Maestro
Not a single new piece was written for this film — the music is mostly what Leonard Bernstein himself left behind, joined by works of Mahler·Beethoven and others.
At a glance 🔭💭
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The people behind it ⏳🌊
- ComposerLeonard Bernstein
A conductor and composer, the real-life figure whose work is the source of most of the music in this film.
- DirectorBradley Cooper
He directed the film while also playing Bernstein.
- LeadCarey Mulligan
She plays Felicia Montealegre.
- ScreenplayJosh Singer
Co-wrote the screenplay with Bradley Cooper.
- ProducerMartin Scorsese
Involved from the project's earliest stages and credited as a producer.
- ConductorYannick Nézet-Séguin
Coached Bradley Cooper in conducting and conducted the music actually heard in the film.
I. Maestro and Bernstein
(The film) “Maestro” is a 2023 Netflix biopic about the marriage of the conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife, Felicia Montealegre. Rather than commissioning a new score, it is built on the music Bernstein himself left behind, and so the film's music is, in effect, Bernstein's life itself. (The director) Bradley Cooper both directed and starred. The project is said to have first been developed by Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, with Cooper taking over as director once he was set to play Bernstein. Scorsese stayed on as a producer. (The musician) Bernstein was an American-born star conductor who led the New York Philharmonic, and at the same time a composer who moved freely between Broadway works such as “West Side Story” and “Candide” and symphonies and masses. That he erased the boundaries between classical and popular music, between conducting and composing, is the theme the film keeps returning to. (The choice) Cooper is said to have spent years on conducting training alone. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, coached him, and the live performance scenes in the latter part of the film were shot without a double.
II. The call at dawn
(Debut) The film opens before dawn one November morning in 1943, as the young Bernstein receives a call telling him to take the Carnegie Hall stage in place of the conductor Bruno Walter, who has fallen ill. The unscheduled stand-in debut made the front page the next day and turned an unknown assistant conductor, overnight, into the face of American music. (The call) Picking up the receiver half asleep, leaping out of bed — the film compresses this single night into the character's point of departure. That he took the stage without a rehearsal becomes the prototype of the spontaneity and self-assurance that would follow him all his life. (Felicia) Around the same time he meets the Chilean-born actress Felicia Montealegre. Their relationship is drawn through a conversation at a party and the glances in which each recognizes the other's gift. (The music) Beneath this opening runs a melody from the symphony Bernstein wrote around the age of thirty. Music in which youthful ambition and unease intermingle explains the character's beginnings.
Taking its cue from W.H. Auden's poem of the same title, the piece portrays both the anxiety and the ambition of the young Bernstein at the film's opening.
- The prologue used in the film is a brief duet traded between two clarinets, turning into sound the inner life of the anxious young man depicted in Auden's poem.
- The piano leads the melody like a narrator while the orchestra follows, a structure that mirrors a character swinging between conviction and anxiety.
- Set alongside the film's frantic opening phone call, the music explains the character's sudden leap before it happens.
III. Between two worlds
(Marriage) Married in 1951, the two stand at the center of New York's artistic society. Felicia carries on her career as an actress while also taking on the role of sustaining Bernstein's public image. (The stage) In these years Bernstein moves between two identities: classical conductor and Broadway composer. The urban, jazz-inflected color of “West Side Story” has remained an influence that the makers of film musicals such as “La La Land” like to cite. Yet at the time, some corners of the classical music world looked askance at his double career. (Parties) The film renders this period in black and white, a blur of boisterous parties, rehearsals and dinners with the children. It shows the rhythm of a life in which private life and performance cannot be told apart. (Balance) Felicia tries to strike a balance between her own career and supporting her husband. The point at which that balance begins to falter is the subject of the next chapter.
Quick and full of wit, this overture distills Bernstein's double life between the classical world and Broadway.
- Short phrases tossed between racing strings and brass follow one another without pause, matching the pace of a man moving between two lives.
