Grove - Bernstein

Bernstein, Leonard [Louis ]
Paul R. Laird and David Schiff
https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2223796
Published in print: 26 November 2013
Published online: 10 July 2012
(b Lawrence, MA, Aug 25, 1918; d New York, NY, Oct 14, 1990). American conductor and composer. His
accomplishments as a conductor, composer of musical theater and concert works, and musical
educator through television mark Bernstein as an unusually versatile figure. Among his most lasting
contributions are his tenure as music director of the New York Philharmonic and the score to the
Broadway musical West Side Story.
1. Early life.
Bernstein’s parents, Samuel Bernstein and Jennie Resnick, were Russian Jewish immigrants. Their
family’s faith played a major role in the young Bernstein’s personal development and as a cultural and
religious influence throughout his life. His father prospered in the barber and beauty supply business.
Leonard was the eldest child; a sister and brother followed. (His mother’s family insisted upon the
name “Louis” after a recently-deceased grandfather, but his parents called him “Leonard” from the
beginning, and he legally changed his name at 16.) There was little music in the background of either
family; an aunt placed her piano in the Bernstein family home when Leonard was ten, piquing his
interest. He began to study and made rapid progress, alternately arousing his father’s pride (including
playing piano on a radio show advertising his father’s business) and concern as he saw his son drawn
headlong into an uncertain career choice. Bernstein’s first piano teacher of note was Helen Coates
(assistant to Heinrich Gebhard, one of Boston’s leading teachers), with whom he started to study at
age 14; she later served as his assistant for most of his adult life. Bernstein attended Boston Latin
School for his secondary education. His musical activities as a teenager included putting on summer
productions of Bizet’s Carmen (Bernstein played the title role and other major roles were also subject
to gender reversals), The Mikado, and H.M.S. Pinafore with neighborhood friends, and playing piano
wherever possible, including occasional gigs as a jazz pianist to help pay for lessons. Despite his
father’s objections to a musical career, he allowed Bernstein to major in music at Harvard and study
piano with Heinrich Gebhard for those four years.
2. Education.
Bernstein’s time at Harvard was marked by several important events and the good fortune of meeting
major musical figures. His teachers included e.b. Hill , A(rthur) Tillman Merritt, and walter Piston .
Bernstein augmented his fine academic training through extracurricular activities. He wrote incidental
music for productions of two plays by Aristophanes and organized a performance of Marc Blitzstein’s
The Cradle Will Rock attended by the impressed composer. Bernstein also met and was befriended by
Dimitri Mitropoulos and Copland. The latter happened to attend the same dance recital that Bernstein
did in New York. The former became a lifelong friend and mentor, and through informal lessons was
Bernstein’s most important compositional instructor.
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Following his graduation from Harvard, Bernstein was accepted to the Curtis Institute, where he
studied conducting with Fritz Reiner, piano with Isabelle Vengerova, and transposition and sight-
reading with Renée Longy-Miquelle. Reiner’s economical gestures had no influence on Bernstein, but
the student benefited from his teacher’s disciplined approach. Bernstein attended the first summer of
the new music school at the Berkshire Music Festival (Tanglewood) in 1940, where he studied
conducting with serge Koussevitzky , who became one of Bernstein’s primary mentors. Upon
graduation from Curtis in 1941, he possessed solid conducting skills and was a fine pianist.
3. Early fame.
The position that changed Bernstein’s life was as assistant conductor of the New York PO, offered to
him by Artur Rodziński, the new music director, in August 1943. In the two years since his Curtis
graduation, Bernstein lived in Boston in 1941–2 and New York in 1942–3. He worked briefly in the
commercial music industry, composed his Symphony No.1 (“Jeremiah”), wrote his Sonata for Clarinet
and Piano, and played piano with the Revuers, a Greenwich Village cabaret act that included Adolph
Green (whom Bernstein already knew), Betty Comden, and Judy Holliday. (Comden and Green later
collaborated with Bernstein on On the Town and Wonderful Town.)
Within 18 months of being hired by the Philharmonic, Bernstein was famous as a composer and
conductor. He substituted at the last moment for an ill Bruno Walter on a 14 November 1943 concert
that was broadcast nationally, and other conducting opportunities soon followed, meaning that his
assistant conductorship of the New York PO lasted a single season.
Bernstein’s compositional career took off in 1944. He conducted the “Jeremiah” Symphony in
Pittsburgh in January 1944 and in Boston the next month. It won the New York Music Critics Circle
prize for the season’s best symphonic premiere. Choreographer Jerome Robbins commissioned
Bernstein to write the score for his ballet Fancy Free, which the Ballet Theatre premiered in April at
the Metropolitan Opera House, where it enjoyed a level of popularity unusual in the ballet world. The
story of Fancy Free became the basis for the Broadway musical On the Town. That Bernstein managed
to fulfill the expectations raised by his early debuts as a composer of various types of music and as a
conductor, in addition to becoming the country’s most important musical commentator and educator
through the medium of television, bespeaks a most unusual life that can be dealt with best in separate
areas of endeavor.
4. Conductor.
Before Bernstein there were few American-born and trained conductors of international note. After his
mentorship with Mitropoulos and study with Reiner and Koussevitzky, he had experienced varied
temperaments and conducting styles. Like Mitropoulos, Bernstein was emotional and demonstrative on
the podium and led piano concertos from the keyboard. Bernstein shared Koussevitzky’s interest in
contemporary music, and Boston’s maestro was the conducting influence that Bernstein most often
acknowledged. Bernstein became Koussevitzky’s assistant in the Tanglewood conducting department
in 1942, assuming the directorship after Koussevitzky’s death in 1951. Between 1944 and 1957
Bernstein’s conducting career was largely as a guest conductor, including work throughout the United
States and Europe and extensively with the Israel PO. A tour he led with the orchestra during the
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Israeli War for Independence in October–November 1948, including concerts near the front, made
Bernstein extremely popular in Israel. He served as the orchestra’s musical adviser in 1948–9,
conducted the premiere concert in their new hall in 1957, was again its musical adviser in 1988. He
made a number of recordings with them. Between 1945 and 1948, he was the part-time and
uncompensated music director of the New York City Symphony, earning a reputation for daring
programming with many contemporary and American works. In 1953 Bernstein led Cherubini’s Medea
at La Scala, starring Maria Callas, making him the first American to conduct at Milan’s venerable
opera house.
Bernstein’s tenure with the New York PO was one of the most successful ever between an orchestra
and a conductor. He was named co-conductor with Mitropoulos in 1957, and became the youngest
music director ever to hold the position the following year. Bernstein served until 1969, when he was
named Laureate Conductor for Life. The orchestra tripled its audience between the 1955–6 season and
the late 1960s, added new series, became a year-round ensemble, and developed a regular television
presence. Their broadcasts of Young People’s Concerts, featuring Bernstein as the genial host, were
cultural icons, and Bernstein also directed and narrated televised concerts for adults. He led the
Philharmonic on some lengthy, well-publicized tours, including to South America in 1958 and to
Europe, the Near East, and Soviet Union in 1959. Bernstein and the orchestra made hundreds of
recordings for CBS Masterworks, many of which remain commercially available.
In addition to the Israel PO, Bernstein had lasting relationships as a guest conductor with other
orchestras, perhaps most significantly the Vienna PO. Bernstein directed Falstaff at the Vienna State
Opera in 1966 and Fidelio in 1970, and he returned there frequently in the last two decades of his life
to conduct the Philharmonic, which is the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. Bernstein made many
recordings with the Vienna PO, included filming the complete Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler
symphonies, among other works. Other orchestras that Bernstein conducted with some regularity at
various times in his career include the Boston SO, the Berkshire Music Center Orchestra (Tanglewood),
