10 episodes
| Series | Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20050530 | Presented from NEW YORK, Leonard Bernstein's biographer Humphrey Burton introduces highlights from Bernstein's music for Broadway. The programme includes excerpts from the Jerome Robbins' ballet Fancy Free (1944) , the musical On the Town (1944) and JM Barrie's play Peter Pan (1950), for which Bernstein wrote the songs. With contributions from, among others, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Bernstein's collaborators and lifelong friends. | |||
| 20050531 | More music from Bernstein's Broadway years, presented by Humphrey Burton from NEW YORK. Today, excerpts from the one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti (1952), a study in domestic discord composed on his honeymoon, and Wonderful Town (1953), a blissfully nostalgic evocation of Greenwich Village in the swing era, starring Rosalind Russell. Guests in Manhattan include Seymour Lipkin who conducted the premier of Tahiti, and producer Harold Prince who worked as a stage manager on Wonderful Town. | |||
| 20050601 | Humphrey Burton continues his survey of Bernstein's work for Broadway, with excerpts from the satirical operetta Candide (1956) and incidental music for The Lark (1955), his earlier collaboration with the playwright Lillian Hellman. In NEW YORK, Humphrey Burton's guests include the poet Richard Wilbur who wrote many of Candide's lyrics, and in LONDON, Denis Quilley who sang Candide in the first LONDON production. | |||
| 20050602 | Humphrey Burton presents excerpts from Mass (1971), the Jerome Robbins ballet the Dybbuk (1974) and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (1976), Bernstein's ill-fated collaboration with Alan Jay Lerner. Among today's guests are the composer's daughter, Jamie Bernstein Thomas, who has performed in Mass, and Patricia Routledge, who played the First Lady in the original production of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which she described as a diamond studded dinosaur. | |||
| COTW | 05 LAST | leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990) | 20050603 | Humphrey Burton rounds up his week on Broadway with Bernstein's most popular work, West Side Story (1957). With the book by Arthur Laurents, choreography by Jerome Robbins and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, the team was in Sondheim's words "a unique concatenation of people". With contributions from the orchestrator Sid Ramin, a friend of Bernstein's since childhood, and producer Ruth Mitchell, production manager on the original production. |
| 20080310 | Despite his prowess on the podium, Bernstein considered himself to be first and foremost a composer. The programme explores his early influences, from weekly visits to the local synagogue in Boston to his years as a student at Harvard University. A chance meeting with Aaron Copland led to Bernstein's entree into New York's elite cultural circles. Shivaree London Philharmonic Orchestra Jorge Mester (conductor) Hashkiveinu Hans Peter Blochwitz (tenor) Christopher Bowers-Broadbent (organ) BBC Singers Arnal Ital (conductor) Seven Anniversaries Leonard Bernstein (piano) Symphony No 1 (Jeremiah) Christa Ludwig (mezzo-soprano) Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Leonard Bernstein (conductor) I Hate Music! Jennie Tourel (mezzo-soprano) Leonard Bernstein (piano). | |||
| 20080311 | Donald Macleod looks at how Bernstein was catapulted into the limelight after taking the baton at the last minute in place of the ailing Bruno Walter in a broadcast with the New York Philharmonic. There is also a profile of Bernstein's beloved Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and a recording of his Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, first performed in the composer's second appearance on the television programme Omnibus. I Am Easily Assimilated (Old Lady's Tango from Candide) Old Lady....Christa Ludwig (mezzo-soprano) London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra Leonard Bernstein (conductor) Serenade (after Plato's Symposium) (1st and 2nd mvts) Itzak Perlman (violin) Boston Symphony Orchestra Seiji Ozawa (conductor) Symphony No 2 (Age of Anxiety) (Part 2) Lukas Foss (piano) Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Leonard Bernstein (conductor) Prelude, Fugue and Riffs Benny Goodman (clarinet) Columbia Jazz Combo Leonard Bernstein (conductor) Glitter and be Gay (Candide, Act 1) Cunegonde....June Anderson (soprano) London Symphony Orchestra Leonard Bernstein (conductor). | |||
| 20080312 | Donald Macleod considers why Bernstein's name has long been associated with the cultural fabric of New York City, from his lifelong relationship with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to his success on Broadway. There is music from On the Town and West Side Story and the speaking voice of the composer's devoted wife Felicia performing in part two of his third symphony Kaddish. New York, New York (On the Town) Adolph Green, John Reardon, Cris Alexander (vocals) On the Town Dances New York Philharmonic Orchestra Leonard Bernstein (conductor) Tonight (America - West Side Story) Anita....Tatiana Troyanos (mezzo-soprano) Rosalia....Louise Edeiken (mezzo-soprano) Riff....Kurt Ollmann (baritone) Maria....Kiri Te Kanawa (soprano) Tony....Jose Carreras (tenor) Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Leonard Bernstein Din-Torah (Symphony No 3) (Kaddish) Felicia Montealegre (speaker) Jennie Tourel (mezzo-soprano) New York Philharmonic Orchestra Leonard Bernstein (conductor). | |||
| 20080313 | Donald Macleod examines a turbulent period in Bernstein's life, when his seemingly idyllic existence was threatened. The composer blamed his wife Felicia for his Broadway flop 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue - after she had apparently encouraged him to work with its librettist. Then there was the period when he left his wife briefly for his assistant Thomas Cothran. Bernstein's relationship with Cothran resulted in their collaboration on Songfest - A Cycle of American Poems, which is played here in its entirety. Take Care of this House (1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) Frederica von Stade (mezzo-soprano) National Symphony Orchestra Leonard Bernstein (conductor) Songfest - A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra Clamma Dale, Rosalind Elias, Nancy Williams, Neil Rosenshein, John Reardon, Donald Gramm (soloists) National Symphony Orchestra of Washington Leonard Bernstein (conductor) Presto (Three Meditations for Cello and Orchestra, Mass) Mstislav Rostropovich (cello) Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Leonard Bernstein (conductor). | |||
| COTW | 05 LAST | 20080314 | Donald Macleod explores how Felicia Bernstein's death in June 1978, not long after the reconciliation with her husband, left a gaping void in Bernstein's life. Bernstein began contemplating his own mortality and much of the music from his final decade is autobiographical, including a song cycle named after a remark by President Eisenhower - who preferred music with a good tune, 'not all them Arias and Barcarolles'. Arias and Barcarolles: Prelude; Love Duet; Little Smary; Greeting Judy Kaye (soprano) William Sharp (baritone) Michael Barrett, Steven Blier (piano) Divertimento for orchestra Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop (conductor) A Quiet Place (Postlude to Act I) ORF-Symphinie-Orchester Leonard Bernstein (conductor) Diaspora Dances (Concerto for Orchestra, Jubilee Games) Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Leonard Bernstein (conductor) Missa Brevis Simon Baker (countertenor) Richard Benjafield, Chris Brannick (percussion) BBC Singers Justin Doyle (chorus master). |