An American Panorama - on the Waterfront

Leonard Bernstein Initially, Bernstein turned down Spiegel's offer to supply the music for On the Waterfront, the film based on Budd Schulberg's gritty novel about the docks protection rackets, but after seeing a screening of the work print in February 1954, he agreed to undertake the project. He took a leave of absence from his post at Brandeis, and moved to Hollywood to write the score. Roy Harris The Third Symphony of 1937 was composed on commission from Sergei Koussevitzky, music director of the Boston Symphony. It is a single, strongly unified movement disposed in five sections.Aaron Copland In 1938, Lincoln Kirstein, director of the American Ballet Caravan, commissioned Copland to write a ballet about Billy the Kid, the notorious outlaw of the Old West famed in ballad and legend. For inspiration, Kirstein gave the composer a book of cowboy tunes, even though Copland admitted a marked antipathy to such music at the time. As he studied the simple, unaffected songs, however, he came to realize that they were not only an excellent source of material for the new ballet, but they opened the path to a more straight forward, popular style that he sought. - Richard E. Rodda