Bernstein was a composer interested in juxtaposition – between the epic and the everyday, the classical and the vernacular. West Side Story sees Shakespeare removed to New York’s urban jungle. The Chichester Psalms sets ancient Hebrew texts to tunes from an abandoned Broadway musical. A symphony inspired by ‘The Age of Anxiety’ is another case in point. W. H. Auden’s Pulitzer-prize winning poem resets the tradition of a shepherd’s dialogue, or ‘eclogue’, by recounting the wartime reflections of four strangers who meet in a New York bar. Bernstein – a fan of Auden’s since at least his late teens – read the poem in 1947, the year it was published, and immediately saw musical potential.