The Leonard Bernstein Letters (9 page)

Dear Kenuel,

I had a mad inspiration to write you several days ago when the enclosed suddenly popped up in one of my pockets. But put it off again and again I did, and so it was after all your letter which evoked this little opus. Mad Shirley tells me that our Stark (“Watch that boy”) played the lead in the school production of
Tovarich
some time ago, and walked off with the public-speaking prize. Are we proud!

Life has been going on, as it has a way of doing. Just a series of minor catastrophes of varying kinds. Most noteworthy: I left a valuable manuscript of Copland's plus another printed piece of his plus a valuable manuscript book of mine plus a valuable fountain pen plus
all my thesis notes
over which I had theoretically slaved (!) in New York on the train coming back from that City of Sin. The infallible New Haven Railroad is unable to find these things, which means that I must start my thesis all over again at double speed, and type this letter, faut d'un stylo, and be generally upset at having lost Aaron's manuscript for him. He of course took it as only he could take it – with a philosophical phrase. Good old Aaron: if it had been anyone else but he I should long ago have gone into voluntary exile.

Aaron, by the way, could never understand my lack of desire for going abroad. In his day, says he, there was never a composer who would not insist on Paris first. I have always been inclined to pooh-pooh the idea, on the grounds that a composer can go through his “Paris” period here in America as well as abroad. But lately little ideas have been creeping around in the brain. The thought of Paree attracts me mightily these days. And your letter has set me off on another gush. It would be wonderful, I am convinced. Of course, a great deal depends on funds. But there's always the possibility of a fellowship (please Goddy Woddy); and then my father almost bowled me over last night with the statement that he would be responsible for me for one more year after college to the extent of the equivalent of what it takes to keep me in college one year. I may go abroad with it if I choose (sounds impossible to me), or to a music school.
I still don't know whether to take him seriously or not. But that added to a fellowship would be simply de trop, as Mary Boland says.

You see, Ken, the sudden surge toward la vie transatlantique is due, I suppose, to an equally sudden horror of what is to come here next year. I planned for a while on a few months in Mexico. It would be swell, but, in the final analysis, pretty unconstructive. I also toyed with the idea of California (I'm still a C———iac
³⁵
) for a year or so. But I know all the while that I am not yet prepared to settle down somewhere and write music. I still have so much to study. In America there is but one person I am interested in working with after college, and that's Aaron. Now (how mathematical this discussion is) working with Aaron involves being in New York. Maybe it's just that I've recently returned therefrom and had a bellyful, but more and more I do not want to go there – at least not yet. The people of the “artistic world” that I encountered on this last trip revolt me in every way. I have been made sick by the depravity of the Greenwich Villagers, the totally degenerate homosexuals, the equally degenerate heterosexuals, the foolish and destructive attitudes, and the frantic attempts to preserve the atmosphere of postwar bohemianism. Oh, there are some who are all right, of course. They are far and few enough, God knows. And the thing I am really afraid of is that I could so easily fall prey to that sort of thing. You may remember my chief weakness – my love for people. I need them all the time – every moment. It's something that perhaps you cannot understand: but I cannot spend one day alone without becoming utterly depressed. Any people will do. It's a terrible fault. And in New York, the people who would fill that place with me would inevitably be those wretched people who haunt the Village Vanguard by night, and each other's studios by day, and act positively in only one way – as a destructive and retarding force in their societies. This, by the way, is not bitter or dramatic in any way. But it is this great horror of taking my place with these people, and becoming an “artist” that half kills me. There are two rebuttals, of course. One, you should say that I ought to be strong enough to resist all this; but sometimes I am much afraid that it wouldn't take too much effort on my part before I would be like them. I always absorb my surroundings – but to a degree! Second rebuttal: Paris holds the same kind of crowd and the same lack of healthy art. Well that's for you to tell me. I don't know. Let me know the lowdown soon. I am thinking very seriously now of going abroad.

Strange how I miss you. Perhaps I'm not so “universal” or promiscuous as I thought. You were very important to me last year. So steadying for me; and you helped me over many a rough place without perhaps knowing it. No, the afterthought is not after all, “He meant well. Good old Ken.”

