Leonard Bernstein’s first Broadway musical, On the Town, establishes his characteristic use of a wide variety of musical styles following the models of Blitzstein, Gershwin, and Weill. To achieve such stylistic diversity, Bernstein utilizes small tidbits of contrasting sound worlds and re-contextualized them in new sound worlds, resulting in musical montages. Parody is one of Bernstein’s most effective techniques in On the Town for incorporating musical material from diverse styles. For example, in the number “Presentation of Miss Turnstiles,” Bernstein mimics and references Tchaikovsky’s ballets, cartoon music, vaudeville, and other idioms. Bernstein also relies strongly on common tropes to elicit particular associations and moods; for instance, using tone clusters in the opening of “New York, New York” to depict a busy morning in an urban area, connecting the song to Gershwin’s An American in Paris. Songs from Bernstein’s On the Town became borrowed material themselves, as jazz musicians appropriated them as “standards” to be improved upon. On the Town thus features a wide range of influences that in turn moved beyond the musical to leave a mark on Bernstein’s later style and, more broadly, the Broadway musical genre.

Works: Leonard Bernstein: On the Town (222-69), West Side Story (259); The Revuers: Three Little Psychopaths Are We (231).

Sources: George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess (223), An American in Paris (227); Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II: Show Boat (223); Anonymous: I Feel Like a Motherless Child (223), Sleep, Sleep in Jesus’s Arms (223); Gilbert and Sullivan: Mikado (231); Leonard Bernstein: On the Town (234), Symphony No. 1 (Jeremiah) (259); Rodgers and Hammerstein: Oklahoma! (238, 267).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Sarah Kirkman