The Leonard Bernstein Letters (71 page)

1
It is worth noting that Laurents wrote this letter more than a month before the meeting between Laurents and Bernstein when they discussed the idea of warring gangs of Puerto Rican and white American teenagers.

2
Nothing seems to have come of this idea, but Miller writes at length about his observations of gang warfare in Brooklyn during the summer of 1955 in his autobiography
Timebends
(1987), pp. 360–9.

3
East Side Story
was one of the several titles for what became
West Side Story
. For years the collaborators called it simply
Romeo
. One short-lived early title was
Operation Capulet
(see Letter 279). A much later title, announced in the press as late as June 1957, was
Gangway!
– an idea that was quickly (and mercifully) abandoned.

4
This undated letter urges Bernstein to go out to Hollywood (where Laurents, Robbins, and Bernstein all worked at various times in 1955) in order to make progress on
West Side Story
. It's probable that this letter was written before the meeting between Bernstein and Laurents on 25 August 1955 (when Robbins was in New York). But it's also possible – from Laurents' reference to “all the preliminary work that we've all talked about” – that he wrote the letter after the meeting to request a week's visit from Bernstein to consolidate ideas already discussed, especially as Robbins arrived in Hollywood in mid-September to work on the film of
The King and I
(he was clearly in California when Laurents wrote this letter). The meeting on 25 August in Beverly Hills was described by Bernstein: “Had a fine long session with Arthur today, by the pool. (He's here for a movie; I'm conducting at the Hollywood Bowl.) We're fired again by the Romeo notion; only now we have abandoned the whole Jewish–Catholic premise as not very fresh, and have come up with what I think is going to be it: two teen-age gangs as the warring factions, one of them newly-arrived Puerto Ricans, the other self-styled ‘Americans.’ Suddenly it all springs to life. I hear rhythms and pulses, and – most of all – I can sort of feel the form” (Bernstein 1957, p. 47). However, Laurents had already raised this idea a month earlier, in his letter to Bernstein of 19 July 1955 (Letter 359). The eventual outcome was the radically altered outline that introduced the idea of conflict between white and Puerto Rican gangs (printed in Appendix One) to which Robbins responded on 18 October 1955 (Letter 362).

5
Bells Are Ringing
.

6
Comden and Green were tentatively considered for
West Side Story
, and during September 1955 they were apparently contemplating taking it on; they were unable to do so because of existing Hollywood commitments. By October 1955, Stephen Sondheim had joined the show's creative team to write the lyrics.

7
Jack Gottlieb (1930–2011), American composer who began work as Bernstein's musical assistant in 1958 and subsequently became publications director of Amberson Enterprises, Bernstein's publishing company.

8
In 1954, Kenneth Gaburo and James Dalgliesh were joint winners of the ninth annual George Gershwin Memorial Contest (organized by the B'nai B'rith) for the best orchestral composition by a young American composer.

9
The outline by Arthur Laurents and Bernstein (see Appendix One) and Robbins' detailed reply in this letter are documents of great importance in the genesis of
West Side Story
. Laurents and Bernstein had evolved the new outline after discussing the project in California in August 1955. Newspaper reports of recent gang violence made them rethink the dramatic outline of a show on which progress had been virtually stalled since Robbins had first proposed the idea in January 1949. Bernstein has written marginal annotations on Robbins' letter that reveal some of his reaction to Robbins' criticisms. These are described in the notes that follow.

10
Marginal note by Bernstein: “good points.”

11
Marginal note by Bernstein: “I thought it
was
sudden.”

12
Marginal note by Bernstein: “True, but maybe a slightly diff[erent] angle.”

13
Marginal note by Bernstein: “How much older?”

14
Marginal note by Bernstein: “Good point. Both things can happen.”

15
Marginal note by Bernstein: “Not necessarily bad – but avoid cliché!”

16
Marginal note by Bernstein: “True. But there are 2 scenes, so how to achieve the flow like one scene?”

17
Marginal note by Bernstein: “?”

18
Marginal note by Bernstein: “Don't see any incompatibility here.”

19
Marginal note by Bernstein: “Why not?”

20
Marginal note by Bernstein: “True. Maybe he doesn't know – but we know he's doomed.”

21
Marginal note by Bernstein (with a line beside the whole paragraph): “All true.”

22
Marginal note by Bernstein: “Right.”

23
Lillian Hellman's adaptation of Jean Anouilh's
The Lark
, for which Bernstein wrote the incidental music.

24
According to Jack Gottlieb's note in the score of Bernstein's
Missa Brevis
, it was Robert Shaw who suggested this idea when he attended a performance. In 1988, to mark Shaw's retirement as Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Bernstein produced the “short Mass” that he had contemplated more than thirty years earlier. See also Letter 365.

