Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein was born Louis Bernstein on August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, to Jewish parents of Russian and Ukrainian heritage, Jennie Resnick Bernstein and Samuel Joseph Bernstein. His parents called him Leonard, and he legally changed his name when he was 16. To friends and many others, he was “Lenny.” He grew up in and around Boston, attending the William Lloyd Garrison School and Boston Latin School, where he and classmate Lawrence F. Ebb wrote the class song.

Music entered his life first through Friday nights at Congregation Mishkan Tefila in Roxbury. At 10, after his Aunt Clara left an upright piano at the family home, Bernstein asked for lessons. His father at first opposed a musical career and refused to pay for lessons, so the boy taught neighborhood children instead. Samuel Bernstein later changed his mind, taking his son to orchestral concerts and supporting his studies. A 1932 Boston Pops concert conducted by Arthur Fiedler, where Bernstein heard Ravel’s Boléro, made a strong impression. George Gershwin was another early influence, and Bernstein marked Gershwin’s death in 1937 by playing his second Prelude at summer camp.

Bernstein entered Harvard College in 1935 and studied music with figures including Edward Burlingame Hill and Walter Piston. His first surviving composition, Psalm 148 for voice and piano, dates from that year. He majored in music and wrote a senior thesis, “The Absorption of Race Elements into American Music,” later reproduced in his book Findings. At Harvard, aesthetics professor David Prall shaped his thinking, and Bernstein composed and conducted music for Donald Davidson’s production of Aristophanes’ The Birds, performed in the original Greek.

He became one of the most important conductors of his time and the first American-born conductor to receive international acclaim. He was also the first American-born conductor to lead a major American symphony orchestra, and he served as music director of the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein conducted major orchestras around the world and left a large body of audio and video recordings. He was especially interested in the music of Gustav Mahler and became a key figure in its modern revival. A skilled pianist, he often conducted piano concertos from the keyboard.

As a composer, Bernstein worked across symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theater music, choral works, opera, chamber music, and piano pieces. His best-known stage work, West Side Story, continues to be performed worldwide and was adapted into feature films in 1961 and 2021. His other works include three symphonies, Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium), Chichester Psalms, the score for Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront, and theater works such as On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide, and Mass. His honors included seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, 16 Grammy Awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award, an Academy Award nomination, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981.

Bernstein also used his public voice outside the concert hall. He supported civil rights, protested the Vietnam War, advocated nuclear disarmament, raised money for HIV/AIDS research and awareness, and worked on international initiatives for human rights and world peace. He brought classical music to broad audiences through broadcasts such as Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic. In 1989, he conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Berlin to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bernstein died in New York on October 14, 1990, at 72, of a heart attack brought on by mesothelioma. His words still carry because they came from the same source as his music: public feeling, restless intelligence, and a belief that art belonged to everyone.