Orchestrating "West Side Story"

[@stevehinnenkamp5625]

Oh, please, more! Learned so much how music gets transformed from the piano to the pit. Jamie is astute with her questions with Sid, whose talent over-rides his humility. An inspiration, a valuable learning document to be shared. Thank you, JAMIE❤

[@tiffsaver]

"Something new, something WONDERFUL." That sums up West Side Story, perfectly.

[@Kujalamuse]

This just gave me a great big SMILE!! I had the pleasure of meeting Sid Ramin about 15 years ago when he dropped in on a Hollywood Bowl Orchestra rehearsal where we performed the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. What a treat! And I used to work for his composer-son, Ron, back in the 80's and 90's on various TV shows; also a major talent! Thanks for posting this wonderful interview.

[@DHedwig]

This is truly priceless! A genuine, sincere and insightful interview.

[@heterosectional]

Thanks so very, very much for this interview! Until now, I thought Sid Ramin orchestrated only pop music in the 50s. Such marvelous detail!!!

[@adriennealbert]

Beautiful, touching, and insightful! Sid Ramin is one of most genuine, nicest, and most talented people on this planet. He and Lenny made a wonderful pair. Thank you for this marvelous interview!

[@recruitymcfruity5232]

Ok?

[@socratesthe2nd514]

A very informative interview all about West Side Story. Thank you very much for this.

[@carolworthey2067]

What a delight! Great questions and insightful and often amusing answers! Thank you for this gem!

[@josephcuriale2293]

Sid Ramin is a genius! He is much too humble but his humility certainly gives insight into the high quality of man he is. His orchestrations are works of art; masterpieces of beauty, heart and intelligence. And for those who are unaware, he can swing hard! His theme for the Patty Duke Show is classic! Again, perfection in every way. Perhaps perfection was all he knew... Sid Ramin is a blessing to the world.

[@wallybrown4392]

Thank you very much for sharing that wonderful conversation. I love seeing Jamie anytime, and hearing about my favorite musician Leonard Bersnstein, and Sid's view was very interesting. I hope you do more of these conversations. Wally Brown, Oklahoma City

[@heterosectional]

MORE INTERVIEWS LIKE THIS, please. :)

[@whetcalf]

Just wonderful stuff. Send more please!!

[@yesillsayit]

Amazing to hear Sid Ramin mention working with my Great Uncle, Irwin Kostal. Such a legacy these talented men have left for us all.... West Side Story was one of many classics that he worked on, and to have this captured on video is priceless! West Side Story, both the Broadway and Film version at this in entertainment history is incredible! My Uncle Irv was just an ordinary, but talented man from Chicago. Thank you for this video!

[@johnniehh]

I just had the pleasure of meeting Irv's son tonight, what a wonderful man

[@FreakieFan]

His comments about Lenny and the way he wrote fills was really funny and wholesome. Great story.

[@tomkent4656]

Fascinating stuff, but let's not forget that Sid also wrote the hit "Music to Watch Girls By". RIP.

[@JoefromNJ1]

i played the clarinet book on Bb, eb, and bass. there were times i didnt have time to switch. there was one number where i had to play all 3 instruments and i just couldnt do it. it think it was America. i asked the sax player to take over the clarinet part so i could just worry about eb and bass and it worked for that song.

[@carrick63]

You did ok by the sound of it! ;)

[@robkunkel8833]

A great story. My clarinet hat is off to you. 16 Woodwinds in the film! This interview shows how much work was involved.

[@willcwhite]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS.

[@Gusrikh1]

Very, very interesting .. and insightful..

[@terryhammond8697]

In the 70's, I had the memorable experience of working with Lenny and comden and green when they were trying to Fashion a musical consisting entirely of Lenny's trunk songs ... trunk songs being songs that were written for his musicals that were never used in the shows. Unfortunately, they couldn't make the project gel. During breaks, however, I used to play themes from Wagner's operas on the piano and they would try to identify them. I was amazed at how knowledgeable comden and green were with Wagner.

[@andrewkohler3707]

So THAT'S why Reed V has only bassoon, while Reed III has flute, piccolo, oboe, English horn, clarinet in Bb, bass clarinet, tenor sax, and baritone sax! And why the switches are so inefficient throughout ;-) My favorite is going from piccolo to bass sax in about five measures in the nightmare portion of the ballet sequence, especially because that player could have stayed on flute while another of the reeds could have made the switch to piccolo instead in the preceding passage.

[@rmo52]

Guys like Sid, Irv, Phil Lang, Red Ginzler, etc. just couldn’t miss. They would (and could easily) finish each others’ charts if there was an emergency on another tune in progress. All genius chameleons of orchestrating.

[@mlefeb]

Lmao now I know why there were four Xylophones in the prologue in the movie hahaha. Thanks for this.

[@DHedwig]

And, by the way, I'd like to make an offer on those two "Bom-Boms!"

[@FreakieFan]

Mr. Ramin was 92 years old in this clip? What? I would've expected him to be in his 70's.

[@leslieackerman4189]

Jamie Bernstein gets more beautiful with age💓

[@joesoy9185]

Welcome to the auction today, folks! The first lot is two boombooms from the original score of West Side Story. Who'll start me off at say USD 1,000?

