How Leonard Bernstein reconciled the worlds of classical and popular music
One man above all embodies the 20th century struggle for supremacy between classical and popular music. Leonard Bernstein – composer, conductor, TV personality, concert pianist, educator and visionary – walked the tightrope between the two musical traditions long before the term 'crossover' was coined. Howard Goodall describes him as the 'musical gatekeeper of America's 20th century', saying: 'The music he composed over a 40-year career integrates classical with jazz and rock, sacred music from the Christian and Jewish traditions and European and South American rhythms.'
His great cultural landmark was West Side Story. This richly layered and ambitious musical reflected the reality of urban America, tackling challenging issues like racism, immigration and poverty which then, as now, were the everyday experience of many New York communities.
Bernstein started his career as a trainee conductor and, having been asked to stand in and conduct the New York Philharmonic for a radio performance one night at Carnegie Hall, became an instant success. After that, such was the international demand for his talents that he didn't have time to compose as much as he wanted to. He did, however, manage to write three symphonies. The first, Jeremiah, was strongly influenced by three contemporary European masters of the symphony: Shostakovich, Sibelius and particularly Mahler. Unlike Mahler, though, Bernstein did not hide his Jewish background, and the stylistic fusion evident in this first symphony was to become his hallmark. Written in 1942, Jeremiah was a cry of despair for the Jewish people whose future in Europe was becoming horrifyingly clear. The third movement includes a solo soprano singing texts in Hebrew from the Book of Lamentations.
Combining styles, influences and politics
In his second symphony, The Age of Anxiety, Bernstein brought together jazz and classical forms, sounding at one moment like Prokofiev, then Gershwin, Rachmaninoff and Duke Ellington. He developed this cross-fertilisaton of styles throughout his life.
His catalyst for moving into popular music was the dancer and choreographer Jerome Robbins who in 1943 suggested they work together on a modern ballet piece. The result was Fancy Free, which was later expanded to become the hit Broadway musical On the Town.
In the mid-1950s, Bernstein produced Candide, a comic opera based on Voltaire's 1758 satire, which was aimed at mocking Senator Joe McCarthy's notorious anti-communist witch hunts. Through this he introduced the techniques of opera to the popular musical. The result was West Side Story – a groundbreaking musical with great songs, marvellous lyrics by a very young Stephen Sondheim, and groundbreaking choreography by Jerome Robbins.
