The Leonard Bernstein Letters (42 page)

Dear Lenny,

Just a note to congratulate you on your engagement and to wish you continued happiness and success. I guess I ought to apologize for not using your “secret” phone number and letting you know how I'm making out, but I guess you know me by now.

Incidentally, your engagement came as quite a surprise (I don't know why it should) and now you've got me thinking about whether I ought to be next.
⁹⁵

The recordings I was so proud of several months ago, and wanted you to hear, have since lost a lot of the original appeal (as far as my wanting to play them for people). I guess that's a good sign, although I still think there are some good spots worth listening.

However, if I have to bring some recording to use as an excuse to see you and your new phonograph, I think I can manage to pick a few better ones, twenty or thirty!!

Really, Lenny, I'd like to see you and ask a bit of advice in regards to quite a few things that are popping here; also keep you posted on what the past year and a half in N.Y. has held for me. And then, of course, I'd like to see you without having the meet through lots of people, for a change. So …

Of course, I don't know where this letter will find you, but when you get back to N.Y. (if you're away right now), how about a letter and an appointment?
⁹⁶

Best regards to everyone,

Sid

Dear Serge Alexandrovich,

If you ever wanted to be involved in a historical moment, this is it.
⁹⁷
The people are remarkable; life goes on in spite of bombs, police, everything. There is a strength and devotion in these people that is formidable. They will never let
their land be taken from them; they will die first. And the country is beautiful beyond description. It is a real tropical vacation for me, with the wonderful Mediterranean and the sweet, warm spring.

The orchestra is fine, and I am having a great success. [Charles] Munch has just finished his weeks here, and we finally met: he came to my rehearsal this morning, and was so excited that he wants to arrange a big concert for me in Paris. Tant mieux.

I miss you, and can't wait to return to Tanglewood. Please don't be worried about me; the bombs fly, but the newspapers exaggerate.

My love to Olga, and to you my deepest devotion,

Leonard

Old Charmer!

It's done. Fait. The Symphony's
⁹⁸
been heard. Two days ago in Prague.

First I must say it's a wonderful work. Coming to know it so much better I find in it new lights and shades – and new faults. Sweetie, the end is a sin. You've got to change. Stop the presses! We must talk – about the whole last movement, in fact.

The reactions were mixed. Too long, said some. Too eclectic, said Shostakovich (he should talk!). It lacks a real Adagio, said Kubelík. Not up my street, said Wee Willie Walton. And everyone found Chaikovsky's Fifth in it, which only proves their inanity. I haven't seen the press yet, but I think it will be good. It just wasn't a wow, that's all; it was solid, it was serious. The orchestra was exhausted (end of the festival), and the rehearsals were nightmares. (We had six!) But at the concerts they played marvelously. Even to catching our private rubatos in the third movement

which, by the way, is my favorite part. That's the real inspiration – the real Aaronchen. I could make out fine
anti
cases for mov'ts I & II (and of course IV) but not III. That's my personal wow.

By the way, I do it awfully well, and I'd love to do it in the States. Maybe Tangle[wood] – well, maybe the City Center.

There is much to say. Letters are impossible. But won't you write me and tell about May and Harvard and the Virgil [Thomson] Opera and where you are and Koussie and Victor [Kraft] and everyone? And D[avid] D[iamond]?

If you write me to Holland I'll be sure to get it. I'm there June 8–13. Write now, and they'll hold it for me. G. de Koos, Noordeinde 62A, Den Haag, Holland.

Palestine was a real thrill. More later. Will you be in NYC for my stadium week?

Love, Love,

L

Young Charmer!

Just received your forwarded Paris letter and I'm dashing a hasty reply on the chance that it will reach you in Holland. It was fun to read the various reactions to the Symph – including your own. I've decided that it's a tough job to write an almost 40 min. piece which is perfect throughout. That's about all I'll concede for the moment! You were an angel to struggle with rehearsals at the tail-end of a Festival. The part of your letter I liked best, of course, was your saying you'd like to do it zum States.