the National SO, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the London SO, the Bavarian RSO, the Orchestre National
de France, and the Orchestra dell’ Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Many who saw Bernstein conduct remarked on the excitement of his programming and the inherent
dramatic intensity of his work. He was always a demonstrative and fully-engaged conductor—some
critics found his gestures excessively grand and his interpretations too emotional—but what kept him
one of the most famous and highly-paid international conductors was his compelling, passionate music-
making. Critics sometimes cited how they felt Bernstein bent the music out of shape or introduced
questionable dynamics to clarify his own analysis of a work. His most strident critic during the
Philharmonic years was Harold Schonberg of The New York Times, but even he admitted Bernstein’s
growth as a conductor upon his departure from the Philharmonic in 1969, stating that Bernstein had
learned “to conduct the big works of the repertory in a way that had shape as well as color, structural
integrity as well as freedom within the phrase.” Bernstein’s range was wide indeed, ranging from
Haydn forward, and his interpretations of Mahler, most 20th-century works, and American music drew
special praise. Bernstein was less sympathetic to 12-tone music and most avant-garde works. He
recorded with Columbia Masterworks for years, but in 1972 entered into an exclusive agreement with
Deutsche Grammophon. Bernstein also left an extensive video library of work with several orchestras.
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5. Educator and commentator.
Bernstein’s lifelong interest in education manifested itself in his many television broadcasts, in
teaching conducting to young practitioners, and sometimes working in the academic world. Bernstein
was a gifted speaker about music who could make even those with little background feel as if they had
learned something worthwhile about a sophisticated musical concept. This applied to both the children
and adults who watched Bernstein on the network programs “Omnibus” (1954–61), “Lincoln
Presents” (1958–9), “Ford Presents” (1959–62), “Young People’s Concerts” (1958–72), and other
broadcasts. The Young People’s Concerts were hugely influential on an entire American generation,
especially future musicians. Bernstein also turned his television scripts into popular books: The Joy of
Music (New York, 1959), The Infinite Variety of Music (New York, 1967), and Leonard Bernstein’s Young
People’s Concerts (New York, 1970).
In addition to his many years of teaching conducting at the Berkshire Music Center, Bernstein worked
at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute in the early 1980s and in the late 1980s with the Schleswig-
Holstein Music Festival Orchestra in Germany, two institutions that he helped found.
Bernstein was far too busy with other pursuits to hold a lifelong academic position, but he was inspired
to teach briefly at Brandeis University because Koussevitzky had helped found the music program
there. After the older conductor’s death, Bernstein was appointed professor of music in 1951. He
organized a notable Festival of the Creative Arts in June 1952 where his own Trouble in Tahiti and
Blitzstein’s English translation of The Threepenny Opera premiered, and then taught at Brandeis until
1954, including a memorable seminar where he discussed with composition students the choices he
was making while working on Candide.
Bernstein served as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard in 1973, presenting six
lectures that included filmed segments of him conducting the Boston Symphony. The lectures were
later televised and released as recordings. Bernstein’s major argument concerned the continued
importance of tonality in contemporary music, which he defended tenaciously. Bernstein applied
principles from linguist Noam Chomsky in his lectures, an approach that has been questioned by a
number of music theorists, but Bernstein did provide interesting insights into the music that he
considered. The lectures were published in book form as The Unanswered Question (Cambridge, MA,
1976).
6. Composer.
As the collective memory of Bernstein the performer and teacher fades, it will be his compositions that
form the most important part of his legacy. Bernstein made his most significant contributions in
dramatic music, but there are also a number of concert works that have become fixtures in the
repertory. His compositional style was based upon a potent mixture of vernacular elements—especially
jazz rhythms and harmonies and the frequent use of blue notes—with his fondness for lyrical melodies
often based on disjunct intervals, triadic harmonies with added tone chords, occasional bitonality, and
shifting meters and time signatures based on unusual combinations of two and three note groups such
as five or seven. The effectiveness with which Bernstein brought vernacular elements to his concert
music makes a comparison to Gershwin seem appropriate. Bernstein accomplished the immediate
appeal of his theatrical music through wide-ranging eclecticism, which appears in all of his music. He
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once said that he believed all of his works to be in some way theatrical. He took much from Copland,
who critiqued a number of Bernstein’s youthful efforts in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and one will
also find moments in his music that smack of Blitzstein, Hindemith, Stravinsky, and other models, but
his influences constantly shift. Although his taste ran strongly towards composing with a pitch center,
Bernstein did use 12-tone rows and strong dissonances, usually for programmatic reasons whereby the
resulting tension would be released by a pitch center and consonance. These stylistic choices exist in
both his Broadway scores and his concert music, with the stronger dissonance more common in works
of the latter category, but a recognizable Bernstein style resonates prominently in works intended for
any venue.
7. Dramatic works.
Bernstein’s theatrical works include five Broadway scores, three ballets, two operas, incidental music
for two plays, the “theater piece” Mass, and a film score. He offered excerpts from a number of these
pieces as orchestral works, but here music written for these projects will be considered only in their
dramatic contexts. As noted above, his first two dramatic works, both from 1944, were the ballet Fancy
Free and the musical On the Town. The former was Bernstein’s first collaboration with choreographer
Jerome Robbins, with whom he later worked on two more ballets, West Side Story, and other projects.
The scenario of Fancy Free involves three sailors on shore leave in New York. Robbins included social
dances, which Bernstein reflected in the score with big band rhythms, some block scoring, and blues
inflections, tied together with a Copland-like musical stance and neo-classicism heard in many concert
works in the 1940s. Designer Oliver Smith suggested turning the story into a Broadway musical, and
Bernstein brought his friends Comden and Green in as book writers and lyricists. When veteran
Broadway director George Abbott joined the project, the necessary funding also appeared. Robbins
infused the high-spirited show with ballets that were important to the plot, and Bernstein supplied a
richly comic score with surprising sophistication. His use of jarring dissonance to portray the urban
environment appears in the opening of “New York, New York,” and his witty use of boogie-woogie,
blues, and other types of commercial music adds much to “I Can Cook, Too” and “Come Up To My
Place.” The ballad “Lonely Town” shows Bernstein at his lyrical best, and “Carried Away” is an
effective operatic send-up.
Bernstein’s next collaboration with Robbins was the ballet Facsimile (1946), also for the Ballet Theatre.
It was a major contrast to the light-hearted Fancy Free, involving three lonely people who meet on a
beach and find physical passion, but no personal attachments. Bernstein’s score featured a taut
development of opening material and included his typical lyricism and rhythmic interest, but the
reviews were mixed and the ballet is seldom performed.
Bernstein’s busiest period for writing dramatic music was the 1950s, before he became music director
of the New York PO. He wrote incidental music for a version of Peter Pan (1950) starring Boris Karloff
and Jean Arthur, including seven songs (with Bernstein’s own lyrics) and 13 instrumental segments.
Brooks Atkinson in The New York Times praised his work as “a melodic, colorful and dramatic score
that is not afraid to be simple in style.” Bernstein’s first opera, Trouble in Tahiti, as noted above, had
its premiere at the Festival for the Creative Arts at Brandeis University in June 1952. Bernstein wrote
his own libretto for the one-act work, which describes, in vignettes, the unhappy marriage between
Sam and Dinah, names derived from Bernstein’s family that make the work appear somewhat
autobiographical. The opera includes a trio in a jazzy, commercial style with lyrics that suggests how
