Music for the Dance No. 2
Music for the Dance No. 2 is a composition for piano by American composer Leonard Bernstein. It was finished in 1938. Background. "Music for the Dance No. 2" is most notable for being one of the first Bernstein pieces to be performed in public by the composer, together with his "Non troppo presto". It was finished in 1938. The date of completion is a source of controversy, since it was first performed by Leonard Bernstein at the studio of Heinrich Gebhard, in Brookline, Massachusetts on June 12, 1938. However, the inscription at the end  of the original manuscript reads June 14, 1938, which probably means that the composer revised the piece after performance. The piece was dedicated to "Mildred on her 22nd birthday in friendliest affection" and was first performed on his birthday. In this case, the name "Mildred" refers to Mildred Spiegel Zucker, a music teacher and childhood friend of Bernstein, with whom Bernstein had a lifelong friendship and shared a fair amount of correspondence. It was initially edited in 1938 by Amberson Holdings but remained unpublished for many decades. The manuscript was left in the Leonard Bernstein Archive at the Library of  Congress until the Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company and Boosey & Hawkes released it in 2010. Structure. This composition is scored for solo piano and has an approximate duration of four to five minutes. It consists of three short untitled movements, the most commonly used title of which is taken from the tempo marking at the beginning of each movement. The movement list is as follows: Recordings. Given the fact that "Music for the Dance No. 2" was published relatively recently, recordings are not very well known and are typically released within cycles of complete music for piano by Bernstein. Here  is a list of recordings of this composition: