ABSTRACT
In the 1920s and 1930s, American culture began to develop an identity of its own, distancing itself from the influence of its European forebears. Leonard Bernstein's usage of jazz elements in Fancy Free reflects the sounds of the city, 'urban jazz, which is the essence of American popular music'. Bernstein bases his compositions on small cells of notes: it can be said that he actually composes with intervals as his main source materials. The interval is used not only in its natural state as a musical building block, but is treated as an entity unto itself. The standard Broadway structure that Bernstein employs in On the Town is that of the verse and chorus. In On the Town, Bernstein deviates from the traditional variation form used in the dance routines of earlier and contemporary shows.
