The Leonard Bernstein Letters

by Leonard Bernstein

  Meanwhile, there was the more private matter of his marriage to Felicia. Bernstein's letters to friends and family suggest that he regarded the first few months of their life together almost as a kind of social experiment, while an undated letter from Felicia underlines the strength of her love for him, but that she was under no illusions: “you are a homosexual and may never change – you don't admit to the possibility of a double life, but if your peace of mind, your health, your whole nervous system depend on a certain sexual pattern what can you do?” It was the birth of Jamie, their first child, in 1952 which transformed their marriage from a slightly uneasy alliance to something that could endure.

  Plans for new projects came and went, some of them fascinating, such as an idea discussed with Blitzstein in 1952 for an opera on the life of Eva (Evita) Perón. But conducting engagements in Europe and Israel were piling up, and finding time for composition was becoming increasingly difficult. In 1953 the U.S. State Department became a significant player in Bernstein's future – and a thorn in his side. These were perilous times for Americans with liberal sympathies, especially those involved in film, theater, radio, television, and music. Bernstein was one of the 151 names in the entertainment industry whose “Communist” associations were chronicled in Red Channels, published in June 1950, and he came under suspicion throughout the fifties. While he was never summoned by the House Un-American Activities Committee (Copland, Robbins, and Diamond – among many others – weren't so fortunate), Bernstein was required to provide exhaustive details about his former associations with groups regarded as suspect, to renounce Communism, and to pledge his loyalty to the country – all in order to have his passport renewed. The State Department demanded sworn testimony, and the result is Bernstein's long and grimly absorbing affidavit (Letter 328). He wrote to his brother Burton, and to David Diamond, about the humiliation of this episode, but at least he was able to travel again, and in 1954 and 1955 Bernstein wrote a series of long, warm, and often funny letters to Felicia – including the bizarre tale of the disturbed young man who pursued Bernstein around Italy, threatening to blackmail him. He finished one important new work, the Serenade for violin and orchestra, but another was to prove much more intractable: Candide was to give Bernstein a lot of trouble, and took years of precious composing time, but he stuck with it. On the domestic front, things were a great deal happier, with Felicia expecting a second baby whose nickname in utero was “Fink”.

  295. Marian MacDowell1 to Leonard Bernstein

  Hillcrest, Peterborough, NH

  4 March 1950

  Dear Mr. Bernstein,

  I have just written Lukas [Foss] that I could not help feeling a deep personal pride in your programme with the Philharmonic last Sunday. I think Lukas did his part extraordinarily well, but I don't know when I have been so stirred and excited as I was during the playing of your composition. A splendid piece of work! It came over very well on the radio but I wish I might have been there.2

  Every now and then I most particularly wish I were not ninety-two for I can't do as many things that I would like to do. As for instance, when you are here, leading the local Philharmonic, I am afraid I dare not take the risk of the fatigue which would be entailed should I attempt to go to the concert.

  I am really very well but with too little strength to do the things I want to do. I would beg you to come and see me but I know you are going to be overly busy and I dare not hope for it. All the same I would love to.

  I have just one regret – that while Lukas had been a devoted Colonist you should never have been there.3

  Let me thank you for the very kind letter you wrote me a couple of weeks ago. When I heard you converse in the Green Room of the New York Philharmonic giving an outline of what you had done this season and what you are going to do it seemed incredible.

  With every warm good wish and deep admiration.

  Most sincerely yours,

  Marian MacDowell

  296. Marc Blitzstein4 to Leonard Bernstein

  4 East 12th Street, New York, NY

  16 April 1950

  Lenny dear,

  Your casual throwaway phrase: “If you run into trouble on lyrics (in Peter Pan), consult Marc – he's my deputy” – has borne all kind of fruit: raw, ripe, rotten.5 First, they wanted “Dream With Me” revised to make Wendy virginal but grown-up, intimate but not “commercial”, etc. So I re-did it. Then it was decided that what the last few minutes of the play needed was a reprise, not a new song. Scurryings about, searching for a spot to introduce “Dream With Me” before the end; no luck. So “Who Am I?” took its place in the finale, with new lyrics by M.B. More stuff was needed for the mermaids' song, to fill in a spot-in-one – while they changed sets from the Pirate Ship (thirty-one) to the Nursery (now thirty-three). At this moment that set-change is so complicated that even more insert-music-and-lyrics would seem to be required; and so on. At this moment, two days before the first preview, the production seems generically right (if you like Peter Pan at all), but specifically right almost nowhere.6 That will change for the better; the tricks are cute, adding up to what seems a Hippodrome extravaganza. Hershy [Kay] has done a fine brilliant transparent job of orchestration; Trude [Rittmann] remains the best person in the field for “incidentals”;7 Miss Arthur gets curiouser and curiouser, which may even help her performance, if she gets over opening-night jitters. [John] Burrell8 is sound theatrically, but lacking in inventiveness. Great hulking crises in matters of flying equipment, set-troubles (Alswang9 is fine but should be pruned down, too many busy gadgets on stage), and musicians'-union bickerings. [Ben] Steinberg10 is almost (not quite) a loss; he refuses to bang down a beat for the poor unmusical performers. The seat of the trouble, I'm afraid, is Peter Lawrence's ineptitude as a producer; much as I like him personally, he's in a deep-sea fog, or appears to be. Who knows? It will probably turn out to be the hit of the century.

