernstein took on subjects normally neglected in the conservatory. West Side Story re-imagined Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in the context of ethnic and gang tensions in 1950s New York.
Bernstein, who died in 1990 at 72, often reminded us that America has a place for all of us somewhere--a lesson that seems at least as relevant today as during Bernstein's lifetime.
Tonight, find a quiet place and put on Chichester Psalms or the overture to Candide. You might fall a little bit in love with Bernstein's music, if you haven't already.
Happy birthday, Lenny!
Editorial on 08/26/2018