Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrenceville, Massachusettes on
August 25, 1918. He was the first born child of Samuel and Jennie Bernstein, who lived in Boston, but had gone to Lawrenceville to visit some relatives.
Bernstein's parents had little knowledge of, or interest in classical music. The only records Leonard remembers hearing on his family phonograph when he was a child were the popular hit songs of the day, such as “
Barney Google” and “Oh by Jingo.”
For the most part, Leonard Bernstein was an unhappy child. He said, “
I was a miserable, terrified little child” (Musicians p.64). His family moved from town to town, during Bernstein's school days, not giving him a chance to make close friends or feel at home. Sadly, Bernstein's peers would make fun of and tease Bernstein. He was a very sickly child as he suffered from chronic asthma, rose fever, and hay fever. This pathetic child grew to be a very shy person. Leonard always had a heart for music, even as a young boy. As an eight year old, one morning, when he was sitting in the synagogue, the religious music of the choir and organ overwhelmed him by it's beauty and caused him to burst into tears. When Leonard and his family would visit their friends,
Leonard would sneak over to the piano and experiment. When he was eleven, his aunt sent her piano to his house for his family to keep for storage. “I made love to it right away” he recalled (Musicians p. 65). He could escape from all his frustrations and sadness by playing the piano. His parents didn't like the fact that he was always at the piano, they wanted him to concentrate on his school work. They thought of piano playing as a waste of time because it stood in the way of Leonard's learning his father's business, which they planned for him to eventually take over.
At the age of ten, Leonard found a piano teacher who would give him lessons for a dollar a lesson. But that teacher soon moved away and Leonard found himself paying another piano teacher three dollars a lesson out of his allowance. After more than a year of piano lessons that just weren't teaching him much, Leonard found a new, and th...
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... Bernstein has received such awards as the Albert Einstein
Commemorative Award in the Arts from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine; the John H. Finley Medal for service to New York City; the Golden European trophy, an annual award given to an outstanding figure in popular music; the
Datsun Award for “outstanding service to American music”; the Institute of
International Education Award presented by President Nixon; and the George
Foster Peabody Awards for his television programs.
Bernstein provided the music for four famous Broadway musicals with a superior amount of sophistication and technique. Often times, he would produce music with great humour and sentiment. Bernstein's great talents led him to author a few books in the 1960's. One of his most recent, famous collections of his music is used in the ever popular film West Side Story.
Leonard Bernstein was the “Renaissance man of twentieth century music.” Over the decades, Bernstein has been called one of the most charismatic and gifted personalities in the music of our times.
Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein is widely known not only as one of the greatest American conductors, but also as a composer whose creativity and passion was spread over a wide range. His social and cultural influences helped shape his career into a musical icon and his music rekindled the American spirit. Above all, he will be remembered as one of the most amazing and influential musical personalities of the twentieth century. In the following paper I will be exploring the beginning of
not unfounded. However, Leonard Bernstein's rise to international fame proved that one cannot neglect American composers in a discussion of the development of Western music. Combining elements of a vast array of musical styles, Bernstein's unique compositions reached a wide variety of audiences and often bridged gaps between distinct musical genres. Through his long conducting career, profoundly influential compositional output, and televised music lectures, Leonard Bernstein left a lasting legacy
Written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, ‘West Side Story’ is a classic American musical based on William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. The through-composed score and lyrics are used to portray different characters and their cultures, the rivalry between the Jets and Sharks, and the emotions felt as the story progresses. This essay will be exploring the music and how effective the score is in realising the world and characters of the musical. Furthermore, it will discuss how Bernstein and
Leonard Bernstein was born on August 25, 1918. Bernstein's birth name was Louis, but his family always called him Leonard. At the age of 16 he legal changed his name to Leonard. Leonard grew up understanding that being a musician or artist was off limits. Leonard began playing piano at the age of 10. He had to save up his own money to pay for lessons, because his father refused to. Leonard, being a natural at the piano, impressed hi father enough that when his bar mitzvah came his father bought
Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts on August 25, 1918. As a young boy he took piano lessons while attending the Garrison and Boston Latin School. After he graduated high school he attended Harvard University, where he studied with several well-known piano players. The composers he studied with include but are not limited to: Walter Piston, Edward Burlingame- Hill, and A. Tillman Merritt. Before he graduated in 1939, he made an unofficial conducting debut with his on incidental
On Monday, October 16, 2017, I was honored to attend Leonard Bernstein Centennial Celebration in the June swagger gates concert hall at the University of Denver. The conductor in this concert was Joseph Martin and his assistant was Chris Ugolini. In this concert, there were several instruments used. Catherine Flinchum, Daniel Eng, Mari McCarville, and Rose Khorsandi were playing the flute. Chris leech and libra Bennett played the oboe. Max Arakaki, Leslie Kahler, Natalie Boggs, and Meggie Evans played
written the occasional pop song (with Jule Styne for Tony Bennett) and dabbled in films (Stavisky, Reds, Dick Tracy), but, like Hammerstein, he has always come back to the theatre. His initial success came as a somewhat reluctant lyricist to Leonard Bernstein on West Side Story (1957) and Jule Styne on Gypsy (1959). Exciting and adventurous as those shows were in their day, and for all their enduring popularity, Sondheim's philosophy since is encapsulated in one of his song titles: "I Never Do Anything
"Occasionally irritated, often enthralled, usually impressed, and constantly fascinated." -Critic Born in 1932 and dead 50 years later, the Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould is the most enthralling and enigmatic character classical music has ever seen. Gould was born in Toronto on September 25, 1932 to Florence and Bert Gould. Ever since he was born, he displayed a natural aptitude for piano, and started playing at just three years old. He demonstrated perfect pitch, as well as an uncanny ability
because even though it had been done before, it had never been done this well. Jerome Robbins had thought of an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet to a Broadway musical in 1949. He began discussions with librettist Arthur Laurents and composer Leonard Bernstein of a musical called East Side Story, with a plot concentrating on a Catholic girl and a Jewish boy. Other projects forced the work aside for six years, and when they returned to it, times had changed. Their idea became West Side Story, (another
setting. In 1949, choreographer Jerome Robbins decided to retell Brooke and Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy using song and dance, elements of racism and nationalism, and a modern vernacular. Robbins called upon the musical talents of composer Leonard Bernstein and the words of Arthur Laurents for the script and book. The love story proved to have universal appeal throughout all artistic forms, as it had already been adjusted for opera and ballet. The contemporary adaptation of this timeless classic
Leonard Bernstein was born into a family full of “constant fighting” between his parents—Russian immigrants Jennie and Samuel Bernstein (Peyser 21). His father escaped Ukraine at the age of sixteen and struggled in the United States, working menial jobs until he finally built a successful business in distributing beauty products (Peyser 20). Thus, Leonard grew up with the understanding that financial stability was essential to one’s future; therefore, to his parents, music and arts were a waste of
singers were professionals; others were volunteers. There were also instrumentalists including trombonists, percussionists, and cellists. The music was composed by Leonard Bernstein, one of the most famous composers of the 20th century. Leonard Bernstein was born in 1918 and died in 1990. Based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Leonard Bernstein set out to write one of his most well known works: “West Side Story”. “West Side Story” is a musical about a couple that was kept apart because of their families
Not for this I was born and then raised up. Unacquainted was I with such need. I once prayed to God, I was faithful. I once had a soul that knew peace. -from "Fallen," a Russian brothel song (Bernstein, 169) Prostitutes, women who sell their bodies for money, have been frowned upon since antiquity by most members of society. However, from as early as Rahab, the Whore of Jericho in the Old Testament who helped Joshua and his men regain the Promised Land, prostitutes have been portrayed as not
one characteristic that has always received praise. I pay particular attention to detail, which I believe has contributed to my success thus far. I take pride in my work, and I look at it as a representation of myself. In my position at Sanford Bernstein as a Consultant Liaison, I market my firm to the financial consulting community. Maintaining the integrity of the firm is vital and errors are disastrous. When training new group members, I stress this point most thoroughly. I work in a group
Coleman & Company. Thirteen months later, that company also began to fail, and I began to search for another path to advancement. With two strikes against me, I hit a home run and was hired by Sanford Bernstein into a challenging job with limitless opportunity for growth. After almost three years at Bernstein, I am once again seeking career advancement. My education and work experience have provided me with an excellent introduction to business, and they have sparked my interest in finance. Taking into