The Leonard Bernstein Letters (25 page)

Dear A,

Just a few words a propos of the
Lincoln Portrait
performance. (Look at the stationery I discovered – remember?)

I suppose everyone has written you all about it. How Will Geer
⁹⁹
completely disregarded your foreword in the score, and drawled away in a pseudo-Lincolnesque
performance that was truly embarrassing. (He made up to look a little like Abe, and sat on this chair like the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. I'm told the whole thing was Koussie's idea, which is certainly plausible.)

Kouss didn't do as well by it as I had expected. The opening was too agitated because he divided his beats – there was no feeling of tranquility and space. He missed a few cues (or passed them up), like “disen
thrall
ourselves”; and usually simply waited for the end of a speech, & then played music. But the sum total was good – the impression was very exciting, & the audience was charmed. Why must you be in Hollywood? Although after the parade of bowing composers (Billy & Barber) it was very distinguished of you not to be present – sort of specialness, you know.
¹⁰⁰

It's a fine piece, my love, despite all the repetition, and Vernon Duke's verdict that it's “just 20th Century Fox”. He's insufferable anyway.

Mad party at Arthur Berger's last night – Jean [Middleton] & Victor [Kraft] & Paul [Bowles] & Virgil [Thomson] & David [Diamond], etc., etc., etc., oh, & Colin [McPhee] & Paul Morrison. David was drunk & cutting up, & being dramatic again. I left with Paul Morrison, & it was like old times (remember the Boston incident?) Jean was pretty dramatic too, & left early. What a good world to stay away from! And I'm confused as ever, what with my new friend, and my new girl-friend, whom I am afraid to involve unfairly, and Edys'
¹⁰¹
& my decision to part company, which raises all sorts of problems, like which one of us is to move; and if she does whom should I get to share the rent here – since I ought to but can't afford to live alone. It popped into my mind that Victor might be a sensible idea for it, if he wants to stay here (in N.Y.), but, as he says, can't stand the loft alone. What do you think? Is it crazy as hell? Of course I realize it would be the talk of the town. But that's such fun – makes such good memoirs, as you would say.

Just finished Gide's memoirs, by the way (
If I Die
) – & had an excellent time thinking of you. I miss you like my right arm.

Write me more than you do –

Love,

L

Dear Honeychile,

There are two letters of yours here that are still “unanswered”. I'm beginning to lose contact with your every thought. I have a sense of your having had a great triumph out of the Bowles opus,
¹⁰²
followed by a kind of let-down which is natural enough, complicated by several new personal adventures, new boy and girl friends, who are nothing but names to me. Hadn't you better expand a bit? So's I know where I am.

V[ictor] wrote a full description of the Askew party that is a classic of its kind. Bill Schuman wrote a description of the Bowles opus that tore it to shreds. Anyway I get the impression I know just what it was like. After your own description of Koussie's
Lincoln
[
Portrait
] I heard it on the air yesterday at Ira Gershwin's house, surrounded by Harold Arlen, Harry Warren, Yip Harburg, Earl Robinson, Arthur Kober and other noted worthies. (Get the company I'm in!) Of course I didn't approve of Geer's way of doing it, but more than that, why did Kouss take the middle part so fast?? It made it seem superficial. It lacked charm and bite done that way. What we need is
Amurkian
conductors. In the meantime, however, I'll take Kouss.

I don't know what to write you about because nothing much has happened out here. I've been to a couple of musicians’ parties for Sanromá
¹⁰³
and P[aul] Whiteman. I've stopped going to the studio in the mornings because there's nothing to do. The picture is growing each day, but I have no over-all idea of what it's like yet. Next week I do a short dance sequence with Lichine. But nothing of background music as yet. I dawdle a lot, and fuss with themes of my own, and the unfinished 1st mov't of the violin piece, and argue with Mr. Goldwyn. And that's about it.

Spent an evening with G. Antheil
¹⁰⁴
who played me his 2nd, 3rd and 4th Symphonies. They're hard to describe. He's in a Mahler–Shostakovich period, and everything comes out of there in great unwashed gobs of sound that billow you about until it's all over and you're not sure what you heard. Some of it is very effective, and it all has a typical Antheil drive, but somehow when it's all over, one doesn't give a damn. That's the sort of thing that's hard to tell a composer.

I read a lot, mostly to make up for the lack of any warm relationships here. I get a great sense of luxury out of buying all the books I want. I spend whole nights in book stores making up my mind. Victor is sending me a two volume affair
¹⁰⁵
that had to be ordered via Dr. Safford. Do you remember my telling you about it? I originally spied it in a store in Rio, and now I've tracked it down. I'll save it for you.

This is the end of my tenth week. I have ten more to go, and then a big question mark. It would be a much more exciting life if you were here.

Love and all,

A

P.S. Monday. Just had word that V[ictor] is driving out. [Margaret] Bourke-White is coming to take stills.

Dear Len,

“Publishing-pains” indeed. Seems to me like the worst publishing pains a piece could have is no publishing at all. And you wound up with not one, but two publishers, get the biggest plus the tempting part of the smaller publisher's offer – recording – and you can say P[ublishing] P[ains]. Nonsense, Bernstein, nonsense. At any rate I'll be down in NYC next Friday nite. May I stay with you or will there be complications. Also I will be there until May 2nd. OK? Better be!

Sunday a.m. is awfully soon for the recording in as much as I am just recovering from a two day sojourn at the Hospital where I was treated for flu & an infection on my face. If you can with ease and safety stall it off for a few days so much the better except that I never get any work done in N.Y. anyhow.

Five years with W[arner] B[ros.] is a long time m'boy. Are you sure you want that. Would that tie you up. Could you travel, conduct etc. I suppose the decision has already been made & I am just making things harder. Sorry, but somehow I hate to see you do it.

I see you have learned to spell Rorschach.
¹⁰⁶
I'm glad about the new seriousness. Soon I'll see you & we can talk about it. I'm very anxious to see you.

Gene Shamalter, the guy who wanted to see me in N.Y. but couldn't & who wrote me at your place was here this week. As I suspected, he is as I suspected. Remember. But complete, never felt otherwise. He is alternately resigned and unhappy about it, wants to renounce sex altogether. A most sensitive chap too.

1. I've slept with Mad.

2. Army day is in May I think.

3. I'm 21 now.

Love,

Dave

Aaron darling,

Since I never hear from you any more, I suppose I'll have to write, & wring a letter from you. May I burden you with my many little present conflicts?

First, though, I think it's great that V[ictor] is finally going west. He needs it, you need it, I need it; and the best, of course, is that he made a decision at all. Treat him right now – get him going as a man. He's really such a foetus! (Look who's talking!)

Viz: the little Hargail Music Co. (mostly recorder music) wanted to publish the Clarinet Sonata. Out of professional courtesy I showed it first to Warner's, & they knocked me over by loving it, & insisting on publishing it. I was downhearted, since Hargail wanted to make a commercial recording of it. Now Hargail is offering me all sorts of fantastic royalty rates if I'll give it to them, & says that they will make the recording anyway! A labor of love, if I ever heard one. But Warner's points out that they, as a large firm (Witmark will be the publisher) can do so much more for it than can a little thing like Hargail. What you do think? Matters are now suspended by a hair.

Viz (2): Warner's presented me with a five year contract! I'm taking it to a lawyer today to find out what it says. It looks like my life that I'm signing away. But it adds to my little old salary a substantial weekly advance on future mythical royalties, which increases each year. What do you think?

Viz (3): I've got to move, and there's the biggest problem. I want the sort of apartment I can't afford alone. And I have a wonderful guy to live with – which is quite a story. He's […]
¹⁰⁷
the big, beautiful, brilliant 20-yr-old […] & I want to help him (but how can a poet earn a living?) I really want desperately to help him – although I have doubts about whether he can stick it out. […] The Frau won't hear of it. I have to be alone, & suffer, & break through the pain of loneliness, even if it means living the summer in a hot place, which is unbearable in New York. God, I'm perplexed! What do you think?

Viz (4): – a possibility of giving a recital in Town Hall next month for the Little Red Schoolhouse,
¹⁰⁸
which is mad but exciting, and I don't know if I should do it. I do get diffused. And Jacoby really wants me bad in his new night
club (the Blue Angel), & wants to build me, etc., comme impresario. And I had another nice letter from Rodzinski. Am I diffused?

