SAN FRANCISCO -- On Nov. 14, 1943, 25-year-old Leonard Bernstein made his debut conducting the New York Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall. A last-minute substitute for Bruno Walter, he landed on the front page of the New York Times. The next year he composed his first musical, On the Town, and wrote his first ballet, Fancy Free, all of which made him the talk of the town.
Fourteen years after his Carnegie debut, Bernstein wrote West Side Story and was appointed the first American-born music director of the New York Philharmonic. That made him the talk of the nation and eventually the planet.
Bernstein, who died in 1990, would have turned 90 on Aug. 25. To celebrate, a three-month festival in New York, “Bernstein: The Best of All Possible Worlds," will launch next week at Carnegie with a program of theater music featuring the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. PBS will broadcast the concert Oct. 29. The out-of-town tryout, so to speak, was Wednesday night here in Davies Symphony Hall.
To call this an out-of-town tryout is maybe a little unfair. The program, which will be repeated tonight, is part of the San Francisco Symphony's regular season, and, as it will in New York, it featured soprano Dawn Upshaw. But other big-name soloists, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma and baritone Thomas Hampson, are Carnegie exclusives. Their numbers Wednesday were taken by young unknowns. Still, with Tilson Thomas on the podium, this represented the most authentic Bernstein and the best possible Bernstein we have.
Tilson Thomas (or MTT in this town) is no longer called the next Bernstein. At 63, he's long been his own man and musician. But the parallels are nonetheless striking, beginning with the fact that Tilson Thomas got his first big break as a last-minute substitute conducting the Boston Symphony at Carnegie Hall in 1969, shortly before turning 25. Bernstein was in the audience and had already taken the young man under his wing. An inspired educator, pianist, composer, conductor, writer and showman, Bernstein clearly recognized a kindred spirit and talent.