[@leojbramble]

Wonderful; though I'm still trying to figure out where the extra bom-boms would fit in.... :)

[@valentinodentesani4063]

Hallo everyone! I have a question..if Maestro Ramin made the orchestration of west side story...what did Bernstein write exatly? Only piano and voice part? I have always thought that Bernstein wrote all orchestra parts... I really didn't understand. Can someone help me to understand? Thank you in advance!!!! 🤗

[@AlanInAZ1]

Check out this video of a 1961 TV show with Stephen Sondheim that included Irwin Kostal. At the 26 min mark Kostal tells why orchestrators are needed for Broadway shows [because of limited time to produce]. Bernstein presented a score more complete than is usual for the Broadway theater. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bXO8lah_lph0hsU

[@valentinodentesani4063]

@@AlanInAZ1 thank you so much for your answer!!! I will watch this video!!! Thank you again and hope to talk again soon!!!!

[@abramfoster2]

I know I'm very late to this party, but just throwing this out there-- On the most rudimentary level, I often use the analogy of a coloring book to explain theatre orchestrations. The composer draws the black lines and the orchestrator colors them in. In the case of Bernstein/Ramin/Kostal you're very close to "pure" orchestration, which is sort of what Ramin is talking about when he says that Bernstein gave them a "good sketch--" this means most of the notes you hear in WSS were written by Bernstein, with perhaps a little consideration of what instruments he wanted to hear here and there; and Ramin/Kostal solved the arduous puzzle of which instrument or set of instruments would play each note and how to adjust the notes (particularly with different octaves) to make the whole orchestral sound stylistic. Inevitably, (even here) there is some blurring of the lines in theatre between the task of *orchestration* and the task of *arranging* -- going back to the coloring book analogy, composition at its simplest need only provide the outlines of the entities in the drawing (which might be a brilliant outline!) -- but from there, much consideration must go to the texture of those entities-- the patterns of fabric, for instance (uniform black and white lines are a poor medium for visually expressing the patterns of fabric). While one coloring book designer (more like Bernstein) might take great care to draw in some set of lines to represent the pattern of the fabric, another might leave the space more or less blank and trust the colorer/orchestrator to add texture to that blank space. When Ramin talks about adding fills, this is precisely what he's talking about-- filling musical space left by Bernstein. Bernstein's befuddlement on this issue is another point of evidence to the observation that in the particular case of WSS, Ramin/Kostal were doing more pure orchestration and less of the arrangement tasks they might do with a composer less concerned with or less knowledgeable of the details of accompaniment, who might just hand in chords and a melody line for their whole show (and of course, if it's good enough, the power to that composer-- but that's unlikely to wind up sounding stylistically like a Bernstein score)

[@valentinodentesani4063]

@@abramfoster2 thank you very much for this complete and detailed explanation!!! Very much appreciated!!!

[@rickramos1292]

@@abramfoster2 I've been an orchestration fan (primarily musical theatre) since childhood and it is exceedingly rare to come across someone who takes the time to detail the art of orchestration as you have. It is an underappreciated and unknown art that to me is so rich and so multi-faceted and so satisfying. There is so much to appreciate, so many layers and textures. The orchestration alone tells a story and expresses emotions that are impossible to express with only the spoken word. My ear would gravitate toward the orchestration for as long as I could remember and when I realized that isn't typical and most people interpret orchestration as nothing more than "background music" "karaoke" or "instrumental" it was very upsetting to me. I hold some resentment toward fellow musical theatre fans because most can't care less about orchestration and can't tell the difference between authentic strings and a synthesizer and don't grasp or care about this complex and fascinating art that produces something so magical and heart-rending. You know the theatre community has turned their noses up at an integral art such as orchestration when the Tony Awards contemplate removing an award for "Best Orchestrations" for musicals. Thankfully that never happened because the theatre community stood up and didn't allow it but just contemplating the removal of such an art so that it wouldn't be recognized and not shown appreciation spoke loudly of how orchestration is ignored and underappreciated by most audiences these days.

[@countalucard4226]

All these people were smart enough to buy NYC apartments back in the day.

[@iwasglad122]

The original pit orchestration is unsurpassed, will never be equalled and I will willingly have pistols at dawn with anyone who dares to say otherwise!!!! I have left strict instructions that when my time is up, there is only one volume of music that is to be placed with me in my box and that is the Full Score of WSS in all its original Broadway Pit Glory!!!

[@danieljeanjacques3889]

jamie anne maria bernstein looks beautiful.....

[@papagen00]

wonder why the composer didn't do his own orchestration. Imagine Mozart asking someone else to orchestrate "Marriage of Figaro".

[@AlanInAZ1]

See minute 26 for an explanation kzbin.info/www/bejne/bXO8lah_lph0hsU

[@jslasher1]

It's not Irv Kostel, it's IRWIN Kostel. Get your facts correct, please.

[@paulybarr]

jslasher1- If you listen closely to Mr Ramin at .44, (and again at 1.34) you will hear him say "...and Irv Kostel, a wonderful orchestrator, and myself...", so, clearly, 'Irv' was an affectionate nickname for Irwin.

[@dennischiapello7243]

Exactly. He split the w in half! ;-)

[@frogmouth]

?

[@Glinkaism1]

My goodneth, aren't we bitchy and petty?

[@jslasher1]

@@Glinkaism1 Get lost, 'wanker'.