A Musical Toast is a short orchestral composition by the composer, educator, and conductor Leonard Bernstein written for the memorial concert of Bernstein's colleague, André Kostelanetz. It premiered in October 11, 1980, at the Avery Fisher Hall of New York City with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta.

"America" is a song from the 1957 musical West Side Story. Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics and Leonard Bernstein composed the music.

Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics primarily by the poet Richard Wilbur, based on the 1759 novella of the same name by Voltaire. Other contributors to the text were John Latouche, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, Stephen Sondheim, John Mauceri, John Wells, and Bernstein himself. Maurice Peress and Hershy Kay contributed orchestrations. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman, but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler, which is more faithful to Voltaire's novella. Although unsuccessful at its premiere, Candide has overcome the unenthusiastic reaction of early audiences and critics, and achieved more popularity.

Leonard Bernstein ( BURN-styne; born Louis Bernstein; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American-born conductor to receive international acclaim. Bernstein was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history" according to music critic Donal Henahan. Bernstein's honors and accolades include seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and 16 Grammy Awards (including the Lifetime Achievement Award) as well as an Academy Award nomination. He received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. As a composer, Bernstein wrote in many genres, including symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music, and pieces for the piano. Bernstein's works include the Broadway musical West Side Story, which continues to be regularly performed worldwide, and has been adapted into two (1961 and 2021) feature films, as well as three symphonies, Serenade (after Plato's Symposium) (1954) and Chichester Psalms (1965), the original score for Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954), and theater works including On the Town (1944), Wonderful Town (1953), Candide (1956), and his Mass (1971). Bernstein was the first American-born conductor to lead a major American symphony orchestra. He was music director of the New York Philharmonic and conducted the world's major orchestras, generating a legacy of audio and video recordings. Bernstein was also a critical figure in the modern revival of the music of Gustav Mahler, in whose music he was most interested. A skilled pianist, Bernstein often conducted piano concertos from the keyboard. He shared and explored classical music on television with a mass audience in national and international broadcasts, including Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein worked in support of civil rights; protested against the Vietnam War; advocated nuclear disarmament; raised money for HIV/AIDS research and awareness; championed Janis Ian at age 15 and her song about interracial love, "Society's Child", on his CBS television show; and engaged in multiple international initiatives for human rights and world peace. He conducted Mahler's Resurrection Symphony to mark the death of president John F. Kennedy, and in Israel at a concert, Hatikvah on Mt. Scopus, after the Six-Day War. The sequence of events was recorded for a documentary entitled Journey to Jerusalem. Bernstein was a member of the executive committee for Writers and Artists for Peace in the Middle East, a pro-Israel group. On Christmas Day, 1989, Bernstein conducted a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in Berlin to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. Less than a year later, in October 1990, he died of a heart attack brought on by mesothelioma in New York, aged 72.

Divertimento, or Divertimento for Orchestra, is a suite of eight orchestral bagatelles by American composer Leonard Bernstein. Completed in 1980 and written to celebrate the centenary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, it is well-known for featuring the notes B and C in most of its melodic material.

This is a list of compositions by the American composer Leonard Bernstein.

Leonard Bernstein ( BURN-styne; born Louis Bernstein; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American-born conductor to receive international acclaim. Bernstein was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history" according to music critic Donal Henahan. Bernstein's honors and accolades include seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and 16 Grammy Awards (including the Lifetime Achievement Award) as well as an Academy Award nomination. He received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. As a composer, Bernstein wrote in many genres, including symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music, and pieces for the piano. Bernstein's works include the Broadway musical West Side Story, which continues to be regularly performed worldwide, and has been adapted into two (1961 and 2021) feature films, as well as three symphonies, Serenade (after Plato's Symposium) (1954) and Chichester Psalms (1965), the original score for Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954), and theater works including On the Town (1944), Wonderful Town (1953), Candide (1956), and his Mass (1971). Bernstein was the first American-born conductor to lead a major American symphony orchestra. He was music director of the New York Philharmonic and conducted the world's major orchestras, generating a legacy of audio and video recordings. Bernstein was also a critical figure in the modern revival of the music of Gustav Mahler, in whose music he was most interested. A skilled pianist, Bernstein often conducted piano concertos from the keyboard. He shared and explored classical music on television with a mass audience in national and international broadcasts, including Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein worked in support of civil rights; protested against the Vietnam War; advocated nuclear disarmament; raised money for HIV/AIDS research and awareness; championed Janis Ian at age 15 and her song about interracial love, "Society's Child", on his CBS television show; and engaged in multiple international initiatives for human rights and world peace. He conducted Mahler's Resurrection Symphony to mark the death of president John F. Kennedy, and in Israel at a concert, Hatikvah on Mt. Scopus, after the Six-Day War. The sequence of events was recorded for a documentary entitled Journey to Jerusalem. Bernstein was a member of the executive committee for Writers and Artists for Peace in the Middle East, a pro-Israel group. On Christmas Day, 1989, Bernstein conducted a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in Berlin to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. Less than a year later, in October 1990, he died of a heart attack brought on by mesothelioma in New York, aged 72.

