Symphony No. 2: The Age of Anxiety

Symphony No. 2: The Age of Anxiety, programmatic symphony for piano and orchestra by American composer Leonard Bernstein. It was inspired by the long poem The Age of Anxiety (1947) by English-born poet W.H. Auden. Bernstein’s symphony premiered April 8, 1949, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Serge Koussevitzky, one of Bernstein’s mentors.

Bernstein said of Auden’s poem that he found it “one of the most shattering examples of pure virtuosity in the history of English poetry.” It tells the story of a group of young people—three men and a woman—who meet, drink, and discuss the ills of the world and their own lonely lives. Although the composer claimed that he was not attempting to portray the poem’s specific scenes literally, the symphony’s structure reflects that of Auden’s poem, having six parts: “The Prologue,” “The Seven Ages,” “The Seven Stages,” “The Dirge,” “The Masque,” and “The Epilogue.” It also includes specific details that Bernstein claimed had “written themselves”; in “The Masque,” for example, the celesta clearly sounds the hour of 4 am. Because the work often seems so literally dependent on the events and moods of the poem in such elements as its use of a variety of musical styles (among them jazz and serialism), some critics have found it too closely tied to the Auden poem to provide the unfamiliar listener with a cohesive experience.

One notable element of this work is Bernstein’s use of the piano throughout the score, not in the manner of a solo instrument but rather as a prominent orchestral member. Regarding this feature, Bernstein (who was himself a pianist) commented that “the pianist provides an almost autobiographical protagonist, set against an orchestral mirror in which he sees himself.” In the final version of the work, which premiered on July 15, 1965, Bernstein adjusted the piano part to make it equally prominent in all sections of the symphony.