The Leonard Bernstein Letters

by Leonard Bernstein

  To make sure that you'll keep reading this, I'll start a new paragraph. It must be a strain.

  Who(m) do you think called me up the other day from his house in Westport?31 And he wants to do my Symphony in Pittsburgh next fall, and he loves it, and he wants me to conduct a program anyway, and maybe to do the Symph myself! Lovely lovely news. But he is most anxious for a fourth movement, insists it's all too sad and defeatist. Same criticism my father had; which raises Pop in my estimation no end. I really haven't the time or energy for a fourth movement. I seem to have had my little say as far as that piece is concerned, and I want to get on with something else. And parts have to be made. Real young composer tsurus.32 Apropos of which, I saw Marion Bauer33 t'other day, and she insists on a young composers’ committee meeting for next season, of which I shall be one. Feels sort of like a composer. But my real function, I find, is to be the middle-man between all the pairs of antagonists and antipathetic little cliques here. They're all my friends, and hence none of them is really my friend. I go around justifying Berger to Schuman, and Schuman to Bowles, and Thomson to Schuman and Bowles to Diamond, and I'm always having dinner with all of them but none of them ever has dinner with any other one of them. Good Lord, I'm lucid and articulate tonight! Must be the invigorating air (of the Outdoor Overture, I mean, not, certainly, of Charlton Street).

  It just looks as though I'll never see you. Though, b'God, if that Simon job comes through (and there's a competition factor, with old Szirmay)34 I'll take the dough and fly to Mexico to see you. Nothing can stop me, once there is dough. Really, Aaron, I don't understand how and why I get along at all with you away so long. And here's what I mean:

  The Frau-sessions have borne some fruit.35 Little green fruit, of course, but fruit. The main thing being that I can't kid myself any more. Kid myself, that is, into thinking that I have a closeness with someone when it is all really wishful thinking, or induced, or imagined, or escape from being alone with myself, etc. And so, one by one, all the old relationships tend to fall away; and I find that I'm not at all interested in seeing anybody – really – whereas I used to run and see anybody at the drop of a hat. This all makes the trouble harder, of course; since I still hate being alone, and yet don't want anyone in particular. And that's where you come in; cause you're the only one that persists and persists, come hell or high water. And I love you and miss you as much as I did the first month I knew you, and always will. Believe that, Earth-Scorcher, it's so real. And then this wish for closeness always manifests itself in a sexual desire, the more promiscuous the better – giving rise to experiences like being taken (by Pfb [Bowles], of course) to a Bain Turc (or is it Turque?) and seeking out the 8th Street bars again. But I'm not attracted any more to any one I find there, and it's just as horrible as if I hadn't gone at all. One of those unpleasant stages forward.

  I'm living, of all places, in a high school! I have a whole school to myself; but I really live in the apartment atop the Little Red Schoolhouse High School in the Village. It's quite nice, but I shall have to move again in July when the real tenant returns (a lovely lady who is unfortunately in love with me) and then my troubles start over again. The Staten Island venture seems to grow more dismal all the time. It's so complicated without a city apartment, and I'll have to have one of those. I won't trouble you with that problem: it involves too much Bowles.

  David Diamond is going to study the piano with me! And don't let him kid you into that “outdone me” stuff; the soldier (what a boy!) would rather have come with me, but DD had done all the work, and the soldier was afraid of a scene. As it turned out, he came to my room the next night, full of love and amusement.

  One final experience – and then we close, with love to Victor.36 Last night I resolved to stay home for a change and cook my own dinner and study. Which I did; but just as I had begun to work, there was a blackout. I went up on the roof to see it all (I have a marvelous roof) and found a young soldier there, in the blackout, who, it turns out, lives with the housekeeper downstairs. Sure enough, he knew me, had attended my concerts, worshipped me; and there was fun. Until the lights went on; and he turned out to be so fat that I could hardly stand it; and now I'm in a Bernsteinian pickle, with an adoring fatman and no wish to see him and life in a high school is hard. Moral: if you need sex, don't go searching everywhere – look in your own back yard. Which does not necessarily apply to you! All kinds of love, and write soon.

