The Leonard Bernstein Letters

by Leonard Bernstein

  A.

  255. Lena Horne104 to Leonard Bernstein

  16 July 1947

  Dear Leonard Bernstein,

  I would very much like to have you as my guest at a party at Jerome Robbins' home, 421 Park Ave., on Thursday night July 24th from 8:00 to 1:00 (corner of 56th Street).105

  We will share delightful drinks and entertainment for the benefit of the fighting veterans organization, United Negro and Allied Veterans of America.106

  Yours sincerely,

  Lena Horne

  256. Marketa Morris to Leonard Bernstein

  Continental House, Stamford, NY

  23 July 1947

  Lenny,

  Your letter stirred up lots of problems.

  To go into them adequately would require an elaborate paper – and that does not agree with my vacations. I try a compromise. I have to be honest in the first place. Honest and short means usually: it hurts! I have to rely on your perspicacity and your English to translate my thoughts into a good, nice, considerate English. Will you?

  I don't think that our work will be finished in five months. But there is even some risk of your feeling worse after this period since many problems may have come into the open without finding a solution.

  Under the given circumstances I would want to start only if you are taking the responsibility for such a possible outcome.

  Of course there is a chance that we may come to some essential clarification. No way to deny it. It's fifty fifty – and you have to know it.

  In your dreams there is confusion, you are not able to go where you have to go: two simultaneous engagements or dates and so on. You are seeing Felicia and the day she leaves you have to see a boy.

  The same old pattern. You can't give up. Very eager to resume analysis but the queer fish resistance is as big a fish as your drive to get well.

  If you could give up Europe for the solution of your problems, you would have solved quite some of them and we had the most promising start. But would I make it a condition, which, I have to confess was very tempting – I am sure it wouldn't work out, since you would use it against me, that is, against our work.

  I don't quite understand your dream involving your parents. What does Rochester mean? Did you intend to leave alone by plane (which you missed!). Could it indicate that it is a “force majeur” and not your own incapacity that you can't separate yourself from them. Being inside still a child as you say (giving up childhood).

  You are toying around with the possibility of being a dull and uninteresting talent – or losing your place in the score (Koussevitzky).

  Remember that you wanted to challenge people and find out whether they would still love you.

  It's all very sketchy, I know. But I still hope that you can pick out something of help for you.

  I did intend to go to Tanglewood, indeed, but it did not materialize.

  I had an interesting letter from George today who himself is going to the Berkshires.

  Lenny, I hope very much that you understand what I really want to convey to you! Do you?

  I am back in town between the 5–10th of Sept.

  Sincerely.

  M

  257. Richard Adams Romney (“Twig”)107 to Leonard Bernstein

  34 Beekman Place, New York, NY

  25 July 1947

  My dear Lenny,

  I can't resist writing you, even though I know that the mood I am in should prompt me to be still. I feel sad – and alone in the way only a neurotic can feel alone.

  The idea of living with someone else came crashing down around my knees last night just as hurriedly as it had spent itself in the sky the day before. The thought of having to be responsible to an irresponsible degree for someone else's living condition makes me balk like I have heard men do just before they take a wife. Living in this little box has a security that is that of a desperate grasping squeeze … I'm reminded of the Steig drawing of the man in the box who thinks “people are no damn good”! I tripped over a stone yesterday. This was it: the nearer my time came to report to the VA108 for my chance for psycho-analytical treatment, the more tense I noticed myself to be. I translated it as a natural resistance – for certainly, beyond the chance of talking about myself, hashing over my imaginary reflections, and being an “actress”, there is a deep conviction that my locked doors must not be opened. The fear of falling with my faults is funny – for I believe that by uncovering one recovers, yet recognition has not healed me of the failings lately (like Christian Science, for instance, has led me to believe). Why, when one sees an error of premise doesn't that seeing dispel its tenacity? Is it the old self-authority commanding “thus far and no farther”?

  Well, I sweat through the interview, with the best manners I could muster – by that I mean without personal messiness, and found I have to go through another interview – also not an MD or Psychiatrist – which will determine whether I am in worth[y] condition to take the time of the Psychiatrist. Then it is probable that psychiatric survey and not psycho-analytical treatment will be granted. So – with all my resistance to being analysed, I am depressingly disappointed that a possibility of being treated is quite improbable. Another contradiction! Perhaps I should take a part-time job and see if I can earn my analysis – even on through my school-time-days to come. (The analyst Bruce Knight is arranging for me to see is named Berkeley – and lives near you on 11th Street, I believe. Have you ever heard of her? I wish she wasn't a her.)

  Helen wrote me a lovely thank you card – and it delighted me a good deal. She mentioned your great success with Appalachian Spring – but I knew of it the day before by my own conviction. I went into Liberty and listened to the Koussevitzky recordings and was disappointed at his interpretation. There is a lovely excitement in the way you play the “saddle” part – is it Part III? – Koussy rushes it, instead of syncopating it – and the way you end it is moving. Oh, butch, you're wonderful!

