West Side Story (film) - Score and Soundtrack

Score and Soundtrack

Leonard Bernstein was displeased with the orchestration of the movie, which was done by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, who had orchestrated the original Broadway production. That show was orchestrated for roughly 30 musicians; for the movie, United Artists allowed them triple that, including six saxophone parts, eight trumpets, five pianos and five xylophones. Bernstein found it "overbearing and lacking in texture and subtlety."

For the 50th anniversary of the film's 1961 release, a score closer to the Broadway version was created by Garth Edwin Sunderland of the Leonard Bernstein Office, to be performed live at screenings of the movie with the score removed, but the original vocals maintained. The score's New York City premiere was presented at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, built atop the original film locations, which were razed in a late 1950s urban renewal project. The film's cast appeared and was honored at the 50th anniversary of West Side Story at the 2011 Ventura Film Festival.

The Stan Kenton Orchestra recorded Johnny Richards' West Side Story, an entire album of jazz orchestrations based on the Bernstein scores, in 1961. It was previewed by the producers of the motion picture, who lamented that, had they known of its existence, it would have been used as the musical foundation of the new film. The Kenton version won the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Recording by a Large Group.