Maestro: Music by Leonard Bernstein (Original Soundtrack)

With 2023’s Maestro, we at last have a mainstream movie that celebrates the unparalleled musical achievements of the conductor, composer, educator, and humanitarian Leonard Bernstein. Starring and directed by Bradley Cooper, Maestro tells the story of a man who juggles his ambitions with personal struggles that tear apart his relationships. And with the help of the Philadephia Orchestra’s conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Cooper goes all out to portray Bernstein’s musical genius, both on and off stage. “For us classical musicians,” says Nézet-Séguin, “to have someone so important in our world represented with such care, beauty, emotion, and authenticity on the big screen by Hollywood is a gift.” Woven throughout Maestro is an impressive cross-section of Bernstein’s life in music, from his own works to the great symphonies for which he became renowned for conducting. There are little spoken vignettes from the film itself, too, adding something of a personal flavor. The performances themselves incorporate instances of Bernstein’s own conducting, including part of his heartbreaking account with the Vienna Philharmonic of Mahler’s “Adagietto,” and an extract from his own Symphony No. 2, “Age of Anxiety,” with the New York Phil. Most of the movements and extracts, however, from Mass to Trouble in Tahiti and the “Prologue” to West Side Story, are presented in new performances by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Nézet-Séguin. “I discovered Bernstein’s recordings when I was a conducting student, and became fascinated by him,” Nézet-Séguin tells Apple Music Classical. “And I immediately felt very much under his inspiration and influence.” Soon after becoming music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2012, the Canadian conductor made it his mission to perform Bernstein’s theatrical oratorio, Mass. “As ever in my life and career, I start with the biggest thing when I want to know a composer,” he laughs. “It was maybe one of the biggest shocks of my life. It taught me so much about Bernstein, and I think I could identify with the blending of genres in this piece. From that moment I became completely obsessed with Bernstein and decided to go through all his symphonies: ‘Jeremiah’, ‘Kaddish,’ and ‘The Age of Anxiety.’” In addition to his role as conductor, Nézet-Séguin acted as advisor to Bradley Cooper, helping him in his pursuit of musical authenticity. The soundtrack features two instances of Cooper conducting as Bernstein: part of the finale from Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” and, in a rehearsal scene, “Make Our Garden Grow” from Candide. “The important thing was to help Bradley and guide him to really understand what made Bernstein special on the podium as opposed to other conductors,” says Nézet-Séguin. “We were solely oriented towards having every gesture in the style of Bernstein. “There were countless videos of Bernstein that Bradley could observe and learn from,” he adds, “and I would do other videos with voiceover commentary on them, explaining the beats, explaining why he turns left or right here… and we would break it down together. Our sessions would be very much about discussing the gestures for any particular moment.” With so much to pack in to such little time, did Cooper succeed in coaxing the grand, vibrant “Bernstein sound” from the LSO? The answer is not that simple. “It was not important to get a Yannick interpretation or a Bradley one,” explains Nézet-Séguin, “but Yannick and Bradley together getting a certain sound.” Cooper wore an earpiece while conducting, allowing Nézet-Séguin to speak to him and guide him in real time. “It’s hard to explain how collaborative this has been but, as you can imagine, it’s been a fascinating and very emotional journey for all of us.” Nézet-Séguin is in no doubt of the impact that participating in Maestro has had on him. “It’s very hard to understand how only one person was capable of being at ease on Broadway, at ease in film music, at ease in religious music, in Hebrew, in English, in Latin, as a symphonic composer. But actually, this is all reflected in his life and in the fact that he was a true lover of many things, as he says in the movie, but also a bisexual, married to a woman that he loved but also interested in men all his life—and perhaps feeling forever wanting for more.” However, for Nézet-Séguin, the film is much more than an ambitious biopic of a great man. It serves to show how classical music can, in the right circumstances, reach untapped audiences. “I do hope that through this film and this soundtrack that people are going to get more curious, not only about Bernstein, but about the whole of classical music.”