Experiencing Leonard Bernstein: A Listener's Companion

by Kenneth LaFave

Overview

Leonard Bernstein is a household name. Most know him for his classic musical reworking of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as Broadway's West Side Story. But Bernstein accomplished so much more as a composer, and his body of work is both broad and varied. He composed ballets (Fancy Free, Facsimile, Dybbuk), operas (Trouble in Tahiti, Candide, A Quiet Place), musicals (On the Town, Wonderful Town), film scores (On the Waterfront), symphonies, choral works, chamber music pieces, art songs, and piano works. In Experiencing Leonard Bernstein: A Listener's Companion, Kenneth LaFave guides readers past Bernstein's famously tortured personal problems and into the clarity and balance of his Serenade after Plato's Symposium for Violin and Orchestra, the intense drama of his music for On the Waterfront, the existential cosmography of his three symphonies, and his vibrant works for the musical stage. Perhaps the most famous American classical musician born in the twentieth century, Bernstein divided his time between c

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442235441
Publisher:	Stackpole Books
Publication date:	06/14/2023
Series:	Listener's Companion
Sold by:	OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	221
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Kenneth LaFave, former music critic for the Arizona Republic and the Kansas City Star, composes, teaches, and writes about music. The Phoenix Symphony, the Chicago String Quartet, and the Kansas City Chorale have commissioned scores from him, and his essays and reviews have appeared in NewMusicBox.org, Opera News, and Dance magazine. LaFave was a pit musician for the workshop production of Leonard Bernstein’s last (unfinished) musical, The Race to Urga.

Table of Contents

Series Editor Foreword
Acknowledgments
Timeline
Introduction
Chapter 1: Father, Son, and Music
Chapter 2: Celebrity
Chapter 3: Age of Anxiety
Chapter 4: Trouble In Tahiti and Wonderful Town
Chapter 5: On The Waterfront and Serenade After Plato’s Symposium
Chapter 6: Candide
Chapter 7: West Side Story
Chapter 8: Kaddish and Chichester Psalms
Chapter 9: Mass and the Norton Lectures
Chapter 10: Last Works And Legacy
Selected Reading
Selected Listening
Index
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

On the next-to-last page of his survey of Leonard Bernstein’s compositions, LaFave says, 'I fully expected Bernstein the composer to shrink' as the book burgeoned. The reverse occurred. Bernstein’s music revealed more and more structural glories, such as the informing use of the tritone in West Side Story, as well as an overall profile at once traditional and avant-garde. Bernstein clung to tonality and argued against atonal and 12-tone composition per se while exemplifying how to use 12-tone rows within tonal works. He leaped into the orchestral percussion revolution that led to minimalism, and he pioneered injecting pop-music styles, performance techniques, and instruments (electric guitar, Hammond organ) into otherwise classical orchestral and singing ensembles to produce the sui generis Mass, 'the best-selling multiple-disc classical recording in the industry’s history.' LaFave’s greater-than-anticipated enthusiasm for his subject shows in the liveliness of his engrossing readings of Bernstein’s scores, which include thorough plot précis of the composer’s dramatic works, including the musicals, the movie On theWaterfront, Mass, and even the violin concerto Serenade after Plato’s Symposium (based on a drama of sorts, after all). Reading his descriptive analyses seems the next-best thing to attending actual performances—quite an achievement for a series book.” —Booklist, Starred Review

“'The Listener's Companion' series in which this book appears is meant to provide accessible, user-friendly information on prominent composers, performers, and music artists. A music journalist and working composer and musician, LaFave knew Bernstein personally and so is able to present him in a very different light than could a musicologist or even an avid scholar. LaFave takes a chronological approach to Bernstein's life and musical career, analyzing influences, people, and his compositions in a straightforward and approachable fashion. Bernstein is presented in all of his facets, both positive and negative, and the reader gets the sense that the author is sitting down and narrating Bernstein's life in person. There is a time line of important events in Bernstein's life at the beginning of the book and a selected reading and listening list at the end. A refreshing approach to the life and works of a great 20th-century American composer, conductor, and musician. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.” —Choice Reviews

“The premise of this book is that one experiences Leonard Bernstein largely through his own compositions, and Kenneth LaFave makes it clear that this was a view of himself Bernstein cherished. There is no shortage of available biographical material for and studies of the most-publicized American musician of the second half of the last century and, though LaFave explicitly says this is not a biography, he equally explicitly says one cannot understand Bernstein’s music without some knowledge of that biography, and that is what he undertakes here. Each piece he discusses is given its biographical position and its interpretation as a reflection of Bernstein’s thought and life at that moment. In LaFave’s telling, the composer Bernstein was intimately bound up with the person Bernstein, and that union was expressed by 'faith,' perhaps the most-common descriptive word in this book, and the word LaFave works hardest to give content to. . . .LaFave’s prose is everywhere effusive and ebullient.” —Fanfare Magazine

“Experiencing Leonard Bernstein: A Listener's Companion is an excellent book for every music lover who wishes to know the works of Leonard Bernstein. The book invites you to listen to his compositions. (Translated from the original Dutch)” —Opera Nederland

From the Publisher

On the next-to-last page of his survey of Leonard Bernstein’s compositions, LaFave says, 'I fully expected Bernstein the composer to shrink' as the book burgeoned. The reverse occurred. Bernstein’s music revealed more and more structural glories, such as the informing use of the tritone in West Side Story, as well as an overall profile at once traditional and avant-garde. Bernstein clung to tonality and argued against atonal and 12-tone composition per se while exemplifying how to use 12-tone rows within tonal works. He leaped into the orchestral percussion revolution that led to minimalism, and he pioneered injecting pop-music styles, performance techniques, and instruments (electric guitar, Hammond organ) into otherwise classical orchestral and singing ensembles to produce the sui generis Mass, 'the best-selling multiple-disc classical recording in the industry’s history.' LaFave’s greater-than-anticipated enthusiasm for his subject shows in the liveliness of his engrossing readings of Bernstein’s scores, which include thorough plot précis of the composer’s dramatic works, including the musicals, the movie On theWaterfront, Mass, and even the violin concerto Serenade after Plato’s Symposium (based on a drama of sorts, after all). Reading his descriptive analyses seems the next-best thing to attending actual performances—quite an achievement for a series book.

Starred Review Booklist

'The Listener's Companion' series in which this book appears is meant to provide accessible, user-friendly information on prominent composers, performers, and music artists. A music journalist and working composer and musician, LaFave knew Bernstein personally and so is able to present him in a very different light than could a musicologist or even an avid scholar. LaFave takes a chronological approach to Bernstein's life and musical career, analyzing influences, people, and his compositions in a straightforward and approachable fashion. Bernstein is presented in all of his facets, both positive and negative, and the reader gets the sense that the author is sitting down and narrating Bernstein's life in person. There is a time line of important events in Bernstein's life at the beginning of the book and a selected reading and listening list at the end. A refreshing approach to the life and works of a great 20th-century American composer, conductor, and musician. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.

Choice Reviews

Experiencing Leonard Bernstein: A Listener's Companion is an excellent book for every music lover who wishes to know the works of Leonard Bernstein. The book invites you to listen to his compositions. (Translated from the original Dutch)

Opera Nederland

The premise of this book is that one experiences Leonard Bernstein largely through his own compositions, and Kenneth LaFave makes it clear that this was a view of himself Bernstein cherished. There is no shortage of available biographical material for and studies of the most-publicized American musician of the second half of the last century and, though LaFave explicitly says this is not a biography, he equally explicitly says one cannot understand Bernstein’s music without some knowledge of that biography, and that is what he undertakes here. Each piece he discusses is given its biographical position and its interpretation as a reflection of Bernstein’s thought and life at that moment. In LaFave’s telling, the composer Bernstein was intimately bound up with the person Bernstein, and that union was expressed by 'faith,' perhaps the most-common descriptive word in this book, and the word LaFave works hardest to give content to.. . .LaFave’s prose is everywhere effusive and ebullient.

Fanfare Magazine

'The Listener's Companion' series in which this book appears is meant to provide accessible, user-friendly information on prominent composers, performers, and music artists. A music journalist and working composer and musician, LaFave knew Bernstein personally and so is able to present him in a very different light than could a musicologist or even an avid scholar. LaFave takes a chronological approach to Bernstein's life and musical career, analyzing influences, people, and his compositions in a straightforward and approachable fashion. Bernstein is presented in all of his facets, both positive and negative, and the reader gets the sense that the author is sitting down and narrating Bernstein's life in person. There is a time line of important events in Bernstein's life at the beginning of the book and a selected reading and listening list at the end. A refreshing approach to the life and works of a great 20th-century American composer, conductor, and musician. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.

Choice

'The Listener's Companion' series in which this book appears is meant to provide accessible, user-friendly information on prominent composers, performers, and music artists. A music journalist and working composer and musician, LaFave knew Bernstein personally and so is able to present him in a very different light than could a musicologist or even an avid scholar. LaFave takes a chronological approach to Bernstein's life and musical career, analyzing influences, people, and his compositions in a straightforward and approachable fashion. Bernstein is presented in all of his facets, both positive and negative, and the reader gets the sense that the author is sitting down and narrating Bernstein's life in person. There is a time line of important events in Bernstein's life at the beginning of the book and a selected reading and listening list at the end. A refreshing approach to the life and works of a great 20th-century American composer, conductor, and musician. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.

CHOICE