The Leonard Bernstein Letters

by Leonard Bernstein

  In spite of his commitment to the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein continued to work in Europe and Israel, including his first visit to Vienna since 1948. On that occasion he had worked with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, but now he was conducting concerts and recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic. His relationship with this orchestra was to flourish over the next quarter century, but initially Bernstein was profoundly disturbed by the anti-semitism within it. Georg Solti, another Jewish conductor with extensive experience of working with the orchestra, wrote not to allay Bernstein's concerns, but to counsel a spirit of forgiveness. Solti added that Helmut Wobisch – the former SS man who was the orchestra's manager and one of its trumpeters – was “despite everything […] probably one of the few trustworthy members of that orchestra.” Neither Solti nor Bernstein found it easy to work with the Vienna Philharmonic, despite its fabled past, but both managed to establish a musical relationship that became increasingly close over the years.

  Meanwhile the Bernstein family continued to grow: in 1962, Felicia and Leonard's third child, Nina, was born – and, as he had with Jamie and Alexander, Bernstein waxes lyrical and adoring about their new sister. Bernstein himself reached a personal milestone in August 1968: his 50th birthday. One of his oldest friends, Adolph Green – who had known Bernstein since 1937 – wrote a funny, and deeply affectionate letter summarizing what their long friendship meant and, above all, how their first meeting had made such a lasting impact: “What am I wheezily, puffily, floridly trying to tell you??? The simple fact that suddenly there was meaning in my life. I felt alive.”

  410. Jule Styne2 to Leonard Bernstein

  New York, NY

  2 January 19583

  [Telegram]

  I need a fella who can play in a publisher's office for singers, who can write a ballet and play the dance rehearsals and then orchestrate it, who can write the music for a new musical comedy and then orchestrate it, and who can write a ballet and play for Agnes de Mille and Michael Kidd and Jerome Robbins too, and who can take this ballet and orchestrate it the hard way with the orchestra sitting the wrong way and the horns pointing into the trombone player's ear; who can also do a tour of one night stands, lecture on why the oboe is a double reed instrument, also, what's going on in the world of music in five continents. This fellow must also be able to orchestrate the telephone book; also this fellow must be able to conduct practically every major symphony orchestra in the world like Adolph Green. Besides playing piano in publisher's offices, and writing ballets, this fellow must also be able to have the possibility of becoming the world's most famous conductor and musician and pianist. He must be a member of the union and must be available to open with the Philharmonic January 2, 1958. Do you know of such a fellow? I do. Good luck. Can you cook?

  Jule Styne

  411. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein

  154 East 74th Street, New York, NY

  [January 1958]4

  Lenny,

  It was a terrific concert!!! I heard it Sunday – I'd been sick all week so missed both rehearsals and the Thursday evening premier[e]. I learned so much about Sacre [du Printemps] by watching you. That certainly ain't no “divertissement”. Wow! Boy I hope I can make the stage version have as much stature. Bravo again and again, and also for the Webern which was beautifully played.

  Julius Rudel of NYC Opera called me about staging Trouble in Tahiti. Wanted to speak to you about it and couldn't get you today. So will you call me about it? Also I would like to talk more about your jazz piece etc. etc. and about ballets, shows, operas etc. So do call.

  And again congratulations on the concert. You should be very proud. Bask well in all the praise being heaped upon you – you deserve it all.

  Love,

  Jerry

  412. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein

  154 East 74th Street, New York, NY

  13 February 1958

  Dear Lenny,

  It was good to see you last night at the opening. I hope your back feels better. I can't think how a skiing trip is going to help your back any more than it would my leg, but anyway, good luck.

  I checked with Edith [Weissmann] this morning. She had returned your call and got as far as the desk as I had reported to you.

  I asked you if you had time for any composition because I could use Fugue with Riffs as part of a larger piece of yours, in the fashion we had always talked about – you know, some crazy pas de deux perhaps, and enough to make at least a twenty minute work. Maybe there's a possibility of selecting some of the dance music from On the Town and adding them to it. What do you think?

