Mahler: Symphony No. 6

Icon: Leonard Bernstein

By Justin Davidson, eMusic Contributor

Bernstein overflowed with so much musical energy and he distributed pleasure so widely that only a man of his yawning ambition could be disappointed in himself. But he signaled his insecurities so persuasively that the rest of the world, too, wanted him to do more. He was the first American-born conductor of international stature, the incarnation of his country's cultural maturity. He was the smooth populist, as articulate about music as he was with it,… more »