The Leonard Bernstein Letters

by Leonard Bernstein

  Again, so many thanks.

  Affectionately,

  Rosamond Lehmann

  420. Martha Gellhorn21 to Leonard Bernstein

  Mexico

  July 4 [1958] – Independence now from what?

  Lennypot my dearie one,

  I waited for the right time to write about West Side Story but probably the exact right time will never come, so now on a rainy (can you beat it?) Cuernavaca morning, my fourth here, and my first not spent jumping with rage and activity against this house, I shall begin. But I know I am not going to do it well enough.

  How can it be called a “musical comedy”? It is a musical tragedy, and were it not for the most beautiful music, and the dancing which is like flying, people would not be able to bear to look and see and understand. Certainly they would not pile into that giant stadium, paying huge sums, in order to be wracked by fear and a pity which is useless because how can help be offered, how can a whole world be changed? Tom and I found it beautiful and terrifying. But then he and Omi22 must speak for themselves. Omi had seen it before, found it more enthralling the second time. Enough about their feelings.

  I was literally frozen with fear. Do you realize there is no laughter in it, no gayety that comes from delight, from joy, from being young? You do, of course, and all of you knew what you were writing about. The immensely funny song, “Please Officer Krupke” (I will get these titles wrong, but near enough), is not laughter, but the most biting, ironic and contemptuous satire. And I felt it to be absolutely accurate – not the perfection of the wit, in music and words – but accurate as describing the state of mind of those young. Again, the Puerto Rican girls' song, when one longs for the beauty of home and the other mocks [“America”], is not laughter; but the hardness of life, the rock of life, a dream of something softer (softer inside, where it counts) as against the icy measuring rod of modern big city young. The love songs made me cry (they had before, when I heard the whole show twice in one day, listening to [Irwin] Shaw's record in Switzerland).23 But this time, with the visual picture there, and the murderous city outside, and in America, where West Side Story becomes a sociological document turned into art, they made me cry like a sieve, from heartbroken pity.

  But what stays in my mind, as the very picture of terror, is the scene in the drug store, when the Jets sing a song called “Keep Cool, Man.” I think I have never heard or seen anything more frightening. (It goes without saying that I think the music so brilliant I have no words to use for it.) I found that a sort of indicator of madness: the mad obsession with nothing, the nerves insanely and constantly stretched – with no way to rest, no place to go; the emptiness of the undirected minds, whose only occupation could be violence and a terrible macabre playacting. If a man can be nothing, he can pretend to be a hoodlum and feel like somebody. I couldn't breathe, watching and hearing that; it looks to me like doom, as much as these repeated H-bomb tests, with the atmosphere of the world steadily more and more and irrevocably poisoned. I think that drug store and the H-Bomb tests are of the same family.

  What now baffles me is that all the reviews, and everyone who has seen the show, has not talked of this and this only: the mirror held up to nature, and what nature. I do not feel anything to be exaggerated or falsified; we accept that art renders beautiful, and refines the shapeless raw material of life. The music and the dancing, the plan, the allegory of the story do that; but nature is there, in strength; and surely this musical tragedy is a warning?

  It shames me to speak of music to anyone, owing to my hopeless ignorance and to the fact that I do not hear it, only feel it. I love your music – everything you wrote (much more than I like anything you conduct). It may be part of my loving you, but it wouldn't work entirely. I love some people whose writing and painting I deplore. No, it isn't that personal at all. I think I love it because it seems to me real. You'll have to figure that out for yourself.

  Thank you for giving us perfect tickets, where Tom24 could hear – you can imagine my anxiety about that, in advance – thank you very much, darling pie.

  I think you must write music, more and more, and I think you will. My theory about this is that what one does and is and how one lives, grows and changes. Americans are fools to fear age. It is needed and proper; all one must certainly do is change with one's age, live one's own age, let one's shape (inside and out) alter as it should. I think that, being you, you had to have the great hectic period of doing everything, being everyone and going everywhere. I think that's raw material; and you had to swallow it all, for you will need it. But I also think you will chuck it, without effort or regret, in time; because that will be the time to work on the raw material yourself, draw your conclusions, make your own private gift out of all you saw, did, heard, felt. I think you will really write music, and be concentrated and used by that, in perhaps eight years from now. All you have to do is not ruin your health before that long slow hard second work-period of your life begins.

  You must try to get a book called Brighter than a Thousand Suns by Dr. Robert Jungk. It was published in Germany, translated and published in England. The first part is slow and tedious going, and one sees how necessary it is, later. It is the story of the atomic scientists; it is the human side of how we have launched ourselves (and how accidental and ignorant and pitiful it all is) into doom. I find it needed reading, and too fascinating to stop. Now I must find some nuclear physicist, who is an honest man, to check with. But it is specially a book for us, who have no part in that world – and that world this very minute rules us. We must know; we may be ineffective to control our destinies, but we cannot ever be sheep. I do not believe in an atomic-hydrogen war, I don't think it is necessary or will happen. I believe the world is going to be poisoned (literally, physically) without that. It might be that if people realized they were daily and invisibly being led to the slaughter, they would not go in silence. If they knew that right now the entire population of the world is infected, and that growing children are most susceptible to this kind of infection, there would be revolt. Anyhow, you read it. It is certainly the other side of the coin of the mad children, living in the streets and dreaming sick dreams.

