Lenny Bernstein: "Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront ("Bernstein East's" only movie score!)

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

233,754 views Jan 1, 2012
"From the album New York! New York! Symphonic Dances and Overtures from Musicals. Performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Conducted by Carl Davis.

"Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918 -- October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim. According to the new york times, he was 'one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history.

"As a composer he was prolific, writing symphonies, ballet music, operas, chamber music, pieces for the piano, other orchestral and choral works, and other concert and incidental music, but the tremendous success of West Side Story remained unequaled by his other compositions."

Not only is this one of the greatest movie scores to one of the greatest pictures ever, but it is historically significant as the bridge to his West Side Story (1957) score. Without this score, there would be no WSS, at least not on the musical level that WSS achieved. And without that music, Jerome Robbins would not have been inspired to create the greatest choreography in Broadway history.

(A momentary exception: Lenny Bernstein’s otherwise magnificent score gets overbearing during the scene in which Father Barry tells Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint) the truth about former pug Terry Malloy (the bum) setting up her bother Joey to get rubbed out.)