  L

  111. Leonard Bernstein to Renée Longy Miquelle

  c/o Welsh, Box 411, Lenox, MA

  11 July 1942

  Dear R,

  I heard tell that Baudex had called you. Qu'est-ce qui est arrivé? By this time, something must have happened. If not, you had better come out and replace K[athryn] W[olf] by brute force.

  Tanglewood is all different this year. Not half the spirit or the excitement of previous seasons. And I, as Aaron put it, have been “kicked out upstairs”. Because I have been elevated to “assistant” I never get a chance with the orchestra, since all the time is taken up with the conductors’ preparation for their concert. I am doing jackal's work – but that's great experience for one who is too easily a lion.

  Walter [Hendl]37 is apparently in a bad state. His mother seems a real problem, and he doesn't appear to be able to concentrate on his work. He is terribly worried about his concert on Saturday.

  So – he is in a bad state, you are in a bad state, I am in a bad state. Let's get together and form a secessionary State Confederacy!

  And I've been rather stupidly ill all week with a bad stomach. Ça va mieux maintenant, mais il me faut s'endormir. I can't be well except when I'm too busy. Remember a certain Hurricane?

  Write & tell me all.

  Love

  L

  Thanks for the “Philadelphia Story” – I gave it to all those interested.

  112. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim38

  158 West 58th Street, New York, NY

  postmark 22 September 1942

  Are you dead?39

  113. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond

  295 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA

  [September–October 1942]40

  David,

  Thank you, thank you, thank you. For so many things. For housing me. For leading me straight into the arms of a great and quiet and radiant joy. For making one sacrifice after another. For the burst of temper, which showed that you still had enough feeling & respect for me to worry about my weaknesses. For being such a remarkable host. For showing me at last what a terrific talent you have. That I now know, & understand.

  And for every one of those things, there is a corresponding apology. None of which I need itemize. You're really very tolerant, and you know very well what you know.

  Shirley is very, very fond of you, despite her first confusion. And that's an indication of something phenomenal.

  Paul du Pont41 has his clothes, & I hope to see Porgy this week. […]

  Bless you – & please write.

  Lenny

  114. Leonard Bernstein to Renée Longy Miquelle

  158 West 58th Street, New York, NY

  postmark 22 October 1942

  Dear R,

  I think something may be breaking (if the union doesn't make complications). Next Wednesday night, Oct 28 at 10:30, CBS, I'm conducting a show called The Man Behind the Gun.42 It will be swell fun, & 50 dollars, & if I'm good it's a steady job! Pray for me and listen (music by Diamond).

  Love,

  Lenny

  115. Leonard Bernstein to Renée Longy Miquelle

  Advanced Music Corporation, RCA Building, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY

  postmark 8 December 1942

  My dear Madame Miquelle (!)

  Just wanted you to see my gorgeous new official stationery. Here I sit, at a desk, important as a bookworm, at $25 a week, doing little or nothing, waiting until the great bosses decide what my function here should be. This is the great musical industry of Warner Brothers Pictures, and is
called the Music Publishers’ Holding Company (impressive, n'est-ce pas?) and includes four publishers, Harms, Remick, Witmark, and Advanced, where I am. It's all très délassé et doux, and I must be here from 10 to 5:30, just being around en causant, fumant, causant, etc. And I have my pupils come here for their coaching. In fact, Bobby is coming here in an hour to play my pieces for me. He's broadcasting them today. It's great fun.

  And then the Riobamba Club opens Thursday,43 and I've written the title song, “The Riobamba” which will be plugged and plugged, and may even be a success, if you keep your fingers crossed.44 That keeps me plenty busy with rehearsals. This song is all that is left of the once hopeful Key West Piece [Conch Town], but I think it makes a better popular song. And speaking of such matters, I finished orchestrating the first movement of Jeremiah, and it's being copied, and I have no time to devote to the second movement, but I swear it will be done, if only as a gift to you.45

  And tomorrow night I do Aaron's two-piano piece46 with him in Town Hall. And that has me tied up in knots. I wish you could be there to hear it. Don't you think I'm really very lucky, for a young Boston yokel only three months in New York?