- A widely performed stand-alone concert piece, it is counted among the Broadway overtures that classical orchestras most love to play.
- Short melodies heard earlier return in the later section colored by different instruments, much like the film's editing, in which the same scene recurs from a different point of view.
The opening of “West Side Story,” heard briefly on the film's soundtrack, recalls Bernstein's popular fame.
- Opening with finger snaps and syncopated rhythms, the piece lays out the rivalry between two gangs through dance and music alone, without a word of dialogue.
- The number that raises the curtain on “West Side Story” consists solely of orchestra and dance, with no singing.
- Interpretations differ subtly across the stage version, the 1961 film and Steven Spielberg's remake.
IV. Distance
(Distance) The marriage was glamorous on the surface, but within, a distance slowly grows. Bernstein's other relationships have long been discussed among his biographers, and the film does not hide them. (Thanksgiving) The most talked-about scene is a conversation between the two beneath the giant balloons of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The noise of the festivities set against the stillness of their exchange lays bare the cracks in the marriage. (The music) The score also uses “Pax: Communion,” the closing section of the theater piece “Mass.” As that work dealt with the conflict between faith and the self, here too it serves to illuminate the character's inner struggle. (Children) Scenes of home life with their three children are also drawn in this period, showing the family bond that holds even amid the cracks.
A quiet passage that concludes “Mass,” illuminating a character torn between faith and doubt.
- The section that closes “Mass”: once the preceding turmoil has subsided, the chorus sings of peace and brings the work to its end.
- “Mass” is an experimental theater piece that blends religious ritual and drama, rock and classical music; at its premiere, opinion was sharply divided.
V. In the cathedral
(Ely) The climax is the scene in which Bernstein conducts Mahler's Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” with the London Symphony at Ely Cathedral in England in 1973. A faithful re-creation of a performance that actually took place, it was filmed as the longest single shot in the movie. (Immersion) Conducting with his whole body, the sweat-soaked shirt, the face at the moment the chorus bursts forth — the camera follows it all without a cut. It is a rare moment in which the music and the man become one. (Felicia) Somewhere in the audience sits Felicia. The distance between the self-assured figure on the podium and the marriage behind him gives the scene a double emotional charge. (Symbol) In this film, the meaning held in the title “Resurrection” goes beyond mere religious connotation and is read alongside the moment the character rises again. Where the piece leads is best discovered in the theater.
The piece that fills the climax of the Ely Cathedral long take; not composed by Bernstein, it is nonetheless one of the performances most widely remembered through his interpretation.
- Entering in a low near-whisper and steadily swelling, the chorus of this final movement is known for its text about life after death, and it aligns precisely with the climax of the film's conducting scene.
- The performance in this scene was recorded live, with Bradley Cooper himself conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.
- The actual 1973 performance at Ely Cathedral is counted among Bernstein's finest, and its recording is still frequently cited.
- Since the piece is Mahler's own work, it is not a Bernstein composition, but as a performance made widely known through his interpretation, it embodies the musical identity of this film.
VI. The melody that remains
(Time) After the climax, the film slows its pace. There follow the hours in which husband and wife draw close again, and belated conversations in which each, in their own way, comes to understand the other. (Farewell) Felicia died in 1978, as has long been known. The film renders this parting without fanfare, as a stillness at the bedside. (Late years) Bernstein thereafter shifts his weight from conducting to teaching. He is glimpsed briefly instructing young musicians at the Tanglewood Music Festival. (Legacy) The film's ending lingers as a question about how music holds on to a person. Exactly which scene it closes on is perhaps best left to those who see it for themselves.
A choral work in tune with the calmer mood of the film's latter half, and one of Bernstein's signature pieces rooted in the Jewish tradition.
- Setting the Psalms in Hebrew, this choral work forgoes a lavish orchestra in favor of a spare scoring built chiefly on harp and percussion.
- The second movement, used in the film, is the passage that sets Psalm 23, and its quiet melody touches gently on the film's closing mood.
