Leonard Bernstein - The Making of West Side Story (FULL)

foreign um so way back in 1949 jerome robbins with whom i had worked called me up with a terrific idea he was wildly excited a broadway show based on romeo and juliet i thought this was a very exciting idea he had a notion that it should be based on street warfare in the new york slums go back and do that once more it's still all three of you is that candy for you park boardwalk which one is consuelo okay all right jerome robbins brought me and arthur lawrence together we all shook hands on it arthur lawrence making one proviso this is not going to be an opera he said you know i know this piece very well i didn't used to until this week but because i've never conducted it in my life and i've never studied the score until now i had to study it every day and every night for the last 10 days i think it's so funky i can't get over how funky this piece is when my kids talk about oh this is that little radio see that's what's new that's what's in that's funky that's really rnb it's acid rock it's hard it's soft whatever it's only this one i'm so proud of it uh what do we do first let's start with that two three because many years later i was asked by deutsche grabberford to record it and the whole process of rehearsing and recording began in my own apartment in new york with a tiny rehearsal for the girls alone me it's a little italian much fun you see mere indications of puerto rican-ness are enough i've never conducted westside story from beginning to end ever in my life nor have i recorded anything except the so-called symphonic dances which is a sweet that doesn't even include the hit tunes there's no tonight there's no maria there's no officer krupke or i feel pretty uh i now have the honor to present our all-star cast with mighty soprani dave kiri te karere jose carreras uh this is going to be the quintet or whatever it's called tonight i think sometimes it's called i was really terribly excited to do this project of west side story with opera singers especially what involved people like kiri and pepe carreras and tatiana 50. it's the first time the puerto ricans fair fight but if they start a rumble even riff the leader of the jets who was ordinarily played by a dancer who can also sing somewhat is in this case played by a young opera singer who is going to be one of the big opera singers of our time that's court holmen we're gonna rock it tonight we're gonna jazz it up and have us before they're gonna get it tonight the more they turn it on the harder they walk but they began it but they began it and we're the ones to we're just rehearsing we'll just play it through give us a minute would you okay stand by everybody oh god i'm so excited hey all right this is a tape are you guys ready to do this sure they are chorus we have to get those words and lots of accent play to that microphone all right we've got to get that gutsy feeling thank you we are going to restore bar 110. yesterday's promises are retracted let's try one just like the republican party west side story and it's the jet song take three when you're a jet you're the top cat in town you're the gold medal kid with a heavyweight crown when you're a jet you're the swinging sting little boy you're a mad little man you're a king the jets are in gear our cylinders are clicking the sharks are still clear cause every porter reckons a lousy chicken can't come to jets right now keep your noses hidden great i think that's it do you want to try cool or do we open them with breaks uh no no i mean we're hot let's go that's too cool all right yeah this is cool c double o l we're rolling this is cool take 17. so boy boy crazy boy get cool boy got a rocket in your pocket keep coolly cool boy don't get hot cause man you got some high times ahead take it slow and daddy-o you can live it up and die in bed crazy boy stay loose boy breeze it buzz it easy does it turn off the juice boy go and go but not like a yo-yo school boy just play it cool boy real cool my so so go crazy stay loose just play it cool boy so saco yes i i i know our 3132 is not together oh now comes little by little the bad news dribbles in no i would like to do something yeah because we have something else to do what else are we doing tonight next for the balcony what nothing else but there's nothing is a favorite for everybody i remember i was a kid and i fell in love with the film and then with the music and the numbers i'm singing here like maria or tonight it's a dream for me to sing make sure you put a t there every sight that i see scythe that i see yeah so you see every sigh that yeah see you'll have to sacrifice a little of the legato just to get the time i that i see the only spaniard in the cast is the one who has to be an american i mean new york is and that's of course a little bit difficult for me to come into this kind of character it is difficult is it difficult not because only the accent and the music but also in some of the numbers for instance the first number something's coming it's a lot of words to say in in very quick kind of music and that is of course probably the most difficult piece of the whole music there's something to