The Leonard Bernstein Letters

by Leonard Bernstein

  As late as April 1966, when Bernstein applied for his passport to be renewed so that he could go to Vienna to work with the Vienna Philharmonic, an FBI Memorandum recycled much of its earlier material. By 1967, an internal memorandum added Bernstein's support for civil rights organizations to an otherwise familiar summary: “Bernstein has been active in the civil rights movement and in 1965 Harry Bellafonte organized a group of musical and literary artists to take part in the Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, march. Bernstein was one of the artists who made up this delegation.” That additional information was communicated to Mrs. Mildred Stegall (aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson) at the White House on 5 March 1968 after she requested a routine security check.

  In the available files, two further episodes attracted the FBI's attention. The first, unsurprisingly, was the event held in the Bernstein apartment on 14 January 1970 to raise funds for the legal defence of the Black Panthers. Through off-the-record press briefings and leaks to friendly journalists, the FBI sought to discredit Bernstein and his wife. Ten years later, after some of the FBI files relating to this event had been made available under the Freedom of Information Act, a furious Bernstein was quoted in The New York Times (22 October 1980): “I have substantial evidence now available to all that the F.B.I. conspired to foment hatred and violent dissension among blacks, among Jews and between blacks and Jews. My late wife and I were among many foils used for this purpose, in the context of a so-called ‘party’ for the Panthers in 1970 which was neither a party nor a ‘radical chic’ event for the Black Panther Party, but rather a civil liberties meeting for which my wife had generously offered our apartment. The ensuing FBI-inspired harassment ranged from floods of hate letters sent to me over what are now clearly fictitious signatures, thinly-veiled threats couched in anonymous letters to magazines and newspapers, editorial and reportorial diatribes in The New York Times, attempts to injure my long-standing relationship with the people of the state of Israel, plus innumerable other dirty tricks. None of these machinations has adversely affected my life or work, but they did cause a good deal of bitter unpleasantness.”

  The last event covered in the available FBI files is one that shows the organization at its most paranoid. Bernstein's Mass was written for the inaugural event of the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on 8 September 1971. On 9 July and on 16 August 1971 memoranda were sent to Charles D. Brennan, then Assistant Director of the Domestic Intelligence Division, with the subject “Proposed plans of antiwar elements to embarrass the United States Government.” The second described a “plot by Leonard Bernstein, conductor and composer, to embarrass the President [Nixon] and other Government officials through an antiwar and anti-Government musical composition to be played at the dedication of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts [several lines redacted]. The purpose of this action was to embarrass high Government officials, possibly even the President who might be present.” It also cited Bernstein's visits to discuss the Mass with the priest and peace activist Daniel Berrigan while he was in Danbury Jail (he was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list for his anti-Vietnam campaigning). The FBI memorandum of 16 August also describes an attempted visit that was thwarted: “On 7-14-71, Bernstein attempted to visit Berrigan at Danbury but was denied admission by prison officials after consulting Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C.” On the day of the first performance, 8 September, Brennan received another memorandum (for information only) summarizing the situation and citing a report in Human Events that “Bernstein intended to embarrass the President with an antiadministration bombshell,” but reminding Brennan that Nixon had already announced he would not be present out of courtesy to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, stating that the formal opening “should really be her night.” Nixon's views on Bernstein were robustly antagonistic. While he will certainly have known of Bernstein's alleged Communist associations in the past, Nixon also regarded him as a dangerous musical modernist. In a White House memorandum to Bob Haldeman dated 26 January 1970, Nixon offered these thoughts: “As you, of course, know those who are on the modern art and music kick are 95 percent against us anyway. I refer to the recent addicts of Leonard Bernstein and the whole New York crowd. When I compare the horrible monstrosity of Lincoln Center with the Academy of Music in Philadelphia I realize how decadent the modern art and architecture have become. This is what the Kennedy–-Shriver crowd believed in and they had every right to encourage this kind of stuff when they were in. But I have no intention whatever of continuing to encourage it now.”

