Leonard Bernstein's Something's Coming from West Side Story - Essay Example

Leonard Bernsteins "Somethings Coming" from West Side Story The life of Bernstein Leonard Bernstein is an American music composerand conductor who was born in 1918, and went ahead to win a worldwide acclamation for being a successful composer, conductor, musician, author, and pianist (Burton, 72). On top of his work as a musician, he was also a music lecturer, and his fame first grew out of working with some of the most famous orchestras. Even so he became popular for his role in the music composition of the Westside story in addition to the fact that he is the first conductor to ever give numerous television musical lectures starting 1954 until his death in 1990 (Simeone, 36). His skills in playing the piano was also unmatched, thus he conducted numerous piano concertos from the keyboard. Additionally, he is famed for his ability to write music in a variety of musical style, including theatre music, orchestral music, film, opera music, piano and choral music (Rozen, 13). He developed interest in music early in his life, and his father was opposed to his interest in music, but he eventually approved it and even started taking his son to music concerts in his teenage years, and he eventually supported his education in the field of music (Secrest, 27). He developed interest in music through listening to a piano that was acquired for his cousin being played, and he immediately developed the interest to play the piano. Thus, after his high school graduation in 1935, he joined Harvard University, where he enrolled to study music, and in his final year, he fully majored in music thesis (Rozen, 7). During his years as a student, he successfully engaged in the student production of “The Cradle Will Rock”, which he directed from the piano (Secrest, 51). The early major influences on Leonard Bernsteins music life include his professor at Harvard, David Prall, who introduced him to a multidisciplinary outlook on the arts, which he applied throughout his music career, thus being able to write music in different musical styles. Another major influence on Leonard Bernstein was the influence of composer Marc Blitzstein, who did not only influence him musically, but also politically (Burton, 77). However, there are two notable influences on Leonard Bernstein’s music career, both in conducting and composing, which gave him a lifeline of success in both these two musical aspects. First, it is the influence of the music conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos, who never taught Bernstein any music lessons, but his music power and charisma influenced Bernstein’s decision to take up music conducting as a career, most especially regarding his interests to conduct from the keyboard and conducting without a keyboard (Secrest, 22). Secondly, the music composer Aaron Copland became an influential figure in Leonard Bernstein’s music career, although he did not teach him music composition formally. Bernstein always sought the advice of Copland in relations to the formation of his own music compositions, and he later cited him as the only real composition teacher that he ever had (Secrest, 24). His skills in music were also advanced through formal training, both in the Curtis Institute of Music and the Boston Symphony Orchestras Institute, where he learnt conducting music formally, meeting Serge Koussevitzky in the later institution, who influenced him majorly in the emotional style of interpreting music (Rozen, 18). Koussevitzky developed a close relationship with Bernstein, and eventually picked him as his assistant in conducting music in the institution. Nevertheless, his rise into the limelight as a success story came when he was appointed the assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, by making a sudden but major conducting debut after the main conductor during the concert on November 1943 went down with flu (Secrest, 44). Therefore, Leonard Bernstein stepped up to conduct the orchestra concert that was being broadcast nationally, and his impressive performance during the concert immediately saw him rise to the hall of fame, simply because he was granted the conducting role in the orchestra in a sudden notice, and without ant rehearsal (Secrest, 44). This success story was carried by the The New York Times the next day, and ever since, he started appearing as guest conductor in different orchestras in the USA. His career started flourishing internationally after the end of Second World War. He eventually rose to the position of a visiting music professor at Brandeis University between 1951 and 1956, after which he took the position of the director of the New York Philharmonic in 1956, having joined the orchestra as its conductor (Burton, 63). He became even well-known in America during his tenure as the conductor of the Young People’s Concerts that was being televised on CBS between 1958 and 1972, where he became famous for his education work as well as his role as the principle conductor (Rozen, 11). He maintained connection with this group until his death in 1990. The chordal structure/ music theory structure of Something’s Coming - West Side Story The West Side Story is an American musical that was formulated in 1957, with an input of various music professionals, specializing in different aspect of the musical formulation. Thus, Something’s Coming forms the music part of this musical, and was composed by Leonard Bernstein (Wells, 44). Leonard Bernstein composed Something’s Coming music, and then Stephen Sondheim composed the lyrics for this music that told the story of ‘Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, where the music applied the story of gang