![]() He studied conducting with Fritz Reiner, a man who believed in mastering every detail of every piece. To strengthen his technical skills, he spent a year of intensive training at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. After the experience, Bernstein was determined to make music the center of his life. At a reception the next day, Mitropoulos heard Bernstein play a sonata, and he was so moved by the young man’s abilities that he invited him to attend his rehearsals. Bernstein’s heart sang when he saw the bald Greek man gesture with his bare hands, exuding a rare kind of enthusiasm for every score. In 1937, he attended a Boston Symphony concert conducted by Dmitri Mitropoulos. After graduating, Lenny entered Harvard University, where he studied music theory with Arthur Tillman Merritt and counterpoint with Walter Piston. He attended Boston Latin School, where he met his first real teacher and his lifelong mentor, Helen Coates. The young Bernstein found inspiration everywhere and played with a voracity and spontaneity that impressed anyone who listened. He was a natural from the start, and by the time his bar mitzvah rolled around, his father was impressed enough to buy him a baby grand piano. Determined, the boy raised his own small pot of money to pay for a few sessions. Lenny loved everything about the instrument, but his father refused to pay for lessons. His Aunt Clara was going through a divorce and needed a place to store her massive upright piano. ![]() It was at the age of 10 that Leonard first played piano. Leonard grew up understanding that business and success were paramount, and “occupations” in the field of music and art were simply off-limits. ![]() He eventually built a rather profitable business distributing beauty products. He eventually got a job sweeping floors in his Uncle Henry’s barbershop and then landed a position stocking wigs for a dealer. Once he arrived and settled on New York City’s Lower East Side, the elder Bernstein took up working as a fish cleaner. His father, Sam Bernstein, was a Russian immigrant who in his native Ukraine was destined to become a rabbi. His birth name was Louis, the name his grandmother adored, but his family always called him Leonard or Lenny, which he officially renamed himself when he was 16. Leonard Bernstein was born on August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. After battling emphysema, he died at the age of 72. ![]() He composed the score for the musical West Side Story. He was one of the first American-born conductors to lead world-class orchestras. Inspired and voracious in his conducting style, Leonard Bernstein got his big break conducting the New York Philharmonic in 1943. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |