For New York For New York For New York (Variations on Themes of Leonard Bernstein) (originally titled To Lenny! To Lenny!) is a one-movement orchestral composition by the American composer John Williams. Written as a tribute to fellow composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, the piece premiered on the last day of Bernstein's 70th birthday gala at Tanglewood on August 28, 1988. The premiere was performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Williams, who was then conductor of its sister orchestra, the Boston Pops. Music critic John Rockwell of "The New York Times" described the work as "feathery and flashy." "For New York" utilizes
Symphony No. 6 (Vaughan Williams) strings. Serge Koussevitzky led the score's American premiere on 7 August 1948, at Tanglewood, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Before that year was out, the same musicians had taken the work to Boston, Pittsburgh and Chicago (3 December). The first recording was made on 21 February 1949 by the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York under Leopold Stokowski, who had been a fellow organ student of Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music in the 1890s (and was to give the U.S. premiere of his Ninth Symphony in 1958). The second was by Sir Adrian Boult days later with the