Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

Program notes

About the Work

The Symphonic Dances from West Side Story are Leonard Bernstein’s own concert distillation of the music from his greatest theatrical triumph, the 1957 Broadway musical that retold Romeo and Juliet as a tale of rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, on the streets of New York’s Upper West Side. The show was a landmark, fusing Broadway, jazz, Latin-American dance and symphonic sophistication into something wholly new. In 1960 Bernstein (with the help of his colleagues Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, who assisted with the orchestration) drew nine of its dance and dramatic numbers into a continuous twenty-odd-minute orchestral suite, which was premiered by the New York Philharmonic under Lukas Foss in February 1961.

Crucially, the Symphonic Dances do not follow the order of the show; Bernstein rearranged the numbers for purely musical reasons, to create a satisfying symphonic sequence with its own arc. The result is one of the most exhilarating and beloved of all American orchestral works, a brilliant showcase for a virtuoso orchestra that runs the gamut from the swaggering, syncopated energy of the streets to heart-on-sleeve lyricism and shattering tragedy. It bursts with Bernstein’s irresistible rhythmic drive (those famous off-beat accents and Latin grooves), his gift for melody, and his dazzling ear for orchestral colour, including a big role for jazz-inflected percussion. It makes a spectacular, high-energy opening to the concert.

What to Listen For

The suite moves through nine linked sections; listen for the journey from menace to ecstasy to grief. It opens with the Prologue, the snapping, finger-clicking tension of the two gangs sizing each other up. Then comes the soaring melody of ‘Somewhere’, the lovers’ dream of a place of peace and one of Bernstein’s most beautiful tunes. The skittering Scherzo leads to the famous Mambo: listen for the explosive Latin energy, the blazing brass and the players’ shouted cries of ‘Mambo!’, a guaranteed showstopper.

The flirtatious Cha-Cha brings the tune of ‘Maria’ in a delicate dance; the Meeting Scene captures the lovers’ first encounter; and the cool, sinister ‘Cool’ Fugue shows Bernstein’s contrapuntal mastery applied to jazz, all coiled, snapping tension. The violent Rumble depicts the deadly gang fight that kills both gang leaders, building to a horrifying climax. Then the Finale returns to ‘Somewhere,’ now an aching elegy, as the music fades on a quiet, unresolved chord of grief and hope. Listen throughout for the syncopated rhythms, the brilliant percussion and the way Bernstein blends Broadway, jazz and symphonic writing into a seamless, thrilling whole.