The Birds
comes along slowly and unsteadily. The whole score is finished but the Finale. The chorus doesn't show up for rehearsals. The orchestra is still being slowly assembled. But it's fun.

The [
Harvard
]
Advocate
has a new Board, all Socialites. So the new Music Editor is a Socialite. No more records for little Lenny.

I have already reset the ribbon on this machine twice, which means that this is a very long and probably silly letter, and I ought to stop.

My best to Aunt Mattie, whom etc., and to all the Messings, Truebloods, Bluebloods, Peggrams, etc. that you come across.

Happy skiing.

Always,

Len

[…]

My dearest friend,

At last a letter from you. I was completely despaired and beginning to think that you completely forgot me. For a while I thought it was because I sent you by mistake a letter without signing it, and that you were offended; but fortunately your letter came to prevent my disappointment.

I am very happy to hear that you are working hard, but I am sorry to see that you neglect your piano, which could be a great help to your career.
³⁶
I see you too come to the position now to have problems: musical, artistic, social and spiritual – and the worst of all, sexual. Unfortunately I am too far away to help – to give you good advice. But I hope you are a clever boy and that you realize the great responsibility toward yourself, its importance. As far as the conditions of my personal life are concerned, actually, I must tell you that neither my life nor my Weltanschauung has undergone any change; but it has improved, I think, in wisdom and in self-concentration.

May I tell you an agreeable thing. I am invited to conduct the Boston orchestra in the middle of next January for two weeks. I look forward to have some moments again in your inspiring and friendly company.

With my best wishes,

D. Mitropoulos

Dear Lenny,

I've been meaning to write and tell you what a swell host you make and how pleasant in retrospect my little “week-end” was, and now it has to be accompanied by this regretful letter from La Holm
³⁷
which of course spoils my effect. But don't fret – something
must
turn up sooner or later.

When I got back here I learned that
Quiet City
has been cancelled. The Group [Theatre] wasn't satisfied so my career in the theatre has been a flop – obviously. Nothing left to do but write a Piano Sonata.
³⁸
Or perhaps something special called “The Beach at Revere” or “The Birches at Sharon”.

Well anyway – I hope something will drive you to N.Y. soon. D[imitri] M[itropoulos]'s Greek concert, or the World's Fair, or my ballet or sumpin!

Best to you,

A

Great & Good Kenneth,

To think!

a) No fellowship

b) No job at Mills College this summer. They're reducing their staff, and cutting out the production end entirely, reserving only [for] educational.

c) I'm dead on my feet. I just handed in the thesis, having stayed up all night, and I'm just beginning to recover. I have [no] control over myself, so excuse typing, et al.

d) No prospects for the summer or next year. Maybe a job with a dancer next year. Maybe a job on
Modern Music
. Maybe Mexico this summer. Maybe Sharon (God forbid!) Maybe anything. The prospect is lousy. Any suggestions?

e) Everybody's lousy. People are always getting divorces from nice people like An or being impotent with nice girls or flunking exams or vomiting over the European situation. And for God's sake keep out of Greece and concentration camps. Of all times to be where you are!
³⁹

f) I never recovered the lost thesis notes. (This is irrelevant.) (But so's Margaret.
⁴⁰
I told [David] Prall
⁴¹
about that particular fetish and he beamed all over.)

g)
The Birds
finally comes off next week.
⁴²
It should be good.

God, Ken, it's a dull and wretched state I'm in. No practicing, no composing, no plans, no money, no ideas. Static. Tired all over. I'll be all right tomorrow. I've met a wonderful girl. I'm about to have a sex life again. That's encouraging.

Have a swell trip, and be careful. […]

I long for California, and the peaches and ladyfingers and artichokes. I long for so many things. Why can't I stop this silly wailing. Really, I'm just tired.

Again, be careful, stay alive, write. With devotion, affection, greetings, warmth, cordiality, sincerity, verytrulyness, blessings,

Lenny

Dollink Lennie,

First of all – good luck with
The Cradle
tonight.
⁴⁴
I hope Blitzstein is there. He told me about it, & I was going to come up, but I can't get Saturday off. You see, I'm working every night except Monday & Tuesday. We started on April 6th or so doing Saturday Shows, just about the time I was planning to come up for your Aristophanes.
⁴⁵

Lennish, I'm doing famously. So help me. Its all – quotes – like a dream – unquotes. Exciting as hell. But I'm not in the dough yet. We've been signed by the Wm. Morris Agency but they haven't found us any good spots yet. And there's Radio & Television yet & everything and all in the offing. Nothing materialized. But, Gott zei dank, I'm making a little salary. I've lost about 25 pounds, so I'm no longer rolly-polly-Adolph, just a flabby Adolph.

It all began about 2½ months ago, when we did a guest booking for an Actors’ Party at Café Society. Herman Shumlin & Arthur Kober & others were there & they went nuts about us. So since then everything happened. Publicity – all kinds –
New Yorker, N.Y. Times, Post, Journal-American
, [
The New
]
Masses
, […] [
Daily
]
Worker
, all over. Everyone in theatre has been to see us. And composers – ay, ay – Blitzstein, Copland, Paul Bowles, Jerry Moross, etc., etc. They're swell people, too. By the way, I gypped a Satie composition from Bowles’ house for you.

So enough of this self-indulgent bloating.

I would like, is it possible, to hitch-hike up to Boston on Monday & stay for a day or so. Hmmm? Is it possible? With me, I would have a young boy, Julian Claman,
⁴⁶
a nice charming lad, who is our lighting man at the Vanguard.
⁴⁷
Would that be possible? If so, send a telegram to A. Green, 835 Riverside Drive. If not, also send a telegram. You can send it collect
if you want to
. Heh, Heh, Heh.

Listen, are you coming to the City this summer? Will you have a place to live? If not, I've found a terrific 2-room also with kitchen apt. – with 3 beds – to be sub-letted for the summer. It's got swell furnishings, it's got a phonograph-radio, it's got a good Grand Piano, it's large, comfortable, on 55th St near 6th Ave, and Julian and I want to take it. With 3 of us at about $50 a month, it would amount to $3.50 a week each. We'll talk about it.

So let me know about Monday.

Give my love to S[hirley] B[ernstein].

Give my love to Blitzstein if he's there.

Adolph

P.S. Lenny, my love, I love you.

Copland told me your Aristophanes music was a remarkably fine work.

Christ, what an incoherent letter. Forgive, forgive.

P.S. I've seen Weil
⁴⁸
once in the last 6 months. Is my heart bleeding? Not precisely.

Aaron,

Patiently I have waited. The rains have come and gone. The sun, the moon, have seen another cycle. Millennia have elapsed. I have graduated with honors. I have been to all kinds of class days, commencements, baccalaureate services. I have grown old. And no word about cabins. Have you investigated? Are there cabins? Are they good cabins? Are they in America? Have you forgotten me? Is there something wrong? Do you hesitate? These, and other thoughts, as Kipling would say, are my constant companions.

I am madly trying to recover my lost ergs. According to laws of nature they must be conserved somewhere, but I'm having a time finding where. I frequently stand up only to fall down. I sleep very easily (a bad sign for one who has always slept not too well). I have subtle little pains in my back. I have become positively hypochondriac. I live in waiting to hear from you. Please – before I rot in the provinces, let me know the outcome. At the above address.

Letter from Blitzstein says that he likes Yaddo [artists’ community] again and is about to convince himself that he ought to get to work.

I have ideas for a piano and fiddle sonata, but I can't work on them here. I have begun to practice again. It is a strange feeling. Fingers slowly begin to move again.

For God's sake, Harvard, I got an A in that Government exam!

Tired, and so to bed, silently, alone.

I wait with renewed vigor…

Lenny

There is talk among some people I know of a cabin for me or us or two cabins for us in Scituate, Mass. (on the South Shore) – very nice. Promise of seclusion. Would you be interested? Cheap…

Say, I thought you were leaving the Empire on May 30?