rivalry, as opposed to the family rivalry originally applied in the story ‘Romeo and Juliet (Squidoo, n.p.). The music Something’s Coming was developed from lighter versions of opera jazz, and the music entails singing, acting and dancing. The style of the music Something’s Coming is based on the Jazz harmony style, which was a popular genre in between 1930s and 1950s, when the music was composed (Wells, 46). The structure of the Something’s Coming is a solo tenor, which is then accompanied by a band that is made up of brass, percussion, woodwind, and strings (Davenant Performing Arts.org.uk, 4). The performance of the song by the band has the ability to overpower the solo singer, and to prevent this, the accompaniment uses an instrumentation arrangement comprising of quiet dynamic and soft timbres such as the use of pizzicato strings and muted trumpets. The harmonic structure of the song Something’s Coming comprises of the string harmonics which applies very high notes, and the play tremolo, which comprises of very quick notes (Squidoo, n.p.). The melodic structure of the music Something’s Coming is entirely syllabic, applying three major themes. The opening first theme is the quiet and syncopated theme, followed by the second loud strident theme that starts at bar 21 and then the final third lyrical slow-moving theme, that is first heard at bar 73 (Davenant Performing Arts.org.uk, 14). The whole melodic formulation of the music is such that the three melodic themes are alternated a number of times throughout the musical. However, the alternations are not exact, and Leonard Bernstein keeps changing some aspects of the melodic themes, such as the words or the metre, which constantly changes from 3/4 to 2/4 (Davenant Performing Arts.org.uk, 12). The music is characterized by cross rhythms. The accompaniment of the music is largely made up of on-beat bass part with offbeat chords, which creates the cross rhythm. The rhythm of the music Something’s Coming is also created through changes of the metre, and alternation of the three different music themes serves to create fast tempo and frequent syncopations, which in turn helps to create a rhythm that arouses excitement and anticipation in equal measure (BBC, n.p.). The harmony of the Something’s Coming’ music is tonal and jazz-influenced, created by the frequent use of the seventh chord and other note neapolitan chords, which in turn creates the homophonic structure of the song (Squidoo, n.p.). The breathy and excited mood of the music is repeated and helps to create the ‘Push’ rhythm anticipating the beat (Squidoo, n.p.). The harmony and tonality of the music Something’s Coming is characterized by the use of the key D major with a systematic moderation to C major, coupled with the application of blue notes and tritone cords (Davenant Performing Arts.org.uk, 34). However, the contrasting C major is only applied in two sections of the music. In both keys, the music frequently uses the sharpened fourth and the flattened seventh notes, which then creates the tritone intervals characteristic of the Something’s Coming music that acts as the unifying feature of the overall Westside story musical (BBC, n.p.). The combination of the sharpened fourth and the flattened seventh notes also serves to create an unusual feature of the notes that is unresolved, under which the music then fades, creating a feeling of incompletion and thus eliciting high expectation (Wells, 72). How Something’s Coming’ is a staple of American Musical Theatre The Something’s Coming’ music remains a staple of American Musical Theatre, because it emerged as a cutting edge musical compared to other musicals of the theater in America. This occurred as a result of the introduction of several new elements in the musical, which had not featured in the previous theater musicals. First, the Something’s Coming’ music introduced the dark theme that is rooted in violence and tragedy, through a seamless connection of the music to lyrical singing, dancing and acting (Wells, 96). Further, the Something’s Coming’ music introduced the long and extended musical play to accompany and convey the scenes in the drama in the Westside story performance. However, the most important characteristic of the Something’s Coming’ music is that it introduced the sophisticated synthesis of the classical and the jazz idioms, in a way that was not previously done by other theatre musicals (Simeone, 61). In this respect, the Something’s Coming’ music managed to focus on the social problems and the tensions in the contemporary American society, thus emerging as a staple of American musical theatre (Simeone, 63). Works Cited BBC. “Music in the 20th Century: Something’s Coming - West Side Story”, 2009. Retrieved April 19, 2014, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/music/music_20th_century/music_theatre2.shtml Burton, Humphrey. Leonard Bernstein. New York: Doubleday, 1994. Print. Davenant Performing Arts.org.uk. “Something’s Coming” from west side story (Leonard Bernstein, 1958). 1-70. Print. Rozen, Brian. The Contributions of Leonard Bernstein to Music Education: An Analysis of his 53 Young Peoples Concerts. Thesis (PhD). Rochester, New York: University of Rochester, 1997. Print. Secrest,Meryle. Leonard Bernstein A Life. Alfred A. Knopf, 1994. Print. Simeone, Nigel. Leonard Bernstein, West Side Story. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2009. Print. Squidoo, LLC. “Leonard Bernstein: ‘Something’s Coming’ from West Side Story (1958)”, 2014. Retrieved April 19, 2014, from http://www.squidoo.com/leonard-bernstein-something-s-coming-from-west-side-story-1958 Wells, Elizabeth A. West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2011. 44-123. Print. Read More