BERNSTEIN, LEONARD  

The American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein had a strong influence on American musical taste, particularly in his championing of Mahler. In some works, notably in West Side Story, a modern American version of Romeo and Juliet, he attempted a synthesis of American musical styles.

Stage

Works Popular compositions of Bernstein include the ballet-score Fancy Free and the overture to his comic opera Candide, in addition to West Side Story.

Orchestral Works

Bernstein wrote three symphonies, his second symphony, The Age of Anxiety, based on the work of the English poet W.H. Auden.The Jeremiah Symphony of 1943, with its mezzo-soprano solo, represents a religious vein in Bernstein's music.

Choral Works

The Jeremiah Symphony was followed twenty years later by another overtly Jewish work, the so-called Kaddish Symphony. The Chichester Psalms were commissioned for Chichester Cathedral in the South of England. His theatrical setting of the Roman Mass may be mentioned by the side of his later Missa brevis, based on his own incidental music for a play by Jean Anouilh.