  Omi and I are here preparing this pleasure dome. We were robbed of course. It is not as bad as the house you and Feli had, but I must say I preferred your wide range of Navajo-Mexican striped rugs to the false pretensions of this house. I have removed every movable object and most of the furniture; the clothes cupboards seem to have been built for 1920 type movie stars and are useful warehouses. The servants are charming and pea-brained. The roof leaks like a faucet and is covered with slender brown boys gently and imperceptibly laying back broken tiles. The view would be perfection, a wide sweep from the black range of the mountains that rise towards the Mexico plateau, the Chinese follies of the Tepoztlan hills, the volcanoes behind them, and to the west the beginnings of the blue Taxco range. The idiot owners have elected to plant mingy palms and other uncertified trees in such a way that the only manner to see the whole view is to lie on one's stomach at certain points in the garden, or climb to the top of the wall. The doom of everyone is to have to walk with fools nor lose the common touch; but how many and heavy the fools, and maybe the touch is not worth keeping.

  When in N.Y., I seem to have gone mad. Within a week (thinking that I knew what I was doing) I arranged four book contracts, two for Tom, two for me, and five articles for me. People leapt to offer me these contracts, paying more money than I have ever before received. The reason for this is that I really do not want to do any of the work, and I certainly do not want a cent more money than I have. The result is that I have to finish my book of collected war reporting by September 1. Beginning in October, and going through until April, I have to do two articles on England, one each on Poland, Hungary and Czecho. My only hope is that I won't be able to get into the last two countries. On April 15, Tom and I return and drive about this benighted land (not this one, the Estados Unidos) for three months, leaving presumably more dead tha
n alive for some quiet spot where we have agreed to grind out a book on the subject in four months. I am surely mad. The only good I can see in it is that it forces me back to work habits, which I have lost, and will be a long dismal training for my muscles. There isn't a ray of light until a year from this coming Xmas. I also have to deliver a short story to the Atlantic. I wrote it years ago but in my usual way, I do not feel I have tinkered enough. (I never believe the thing is ready until I can recite every word of it by heart, and go on changing “a” to “the” with a maniacal desire for exactitude.) Well. That's what going to America does for one. I have already warned Tom that next spring's three months' jaunt may be the last visit of my life. I know I don't believe in progress. I want to live quietly and harmlessly and perhaps do one or two things right, if possible.

  But on the other hand, I have grown lazy and I need to get back into that awful discipline of three hours a day at the typewriter and nothing at all else happening in the day, so as not to get cluttered in the noggin. So here and now we start. I have seen no one in Cuernavaca yet, and only been busy buying out the grocery stores; but in any case we live so far from the center, and have no car, that I think perhaps I'll only have an occasional loving chat on the Buena Vista terrace. Dread seeing Vera. What can I say to her? It appears that slob Ross [Evans] returned for a visit (sponge on Vera for a change?) last February and again departed “to look for a job in the north.” And she loves him. Mr. [Somerset] Maugham is not the only one who knows about human bondage.

  I hope little Feli is getting some rest on the Cape. You don't know how to, I think, and perhaps don't really want or need it. But do remember she weighs less than you. I find her always more beautiful, and more miraculous. Alexander has my vote for President right now. I trust you will not ruin Jamie by spoiling (Feli will not help you in that ruin) but I see it will be hard to avoid.

  You know how I love you –

  M.

  421. Leonard Bernstein to David Diamond

  Vineyard Haven, MA

  16 August 1958

  Dear Dovidl,

  My 40th birthday approaches, and that makes me sentimental and pseudo-philosophical, and I also think of you when I get that way. I'm going through the usual fortyish motions of stocktaking, examination of life-purposes, re-examination of motives and drives, efforts at great self-knowing – and that's been my summer. My first free summer in twenty years: and it's been so shocking to have it that I've literally done nothing: not a note, imagine, not a bar, no letters written, only programs planned, sailing, and most important of all, spending huge gobs of time with my children. What splendid companions they are!

  But not a note written: and I wonder, as I study my hairline in the mirror and pray desperately against baldness, whether any composer who is really a composer could go for two months without composing, and doing nothing else either. Where will it all lead? Baldness, I expect.

  The Philharmonic season looms large and exciting and frightening. There will be much more television, more difficult programs, more “point” being made, more Handel, more Vivaldi. [Varèse's] Arcanes [Arcana],25 at last, and all kinds of Ruggles and Riegger, & the Sessions Vln. Concerto, and Ives #2 and Aaron Variations & Ned Rorem #3 & Bill Russo & Ken Gaburo and and and. A sort of overall look at the whole picture. Not the whole picture, of course: that's impossible, and I have to leave out all kinds of important fellers like Virgil and you and Marc and [Norman] Dello Joio (important?) and [Paul] Creston (ugh) and Ben Weber and [Andrew] Imbrie and [Leon] Kirchner. The Klee26 arrived, & believe it or not, I haven't had a chance to look at it yet! That's my summer.

