On the next-to-last page of his survey of Leonard Bernstein’s compositions, LaFave says, 'I fully expected Bernstein the composer to shrink' as the book burgeoned. The reverse occurred. Bernstein’s music revealed more and more structural glories, such as the informing use of the tritone in West Side Story, as well as an overall profile at once traditional and avant-garde. Bernstein clung to tonality and argued against atonal and 12-tone composition per se while exemplifying how to use 12-tone rows within tonal works. He leaped into the orchestral percussion revolution that led to minimalism, and he pioneered injecting pop-music styles, performance techniques, and instruments (electric guitar, Hammond organ) into otherwise classical orchestral and singing ensembles to produce the sui generis Mass, 'the best-selling multiple-disc classical recording in the industry’s history.' LaFave’s greater-than-anticipated enthusiasm for his subject shows in the liveliness of his engrossing readings of Bernstein’s scores, which include thorough plot précis of the composer’s dramatic works, including the musicals, the movie On theWaterfront, Mass, and even the violin concerto Serenade after Plato’s Symposium (based on a drama of sorts, after all). Reading his descriptive analyses seems the next-best thing to attending actual performances—quite an achievement for a series book.

Booklist, Starred Review

'The Listener's Companion' series in which this book appears is meant to provide accessible, user-friendly information on prominent composers, performers, and music artists. A music journalist and working composer and musician, LaFave knew Bernstein personally and so is able to present him in a very different light than could a musicologist or even an avid scholar. LaFave takes a chronological approach to Bernstein's life and musical career, analyzing influences, people, and his compositions in a straightforward and approachable fashion. Bernstein is presented in all of his facets, both positive and negative, and the reader gets the sense that the author is sitting down and narrating Bernstein's life in person. There is a time line of important events in Bernstein's life at the beginning of the book and a selected reading and listening list at the end. A refreshing approach to the life and works of a great 20th-century American composer, conductor, and musician. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.

Choice Reviews

The premise of this book is that one experiences Leonard Bernstein largely through his own compositions, and Kenneth LaFave makes it clear that this was a view of himself Bernstein cherished. There is no shortage of available biographical material for and studies of the most-publicized American musician of the second half of the last century and, though LaFave explicitly says this is not a biography, he equally explicitly says one cannot understand Bernstein’s music without some knowledge of that biography, and that is what he undertakes here. Each piece he discusses is given its biographical position and its interpretation as a reflection of Bernstein’s thought and life at that moment. In LaFave’s telling, the composer Bernstein was intimately bound up with the person Bernstein, and that union was expressed by 'faith,' perhaps the most-common descriptive word in this book, and the word LaFave works hardest to give content to. . . .LaFave’s prose is everywhere effusive and ebullient.

Fanfare Magazine

Experiencing Leonard Bernstein: A Listener's Companion is an excellent book for every music lover who wishes to know the works of Leonard Bernstein. The book invites you to listen to his compositions. (Translated from the original Dutch)

Opera Nederland