Marriage

Donald Macleod finds Bernstein beginning married life as he flirts with Hollywood and hits the heights of his fame in America - starting a TV career and finding himself gracing the front cover of Time magazine.

Donald Macleod explores the life and music of Leonard Bernstein - one of the most iconic personalities in the musical life of America, and a key figure in the formation of the cultural identity of the United States. Over the course of this week, Donald discovers how Bernstein rose to conquer both the concert hall and the Broadway stage, and succeed both as conductor, and, more importantly for him personally, as composer.

We will explore Bernstein’s whirlwind life. A journey from a cocksure teenager giving piano lessons in his local neighbourhood to his studies at Harvard, where the connections he made – with the composer Aaron Copland and the conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos - prepared him, not as his father hoped, for a career in business, but instead for a life in music.

Donald also explores Bernstein’s friendship with the conductor Serge Koussevitsky and the events that led to his headline-grabbing success as a stand-in conductor for Bruno Walter in his mid-twenties. We'll also hear about his rise to prominence as a composer during the days of the Second World War with a pair of Broadway scores.

Donald also details Bernstein’s conflicted personal life – from his marriage to the actress and TV star Felicia Montealegre to his own TV career and his social life mixing with the celebrity set of New York City. And we’ll find out how his marriage hit the rocks as he underwent a difficult period in his personal life, like his hero Mahler, “like being two different men locked up in the same body”.

In Wednesday’s programme, we find Bernstein beginning married life as he flirts with Hollywood and hits the heights of his fame in America - starting a TV career and finding himself gracing the front cover of Time magazine. Also, he makes history with the New York Philharmonic!

Trouble in Tahiti -Prelude
Orchestre de Picardie
Pascal Verrot, conductor

Wonderful Town – Overture; Act II: Ballet at the Village Vortex; Wrong note rag
London Symphony Orchestra
Simon Rattle, conductor

Symphonic Suite from the film On the Waterfront
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Christian Lindberg, conductor

Prelude, Fugue and Riffs
Benny Goodman, clarinet
Columbia Jazz Combo
Leonard Bernstein, conductor

Facsimile - 1st movement
New York Philharmonic
Leonard Bernstein, conductor

Producer: Sam Phillips