Bernstein, Leonard

Leonard Bernstein

The definitive biography of one of the most influential, flamboyant, and multifaceted musical talents of the 20th century, a man whose concert hall performances inspired generations of musicians and music lovers, and whose theatrical triumphs dazzled Broadway.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Leonard Bernstein: The Last Ten Years

The Private World of Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein: In Love With Music (Lerner Biographies)

Findings

This brilliant and revealing self-portrait collects Bernstein's private notes, letters, essays, and musical writings to convey, as never before, the incredible energy, talent, and genius of a man who has confirmed the maturity and originality of American music. Over 100 photos.

Leonard Bernstein: Notes from a Friend

A conversational, intimate memoir of a friendship between the great maestro and a noted music scholar. This is not a dry and academic biography, but an informal portrait of a musical genius--with warm, personal glimpses of the human side of Bernstein, what he was like to work with and live with.

Leonard Bernstein (20th-Century Composers)

Leonard Bernstein, the latest in Phaidon Books's 20th Century Composers series, continues this workmanlike, readable collection of modern biographies, designed to fit all the essentials into fewer than 250 pages each. Author Paul Myers, a former record producer for Decca, Columbia, and Naxos, has composed a fond but clear-eyed look at this prodigal talent with the prodigal lifestyle. His excesses as well as his triumphs are examined, and his homosexuality is candidly discussed, but the book never descends to the tabloid-like depths of some other biographies of the composer of West Side Story, Candide, Trouble in Tahiti, and other works, both serious and less than serious. Myers himself seems to belong to the camp that holds that Bernstein deserved recognition primarily as a composer of important works, as opposed to mere entertainments. He is, moreover, perhaps too generous in his examination of such things as Mass, which was performed at the opening of the Kennedy Center, and is very much a souvenir of its time (the early 1970s) and place (the world of fashionable liberalism), and hard to listen to today as a result. But he discusses both Bernstein's triumphs as a conductor and composer and his failures in work and life fairly. This is a good, readable biography, a worthwhile introduction to Bernstein's life, and a good starting place for those who want more details. --Sarah Bryan Miller

Despite international fame and success, conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein (1918-90) was a man constantly struggling with inner conflicts and public criticism. However, he is still considered one of the most important musical figures of the second half of the 20th century and a major influence on musical life in Europe and America. This book chronicles his extraordinary rise to fame.

Leonard Bernstein: A Life

The most insightful and engrossing work we have had from the widely admired biographer of Frank Lloyd Wright ("Captivating ... The reader comes away with an understanding of Wright as a man as well as an architect" -- Washington Post Book World ... "Spellbinding" -- Boston Globe), of Bernard Berenson ("Authoritative and fascinating" -- Philip Toynbee, The Observer ... "A memorable opus" -- Sir Harold Acton), and of Kenneth Clark ("Splendid, enthralling" -- Wall Street Journal).

Here is Leonard Bernstein, full scale and fully alive -- the child prodigy, the man, the composer, the teacher, the hugely charismatic personality, the lover, the American folk hero.

Everything is here: the child growing up in a Hasidic family in Massachusetts, his father a rabbi's son; his first piano at age nine ("I remember touching it ... It was my contact with life, with God"); his reluctant, brilliant, argumentative years at Harvard; the rocky but exhilarating start of his career (scant jobs, no money, but friendships with Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Judy Holliday, Comden and Green, et al.); his spectacular debut (understudy into a star!) as substitute conductor at the New York Philharmonic; the great career over the years as a composer in classical music (the Kaddish Symphony, Chichester Psalms, Songfest), and in musical theater (On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide, West Side Story, Mass, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue).

We see Bernstein: the good father to his three children, the man who adored his wife, Felicia Montealegre, the man who adored men, the brilliant and generous mentor, the temperamental artist, the hypochondriac, the politician, the businessman, the Pied Piper ...

His life, his music, the great international cultural world in which he traveled, are richly and vividly portrayed in this magnificent biography, alive with music -- and with life.

Leonard Bernstein: All-American Musician (Rookie Biography)

Examines the life and career of the famous composer, conductor, pianist, and teacher.

Leonard Bernstein: Composer and Conductor (Ferguson Career Biographies)