Nothing can compare with Bernstein’s own accounts of his music. The best recordings are still the ones he made with the New York Philharmonic for Columbia, when scores such as Candide and West Side Story were still “new” music. Originally produced by John McClure, this recording of the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story has never been bettered, not even by Bernstein himself. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection, reviewing a previous release of the Symphonic Dances

All tracks have been digitally remastered.
This is part of Columbia Records' Columbia Broadway Masterworks series.
Record buyers who had not seen the show that opened on Broadway in 1957, could hardly believe their ears when this dramatic, early stereo album reached the stores soon afterwards. Classical composer Leonard Bernstein and newcomer Stephen Sondheim's spellbinding score combined exquisite ballads such as "Maria" and "Tonight" with streetwise numbers such as "Gee, Officer Krupke" and the exhilarating "America." Carol Lawrence, Larry Kert and Chita Rivera led the superb young cast, and the album stayed for 120 weeks in the US chart but fared poorly on its UK release. In 1991 it was inducted into the NARAS Hall of Fame.