BERNSTEIN ON BROADWAY

Bernstein's most popular and best-loved melodies from West Side Story, Candide & On the Town. Featuring the composer as conductor in West Side Story, one of the greatest musicals of all time, and in Candide, a visionary work with a dazzling score. Bernstein protégé Michael Tilson Thomas conducts On the Town. Featuring all-star casts, with artists including José Carreras, Kiri Te Kanawa, Marilyn Horne, Thomas Hampson, Christa Ludwig, Frederica von Stade, June Anderson, and Jerry Hadley. 

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) was a man of many roles – composer, conductor, pianist, musical educator – a man hailed by pianist Arthur Rubinstein as a “universal genius”. A charismatic communicator, he had few equals when it came to enthusing others about music. Whether at festivals such as Tanglewood in the US or Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany, in a TV studio or in a university lecture hall, Bernstein’s presence, passion and unquestioned commitment to his art were palpable.

That same intensity also characterised his work as a performer. A number of his recordings still have reference status – his Mahler cycle, for instance, or Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Bernstein himself at the piano. The son of a Ukrainian immigrant, he knew no musical boundaries: he played jazz, engaged with Jewish folk traditions, and was as at home on Broadway as he was in Europe’s venerable opera houses. In his own music seriousness stands cheek by jowl with satire, musical with Mass, the modern with the traditional. His reinterpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth as an “Ode to Freedom” in Berlin, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was simply unforgettable. Less than a year later, he died of cancer.