  Enclosed are two interviews which struck me with as much force and excitement as anything I've read in many, many years. The potential of using this first interview as a basis of an examination of the Beat Generation and their search, pain, drives, ecstasies, depressions and astonished puzzlement could make a wonderful theatre piece.5 My instinct is to use a protagonist who would answer the questions, but open up all the “meanings” and possibilities of those answers. I'm sure you'll see the immediate places such as “visions”, “motorcycle rides”, “jazz”, “dope”, “Paradise”, “Heaven”, “tremendous”, “empty phantoms” and most of all the very very painful last line. I can visualize a lot of these things being episodic experiences which well up and take over the protagonist and leave him with everything inside him and a cool, knowing exterior. In a way these are our W[est] S[ide] S[tory] kids a little older. Do you know any of these Beat people? They're scary, and what's most frightening is that it isn't an act or an adopted attitude and façade to deal with life, but a real living thing.

  I'd appreciate hearing from you on this as soon as possible. Drop me a note and give me at least your immediate reaction, and if you are interested, when do you think you will be able to have a talk on it.

  All the best,

  Jerry

  413. Lukas Foss to Leonard Bernstein

  University of California, Los Angeles, CA

  16 March 1958

  Cher Lenny,

  News just reached me (via Siegfried Hearst) that you want me to do Mozart C major on a program on which you plan to do my Symph. Donnerwetter!!! What a festive occasion that will be for me.6 You will be amused to know that what elates me most is the fact that you schedule my new piece sight unseen. Makes me feel that I have come into my own as composer. Thanks ever so much for the confidence implied (that something I put out is worth playing – and this coming from the most “knowing” of musicians). Seems the days of Lukas selling his music at the piano are over and gone. Just played it for a few musicians though, who think that it is my “most”; curious what you will say. I finished the score day before yesterday and sent it off to you yesterday.

  You will see that it is a virtuoso piece for orchestra, the kind where the difficulty makes for brilliance (I hope). It's no “sight-reading” piece, and a half hour long. Here is hoping you didn't schedule [Stravinsky's] Agon, Aaron's Short Symphony & Boulez's Polyphonie X to go with it. (You could probably pull it off, too.)

  The Mozart will be splendid – my favorite slow movement.

  How was your skiing trip? It was wonderful having Felicia with us.

  Much, much love to both of you.

  Lukas

  414. Felicia Bernstein to Leonard Bernstein

  [New York]

  Thurs. night [1 May 1958]

  My darling Lennuhtt,

  Am dying to hear how it's going – the reports so far sound like a nightmare! I hope that at least your sense of humor has not abandoned you – think of the pastry makers it will all make!

  Children are wonderful – I am better – the first days after you left I utterly collapsed. I looked a mottled green with cold sores on my mouth etc. Have nothing sensational to report – just got back from dinner at the Oppenheims with Glen[n] Gould, Eugene Istomin and Vladimir Golschmann. Glen[n] and Gene sat at the piano and loudly and eternally played four hands – sometimes I hate music!7

 
Went to the opening of The First Born8 last night – a crasher if there ever was one, a truly abysmal evening! Your “score” is never heard I'm afraid – the girl sings a little snatch of something for no good reason that I could see, and your triumphant finale is utterly drowned in applause since the curtain comes down simultaneously – and there you are!

  Have a reservation for the twelfth, will arrive the thirteenth in Lima. The fan mail keeps pouring in – my ego is having a field day!

  Please write a few lines – it's unbearably lonely around here without you. Kisses from the three of us and very special love from me,

  Felicia

  415. Leonard Bernstein to Felicia Bernstein

  Hotel Tamanaco, Caracas, Venezuela

  2 May 1958

  Darling,

  Wow, what a three days. First: we're the all time smash. Second, it's all wildly exhausting, but such fun & stimulating. Venezuela is really one of a kind – stinking with money, progressive architecture, happy, low on culture, & lower on education. It's mostly a billionaire top stratum & penniless others. But there is arising a middle class, & they love music, to say the least. I've had two concerts in a magnificent hall called the Aula Magna9 – sheer perfection with mobile baffles by [Alexander] Calder, what else? And both sold out to the rafters. In between we gave a special outdoor concert for 7,000 middle classers in an equally perfect Concha Acoustica: they ate up Copland and Roy Harris. So all is not lost. I'm the local hero, I'm loaded with presents; tons of records of folk music, [and] a liki-liki, which is a great beige linen national garment, very handsome with a high collar held by gold links.

