The Complex Life Of Leonard Bernstein, A Once-In-A-Century Talent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxwWlQNGeKE Aug. 25, 2018 marks the centennial of Leonard Bernstein 's birth. He was a singular American talent and one of the great orchestra conductors of his generation. He was also a composer of symphonies, ballets and hit musicals, a teacher, a television personality and a complicated man with a complicated personal life. If there was one moment when Leonard Bernstein became Leonard Bernstein, at least to the general public, it was at a concert by the New York Philharmonic on Nov. 14, 1943 at Carnegie Hall in Manhattan. The conductor, Bruno Walter, called in sick. The 25-year-old Bernstein stepped in with only a few hours' notice and without a single rehearsal. "When my father climbed up on that podium in Carnegie Hall and conducted the New York Philharmonic on a national radio broadcast that Sunday afternoon, that was why it was front page news the next day. Like, 'Local boy makes good,'" says Jamie Bernstein, the late conductor's daughter. In just