West Side Story (Medley)

By Leonard Bernstein

We did this piece with a flute ensemble, not vocalists, and it worked very nicely. We actually made two groups (antiphonally), doing songs 1 and 3 with one group, songs 2 and 4 with the other group, and the entire group combining for the "America" finale. You MUST have a...

good pianist to pull this off. Many opportunities for subtle and obvious style changes; dynamics are a must for the tender songs, and intonation for the descants and solo parts is important. We loved playing this.

West Side Story music is definitely gorgeous and is a great crowd pleaser, and this medly was a crowd pleaser, but it has it's oddities. The "Tonight" arrangement as well as "One Hand, One Heart" are very moving, but the "I Feel Pretty" arrangement is strange in that it...

has part of the voices echoing the lead by singing part of the original accompaniment. The "Maria" arrangment is also tough to do - we just did it as a solo and it sounded lovely.

West Side Story has some of the most stunning music and this arrangement seems to pull from the worst of it. All of the difficult passages are removed. Also, the transitions are very choppy.

This is a very valuable medley to anyone wishing to get a taste of West Side Story. The arrangement is very true to the original show arrangements but a little more in detail than the piano accompaniment in the piano/vocal book. A very good buy!