Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story

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Nigel Simeone's new book, Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story, offers a behind the scenes, intimate and illuminating insight into the genesis and creation of one of America's landmark musical achievements. This is a book that will appeal to the West Side Story enthusiast as well as those curious about the collaborative creative process. Marin Alsop, Music Director Baltimore Symphony Orchestra 'Musicologists are finding the Broadway musical a rich field for study after long experience writing about more hallowed areas. Nigel Simeone is the latest and one of the most exciting of these, and his West Side Storyis as richly rewarding as his earlier and ongoing work on French music. Because he has researched the show's genesis, history, musical manuscripts, structure, meaning and reception so extensively, probing a great deal further than previous scholarship, and yet writes it all up so simply and approachably, his book will be welcomed equally by scholars, students and general readers devoted (and who isn't?) to this epoch-making show.' Stephen Banfield, Stanley Hugh Badock Professor of Music, University of Bristol, UK 'As an aside, let us mention that the original cast album is discussed in detail " along with various stages of the creation of the show ... the book includes a full copy of the 1998 remastering of the original Broadway cast album, complete with liner note booklet. We come across so many "new" books about old musicals which seem to recycle what we've already read. This one tells us things we didn't know, which makes for fascinating reading.' Steven Suskin, on playbill.com '... offers a fascinating glimpse into the greatest musical of all, drawing on letters between its creators to put it in context and to show why, half a century on, it endures.' The Independent 'Simeone has created an excellent reference for future researchers or musical aficionados in terms of listing sources, collating information, creating an overall sense of order out