This chapter examines Bernstein’s complicated relationship with the Soviet Union. Born four years before the creation of the Soviet Union and dying eleven months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, his life story, including his rise to global prominence, paralleled the history of the Soviet republics. As an American of Ukrainian heritage, the composer had personal ties to the region. I examine these family connections and their complexities; his lifelong interest in Russian classical music; his period of attraction to Communism as an ideology, its consequences, and his statements in support of US–Soviet peace; and his 1960 cultural-diplomacy-related tour of the USSR with the New York Philharmonic. Ultimately, I argue that the United States’ relationship with the USSR had a profound impact not only on his family life and conducting career, but also on his attitudes to music-stylistic choices.

Although Leonard Bernstein wrote music in a variety of genres and styles, he was unusual in that he consistently created music infused with a Jewish flavour, whether consciously or not, throughout his career. Bernstein’s Jewish background has provided ample fodder for numerous articles and books, but most scholars are unaware of the true significance of his childhood synagogue in Boston, Congregation Mishkan Tefila. Its rabbi, Herman Rubenovitz (1883−1966), the cantor, Iszo Glickstein (1891−1947), and especially its music director, Solomon Braslavsky (1887−1975), made a lifelong impression on Bernstein. Mishkan Tefila served as the venue for some of Bernstein’s earliest piano performances, and he heard an organ and a choir here for the first time; it continued to serve as a Jewish anchor for him even as an adult. In the absence of early formal musical training, the synagogue became, in effect, Bernstein’s conservatory, and these three men his professors.

Gustav Mahler’s impact on Leonard Bernstein’s career is undeniable. Empathizing with Mahler’s dual role as conductor and composer, Bernstein commented that both he and Mahler led double lives. Bernstein continued emphasizing his connection to Mahler, notably in an essay entitled ‘Mahler: His Time Has Come’. Ultimately, his appreciation of Mahler’s music spanned a lifetime and Bernstein eagerly advocated for recognition of Mahler’s genius. This chapter focuses on three events during Bernstein’s New York Philharmonic years that illustrate the importance of Mahler to Bernstein’s tenure: the 1960 Mahler Festival, the 1963 death of John F. Kennedy, and the 1967 Mahler symphonic recordings. Although these three events are in no way all-encompassing of Bernstein’s efforts to reintroduce Mahler to the world, they outline the trajectory of the New York Philharmonic throughout the 1960s and show how Bernstein educated and inspired his audiences to a new appreciation of an old composer.

This is an examination of Leonard Bernstein’s impact as conductor and musical advocate. He was a champion of the works of Jean Sibelius and Gustav Mahler at a time when their work was unfashionable, bringing them to a much larger audience. The American composer he admired most was Aaron Copland, whose ’Connotations’ he led to open Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He was not in sympathy with most ‘12 tone’ music but did lead avant-garde works by the composers Lukas Foss, Elliott Carter, John Cage, and others. He conducted the world premiere of Olivier Messiaen’s ‘Turangalila Symphony’ in Boston in 1949 but never presented it again. He was an adept Straussian but only led the works composed before World War I. This was also his favourite period of Stravinsky’s work, although he added the three symphonies to his repertory in later years. On television, he led studies of rock and jazz. He conducted and recorded much of the standard repertory from the nineteenth century onwards, with only a few forays into Baroque and Classical-era music, with a particular emphasis on Haydn. There is some discussion of Bernstein’s podium manner and the conductors he influenced.

A large amount of Latin American popular, folk, and art music circulated in the United States during the twentieth century. It was not just popular music composers that had dialogue with it; classically trained composers such as Leonard Bernstein also did. However, more than the music tradition that Bernstein absorbed into his compositional language in works such as On the Town (1944) and West Side Story (1957), this chapter argues that Latin American music also served as a medium to express Bernstein’s ideas and feelings about the US socio-political and cultural landscape. Furthermore, the chapter shows that Bernstein’s dialogue and collaboration with Latin American composers at the Tanglewood Music Festival, conducting the New York Philharmonic during the Latin American tour (1958), and performing Latin American music works at the Young People’s Concerts (1958−72), all contributed to and enhanced his vision as a cultural broker.

Bernstein mentioned Kurt Weill on only a few occasions, and yet his career as a composer for the stage followed a similar path. In particular, he created works that transcend the boundaries between opera and commercial theatre, tackling socio-political topics while writing melodies that reached the mainstream. This chapter traces the influence of Weill on Bernstein, who encountered Die Dreigroschenoper as a college student and would go on to conduct the premiere of Marc Blitzstein’s English adaptation, The Threepenny Opera, in 1952. The specific aesthetic traits which Bernstein absorbed from Weill’s scores are illustrated through comparative analyses of numbers from Trouble in Tahiti, Candide and West Side Story with, respectively, Lady in the Dark, Die Dreigroschenoper and Street Scene. Motivic, harmonic and structural elements of intertextuality reveal that Weill’s formal experimentation tilled the soil for works of music theatre that could be both indigenous and worldly, sophisticated and accessible.

Although the concert hall was perhaps Bernstein’s first love, musical theatre was always very close to his heart, and this chapter explores his first three works written for the Broadway stage: On the Town (1944), Wonderful Town (1953) and Candide (1956). There is an exploration of the origin and context of each show, and of the collaborative processes behind their development, from the tight team-work of On the Town and Wonderful Town to the personnel problems of Candide. The author considers the wide variety of musical styles utilized by Bernstein, particularly his blending of ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ techniques and sounds. There is a discussion of how the stories and libretti of the three shows reflect aspects of the social, historical and political atmosphere of the time, and of the importance and influence of these early works.

Bernstein wrote five books during his life: The Joy of Music (1959), The Infinite Variety of Music (1966), Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts (1962), The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard (1976), and Findings (1982). The first four were part of his desire to make his lectures and commentary from his televised appearances available in written form and the fifth book is a compilation of mostly minor writings from throughout Bernstein’s life. This chapter is a summary of the contents of each of these books, with commentary on what the more substantial efforts tell us about the author’s musical philosophy. The major essay from Findings considered here at some length is Bernstein’s senior honours thesis written while a student at Harvard: ‘The Absorption of Race Elements into American Music’. Although better known as a conductor and composer, Bernstein’s writings are also important representations of his thinking.

YoshiharaAsiaBernstein’s reach in Asia was shaped by the US Cold War cultural diplomacy as well as the development of the recording industry that helped foster his reputation as a foremost American composer and conductor. His fame and popularity continued to grow in the context of the changing dynamics of US–Asian relations, including Japan’s rise as an economic superpower, American influence in South Korea following the Korean War, and the opening of China’s doors to the West with the end of the Cultural Revolution. Each of Bernstein’s seven tours in Asia, starting in 1961 and ending a few months before his death in 1990, was characterized by global geopolitics and economy as well as his relationship with corporate partners and sponsors. Bernstein also developed close relationships with Asian musicians whom he mentored and collaborated with, most notably Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa.

William Schuman and Leonard Bernstein met at a Boston train station in February 1939, when the Harvard student was tasked with picking up the Sarah Lawrence professor whose Second Symphony was being performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra that month. Over the next half-century, their bromance would blossom into a mutual admiration society and support system. The humour, warmth, lavish praise, and generous affection each man shared with the other fills the correspondence between the two, which comprises more than 100 letters, postcards, telegrams, and speeches, dating from 1939 to 1990, that are preserved among Schuman’s papers at the New York Public Library, Bernstein’s papers at the Library of Congress, and various other archives and libraries. This chapter provides an overview of these documents and showcases the importance of William Schuman in the professional and personal life of Leonard Bernstein.