Bernstein

0:00:09 > 0:00:11Music is for listening to -

0:00:11 > 0:00:12definitely.

0:00:16 > 0:00:18But when I hear music, I don't want to just listen.

0:00:18 > 0:00:22MUSIC: Mambo by Leonard Bernstein

0:00:24 > 0:00:26I want to move!

0:00:29 > 0:00:30I want to dance.

0:00:33 > 0:00:35A dance can be romantic.

0:00:35 > 0:00:36It can be frenetic.

0:00:37 > 0:00:40It can be a party or a battleground.

0:00:42 > 0:00:46Romeo and Juliet - perhaps the most famous lovers of all -

0:00:46 > 0:00:49meet during a dance at a masked ball.

0:00:52 > 0:00:55A moment of happiness before their two warring families,

0:00:55 > 0:00:59the Montagues and the Capulets, tear them apart.

0:00:59 > 0:01:04And if you update Shakespeare's tragic love story, what do you get?

0:01:04 > 0:01:05MUSIC: Mambo by Leonard Bernstein

0:01:05 > 0:01:10West Side Story, a stage musical composed by Leonard Bernstein.

0:01:10 > 0:01:14Shakespeare's Verona in Italy becomes New York City in the 1950s,

0:01:14 > 0:01:17where a turf war is under way.

0:01:17 > 0:01:20The Montagues and the Capulets become two rival street gangs,

0:01:20 > 0:01:22the Sharks and the Jets.

0:01:24 > 0:01:28And Romeo and Juliet make way for Tony and Maria.

0:01:29 > 0:01:33Bernstein had seen Latin dance music when he visited Puerto Rico,

0:01:33 > 0:01:36and now he watched as one particular dance craze

0:01:36 > 0:01:38swept through New York City in the '50s.

0:01:38 > 0:01:42And so, for his musical, out went Shakespeare's masked ball

0:01:42 > 0:01:44and in came mambo.

0:01:46 > 0:01:50Bernstein's Mambo's got fast rhythms packed with semiquavers

0:01:50 > 0:01:51and great melodic lines.

0:01:53 > 0:01:55It's full of passion and danger,

0:01:55 > 0:01:58just like the emotions on those hot city streets.

0:01:58 > 0:02:01It's music to make you move.

0:02:40 > 0:02:41Mambo!

0:02:56 > 0:02:57Mambo!