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ideal life should be in the suburbs. Bernstein’s score demonstrated his ability to set lyrics to rhythms
that approximate American speech, and the music is appropriate and dramatic, such as in Dinah’s solo
“What a movie!,” which includes wickedly humorous moments as she lampoons the silly movie she just
saw while being simultaneously consumed by the film’s romance.
Bernstein joined the project that became Wonderful Town at the instigation of Comden and Green,
brought aboard by director George Abbott when the first contracted team failed to produce a score. A
vehicle for Hollywood star Rosalind Russell, Wonderful Town was based on the popular play My Sister
Eileen, a story of two sisters from Columbus, Ohio who move to New York City in the 1930s to seek
their fortunes. Bernstein wrote the score with Comden and Green in about six weeks, producing a
collection of ebullient songs that parodied the music of the Depression years and included moments of
high comedy and effective character description. The song “Ohio” beautifully captures the sisters’
ambivalent feelings on their first night in New York, and “Swing” is a brilliant evocation of 1930s jazz
and its musical clichés. The finale, “Wrong Note Rag,” combines vernacular rhythms with intentionally
and comically dissonant harmonies.
Bernstein’s sole film score (besides filmed versions of his musicals) was On the Waterfront (1954), an
iconic depiction of corruption in a New Jersey dockworkers union, which starred Marlon Brando and
was directed by Elia Kazan. Bernstein unified his score with two memorable motives and depicted the
violent, urban story through gritty dissonance and irregular rhythms, choices that foreshadow the
music he later used to depict the gang violence in West Side Story. The next year Bernstein wrote
incidental music for The Lark, a French play about Joan of Arc by Jean Anouilh, translated into English
by Lillian Hellman. The composer set three choruses with French texts and five Latin texts from the
Roman Mass. He drew upon inspirations from early music while retaining an overall neo-classical
feeling, with minimal percussion as the only accompaniment. Noah Greenberg and the New York Pro
Musica Antiqua recorded the choruses for the Broadway production. Following a suggestion by Robert
Shaw, Bernstein turned his score into a Missa Brevis (1988).
Bernstein concluded his dramatic music in the 1950s with two of his crowning achievements: Candide
(1956) and West Side Story (1957). He worked on the scores simultaneously and the shows opened
about nine months apart, meaning that ideas migrated between projects: music for the songs “One
Hand, One Heart” and “Gee, Officer Krupke!,” for example, originally appeared in the Candide score.
The scores demonstrate Bernstein’s large compositional range and ability to provide music for varied
dramatic situations. Candide inspired him to write versions of European dance forms, such as the
waltz, gavotte, and schottische, appropriate accompaniment to European characters galavanting
around the globe seeking meaning in this “best of all possible worlds.” For West Side Story, Bernstein
fashioned a profoundly different concoction, combining the disturbing urban soundscape from On the
Waterfront with a rich use of Latin rhythms, various types of jazz, and a fetching lyricism. Both scores
are also approached symphonically with unifying gestures of recurring intervals and reprised musical
ideas. In Candide the minor seventh sounds often at important moments; motives from “Candide’s
Lament” appear throughout the show. In West Side Story the tritone—perhaps symbolizing Tony and
Maria and/or the story’s inherent violence—appears in a number of songs and elsewhere in
dramatically important places. The theme to “Somewhere” and other ideas also enhance musico-
dramatic unification. These two shows had significantly different receptions. Candide ran for only 73
performances in its initial run, partly because Bernstein and book writer Lillian Hellman appeared
never to agree what they were creating. Inspired by the hypocrisy of McCarthyism, Hellman wrote a
bitter satire that suffered an irreconcilable contrast of mood with Bernstein’s ebullient score. When
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some of the music was combined with a new book by Hugh Wheeler in a 1973 version directed by Hal
Prince, audiences found the result far more palatable, although Bernstein’s music was truncated. West
Side Story ran for nearly two years, toured, and came back to Broadway for another seven months in
1960. The hugely popular film that premiered in 1961 helped turn West Side Story into one of the
monuments of American culture.
Mass (1971) is one of Bernstein’s most ambitious, original, and problematic works. Commissioned by
Jacqueline Kennedy for the dedication of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in
Washington, DC, Bernstein endeavored to set most of the Latin text from the Roman Catholic Mass
with interpolated English “tropes” that provide modern commentary and reactions. The composer
waited until it was almost too late to finish the piece, but his sister Shirley Bernstein, a theatrical
agent, brought her client Stephen Schwartz to Bernstein’s attention, and the young lyricist helped
write the English texts and devise the work’s loose plot. Bernstein re-used many musical segments
originally conceived for other projects, and the score bears some of the widest eclecticism of his entire
career with styles of concert music ranging from the simple and accessible to 12-tone movements and
experimental, recorded cacophony. It also includes references to many vernacular styles: various types
of rock, jazz, marching band music, blues, and Broadway ballads. Conceived for a cast of 200 singers,
dancers, and instrumentalists, Mass approaches many contemporary problems and situations. Both
moving and perplexing, it appears to be as close to Bernstein’s spirit as any piece that he ever wrote.
Dybbuk (1974), commissioned by the New York City Ballet, was Bernstein’s final completed
collaboration with Robbins. It follows the story of the Jewish play The Dybbuk by Shlomo Ansky, which
involves a Jewish marriage, cabalistic rites, and demonic possession. The 50-minute score includes
tone rows derived from the Kabbalah, Hebrew texts sung by tenor and baritone soloists, and such
Stravinskian devices as octatonicism. Public response was mixed, but this is an effective score by a
mature Bernstein. His final completed Broadway musical was 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (1976) with
book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, a commercial disaster that closed after seven performances. The
plot was unworkable, but the score included lively music from Bernstein and Lerner’s typically stylish
lyrics, which can be appreciated in A White House Cantata (1997), a concert version of the piece.
Bernstein returned to the story of his previous opera Trouble in Tahiti when he fulfilled a commission
from three different opera companies with A Quiet Place in the early 1980s. The plot of the new work
involves the same family 30 years later. Dinah has committed suicide and the family gathers for the
funeral. The two children, one who is psychotic, do not get along with their father, but by the end of
the work they have reached a minimal understanding. Stephen Wadsworth wrote the libretto, which
includes parallels with the history of Bernstein’s family. The new material was originally meant
immediately to follow a performance of Trouble in Tahiti, but subsequent consideration placed the
shorter first work as two flashbacks in Act 2 of A Quiet Place. It is a complex work in which Bernstein
accesses his usual plethora of musical influences and places them at the service of the drama, but the
most fascinating aspect of the score is the striking use of speech rhythms, which show a precision that
one seldom finds in English-language operas. Unlike Trouble in Tahiti, A Quiet Place has not found a
regular place in the repertory.
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8. Symphonic works.
Bernstein’s symphonic works tend to be even more elusive in terms of genre designation than his
dramatic works. Among Bernstein’s three symphonies one has a lament as a finale, and the others
might be called a piano concerto and a narrated oratorio. He wrote what became the finale of his
Symphony No. 1, “Jeremiah” in 1939, composing two more movements for a composition contest in
1942, creating an impressive first symphony from a young composer. Jack Gottlieb has shown that a
number of the themes are based on Jewish liturgical melodies. The opening “Prophecy” is declamatory,
displaying a rhythmic sense similar to that one hears in Copland, but the overall effect is more like
Bloch’s Jewish works. “Profanation” provides a strong contrast with its rapidly shifting meters and
melodic content close to Bernstein’s Broadway style. The closing “Lamentation,” also declamatory,
again carries the strong feeling of Bernstein’s mentor Copland.