  I've met the new president of the Junta,10 most charming, loved the Schuman 6th, fijate. Such houses, such jewels, such luxury I've never ever seen. And, again, of course, everyone knows you & loves you. The American Ambassador (at whose gorgeous residence I just had a party) is named Sparks; and his wife is a lovely lady who knows you of old – Andrée van der Brengen. Do you remember her? An angel. And dozens of others whose names go thru my ears like wind. They've all been expecting you, & are sorely disappointed. But we'll be back – I've become a national institution, & you'll even like it, you'll see.

  Tomorrow ploughing on to Maracaibo, to conduct in my liki-liki, then on to Colombia, where I hear a big revolution is fermenting. Just in time for some fireworks. This should be a peppery tour. I hear Paraguay should just about be ready with their revolution when we arrive (May 1st was pretty tense here, too).

  But it seems we're doing good – much more, according to all concerned, than Nifty Nixon, who has flubbed his whole mission in spades so far.11 Can't wait to hole up with him in Quito.

  So when are you coming already? You're missing a great trip – much fun; & I'm missing you. Try & come as early as you can. I hope you're resting, & that the back is a thing of the past. You must get all healthy again for the trip. So far, I've been well, though sleepless & oversmoked. But that's usual. Your Joan12 still haunts me – how did you like Time on the subject?13 I thought the picture was great. Brigitta14 will fry.

  Thanks for the cable. How long for those two guatoncitos!

  Nicolas is not very bright, pobrecito, but he's trying hard, & he's very sweet. Things are never quite in order, & it always seems as though it was easier before when I knew where everything was. Trouble with a valet is that if he leaves you for a second you're lost & helpless. Also he's developing an old-maidish protectiveness worthy of la Belle.15 He scolds people when something is not done for me that should have been done – like water in the dressing room, or whatever – & makes long, indignant Theta-ridden speeches about the great maestro, & how he should be treated. Ah well, it's all so familiar. Love to her, by the way, & to Mither [Mother] & to all the Kats. Do try to come early, like Quito, & let me hear soon!

  All my love, dearest one.

  L

  416. David Oppenheim to Leonard Bernstein

  Columbia Records, 799 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY

  7 May 1958

  Dear Lenny,

  Believe it or not, I am still going to the office day after day even though you are not here, and so are a lot of other people. Life is tending to go on despite the wonderful reports we are getting back in the New York Times about your concerts.16 I am delighted things are going so well and I suppose by now the Ravel Concerto must be almost ready to record. This is something we must consider when you return.

  Also, while you were away, Felicia came to dinner with Glenn [Gould], Eugene I[stomin] and Vladimir Golschmann, and I am afraid it was not too stimulating an evening. To begin with, an enormous competition between the two young pianists corralled them out of the party, except for some horrendous noises they made on an untuned Baldwin in a room without a rug and without much furniture. Vladimir turned pages, I smiled encouragingly, and Ellen17 and Felicia tried to communicate with each other by a combination of gestures and lip reading, which was not entirely successful I understand.

  The evening ended when Glenn played his own cadenzas to Beethoven's First Concerto on a chair some inches too high, thereby ruining his left arm and impairing all his concerts from here to eternity.

  Also, Van Cliburn was there in spirit – all things pianistic dimming in comparison with his coming ticker-tape parade. The pianists, especially the young ones, have a sort of haunted, old look, directly traceable to the affairs in Moscow.18 We shall see just how long young Mr. Cliburn can sustain his glories, but if he can maintain his fees for a couple of years, I predict mass suicide involving quite a few of our friends.

  If the above sounds like sour grapes, it is because Victor signed him over my dead body. But this we can discuss another time, too.

  […]

  I saw your Bach program rerun Sunday and it was marvelous.

  I hope this finds you as well as the press releases have described you and that you will find time to answer me quickly – always in the affirmative.

  Love,

  David O.

  P.S. Incidentally, I see that you have returned the Duke Ellington scores. What is your impression? Can you use them? I think he is waiting to hear, or at least Irving Townsend in our Pop Department is. My impression is that these could be done in a recording session in addition to all of the others you and I are planning. Anyway, let me know.

