大象传媒

Donald Macleod explores the extraordinary life of Leonard Bernstein; inexhaustible conductor, educator, performer and personality. Despite his prowess on the podium, Bernstein considered himself to be first and foremost a composer. The first 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.

Bernstein always seems to have been in the right place at the right time. Seven years to the day since meeting his mentor Aaron Copland, he gallantly took the baton at the last minute of the ailing Bruno Walter in a broadcast with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Thus Bernstein was catapulted into the limelight. Donald Macleod also explores his beloved Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and we'll hear 'Prelude, Fugue and Riffs', first performed in Bernstein's second appearance on the television programme 'Omnibus'.

'New York, New York, that helluva town' is the focus of this third programme. Bernstein's name has long been associated with the cultural fabric of the city, from his lifelong relationship with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to his success on Broadway. Donald Macleod features music from On the Town and West Side Story. We'll also hear the speaking voice of Bernstein's devoted wife Felicia performing in part II of his third symphony 'Kaddish'.

Bernstein's seemingly perfect life as a loving husband and father, an exceptional musical talent and an electric personality are in jeopardy in this fourth programme. Donald Macleod maps a category of bad events in Bernstein's life. He blamed his wife Felicia for his Broadway flop 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; she'd apparently encouraged him to work with its librettist. But Bernstein's affair with his assistant Thomas Cothran, for whom he momentarily left his wife, was a harsher blow. Bernstein's relationship with Cothran resulted in their collaboration on 'Songfest - A Cycle of American Poems'.

Donald Macleod discovers that Bernstein's final years were anything but quiet despite declining health with much of his work being autobiographical. Felicia Bernstein's death in June 1978, not long after the reconciliation with her husband, left a gaping void in Bernstein's life. He began contemplating his own mortality and leaving a legacy in his final decade is including a song cycle named after a remark by President Eisenhower who preferred music with a good tune, "not all them Arias and Barcarolles". Works featured in this programme include 'The Great American Opera' and 'A Quiet Place'.

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