Didn't I tell you I was coming to Mexico to conduct the Symph myself? I've had 3 rehearsals already and the concert is still 2 weeks away. My main trouble is giving cues for entrances. Well, anyhow it's very good experience and I'm getting a kick out of it. (Kouss said to me before I left “If you ruin
my
Symph I vil keel you.”)
⁹⁹

All my N.Y. news is probably stale for you by now. Virgil's opera
¹⁰⁰
was original-looking on the stage – no one has ever seen anything quite like it. But I thought there was more music in
Four Saints
[
in Three Acts
]. It's as if a new musical idea hadn't occurred to him in 10 years. The prosody, as per usual, is superb – but then it's easy to have good prosody if you have nothing else on your mind (I'm quoting myself).

D[avid] D[iamond] looked much improved when last I saw him. I suppose Helen Kates told you of our financial crisis which was solved until August.

Bob Shaw did a bee-utiful job with my new chorus.
¹⁰¹
Most people seemed to like it, but the press was only mildly interested. I can't imagine how you'll
react to it. Any ho you won't have to conduct it – since there's nothing but voices. (I decided that Bob's conducting technique derives from the football cheerleader. Or did you say that already?)

I was in Cuba the night you played the Symph in Prague. Mexico seems so naively serious by comparison. I see
Jeremiah
on display here in the record shops. Chávez spoke of asking you to come to conduct a week in August. Did he wire you? And just before getting your letter I was talking about you (I seem to be always talking about you!) with de Spirito
¹⁰²
and Carrington
¹⁰³
at lunch. You'll be glad to hear that San Juan de Letran still thrives and that I live one block away.

I'll be at the Stadium concerts. And thanks Gawd for Tanglewood so's we can talk – finally. I've lectures all prepared for you about your City Center programs – completely disinterested since I leave for Brazil on August 14. Your ex-mentor sends you an abrazo muy fuerte –

A.

Dear Leonard Bernstein,

I would very much like to have you as my guest at a party at Jerome Robbins' home, 421 Park Ave., on Thursday night July 24th from 8:00 to 1:00 (corner of 56th Street).
¹⁰⁵

We will share delightful drinks and entertainment for the benefit of the fighting veterans organization, United Negro and Allied Veterans of America.
¹⁰⁶

Yours sincerely,

Lena Horne

Lenny,

Your letter stirred up lots of problems.

To go into them adequately would require an elaborate paper – and that does not agree with my vacations. I try a compromise. I have to be honest in the first place. Honest and short means usually: it hurts! I have to rely on your perspicacity and your English to translate my thoughts into a good, nice, considerate English. Will you?

I don't think that our work will be finished in five months. But there is even some risk of your feeling worse after this period since many problems may have come into the open without finding a solution.

Under the given circumstances I would want to start only if you are taking the responsibility for such a possible outcome.

Of course there is a chance that we may come to some essential clarification. No way to deny it. It's fifty fifty – and you have to know it.

In your dreams there is confusion, you are not able to go where you have to go: two
simultaneous engagements
or dates and so on. You are seeing Felicia and the day she leaves you
have
to see a boy.

The same old pattern. You can't give up. Very eager to resume analysis but the queer fish resistance is as big a fish as your drive to get well.

If you could give up Europe for the solution of your problems, you would have solved quite some of them and we had the most promising start. But would I make it a condition, which, I have to confess was very tempting – I am sure it wouldn't work out, since you would use it against me, that is, against our work.

I don't quite understand your dream involving your parents. What does Rochester mean? Did you intend to leave alone by plane (which you missed!). Could it indicate that it is a “force majeur” and not your own incapacity that you can't separate yourself from them. Being inside still a child as you say (giving up childhood).

You are toying around with the possibility of being a dull and uninteresting talent – or losing your place in the score (Koussevitzky).

Remember that you wanted to challenge people and find out whether they would still love you.

It's all very sketchy, I know. But I still hope that you can pick out something of help for you.

I did intend to go to Tanglewood, indeed, but it did not materialize.

I had an interesting letter from George today who himself is going to the Berkshires.

Lenny, I hope very much that you understand what I really want to convey to you! Do you?

I am back in town between the 5–10th of Sept.

