“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.”

Leonard Bernstein ought to have known. He had only 72 years to become this country’s most visible, extraordinarily versatile classical musician, as a conductor, composer, pianist, Broadway luminary, educator, author, and humanitarian. (I’m sure I left something out.)

Happy birthday, Lenny. Thanks for making the most of the time you were given.

Bernstein talks Beethoven at the piano with Maximilian Schell – and ever-present cigarette

“Rhapsody in Blue” from the keyboard, with the fearless Stanley Drucker on clarinet

Bernstein conducts “Prelude, Fugue and Riffs” on “Omnibus” in 1955

Bernstein and Aaron Copland create demo record of “Fancy Free” for Jerome Robbins. Stick around for commentary at the end, with self-incriminating interjection by Copland!

Bernstein’s sensational eleventh-hour debut with the New York Philharmonic, at 25, in 1943

Bernstein’s European conducting debut, with the Czech Philharmonic in 1946

An entire playlist of Bernstein rarities!

Conducting Shostakovich in Tokyo

Conducting Haydn – with his face

Lauren Bacall sings “The Saga of Lenny,” lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (with apologies to Kurt Weill), for Bernstein’s 70th birthday celebration

Bernstein’s death reported on ABC News in 1990

Bernstein conducts his recently-composed “Candide Overture” on a televised Young People’s Concert in 1960

Bernstein conducts Mahler’s “Resurrection Symphony” as a memorial tribute, broadcast live, two days after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qruHjywjE_g

Bernstein on the future of music, from one of his Harvard lectures. The answer is yes!

Bernstein celebrates the fall of the Berlin Wall with a multinational ensemble and Beethoven’s 9th