Recording: From the 1961 movie

• Act I, 4 – “Dance at the Gym” – “Mambo”
• Act I, 5 – “Maria”
• Act I, 6 – “America”
• Act I, 10 – “Tonight Quintet and Chorus”

Lecture points

Review sheet for West Side Story

Bernstein

• American conductor, composer, educator
• internationally acclaimed conductor
• popular music and classical influences combined
• used TV to broadcast orchestra performances (mass media outreach to younger audience)
• social change and increasing freedom: Bernstein was gay (along with Benjamin Britten)

West Side Story

• musical: musical theatre, a play with spoken dialogue and “musical” numbers, the American singspiel
  • high art (opera: emphasis on music, archaic musical styles, “cultured” audience) versus low art (equal emphasis on drama and plot, popular music styles, mass market)
  • Stephen Sondheim, librettist and composer of many musicals (see Sweeney Todd)
• Romeo and Juliet, modernized
• social commentary (New York immigrants, gang culture)
  • pushing boundaries, contrast with sexuality (Debussy and Stravinsky)
• hemiola: using a note grouping which differs than the time signature
  • example: groups of 2 (strong-weak) in triple meter (strong-weak-weak) (America)
  • polyrhythm suggests multiple time signatures, hemiola is an effect in one time signature
• verse-chorus structure: used extensively in popular music, alternates between verse (new words) and a chorus (repeated words), contrast with strophic form
• tritone: augmented 4th or diminished 5th
  • extensive use in modern music, defying common practice harmony (Maria)
• mambo: Cuban dance and musical form brought to New York by Puerto Rican immigrants
• cha-cha-cha: another Cuban dance and musical form with a divided 4th beat (the “cha-cha-cha”)
  • invented in 1953