  This morning's book list from Holliday advertises Auden's new thing along with a new one of Edith Sitwell's. When I get round to send you [The Age of] Anxiety I will also include The Shadow of Cain which the book store insists “reflects more directly the tragic impact of contemporary events on an acutely sensitive and perceptive nature.” Then they add, “In their likeness and unlikeness, these two books are an absorbing study.”

  I have been to Lewisohn [Stadium] twice this week. Hans Schwieger is the poorest conductor I have ever heard with a first rate orchestra. He conducts as if he were leading a hofbrau band.[…] The Philharmonic must realize that many people take to concerts in the summer because of the outdoor “tranquility”, and it is their initiation to the best music – therefore they could increase their winter subscription lists with new enthusiasts, but there is a vital danger in sandwiching the very best with the slip-shod. Evidently you set the standard for their summer concerts extremely high. I have heard from many diversified tastes that your concerts were electric. Mr. Schwieger has been a sad let-down.

  Do I sound mean, Pappie. Hating people again?

  You set me such a fine example of living with other people, I am more aware than ever of my anti-social side. Please don't let my untidy sick mind bore you away from me (I want you to feel a teensy bit responsible so that you won't give me up as unworthy of your good affection). You've touched me deeply – honestly you have.

  I'm going to close – hoping you can scribble a card when you're squatting in that hammock. Kisses to Helen. (Gobbles to you.)

  Twig

  Tell Helen to get The Gallery109 from her lending library (it's already out of stock).

  Why don't you try a tone poem of Anxiety?110 The four themes – their inter-relationship, pairing-off drama – etc. might make a good thing. And you could do it! Name it The Wanderer In Greenwood after me (forgive that!) […]

  258. Richard Adams Romney (“Twig”) to Leonard Bernstein

  34 Beekman Place, New York, NY

  29 July 1947

  Dear Lenny,

  F
orgive all of the overheatedness in my past letters, but know it is only because I know you don't want me to be sillily overboard that I ask your forgiveness. You made me very very happy in those few days, and I have had to try to know what it was about your example and good heart that made me wish I could get right against you.

  Here is a snap of me taken on the wharf of Hamilton, Bermuda that I hope you will look at when you forget what I look like. I think it quite good.

  What do you think of the Anxiety idea? There is so much musical-subtlety in it, and those various metres brought about by the different roads the couples take and their differing means of transportation, to say nothing of the moods, and the separateness that becomes oneness under alcohol and/or libidinal urges. You mentioned it being good ballet material, yes, but I think, first, it should be composed as music by itself and therefore protect it from being too obvious program music, and then if some clever choreographer can put the musical composition to work, with what added quality good music may give to the themes and material, well and good.111 I would rather have “it” in the concert hall, where it can be less “handled” than in the ballet school where many talents brush it up. It's too good a thing for many hands.

  I am beginning to suffer more for lack of occupation, but until the VA makes some kind of a decision regarding their award of psycho treatment, I don't think I can obligate my time just yet. Do I ring self-excused and lazy? Hummm. If the VA vetoes treatment, I am determined to work it out on my own but taking temporary work during my school days, and immediately before school begins.

  The Tribune had a high compliment of your first night.112 I wish I could have seen and heard the performance. I read it at a friend's house – and will get you a copy if you weren't able to grab it in Pittsfield.

  Speaking of my friend, she is Anne Gibson Clark – and she is toying with the idea of going home to Grand Rapids to pick up her convertible, and then taking me to Tanglewood one week-end to hear some more music. What you do think of that?

  Kiss Helen for me and tell her I will write her the letter I want to, in answer to her friendly card, very soon. She couldn't have been kinder to me and I thank her every time I think of her – which is every day.

  Lots of love,

  Twigling

  259. Leonard Bernstein to “Twig” Romney

  Box 102, Lenox, MA

  1 August 1947

  Dear Twig, fighting to the last,

  This should be five or six letters by now. There are so many things to say, and the super-varied contents of your three letters call for all kinds of discussion. But I'm not in my “analyst” mood right now, having an uncomfortable back condition these days, and having just finished a long and difficult lecture. So let me just not be “Pappy” now, and send you my love and thanks for all the three books (which I keep trying to find a minute to crack) and to tell you how often I think of you.

  The concerts here have been tops; and mine have given me the utmost satisfaction. The reactions have been marvelous, and Kouss was ecstatic. I wish you could have been here: – can't you get up for my next one on Aug 7th?

  I don't quite understand the rise and fall of Bruce Knight. What really happened? And have you met Miss Berkeley?

  I have to dash off for a diathermy on my poor aching back. Write more and often, and better still, come (though I can't promise you space here for a while) and I love your photograph.

  Bless you, and don't let your resistance interfere with going through with the analysis.

  All the affection you need –

  L

  The enclosed sheds much light!113

  260. Marketa Morris to Leonard Bernstein

  Continental House, Stamford, NY

  28 August 1947

  Lenny,

  Let me be very brief. I feel in your letter that some part in you expects my support for the cancellation of Palestine! That you dare not to see it, but that you would want to do something completely radical – for your Resurrection!

  The only thing you can do: try to feel whether that is what you want. Not what I want!

