Leonard Bernstein's score for
West Side Story
went down in history, not least thanks to the film based on the musical. And, for sixty years, his melodies can be found even in Metallica or the Wu-Tang Clan. Broadway first hosted the musical in 1957, before the cinema seized it in 1961 in front of Robert Wise's camera. Thirty years after the feature film, Metallica, flagship metal band, released their legendary
Black Album
. Surprise, one of the songs,
Don't Tread On Me
, begins with a quote from
America
, a
West Side Story
staple
.
Still in the big guitars department, Alice Cooper, one of the figures of hard-rock, takes up the musical theme of the Jets, one of the rival bands of
West Side Story
, in her
Gutter Cat vs The Jets
in 1972. The loan will be more subtle, with diffuse samples, but the title
Maria
leaves no doubt: the Wu-Tang Clan, legendary rap collective, pays homage to Bernstein in this song in 1997.
This ability to "
cross the ages
" does not surprise Laurent Valière, journalist and producer who offers on France Musique the podcast in ten episodes
The story of West Side Story
(from December 8, date of the release of Steven Spielberg's remake ).
As this specialist recalls, Bernstein (deceased in 1990) realized the timelessness of his work by directing it for the first time in the 1980s at the request of the prestigious record company Deutsche Grammophon.
Ferryman
So far he had just composed the music for the musical, but left the direction to others.
His schedule being crowded between his various Broadway projects and his appointment as head of the New York Philharmonic.
“
In the documentary filmed around this recording, we hear her say
'it's very interesting, it's music from the 1950s, I thought it had aged badly, but by conducting it 30 years later, no , not at all ””, relates for AFP Laurent Valière.
Read alsoThe
West Side Story
of Steven Spielberg: an update of a legendary film
For this expert, the music of "
West Side Story
" is "
a standard, which has transcended classical music, with contributions from jazz, bebop and Latin rhythms
". Bernstein, always brought back to this work because of the success of the film (10 Oscars), ended up saying over and over again "
that he was fed up and that he had not done that in his career
", as Laurent Valière reports. The success of the music of the musical and then of the film lies in the very approach of its creator, teacher and facilitator.
“Bernstein was a TV monster, he told a show about classical music through jazz and variety standards, he decompartmentalised everything, he wanted contemporary for
West Side Story
, not opera, ”
the radio man still dissects.
"Bernstein is hyper-contemporary"
As Laurent Valière portrays it, the alignment of the planets occurs when the creators of the musical - Bernstein and Arthur Laurents, author of the libretto - are around a swimming pool in Hollywood.
They come across a Los Angeles newspaper that talks about gang wars.
It's the revelation as they seek to modernize
Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet
.
Read also From
West Side Story
to
Into The Woods
, the unforgettable songs of Stephen Sondheim
The racist taunts, of which the Sharks, Puerto Rican immigrants opposed to the Jets, are the target, find an echo in the course of Bernstein, a Jew who suffered antisemitic gibes at a younger age.
The presence of Puerto Rican protagonists also allows him to recycle the Latin rhythms he loves.
"
And that's how a mambo ends up in
West Side Story", details Laurent Valière, who concludes: "
Bernstein is hyper-contemporary
".
"
In classical music, he is revered, almost desperately, as the great communicator, the one who pushed the symphonic repertoire into everyone's conversation
," famed music critic Alex Ross once summed up perfectly in The New Yorker.
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