Scarecrow Press
Pages: 234
•
Trim: 5½ x 8½
978-0-8108-8137-2 • Paperback • December 2012 • $66.00 • (£51.00)
978-0-8108-8399-4 • eBook • December 2012 • $62.50 • (£48.00)
Anthony Bushard is associate professor of music history at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln where he teaches courses in jazz history, film music history/analysis, world music, and specialized courses on American musical topics.
Bushard (music history, U. of Nebraska, Lincoln) presents a musicological and sociological analysis of Leonard Bernstein's one and only film score that he wrote for On the Waterfront. Half of the book is devoted to biographical and social contextualizing, which Bushard argues is important to understand the true merits and influence of Bernstein's score. To this end, he reviews Bernstein's musical and dramatic background prior to making the film, outlines the significance of anti-communism in the life of Bernstein and the film's director, Elia Kazan, and interrogates the existential crises that the Cold War and suburban flight generated. Two chapters focus on the score or directly musical considerations itself: the second chapter, which considers Bernstein's compositional method, and the last chapter that analyzes the score piece by piece. Because of the context Bushard provides, this text could be useful in a class on cultural or film history, while the analysis itself will be of interest to people with musical training.
— Book News, Inc.