25
Eddie Albert played Reuben in the original production of Blitzstein's
Reuben Reuben
.

26
Subtitled an “urban folk opera,”
Reuben Reuben
opened in Boston on 10 October 1955 and closed quickly, before reaching Broadway. Blitzstein was still reeling from the disappointment when he wrote this letter.

27
Blitzstein never forgave Robbins for naming names when he testified to the HUAC.

28
This is a fascinating comment; Bernstein's own correspondence contains no remarks about working with Robbins after his HUAC performance, but it would be surprising if Bernstein and Arthur Laurents had not been angered and disappointed by Robbins' conduct. And yet, only a few months before Blitzstein sent this letter, Bernstein and Laurents had got back to serious work on
West Side Story
, and brought Stephen Sondheim into the creative team.

29
Blitzstein was her godfather.

30
This was not a lasting rift. As Eric Gordon put it, “Lenny and Felicia Bernstein remained loyal to Marc. They had already made their first child, Jamie, Marc's godchild. Their son Alexander's name is the male form of Alexandra from
Regina
. And their third child they named for Marc's heroine in
Reuben Reuben
– Nina” (Gordon 1989, p. 405).

31
In December 1956, Diamond played as a violinist in the pit orchestra for Bernstein's
Candide
, though this much-needed paying engagement was interrupted when he was subpoenaed by the HUAC. There's at least one irony in the timing of Diamond's subpoena:
Candide
was partly intended by Hellman and Bernstein as a polemic against HUAC and Joseph McCarthy's Senate hearings.

32
Richard Rodgers (1902–79), American composer, best known for his collaborations with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein. These creative partnerships resulted in more than thirty Broadway musicals, including several established classics of the American musical theatre.

33
The episode of
Omnibus
referred to by Rodgers is “The American Musical Comedy,” first broadcast on 7 October 1956.

34
Harry Farbman was Associate Conductor of the St Louis Symphony Orchestra.

35
Vladimir Golschmann was the orchestra's Music Director.

36
Foss'
Psalms
(for chorus and orchestra) were first performed in May 1957 at the New York Philharmonic in a concert conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos that also included Kodály's
Psalmus Hungaricus
, Walton's
Belshazzar's Feast
, and the premiere of Nils Viggo Bentzon's
Variazioni brevi
.

37
Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930), American composer and lyricist. He first met Bernstein in October 1955: according to Bernstein's datebook, Laurents and Sondheim had their first meeting with him on 18 October. Sondheim adds some interesting details: he heard about
West Side Story
from Arthur Laurents at the opening-night party for Ugo Betti's
Isle of Goats
on 4 October, and played for Bernstein the following day, on 5 October: “I auditioned for him without Arthur, and it was the day after the
Isle of Goats
opening. Remember, Lenny and Arthur had to wait for a week till Betty and Adolph knew whether they could get out of
Winter Wonderland
(I think that was the title). I was put on hold for that week, which is when I went to consult Oscar [Hammerstein]. My first official meeting after accepting the job was with Arthur alone, the next with both of them” (Sondheim, personal communication). Bernstein and Sondheim had more than forty meetings between November 1955 and February 1956, and by the time Sondheim celebrated his 26th birthday on 22 March 1956, the score of Act I was starting to take shape – with
Romeo
still as the working title.

38
Seventeen years later, Sondheim provided more than just help: for the 1973 revival of
Candide
, he wrote several new lyrics including “Life is Happiness Indeed” (a replacement for Bernstein and Parker's “The Venice Gavotte”), “This World,” “The Sheep Song,” and half of “Auto Da Fe.”

