Leonard Bernstein

No figure in 20th century American classical music had as prominent or controversial a career -- or did more to sell classical music to the general public as something genuinely exciting and worth getting into a sweat over -- than Leonard Bernstein. For more than 30 years, from his assumption of the post of Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1958 until the final concerts that he conducted in obviously failing health near the end of his life in 1990, he was the most widely recognized American-born conductor in the world, and the dominant personality in American clas...