The biography of Leonard Bernstein began in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was the son of Ukrainian Jews Jenny (nee Reznik) and Samuel Joseph Bernstein, a wholesaler of cosmetics. Both parents were from Rivne (now Ukraine).
early years
His family often lived in their summer home in Sharon, Massachusetts. His grandmother insisted that the boy be named Louis, but his parents always called him Leonard. He legally changed his name to Leonard when he was fifteen, shortly after his grandmother died. To his friends and many others, he presented himself simply as "Lenny."
At a very young age, Leonard Bernstein heard a pianist and was immediately captivated by this bewitching music. Subsequently, he began to seriously study the piano after his family acquired the piano of his cousin Lillian Goldman. Bernstein attended Harrison Grammar School and Boston Latin School. As a child, he was very close to his younger sister Shirley and often played whole operas and symphonies with Beethoven with her on the piano. In his youth, he had many piano tutors, including Helen Coates, who later became his secretary.
University
After graduating from the Boston Latin school in 1935, the future conductor Leonard Bernstein attended Harvard University, where he studied music under the direction of Edward Burlingham Hill and Walter Piston. The greatest intellectual influence at Harvard on Bernstein was probably made by aesthetics professor David Prall, whose multidisciplinary view of art, the great composer shared the rest of his life.
Bernstein also met with conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos at that time. Although he never taught Bernstein, the charisma and power of Mitropoulos as a musician had a great influence on his decision to conduct. Mitropoulos was not stylistically close to Leonard Bernstein, but he probably influenced some of his later habits, and also instilled in him an interest in Maler.
Adulthood
After graduation, the future conductor lived in New York. He shared an apartment with his friend Adolf Green and often performed with him, Betty Comden and Judy Halliday in a comedy troupe called Revolutionaries, which performed in Greenwich Village. He rented premises from a music publisher, transcribed music and created arrangements under the pseudonym Lenny Amber. (“Bernstein” in German “amber”, as well as “amber” in English) In 1940, he began his studies at the summer institute of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Tanglewood in the class of orchestral conductor Serge Kusevitsky.
Bernstein’s friendship with Copland (who was very close to Kusevitsky) and Mitropoulos was beneficial, as it helped him gain a place in the classroom. Perhaps Kusevitsky did not teach Bernstein the basic style of conducting (which he had already developed under Reiner), but instead became for him a kind of father figure and perhaps instilled in him an emotional way of interpreting music. Bernstein then became assistant to the conductor Kusevitsky and later dedicated his Symphony No. 2 “The Age of Anxiety” to him.
Carier start
On November 14, 1943, recently appointed assistant conductor of Arthur Rodzinsky from the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, he made his main debut as soon as possible - and without any rehearsal - after the guest conductor was unable to perform due to the flu. The program included works by Schumann, Miklos Rog, Wagner and Don Quixote by Richard Strauss with soloist Joseph Schuster, solo cellist of the orchestra. Before the concert, Leonard Bernstein talked with Bruno Walter, fluently discussing the upcoming difficulties in work. The next day, The New York Times published this story on its front page and noted in an editorial: “This is a good American success story. A warm, friendly triumph filled Carnegie Hall and spread through the air. ” He immediately became famous because the concert was broadcast through CBS Radio throughout the country, and then Bernstein began to act as a guest conductor with many American orchestras.
At the head of the orchestra
From 1945 to 1947, Bernstein was the music director of the Symphony Orchestra in New York, which was founded by conductor Leopold Stokowski. The orchestra (with the support of the mayor) was aimed at a different audience than the New York Philharmonic, with more modern programs and cheaper tickets.
Further career
Bernstein was a professor of music theory from 1951 to 1956 at Brandeis University, and in 1952 he organized the Festival of Creative Arts. He staged various productions at the first festival, including the premiere of his opera Anxiety in Tahiti and the English version of Kurt Weil's Three-Foam Opera. The festival was renamed in honor of him in 2005, becoming the Leonard Bernstein Festival of Creativity. In 1953, he was the first American conductor to appear at La Scala in Milan, conducting the orchestra during a performance by Maria Callas in the Medea of Cherubini. Kallas and Bernstein then worked together many times. Recalling that period, biographers call Leonard Bernstein's most famous work, West Side Story.