39
Gunther Schuller (b. 1925), American composer, conductor, writer on music, and jazz historian. Two works by Schuller were performed by Mitropoulos in the 1956–7 New York Philharmonic season, and his father Arthur Schuller was a violinist in the orchestra for more than forty years. Bernstein relished the kind of discussion prompted by this letter, and Schuller's enthusiasm may well have encouraged him to program Webern's music. In January 1958, Bernstein included Webern's
Six Pieces
Op. 6 in his Philharmonic concerts, and in December 1965 he conducted Webern's Symphony on the same program as Mahler's Seventh. In 1964 Schuller and Bernstein collaborated on Schuller's
Journey Into Jazz
, composed specially for the
Young People's Concerts
, where it was conducted by the composer and narrated by Bernstein. The following is part of Bernstein's spoken introduction to the performance: “These days […] there is a new movement in American music actually called the ‘third stream’ which mixes the rivers of jazz with the other rivers that flow down from the high-brow far-out mountain peaks of twelve-tone, or atonal music. Now the leading navigator of this third stream – in fact the man who made up the phrase – is a young man named Gunther Schuller. He is one of those total musicians, like Paul Hindemith […] only he's American. Mr. Schuller writes music – all kinds of music – conducts it, lectures on it, and plays it. Certainly he owes some of his great talent to his father, a wonderful musician who happens to play in our orchestra. We are very proud of Arthur Schuller. But young Gunther Schuller – still in his thirties – is now the center of a whole group of young composers who look to him as their leader, and champion. And so I thought that the perfect way to begin today's program about jazz in the concert hall would be to play a piece by Gunther Schuller – especially this one particular piece which is an introduction to jazz for young people.”

40
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), British author of
Point Counter Point
and
Brave New World
who settled in the United States in 1937. One of Huxley's warmest and most enduring friendships in Los Angeles was with Stravinsky.

41
He had already proposed the idea to Stravinsky who rejected it, as did Bernstein. See Joseph 2001, p. 31.

42
Igor Markevitch (1912–83), Ukrainian-born conductor and composer.

43
Icare
was originally conceived as a ballet for Serge Lifar in 1932, but it was not staged and Markevitch subsequently reworked it as a concert piece.

44
Bernstein conducted
Icare
with the New York Philharmonic on 10, 11, 12, and 13 April 1958. The performance from 13 April has been released on CD in
Bernstein Live
(New York Philharmonic NYP 2003).

45
A Spanish colloquialism for “annoying things”.

46
Probably a reference to the actress Canta Maya, who appeared in the 1946 film
Bailando en las nubes
(
Dancing in the Clouds
).

47
Abe Miller, born Abraham Malamud, was Sam Bernstein's cousin and he was eventually employed by the Samuel Bernstein Hair Company. Miller and Sam Bernstein “had corresponded over the years, Sam convincing [Abe] that his future lay in the New World” (Burton Bernstein 1982, p. 62). In 1921 he escaped from Korets (Ukraine) via Warsaw, Danzig, and Cuba (where he survived for a year hawking his wares from a wooden box), before eventually arriving in the United States.

48
Dexamyl was a drug introduced in 1950. It contained amphetamine to elevate mood, and barbiturate to counteract the side effects of the amphetamine.

49
West Side Story
opened at the National Theatre in Washington D.C. on 19 August 1957.

50
Carol Lawrence (b. 1932) created the role of Maria in
West Side Story
; 19 August was the date of the opening night in Washington, D.C.

51
Felicia's letter reacting to the very enthusiastic reception of
West Side Story
in Washington, D.C., was written the day after it had opened at the National Theatre.

52
Studio One
was a long-running television drama series. Felicia appeared in eleven episodes between 1949 and 1956.

53
Sherman Adams (1899–1986), White House Chief of Staff for President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

54
Cole Porter (1891–1964), American composer and lyricist. After studying at both Yale and Harvard, Porter went to Paris where he took orchestration lessons from Charles Koechlin. On his return to America, Porter became hugely successful on Broadway with shows such as
Anything Goes
(1934),
Kiss Me, Kate
(1948), and
Can-Can
(1953).