The Leonard Bernstein Letters
Page 9
As Cowell seems very pressed, I promised I would write at once ill or not. I've been in bed over a week with a serious streptococcus infection. This is really my first day up. But back to the recording: no, I don't OK the prelude idea – sounds too easy à la Bernstein. The original plan is the one I hold to. If you feel the matter much too taxing to go through because the fugue is dull, just write and tell Cowell so. I'm getting more and more used to this kind of thing. There are fewer and fewer kindred spirits left each year. By the time this war is over, there will be none. If you take yourself by both your shoulders, for a change, work the notes carefully, you'll find the fugue will grow quite rapidly inside of you. Let me know what you decide. And if you go ahead, I'll send you $2 with which to make a test recording for me as I will not be able to come to NY. Make it in Philadelphia at a reliable recording place and send it to me, and I'll write right back about tempo etc. All good things ever, and let Cowell know at once what you've decided.
David
66. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond
2122 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
[after 29 October 1940]
Dear David,
I was shocked by your letter. I'm afraid you misunderstood. I intended no criticism of the music per se, but simply referred to the probable reaction of a record audience. I suggested that the 3rd fugue, unpianistic and unrelieved as it is, might be an unfortunate choice with which to introduce yourself via recording. If you want it, then certainly I will be glad to do it.81
But why the maleure? I understand that you've been ill, and down, and probably out, and kind of out of the world, but, Lord, David, – “too easy à la Bernstein” – “take yourself by your shoulders for a change”, etc. etc. And I thought you knew me better than to intimate that I would make superficial dicta about music. Believe me, I know what the fugue is worth. I can list for you all the fine points – your achievements in it. But there are “stains”; your second stretto, for instance, is anticlimactic because it is a four-measure stretto, whereas the preceding one was a one-measure stretto. This is especially true of a subject in unrelieved half-notes. Again, you speak of nuances to be mastered thoroughly – but you haven't one in the piece except the opening ff! From my point of view there must be a dynamic growth – involving especially a drop to piano in the 17th measure, to rise to the final climactic stretto, & possibly the same thing again (modified) before the second stretto. Write me what you think of this. And is [ = 63 strictly to be maintained throughout?
I shall make a test record as soon as possible & send it to you. Let me know about the above very soon. And please keep well, & somewhat happier.
Best,
Lenny
67. David Diamond to Leonard Bernstein
Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY
5 November 1940
Dear Lennie,
I am happy that you have decided upon the fugue too. As I look over the letter you sent to Mr. Cowell, it is true that you were thinking of recording purposes, but all the same that word is there thus: “The third prelude is good but the fugue is dull …” etc. – and to me that still pertains to the music, recording or not. I won't argue the point further, for we seem to be beyond that now. Furthermore, I think you should have realized by now that I'm pretty stupid on consideration to be given the purely commercial aspects of music. Where public relations are concerned I simply don't function nor want to. And whether one makes the right start in recording works by choosing the best to represent the composer on discs doesn't interest me either since no one cares how a composer is introduced or in what order. It's the music that counts in the long run. Where Aaron for example should have made his bow on discs with say, Music for the Theater or Hear Ye, Hear Ye, he made it with the Piano Variations and Vitebsk and that would seem wrong but nevertheless that is how he began and it makes no difference to anyone. People still hate the Variations and eat up the Salón México, alors? So don't worry your pretty head about the introduction part of it; “c'est la musique qui compte” as [Nadia] Boulanger always said to me when I would pose such questions as you have brought up. Truly, dear Lennie, I don't care a double fuck for anything dehors de la musique. You know that, why worry about it, no one else does, time takes care of all the necessary sifting out.
Now about the music: I don't agree about the drop to a piano at the 17th measure, lawsy no! After the full strong half note pulse with accents and the general ff, it would only appear as an affectation! I should have right in the first measure put sempre after the ff. It should be ff throughout and always a quarter to 63 with the natural push forward towards 70 circa which happens by itself. It must be very sustained, very bold, the notes will provide the necessary espressivo I believe. The chord quality at measure 17 is sufficient to stir emotionally anyone capable of being touched by the chord without changing the dynamics. You mistake my meaning of the word, nuance; it does not mean dynamics – I'd rather it meant conception and feeling for the natural flow and modulation of the whole musical line, chiaro? I'm not worried in the least, I know you'll do a beauty of a job. And if you can keep a secret, a venture is afoot which will mean much for both of us if it works out with Victor. I enclose $2 for the test recording and as soon as I've heard it, I shall let you know my feelings.
Why let us start a series of polemics? You say I should know you by now, I can hardly agree with that. You never allowed me to, ever. I tried in so many ways to know you better, looked forward to seeing you in NY, but you didn't come last spring, came to Tanglewood to see you but got a cold shoulder […] At Yaddo […] I was simply hurt by the strain you forced to exist in not being open enough about your true feelings. It would have been far better to have said, “David, understand that there can be no physical relationship between us, therefore I'd rather not stay with you tonight.” […] It's all right though now. Nothing matters much right now.
