On the morning of Sunday, 14 November, 1943, 25-year-old Leonard Bernstein got a call from the New York Philharmonic. Bruno Walter was too ill to conduct that afternoon's 3pm broadcast concert in Carnegie Hall. Could their newly-appointed assistant conductor step in? No, sorry, there wasn't time to rehearse with the orchestra...
A very few hours later the young composer/conductor stepped onto the podium for the first time ... and brought the house down. In the middle of a war it was front page news the next morning. Hear that concert, as broadcast nationwide by CBS radio, in this amazing new release from Pristine, and find out what the fuss was all about! Truly a moment of history in the making.