What did Leonard Bernstein think of the movie?
Does anyone know? I can't find the answer online.
shareFrom what I've read, offline, I don't think that Leonard Bernstein liked the movie version of West Side Story very much.
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MovieChat Forums > West Side Story (1961) Discussion > What did Leonard Bernstein think of the ...
Bernstein did not like how the music sounded, especially how it was orchestrated and conducted, and said some harsh things to Johnny Green. ("Whoever gave you the right to play it like that? ... You have betrayed my trust in you. You have betrayed me.")
I don't know if it's "really wacky," but your French is coming along.
Now that I think about it, I do recall reading about Leonard Bernstein's outburst over his dislike for how the music sounded.
Well, what can we say?
A "problem" with the original Broadway production was that the theatre pit was too small to accommodate an orchestra of more than about 20 musicians, with some of them doubling. Consequently, the orchestral sound came over as astringent rather than full. This entirely matched the character of the stage play.
The film used a full symphony orchestra, but the orchestration is credited to Kostal and Ramin who arranged the music for the stage play. Whether or not Bernstein liked it, he used the film orchestration as the basis for his Symphonic Dances which is now in the repertoire of major orchestras around the world. Bernstein frequently conducted this piece and also recorded it so he can't have been too unhappy about it.
The cinema orchestration of the Balcony Scene can be found on YouTube in a performance at the BBC Proms conducted by John Wilson, with Sierra Boggess as Maria.
He hated it. And he’s wrong.
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