Sincerely.

M

My dear Lenny,

I can't resist writing you, even though I know that the mood I am in should prompt me to be still. I feel sad – and alone in the way only a neurotic can feel alone.

The idea of living with someone else came crashing down around my knees last night just as hurriedly as it had spent itself in the sky the day before. The thought of having to be responsible to an irresponsible degree for someone else's living condition makes me balk like I have heard men do just before they take a wife. Living in this little box has a security that is that of a desperate grasping squeeze … I'm reminded of the Steig drawing of the man in the box who thinks “people are no damn good”! I tripped over a stone yesterday. This
was it: the nearer my time came to report to the VA
¹⁰⁸
for my chance for psycho-analytical treatment, the more tense I noticed myself to be. I translated it as a natural resistance – for certainly, beyond the chance of talking about myself, hashing over my imaginary reflections, and being an “actress”, there is a deep conviction that my locked doors must not be opened. The fear of falling with my faults is funny – for I believe that by uncovering one recovers, yet recognition has not healed me of the failings lately (like Christian Science, for instance, has led me to believe). Why, when one sees an error of premise doesn't that seeing dispel its tenacity? Is it the old self-authority commanding “thus far and no farther”?

Well, I sweat through the interview, with the best manners I could muster – by that I mean without personal messiness, and found I have to go through another interview – also not an MD or Psychiatrist – which will determine whether I am in worth[y] condition to take the time of the Psychiatrist. Then it is probable that psychiatric survey and not psycho-analytical treatment will be granted. So – with all my resistance to being analysed, I am depressingly disappointed that a possibility of being treated is quite improbable. Another contradiction! Perhaps I should take a part-time job and see if I can earn my analysis – even on through my school-time-days to come. (The analyst Bruce Knight is arranging for me to see is named Berkeley – and lives near you on 11th Street, I believe. Have you ever heard of her? I wish she wasn't a her.)

Helen wrote me a lovely thank you card – and it delighted me a good deal. She mentioned your great success with
Appalachian Spring
– but I knew of it the day before by my own conviction. I went into Liberty and listened to the Koussevitzky recordings and was disappointed at his interpretation. There is a lovely excitement in the way you play the “saddle” part – is it Part III? – Koussy rushes it, instead of syncopating it – and the way you end it is moving. Oh, butch, you're wonderful!

This morning's book list from Holliday advertises Auden's new thing along with a new one of Edith Sitwell's. When I get round to send you [
The Age of
]
Anxiety
I will also include
The Shadow of Cain
which the book store insists “reflects more directly the tragic impact of contemporary events on an acutely sensitive and perceptive nature.” Then they add, “In their likeness and unlikeness, these two books are an absorbing study.”

I have been to Lewisohn [Stadium] twice this week. Hans Schwieger is the poorest conductor I have ever heard with a first rate orchestra. He conducts as if he were leading a hofbrau band.[…] The Philharmonic must realize that many people take to concerts in the summer because of the outdoor “tranquility”, and it is their initiation to the best music – therefore they could increase their winter
subscription lists with new enthusiasts, but there is a vital danger in sandwiching the very best with the slip-shod. Evidently you set the standard for their summer concerts extremely high. I have heard from many diversified tastes that your concerts were electric. Mr. Schwieger has been a sad let-down.

Do I sound mean, Pappie. Hating people again?

You set me such a fine example of living with other people, I am more aware than ever of my anti-social side. Please don't let my untidy sick mind bore you away from me (I want you to feel a teensy bit responsible so that you won't give me up as unworthy of your good affection). You've touched me deeply – honestly you have.

I'm going to close – hoping you can scribble a card when you're squatting in that hammock. Kisses to Helen. (Gobbles to you.)

Twig

Tell Helen to get
The Gallery
¹⁰⁹
from her lending library (it's already out of stock).

Why don't you try a tone poem of
Anxiety
?
¹¹⁰
The four themes – their inter-relationship, pairing-off drama – etc. might make a good thing. And you could do it! Name it
T
he
W
anderer
I
n
G
reenwood after me (forgive that!) […]