  I'm flabbergasted at the fire in Boston,47 and I'm told that Bob Lubell's sister was a victim. It's too shocking to believe. Anyone else we know?

  Take care of yourself. And don't write Edys [Merrill] [a] card, and leave me in the cold! I know I deserve such treatment, but be merciful, and come to NYC soon.

  Much love,

  Lenny

  116. Samuel Barber to Leonard Bernstein

  166 East 96th Street, New York, NY

  [?1942]

  Dear Leonard,

  Awfully busy with unimportant things, Curtis opening etc., firing Filipinos, looking for a little house in the country to run off to. I can imagine what you are going through with the draft question: ever since I've heard that any use of musical gifts in the army or U.S.O. is discouraged, I'm all for getting out of it – at least for the present. With some imagination you ought to be able to develop an impassioned asthmatic wheeze which would send them rolling. Let me know what happens. Was Koussevitzky of any real help?

  When are you coming down to New York? I've told no-one that I am back, and it is very pleasant. It was raining very hard on my terrace; I spent the morning in bed – there was a Baudelaire on the shelf and I sank into a lazy stupor and felt as sinful as if I were 16 again. The Filipino came in with new headlines about the Russian war. I felt worthless but happy. The next time I shall have a box of chocolates! Interesting life, eh? Now the sun is out again, damn it.

  Best to you,

  Sam B.

  117. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim

  15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY

  postmark 16 December 1942

  Dear D,

  Very comforting to know that you exist. Of course come down to the city before Draftuary the first.48 Let me know when. Above is my new address, apartment extraordinaire: the rest is PL-5-2966. Thanks for the letter.

  Best always,

  Lenny

  118. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim

  15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY

  postmark 15 January 1943

  Dave,

  It appears that WNYC wants the Clarinet Sonata on their Festival of American Music sometime between 12 and 22 [February]. Could you possibly do it, via a Lincoln's Birthday week or some such device? Probably not, but I'd love it if you could, needless to say. Otherwise I shall have to get a NY guy, maybe Eric Simon with whom I'm rehearsing these days. Even he would be second choice, obviously. You're the top 5/8 man in these parts [and you] know it.

  In the latter regrettable case, you'd have to send the score so that it can be used, or copied, and more scores made. Depending, in turn, on when you plan to do it in Rochester, if you still do. Do you? You see, I tend to lose track of your vibrations when you don't write.

  And if you “can't write” as you put it, at least write saying you can't write.

  Let me know Jack's49 address, the story of the Sonata, and what leprechauns (or have they become gremlins by now?) are goading you through these tough days.

  Love,

  L

  I tripped across Whitman again yesterday.

  I hope you trip too.

  Read the Calamus poems again – they may have a new angle these realistic days.50

  119. Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim

  15 West 52nd Street, New York, NY

  [before 19 January 1943]

  Dear D,

  In the first place, that Complexion Soap with Lanolin, Macy's 15 cakes for something or other, is not the same as our soap, which is clearly labeled “Lightfoot's”, and far superior.

  In the second place, I have two more pupils and have become violently busy.

  The score (a beautiful job of quasi-legible gray ink) was two days late. I was all for jumping off Harvard Bridge when I heard the New England bitchvoice of Elizabeth Allen saying “It's an inflexible ryule! I'm afraid I cahwn't accept it. Good-bah.” At which moment […] Alex Thiede, a prominent Boston semi-conductor (really semi-Boston too, being a good guy) who called influential folk, explained how wars made trains late and unpredictable (lucky if they're going in the right direction), & the thing is now before the board of trustees, who must decide if they can abrogate the rule relating to deadlines, and suffer the score to enter the contest. (There being such a plethora of American talent on the boards, of course, that they can afford, the bastards, to be snooty about what scores they accept, the idiots, when the issue is a day's lateness, the lice.)

  It is to be prayed for, and keened over. I charge you to organize a wake in Rochester, with Wing-of-Angel Avshalomoff as chief crier and you as bartender.

  This empty prattle is induced by the extraordinary emptiness and prattledom of this office, where I still have nothing to do, and grow weary just pretending to be absorbed. For the last hour it has been the London Times Crossword Puzzle – something you'd go mad about. I must admit I'm writing a song, stolen heartlessly from the Double Concerto of Brahms. Mighty purty. Has to have words about love, and I'm stymied. Me, primus amoris filius! It's my last vestige of self-consciousness in the matter, being afraid I'll reveal too much. I'm sorry to hound you, but I love you very much. You will, of course, destroy this letter. Unless you some day give up the clarinet in favor of blackmail.

  The office grows gradually madder, each songwriter fighting for the phonograph to demonstrate his latest horror. There's a new one about to be plugged – a real nightmare – called “Each Time I Puff On My Cigarette”. Watch for it, if only in order to avoid it.

  If you think your mad dreams about mixed up sexes are confusing, listen to this little job of mine that I cooked up in Boston last weekend. I was due at a small legendary village on Long Island to give a lecture. I arrived at a completely deserted little station – end of the line – called Arnold Park. (Related, among more obvious things, to Ozone Park, on my way to Rockaway, where I lectured this autumn.)51 No one was there to meet me, but I waited a few minutes and was suddenly confronted by the most gorgeous girl imaginable, and she loved me and I loved her. At which point some dope called up to inquire about a rehearsal. I enclose 2 & 9 for a complete interpretation by Zolar Oppenheim. It is understood that this coupon puts me under no obligation whatsoever.

  Bless you for all the yeoman work you did last weekend. I could never have done it without you […] especially the last five pages of the Scherzo,52 which came out very strangely primitive. Also interestin’. And my best to Jack who was truly noble.

  And to you – ça va sans dire.

  Lenny

  120. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein

  19 January 1943

  Dear Len,

  Of course I'll come down to N.Y.C.! Did you think I'd let an outsider play it? I can be down any time between the 14th and the 22nd. On the 13th is our “big dance” and of course I have to go, duty calls. I like dancing but not “big
dances”. Maybe this time will be different. You see I'm working on dozens of theories about myself, all more or less inspired by the writing of our friend Karen Horney.53 And I've really had some results. Tell you about the whole business in N.Y.C.

  I've been working hard since I saw you last. I'm at school at 7:30 a.m. and leave at 5:30. And I average 3 hrs a night of reading etc. Sunday is a field day for work. And I feel fine for it. The important thing to me is that I want to do it. None of the horrible neurotic impatience of yesteryear. If my progress in self-analysis keeps up I will be a new man and better, one day.

  I didn't get your letter or your card until yesterday. The fuel ration board thought we could heat the joint [for] a month with the amt. of oil we ordinarily use for a week. So now I have a room in a small “hotel” (8 people live here). It is atop Rochester's best restaurant and it is warm, private and alone. I can really be by myself now more than ever. It is not a neurotic compulsion either. I just have enuf to do and enuf to think about so that I don't need anyone. Pardon the digression.

  My address is: 33 Chestnut, c/o Belvedere Hotel.

  I really had no idea (?why) you would write me. If you keep writing I'm sure I will. I am going to have a lot to tell you I think. So –

  When I do come to N.Y.C. I want a couple of appointments with the Frau if possible – for the purpose of seeing if I am on the right track.

  Seeing mother was terrible. A tight-stomached unrelaxed experience full of hate or something very strong and uncomfortable. Good that it was short. That phase of my life is still unilluminated – a few ideas but not much evidence. Wish I understood it. I'm sure it is significant. […]

  A plague on Lizzy Allen, and bless Alex T[hiede]. They had damn well better accept the score or I will personally pluck Liz's pubic hairs out one by one with ice tongs.