  I haven't heard your 4th [Symphony] yet on records: I will when I get back to town in the fall.

  I hope Goldoni27 is fun, & rewarding on several levels. Felicia's Joan is never to be forgotten. She joins me in

  Love,

  L

  I'll be in Milan for a few days in Nov (10–15 or so). Will I see you?

  422. Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein

  154 East 74th Street, New York, NY

  13 October 1958

  Dear Lenny,

  A deep bow of thanks for your wonderful letter. I'm so glad you liked it and I'm so sorry you didn't get to see the Chopin. I think you would have had a ball.28

  Tomorrow starts rehearsals of West Side Story. You've got to come in and take them musically over their material, at least once, so they know what you're about, especially while the European conductor is here. We'll prepare them all and get them ready for you, but you must (IT'S IMPERATIVE) do this for the sake of the success of the show.29

  Dybbuk Dybbuk Dybbuk.30 I'm sending over an unseen but continually haunting prodder who will creep into your sleep and into your spare moments and will say the words Dybbuk Dybbuk Dybbuk. With this ghost's effort I know that suddenly something will be on paper that will get us all started. I've heard from [Ben] Shahn who is wonderfully enthusiastic and excited about the idea of working with you, so please keep haunted and jot down a few of those scribbles that turn out to be the basis, theme and dramatic motifs for the whole ballet.

  Love,

  Jerry

  423. Thornton Wilder31 to Leonard Bernstein

  50 Deepwood Drive, Hamden, CT

  27 October 1958

  Dear Lennie,

  Mrs. Alma Mahler-Werfel has chosen some words of mine as the title of her new volume of memoirs32 and I wish to give a small party for her on the publication of the book. I am asking about twenty friends to meet her at the Algonquin Hotel – reception room 306 – on November 11 – Tuesday – between 5 and 7.30. She tells me her daughter – the sculptor – Gustav Mahler's daughter – will be there.

  Don't trouble to answer this. But it would be a great pleasure if you and Mrs. Bernstein could come.

  Cordially yours,

  Thornton (Wilder)

  424. Larry Adler33 to Leonard Bernstein

  [London, England]

  24 December 1958

  Dear Leonard,

  It being impossible to keep a secret these days, you will no doubt have heard that a certain show whose title contains that part of New York where nobody, but nobody ever goes, opened in London and was not unfavorably received.

  I took 2/3 of my children to see it last night, despite a darkling article in the Telegraph – “Should children be allowed to see W[est] S[ide] S[tory]?” They got it all, loved it all and in their comments were far more perceptive than those of several adults around us during interval.

  I think your score is historic. Only in Porgy and Bess have I heard music become both words and plot and character, and it happens again with your music. (I might add a footnote here; in 1954 your score for Waterfront and mine for Genevieve were both nominated for an Oscar and I can tell you that had Dmitri – tote dat corn, lift dat theme – Tiomkin not edged us both out, this letter might not have been so easily forthcoming.)34

  Further along in the true confessions hour, I am, or at least was, about to start work on a musical myself. But after that score of yours, where does one go except to say, “Face facts, Wotan, you ain't ready yet.”

  So, my heartfelt congratulations. You, as a musician, know how another musician feels when he hears something that says something new, different and honest.

  Regards to Arthur Laurents, who got me my tickets. Also, if you see him, from [i.e. to?] the boychick of the fiddle, Isaac Stern.

  Sincerely,

  Larry Adler

  425. Louis Armstrong35 to Leonard Bernstein

  CBS Television Network, New York, NY

  5 January 1959

  Dear Daddy Bernstein,

  Man. I sitting in your office rehearsing my lines, and it is knocking me out. You're My Man and that's for sure. From your Swiss Kriss36 Trumpet Player.

  Regards,

  Louis Armstrong

  Satchmo

  426. Leonard Bernstein to Martha Gellhorn

  Arizona Biltmore, Phoenix, AZ

  7 January 1959

  De
arest Marthy,

  Happy New Year. At long last, a rest – although God knows it takes fully as much energy to unwind and force the inactivity as it does to be active. But at least they're not all pushing from all sides: I have only my own sick silly psyche pushing from inside.

  I'm not staying at the above – just using the luxuriousissimo facilities & living with friends. Burtie has been with me, left yesterday, all is calm. We started out last week in Sun Valley. Skied three days on the daisies (and a bit of snow) and then left for the hot glorious desert, horses, tennis, swimming. Lord, if I only had a bit of peace in me – a bit only, is that too much? – how I could be enjoying all this! And Poland? And Alaska? And is here next? Did you do the hols in London? Are you as petrified as I of the lunik lunacy?37 What the hell are we fiddling with? When do you arrive in this favorite land of yours for your Okie junket?