- It is counted the most accessible of Bernstein's works rooted in the Jewish tradition, and it is performed often by choirs around the world.
Lesser-known stories
The actual 1973 performance on which the Ely Cathedral scene is based was originally staged to serve both a documentary and a recording session. The footage of Bernstein conducting with his whole body had long been talked about among classical music lovers, yet many members of the wider public first encountered it through this film. Some of the couple's conversations in the film are said to have been drawn from real letters. Among the Bernstein materials compiled by the biographer Humphrey Burton are letters Felicia wrote to her husband, and one in which she says she will accept their relationship just as it is is quoted especially often. That such primary sources formed the backbone of the screenplay is seldom mentioned outside the credits. That not a single newly composed piece appears anywhere in the film drew little attention even at the time of its release. Biopics usually commission an original score to sum up their subject's life, but this film was set from the start to use existing music, centered on Bernstein's own works.
Glossary 📚🔎
Compilation score (music assembled from existing pieces)
(Meaning) Compilation comes from the English word compilation, meaning to gather several things and bind them into one. In film music, the term refers to a score assembled from existing pieces rather than newly composed. (In film and musical theater) Film music is usually composed fresh for that film alone, but a compilation score selects previously released pieces and arranges them to fit the story. It is rather like a class talent show where, instead of writing a new song, you pick favorite songs that already exist and put them in order. (Elsewhere) In the record industry, a compilation album means a record that gathers hits by various artists in one place.
Diegetic music (music the characters in the scene hear)
(Meaning) Diegesis comes from Greek and means the world within a story. Diegetic music is thus music that the characters inside that world hear as well. (In film and musical theater) Music the characters on screen can also hear, such as music playing from a radio or performed by a character, is called diegetic music. Background music heard only by the audience and not by the characters is, by contrast, called non-diegetic music. It is like the difference between a whistle actually blowing in gym class and the tense background music that plays only when you watch a movie.
Symphony (交響曲)
(Meaning) Written with the Hanja 交 (gyo, 'to mingle') and 響 (hyang, 'to resound'), the word gyohyanggok means many sounds resounding together in harmony. The name carries the sense of a large-scale work played by the full orchestra together. (In film and musical theater) It usually refers to an orchestral work made up of about four movements (large sections). Just as a sports day unfolds in a series of events, such as the relay, the tug-of-war and the baton race, a symphony forms a single large work out of movements of differing character following one another.
Mass
(Meaning) Mass is the word for the worship service of the Catholic Church, and a mass setting is a musical work that weaves together the songs sung during that service. (In film and musical theater) Though originally music for church ritual, composers sometimes borrow the form to create stage works dealing with emotions unrelated to religion - life and death, faith and doubt. Bernstein's Mass is such a case, closer to a theater piece in which actors, a chorus and a rock band share the stage than to an actual religious rite. It is like borrowing the fixed order of a school ceremony (opening address, celebratory song, closing address) while filling it with entirely different content.
Long take
(Meaning) A direct rendering of the English long take, meaning a single extended shot left uncut by editing. (In film and musical theater) When a scene is filmed in one breath, without cuts, while the music plays, the tension and flow of the performance reach the audience intact. The effect is like a soccer broadcast in which the camera follows the play without a single cut right up to the moment the goal goes in. (Elsewhere) In photography and broadcast coverage, too, it is used in a similar sense, meaning to shoot at length without interruption.
Leitmotif (guiding motive)
(Meaning) The word comes from the German Leitmotiv, a combination of leiten, meaning to lead, and Motiv, meaning motive. It means a short melody that keeps following and pointing to a particular character or emotion. (In film and musical theater) When the same few notes recur each time a character appears or a particular emotion surfaces, the audience can guess whose scene it is from the melody alone. Just as in a round the next singer takes up the same tune, in a film the same melody returns in other scenes, changed in form. (Elsewhere) In literary and art criticism, too, a recurring symbol or motif is often called a leitmotif.