He always had a cigarette in his hand. He was often cheeky and always generous; he was frequently coarse and had a Woody Allen-like sense of humour. For a long time, he was among the world’s jet-setters: glamorous, stylish, talkative and rich. This is about Leonard Bernstein.

“The truth is that I’m a musician who practices different types of musical work, everything from composing to teaching, as well as what is known in the commercial recording industry as conducting,” he said himself. He wanted to get away from the well-behaved parties of classical music, where educated, proper, dressed-up people sit together and listen to carefully considered and articulated music.

As a person, he was closer to jazz. And here, we encounter Peter Asplund and Mats Hålling’s personal interpretations of Leonard Bernstein’s music together with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, led by Mats Hålling, playing with the Peter Asplund Quartet.