  Please call me up after Labor day (or even before) best between 9–12 a.m. [on] 4751 because I would want to arrange for our first session in New York. Will you? It has technical reasons.

  I don't quite understand why you were pleased not to feel the necessity to thank me for my time? No obligation for conventional feelings? That's okay? But how about some genuine, warm feeling of gratefulness? Could you imagine?

  In N.Y. I refused to take a brother in law of a patient of mine who wanted to come to St[amford] and have daily sessions by saying: not even if he would pay $25 a session.

  I am mentioning it deliberately to show you that it is not only you who has to give up and make sacrifices – but that I am willing as well to do so, if necessary. I even proposed to see you once more, if you would have wished. I understand perfectly that you did not since you were so busy making so important decisions.

  We'll talk about it more in N.Y.

  Have a nice time – a productive time first of all!

  Yours,

  Marketa

  For the sake of order: I am charging (since last year) $10 a session. We had one in N.Y. and 3 in Stamford.

  You had no dream? How come after all these important events?

  M

  261. Marketa Morris to Leonard Bernstein

  562 West 113th Street, New York, NY

  [?1947]

  Lenny,

  I got your dream letter. You know that it is quite impossible to give a written interpretation to a dream – and more so a dream without interpretation.

  Why am I living in Brooklyn?

  Jimmy's Restaurant in Greenwich V[illage]

  Why another cab to go to Brooklyn?

  What's about 289?

  It's getting dark at four o'clock in the afternoon?

  Switches putting on lights upstairs and not downstairs? What's the difference between up and downstairs in this beautiful, big, expensive house?

  What about the two girls blocking the exit from behind your desk?

  Write me if you feel like – besides the dreams! F[or] i[nstance] why cannot you relax and just simply not compose? Remember, you had the idea that adjustment to homosexuality could facilitate heterosexuality! Couldn't adjustment to relaxation constitute a capacity of creative work? Of course not pretending to relax only.

  Marketa

  I could see you Monday at 12 (noon) or at 7 p.m. Tuesday at 11 a.m. OK?

  262. James M. Cain114 to Leonard Bernstein

  666 South Carondelet Street, Los Angeles, CA

  1 October 1947

  Dear Mr. Bernstein,

  Two proposals have been made to me, one by a leading playwright and a reputable producer, the other by the most successful operetta composer we have, hooked up with a highly successful librettist, to put Serenade on the stage;115 but I am bound to report that in spite of a high personal regard for all of these various gentlemen, all I could detect in their ideas was the most obvious theatrical claptrap, and accordingly I did my best to discourage them. Serenade, unfortunately, as seems to be the case with most of my stories, has problems that don't yield to a socko waltz tune, and I am not sure they yield at all. You, though, might be able to get somewhere with it. I mean, I have followed your work & think it might suit your gifts.

  As for my doing your libretto, I can only say I never did one, and have a suspicion that at my age I shouldn't try to learn.116 The rights, for your information, are in the clear, that is the dramatic rights; I own them, and while the publisher cuts in for 25% of anything paid on account of performances, I make the deal, and naturally would be reasonable. My suggestion would be to get in the market for a poet, or poetess, and I would think that the New Yorker, which is in touch with every poet there is, may be of some help, if you were to write them, or better still go in there. Katherine White, I understand, is still with them, and could no doubt think of somebody. After that you are in the lap of chan
ce, but no worse with a New Yorker nominee than with me.

  To elucidate the rights thing, which on re-reading doesn't seem wholly clear. A contract leasing you the right to produce an opera based on the book would be one thing, and would be made by me, either with you or with your producer. Royalties paid me would be split with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., my publisher. Your libretto & score would be another contract, made by producers, publishers, etc., with you and your librettist, lyricist, etc. If I did the book, I would be involved in it, but as I hesitate, that complication most likely won't arise.

  I should naturally be delighted if you undertake the job, and wish you all luck with it. It has a theme, as the picture people found out, as horrendous as the Motif of Sulphur Yellow Truth in Mencken's concert program; but no doubt you know all about that, and let us hope, what to do with it, or how to get rid of it.117 Many thanks for your felicitations. The lady,118 as you may have heard, has yodeled quite a bit of opera herself.

  Sincerely,

  J. M. Cain

  263. Leonard Bernstein to James M. Cain

  9 October 1947

  Dear Mr. Cain,

  Thank you very much for your kind letter of October 1 and for your kind comments about me and my gifts. I am happy to learn that the rights are clear, but to be frank, I am not reconciled to the fact that you would not be able to write the libretto from your work. However, I will follow your suggestion and look about for a collaborator though at this writing I have some ideas myself as to the book and lyrics.

  Unfortunately, I will not be able to give the matter my entire time immediately although the first act is fully formed in my mind both dramatically and musically. I will be occupied with my conducting here until at least the end of the year and then I have foreign commitments to conduct, which will consume the first months of the coming year. However, then I shall have free time and nothing will delight me more than to concentrate on the work.

  At the moment I have no producer and therefore I am proceeding on my own insofar as the work is concerned and what I would like to have from you is the right to dramatize the book for musical purposes until September, 1948, which I believe will give me ample time to finish what I have in mind.