  One final request for a security “name check” for Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Bernstein was made during the Ford administration, with the FBI submitting the following on 18 November 1974: “Mr. Bernstein, who you advised is a conductor […] has been the subject of various security-type investigations conducted by the FBI since the early 1950s based on information that he had affiliated with or supported in some manner 15 organizations cited as communistic or subversive. Leonard Bernstein […] has been active in the civil rights movement. […]. On May 12, 1971, Leonard Bernstein and his wife hosted a fund-raising party in support of Philip F. Berrigan and five co-defendants charged with conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up heating systems in Federal buildings in Washington, D.C.” While this document describes an alleged “conspiracy,” it makes no mention of the humiliating defeat suffered by the government when its case failed to secure any convictions on major charges at the trial of the so-called “Harrisburg Seven.” Perhaps this isn't such a surprise in the context of Bernstein's FBI file, which for more than twenty years reveals that officials repeated hearsay allegations of his “Communist” associations without ever, it seems, making any serious attempt to discover whether there was a shred of truth in them. The “Red Scare” is generally thought of as a phenomenon of America in the 1950s. Bernstein's FBI files reveal that for the security services, at least, it was still an active issue in the 1970s, with campaigning for civil rights, and against the Vietnam War, being added to lists of “subversive” activities.

  65 Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television was published by the right-wing magazine Counterattack on 22 June 1950, and named 151 actors, writers, musicians, journalists, and others as Communist sympathizers, giving what purported to be details of their affiliations with suspect organizations. Bernstein was included, along with a number of his friends and colleagues such as Marc Blitzstein, Aaron Copland, Olin Downes, Lillian Hellman, Judy Holliday, Lena Horne, John LaTouche, and Arthur Laurents. Eric Barnouw prints a complete list of those named, and describes them as “151 of the most talented and admired people in the industry – mostly writers, directors and performers. They were people who had helped make radio an honored medium, and who were becoming active in television. Many had played a prominent role in wartime radio, and had been articulators of American war aims. In short, it was a roll of honor” (Barnouw 1990, pp. 122 and 124).

  66 The Rural Free Delivery Service of the United States Postal Service.

  67 Address added by hand, on the headed writing paper of the Berkshire Music Center, Tanglewood.

  68 James McInerney (1905–63), American lawyer. He joined the FBI in 1935 and was responsible for investigating internal security cases at the Department of Justice during the Second World War. In 1950, he was appointed Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division by President Truman. With the change of administration in 1953, McInerney left the Justice Department and returned to private practice in Washington until his death in a car accident in October 1963. His most famous clients were the Kennedy family, for whom he handled many delicate matters.

  69 Bernstein and the New York Stadium Symphony Orchestra recorded four symphonies for American Decca on 22, 24, 26, 29, and 30 June 1953: Beethoven's Eroica, Brahms' Fourth, Schumann's Second, and Tchaikovsky's Pathétique. A month later, on 28 July, they recorded Dvořák's New World.

  70 Ciro Cuomo was Diamond's Italian secretary-companion who became his devoted friend.

&
nbsp; 71 Carnival in Flanders was a dismal flop, opening on 8 September and closing four days later. Set in Flanders in 1616, the cast included Dolores Gray and John Raitt. It had music by Jimmy Van Heusen and lyrics by Johnny Burke. The sets were by Oliver Smith.

  72 Hazel Flagg, with a score by Jule Styne and lyrics by Bob Hilliard, ran on Broadway from 11 February to 19 September 1953.

  73 Wonderful Town began its successful Broadway run of 559 performances on 25 February 1953.

  74 Can-Can, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, opened on 7 May 1953 and ran for 892 performances.

  75 Rosalind Russell (as Ruth Sherwood) was the star of Wonderful Town.

  76 Cheryl Crawford (1902–86), American theater producer. Bernstein was to encounter her again two years later when he was working on West Side Story (she withdrew before the show opened). In this letter he responds to Crawford's request for an overture to accompany a summer tour of Trouble in Tahiti.