Bernstein’s growth as a composer in the years before his Symphony No.2, (“The Age of Anxiety,” after
W.H. Auden’s poem) premiered in 1949 was substantial. This is evident in the development of the
opening material throughout the 14 variations of “The Seven Ages” and “The Seven Stages” and the
symphonic jazz of “The Masque.” The piano writing in “The Age of Anxiety” is soloistic, but in the
original version Bernstein used the piano sparsely in “The Masque,” an oversight corrected in the 1965
revision.
In the 1950s, a decade mostly devoted to composing dramatic music, Bernstein wrote his Serenade
after Plato’s Symposium for solo violin, strings, harp, and percussion. Like “The Age of Anxiety,” the
Serenade was a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation. Bernstein wrote most of it in Europe
during the summer of 1954 before its premiere in Venice with Isaac Stern as soloist. Despite the arcane
program (the sincerity of which has been questioned by some commentators, who note that Bernstein’s
movement titles do not correspond to the order that the characters speak in Plato’s text), Bernstein
produced one of the more effective American violin concertos. The opening “Phaedrus: Pausanias”
shows Bernstein’s use of developing variations based on the cantabile opening melody, followed by the
restrained “Aristophanes” and the impetuous “Eryximachus.” “Agathon” is one of the composer’s most
sublime creations, a seraphic melody in the solo violin over undulating accompaniment. The finale,
“Socrates, Alcibiades,” opens with biting, ascetic dissonance (a gesture that Bernstein also uses to
open the finale of Chichester Psalms), only to close with symphonic jazz.
Bernstein’s compositional time was clearly limited during his tenure with the New York PO. The only
two substantive works he completed were Symphony No.3 (“Kaddish,” 1963) and the Chichester
Psalms (1965), the latter written during a sabbatical. Bernstein’s first two symphonies both addressed
what he saw as the contemporary “crisis of faith.” In “Kaddish,” a modern oratorio for orchestra, mixed
chorus, boys’ choir, speaker, and soprano soloist, Bernstein addressed God directly, criticizing a lack of
concern for human affairs and allowing such scourges as nuclear weapons. It was a controversial work
that was one of Bernstein’s most personal before Mass. Musically, Bernstein’s feelings perhaps showed
most strongly in his use of tone rows and extreme dissonance in the “Din-Torah,” later resolved
through tonal segments and typical lyrical writing. Bernstein extensively revised the symphony in
1977, toning down the narration, but the work remains somewhat problematic for audiences and is a
huge commitment for an orchestra in terms of required forces. Chichester Psalms has proven to be one
of Bernstein’s most popular concert works. Based on a deleted song from West Side Story and music
Bernstein had hoped to use in a musicalization of The Skin of Our Teeth that he abandoned in late
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1964, this choral work with orchestra was commissioned by Chichester Cathedral. Each of the three
movements includes the text of a full psalm and selections from another, all in Hebrew. A great deal of
this extremely melodic and accessible piece sounds like the composer’s Broadway music and the
overall program resembles both “Kaddish” and Mass. It opens with a celebration of God, departs to
strong contrast between the peaceful and violent in the second movement, and returns in peace for the
final movement, the cathartic opening of which is reminiscent of Serenade’s finale.
Bernstein wrote four major works for orchestra in the last 15 years of his life. Songfest (1977) is a
tribute to the American Bicentennial in 1976. He selected memorable texts by a diverse group of
American poets and set them as a song cycle for soloists of six different voice types and orchestra. The
solo and ensemble movements constitute an effective set that might have suffered from lack of
performances because of the unusual forces, but the range of the work is exceptional, and perhaps
Bernstein revealed his own homosexual leanings in his songlike setting of “To What You Said” by Walt
Whitman. In Divertimento for Orchestra (1980), commissioned by the Boston SO for its centenary,
Bernstein ties the movements together with the notes B and C (“Boston centennial”) and based some of
the work on his musical memories of growing up in Boston. The eight movements are primarily dances,
including a cheeky but charming waltz in 7/8. Halil, Nocturne (1981) was composed in memory of a
young Israeli flutist who died in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War (halil is Hebrew for “flute”). The
accompanimental forces are reminiscent of the Serenade, but the work is quite different, opening with
a 12-tone row and presenting a study of contrasts between tonality and atonality. The Concerto for
Orchestra (1986–9) had a complicated history. Two of the four movements were premiered in Tel Aviv
in 1986 during the 50th anniversary of the Israel Philharmonic, and the conglomerate varied, final
version premiered three years later. The first movement includes improvisation and prerecorded tapes,
and the second movement, “Mixed Doubles,” was inspired by the “Play of the Couples” from Bartók’s
Concerto for Orchestra. “Diaspora Dances” parodies several dances, and in the “Benediction,” a
baritone intones a tranquil biblical text from the Book of Numbers.
9. Smaller works.
Bernstein’s output also includes a number of smaller works in various genres, some of which have
become well known. His piano music includes the many brief Anniversaries, character pieces written
throughout his career (from 1943 to 1988), and Touches (1981), a taut set of variations. The Sonata for
Clarinet and Piano (1942) has been popular for decades. Brass Music (1948) and Dance Suite (1989)
each include five movements for various combinations of brass instruments, some for soloists with
piano accompaniment. The song cycles I Hate Music (1943), La Bonne Cuisine (1947), and Arias and
Barcarolles (1988, for mezzo-soprano, baritone, and piano four-hands) form a useful body of recital
literature. The Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs (1949) for jazz band, although not a major work, provides a
look at Bernstein’s musical style in microcosm because he convincingly combines a jazz persona (albeit
without improvisation) with classical techniques.
10. Legacy.
Bernstein lived an exceedingly full life, including many activities outside of music. His Jewish faith was
important to him throughout and inspired a number of his works. Likewise, his interest in politics
lasted his entire career. He lent his name to many left-wing groups early in his early years of fame,
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causing the FBI to amass a huge file on Bernstein over the decades. Questions about Bernstein’s
loyalties during the McCarthy years caused him to have trouble renewing his passport in 1953 and
Barry Seldes has demonstrated that his career suffered some from a blacklist in the ensuing years, but
Bernstein was back in favor by 1958 when he became music director of the New York PO. A later
political controversy involved a party that Bernstein and his wife hosted to raise money for the legal
defense of the Black Panthers in 1970.
Bernstein was one of many homosexual males associated with American concert music in the middle of
the 20th century, and this was a major part of his life and personality. His sexual preference surely
contributed to Bernstein’s political problems in the 1950s, as was the case with many artists, and he
pursued relationships with men throughout his life. All external evidence of Bernstein’s marriage to
Felicia Montealegre Cohn, an actress, indicates a sincere relationship until Bernstein left her briefly
for a man in 1976. Not long afterwards he returned to her; she was diagnosed with lung cancer and
died in 1978. Their union resulted in three children.
Bernstein’s legacy looms large in each area that he worked. West Side Story remains his most
important work, but his mastery of the Broadway idiom is just as clear in his other shows. Mass
remains a powerful piece and is finding new audiences. Bernstein’s concert music includes many
enduring works, especially Chichester Psalms, and orchestral pieces based upon his popular shows
also continue to be programmed. His fame as a conductor has barely diminished since his death, and
many of his recordings remain critically and commercially popular. That he will also be remembered as
one of America’s most important musical educators seems certain.
Works
all published unless otherwise stated
Dramatic
The Birds (incid music, Aristophanes), 1938, unpubd; Cambridge, MA, 21 April 1939
The Peace (incid music, Aristophanes), 1940, unpubd; Cambridge, MA, 23 May 1941
Fancy Free (ballet, choreog. J. Robbins), 1944
New York, 18 April 1944
On the Town (musical, book and lyrics by B. Comden, A. Green, additional lyrics by
Bernstein), orchd H. Kay, Bernstein, D. Walker, E. Jacoby, and T. Royal, 1944
Boston, 13 Dec 1944
Facsimile (ballet, choreog. Robbins), 1946
Page 10 of 19

