Page 678 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

His Adagio for Strings was one of the first works by an American composer
to be championed by the indomitable Arturo Toscanini, and featured
famously in Oliver Stone’s 1987 film, Platoon.

ThatCelloGuy performs Samuel Barber's 'Adagio for Strings'
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11. Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007)

Not as much of a household name as his life partner Samuel Barber (see
above), Italian composer Gian Carlo Menotti was no less lauded for his
works. He was also a Pulitzer Prize-winner, having earned the accolade
for his operas The Consul and The Saint of Bleecker Street.

He founded the Spoleto Festival in the US in 1958, and 10 years later
expanded it to the Melbourne Spoleto Festival, now known as
the Melbourne International Arts Festival.

12. Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

Leonard Bernstein also studied at the Curtis Institute with Barber and
Menotti (see above), and although he had an on-again-off-again
relationship with actor Felicia Cohn Montealegre and eventually married
her, he was openly gay.

Montealegre herself wrote publicly about it in her book, The Bernstein
Letters, “you are a homosexual and may never change – you don’t admit to
the possibility of a double life, but if your peace of mind, your health, your
whole nervous system depend on a certain sexual pattern what can you
do?”.

And Bernstein’s West Side Story collaborator Arthur Laurents is known to
have called Bernstein “a gay man who got married”, stating, “He wasn't
conflicted about it at all. He was just gay.”

West Side Story (1961) – Official Trailer
Credit: United Artists/The Mirisch Company Seven Arts Productions
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13. Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

In his short life – he died even younger than Mozart, at just 31 – the
great Romantic composer Franz Schubert composed 600 Lieder (songs),
nine symphonies and numerous other large and smaller-scale works.