Leonard Bernstein‘s centenary has been particularly healthy for his legacy as a composer. While “West Side Story” has been an uninterrupted success since its premiere in 1957, it also became almost like a mortgage that Bernstein spent the rest of his years paying off with other creative struggles. His compositional talent, which lay in a fluency with eclecticism and a natural feel for melody, was given to him in an era where serious music was by default serial. The works he wrote after leaving the New York Philharmonic in 1969 were regularly panned in the newspapers.
Opera Vernacular
An interview with Stephen Wadsworth