New York, 24 Oct 1946, cond. Bernstein
Peter Pan (incid music, lyrics by Bernstein, after J.M. Barrie), orchd Kay, 1950
New York, 24 April 1950, cond. B. Steinberg
Trouble in Tahiti (op, 1, libretto by Bernstein), 1951
Waltham, MA, 12 June 1952, cond. Bernstein
Wonderful Town (musical, book and lyrics by Comden and Green, after J.A. Fields and
J. Chodorov: My Sister Eileen), orchd D. Walker, 1953
New Haven, CT, 19 Jan 1953
On the Waterfront (film score, dir. E. Kazan), 1954
The Lark (incid music, L. Hellman, after J. Anouilh), 1955
Boston, 28 Oct 1955
Salome (incid music, O. Wilde), 1955, unpubd
Candide (comic operetta, book by Hellman, lyrics by R. Wilbur, J. La Touche, D.

Parker, Bernstein, after Voltaire), orchd Kay, Bernstein, 1956
Boston, 29 Oct 1956
rev. 1973 (lyrics by Wilbur, La Touche, S. Sondheim, Bernstein, book by H. Wheeler

after Voltaire), Brooklyn, NY, 20 Dec 1973, cond. J. Mauceri
West Side Story (musical, lyrics by Sondheim and Bernstein, book by A. Laurents),
orchd S. Ramin, I. Kostal, Bernstein, choreog. Robbins, 1957
Washington DC, 19 Aug 1957, cond. M. Goberman
The Firstborn (incid music, C. Fry), 1958, unpubd; New York, 20 April 1958
Mass (music theatre piece, English lyrics by S. Schwartz and Bernstein), orchd J.
Tunick, Kay, Bernstein, 1971, Washington DC, 8 Sept 1971, cond. M. Peress; arr.
Ramin for chbr orch, Los Angeles, 26 Dec 1972, cond. Peress
Dybbuk (ballet, choreog. Robbins), 1974
New York, 16 May 1974, cond. Bernstein
Page 11 of 19

