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The Beginning Summary

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Chapter 1 - “The Beginning” Leonard Bernstein was born August 25, 1918 in Lawrence Massachusetts. His birth name was Louis, the name his grandmother adored, but his family always called him Leonard or Lenny, which he officially renamed himself when he was 16. His father, Sam Bernstein, was a Russian immigrant who in his native Ukraine was destined to become a rabbi. Once he arrived and settled on New York City’s Lower East Side, the elder Bernstein took up working as a fish cleaner. He eventually got a job sweeping floors in his Uncle Henry’s barbershop and then landed a position stocking wigs for a dealer. He eventually built a rather profitable business distributing beauty products. Leonard His life of music started at a very young age and then later in life he became a very popular composer, conductor and teacher of music. Bernstein even composed great music for popular movies.
Leonard started at the age of 10 playing the piano. Later on in life he became one of the first American-born conductors to lead world-class orchestras. He composed the …show more content…

An example of one of his works was for the musical/movie West Side Story. I really liked this piece because the music had so many different sounds and it would go from being very loud to very soft and sometimes even sounded scarey. Bernstein wrote this in 1957 and he combined sounds from opera music to classical music. I especially loved the sounds of the violins. I close my eyes and try to imagine how people felt back in 1957 hearing this piece of music for the first time. I’m sure they had many of the same feelings I had when I listened to it for the first time. Sometimes my stomach would feel like it was turning when it got really loud but then when the music got very soft it would relax my stomach and it made me feel happy. I really like Leonard Bernstein’s

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