The Leonard Bernstein Letters (12 page)

Dear David,

Terribly sorry about that bit of automatic watercolor – it was God trying to express himself. As I remember it, the chief substance thereof was simply the cheerful fact that I had sat waiting by the phone from day to day, so to speak, and to this moment have had no word from D[imitri] M[itropoulos]. A strange silence, which is difficult for me to understand. It cannot be that the thing is over. I wrote him several days ago asking
why
and as yet have no answer. I'm sure that when I feel there's something wrong or misunderstood that I'm not simply making excuses to myself. These things simply cannot present themselves, naked and unexplained; the human quality would then become utterly cheap, like the stationery I'm writing you on.

As things go, however, I shall be in New York next week, probably from Wednesday to Saturday, for a television job with The Revuers. There's a sizeable reward, and I can well use it this summer. The Berkshire people have agreed to pay half my living expenses as well as the scholarship, and this job, I think, will just make up the rest. Ergo, if you're anywhere around the city next week, perhaps you might call me. I'll be staying at 29 W 65; the name is Comden; the phone is Trafalgar 7–9719, I think.

Renée Miquelle tells me of your piece, which she liked, & of doing the Village with you. Was it fun? She is terribly upset about France, more than all of us, because her home town & mother are involved. A ghastly business.

It was Heaven when Aaron came to Boston.

I want an reste, I've been working intermittently on my Violin Sonata, which I like, & which you probably won't, I'm afraid. These labors, Catiline, what with learning new scores & practising
Tombeau de Couperin
& assorted small subjects, & trying to see all the people I should when I have no real desire to, and trying to awake from a general depression, have all kept me fairly tied up. La vie marche. La mort approche. La naissance reste.

I really regret not having seen you – I wanted to – and perhaps you'll have some reason to be in the City next week. I hope so. Write me there if you can't come.

Best always.

Lenny

Dear Lenny,

Enclosed please find an impressive looking letter – and my love. I'm glad New Hampshire was on hand to welcome you and it sounds nice up there. You may or
may not know that we all crashed Leonard Lyons’ column in an item about Aaron [Copland] being the distinguished page-turner at the telecast.
⁷¹
Adolph has spoken to Aaron and he is amused and amazed – and not the least bit angry.

There is a slight lull. Judy [Holliday] is away. The rest of us are doing some work and hoping that by the end of the week we'll be able to take a day or two off too. A dull letter, I know – but I'll write soon again – and I hope I'll have something to
enclose
as well.

Love,

B

Do you want those lovely slacks? – and jacket?

Chère Mme,

Lunch is calling, and I have but a moment to write – the television venture being over, I am safely ensconced in this charming but dull college town with the Silvermans
⁷³
(or should it be Silvermen?) and working, actually. I see nobody, but lead a quiet, useful and pleasant existence. I've already learned Beethoven's 4th and
Scheherazade
. Starting Copland's
Music for the Theatre
today. Practicing. Composing. The fiddle Sonata almost prêt. Leaving for the Cranwell School, Lenox (my next address: please write) on the 5th, probably. Aaron told me that I might have to conduct Randall Thompson's Symph. (No. 2, naturellement) the first week, since that's when Randy will be there. Kouss, in searching around for the person to do it, suddenly said to Copland (so goes the tale) “
your
Bernstein!” I don't know.

Nothing to do but pray. And perk up about the abroad situation. It's getting exciting now; Russia, it seems, is going to have a lot to say about what Germany does, soon, and forcibly. Again, we can only pray. […]

Lenny

Lenny dear,

Kouss may have been impressed by your conducting – but his feelings cannot compare with mine. I'm thrilled at the thoughts of your concerts and I absolutely will make it my business to get up to see you somehow this summer. But actually conducting! And after all that silly fretting over whether or not you'd memorize
Scheherazade
in time. […] It's wonderful about the conducting and the summer sounds magnificent for you. […]