By Bernstein (revue), 1975, withdrawn [based on unpubd and withdrawn theatre
songs]; New York, 23 Nov 1975
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (musical, book and lyrics by A.J. Lerner), orchd Ramin,
Kay, 1976
Philadelphia, 24 Feb 1976, cond. R. Gagnon, withdrawn; reworked as vocal-orch

work White House Cant., 1997
A Quiet Place (op, 1, libretto by S. Wadsworth), 1983
Houston, 17 June 1983, cond. J. De Main; rev. 1984 in 3 acts, incl. Trouble in Tahiti
Orchestral
Fancy Free, suite, 1944 [based on ballet], withdrawn; 3 Dance Variations from Fancy
Free, 1944
On the Town, 3 dance episodes, 1945 [based on musical], transcr. concert band;
Facsimile, choreographic essay, 1946 [based on ballet]
Sym. no.2 ‘The Age of Anxiety’, after W.H. Auden, pf, orch, 1949, rev. 1965
Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, cl, jazz ens, 1949
Serenade, vn, str, hp, perc, 1954 [after Plato: Symposium]
On the Waterfront, sym. suite, 1955 [based on film score]
West Side Story, sym. dances, 1960 [based on musical]
Fanfare I, 1961 [for inauguration of J.F. Kennedy], orchd Ramin; Fanfare II, 1961 [for
25th anniversary of the High School of Music and Art], orchd Ramin; 2 Meditations
from Mass, 1971
Meditation III from Mass, 1972, withdrawn; Dybbuk Suite nos.1–2 (Dybbuk
Variations), 1974 [based on ballet]
3 Meditations from Mass, vc, orch, 1977, arr. vc, pf, 1978
Slava!, ov., 1977
CBS Music, 1977, withdrawn; Divertimento, 1980
Page 12 of 19

A Musical Toast, 1980
Halil, nocturne, fl, str, perc, 1981
Conc. for Orch, 1989
Suite, arr. Ramin, M.T. Thomas, 1991 [based on op A Quiet Place, 1983]
Vocal-orchestral
Sym. no.1 “Jeremiah” (Bible), Mez, orch, 1942
Hashkiveinu (Heb. liturgy), T, chorus, org, 1945
Afterthought, voice, orch, 1945 (study for Facsimile), Arr. of Reena (Heb. folksong),
chorus, orch, 1947
Sym. no.3 “Kaddish” (Heb. liturgy, Bernstein), S, spkr, chorus, boys’ chorus, orch,
1963
Chichester Psalms (Bible), Tr, chorus, orch, 1965
Songfest, 6 solo vv, orch, 1977: To the Poem (F. O’Hara), The Pennycandy Store
beyond the El (L. Ferlinghetti), A Julia de Burgos (J. de Burgos), To What you Said (W.
Whitman), I, too, Sing America (L. Hughes), Okay “Negroes” (J. Jordan), To my Dear
and Loving Husband (A. Bradstreet), Storyette H.M. (G. Stein), if you can’t eat you
got to (e. e. cummings), Music I Heard with You (C. Aiken), Zizi’s Lament (G. Corso),
What Lips my Lips have Kissed (Millay), Israfel (E.A. Poe); Olympic Hymn (G.
Kunert), chorus, orch, 1981; White House Cant., arr. C. Harmon, Ramin, 1997 [based
on musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, 1976]
Choral
Arr. of Simchu Na (Heb. folksong), SATB, pf, 1947
Yidgal (Heb. liturgy), chorus, pf, 1950
Harvard Choruses (Lerner), 1957, withdrawn; Dedication, Lonely Men of Harvard;

Warm-Up, mixed chorus, 1970, incorporated into music theatre piece Mass, 1971
Page 13 of 19

A Little Norton Lecture (e.e. cummings), male vv, 1973, unpubd, arr. as Storyette
H.M. in Songfest, 1977 [See vocal-orchestral]
Missa brevis (Ct, mixed chorus)/(7 sol vv), perc, 1988 [based on incid music The
Lark, 1955]
Solo vocal (1 v, pf, unless otherwise stated)
Psalm cxlviii, 1932
I Hate Music (Bernstein), song cycle, 1943: My Name is Barbara, Jupiter has Seven
Moons, I Hate Music, A Big Indian and a Little Indian, I’m a Person Too;
Lamentation, Mez, orch, 1943 [arr. of 3rd movt of Sym. no.1 “Jeremiah”]
Afterthought (Bernstein), 1945, withdrawn; La bonne cuisine (4 recipes, Bernstein),

1947: Plum Pudding, Queues de Boeuf, Tavouk Guenksis, Civet à Toute Vitesse; 2
Love Songs (R.M. Rilke), 1949: Extinguish my eyes, When my soul touches yours;
Silhouette (Galilee) (Bernstein), 1951
On the Waterfront (La Touche), 1954, withdrawn; Get Hep! (Bernstein), 1955,
withdrawn; So Pretty (Comden, Green), 1968
The Madwoman of Central Park West (Bernstein): My New Friends, Up!Up!Up!, 1979
Piccola serenata, 1979
Arias and Barcarolles (L. Bernstein, J. Bernstein, Y.Y. Segal), Mez, Bar, pf 4 hands,
1988: Prelude, Love Duet, Little Smary, The Love of My Life, Greeting, Oif Mayn
Khas’neh, Mr. and Mrs. Webb Say Goodnight, Nachspiel; Vayomer Elohim, voice, pf, c
1989]
Chamber
Pf Trio, 1937
Music for 2 Pf, 1937 [incl. in musical On the Town, 1944]
Pf Sonata, 1938
Music for the Dance, nos.1 and 2, 1938, unpubd [incl. in musical On the Town, 1944]
Page 14 of 19

