4CD set celebrating the work of the hugely influential composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein.
“The violence is senseless, but Bernstein's score makes us feel what we do not understand” - The Washington Post review of ‘West Side Story’.
Composer, conductor, concert pianist, cultural icon and visionary, who's admiration for Lennon and McCartney (“The Beatles were the best songwriters since Gershwin.”) was almost as great as his regard for the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. Leonard Bernstein's versatility was legendary. In this one supremely gifted man, all the great currents of twentieth century music were to collide and ferment in a rich stylistic melting pot.
In 1944, he burst onto the stage with the exciting jazz ballet ‘Fancy Free’, and proceeded to captivate Broadway with three big musicals: ‘On The Town’, ‘Wonderful Town’ and the monumental ‘West Side Story’ (co-written with the gifted young lyricist Stephen Sondheim), while teasing Hollywood with his score for Marlon Brando's On the Waterfront, which - like the stage productions - offered an eloquent musical portrait of life and love in New York.
This edition includes both the 1944 and 1956 recordings of ‘Fancy Free’, alongside Bernstein's symphonic suite of the themes from On the Waterfront, the historic original cast recordings of each of the musicals; complemented by jazz interpretations of their most enduring songs performed by - amongst others - such giants as Bill Evans, Frank Sinatra, Dave Brubeck and Oscar Peterson.