Always,
David
68. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein
Hotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY
6 November [1940]
Dear LLLLLLL,
Your latest burned the end of my fingers. The next one will probably burn up en route. All I can say is that you've made rapid progress. All that's missing is for you to fall in love with a hermaphroditic goat … or sumpin’.
I vaguely remember the Mr. Nelson you mentioned. It was two years ago on the way to France. It was his great moment – just at the age when the world seems too too wonderful, and he [was] sought after by all the most desirable creatures, a different bed every night, etc., etc. That type is the worst after the first fresh glow of youth is gone. All his stories are rot, of course.
The enclosure by D[avid] D[iamond] is also sumpin! The less said the better. There is a frighteningly dumb and humorless streak in the boy.
I'm up to my neck in fussing over the new loft. V[ictor Kraft]'s dark room is sumptuous, but all my things are strewn to the four corners of the joint. It's awful – I'll never move again.
Don't forget to listen in on Sat. at 9:35.82
Love,
A
69. Harold Shapero83 to Leonard Bernstein
“XI–?–1940” [November 1940]
Dear heart,
You're full of shit. You're full of shit because you're exuberant, and exuberance is not especially welcome at this moment. The world and I don't need exuberance, what we need is revolution. Especially the world. Especially me. Especially me. And the world too.
First, I have to say, and not with any obligation, but with sincere co-jubilation, that I'm glad for you and all the successes you mentioned. I'm glad for every every weentzy one of 'em. You're doing the right things in a big way. (Funny, that's what you always told me.) And you're making money too. ’Sis dir gut!
Walter84 thinks Diamond stinks, and what's good enough for Walter is good enough for me. It's always been a mystery to me (on the basis of the stuff I've seen, and I've seen enough to get an indication) how the hell Diamond's gotten
as far as he's gotten. Honest to God, Lenny dear, David Diamond is a bust as far as I'm concerned. For his own sake I hope he's better than I think he is.
Tell me about how Charlie Demuth was a tragic figger.85 I don't really know his biography. Nobody seems to.
What was your draft number? 800086 I hope I hope I hope.
I saw a Georges Rouault show at Boston's hoi polloi Institute of Modern Art. The guy's a great, awfully great, painter, even though he believes in God, and is fanatic about it. To be corny, the sheer magic of the man's textures (great gobs of paint) and the magic of the man's facility for expressionism, Jeez, terrific.
The curious tone at the beginning of this letter wasn't for nothing. I will now list mes calamités:
1) Do you remember the slow movement of the quartet? Well Walter, and finally I, agreed that it stunk. So, with Walter egging me on I kept going. It still stunk. It has now been thrown away.
2) I had to copy my Overture (why, I don't know) and as I copied I got an awful feeling. You, Bernstein, don't realize how silly and false that piece is.87
3) I started a fast quartet movement that was gonna be great stuff. I took a look at it two weeks ago: the sterilest, lousiest, beatest, etc.
4) Since I passed in my thesis title one (1) day late the Committee on Honors of Harvard Univ. has refused to let me write a thesis. So: I can't get honors. So: I can't get a fellowship.88 So: I have not written a note (except harmony & strict cpt. exercises) for a month and I'm not going to for at least a year. Probably more. So: I'm enrolling in the Museum School after graduation and I'm gonna learn how to paint & draw. At least if I can't use my head I can use my hands.
5) I'm in love with a New Yorker who's in love with someone else. And I fell in love with her because she said things like “Jeez, this guy's (me) got the terrificest vocabulary, all the way from A to Beat.”
6) I could go on forever, I got millions of 'em.
Goodbye, be good, have a Scotch on me.
Sonny
70. Alfred Eisner to Leonard Bernstein
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Culver City, CA
[?1940]
Dear Lennie, mon vieux, mon vieux,
At long last opportunity offers itself to look up from this verdammter desk and inform the friends de ma jeunesse that I am definitely not dead. Have been working day and night and night and day on a yarn scheduled for Bob Montgomery having to do with the Jack the Ripper slashings and a guy who achieves a change of personality as a result of suspicion accidentally falling his way: a very choice assignment and the first story I have anything to do with that excited me at all. Picture to be produced by one [Seymour] Nebenzal, a refugee cinemateer who did M and Mayerling among others. A very intelligent gimmick and we have an orgy making ourselves understood in mangled English, French and German. Believe it or not, progress manifests. Neby is of the old German school of thought that reasons something like this: if I can work 20 hours a day, why, please tell me why you can't work 15? So you work 15 or better. I whacked out an 85 page treatment in exactly four days and nights, severing myself from all matters earthly and living the life of a hermit, yea, a veritable anchorite. Maybe this one will pay off. Please God.
