Leonard Bernstein - Hardcover

Burton CBE, Humphrey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571166903 ISBN 13: 9780571166909

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 1994

Synopsis

Composer, impresario, Harvard lecturer, television personality, cultural icon and conductor, Leonard Bernstein is one of the most charismatic musicians of the 20th century. He conquered Broadway with such hits as "On the Town" and "West Side Story"; he introduced enormous numbers of people to classical music with his "Omnibus" and "Young People's Concerts" on television; and he extracted inspired performances from some of the world's best orchestras. Based on interviews with surviving family, friends and colleagues, as well as Bernstein's own rich legacy of letters and papers, this biography provides a portrait of a man full of contradictions. Constantly feeding his enormous appetite for the spotlight, Bernstein led a life emotionally complicated by his desperate need to be loved, squandering, his critics might charge, his seemingly inexhausible talent and energy. Humphrey Burton, an award-winning broadcaster and journalist, was a friend and colleague of Bernstein's for the last 30 years of his life.

About this title

Book Description:

A new edition of Humphrey Burton's celebrated biography of Leonard Bernstein, published to coincide with the centenary of his birth. With a new introduction by the author.

About the Author:

Born in 1931, Humphrey Burton, CBE, was educated at Long Dene, a co-educational progressive school, and the Judd School, Tonbridge. After military service in the Royal Signals he read music and history at Cambridge and spent a year in France researching eighteenth-century musical life before joining the BBC in 1955 as a studio manager. He was recruited to the ground-breaking TV arts magazine Monitor three years later, rising to become the first head of the BBC's music and arts department and winning the British Academy's top award for creative programme-making. This was the first of many UK and international honours for such programmes as The Golden Ring and The Making of West Side Story. Between 1967 and 1975 Burton was a founder member of London Weekend Television, editing and hosting ITV's popular arts series Aquarius. After a second spell as a BBC boss, he retired from management at the age of fifty and has since concentrated on direction, broadcasting, writing and impresario duties at the Hollywood Bowl, Tanglewood and the Barbican Centre. In recent years he has branched out as a worldwide cruise director and lecturer on musical subjects.

Burton worked with Yehudi Menuhin on many radio and television programmes, including a twenty-part biography for Classic FM entitled Menuhin: Master Musician - of which a revised version is to be broadcast in 2016. He was also a frequent collaborator of Leonard Bernstein, producing a dozen documentaries and directing close on two hundred filmed concerts: his widely-praised Bernstein biography is also published by Faber., Humphrey Burton read Music and History at Cambridge University and entered the BBC as a sound studio manager in 1955. In 1958 he joined the ground-breaking TV arts magazine, 'Monitor'. He has won many international awards, including three from the British Academy, four Emmies and the Italia Prize (for The Making of West Side Story).

Twice in charge of Music and Arts for BBC Television, Burton was also a founder member of London Weekend Television, where he edited and presented the ITV arts series 'Aquarius'. He is still active in the fields of radio and television.

To celebrate his seventieth birthday in March 2001 he conducted a charity gala performance of Verdi's 'Requiem' at the Royal Albert Hall in aid of prostate cancer.

Burton worked with Yehudi Menuhin on many radio and television programmes, including a 20-part radio series for Classic FM. He was also a frequent collaborator with Leonard Bernstein, and later wrote his biography, also published by Faber. He was awarded a CBE in the Millennium honours.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0571166903
• ISBN 13: 9780571166909
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 594