So I should talk about Victor, yet!

Please write, my love – I miss you like mad.

Ewig, ewig, ohne End!

L

Darlingest L.P.

I know you're probably feeling awfully neglected, or maybe you're all absorbed in your new friend and have forgotten all about me.

Anyway, from my angle – not hearing from me doesn't mean a thing. I got tied up writing a Russian number for Lichine's choreography. It was the last of the pre-recorded stuff – and now I don't have much to do but wait around until they finish shooting the picture, which looks as if it would be around June 15th. Of course, I get ideas and whole sections while waiting. I wonder what it will all add up to. […]

V[ictor] arrived in Posh
¹⁰⁹
(now renamed Poshalopy) yesterday, so a new chapter in my Hollywood life begins. He seemed pleased with my house, my office, my secretary, etc. And I'm very pleased to have him here.

He brought reports of your signing the Warner's contract. Is it true? I wish I could have read it. I was out on the Warner lot the other night watching Adolph Deutsch scoring a picture with an orchestra of 80. When I think how you could fit in over there I get noivous.

Is the Clarinet Sonata being published?

And are you alone – like the Frau wants?

I never heard the sequel to your last letter which was full of problems.

By the way, that book I once wrote you [about] arrived – and it contains the most wonderful Glossary of specialized slang you have ever seen or ever can hope to see. I can't wait to show it to you. The rest of the book is H. Ellis’ case histories brought up to date – and I recognize a little bit of you in each of the 300 cases!
¹¹⁰

How are you? That is, hello. And what's the summer look like? All signs point to me being out here until August 1st. After that I hope Mexico or New Mexico. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could somehow connect up sometime somewhere.

Tell Pfb [Bowles], if you see him, that his
M
[
odern
]
M
[
usic
] phrase about “harp vomit” has become famous among Hollywood orchestrators. I met a number of them at a party the other night – they're my principal public out here. Seems that Max Steiner's wife is a harpist – which they say explains the featuring.

Margaret Bourke-White is on the lot, photographing us. We just carried out the “scorched earth” policy on the back lot set – and boy did we make a mess of that. Beautiful set. Farley Granger gets more simpatico every day. I've promised him the
Saloon
records. Do you think that will do it??

Still I love
you
.

A

Chère Renée,

Ce sont des jours tellement français, ces jours-ci. Je viens de lire Gide en français. Je vais jouer tous les dimanches-soirs chez “Le Bleu Angel”, un nouveau club en quelque sorte Parisien (comme l'ancien
Bœuf sur le Toit
, ou le
Ruban Bleu
); le clique des Concerts
Sérénades
(ton amie la Marquise, etc.); mon monde semble aujourd'hui tout à fait français. Et alors, que faire? Rien que d'écrire un mot à la première Française de toutes Françaises. Tu me crois enivré? C'est point l'ivresse – c'est l'amitié.

La cause immédiate de cette lettre, c'est Mme Claude Alphand, chanteuse extraordinaire au
Blue Angel
.
¹¹¹
Chaque fois qu'elle chante “Les Moules
marinières” ou “La Belle Journée” ou “Tu m'as voulu, tu m'as eu”,
¹¹²
je me souviens violentement de “Mon Mari est bien malade”.
¹¹³

Qu'est-ce que tu fait ces jours? Pas encore l'assembly-line, j'espère! En tous cas, je serai à Boston la semaine prochaine, et j'insiste de te revoir. Notre ancien ami, L'Institut de l'Art Moderne (zut) m'a invité à jouer la-haut le jeudi soir. Eh bien, quelques dollars, et un voyage payé à Boston! Mais quelle existence! Le mardi, j'ai un lecture-recital très important à Town Hall; le mercredi, j'ai un lecture à L'Art Alliance à Philly!!!! Et le jeudi à Boston! Je reserve toutes les nouvelles pour ton oreille, pas ton oeil. …

Lenny.

Et voilà celui qui a gagné le Prix Paderewski! Gardner Read!
Effrayant
.
¹¹⁴