any day i will know right away reach down the block on a beach under a tree i got a feeling there's a miracle you gonna control coming to me could it be yes it could something's coming something good if i can work something coming i don't know what it is you're ahead of me watch me not the music and if you make a mistake we'll go back right you know this when you look at the music you sing wrong words just look at me four bars before uh john please don't do this don't give elocution lessons over the microphone okay madden 32. here we go 32 bar 32 come on please call it okay stand by everybody something's coming take 130. i don't have numbers nicer i'm sorry about that i'll see you for 131 coming to me it be yes it could something's coming something good if i can work somewhere you went to g major instead of f major also if i can wait you're not waiting uh what maybe we should break and listen to it why not why not said take a break maybe just just a chair stop now what i'm afraid we need to retake could it be yes it could something's coming something good if i can work something's coming i don't know what it is getting ahead can we start on the g major something the second ending in other words bar 63 okay bar 63 take 135 something's coming right whistling down the river will it be yes it will maybe just by holly still still okay i think we've got that have you got what you want yeah i think we have okay i find it so exciting that he himself is conducting his own piece and i find working with him very exciting i mean the input the energy everything that goes through his head i mean there must be like a million thoughts that goes through his mind every minute you just love that that energy and that brilliance to work with leonard bernstein it's it's a magnetic exciting experience we'll have a private little mix tonight he's walking hot and tired so what don't matter if he's tired as long as he's r is my rick and punk'll go down and when he's hollered uncle will tear up the town so i can count on you boys can we go uh would you mind doing from 92 again oh moon john john oh okay okay let's do it two bars before that which means 90. and still the sky is my and funkel go down and when he's hollered uncle will tear up the tower tonight oh fabulous fabulous go home can go thank you men god bless you all this is an orchestra that nobody has worked with before it's an orchestra that's been put together with the best elements available at this time of year in new york it's what's called a contracted pickup orchestra but superb okay everybody it's quiet time out there it's take time okay i feel pretty take 50. ah 50. i found myself taking a slightly slower more limiting tempo something less frenzied and be these waltz-ish it's usually done that way because it's the opening of act two and the pit conductors are at great pains to assure the audience that there is some fun left in this show since the last thing the audience uh seen is the end of act one which is two corpses lying on an empty stage as a result of which they play it over brightly and i didn't mean it that way and it doesn't matter on the recording so i could play it the way i meant it and kitty just ate that and up is such a pretty smile such a tv i dancing she's merely insane it must be the hate for somebody or too much wine is i feel is foreign the interpretation is fantastic in that he can he pulls things out and puts them in but the funniest thing of all when he suddenly just started just conducting and he just said that's the temple that's it i sort of laughed because that was like having mozart with you or bring handle back is that's what i wanted that's the temple that's how it shall be and you were getting it from the master himself fantastic if you want to know the difference between justin today i look at your camera and say judge for yourself you see a difference you see a tired aging maestro where yesterday you saw a tired a.j maestro but less started less aging oh he wants to do this in sections okay it's okay with me actually okay okay uh the only comment i have is strangely enough you wouldn't think i'd have any comment for strings in the piece like this but i do that the articulation when you have total places where i don't hear that articulation from you the way i hear it from grass people and it's important otherwise i wouldn't have written strig parts for this it's not just a jazz bed in other words that's true and everybody gets really jazzy the strings just tend to give up and despite the fact that we have this great genius phrase trumpet playing it we still need the sun as an octave higher and so on okay so from the top here we go dance at the gym the intro the blues has taken 55. so so the that's they only need help during those very weak later on um we do need trump with some of those it's really impossible i never heard anything so together in my life what else we can bring up the trombones at that first place what else we need uh on bar seven we really need a big strong uh trombone how big do you want it i mean that's all it's just place in in the in the mix and just do the second half you want to save lips we know that you just weren't ready for it and you've readjusted your bikes and don't give us excuses we know all right now have you done your homework this time so we'll have to do it again and don't give us as mere kite excuses that we're not together 158 here we go take 56. can you give us a little more guitar and vibes and yes so we can hear all these notes because the chords each bar become more complicated and they don't sound it okay becomes increasingly chromatic no problem no bass at all don't you care you guys there's um very often too much base sacks a lot of the time not in the tutti and it should be heard that very loud instruments does that mean we have to remake it i mean there are people playing that aren't remember that the baseline are important it's two classes baritone-based access boom boom this is what we're talking about and they are two instruments that can sound like 14 drop bone sections and do but you have to pick them up you gotta do your homework okay okay at the moment i'm a little tired not from the sessions but from so much listening to playbacks which i've been doing for over an hour now since we broke and that's very tiring listening to many takes but otherwise i've been very up and i've been feeling very young and i'm feeling rather the way i felt when i was writing it and it seems this may sound self-congratulatory and i suppose it is but every once in a while why can't one be self-congratulatory and say that it sounds as though i just wrote it yesterday to me anyway it's a personal very subjective reaction but i thought i would share that with you because that's the way i'm feeling we are okay on the blues we're going to have to lay in eight bars of the two low saxes of the blues we'd do that later they can't get any bass you might get the baritone clay that very light it's all chamber music now everything way down here we go all right against the gym 4c no hey please one two three blah we're rolling oh those those pitch drums are much too low it should be so elegant and little high ones and tambourines just touch it just as lightly as possible all right you better go back let's take 74. not too much too soon sorry what happens to the little barakas is not there all right so we have to do it again lenny are you happy with the pictures of the drums in 13 yes yes i am but i'm not happy with your 16th notes they're too fast it's not that easy very elegant still same take we're rolling seventy-five what so okay you're not thinking i'm someone else i know you are not or that we've met before i know we have not i felt i knew something never before was going to happen with this my hands are cold yours too so warm yours too but of course they are the same it's so much to believe you're not joking me i have not yet learned how to joke that way i think now i never will he he needs to raise the pitch of his voice but he also needs to speak out more and raise his pitch but this is just a test this is just an experiment i get the downbeat together this time oh uh huh not bad for that rear fabulous that's it that's perfect five when it was composed way back in those years of 1957 um it came out to new zealand of course eventually in the film and i can't remember what year that was but that was the music i grew up on the music that i loved i could relate to as young boy young girl love and all that sort of thing and parents not allowing it i think i was going through the same sort of torments myself when i was very young and i sort of related myself to the young girl but then the music was so lovely and of course i was in love with a young man who played the piano and could play this music like heaven i thought and i would sing it along with him and we just go around singing it all over the place and for me it meant a very vital time in the young love in my life and now when i'm doing with this this genius i just can't believe that all that music oozed out of that man to give us this and everyone else dancing in the studio such a long time after it's composed although the song somewhere is not sung by maria but it's sung by an offstage voice during the ballet in the second act i couldn't resist once i was working with kitty hearing her sing this song which is one of my favorite songs in the show and so we made a take of it even though in the final recording the song was recorded by marilyn horne hold my my my voice is not a strong voice there's this wonderful thing called air conditioning coming from england we just don't have it there and coming here and getting air conditioning straight across my vocal cords is death i came here healthy and well and i congratulated them for mucking up my voice in 12 hours okay we've got all that thank you kitty i thought it was yummy not long ago my aunt irene told me that from the hospital i was taken right to the west side tenements where lincoln center is today and that's where the west side story was filmed and that's where i spend a lot of my time which is at the mitch melton opera so i think it must be fate and here i am involved in this wonderful recording and filming of west side story and it just seems so right that i'm a part of this wonderful project and then take your time