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7 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Background
West Side Story is a musical based on Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'.
First Performed on Broadway in 1957.
Sung by the lead solo tenor voice, 'Tony'.
Instrumentation
Solo tenor voice.
Accompanied by a large chamber orchestra consisting of woodwind, brass, percussion and strings. He also has acoustic and electric guitar as well as a drum kit.
Bernstein adds saxophones to the normal instruments you would expect in an orchestra, and often has the woodwind and brass imitating the sounds of a jazz band (helped by the drum kit and pizzicato (plucked) double bass).
Bernstein uses a lot of latin American style percussion, to help represent the influence of the latin American gang.
The use of mutes in the brass, as well as tremolo and pizzicato in the stings add colour to the sound.
Melody
The melody is almost entirely syllabic and based on the following 3 main themes:
1) A quiet, syncopated opening theme.

2) A loud, strident theme in the metre 2/4 that starts at bar 21.


3) A lyrical, slow-moving theme that starts at bar 73.

The melodic ideas combine short fragmented motifs with longer, lyrical melodies.
Bernstein changes things such as the metre or lyrics each time a theme is heard.
Bernstein employs word painting, for example when he sings 'the air is humming'.
Structure
This is not a traditional verse / chorus structure:
The structure is: Intro; A; B; B1; A1; OUTRO
Much of the structure is dominated by ostinatos in the accompaniment.
Rhythm, Metre and Tempo
The metre changes between 2/4 and 3/4.
Changes of metre, a fast tempo and the use of a lot of syncopation maintains a feeling of excitement and anticipation. 

Use of cross-rhythms throughout (for example in the intro).

Accompaniment is made up of an off-beat bass line, which constantly pushes forward a 'push rhythm', and off beat chords.
Harmony And Tonality
Written in D Major although there are 2 contrasting sections in C Major (heard in bars 32-72 and 106-127)

Use of tritone which is an interval of 3 whole tones, e.g. C-F#.
Last note of the melody is a flattened 7th which remains unsolved and creates a feeling of incompletion.
The harmony is jazz influenced, with many examples of ‘Blue’ notes.
Texture
Much of the texture is in melody and accompaniment, with the accompaniment often made up of various ostinato-like figures.
The instruments often imitate each other, usually at different octaves, creating a texture of interweaving layers.