In 1960, Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic held the Mahler festival, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the composer. Bernstein, Walter and Mitropoulos organized and conducted all the performances of the festival. The composer's widow, Alma, attended some of Leonard's rehearsals. In 1960, he made his first commercial recording of Mahler’s symphony (fourth), and over the next seven years he worked on the first full-fledged recordings of all of Mahler’s nine completed symphonies. They were all represented by the New York Philharmonic, except for the 8th Symphony, which was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra for a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1966. The success of these recordings, along with Bernstein's concerts and television broadcasts, determined the revival of interest in Maler in the 1960s, especially in the United States.
Bernstein also liked the Danish composer Karl Nielsen (whom few knew in the United States then) and Jean Sibelius, whose popularity had begun to fade by then. As a result, he nevertheless recorded the full cycle of Sibelius symphonies and three Nielsen symphonies (No. 2, 4 and 5), and also recorded his violin, clarinet and flute concerts. He also recorded the 3rd Nielsen Symphony at the Royal Danish Orchestra after his widely known public performance in Denmark. Bernstein also performed with the repertoire of American composers, especially those with whom he was close, such as Aaron Copland, William Schumann and David Diamond. He also began more actively recording his own compositions for Columbia Records. This included his three symphonies, his ballets and symphonic dances from West Side Story with the New York Philharmonic. He also released his own 1944 music album, On The Town, the first almost complete recording of the original, featuring several members of their old Broadway troupe, including Betty Comden and Adolf Green. Leonard Bernstein also collaborated with experimental jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck.
Leaving the Philharmonic
After leaving the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein continued to appear with her for many years until his death, touring together in Europe in 1976 and in Asia in 1979. He also strengthened his relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic - he recorded with them all of Mahler’s nine completed symphonies (plus the adagio from the 10th symphony) from 1967 to 1976. They were all recorded for Unitel, with the exception of the 1967 recording, which Bernstein recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra at Elys Cathedral in 1973. In the late 1970s, the composer and conductor played and recorded Beethoven’s complete symphonic cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic, and in the 1980s Brahms and Schumann cycles were to follow.
Work in Europe
In 1970, Bernstein decided to star in a ninety-minute program filmed in and around Vienna during the celebration of Beethoven’s 200th anniversary. It presents fragments of rehearsals and performances by Bernstein for Otto Schenck Fidelio's concerts. In addition to Bernstein conducting the 1st piano concert during the game of the Ninth Symphony performed by the Vienna Philharmonic, the young Placido Domingo also performed as a soloist. The show, originally titled Beethoven's Birthday: A Holiday in Vienna, won an Emmy and was released on DVD in 2005. In the summer of 1970, during the London Festival, he played Verdi's Requiem in St Paul’s Cathedral with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Last years
In 1990, Leonard Bernstein received the international prize “Premium Imperial”, awarded for his lifetime achievements in art. The composer used a prize of $ 100,000 to create the Bernstein Education Foundation (BETA), Inc. He provided this grant to develop an art education program. Leonard Bernstein Center was created in April 1992 and initiated extensive research in the field of musical theory, as a result of which the so-called “Bernstein model” was developed, as well as a special art training program named after the great composer and director.
On August 19, 1990, Bernstein performed as a conductor in Tanglewood, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under his direction played The Four Sea Interludes by Benjamin Britten and Peter Grimes, as well as Beethoven Symphony No. 7. He was seized with a severe coughing fit during the third part of Beethoven's symphony, but Bernstein, nevertheless, continued to conduct the concert until its completion, leaving the stage during a standing ovation. Less than two months later, Leonard Bernstein’s musical works were “orphaned” - their creator, according to the official version, died of lung cancer.
Personal life
The intimate life of the great conductor and composer causes a lot of controversy in terms of its moral assessment. All official short biographies of Leonard Bernstein agree that he was 100% homosexual and married only for career advancement. All his colleagues and even his wife knew about his sexual orientation. Toward the end of his life, he decided that he could no longer lie to himself and everyone else, and moved to his then-partner - music director Tom Kontran. Quotes by Leonard Bernstein, on which one could more clearly judge his personal life, have not been preserved.