Symphonic Dances from West Side Story . . . Leonard Bernstein
(Born August 25, 1918, Lawrence, Massachusetts; died October 14, 1990, in New York)

A most accomplished American musician/composer of the twentieth century, Leonard Bernstein was the Music Director of the New York Philharmonic and composed three symphonies and many other concert works, but one of his great loves, persisting since his youth, was the musical theater. The first of his Broadway musicals was On the Town, which was a hit of the 1944 season, when he was only twenty-six years old. After Wonderful Town (1953) and Candide (1956) came West Side Story, which was performed for the first time in 1957. In 1961, West Side Story was made into a film that was voted Best Film of the Year and won ten Oscars.

Based on an ancient story that is best known as Shakespeare told it in Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story is the tale of a young boy and girl whose love is thwarted by the enmity of the people around them. In this modern version, the young lovers are Tony and Maria. The feuding families of Shakespeare’s play, the Montagues and the Capulets, are transformed into two rival street gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, and the action is transferred from the streets of Verona to the West Side of Manhattan. The plot unfolds, allowing the rich melodies that characterize the characters and the situations in which they find themselves to pour forth.

The set of Symphonic Dances from West Side Story is, in effect, a long symphonic poem for a large orchestra on the subject of Tony and Maria after Romeo and Juliet. Bernstein sketched it in 1960 and orchestrated it in collaboration with Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, who had also worked on the original theatrical production of the show. The New York Philharmonic gave the first performance with Lukas Foss conducting on February 13, 1961. The following is an outline of the work.

In the Prologue (Allegro moderato) the growing rivalry between two teenage groups, the Jets and the Sharks, becomes evident.

Somewhere (Adagio) is a visionary dance sequence in which the two gangs are united in friendship.

In the Scherzo (Vivace leggiero) the gangs break through the city walls and suddenly find themselves in a world of space, air and sun.

Mambo (Presto) represents reality again and is characterized by a competitive dance between the gangs.

Cha-Cha (Andantino con grazia) finds the star-crossed lovers dancing together.

In the Meeting Scene (Meno mosso) music accompanies their first spoken words.


In Cool, Fugue (Allegretto) the Jets vent their hostility.


Rumble (Molto allegro) is a climactic gang battle in which the two leaders are killed.


In Finale (Adagio) love music develops into a procession, which recalls, in tragic reality, the vision of Somewhere.

The Symphonic Dances are orchestrated for flutes and piccolo, oboes and English horn, clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bassoons and contrabassoon, alto saxophone, horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, celesta, harp, piano and strings.

Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, in A minor, Op. 102 . . . Johannes Brahms
(Born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, in Vienna)

Brahms prematurely became con¬cerned about the fading of his creative force and wondered how he would spend his last years. In middle age, the composer assumed a harsh and severe attitude toward much of the world outside his work, a protective stance made necessary by his wish to preserve time and strength for composition. Brahms even quarreled with some of his oldest and most faithful friends. The composer’s disagreements with Clara Schumann were relatively easily smoothed over but a problem with the violinist, Joachim, was somewhat more difficult to mend.

The two men, friends since 1853, had kept in touch through the passing years even though their busy careers prevented them from meeting often, but after a letter from Brahms to Joachim’s wife was instrumental in defeating the violinist's divorce suit, they did not speak for several years. It was Brahms, surprisingly, who took the first steps towards reestablishing their friendship, and his peace-offering was this Double Concerto. It did succeed in patching up their friendship, but the old intimacy was never regained.

Why Brahms scored the “work of reconciliation,” as Clara Schumann called the concerto in her diary, for the unusual combination of violin and cello rather than for violin alone, is not clear. Perhaps Robert Hausmann, the cellist in Joachim’s quartet, had asked Brahms for a solo piece, and the composer was to use him as intermediary in reopening contact with the violinist. Perhaps the cello part was to be a cushion in case Joachim rejected Brahms’s proposal to renew their friendship. Brahms completed the concerto during the summer of 1887, in Switzerland, at Thun. He told a friend, to whom he habitually described his works in progress in deprecatory terms, that his “latest folly” was a “form of idiocy.” To Clara Schumann he admitted that he was having problems in writing for the soloists, but she replied encouragingly that as the composer of such fine sonatas for violin and for cello, he certainly knew how to deal with the instruments.

In the end, Brahms and Joachim together worked over the solo parts, making them more effective and more difficult to play than they first were. The two soloists are given all the time they need to display themselves individually, and when they play together, their music is often so richly textured that the listener could imagine them to be an entire string quartet. The concerto is Brahms’s last orchestral work, and the writing is as full as it is in any of his symphonies, which led to complaints after early per¬formances that the orchestra covered the soloists. Since then, musicians have learned how to balance these apparently unequal sono¬rous forces.