Ḥalil is a work for flute and chamber orchestra composed by Leonard Bernstein in 1981. The work is named after the halil, an ancient Jewish wind instrument. The work is sixteen minutes in length. Bernstein composed Ḥalil in honor of a young Israeli flutist Yadin Tanenbaum who was killed at the Suez Canal during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The work was premiered at the Sultan's Pool in Jerusalem on May 27, 1981, with Jean-Pierre Rampal as the soloist and Bernstein conducting the Israel Philharmonic. The American premiere took place at Tanglewood on July 4, 1981, with Doriot Anthony Dwyer as the soloist and members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

This is a list of compositions by the American composer Leonard Bernstein.

On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning and Eva Marie Saint in her film debut. The musical score was composed by Leonard Bernstein, his only original film score. The black-and-white film was inspired by "Crime on the Waterfront" by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November–December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, but the screenplay by Budd Schulberg is directly based on his own original story. The film focuses on union violence and corruption among longshoremen, while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey. On the Waterfront was a critical and commercial success and is considered one of the greatest films ever made and is said to revolve around the subject matter of alienation at the lowest social level. It received twelve Academy Award nominations and won eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan. In 1998, it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth-greatest American movie of all time; in AFI's 2007 list, it was ranked 19th. It is Bernstein's only original film score not adapted from a stage production with songs. In 1989, On the Waterfront was one of the first 25 films to be deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Peter Pan is a 1950 musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up with music and lyrics by Leonard Bernstein; it opened on Broadway on April 24, 1950. This version starred Jean Arthur as Peter Pan, Boris Karloff in the dual roles of George Darling and Captain Hook, and Marcia Henderson as Wendy. The show was orchestrated by Trude Rittmann and Hershy Kay and conducted by Benjamin Steinberg. The show ran for 321 performances, closing on January 27, 1951. The production was initially intended as a full-blown musical, with Bernstein composing a complete score for it, but was staged with only five songs – "Who Am I?", "Pirate's Song", "Plank Round", "Build My House", and "Peter Peter" – to accommodate the limited vocal ranges of the principals. In 1998, conductor Alexander Frey began research into whether there may have existed more material that Bernstein had composed for Peter Pan. Over the next seven years, as his schedule allowed, he discovered and restored almost an hour of previously unheard music, much of the material found (and not yet orchestrated) in the archives of the composer's manuscripts. The restored songs included "Captain Hook Soliloquy" and "Dream With Me", as well as other sung material, dance music and orchestral interludes. The world premiere recording of Bernstein's complete score was released on CD in 2005, conducted by Alexander Frey, featuring Broadway star Linda Eder in the role of Wendy Darling and acclaimed baritone Daniel Narducci as Captain Hook, on the Koch International Classics label. In December 2006, it was produced for the stage by The King's Head Theatre in Islington, London, with Katherine Kastin as Peter Pan, Peter Land as Captain Hook, and Rafaella Hutchinson as Tinker Bell, directed by Stephanie Sinclaire and featuring new musical arrangements by Mike Dixon. This production used only parts of the Bernstein score and none of the original orchestrations. The music was performed by an instrumental trio. In September 2008 the world premiere performance of the full Bernstein score was performed in concert with Alexander Frey conducting the Gulbenkian Orchestra, with dialogue adapted from the original J. M. Barrie play by Nina Bernstein Simmons. Three performances were given in Cascais, Portugal, for a combined audience of over 10,000 people; they featured Geraldine James (narrator), John Sackville-West (Peter Pan), Charlotte Ellett and Rachel Nicholls (Wendy) and Nicholas Lester (Captain Hook). The first stage production of the full Bernstein score was given by Santa Barbara Theater (California) in December 2008, directed by Albert Ihde with a full orchestra again conducted by Alexander Frey. Another production was held at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in June 2018, directed by Christopher Alden.