  77 Alice Ghostley (1926–2007), American singer and actor. She sang the role of Dinah in Trouble in Tahiti on tour, and again when it arrived on Broadway as part of a triple bill called All In One (alongside dances by Paul Draper and Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton), described by Brooks Atkinson in The New York Times (20 April 1955) as “an evening of superb theatre art.”

  78 David Brooks (1915–99), American singer, actor, producer, and director. He directed Trouble in Tahiti.

  79 Elia Kazan (1909–2003), American film director and co-founder of the Actors Studio. As a student at Williams College he was known as “Gadget”, shortened to “Gadg”. His notorious appearance as a “friendly” witness at the HUAC hearings made him very unpopular among his more liberal friends and colleagues, but his gifts were such that Stanley Kubrick called Kazan, “without question, the best director we have in America.” Much of this letter is about On the Waterfront, for which Bernstein wrote his only score composed specially for Hollywood. The majority of the music had been already been recorded in Hollywood, on 24, 27, and 28 April 1954 (see Burlingame 2003, pp. 130–1). Bernstein's Symphonic Suite from “On the Waterfront” was made in 1955 and first performed on 11 August 1955 at Tanglewood. It was dedicated to Alexander Bernstein, who had been born on 7 July.

  80 Kazan is exaggerating a little, since Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger had appeared in earlier films, but On the Waterfront was their first major success; it was a screen debut for Eve Marie Saint.

  81 Some of On the Waterfront was filmed in Hoboken, NJ.

  82 Serenak was the home of Serge Koussevitzky in the grounds of Tangleword.

  83 Bernstein's Serenade after Plato's Symposium for violin and orchestra.

  84 Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), French composer whose music, with its elements of polytonality and jazz, appealed strongly to Bernstein. One of Bernstein's first recordings (in November 1945) was of Milhaud's La Création du Monde, a work he conducted regularly.

  85 Bernstein was due to conduct the stage premiere of Milhaud's opera David at La Scala in January 1955. At short notice, he canceled in order to devote time to Candide, and Nino Sanzogno took over conducting duties for David.

  86 Antonio Ghiringhelli, sovrintende (general manager) of La Scala.

  87 George Singer (1908–80) conducted the world premiere of Milhaud's David in Jerusalem on 1 June 1954.

  88 Milhaud was more diplomatic about Singer in his autobiography, My Happy Life: “It was George Singer who took on the job of conducting David and he needed all the patience he could muster […] in the end the singers, the Orchestra of the Jerusalem Radio reinforced by the brass from the Police Band, the Jerusalem Radio Chorus and the Students' Choir of the Conservatoire […] gave my work a rousingly ardent reading. It was, after all, their piece” (Milhaud 1995, p. 228).

  89 Bernstein originally planned to play Schuman's Sixth Symphony in his Italian concerts.

  90 For Candide.

  91 Felicia appeared in ten episodes of Kraft Television Theatre between 1949 and 1956. Emma was broadcast on 24 November 1954, and Felicia played the title role of Emma Woodhouse in a cast that also included Roddy McDowall as Mr. Elton.

  92 Felicia appeared opposite Louis Jourdan in the out-of-town tryouts for Tonight in Samarkand, a play by Jacques Deval presented in Princeton and Boston. She was not in the cast of the short Broadway run that followed.

  93 Charles Roth was “a young conducting student Bernstein taught in 1950 and 1951 at Tanglewood” (Burton 1994, p. 245). Roth was a disturbed individual who threatened to blackmail Bernstein, or to make public Bernstein's letters to him. He is referred to in several letters to Felicia from 1955 as the “Black Fairy”.

  94 Eaves and Brooks were the two leading theatrical costume companies in New York.

  95 Bernstein's pet-name for Alexander before he was born.

  96 Tonight in Samarkand was directed by Alan Schneider, whose later Broadway credits included the original (1962) production of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

  97 The London production of Wonderful Town opened on 25 February 1955 at the Prince's Theatre.

  98 “The Wrong-Note Rag”.

  99 A slightly optimistic forecast: the London production of Wonderful Town did well, but only ran for 207 performances.

  100 “The Black Fairy” was Charles Roth. See note 92 to Bernstein's letter (346) to Felicia of 11 February 1955.