get rid of it take your time and put right percussion you set up for this let's do it standby what okay rolling i is is the population growing always oh i like the city of san juan i know you can get oh hundreds of people in each room i'll give my cousins a free ride i'm being a tv to san juan if there's a current to turn off i'll give them the washing machine what have they got there to keep clean i like the choice of america is wow uh when i will go back to san juan when you shut up and get going everyone there was a big cheer everyone there will have moved here fabulous that may be my favorite song of the show i do it over and over we do takes we rehearse and i listen to playbacks i come back and do it again i don't get sick of it that's a sign of something fresh i mean it's not pressed away mozart stays fresh time after time but that's you know who's in that class none of us very exposed very quiet gotta have absolute silence out there in the studio all right one more time here we go one hand one number nine a take 112. um my god oh day me lord won't the final take of one had one heart just destroyed me one of my children nina who was sitting at the session and who was as hard-boiled as can be and who was born when west side story was already five years old came to the podium broken tears i've never heard anything like it and what was so great about that reaction because i trust her reaction very much she is never flattering for anything but that was that meant to be flattered she was just telling me how she felt know lord hmm marvelous gorgeous beautiful solo play everybody fantastic his lyrical music you just have to lay back with the sound and sing through the words and not be too precise not that his music should not have precision but in order to sing that sort of music to make it sell and to make it it live his way you have to just lay back and sing it like it's i don't know it just goes on forever you can't just sing note for note for note okay all the beautiful sounds right all the beautiful sounds of the world in a single world a song like maria has been heard in so many guises and tempi and voices it's almost hard to reconcile yourself to the original orchestration and sound but if you happen to have jose carrera that's a fresh element i can tell you marie i'm sorry about that okay and suddenly i found this is the first time i did musical comedy what i did often is recordings of popular music hits from broadway or hollywood like love is a many splendid thing or things like that i'll never stop saying the difficult thing is the music is so beautiful and don't to spoil the atmosphere with singing wrong not because it's a difficult vocal thing but to sing it with the right dynamic that that's what say it louder is you have to take a breath i'll never stop saying you have to go on for hours still place to start bar six all the beautiful sounds of the world to sing a word all right part six play i wrote you didn't get this information no no i mean q was changed to play and my red pencil four o'clock in the morning as i'm doing this why don't you deliver these messengers anyway the first two notes of bar eight are not to be played you never got that huh you never got poco poco nino but you do that anyway because you have to be right what happens this is only maria you have time to put any of these oh how many times do i have to tell you boy talking about two weeks ago ah uh where are we about 48. i'll never stop saying carrera you know where just before you say the most beautiful sound right okay one more time 121. i've just met a girl named maria suddenly that name will never be the same music blind i'll never stop singing if you are so kind i would like to do these three bars alone oh come on you're doing wonderfully um would you rather do this tomorrow well because with sessions over oh well then okay all right now look everyone for tomorrow evening looks like you'll be free if we need anything we'll do it after a little after five we'll go over time tomorrow so you're free tomorrow evening can hardly believe it i don't either well it's always difficult to build up an atmosphere and after 10 minutes to have to stop that because the the the session is over uh at that moment it was a little bit uh let's say not too happy but it's the way it is one more time from the top maria maria most beautiful sound i ever heard all the beautiful sounds of the world in a single world mariah i've just met a girl the named will never be the same music flying i'll never stop saying marie mariah it's almost like i'll never stop saying more the most beautiful sound i ever it's a great take fantastic i suppose you could say it was hectic in the beginning he's a man of many emotions you know ups and downs all overs and and to see that coming from a conductor when conductors are very serious people not that he's not serious but to see it this this sort of animal working is is quite amazing you can see his moods from time to time you see his his frustrations his happiness his glee his his wanting to perform to people um that's the thing that makes the man interesting you one is constantly trying to read him but really he's on