ROTFLMAO
Let your personal feelings effect your judgment much? You clearly disliked the man (and he was often a hard man to like) but that aside...yeah I’m sure Manilow and Foster had a ‘Candide’ and ‘West Side Story’ or Chichester Psalms in them. Leonard Bernstein was...a concert pianist of the first rank - he was a virtuoso pianist actually, a conductor of world class, a composer of high accomplishment and a brilliant educator.
"Candide" is the most overrated musical since "Paint Your Wagon." "West Side Story" was nothing more than a ripoff of "Romeo and Juliet" set to paltry, cheesy melodies.
As to his skill as a conductor, ok, I'll grant that. But he wouldn't have been squat without the NYPhilharmonic playing under his baton. And as far as an "educator," maybe in the sense of "what NOT to do.
Not only does Bernstein not belong in the same pantheon as Beethoven, he shouldn't even be allowed to park cars outside it. If he's the premiere American composer of the century, then that's not so much a compliment as a comment on the sorry state of American classical music.
I assume you'll want to respond to this, but I think I've hijacked enough of this thread. I will conclude by saying that your musical aesthetic and mine are polar opposites.