The Leonard Bernstein Letters (47 page)

M'nape,

Just spent an evening with Irwin Edman
¹⁶⁵
(Dept. Philosophy, Columbia) who made me nostalgic for the shelter of academic life, & made me therefore think of you. Also there was Henry Simon, who submitted our “Conversation” (with Spendoah on Beethoven) to his editors who were mad for it & want more and thought the character of YB (Younger Brother) was a masterstroke.
¹⁶⁶
I'll send you a copy as soon as I make some.

I saw your North Country Epic to Hi-lee,
¹⁶⁷
and loved it. But I never hear any real news from you, appraisal of your courses, directions you may be finding – all the thousand new things that happen in a freshman year. Come on, a good long one.

As for me, only two weeks or so remain before my season starts, and in them I have yet to finish the Herman piece (Woody, remember?) which is on the home stretch; to do music (incidental) for a production of
Peter Pan
(if they raise all the money); write the book, prepare the Messiaen,
¹⁶⁸
read scores & concerti for the season, etc. It's a grind. I've been going to parties – lots of them – a strange new occupation for me. […] Life is very pleasant.

Regina
¹⁶⁹
was panned by the morning papers, loved by the afternoon ones. It has a fighting chance. By the way, it was a marvelously exciting opening night.

I await that long letter.

Love,

L

Cher Maître et ami,

Thank you for your fine letter.

You must have been looking at the score of
Turangalîla-Symphonie
and noting that it is a gigantic and very difficult work. I thank you deeply for conducting my work, since I know (having seen you in
The Rite of Spring
) that you will do it in a way that is marvelous and brilliant.

You will understand now that
Turangalîla
is the work of my life. It's why I've been so insistent about it being presented under the best possible conditions.

I have sent to Mr. Judd a very detailed analytical note for the program of
Turangalîla
, asking him to make an English translation.

Furthermore, Mr. Judd has telegraphed me that you will conduct
Turangalîla
3 times: 2 and 3 December and 7 December. He did not tell me in which cities: I think it's in Boston each time.

There are some difficulties being raised about the arrival of Ginette Martenot and Yvonne Loriod into the USA by the union of orchestral musicians. I have said to them that neither Ginette Martenot nor Yvonne Loriod are orchestral musicians, but that they are playing in
Turangalîla
as soloists. And this must be put on the program and on the posters:
Turangalîla-Symphonie
for piano solo, Onde Martenot solo and large orchestra.

Soloists:

Piano solo: Yvonne Loriod

Onde Martenot solo: Ginette Martenot.

Lukas Foss (who is generosity and kindness personified) agrees with me about this.

The difficulties are thus overcome now.

Yvonne Loriod and I will take the liner
Île de France
on 10 November, disembarking at New York on 16 November in the afternoon. We will meet Ginette Martenot there. I will be attending two concerts (17 and 18 November) when Leopold Stokowski conducts my
Liturgies
, and then we leave at once for Boston.

So, Yvonne Loriod, Ginette Martenot and myself will all three arrive in Boston on 24 November. I will have all the orchestral parts for Turangalîla with me.
(You already have the score.) It will be necessary to start the rehearsals on my arrival, owing to the extreme difficulty of the work. Yvonne Loriod knows
Turangalîla
completely by heart. She can thus assist you rehearsing with certain musicians separately. I can do the same (especially with the percussion which is substantial and very difficult). Finally, I am completely at your disposal – as is Yvonne Loriod – to rehearse the work with you at the piano and to demonstrate some of the rhythmic features, tempos, etc. I will attend all the rehearsals and will do everything in my power to be useful to you (balance of timbres, nuances, etc.).

These concerts will be the greatest joy of my career. See you soon! Believe always in my total admiration, my gratitude, and my friendship.

Olivier Messiaen
¹⁷⁰

Dear Lennie,

Just after you left, Bob Fryer
¹⁷¹
came into my office inquiring if I would be interested in doing a musical comedy version of
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
. As soon as I had a chance to think it over, I was most enthusiastic. It seemed positively inspirational. I am now entering into contracts to do same, and this is to find out if you can take a minute out of your busy life to consider whether you would like to go in on it.

I am going to write the book with Betty Smith.
¹⁷²
And I am going to try to get your old friend, Jerry Robbins, to do the dance, and beyond that, there are no thoughts at the present moment.

It will be a love story of the married couple rather than a tragic matter, and quite gay, albeit poignant, I hope.

I talked to your secretary today. She told me that you were conducting this afternoon, so I knew I could not reach you by phone.

I thought maybe if you were interested in this we could get Betty and Adolph to do the lyrics.

Let me hear from you as soon as you can tear yourself away from all those woodwinds.
¹⁷³

Love,

George

1
The German word for an orchestral score.

2
George Abbott (1887–1995), American theater director, producer, and writer, who also had a successful career in Hollywood. By the time he collaborated with Bernstein, Robbins, Comden, and Green – all making their Broadway debuts – in
On the Town
in 1944, Abbott had already had decades of experience: first as an actor (his debut was as Second Yeoman in the 1915 revival of Gilbert and Sullivan's
Yeomen of the Guard
), then as a writer, producer, and director. His earlier Broadway musicals included
On Your Toes
(1936; book),
The Boys from Syracuse
(1938; book, producer, and director), and
Pal Joey
(1940; producer and director).