Scenes from the City of Sin, pf 4 hands, 1939, unpubd; Sonata, vn, pf, 1940, unpubd;
4 Studies, 2 cl, 2 bn, pf c1940, unpubd; Arr. of Copland: El salón Mexico, pf/2 pf,
1941
Sonata, cl, pf, 1941–2
7 Anniversaries, pf, 1943
4 Anniversaries, pf, 1948
Brass Music, tpt, hn, trbn, tuba, pf, 1948
4 Sabras, pf, c 1950s, unpubd; 5 Anniversaries, pf, 1954
Bridal Suite, pf 4 hands, unpubd; Shivaree, brass, perc, 1969, incorporated into
theatre piece Mass, 1971
Touches, pf, 1981
13 Anniversaries, 1988
Variations on an Octatonic Scale, rec, vc, 1989
Dance Suite, brass quintet, opt. perc, 1990
Recorded interviews in US-NHoh
Principal publishers: Amberson, Harms, Jalni
Bibliography
P. Gradenwitz: “Leonard Bernstein,” MR, 10 (1949), 191–202
B. Atkinson: “First Night at the Theatre: Jean Arthur and Boris Karloff in an Excellent Version of
Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’,” New York Times (25 April 1950)
D. Drew: “Leonard Bernstein: Wonderful Town,” The Score, no.12 (1955), 77–80
H. Keller: “On the Waterfront,” The Score, no.12 (1955), 81–4
H.C. Schonberg: “New Job for the Protean Mr. Bernstein,” New York Times Magazine (22 Dec
1957)
J. Briggs: Leonard Bernstein, the Man, his Work, and his World (Cleveland, OH, 1961)
A. Holde: Leonard Bernstein (Berlin, 1961)
Page 15 of 19

J. Gottlieb: The Music of Leonard Bernstein: a Study of Melodic Manipulations (diss., U. of
Illinois, 1964)
J. Gottlieb: “The Choral Music of Leonard Bernstein, Reflections of Theater and Liturgy”,
American Choral Review, 10/2 (1967–8), 156–77
J. Gruen: The Private World of Leonard Bernstein (New York, 1968)
H.C. Schonberg: “End of His Formal Duties May Bring Busier Life,” New York Times (19 May
1969)
E. Ames: A Wind from the West: Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Abroad (Boston, MA,
1970)
J. Gruen: “In Love with the Stage,” Opera News, 37/3 (1972), 16–23
J.W. Weber: Leonard Bernstein (Utica, NY, 1975) [discography]
R. Chesterman: “Leonard Bernstein in Conversation with Robert Chesterman,” Conversations

with Conductors (Totowa, NJ, 1976), 53–60, 69–72
J. Ardoin: “Leonard Bernstein at Sixty,” High Fidelity/Musical America, 28/8 (1978), 53–8
J. Gottlieb: Leonard Bernstein: a Complete Catalogue of his Works (New York, 1978, enlarged
2/1988)
A. Keiler: “Bernstein’s The Unanswered Question and Problems of Musical Competence,” MQ,
64 (1978), 195–222
J. Gottlieb: “Symbols of Faith in the Music of Leonard Bernstein,” MQ, 66 (1980), 287–95
B. Bernstein: “Personal History: Family Matters,” New Yorker (22–29 March 1982); repr. as
Family Matters (New York, 1982)
H. Matheopoulos: Maestro: Encounters with Conductors of Today (London, 1982), 3
P. Robinson: Bernstein (New York, 1982)
L. Botstein: “The Tragedy of Leonard Bernstein,” Harper’s, 266/May (1983), 38–40, 57–62
J. Peyser: Bernstein: a Biography (New York, 1983)
M. Freedland: Leonard Bernstein (London, 1987)
P. Gradenwitz: Leonard Bernstein (London, 1987)
P.S. Minear: Death Set to Music: Masterworks by Bach, Brahms, Penderecki, Bernstein (Atlanta,
1987)
J. Cott: “Leonard Bernstein,” Rolling Stone (29 November 1990)
J. Fluegel, ed.: Bernstein Remembered (New York, 1991)
S. Chapin: Leonard Bernstein: Notes for a Friend (New York, 1992)
Page 16 of 19

H. Pollack: Harvard Composers: Walter Piston and his Students from Elliott Carter to Frederic
Rzewski (Metuchen, NJ, 1992)
D. Schiff: “Re-hearing Bernstein,” Atlantic, 271/6 (1993), 55–8ff
H. Burton: Leonard Bernstein (New York, 1994)
M. Secrest: Leonard Bernstein (New York, 1994)
W. Burton: Conversations about Bernstein (New York, 1995)
G. Block: “West Side Story: the Very Model of a Major Musical,” Enchanted Evenings: the
Broadway Musical from “Show Boat” to Sondheim (New York, 1997), 245–73, 341–2
S.A. Gelleny: “Leonard Bernstein on Television: Bridging the Gap between Classical Music and
Popular Culture,” Journal of Popular Music Studies, 11–12 (1999–2000), 48–67
C.J. Page: Leonard Bernstein and the Resurrection of Gustav Mahler (diss., U. of California, Los
Angeles, 2000)
b.d. mcclung and P.R. Laird: “Musical sophistication on Broadway: Kurt Weill and Leonard
Bernstein,” The Cambridge Companion to the Musical, ed. W.A. Everett and P.R. Laird
(Cambridge, 2002, 2/2008), 190–201
P.R. Laird: “Choreographers, directors and the fully integrated musical,” The Cambridge
Companion to the Musical, ed. W.A. Everett and P.R. Laird (Cambridge, 2002, 2/2008), 220–34
P.R. Laird: Leonard Bernstein: a Guide to Research (New York and London, 2002)
D. Schiller: Bloch, Schoenberg, and Bernstein: Assimilating Jewish Music (Oxford, 2003)
Y.S. Ikach: A Study of Selected Songs by Leonard Bernstein which Reflect his Contribution to the
Evolution of Art Song in America (diss., West Virginia U., 2003)
N. Hubbs: The Queer Composition of America’s Sound: Gay Modernists, American Music, and
National Identity (Berkeley, 2004)
E.L. Keathley: “Postwar Modernity and the Wife’s Subjectivity: Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti,”
American Music, 23/2 (2005), 220–56
V. Perlis: “An Overview of the Friendship Between Copland and Bernstein and Selections from
their Correspondence from the 1940s through 1980s,” Aaron Copland and his World, ed. Carol J.
Oja and Judith Tick (Princeton, NJ, 2005), 151–78
E.B. Crist: “Mutual Responses in the Midst of an Era: Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land and
Leonard Bernstein’s Candide,” JM, 23 (2006), 485–527
H. Smith: “‘Peter Grimes’ and Leonard Bernstein: an English Fisherman and his Influence on an
American Eclectic,” Tempo, 60/no.235 (2006), 22–30
A. Bushard: “He Could’ve Been a Contender: Thematic Integration in Leonard Bernstein’s Score
for On the Waterfront (1954),” Journal of Film Music, 2/1 (2007), 43–62
Page 17 of 19