  I cabled you re Ballo of Radio-Roma, because I had a radiogram from him, asking me to send Regina for consideration at the Venice Festival; and I thought you might talk it up. I hope I didn't shackle you with needless problems during your overworked stay in Italy.

  Peter Frye wants to do Cradle in Israel this summer – Chamber Theatre in Tel Aviv (Guttmann-Bartov, manager). I'd love it, and I'd love to come. Could I send the score to Helen, with instructions not to release it until everything is settled?

  The new opera is nearly half-finished! I seem to be working mightily, but need a couple of weeks' rest badly. One song, lied-like, is the best I've ever written. And I have sunk my teeth into a translation of the whole of the Dreigroschenoper as a sort of memorial to Kurt [Weill]. Folks (Cheryl [Crawford], Lee Strasburg, Gadg [Elia] Kazan, etc.) are wildly enthusiastic at the seven songs already completed; and it may turn out to be a production.11

  This has got to stop somewhere. Love. Have you seen Kit?

  Marc

  297. Leonard Bernstein to Burton Bernstein

  Turin, Italy

  18 April 1950

  Dear Frent,

  – Then they lost my tails at the Naples hotel half an hour before the concert (which was at six, & rehearsals had lasted til four, with many chills and fevers and a raw cold hall) and the piano broke down mitten der Ravel in Milano, and every city I come to there's always a mess. But such fun & fury! And big successes, natch. Speaking of natch, they called Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht “Verklärte Natch” in Naples. I have just come to Turin by sheer dint, having been in Milan on Sunday (which is 2 hours from here) but had to go to Rome yesterday for a meeting with [Sol] Hurok & Kouss. So I told the Turin people I'd be late, took a 7 a.m. plane this morning, Rome to Milan, hired a private car in Milan (15,000 lire!!), sped to Turin, arrived at this glad-rags hotel, called the orchestra people – and there's nobody there who knows anything – in fact there's nobody there, & they're all eating & who am I anyway, and “Vabbene, Maestro, vabbenissimo.”

  Then there was the time the bed fell on grandfather …12

  Love
d your letter. You're growing it up, growing it up, Mü la dü. Be sure to be in N.Y. when I arrive mid-July.

  Ladümü

  298. Leonard Bernstein to Shirley Bernstein

  Sharon Hotel, Herzlia on Sea, Israel

  26 April 1950

  Sweedie,

  Without even waiting for cable news of the Peter Pan opening, I hasten to write you apropos your letter which I received Monday in Rome. I arrived in Jewland yesterday, a hulk of a once proud ship, ridden with intestinal bugs of some sort. The three weeks in Italy were screaming successes, but a nightmare of impossible schedules, cold rainy weather, and diarrhea. Everyone became my doctor; I used fourteen different medicines indiscriminately and somehow got through. Once in Israel, having two days before my first rehearsal, I decided to avoid Tel-Aviv, and ensconced myself here for two days of quiet & sun and swimming. First, no rooms: so I took one in a house down the road, which is rather nice, but eat, etc. in the hotel. Then – no sun: in fact, a good old New England gale just begun to blow up. I sleep a lot, read a lot (Male & Female13 is more than fascinating, though often in unintelligible prose), and to outgrow this great weakness which follows on these three Italian weeks of superhuman effort. By the way, the A[ge] of A[nxiety] brought the house down in Turin, despite a wretchedly nervous and unprepared performance. At the last minute I had to conduct from the piano, since the designated conductor proved incompetent. That is a chore! But at least I know that it can be done, given enough rehearsal, and omitting the famous last piano chord. I shall try the same method here in Israel.

  This hotel is most impressive, full of Miami-type rich American Jews, but too small. The food is good, though meat is almost non-existent – which is OK, since I am on a rather lean diet – perföörce. (By the way, Italians are always saying “per forza!” which makes me think of you.) The parents were to come here on Friday next & stay here, but a cable from Dad says the boat is late & they will arrive only Monday, May 1st – so I'll grab their room Friday to Monday, on which day I move into my little house (occupied until then by the Parays).14 You have heard that [Paul] Paray is finished here, including the American tour, & that Kouss & I will share the tour, with some assistance from [Eleazar de] Carvalho.

  But all this is not what is uppermost in my mind – and psyche too. How strange that you should have written just now of Felicia! Ever since I left America she has occupied my thoughts uninterruptedly, and I have come to a fabulously clear realization of what she means – and has always meant – to me. I have loved her, despite all the blocks that have consistently impaired my loving-mechanism, truly & deeply from the first. Lonely on the sea, my thoughts were only of her. Other girls (and/or boys) meant nothing. Even the automatic straining toward general sexuality of the moment – which had always carried a big stick with me, was of no importance. I have been consistently aware of the great companionship of this girl – seen clearly and independent of the damnable tensions that discolored it, the fears melting into thin air. I fret, for the first time in my life, jealousy – a growing resentment of her current affair, and a certain knowledge that D[ick] H[art] was horribly wrong for her. Over all this, a real knowledge that she and I were made for each other, then as now: that we have everything to give each other. Just as right is my feeling that it would have been wrong to marry when we planned in '47, in struggle with the complex tensions of both our young lives then. I would marry her tomorrow, sight unseen, ignorant of all she has lived through these two years or so, willing to learn, insatiably eager to learn.

