He Burned With Ideas -- Music's Leonard Bernstein Dead Of Heart Attack At 72

The signs had been there for months, as Leonard Bernstein canceled concerts and withdrew from tours due to ill health. But it wasn't until last week that the 72-year-old conductor, composer and international man of music officially laid down his baton.

A mere four days later, while the music world was still in shock from his retirement, Bernstein was gone. His death yesterday - from a heart attack brought on by progressive lung failure, according to his physician - was the passing of one of the most inventive, controversial and wide-ranging talents of our century, one that will inspire lasting debate about Bernstein's true place in musical history.

Bernstein was a heavy smoker with a history of breathing difficulties, which his doctor, Kevin Cahill, linked to progressive emphysema, the New York Daily News reported today.

The man whom Seattle Symphony music director Gerard Schwarz calls ``the most charismatic man I've ever met'' had more facets than the Hope Diamond. As a composer, Bernstein was best known for the musical ``West Side Story,'' a fact that was known to cause him great anguish; his serious scores never won the same acclaim. As a

conductor, he survived years of critical scorn for his dramatic excesses and his distortions of the score, emerging triumphant as one of the grand old men of the podium and leaving behind a most impressive discography. (His most recent Mahler recording beat out the Seattle Symphony, which had been nominated in the same category, for a Grammy award last year).

``His gift as a conductor,'' says Schwarz, who played under him as a trumpeter in the New York Philharmonic and who became a close friend, ``was to make every single player in an orchestra feel a part of something terribly important. Every concert was like that. And the contribution he's made to music will last forever.''

As a pianist, Bernstein was a gifted performer who probably could have achieved anything he wanted to - if he had set aside the time to practice, when he was already busy writing books (very literate and intelligent ones), making TV shows (very entertaining and informative ones), giving university lectures and conservatory master classes, and generally being Mr. Music for generations of appreciative audiences.

He lived under the most intense scrutiny, a scrutiny he seemed to invite. In 1970, Tom Wolfe wrote both ironically and admiringly of Bernstein in ``Radical Chic,'' detailing the trendy political involvement of the conductor and his wife, Felicia, who died in 1978.

More recently, a fascinating and scandalous biography, ``Bernstein'' (by Joan Peyser, 1987) told readers more than many of them wanted to know about the musician, including details of his homosexuality, right down to the scurrilous anecdotes and poems - supplied by Bernstein himself, who cooperated with the biographer.

The man who used to kiss the cufflinks of legendary conductor Serge Koussevitzky before walking onstage at every performance, Bernstein grew up in Boston as a musical wunderkind, brilliant and undisciplined and in perpetual rebellion against authority.

An early debut with the New York Philharmonic, replacing the ailing conductor Bruno Walter, established Bernstein in his podium career. But despite what later evolved into a music directorship of the Philharmonic, with which he made more than 200 recordings, most of Bernstein's later conducting career was spent as a guest artist (particularly of the Vienna Philharmonic, with which he enjoyed a privileged relationship).

Always in the throes of the next project, Bernstein took periodic sabbaticals from conducting to devote himself to composing ballets, operas, chamber music, symphonies, pieces of all kinds. He also encouraged young talent; according to Schwarz, composer Bright Sheng was at Bernstein's bedside yesterday, and Bernstein expressed his enthusiasm for Sheng's work (including a transcription of Bernstein's own ``Arias and Barcarolles,'' which the Seattle Symphony has recorded). Even at the end, his excitement about music continued unabated.

``We were with him last August,'' says Schwarz, whose wife, Jody, also grew up in Bernstein's circle, ``and he was raving about our CDs (the Seattle Symphony's recent compact-disc recordings of American composers), especially about the horns. He was all ready to take up the cause, and champion these great American composers again. He had such a love for music.''

The Seattle Symphony's subscription concerts tonight and tomorrow in the Opera House will be dedicated to Bernstein's memory, Schwarz said.

For many music lovers, the Bernstein image that lingers is the expression of exaltation on his face as he conducted an international orchestra last Christmas in a filmed concert celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall.

``I am experiencing a historical moment,'' he said then, ``incomparable with others in my long, long life.'' It was all there in Bernstein's face, and reflected in the faces of his musicians was an adoring zeal that would have followed him up the highest mountain.

A consummate showman, yes. A tormented genius, perhaps.

But Bernstein also was a man who loved music, and who changed its course during his lifetime. When he was conducting, lecturing, writing, he could make you believe. In our cynical, commercial world, he burned with ideas, and he lit fires that will long remain unextinguished.

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Bernstein's major works

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Works for Orchestra

``Jeremiah, Symphony No. 1,'' 1942; ``Three Dance Episodes From `On The Town,' '' 1945; ``The Age Of Anxiety, Symphony No. 2,'' 1949; ``Prelude, Fugue And Riffs,'' 1949; ``Serenade,'' 1954.

``Symphonic Suite From `On The Waterfront,' '' 1955; ``Candide,'' 1956; ``Symphonic Dances From `West Side Story,' '' 1960; ``Fanfare,'' (for the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy) 1961; ``Fanfare,'' (for the 25th anniversary of the High School of Music and Art in New York) 1961.

``Kaddish,'' 1963; ``Chichester Psalms in Three Movements,'' 1965; ``Mass,'' 1971; ``Dybbuk,'' (from the ballet by Bernstein and Jerome Robins) 1974; ``1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,'' 1976.

``Slava! A Political Overture for Orchestra,'' 1977; ``Songfest, A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers,'' 1977; ``CBS Music,'' 1977; ``Divertimento For Orchestra,'' 1980; ``A Musical Toast,'' 1980; ``Halil,'' 1981; ``Olympic Hymn,'' 1981; ``Jubilee Games,'' 1986; ``Opening Prayer,'' 1986.

Theater Scores

``On The Town,'' 1944; ``Peter Pan,'' 1950; ``Trouble In Tahiti,'' 1951; ``Wonderful Town,'' 1953; ``The Lark,'' 1955; ``Salome,'' 1955; ``Candide,'' 1956; ``West Side Story,'' 1957; ``The Firstborn,'' 1958; ``Mass,'' 1971; ``By Bernstein,'' 1975; ``1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,'' 1976; ``The Madwoman Of Central Park West,'' 1979; ``A Quiet Place,'' 1983.

Ballets

``Fancy Free,'' 1944; ``Facsimile,'' 1946.

(Other ballets were derived from earlier orchestral works)

Films

``On The Town,'' 1949; ``On The Waterfront,'' 1954; ``West Side Story,'' 1961.

Associated Press