E.B. Crist: “The Best of All Possible Worlds: the Eldorado Episode in Leonard Bernstein’s
Candide,” COJ, 19 (2007), 223–48
B. Bernstein and B. Haws: Leonard Bernstein: American Original: How a Modern Renaissance
Man Transformed Music and the World during his New York Philharmonic Years, 1943–1976
(New York, 2008)
G. Block: “Bernstein’s Senior Thesis at Harvard: the Roots of a Lifelong Search to Discover an
American Identity,” College Music Symposium, 48 (2008), 52–68
L.E. Helgert: Jazz Elements in Selected Concert Works of Leonard Bernstein: Sources,
Reception, and Analysis (diss., Catholic U. of America, 2008)
A. Ross: “The Legend of Lenny,” The New Yorker (15 Dec 2008)
B. Seldes: Leonard Bernstein: the Political Life of an American Musician (Berkeley, CA, 2009)
N. Simeone: Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story (Farnham, 2009)
C.J. Oja: “West Side Story and The Music Man: Whiteness, Immigration, and Race in the US
during the late 1950s,” Studies in Musical Theatre, 3/1 (2009), 13–30
W.A. Everett: “Candide and the tradition of American operetta,” Studies in Musical Theatre, 3/1
(2009), 53–9
A. Bushard: “From On the Waterfront to West Side Story, or There’s Nowhere Like Somewhere,”
Studies in Musical Theatre, 3/1 (2009), 61–75
L. Helgert: “Songs from Leonard Bernstein’s Stage Works as Jazz Repertoire,” American Music,
27/3 (2009), 356–68
J.D. Sarna: “Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Jewish Community of His Youth: The Influence of
Solomon Braslavsky, Herman Rubenovitz, and Congregation Mishkan Tefila,” Journal of the
Society for American Music, 3/1 (2009), 35–46
D. Massey: “Leonard Bernstein and the Harvard Student Union: in Search of Political Origins,”
Journal of the Society for American Music, 3/1 (2009), 67–84
S. Kaskowitz: “All in the Family: Brandeis University and Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Jewish
Boston’,”Journal of the Society for American Music, 3/1 (2009), 85–100
N. Hubbs: “Bernstein: Homophobia, Historiography,” Women and Music, 13 (2009), 24–42
A. Giger: “Bernstein’s The Joy of Music as Aesthetic Credo,” Journal of the Society for American
Music,3/3 (2009), 311–29
E. Nash: “Understanding and Performing Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms,” Choral Journal, 49/8
(2009), 8–31
R.P. Bañagale: “‘Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves’: Bernstein’s Formative Relationship with
Rhapsody in Blue,” Journal of the Society for American Music, 3/1 (2009), 47–66
J. Gottlieb: Working With Bernstein (New York, 2010)
Page 18 of 19

P.R. Laird: Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms (Hillsdale, NY, 2010)
E.A. Wells: West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical (Lanham, MD, 2010)
H. Smith: There’s A Place for Us: the Musical Theatre Works of Leonard Bernstein (Farnham,
2011)
Leonard Bernstein website (The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc.) http://

www.leonardbernstein.com <http://www.leonardbernstein.com>
“The Leonard Bernstein Collection,” American Memory, Library of Congress http://

memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/bernstein/ <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/
bernstein/>
More on this topic

Bernstein, Leonard (opera) <http://oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/
9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000005310> in Oxford Music Online <http://
oxfordmusiconline.com>
Bernstein, Leonard <http://oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/

9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000002883> in Oxford Music Online <http://
oxfordmusiconline.com>
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Bernstein, Leonard [Louis ]

Paul R. Laird and David Schiff

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

all published unless otherwise stated

Fancy Free (ballet, choreog. J. Robbins), 1944

New York, 18 April 1944

Boston, 13 Dec 1944

Facsimile (ballet, choreog. Robbins), 1946

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

New York, 24 April 1950, cond. B. Steinberg

Trouble in Tahiti (op, 1, libretto by Bernstein), 1951

Waltham, MA, 12 June 1952, cond. Bernstein

New Haven, CT, 19 Jan 1953

On the Waterfront (film score, dir. E. Kazan), 1954

The Lark (incid music, L. Hellman, after J. Anouilh), 1955

Boston, 28 Oct 1955

Salome (incid music, O. Wilde), 1955, unpubd

Candide (comic operetta, book by Hellman, lyrics by R. Wilbur, J. La Touche, D.

Boston, 29 Oct 1956

rev. 1973 (lyrics by Wilbur, La Touche, S. Sondheim, Bernstein, book by H. Wheeler

Washington DC, 19 Aug 1957, cond. M. Goberman

Dybbuk (ballet, choreog. Robbins), 1974

New York, 16 May 1974, cond. Bernstein

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

Philadelphia, 24 Feb 1976, cond. R. Gagnon, withdrawn; reworked as vocal-orch

A Quiet Place (op, 1, libretto by S. Wadsworth), 1983

Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, cl, jazz ens, 1949

Serenade, vn, str, hp, perc, 1954 [after Plato: Symposium]

On the Waterfront, sym. suite, 1955 [based on film score]

West Side Story, sym. dances, 1960 [based on musical]

Slava!, ov., 1977

CBS Music, 1977, withdrawn; Divertimento, 1980

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

Halil, nocturne, fl, str, perc, 1981

Conc. for Orch, 1989

Sym. no.1 “Jeremiah” (Bible), Mez, orch, 1942

Hashkiveinu (Heb. liturgy), T, chorus, org, 1945

Chichester Psalms (Bible), Tr, chorus, orch, 1965

Arr. of Simchu Na (Heb. folksong), SATB, pf, 1947

Yidgal (Heb. liturgy), chorus, pf, 1950

Harvard Choruses (Lerner), 1957, withdrawn; Dedication, Lonely Men of Harvard;

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

Solo vocal (1 v, pf, unless otherwise stated)

Psalm cxlviii, 1932

Afterthought (Bernstein), 1945, withdrawn; La bonne cuisine (4 recipes, Bernstein),

Piccola serenata, 1979

Music for 2 Pf, 1937 [incl. in musical On the Town, 1944]

Subscriber: Taipei National University of the Arts; date: 22 April 2020

Sonata, cl, pf, 1941–2

7 Anniversaries, pf, 1943

4 Anniversaries, pf, 1948

Brass Music, tpt, hn, trbn, tuba, pf, 1948

4 Sabras, pf, c 1950s, unpubd; 5 Anniversaries, pf, 1954

Touches, pf, 1981

Variations on an Octatonic Scale, rec, vc, 1989

Dance Suite, brass quintet, opt. perc, 1990