Thirty-five years after Leonard Bernstein\u2019s death, the critics are still arguing over the meaning and impact of his legacy.\u00a0 What is clear, however, is that the world rarely enjoys the genius of someone who excels supremely in so many artistic endeavors.\u00a0 Pianist, conductor, television personality, teacher, mentor, social gadfly, and composer of both popular musical theatre and \u201cserious works,\u201d Bernstein wore all hats with avidity.\u00a0\u00a0 And he enjoyed stunning success in most.\u00a0 He had a passion about everything that he essayed, whether conducting the Mahler that he loved so well, or in his many teaching roles, helping audiences \u201cpeel\u201d apart the mysteries of music.\u00a0 He knew so much, and could do so much, that he genuinely thought that he could do it all.\u00a0 His leadership of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and other orchestras is legendary, but everyone knows there were some concerts that, frankly, got away from him in his self-indulgence.\u00a0 He worked assiduously as a composer of \u201cserious\u201d music, but those works\u2014from youthful successes to his late efforts–have enjoyed only mixed success.\u00a0 All that says is simply that he was human.\u00a0 Other than his epochal conducting, there is one field in which he garnered almost universal acclaim, and that is musical theatre.\u00a0\u00a0 When all is said and done, he possessed a talent and a facility for the stage that was as deep as it was prolific.\u00a0 He understood the genre and its demands well.<\/p>\n
He plunged in early, writing for student productions at Harvard, and working with a cabaret group (that included Judy Holiday) while a student at the Curtis Institute.\u00a0 When he was twenty-six, his ballet Fancy Free<\/em> was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera and On the Town<\/em> opened on Broadway.\u00a0 Wonderful Town<\/em>, Peter Pan<\/em>, Facsimile<\/em>, Candide<\/em>, and, of course, West Side Story<\/em>, followed in succession. \u00a0\u00a0But, the music that Bernstein provided for Fancy Free <\/em>was the beginning.\u00a0\u00a0 The ballet is by the giant of choreography, Jerome Robbins, and went on to be reincarnated that same year (1944) as the Broadway musical On the Town.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 The Broadway show subsequently was made into a film in 1949; however, most of Bernstein\u2019s music was thrown out by Hollywood as too \u201ccomplex and operatic.\u201d\u00a0 Those who have seen the show in any of its versions will easily remember the simple premise of the plot:\u00a0 three sailors on liberty in New York City, looking for female companionship, engage in a series of ritual dances of courtship, competing for the affections of the girls, all the while romping through the remarkably diverse cityscape of the \u201cBig Apple.\u201d<\/p>\n Bernstein extracted the three subject dances from the musical, and the concert piece was given its premi\u00e8re by the San Francisco Symphony early in 1946. Taken together, the three dances are a marvelous period piece of New York urban musical culture circa 1944.\u00a0\u00a0 The young Bernstein, totally smitten with the energy of his adopted city\u2014especially the swing, blues, and bebop jazz of the time\u2014put it all into the show.\u00a0 Stir into this a completely obvious and conscious adoption of the musical style of the young Bernstein\u2019s musical idol and mentor, Aaron Copland, and you have accounted for most of what you hear.\u00a0 All cities constantly change, and there\u2019s not a lot of the present New York City of today in On the Town<\/em>\u2014of course.\u00a0 Jazz has changed and not many composers write like Copland, today, but it\u2019s all well done, and infectiously appealing.\u00a0 Upon the occasion of its revival in 1971, the drama critic of the New York Times snarkily wrote:\u00a0 \u201cThe music…has worn less well, too many of the nostalgic ballads sound like sub-Puccini filtered through Glenn Miller.\u201d\u00a0 But, never mind.\u00a0 It\u2019s New York!\u00a0 It\u2019s Leonard Bernstein! And memorably, it\u2019s \u201cNew York, New York, it\u2019s a helluva town!\u201d<\/p>\n The first dance, \u201cThe Great Lover,\u201d is the Act I scene with our hero, the sailor, Gabey, early in the day (the whole show is set in a single day) asleep on a subway car, after having seen a poster of the beauty queen of the rails, \u201cMiss Turnstile,\u201d and dreaming of wooing her. \u00a0The punchy, dissonant accents over a jazzy, frantic tempo perfectly depict the sleepy sailor valiantly trying to get forty winks on the lurching, noisy New York subway.\u00a0 A variety of short, melodic \u201clicks\u201d punctuate the relentless tempo.\u00a0 Some are jazzy, and some are just plain banal\u2014all reflective of the kaleidoscopic thoughts of the sailor. And, of course, throughout, the familiar metrical displacements and accents of Copland inform the young composer\u2019s score.\u00a0 Each of the dances is dedicated to someone from the production, and the first dance is dedicated to none other than the ballerina, Sono Osata, who was \u201cMiss Turnstiles.\u201d<\/p>\n The second dance, \u201cLonely Town,\u201d is a short little pas de deux<\/em> between a worldly sailor and a young high-school girl encountered Central Park.\u00a0 While surely occurring in the daytime, it has an almost nocturnal, melancholic mood. \u00a0In Bernstein\u2019s words: it\u2019s \u201cboth tender and sinister\u201d as the sailor woos her, and then callously casts her off. \u00a0It adroitly evokes the almost desperate, hopelessness under the circumstances of the two souls having anything but a fleeting relationship.\u00a0 It is dedicated to one of the immortals of American musical theatre, Betty Comden, who wrote the show, along with Bernstein, and her long-term professional partner, Adolf Green.\u00a0 And\u2014while Bernstein wrote the great tune in the dance, any informed music lover who was unfamiliar with the show, would understandably think it was composed by Aaron Copland, so perfect is the evocation of the latter\u2019s musical style.<\/p>\n The last dance is dedicated to the great Nancy Walker, a member of the original cast\u2014you know her from a thousand appearances on fifties and sixties TV, not to mention her indelible performance as the waitress in the Bounty paper towel commercials. \u00a0It\u2019s called \u201cTimes Square Ballet,\u201d and a better depiction of that mad, tourist-crammed, light show cannot be imagined. \u00a0Our sailors meet to embark on a night on the town, go to the famous Roseland Dance Palace, and, well\u2014do what sailors do.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Opening with a jazzy, solo clarinet, the dance quickly segues to the evergreen, \u201cNew York, New York,\u201d and after a slow down and a rhythmic change to swing time, a solo saxophone contributes its own transformation of the famous tune.\u00a0 Anything goes in the city, and apparently anything goes in the music, too, so, we hear a rather stylized rendition of what seems to be a chicken-clucking fiddle tune, in the best vaudeville style.\u00a0 A growling trumpet leads to what appears to be the aftermath of a bit too much to drink, followed by a crashing, rhythmically-layered conclusion, in the best Bernstein style.\u00a0 Not a bad way to start a fantastic career.<\/p>\n –Wm. E. Runyan<\/p>\n \u00a9 2016 William E. 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