[7] Daniel Koshland Sr., a founder of Levi Strauss & Co., paid for Leplin to have violin lessons with Kathleen Parlow, a Canadian former child prodigy turned virtuoso.
Leplin studied conducting first in the South of France, then in Hancock, Maine, at the schools of Pierre Monteux, then the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony.
He studied violin with Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu,[2] and with Yvonne Astruc, whose Paris salon was a venue for chamber concerts.
Upon his return from Paris, Leplin formed his own string quartet, directed a woodwind quintet,[13] and rejoined the Symphony at the request of Monteux as a violist,[16] and began composing works for orchestra, and painting oils of San Francisco, its skyscrapers, museums, and bridges, and the Japanese Tea Garden.
Viola Luther Hagopian, author of Italian ars nova Music: A Bibliographic Guide to Modern Editions and Related Literature, wrote: "This talented young man directed the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra at the Civic Auditorium, December 16 (1941) in his own composition Prelude and Dance.
"[17] Marjory M. Fisher wrote: "Leplin's 'Prelude and Dance' was strongly reminiscent in its scoring and general brilliance of the Rimsky-Korsakoff Introduction and Wedding March from 'The Golden Cockerel,' which had opened the program.
The Prelude was the more impressive, but the Dance had much of the glitter and excitement of the Russian's instrumentation plus an obvious bit of jazz influence...As a conductor, the 23-year-old composer displayed unusual competence and skill.
"[18] Alfred Frankenstein, music critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote: "This proved to be a dynamic, high-spirited, saltily orchestrated piece...quite worth the hearing.".
[19] Alexander Fried, music critic of the San Francisco Examiner wrote: "(It has) incisive modern energy, intricacy, and directness...Incidentally, Leplin proved to be a keenly talented conductor.
"[20] Alfred Frankenstein wrote of the premiere of Leplin's Romantic Fantasy for Woodwinds and Piano: "It seemed the production of a modernist amusing himself with romanticism, and finding some breezy, stimulating, fresh-turned material in the process.
"[21] Alexander Fried wrote: "The honors in technical ability went to Mr. Leplin's Romantic Fantasy...It was a joy to hear suspensions which were practically non-existent in the preceding works.
"[30] Samuel T. Wilson wrote of the April 21 performance in Columbus, Ohio: "Mr. Leplin thinks clearly, concisely, and naturally in modern musical idioms.
"[7] Of the performance in Sacramento, Mila Landis wrote: the composer "conducted Comedy with great zeal...(it) proved to be stimulating...it issues a peremptory challenge for interest and attention.
The conductor was Frank Brieff, who wrote as follows for The League 1959–1960 Recording Project for Contemporary Music catalogue: The Comedy Overture of Emanuel Leplin is a jolly, spirited work, ideal for a curtain-raiser on most symphonic programs and which more likely than not would put the audience in a very gay and receptive mood.
Although Leplin is a string player himself, he has a fine feeling for the woods and brass whether writing singly or in combinations for these choirs; nothing is unclear; everything sounds clean and fresh.
Leplin conducted a concert by the American Federation of Musicians in San Francisco on August 26, 1949, featuring his own works along with those of Schubert, Beethoven, and Bartók.
His peppery, intense and brilliantly orchestrated set of three dances was especially impressive...(the Beethoven symphony) was an assured, breezy, well-considered interpretation...on the whole intelligently conceived and knowingly executed.
[38] While he was in a San Francisco hospital, The California Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Murray Graitzer,[3] as well as members of SFS, performed a benefit concert for him.
"[41] Leplin had a one-man show featuring sixteen of his paintings at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum, including many he created during his illness by "holding the brush with his teeth".
While wife Anita was teaching elementary school in the Belmont, Leplin spent several hours each day composing, writing on a lapboard that rested on the arms of his wheelchair.
Alfred Frankenstein wrote: "Serenity, clarity, richness of color, and strength of substances were the keynote in Landscapes and Skyscrapers added great excitement of rhythm, a grand gesture, a sense of the epical and the monumental.
Both works have craftsmanship and musical ideas that build into a large, consistent form...They combine direct expressive impact with an overtone of broader vision.
[50] Alfred Frankenstein called it: "...a big symphony, an immensely complex, difficult and dramatic work, full of ironic and philosophic commentary on the world of the present day, and magnificently vital in its rhythms, its handling of the grand orchestra, and its marshalling of heroic forms.
In its musical idiom, Leplin's work has violent expressionist intensity, passages of lofty atmosphere and an uncommonly grand scope of orchestra thinking.
[62] In the week following his death, the San Francisco Symphony, led by Seiji Ozawa, performed his five-minute piece Elegy for Albert Elkus.
Spacious, beautifully phrased lines and rich sonorities are combined handsomely, an unpretentious statement that sings on the instruments easily, a natural and genuine inspiration.