Leonard Bernstein was just 25 and fresh off his much-heralded debut conducting the New York Philharmonic when his new ballet, Fancy Free, opened at the Metropolitan Opera House, with choreography by Jerome Robbins. The compelling scenario of three Navy sailors on shore leave in New York City had Broadway producers seeing dollar signs, and with help from his lyricist friends Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Bernstein expanded it into On the Town, his first hit musical. From then on, his identity as a composer would continually straddle the loftiness of classical music and the populist appeal of music theater.

It was his old collaborator Jerome Robbins who hatched the idea that would become Bernstein’s most iconic musical. At first Robbins suggested adapting Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as a conflict between Jews and Catholics on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and the playwright Arthur Laurents drafted a scenario he called East Side Story. Later the Jewish immigrants were recast as Puerto Ricans, and the setting shifted to the rough, rundown streets of San Juan Hill west of Central Park (an entire neighborhood that would soon be razed, ironically, to make way for Lincoln Center, the arts complex where Bernstein later directed the New York Philharmonic). Bernstein was disappointed when his old pals Comden and Green weren’t able to join the creative team, but the silver lining was that it led him to an aspiring young songwriter by the name of Stephen Sondheim who signed on to help with the lyrics. 

West Side Story was a hit when it opened on Broadway in 1957, and it made history when the 1961 feature film version won Best Picture and nine other Oscars at the Academy Awards, while its soundtrack topped the Billboard charts for an astonishing 54 weeks. Bernstein also worked with assistants in 1961 to make an orchestral adaptation that he titled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. 

Piccolo, three flutes, two oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, two clarinets, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, celesta, piano, strings