Stephen Schwartz entered Bernstein’s life at a crucial moment when the composer needed assistance in writing Mass, especially with the lyrics for English ‘tropes’ that transmit much of the show’s message and political commentary. Schwartz has stated that he also helped Bernstein develop the loose plot that ties Mass together as an organic whole, an assertion that has been accepted by the Leonard Bernstein Office. Bernstein and Schwartz were very rushed and worked through the score mostly in performance order with little time for revisions. This chapter includes biographical material on Schwartz before he worked on Mass and his recollections of which lyrics he wrote for the show, his opinions on Mass and the work’s continuing popularity, his memories of working with Bernstein, how Schwartz later revised his lyrics for Mass, and how he has felt the influence of the older composer in his own Broadway works.

This chapter describes Bernstein’s education, which prepared him well for his chosen activities. His primary and secondary education took place at William Lloyd Garrison School in Roxbury, MA, and his final six years at the demanding Boston Latin School. Bernstein then attended Harvard College, where he earned an A.B. in Music in 1939. His early life also included two hours of daily Hebrew study at the family’s temple from age eight until his Bar Mitzvah. In addition to his largely academic training in music at Harvard, Bernstein studied piano privately from age ten until his college graduation, and then for two years attended the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied conducting with Fritz Reiner and piano with Isabelle Vengerova, earning an M.M. His formal study and the many connections that he made while at Harvard and Curtis helped make possible Bernstein’s rapid success as a conductor and composer.

Few would argue the premise that Leonard Bernstein’s music sounds prototypically American. Most of his works include numerous passages that would only have been written by someone from the United States, especially one active from the 1940s to the 1980s. His frequent cultivation of musical tropes associated with various types of jazz, blues, Tin Pan Alley, rock, Latin music, and concert music by the likes of Aaron Copland help make Bernstein’s interest in an American sound perhaps the single most significant factor that defines his musical style. This chapter considers how that style developed in terms of when and how he discovered and incorporated major American musical styles. The musical influences blend with other inspirations from Jewish music and Western concert music to render Bernstein one of the most eclectic composers of his generation.

Bernstein wrote five books during his life: The Joy of Music (1959), The Infinite Variety of Music (1966), Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts (1962), The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard (1976), and Findings (1982). The first four were part of his desire to make his lectures and commentary from his televised appearances available in written form and the fifth book is a compilation of mostly minor writings from throughout Bernstein’s life. This chapter is a summary of the contents of each of these books, with commentary on what the more substantial efforts tell us about the author’s musical philosophy. The major essay from Findings considered here at some length is Bernstein’s senior honours thesis written while a student at Harvard: ‘The Absorption of Race Elements into American Music’. Although better known as a conductor and composer, Bernstein’s writings are also important representations of his thinking.

Leonard Bernstein's Songfest derives its connection to Washington, DC, from its premiere there in October 1977, in an all-Bernstein concert just after Mstislav Rostropovich had become music director of the National Symphony Orchestra. Commissioned as a bicentennial work, perhaps by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Bernstein completed Songfest too late for that purpose because he needed to work on the Broadway musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which closed quickly in May 1976. Songfest came at a critical juncture in Bernstein's personal life: in the summer of 1976 he decided that he would try to live as a gay man and left his wife of twenty-four years to be with Tom Cothran (1947–87). Cothran helped Bernstein choose the diverse texts set in Songfest, which include works by American poets from the seventeenth through twentieth centuries representing varied ethnic and personal backgrounds, a chance for Bernstein to show his support for Others in American society. He also used some texts that spoke to him powerfully at that moment. Nicholas Alexander Brown has called Songfest “one of the most poignant manifestations of Bernstein's beliefs.” The composer applied his characteristic eclecticism to the settings, producing a distinctive cycle of songs, now seldom heard, partly because it requires six vocal soloists with large orchestra. This essay considers the work's composition, the diverse themes of its texts, and Bernstein's eclectic music.

Bernstein was a lifelong liberal. As Barry Seldes has demonstrated, he “never deserted his progressivism.” Bernstein experienced the excitement of the American bicentennial, but he regarded it with ambivalence. His family had lived the immigrant American Dream. The parents, Samuel and Jenny Bernstein, came to the United States more or less penniless. His father started a barber and beauty supply business that allowed them to live comfortably and send their three children to fine universities. Although members of the family surely felt grateful for the opportunities afforded them in the United States, they also knew the sting of anti-Semitism. Leonard Bernstein flirted with Marxism as a young man and lent his name to many progressive and antifascist groups in the 1940s, activities that brought him to the attention of anticommunists. As discussed in chapter 3 of this volume, he had difficulty renewing his passport at the height of the McCarthy era.