Musicians - Leonard Bernstein

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	Musicians - Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American composer, pianist and conductor. He was the first conductor born in the United States of America to receive world-wide acclaim, and is known for both his conducting of the New York Philharmonic, including the acclaimed Young People's Concerts series, and his multiple compositions, including West Side Story and Candide.

Biography

Childhood

Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1918 to a Jewish family from Rovno, Ukraine. His grandmother insisted his first name to be Louis, but his parents always called him Leonard, as they liked the name better. He had his name changed to Leonard officially when he was sixteen. His father, Sam Bernstein, was a businessman, and initially opposed Bernstein's interest in music. Despite this, the elder Bernstein frequently took him to orchestra concerts. One time, Bernstein heard a piano performance and was immediately captivated; he subsequently began learning the piano at a young age. As a child, Bernstein attended the Garrison and Boston Latin School.

College

After graduation from Boston Latin School in 1935, Bernstein attended Harvard University, where he studied music with Walter Piston, and then the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where his teacher of conducting was Fritz Reiner. During his time at Curtis, Bernstein also studied piano with Isabella Vengerova and Heinrich Gebhard.

Legacy

He is highly regarded as a conductor, composer, pianist, and educator, and probably best known to the public as long-time music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, for conducting concerts by many of the world's leading orchestras, and for writing the music for West Side Story. All told, he wrote three symphonies, two operas, five musicals, and numerous other pieces.

In November 1943, he made his debut as a conductor when Bruno Walter was ill, and was an immediate success. In 1945, Bernstein was named Music Director of the New York City Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 1947. Also in 1947 he conducted in Tel Aviv (then in Palestine), for the first time, beginning a life-long association with Israel. After World War II Bernstein's career on the international stage begain to flourish. In 1949 he conducted the world première of the Turangalîla-Symphonie by Olivier Messiaen. In 1957, he conducted the inaugural concert of the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv; he subsequently made many recordings there. During the 1960s, he became a well-known figure in the US through his series of "Young People's Concerts" for US public television.

On Christmas Day, December 25, 1989, Bernstein conducted Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 as part of a celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The concert was broadcast live in more than twenty countries to an estimated audience of 100 million people. For the occasion, Bernstein reworded Friedrich Schiller's text of Ode to Joy, substituting the word "freedom" (Freiheit) for "joy" (Freude). "I'm sure that Beethoven would have given us his blessing", said Bernstein.

Bernstein was a highly-regarded conductor among many musicians, in particular the members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he was a regular guest conductor. He was considered especially accomplished with the works of Gustav Mahler, Aaron Copland, Johannes Brahms, Dmitri Shostakovich and of course his own. He had a gift for rehearsing an entire Mahler symphony by acting out every phrase for the orchestra to convey the precise meaning, and of emitting a vocal manifestation of the effect required, with a subtly professional ear that missed nothing.

Bernstein married Felicia Montealegre, a Chilean actress, in 1951 and with her had three children. Montealegre participated in the performance of Bernstein's third symphony, "Kaddish", with the New York Philharmonic in the 1960's, as the speaker (a role originally performed by the legendary Israeli actress Hanna Robina.)

Bernstein died just five days after retiring. He conducted his final performance at Tanglewood, in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, on August 19, 1990. It was the Boston Symphony playing Britten's "Four Sea Interludes" and Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.

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Musicians - Leonard Bernstein

Biography

Childhood

College

Legacy

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