Ken,

I was very desolated that your visit was so short – it hit me afterwards that I hadn't really seen you outside of some small talk & some big talk forced in somewhere to give your return significance. I wanted so to reestablish us again – & then you left. I find you, thank God (?) very much the same Ken, the most pleasant article to be with I've ever encountered, cool, and unimpressed by most superficial things, more impressed than he will admit by the basicker things. I was touched by your reaction to the hundreds of busy little Tanglewood bees: if it caused the slightest stirring up in yr creative being, I feel a Messiah, indirectly. Hast du ein eingiges Wort geschrieben? Is Palo Alto? Does your family intrigue you any more? You should keep away from it. It's a kind of monstrosity anyway, as you will admit – but you can't live in a sideshow.

Come east, where I can see you often.

Tanglewood was a complete success. Where did you leave? – yes, at the Bach, which was done standing up & [Putnam] Aldrich playing the harpsichord. The performance was an ode to Viola Wasterlain.
Scheherazade
was wonderfully exciting, despite some bad slips from the solos, & there followed the Haydn
Symphonie concertante
, the Brahms
Haydn Variations
, Copland's
Outdoor Overture
(at the Allies Benefit!), & a performance I wish you could have seen & heard of Stravinsky's
Histoire du Soldat
with my own words (local color) served up as a surprise for Koussie on his terrace at a tea he gave for the school. A hit. Kouss is greatly impressed wants me to study with him in Boston this winter, if he can get an orchestra for me to work with. I'll know in a few
weeks. Write, & spare no gory details. I'm with you til the plane wheels flaming to the Japanese (Chinese, I suppose it shd be) soil –

Len

Aaron, foremost of men,

Where are you? And if so, why no word? You said you'd write, according to Green. Not seeing you is something of a shock, you understand. The summer was a revelation in that regard. Neither of us (I hope) tired of the other (I had feared you might) and I came, in fact, to depend in many ways on you. I've never felt about anyone before as I do about you. Completely at ease, & always comforted with you. This is not a love letter, but I'm quite mad about you.

Might Yaddo on Sept. 7 & 8 be interesting?
⁷⁴
Are you planning to go? I was thinking of upping to Lenox next week or so to see the Kouss. Perhaps I could combine both. Write fast & let me hear. Best to Victor.

Love,

Lenny

P.S. I've finished the Fiddle Sonata, &, by God, there's something about the ending that's wonderful – almost mature. I want you to see the whole thing now – I like it better.

Dear Dr. Koussevitzky,

Words are a remote enough medium of expression for any musician, but it is especially difficult for me to find words for this letter. Let it be brief.

This summer to me was beauty – beauty in work, and strength of purpose, and cooperation. I am full of humility and gratitude for having shared so richly in it. These last six weeks have been the happiest and most productive of my life. I have been able, for the first time, to concentrate completely on my main purpose, with a glorious freedom from personal problems.

It was a renaissance for me – a rehabilitation of the twisted and undefined Weltanschauung with which I came to you.

For your creative energy, your instinct for truth, your incredible incorporation of teacher and artist, I give humble thanks. Seeing in you my own concepts matured is a challenge to me which I hope to fulfill in your great spirit.

I am now at home, resting with my family. I hope to be in Lenox within the next few weeks, and I should very much like to see you and talk with you. Can you let me know when this would be best for you?

Please give my very warm greetings to Madame Koussevitzky, and to Miss Naumoff.

In devotion, and in gratitude,

Leonard Bernstein

Dear Leonard,

Thank you for your letter.

Nothing could have made me happier than to know that your work this summer has really given you beauty and strength and a better understanding of the gifts with which nature has endowed you.

I shall be glad to see you sometime during the middle of this month, let us say Tuesday, the 17th, or Wednesday, the 18th, – and I shall look forward to your coming to Lenox.

My best wishes are with you always.

Serge Koussevitzky

Dear Dr. Koussevitzky,

As I sit and wait for the outcome of your plan, in a kind of Proustian twilight state between knowing and not knowing, between sleeping and waking – in the midst of all this I have had an inspiring idea. It would have to have – and I pray it will have – your support.