  417. Leonard Bernstein to William Schuman

  Gran Hotel Bolivar, Lima, Peru

  14 May 1958

  Dear Bill,

  It['s] so unbelievable to be in the lland of the llamas that I spend most of the day saying PERU over & over to myself, just for sanity. Peru?!? Auckland. Mozambique. And here it is, a nice normal warm capital like any other, beautiful, full of people and a number of things. Felicia has just arrived, making it all perfect.

  The tour so far has been a smash; receptions such as I've never experienced, warmth & love from audience after audience, great reviews – & the orchestra playing like Gods. Every day they become more and more my orchestra, more than I could ever have expected. Your [Sixth] Symphony was remarked by a Caracas critic to be the most important offering we had, and the main feature of our three concerts there.19 It's been great.

  But now I find myself in a spot with our dear old Sixth [Symphony]: we can't play it except in the capitals, where there's a sophisticated audience of some sort; & the time lapse between capitals is such that the orchestra doesn't retain the piece. Last night, for example, it was really ragged and “forgotten” after more than a week; it's not a piece you can tour with; we've had to take it off the La Paz & Quito programs because the enormous altitude prevents the necessary blowing (almost no oxygen at all in La Paz – 13,000 feet up); & I'm scared of the next performance, 8 days away. I think we're going to have to take it off the program for the rest of the tour, heartbreaking as it is; I know you'll understand. It's just plain murder to the players and to the piece. It's just one of those works that has to be hot off the griddle to be played at all well; otherwise it's a haphazard gamble.

  We miss you bot
h, & love you.

  We also love the Sixth!

  Lenny

  418. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond

  Gran Hotel Bolivar, Lima, Peru

  19 May 1958

  Dear Dovidl,

  Imagínate, here we are in Peru, lland of the llama, lland of llove. Felicia has just joined me (we've been two weeks touring South America already in Panamá, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador) & she'll be with me for the rest of the trip – Peru, Chile (at last!), Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico – the works. Our reception everywhere has been magnificent – warm, thrilling, just the opposite of Nixon's, pobrecito. We think of you often, and miss you. I realize I have several letters from you as yet unanswered, & I beg forgiveness. These last months have been wild. But with beautiful, rewarding highlights: Felicia as Joan at the final concerts of the season, brave & inspiring & unforgettable (the whole orchestra in tears, Honegger notwithstanding); the television shows, especially those for the kids; the orchestra itself, which has become my orchestra to an astonishing degree of flexibility, warmth and respect; this exhausting but lovely trip. […] We'll be home by June 15th. Hope to find a letter from you.

  Love from us both.

  Lenny

  419. Rosamond Lehmann20 to Felicia Bernstein

  Flat F, 70 Eaton Square, London SW1, England

  26 May 1958

  My dear Mrs. Bernstein,

  I meant to write this at once, but to my horror found I'd mislaid my address book when I left New York the morning after seeing West Side Story – and have only just re-discovered it in a folder stuffed with lecture notes etc. etc. I hope for your sake you are still away and will not have been conscious of my discourtesy. I never can thank you properly for your incredible generosity and kindness in enabling me not only to see the opera but to take my two dear far-from-wealthy spinster cousins who had been longing in vain to get tickets ever since the opening night. They are extremely earnest Educationalists, and got me down beforehand by spectacled conjectures about the Puerto Rican Problem being “too serious a subject for frivolous treatment” etc. etc. – but like myself were completely bowled over, breath-taken by the end of Act I. It was easily the most fascinating & exciting dramatic experience I've had for years, and I still feel exhilarated, amazed and heart-wrung by the whole affair. Would give anything to see it again! Words are quite inadequate to thank & congratulate your husband. I have the records – that's something. It is serious of course, and beautiful; also terrifying, moving, funny & disturbing. It was the high spot of my whole Marathon – and as I say I can never thank you adequately. I was very sorry indeed to miss you both – and thrilled to read of your husband's brilliantly successful S. American tour. I hope you are back safe and sound – & that he is able to have a rest. Or does he never?! I'm only just back, & still semi-prostrate from too many thousands of miles of flying – but I did enjoy a lot of it & confess I miss being spoilt & made much of! – as I was, everywhere. Martha [Gellhorn] is still abroad.