West Side Story

An introduction

This eBook is about the popular American musical: “West Side Story”. The play was based on a conception by Jerome Robbins, who directed and choreographed the original production. The book was written by Arthur Laurents, the music was composed by Leonard Bernstein and the lyrics were written by Stephen Sondheim.

The stage version of West Side Story opened in previews on August 20, 1957 in Washington D.C. Following this and another preview engagement in Philadelphia, the musical opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theater, September that year. The film version was released on October 18, 1961. Since then, the musical was revived on Broadway numerous times.

The Plot

West Side Story takes place on the west side of Manhattan. It is set in the mid 1950’s when many Puerto Ricans immigrated to New York. The Sharks are a gang from Puerto Rico. They have just recently come to NY and want a turf of their own. The sharks are at war with the local gang – the Jets, who have ruled their turf for years and are ready to fight to keep it their own. Tony, a member of the Jets and Maria, the Sharks leader younger sister, fall in love despite their different ethnicity and background. Their tragic love story shows how brutal racism and hate can be while telling the story of assimilating immigrants in America.

The plot is an analogy to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: both plays revolve around two young adults in love that are being kept apart by their circumstances. Also, both plays end in tragedy. The musical is considered one of the most influential of its time and sadly, is still very relevant to this day.

Leonard Bernstein

Born in 1918, Leonard Bernstein was an unusually versatile musician with a legacy in American classical music rivalled by few others. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Bernstein was one of the first American born and trained conductors of international note and was equally esteemed as a composer and pianist. He bridged the worlds of concert hall ad musical theatre, creating a rich trove of recordings, compositions and writings.

Bernstein started playing piano at the age of ten and quickly demonstrated a prodigious talent which he later pursued as a music major at Harvard. As a composer, Bernstein was influenced by the work of Aaron Copland, Mark Blitzstein, Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky amongst others. He often turned to his own Jewish history for compositional material.

Bernstein’s successes as a composer ranged from the Broadway stage: West Side Story, On the Town, Wonderful Town, and Candide, to concert halls all over the world. His major concert works include three symphonies: Jeremiah, The Age of Anxiety and Kaddish. Bernstein also wrote the one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti in 1952, and its sequel, the three-act opera A Quiet Place, in 1983. He collaborated with choreographer Jerome Robbins on three major ballets and received an Academy Award nomination for his score for On the Waterfront. Bernstein also had a lifelong interest in music education. He created many television programs, educating a generation of Americans about music, and turned many of his scripts into books.

Bernstein’s fame as a conductor endures, and he remains one of the most important music educators in US history.

Musical Analysis

In West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein uses the common interval of the tritone throughout the entire score to represent the various forms of conflict in the drama that need resolution: the rival gangs, the forbidden love, etc. That simple compositional tool communicates emotionally very effectively, as the tritone begs to be resolved, and can be done so in several ways.

The tritone is an interval built from two notes separated by three whole tones, or six semitones. It has been used in music since the Middle Ages and was often referred to in early music as “the devil’s interval,” due to its unstable quality. In any scale, it can be made using either an augmented fourth or diminished fifth, as seen below.

Here, Bernstein uses it as a vessel for creating micro-resolutions throughout the story to keep it moving forward. Yet the final bars of West Side Story do not feature a resolution. At the end of the musical score, two tritones sit next to each other, unresolved, as a way of communicating without language the notion that the story may be over, but conflicts remain (both internally in the lives of the characters, and in the world we inhabit outside of the theatre). This move is one of the reasons why this work continues to be performed year after year, and why its relevance continues to be renewed.

Innovations

Marin Alsop, the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, voiced her opinion about West Side Story innovations regarding its music. According to her, the musical breaks all the rules – especially musically. The rhythm plays a crucial part in creating a complex atmosphere that compliments the storyline. By constantly changing the rhythm, Bernstein makes the audience feel restless and uncomfortable.

Good examples of rhythm changing:

• The piano at the prologue when the gangs start fighting with each other:

• The march in the “Tonight” course:

• The rhythmic back and forth at the gym:

Reviews of the premiere from 1957

Theater critic Walter Kerr wrote the following review of West Side Story for the New York Herald Tribune:

“He [Bernstein] has served the needs of the onstage threshing machine, setting the fierce beat that fuses a gymnasium dance, putting a mocking insistence behind taunts at a policeman, dramatizing the footwork rather than lifting emotions into song. When hero Larry Kert is stomping out the visionary insistence of ‘Something’s Coming’ both music and tumultuous story are given their due.”

Theater critic Brooks Atkinson wrote the following review for The New York Times:

“Using music and movement they have given Mr. Laurents’ story passion and depth and some glimpses of unattainable glory. They have pitched into it with personal conviction as well as the skill of accomplished craftsmen.”

Theater critic John Chapman wrote the following review for The Daily News:

“The music of “West Side Story” is by Leonard Bernstein, and it is superb – and splendidly played by an orchestra directed by Max Goberman. In it there is the drive, the bounce, the restlessness and the sweetness of our town. It takes up the American musical idiom where it was left when George Gershwin died. It is fascinatingly tricky and melodically beguiling, and it marks the progression of admirable composer.”