Prelude, Fugue and Riffs is a "written-out" jazz-in-concert-hall composition composed by Leonard Bernstein for a jazz ensemble featuring solo clarinet. The title points to the union of classical music and jazz: Prelude (first movement) and Fugue (second movement) – both baroque forms – are followed immediately without a pause by a series of "riffs" (third movement), which is a jazz term for a repeated and short melodic figure. It features: brass and rhythm in the first movement, saxophones in the second movement, and the entire ensemble plus solo clarinet in the third movement first with backing from the piano then by the entire ensemble. Completed in 1949 for Woody Herman's big band as part of a series of commissioned works – that already included Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto – it was never performed by Herman, possibly because his orchestra had disbanded at that time. Instead, it received its premiere on Bernstein's Omnibus television show, The World of Jazz on October 16, 1955. The soloist for the work's TV premiere was Al Gallodoro; he is seen in the preserved 1955 video playing alto saxophone and then the clarinet solo passages. Some sources instead credit Benny Goodman, to whom the work was dedicated upon its publication. In 1952 Bernstein revised the score from its original instrumentation for a more conventional pit orchestra, and the work was then incorporated into a ballet sequence in the first draft of the musical comedy Wonderful Town. The revised version of Prelude, Fugue and Riffs did not survive and the majority of the music was cut from the final version of the Wonderful Town score with the exception of a few phrases in the musical's numbers "Conquering the City" and "Conversation Piece". It later was transcribed for clarinet and orchestra by Lukas Foss. In 2025 it was arranged by Simon Wright for trumpet soloist Alison Balsom, and performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the Finale of the Last Night of the Proms 2025 at The Royal Albert Hall.

The Serenade, after Plato's Symposium, is a composition by Leonard Bernstein for solo violin, strings and percussion. He completed the serenade in five movements on August 7, 1954. For the serenade, the composer drew inspiration from Plato's Symposium, a dialogue of related statements in praise of love, each statement made by a distinguished speaker. The seven speakers who inspired Bernstein's five movements are: I. Phaedrus: Pausanias – marked Lento and Allegro II. Aristophanes – marked Allegretto III. Eryximachus, the doctor – marked Presto IV. Agathon – marked Adagio V. Socrates: Alcibiades – marked Molto tenuto and Allegro molto vivace Although the Serenade is scored for violin, strings, harp and percussion (timpani and five more percussionists playing side drum, tenor drum, bass drum, triangle, suspended cymbal, xylophone, glockenspiel, chimes, Chinese blocks, tambourine), the violin is the most prominent solo instrument. The composition is about a half-hour in length. Commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Serenade is dedicated to "the beloved memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky". The premiere was conducted by Bernstein himself on September 12, 1954, at La Fenice (Venice), with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and violinist Isaac Stern. It was also first recorded by Stern and Bernstein for Columbia Records on April 19, 1956, in New York City, with the Symphony of the Air.

Slava! A Political Overture for Orchestra is a short orchestral composition by Leonard Bernstein. It was written for the inaugural concerts of Mstislav Rostropovich's first season with the National Symphony Orchestra in 1977. It premiered on October 11, 1977, with Rostropovich conducting.

Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 1 Jeremiah was composed in 1942. Jeremiah is a programmatic work, following the Biblical story of the prophet Jeremiah. The third movement uses texts from the Book of Lamentations in the Hebrew Bible, sung by a mezzo-soprano. The work won the New York Music Critics' Circle Award for the best American work of 1944.

Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 2 The Age of Anxiety is a piece for orchestra and solo piano. The piece was composed from 1948 to 1949 in the United States and Israel, and was revised in 1965. It is titled after W. H. Auden's eponymous poem, and dedicated to Serge Koussevitzky.

Symphony No. 3 "Kaddish" is a programmatic choral symphony by Leonard Bernstein, published in 1963. It is a dramatic work written for a large orchestra, a full choir, a boys' choir, a soprano soloist and a narrator. "Kaddish" refers to the Jewish prayer that is chanted at every synagogue service for the dead but never mentions "death". The symphony is dedicated to the memory of John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated on November 22, 1963, just weeks before the first performance of the symphony. Bernstein wrote the text of the narration himself, but struggled with his own motivation for the aggressiveness of the text.