  On the boat I was seized by these feelings – and more: a grave intuition that she was in trouble and needed someone. I prayed it might be me she needed. So strong was this conviction (though I admitted to myself that intuitive deductions are all too easy in mid-Atlantic) that I wrote her a letter explaining my urge. I felt humble writing it, vastly apologetic for the indifferent treatment I had afforded her during her troubled time in California, and in fact all through our “engagement”. After mailing it, I was afraid that I had been guilty of bad manners, of possibly trying to disrupt what may have been a good relationship with Hart, of possibly yielding to the impulse of a moment of loneliness. Now I know, weeks later, how sincere and deep the impulse was. I have had no answer, and have thought that my worst fears were justified. Of course I sent it to Washington Place; she may not have gotten it; it may have been intercepted; or she may have reacted only with anger at my interference. How your letter gives me a renewed hope.

  I would write all this directly to her, but the unknown fate of my first letter to her gives me pause. I don't mean to use you as a go-between – I know you understand that as deeply as you do my desire to have her know my feelings. So many things become clear when abroad – so many cow-webs [sic] are cleared away: the tongues of dear friends persuading me that she was wrong for me, etc., the psychiatric womb wherein one is safe from the need to cope with sexual adjustment, etc. My feeling is one totally apart from analysis: I want only to cope, and through my own powers, without aid – especially of the indulgent, personal sort that was forthcoming from Miss Nell.

  How is Felicia? Did [Eva] Gabor leave, as I hear she might, and did Felicia replace her? Is she still in the show? How does she feel about her career? Is her health OK? These things, of course, I would love to hear directly from her; but if that is not possible, let me hear them from you. I am thrilled that you are close again: that should always be: you have so much for each other.

  Only one thing more: last night I dreamed at length that I had found her and solved our problems together. It was a hard dream, but full of richness. And, on awakening, I was desolate at the thousands of miles that still lay between us, and the grayness of doubt and not-knowing. My day-dreams are of her flying to Israel, and our being married in Jerusalem. Renée [Nell], of course, would be the uninvited fairy who would pronounce the curse. Strangely, though, I think she'd be delighted. I was not at all surprised at your news of Renée: I had always seen these things, but had always diminished their importance in the light of her values and of my affection for her. Of course, I have no intention of returning to her, or, I hope, to anyone, if I can begin really to live my life (as I can now) and not only live on the circumference of it. And, willy-nilly, Renée has helped to that point – a point where my world changes from one of abstractions and public-hungry performance to one of reality, a world of creativity, of Montealegre-Cohn, of Spanish & French and travel and rest and love and warmth and intimacy. I've never felt so strongly as these weeks in Italy how through I am with the conductor-performer life (except where it really matters) and how ready I am for inner living, which means composing and Felicia. I'll probably never stop conducting completely, but it will never again be in intensity and emphasis what these last seven years have been.

  My interest in Peter Pan grows strangely neutral; I feel that the basic defection of Peter Lawrence, and the manifestations thereof in choosing [John] Burrell & [Ben] Steinberg,15 has (or have?) robbed it, prima facie, of the real life it could have had. If it's a hit, so much the better. But thanks for all your news: and I'm very grateful to Marc. I am shocked by the idea of my name in lights on this show! But these things pass. You are right: I shall never again operate in such a way.

  Many thanks for the Mitrop[oulos] profile – I'd love to see the rest (you stopped in mid-paragraph). And the [Wanda] Landowska picture is a gem. Two things were missing from your letter: there was no word of Gabey, and especially no word of Hi-lee [Shirley]. I miss you terribly, and a long letter from you with no personal word in it makes me worry a little: you will please rectify this situation.

  Tremendous love, and I await impatiently your reply on all counts. The gale is now over, the sun is out, and I wish you and Felicia were both here.

  Lovingly,

  L

  299. Leonard Bernstein to “Twig” Romney

  King David Hotel, Jerusalem, Israel

  9 May 1950

  Dear Twig,

  Your news is good: and I hop
e your sense of future is as strong and high as that to be found here. Pretty inspiring stuff, and fairly original, I'd say, in a world of passivity and backsliding.

  Tonight I give a gala concert here celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Hebrew University. Irony: the University buildings lie in the unspeakably touching view from my window here, across the Old City, but they are unused, unavailable, in Arab hands. Such angering nonsense. But the University functions well in temporary borrowed buildings here, and will celebrate doubly hard tonight.

  I am tired, but, as always, goaded on to any amount of activity by the passion in this air. I will be in Holland the first two weeks in July, then flying to America for Tanglewood, then leaving again in mid-August for the Edinburgh Festival. We should be able to see each other there (I shall be in Scotland about Aug 20 to 25): then I return to Holland to finish the Festival. Do let's meet.