Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from Westside Story

Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from Westside Story

We're back! Welcome to Season 10!

Leonard Bernstein to his wife: "These days have flown so -- I don't sleep much; I work every -- literally every -- second (since I'm doing four jobs on this show -- composing, lyric-writing, orchestrating and rehearsing the cast). It's murder, but I'm excited. It may be something extraordinary. We're having our first run thru for PEOPLE on Friday -- Please may they dig it!." Westside Story ran for 732 performances, spawned a movie that won 11 Academy Awards, and is still a go to on every list of the greatest Broadway Musicals ever written. The collaboration between Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Jerome Robbins was a revolution on par with the collaborations of Stravinsky, Diaghilev, and Nijinsky with the Rite of Spring. Simply put, no Broadway show had ever been so gritty, so tragic, and so raw. This was a musical, a comedy, a tragedy, a political statement, and most importantly, a stunningly revolutionary work of art by these collaborators. And today, I want to tell you about the music, and more specifically, the Symphonic Dances from Westside Story; an arrangement that Bernstein made with his colleague Sid Ramin 3 years after the show's premiere. The Symphonic Dances brought Bernstein's electric music from the theatre to the concert stage, and it's stayed there ever since. So today, we'll go through each number, talking about just what makes this music so great, and also about the show itself - its background, its production, and the issues that Bernstein, Laurents, Sondheim, and Robbins were trying to tackle, all through the eyes of a tale of woe about Juliet and her Romeo, or of course, Maria and Tony. Join us!

Episoder(284)

Copland Symphony No. 3

Copland Symphony No. 3

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An Exploration of Klezmer Music w/ Abigale Reisman

An Exploration of Klezmer Music w/ Abigale Reisman

Klezmer music has always been very close to my heart, even as a classical violinist. During the pandemic I attempted to learn Klezmer clarinet, and soon I began collaborating with the great Klezmer(an...

14 Mar 202456min

Schumann Symphony No. 3, "Rhenish"

Schumann Symphony No. 3, "Rhenish"

In 1850, Robert Schumann accepted a position as the new Music Director in Dusseldorf. This job had a lot of responsibilities, including conducting the city orchestra. Schumann, along with his wife, th...

29 Feb 202454min

Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 59, No. 1

Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 59, No. 1

In 1806, the 36 year old Beethoven received a commission from the Russian ambassador in Vienna, Count Andreas Razumovsky. Razumovsky wanted a set of string quartets for what would soon be his house st...

15 Feb 202458min

Ethel Smyth Serenade in D

Ethel Smyth Serenade in D

I've mentioned Ethel Smyth a few times in the past on this show. This is partly because of her music, and partly because she remains one of the most interesting people who ever lived. She was a compos...

1 Feb 202448min

Dvorak Cello Concerto

Dvorak Cello Concerto

When you think of the genre of the concerto, you might be thinking of something like this: virtuoso fireworks, perhaps over romantic gestures designed simply to show the soloist off, and a rather pede...

18 Jan 202448min

Dvorak Symphony No. 9, "From the New World" - LIVE with the Aalborg Symphony!

Dvorak Symphony No. 9, "From the New World" - LIVE with the Aalborg Symphony!

I had the great joy to do my first ever live edition of Sticky Notes last month with the Aalborg Symphony in Denmark. For this concert, I chose a piece that is extremely close to my heart, Dvorak's Ne...

16 Nov 20231h 42min

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