Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), American composer, conductor, and pianist, born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard University and at the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia. He studied composition under Walter Piston and, after encouragement from Dimitri Mitropoulos, conducting under Fritz Reiner and Serge Koussevitzky. In 1943 Bernstein made his conducting debut, leading the New York Philharmonic Society Orchestra in place of the indisposed Bruno Walter. Bernstein was music director of the New York City Center Orchestra (1945-1948), taught at the Berkshire Music Center (1948-1955) and at Brandeis University (1951-1956), and directed the New York Philharmonic (1958-1969), with which he made many recordings, both as conductor and piano soloist. On his retirement in 1969 he was made laureate conductor for life. He was instrumental in establishing the modern popularity of Gustav Mahler, making the first complete cycle of recordings of Mahler's symphonies, and of Charles Ives, whose Second Symphony he had premiered in 1952.

Bernstein's eclectic and passionate compositions were created in an astonishing variety of forms; they range from three symphonies to the musicals On the Town (1944), Wonderful Town (1953), and West Side Story (1957). He also composed the operetta Candide (1956); the opera Trouble in Tahiti (1952), later expanded to A Quiet Place (1984); Chichester Psalms (1965), for chorus and orchestra; the ballets Fancy Free (1944) and The Dybbuk Variations (1974); Mass (1971), for “singers, dancers, and players”; and the song cycle Arias and Barcarolles (1989). In 1985 he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Bernstein's writings include The Joy of Music (1959); Young People's Concerts for Reading and Listening (text and records, 1962, revised 1970), adapted from his television show of the same name; The Infinite Variety of Music (1966); and The Unanswered Question (1976), the text of lectures he had delivered at Harvard.