  101 For Wonderful Town.

  102 Milton Greene (1913–2000) was a conductor, arranger, and pianist whose most important Broadway credit was as the original conductor of Fiddler on the Roof.

  103 Bernstein did as Comden requested and wrote a charming tribute for the record jacket:

  Ever since we first met, there has been a beloved object in my life called Betty-and-Adolph. This prodigy, apart from being two very dear people, has for many years supplied me with pure, profound laughter, as it has so many others; and it has a way of turning every hearer into a doting fan. But Betty-and-Adolph is not only a thing of laughter. With the years, it has grown in warmth, understanding, theatrical mastery, subtlety and appeal, always making its personal, sweet-sour comment on the follies and lovable sentimentalities of American life. Betty-and-Adolph as performers represent something complete and exquisite. In recent years I have watched them as creators going forward with increasing power, in a fluid state of development that may lead to any number of new forms. It is my belief that this joyous Cerberus will eventually furnish us with what will one day be known as American opera. Nowhere else in America is there to be found this combination of musical instinct and knowledge, theatrical perfection and literate immediacy. It has been my joy to work with them on two shows, and it is my hope to continue forever.

  104 Blitzstein's Regina is based on Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (1939), an extremely successful play that was made into a film starring Bette Davis in 1941 before Blitzstein adapted it for his opera. Regina was first performed on Broadway on 31 October 1949, conducted by Maurice Abravanel.

  105 On the Waterfront won eight Academy Awards in 1955, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), Best Supporting Actor (Eve Marie Saint), and Best Director (Kazan). Though Bernstein's score was nominated, it didn't win.

  106 The winner of the Academy Award for Best Score was Dimitri Tiomkin, for The High and the Mighty.

  107 In 1955, the idea of a musical version of James M. Cain's Serenade – which had so appealed to Bernstein in 1947 – was explored once again, with Arthur Laurents writing the book. As this letter shows, Bernstein was approached to compose the score.

  108 A very early mention of the work that became the Kaddish Symphony.

  109 Bellevue Hospital in New York is famous for its psychiatric facilities.

  110 Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl. Their first child, Olivia, was born on 20 April 1955. Olivia's tragic death from measles encephalitis seven years later left Dahl “destroyed” according to Patricia Neal. He never spoke of her, but on the twentieth anniversary of her death he dedicated The BFG to Olivia's memory.r />
  111 Bernstein programmed Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony for the concert in Florence, along with Mozart's Symphony No. 39 and the Ravel G major Concerto directed from the piano.

  112 Charles Roth. See note 92 to Bernstein's letter of 11 February 1955.

  113 The writer James Agee died of a heart attack on 16 May 1955.

  114 Alexander Bernstein was born on 7 July 1955.

  5

  West Side Story

  1955–7

  It was in the summer and autumn of 1955 that West Side Story started to take shape as a viable project. Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, and Bernstein had quietly set the idea to one side since first discussing it in 1949, but quite suddenly it was on again, thanks to the impetus of reports in the news about gang warfare. The story told in Bernstein's 1957 West Side Log is that the moment of discovery happened in Hollywood when he had a meeting with Laurents in August 1955, but a letter written to him a month earlier by Laurents suggests that it was more complicated than that. Still, it was the outcome that mattered: a new outline, introducing Puerto Rican immigrants, and, with them, the Latin American musical elements that would be so crucial to the score's colors. As well as refining the plot, a second vital factor was bringing Stephen Sondheim into the project to write the lyrics. Over the next two years, the four collaborators were mostly able to discuss the project in the same place and at the same time – so there's not much correspondence between them about the show – but before they got down to serious work, Robbins responded in detail to the new Laurents–Bernstein outline, giving important clues about how he wanted the show to develop. It was not only as a creative genius that Robbins' role was of such fundamental importance in the evolution of West Side Story. On a personal level, he was one of the very few people who could get complete commitment from Bernstein, and who could insist on – and inspire – music of the highest quality. Robbins' letters to Bernstein are often brusque and brutally honest, but the respect they had for each other is unmistakable.