Composers Datebook®

Bernstein's air-conditioned urban jungle

Composers Datebook for August 19, 2019
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Synopsis

If you were in Washington, D.C. on today's date in 1957, and wanted to escape the summer heat, tickets for a new musical at the air-conditioned National Theater would run you between $1.10 and $5.50 — and you could boast for years afterwards that you attended the world premiere performance of Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story."

Actually, the three-week trial run of "West Side Story" at DC's National Theater was a hot ticket. The premiere attracted a fashionable crowd of Washington elite as well as those who trained or planed their way to the national's capitol to catch the latest work of America's musical "boy wonder" — the 38-year old Leonard Bernstein.

Even so, The Washington Post reported Bernstein was able to wander the lobby at intermission largely unrecognized — to eavesdrop on audience reaction. One woman who did recognize him identified herself as a former social worker in a rough neighborhood like the one depicted in his musical. "It's all so real, so true," she told Bernstein. "It chills my blood to remember." Bernstein was a little taken aback. "It isn't meant to be realistic," he said. "Poetry — Poetry set to music — that's what we were trying to do."

But gang violence as the subject for a musical was shocking to 1957 audiences. When the show opened on Broadway, the New York "Times" expressed its impact as follows: "Although the material is horrifying, the workmanship is admirable… 'West Side Story' is a profoundly moving show."

Music Played in Today's Program

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) Prologue, fr West Side Story orchestra and chorus: Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG 415 255

On This Day

Births

  • 1813 - American composer and journalist, William Henry Fry, in Philadelphia (see also August 10);

  • 1881 - Rumanian composer, violinist, and conductor Georges Enesco (Enescu), in Liveni-Virnaz;

Deaths

  • 1929 - Russian ballet impressario Sergei Diaghilev, age 57, in Venice;

Premieres

  • 1952 - Ginastera: ballet "Estancia," in Buenos Aires;

  • 1957 - Bernstein: musical "West Side Story," as a trial run in Washington, D.C. at the National Theater, choreography and direction by Jerome Robbins, conducted by Max Goberman; The show opened in New York City at the Winter Garden on September 26, 1957;

  • 1961 - Peggy Glanville-Hicks: opera "Nausicaa," in Athens, Greece;

  • 1988 - Lutoslawski: Piano Concerto, at the Salzburg Festival in Austria;

Others

  • 1990 - At Tanglewood, Leonard Bernstein conducts the Boston Symphony in Britten's "Three Sea Interludes" from "Peter Grimes" and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 at his last concert appearance before his death; On the same program, Carl St. Clair conducted a performance of Bernstein's "Arias and Barcarolles" (as orchestrated by Bright Sheng); The Bernstein-led performances from this concert have been issued on compact disc on the Deutsche Grammophon label.

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About Composers Datebook®

Host John Birge presents a daily snapshot of composers past and present, with timely information, intriguing musical events and appropriate, accessible music related to each.

He has been hosting, producing and performing classical music for more than 25 years. Since 1997, he has been hosting on Minnesota Public Radio's Classical Music Service. He played French horn for the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestra and performed with them on their centennial tour of Europe in 1995. He was trained at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Eastman School of Music and Interlochen Arts Academy.

About Composers Datebook®
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