Three Dance Episodes from On the Town
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

[1945]

Leonard Bernstein was just 25 and fresh off his debut conducting the New York Philharmonic when his new ballet, Fancy Free, opened at the Metropolitan Opera House. Broadway producers saw great potential in the scenario of three Navy sailors on shore leave in New York City, and so Bernstein teamed up with his friends Betty Comden and Adolph Green to expand the ballet into the hit musical On the Town. MGM released a film version in 1949 starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra.

Bernstein extracted several of the show’s dance sequences into a set of “Three Dance Episodes,” including “The Great Lover,” a scene in which “Gabey, the romantic sailor in search of the glamorous Miss Turnstiles, falls asleep on the subway and dreams of his prowess in sweeping Miss Turnstiles off her feet.” In “Lonely Town,” “Gabey watches a scene, both tender and sinister, in which a sensitive high-school girl in Central Park is lured and then cast off by a worldly sailor.” “Times Square” offers “a more panoramic sequence in which all the sailors in New York congregate in Times Square for their night of fun.” The distinctive melody of “New York, New York” makes an appearance here, with its angular intervals rising like skyscrapers.

Piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, E-flat clarinet, three clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, two horns, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, strings