"Candide": Bernstein turns Voltaire's 18th-century satire into a bubbling, inventive operetta — with an overture of ripsnorting vivacity.
"Fancy Free": Brimming with chutzpah and youthful energy, this jazzy ballet was Bernstein's breakthrough.
"Mass": Pop culture meets organized religion in this iconoclastic and boldly experimental examination of belief in the modern era.
"On the Waterfront": Bernstein's only film score is a masterful evocation of the violent, dog-eat-dog environment of dockland corruption in 1950s New York.
"The Age of Anxiety": Bernstein the symphonist used W.H. Auden's poem to inspire this musical depiction of isolation in contemporary life.
TERRY BLAIN