Item: have a new car, a most spectacular 1933 Plymouth convertible coupe that is doing its very able best to bleed me to death. To date: new brake re-line, clutch plates, oil filter, new floormat, motor tuneup – and I've had the car only about a month. Really, it's in grand shape and a swell buy and I drive it all over hell and gone desertward, seaward, and mountainward. Eisner discovering California. However, I borrowed dough from the studio to pay for the car and they nick me every week for a payment, bills, expenses, so for a change I'm eternally broke. But I live, and not too badly. At long last beginning to make friends, good people, and I don't go as batty from loneliness as I did. Getting quite a lot of work done of all descriptions. Have a new girl: a rabbi's daughter, praise Gawd. Hi-ho-methusalem, etc. Fucks like a jackrabbit, and cooks wonderful goulash, a duality of accomplishment not nearly as unimportant as it sounds.
Of else, but little. Time and tide and flux. Much rain: the Pacific in perpendicular lines, hills washing down, flood. California. Write of yourself and that without delay.
Ewig,
Al
71. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein
Hotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY
Friday [?1940]
Dear Pupil,
What terrifying letters you write: fit for the flames is what they are. Just imagine how much you would have to pay to retrieve such a letter forty years from now when you are conductor of the Philharmonic. Well it all comes from the recklessness of youth, that's what it is. Of course I don't mean that you mustn't write such letters (to me, that is), but I mustn't forget to burn them.
You were right about the chuckle – but it was a very sympathetic one. Actually, when I opened your letter I was worried that something had gone wrong. If it's any consolation, things like that incident can sometimes turn out very wrong indeed. (That's Lecture No. VI.) However, I reluctantly admit that they sometimes turn out very well. You takes yer chances – but I'm not sure you're in the proper mood. Anyway, I should have liked to have taken the first train down there to investigate the “situation”, but I controlled myself. […]
I'm a little busy with the new loft – fixing it up, etc. When are you going to find a pretext for another visit. The last one made a deep impression.
Regards to the blue hat. But be careful!
A
72. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein
Hotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY
Fri [Autumn 1940]
Dear L,
Glad you're settled OK. I'll remember the invitation!
Nothing new here – except Virgil was made critic of the Tribune which is positively flabbergastious.89
Saw Paul Bowles. He says he is going to Phillie for 2 weeks when 12th Night goes there, which should be in another few weeks. So look him up. Added 2 more ink pages to the Sonata.
[Robert] Weatherly90 came over to try out Quiet City. He played it OK but it still should be changed.
I'm lecturing in Boston on Dec 12. Will you be there then or is that too soon for Xmas Holydays?
I dream about you frequently.
A
73. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland
2122 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
[?December 1940]
Dear Aaron,
Chi[cago] is vergangen! Wieder zu Hause, & a little bit glad to get back to even a semi-normal life. All-night vigils both ways on Chicago trains are not my speed. But the week was fine. Thompson A-1, expenses almost nil, much opera, rehearsals & performances, ballet. […] I missed Billy [the Kid] by a week. The Kurt Weill was really exciting. Rosenkavalier is puffed up, but has extraordinarily beautiful passages. Reiner is a genius. Music is a hard profession. All this have I gleaned, O richer I, from a week in Chicago! […]
To work aussitôt que possible on the Saloon. I reel at the thought of royalties. (Isn't that split, by the way, another typical gesture?) I accept $25 of course, beggars can't etcetera, but should they know about the royalties? If not I'll shut up. Am I being a pig in taking them (assuming there will be any?).
I'm afraid I'll still be in Philly on the 12th, but my love to Koussy
& to you,
Lenny
[…]
74. Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland
2122 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
10 December 1940
Dear Aaron,
Shipped off the Saloon to you today to dispose of at your convenience to Heinsheimer (sorry, but I'd lost the Boo[sey] & Haw[kes] address). Hope it's good enough. Look especially at the rather turgid & theatrical ossia at the end of the slow middle section, & if it gives pain simply cross it out. I did it only because there had to be some theatrical interest at that point (which is, I'm afraid, a bit dull even in the orch.) Don't take it too hard.
I'm desolated that I can't be in Boston with you, but I'll ring up en passant through NYC.
At a cute performance of Bohème tonight I ran upon my painter friend Zeil (recall?) who, it seems, has been sick with a housemaid's knee variety of arthritis. Gruesome. I am to see him this week. I quail; I suspect syphilis.
How do you do these days? It seems aeons since I heard from you. Literally. Write soon, very.
Love,
Lenny
Volevi dire, bella come un tramonto …91 very nice libretto.
75. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein
Hotel Empire, Broadway at 63rd Street, New York, NY
Mon. [16 December 1940]
Dear Lennypenny,
I suppose we'll be crossing letters. But anyway –