another planet he's on a planet that no one can touch the man is just brilliant we wait upon your every word all right here's here's one boy like that number fifteen take one forty that boy and find another one of your own kind speak to your own kind a boy like that will give you sorrow you'll need a not a boy tomorrow one of your own guides stick to your own guide a boy who kills cannot love very small a boy like that wants one thing only and when he's done he'll leave you lonely he mad at mine just wait and see just wait mariah oh you know you were in love or so you said you should oh i mean i am right nothing i can do is my god um oh yours goddamn noise how do you have to listen to that really really was somebody photographing during that take somebody what please stop it unless you want a bullet marksman are everywhere okay stand by everybody this is take 29 from the top this time let's make it funny stand by please let's hey you who me yeah you boy it is officer krupke baby john on top of the evening officer krupke i'll crack the top of your skulls if you punks don't stop when i whistle you see cops believe everything they read in the papers today we ain't human we're cruddy juvenile delinquents so that's what we give them hey you me officer krupke yeah you give me one good reason for not dragging you down the station house you punk you gotta understand it's just about bringing up key that gets us out of hand our mothers all are junkies our fathers all are drunks golly moses naturally were punks gee officers there is that's a touching good story let me tell it to the while just tell it to the judge dear kindly judge your honor my parents treat me rough with all the marijuana they won't give me a puff they didn't want to have me but somehow i was had leaping lizards that's why i'm so bad my office is square this boy don't need a judge he needs an analyst care it's just his neurosis that ought psychologically destroyed in the opinion of discord this child is depraved on account he ain't had a normal home hey i'm the brave gonna come up to pride so take them to a head shrinker my father is a bastard my mother-ness will be my grandpa's always blasted my grandma pushes tea my sister wears a mustache my brother wears a dress goodness gracious that's why i'm a mess yes this boy don't need a doctor just to put on his job society's pleasure but helpful take on sociological music in my opinion this child don't need to have his head strong at all juvenile delinquency is purely a social disease hey i got a social disease so take him to a social worker they say go earn a buck like be a soda joyka which means like be a schmuck it's not a mathy social i'm only anti-white glorious you've done it again this boy don't need a job he needs a year in the bed it ain't just a question i misunderstood down inside him he's no good i'm no good i'll go the trouble is he stinks the trouble is he's growing trouble rocky we got troubles of our own g but down on our knees cause no one wants a fellow in a social that's great you guys chorus thank you very much you are dismissed orchestra however not we got just time to do this guys okay okay here we go stand by everyone we're rolling number six the balcony scene take twenty-two is a place is big one at the beginning of this project i was not all that secure about what was going to happen it was an extraordinary idea i thought it might for one thing seem dated it is 50s music and what i have found out of all that insecurity is a tremendous feeling of security this poetic language of jets and sharks that was created by arthur lars is something truly poetic in the sense that it lasts the way a poem lasts i feel that it is peace that is uh in its funny little crazy way a classic come to the back door see tony what does tony stand for anthony dream of not bad so you

Channel: Koopol eires Celfon

Views: 548,603

Rating: 4.9103398 out of 5

Keywords: Leonard Bernstein, West Side Story, Tatiana Troyanos, jose Carreras, Bernstein, Leonard, Making of, West, Side, Story

Id: rjxWKL6jhC4

Length: 88min 25sec (5305 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 15 2012

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[u/MovieGuide]

Leonard Bernstein Conducts West Side Story (1985) (TV)

    a.k.a. The Making of 'West Side Story' (1985) (TV)

Documentary, Music [1 h 29 min]
Leonard Bernstein, Kiri Te Kanawa, José Carreras, Tatiana Troyanos
Director: Christopher Swann

IMDb rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 7.7/10 (117 votes)

This is one of those movies where there's nothing helpful printed on the back of the box.

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[u/topderp1]

I rewatch this every six months. It's so great.

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[u/ScreamingVegetable]

If you haven't seen the film West Side Story, I believe it is the greatest film musical of all time. The best film musicals do what is impossible to do on the stage and West Side Story does this by making the camera a dancer. The movements of the actors and camera in the film is incredible. Even if you don't like musicals if you love filmmaking you'll love West side story.