I have met one or two of the people who have been conducting small orchestras in Greater Boston, and I have been singularly unimpressed – or rather, singularly
im
pressed with their lack of equipment. It occurred to me that if they can get orchestras of young people, perhaps I could. And with your support, almost certainly.

If you are unable to establish connections with the representatives of Backward Boston, don't you think it would be wise for me to attempt the organization of a young orchestra? I am sure there are many instrumentalists in Boston who would be glad of orchestral experience; if you liked the idea, we might even establish it as a kind of training orchestra for the Boston Symphony. If these young people knew you were behind it, I am sure they would rally to the cause.

The problem for me is to make contact with these people. Again, if you could speak to the men of your orchestra, they might be willing to send their pupils to this orchestra. I realize the responsibility I would be shouldering, but I do it only under the influence of your spirit which still hovers around me. I could then work with an orchestra (which would derive great benefit from their association with you) and still be here to work with you this season. Please don't think me presumptuous; I am just making a great effort to be practical.

Please try to get some rest before the season. I am sorry to intrude on your privacy even with this letter; but I am made bold by my recent reading of Nietzsche, who teaches me that I must be somewhat bolder if I, like his Zarathustra, shall ever face “the great Noon-Tide.”

In eternal devotion,

Leonard

Warmest greetings to Madame Koussevitzky and Miss Naumoff.

Dear David,

I am (O wrest the power from the powerful) in Philly. Nay, living here. There has been a commotion in the diplomatic heavens
⁷⁶
and I, O fearful pawn, was set with a sharp click in Rittenhouse Square. I'll tell you all anon.

Which means that I shan't be in Boston when you are. God bless the Sat. night concert, & have a good burlesque show.

I'd be incredibly happy to do the NMQR recordings. I
am
“serious” about it, and very flattered that you should still want me to do it. So write, & set some dates, voice the stipulations, & I'll pop out as from a pigeon-hole. Mais l'important, que tu m'écrives, et cela bientôt.

Lenny

Cher Kenneth,

Incredible that you put up with what you put up with what you put up (with?). Everything that constitutes a means of improvement for you is at your disposal, except, apparently, the initial desire. That's available, to, at a reasonable fee. You're not lazy. Why don't you investigate?

I couldn't imagine what you were doing at Lafayette, Ind., but I wrote you there, & no response. Of course, I wrote you again at Palo Alto (first sending it to Box 817, Palo Alto, 'steada Menlo Park). By the way, did you know there was Menlo Park, New Jersey?

But having forgotten what I said to you in that Odyssean letter, I may be guilty of repeating myself. En tous cas, comme tu aperçois, sans doute, ci-haut (that sounds wrong) I am in Philly. I don't know; I never asked to be here. Something makes it inevitable. I may have told you that Kouss had great plans for me which involved my staying in Boston but they were given the K.O. by the Hon. Curtis Institute, which objected strenuously at (read: to) student-swiping, & vowed to discontinue all relationship with Kouss & his school if I didn't return. Matter of ethics, don't you know, setting a precedent, don't you know, etc. Reiner was furious. He had seen me referred to in printed items as Kouss’ pupil – no mention of
him
(antecedents again; means Reiner). So me voici, & lucky to be, O misery me, ta da ta da. But I've got a magnificent room with a double bed & massive mahogany furniture, & the school is doing almost all the supporting. Therefore, easier. Therefore, out goes Mexico, & Kouss, & you, & Cambridge, & California. Nothing left for you to do but come here. Please try; there are some things you might profit by that you haven't yet seen. By “here” I mean East, not Philly: I'm in this city only because Koussie realized that he'd be losing an A-1 customer in Mrs. Bok if he didn't kowtow. So I became a fearful pawn ([Edna St Vincent] Millay) in the hands of wily diplomats. Write me very soon.

I to my naked spinet in your corner.

Lenny the pawn, & Penny the prawn,

and Henny the lawn, & Jenny the spawn, & Renny the griswoldforlawn.