Featured Work
On the Town (1944)
The first Bernstein/Robbins collaboration, Fancy Free, premiered on April 1944, and was an unqualified success. The ballet launched Bernstein's composing career and spawned the musical comedy On the Town.
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The Leonard Bernstein Office (LBO) sustains and strengthens Leonard Bernstein’s legacy by inspiring global engagement with his work as a composer, conductor, educator, and humanitarian. Through licensing, promotion, music editing, and publishing, the LBO strives to communicate his lifelong devotion to the transformative power and joy of music.
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Thus Spake Leonard Bernstein:
"I suppose the easiest composer to interpret from a conductor’s point of view is Mahler.. you can never be in any doubt about what he wanted.
Music is very difficult to write down exactly the way you hear it in your mind. But Mahler, being a conductor himself, put in not only many marks like bowings, etc. that a conductor would normally put in, but also a lot of words and verbal instructions...if the contrabassoon cannot play this note pianissimo, you could substitute a tuba, and so on...So, what I mean about the Mahler ninth being easy to conduct is the fact that you cannot possibly misunderstand Mahler’s intentions."
-Leonard Bernstein
Interview with Helena Matheopoulos, 1979