ABSTRACT

In June 1978 Bernstein suffered a personal tragedy when his wife Felicia died of lung cancer. Despite his affairs with men, and a brief separation from his wife in 1976, he had returned to Felicia before her final illness started, and her death affected him very badly, coming so soon after her overcoming breast cancer only four years earlier. In 1977 Bernstein had completed a larger-scale vocal work, Songfest, subtitled 'A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra'. He had originally begun composing this piece before 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but it had been shelved when work on the show had taken over. After the failure of the musical, Bernstein returned to his song cycle, initially titled An American Songbook, and completed it for performance in Washington on 11 October 1977. It formed the second half of an all-Bernstein concert celebrating the inauguration of Mstislav Rostropovich as Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra.