Bernstein's name has become inevitably linked to West Side Story. More than the Broadway musical, people usually remember the 1961 film, which, like the musical, features melodies that easily stick in one's auditory memory: a lively Natalie Wood singing "I feel pretty" surrounded by astonished friends; the tragicomic choral scene, with a colorful dance, "America"; the quarrelsome confrontation between gangs - at the beginning and the end - that leads to the protagonist's death; or, of course, the well-sounding declamation "Maria." An update of Romeo and Juliet, with post-romantic emotional music that incorporates Latin rhythms and jazz swing, it represents the impossibility of a feeling believed to be true and eternal. Even more so when it is cut short by destiny, displaced to an extra-temporal reality, like the one the protagonist couple sings in the duet "Somewhere": "There's a place for us. / A time and a place for us / Hold my hand and we're half way there / Hold my hand and I'll take you there / Somehow / Someday /Somewhere".
A longing, that one, from which no one - by the mere fact of being mortal, and occasionally aware of the end - is completely free.Infatuation, made possible by a sophisticated biochemical cocktail that inestimably collaborates with the propagation of the species, is characterized by the loss of references and a blind faith in the transcendence of the feeling. In fact, the simulacrum of a spiritual union is celebrated with the duet "One hand, one heart", a shamelessly sweetened and, nevertheless, emotional theme, as it illustrates (the fantasy of) a nuptial representation and the promise of an infinite, imperishable love that -in perfect romantic logic- cannot be consummated. "Even death won't part us now", they sing in unison anticipating the action to come, against which they wish to shield themselves through the feeling of love. A longing, that one, from which no one -by the mere fact of being mortal, and occasionally conscious of the end- is completely free.
While the motif seems exclusive to nineteenth-century sentimentality, it is inseparable from the Western paradigm of love, since its creation with medieval lyric poetry. For example, the symptomatology is already evident in Jaufré Rudel's amor de lonh, a love that perpetuates itself in absence, without the need to share a space-time or therefore have contact, and which will lead to the most well-known sublimation of the idea of spiritual perfection: Dante's Beatrice. Here the name of the beloved is María, which José Carreras sang in the operatic version, leading to a tense, much-remembered situation during the recording with Bernstein. More than anger, properly speaking, what is appreciated is that search for musical perfection and, in short, a commendable degree of professional commitment:
It would be unfair, however, to remember Bernstein as a master of post-romanticism, clinging to a compositional nostalgia regarding the musical form of modulating and transmitting affections. Other of his musical tastes contradict this. Thus, the imprint of a composer as daring and visionary as Gustav Mahler is not only found in those melodies that point to the infinite, but in the taste for rhythmic and timbral contrasts, also so present in jazz, which Bernstein, unlike other intellectuals of the time, always defended. A chapter of The Joy of Music collects some of the opinions also expressed in television programs, in which he recalls the playful nature inherent in musical interpretation, which is only so -in a truly profound sense- when accompanied by the creativity that characterizes improvisation:
"The jazz performer is himself the true composer, which gives him a creative and, therefore, more dignified status"Furthermore, regarding jazz, Bernstein confesses: "I also love it for its humor. It really plays with the notes. We always talk about interpreting [play] music: we perform [we play] to Brahms or Bach, a term perhaps more correctly applied to tennis. But jazz is a true game. It "plays" with the notes, so to speak, and has fun with them. It is, therefore, entertainment in the most genuine sense." At the antipodes of a thinker and musicologist like Theodor W. Adorno, for the creator of West Side Story there is no inconvenience in art fulfilling the function of entertaining. Even if both agree in their valuation of Mahlerian music, which confronts the musical representation of the humanly unrepresentable, the more humorous side of a Bernstein is completely alien to the Frankfurt School thinker. The variety of registers of which the former is capable is summarized in the selection of Symphonic Dances:
It is evident that musical culture in the North American context is indelibly marked by composers such as George Gershwin, author of themes that would also become standards for jazz, on which to improvise, experiencing a less intense ascendancy in Europe. Compared to the works of Mozart or Beethoven, it is rarely programmed. And yet, Bernstein did not hesitate to interpret both, often conducting from the pianist's seat, in the tradition of those composer-performers. Rhapsody in Blue reminds us of Woody Allen's Manhattan - just as Mahler's Fifth Adagietto reminds us of the decadence depicted by Visconti - as the signifiers and signifieds, content and form, plot and representation, interpretation and life have been exchanged in perfect feedback. Gershwin's piece functions as a majestic and rhythmically captivating soundtrack to the city. In the different readings Bernstein made throughout his career, denoting a vivid knowledge of its spirit, it oozes swing.
"Ambiguity has always permeated musical art, because it is one of the most potent aesthetic functions"The contrast between Bernstein's rigorous attitude and his well-known (and recognized) passion, between the clarity of his readings and his emphasis on the incomprehensible -but absolutely real- nature of the properly musical experience, of course very evident in the case of jazz, may be surprising. In essence, there is no contradiction whatsoever: the two aspects, one more emotional and the other more mental, complement each other wonderfully in the declamation of an essentially unattainable meaning. In the course of this search, however, beauty may eventually emerge. In his Harvard lectures (The Unanswered Question), in the early 1970s, Bernstein would reflect on the non-verbalizable dimension of music of all eras, even the most classical: "this word, 'ambiguity,' may seem the most improper word to speak of a Golden Age composer like Mozart, a master of clarity and precision. But ambiguity has always permeated musical art (indeed, all arts), because it is one of the most potent aesthetic functions."