Hausmann joined Joachim in the first performances of the concerto. In September 1887, the musicians tried the work out in a private reading with the Baden Baden Orchestra. Brahms conducted, and Clara Schumann was present as well. On October 18, in Cologne, the first public performance took place. Six years had passed since Brahms had written a concerto, when he had given the world his huge Piano Concerto No. 2, whose four movements had led many musicians to think of it as a symphony for piano and orchestra. The Double Concerto is more conventional, in three compact movements, and it is classical in construction. The first movement, Allegro, is powerful and dramatic, with great rhythmic force; the second, Andante, is based on two expansive, fresh and lyrical melodies; the third, Vivace non troppo, is a cheerful and witty rondo that recalls Joachim’s Hungarian origins.

The scoring calls for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings.

Daphnis and Chloé, Suite No. 2 . . . Maurice Ravel
(Born March 7, 1875, in Ciboure; died December 28, 1937, in Paris)

In the period just before World War I until some years after it, perhaps the most well-known and most exciting work in musical theater came from the famed Ballet Russes of Serge Diaghilev. Diaghilev brought together leading graphic, musical and dance artists of his time which resulted in the production of masterpieces distinguished by the melding of the creative genius of talents from these various fields. Ravel had been interested in Russian music for a time before his collaboration with the impresario Diaghilev but had always felt it was very undisciplined. Diaghilev agreed with some of Ravel’s criticisms and liked Ravel’s colorful orchestrations and his exhilarating rhythms.

Sometime in 1909 Diaghilev commissioned a score from Ravel for a ballet on Daphnis and Chloé that he hoped to produce in 1910. It became the largest work Ravel was ever to compose. Although he completed the piano score in 1910, the orchestration remained undone until 1911, when enough of it was ready for a suite extracted from the ballet to be performed in concert. Even though the music was ready in time, the ballet company’s series of internal problems postponed the first performance until June 8, 1912. The choreography was by Michel Fokine, scenery and costumes by Leon Bakst; Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamar Karsavina danced the title roles and Pierre Monteux conducted.

The story of Daphnis and Chloé is based on the third century pastoral romance by the Greek author, Longus. Daphnis was the son of the god Mercury and a Sicilian shepherdess. He was a pupil of Pan and of the Muses, inventor of pastoral poetry, and lover of the shepherdess, Chloé. In the story, a band of pirates invades peaceful Greece and conquers a group of maidens including Chloé, the lover of Daphnis.

In an autobiographical sketch written in 1928, Ravel described his work as “a choreographic symphony in three parts. “My intention,” he said, “was to compose a vast musical fresco, faithful to the Greece of my dreams. The work is constructed symphonically in a strict tonal scheme, based on a few motifs whose development achieves a symphonic homogeneity of style.” In fact, the two popular extracts, known as suites from the ballet, were not so-called by Ravel, who had them published as Symphonic Fragments, First Series and Second Series. The two suites, especially this second one, have long been included in orchestral repertoires, but in the last few decades conductors sometimes have performed the complete score of the work rather than one suite or the other. The suites are long extracts from the ballet score. Suite No. 2 is the whole third scene.

Notes from the scenario are printed in the score and tell the story of the Suite No. 2:

Daybreak. “No sound but the murmur of dew dripping from the rocks. Daphnis is lying at the nymphs’ grotto. Little by little, day breaks. Bird songs are heard. In the distance, a shepherd passes with his flock. Another crosses the stage. A group of herdsmen enters, looking for Daphnis and Chloé. They find Daphnis and wake him. In anguish, he looks about him for Chloé. She appears at last, surrounded by shepherds. They throw their arms about each other. Daphnis sees that Chloé is wearing a crown; his dream was a prophetic vision; Pan’s intervention is clear. Lammon, an old shepherd, explains that if the god Pan has saved Chloé, it is in memory of his old love for the nymph Syrinx.”

Pantomime. “Daphnis and Chloé mime the story of Pan and Syrinx. Chloé acts the part of the young nymph wandering in the meadow. Daphnis, as Pan, appears and declares his love. The nymph repulses him. The god becomes more pressing. She disappears. In despair, he picks a few reeds, fashions a flute of them and plays a melancholy tune. Chloé reappears and dances to the music of the flute. The dance becomes faster and faster until Chloé, in a wild spin, falls into the arms of Daphnis. At the nymphs’ altar, he swears fidelity with the sacrifice of two lambs. Young girls, dressed as bacchantes, enter. Daphnis and Chloé embrace tenderly. A group of young men spreads across the stage. Joyous uproar.” A General Dance concludes the ballet.

The work is scored for two flutes, piccolo, alto flute, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, clarinet in E-flat, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, two snare drums, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, castanets, glockenspiel, celesta, two harps and strings. A wordless chorus is often replaced by additions to the parts for the orchestral instruments.

Copyright Susan Halpern, halpernprogramnotes.com

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