3
Self-Analysis
by Karen Horney, first published in 1942.

4
Kiss and Tell
was a 1945 comedy starring Shirley Temple as the American teenager Corliss Archer. It was based on the Broadway play of the same name (both were written by F. Hugh Herbert, 1897–1958). The stage play had been produced and directed by George Abbott: it opened at the Biltmore Theatre on 17 March 1943 and ran for a total of 956 performances, closing on 23 June 1945.

5
The show became
Billion Dollar Baby
. Bernstein wasn't able to write the score, so Comden and Green turned to Morton Gould. The choreography was by Jerome Robbins, Oliver Smith designed the sets, and Max Goberman was the musical director – all of them later involved in
West Side Story
– and George Abbott directed. It ran for 220 performances, from 21 December 1945 to 29 June 1946.

6
Izso G. Glickstein (1891–1947) was the Russian-born cantor at Temple Mishkan Tefila, where Bernstein had his formative musical experiences. He described Glickstein as “a fabulous cantor who was a great musician and a beautiful man, very tall, very majestic […] and he had a tenor voice of such sweetness and such richness” (Burton 1994, p. 8). Glickstein was indeed an outstanding cantor, as can be heard on his recordings of “Baroish Hashonu” and “Yaale tachnunenu miarev,” made for Victor in 1925 (Victor 68710).

7
Dated “7–5–1945,” so possibly 5 July 1945.

8
Bernstein must have sent Glickstein the arrangement of “Lamentation” for voice and piano or organ version (adapted by F. Campbell-Watson), published by Harms in 1945.

9
A restaurant that was a favorite with the
On the Town
company.

10
Francis A. Coleman, “Composer Teams with Choreographer,”
Dance Magazine
(May 1945), pp. 12–13.

11
Bye Bye Jackie
, subtitled a “ballet play,” was written by Robbins in 1944 and was proposed to several composers including Aaron Copland (see Pollack 1999, p. 486) and Paul Bowles, as well as Bernstein (Burton 1994, p. 140). In an interview by Anna Kisselgoff for
The New York Times
(29 May 1994), Robbins recalled the project, intended as a way of explaining the background of one of the sailors in
Fancy Free
: “It was about Jackie, a boy living in Brooklyn, who's getting letters from his brother in some foreign place … The kids on the block begin horsing around, and Jackie can't take it. He sees that everyone in the background he's caught in is going off. So he enlists in the Navy, and his girlfriend says, Bye-bye, Jackie. It was a mood piece that went in and out of reality.” Robbins explained that the work was never choreographed because Bernstein didn't want to write the score. Their next collaboration was
Facsimile
, in 1946.

12
Robbins' irritation is understandable. Coleman's interview with Bernstein includes the following remarks: “For some time, Leonard Bernstein has considered the composition of a trilogy of ballets to be built around
Fancy Free
. Mr. Bernstein explains that the trilogy would consist of three one-act ballets with a connecting link in the story which would enable them to be presented as a complete evening's entertainment. The opening work, to be called
Bye, Bye Jackie
, is to furnish a picture of adolescence, in a Brooklyn setting, of tender and emotional quality.
Fancy Free
would become ‘something akin to the scherzo movement of a symphony’, and carry the story of the ballet through its middle section. Following it, the third work, yet to be planned, is to furnish the fitting climax to this vignette of American life.”

13
Bette Davis (1908–89), American actress, and an idol of Bernstein's. As her delightful letters demonstrate, their admiration was mutual.

14
Irving Rapper (1898–1999), British-born film director. He was friend of Bernstein's and director of several of Bette Davis' most important films, including
Now Voyager
(1942),
The Corn is Green
(1945), and
Deception
(1946).

15
Nadezhda von Meck (1831–94), Tchaikovsky's great patron who stipulated that they should never meet. Coincidentally, one of the reasons Bernstein visited Hollywood in the summer of 1945, en route to San Francisco, was to discuss a possible role in a film to be directed by Irving Rapper: a biopic in which Bernstein would play Tchaikovsky opposite Greta Garbo as Madame von Meck (see Burton 1994, p. 142).

16
Bette Davis received the signed photograph she had requested and sent a telegram on 14 August 1945: “Please forgive delay in acknowledging photograph. Madame von Meck is very grateful and loves it. Bette.”

17
Evidently, Bette Davis wasn't a fan of Joseph Szigeti, who appeared with Bernstein at a Summer Promenade concert of the San Francisco Symphony on 1 July 1945. Szigeti played the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and the program also included a suite from
Fancy Free
and Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony.

18
Though the letter is undated, the first paragraph refers to
Deception
(1946). Rapper directed this
film noir
with a cast led by Bette Davis, Paul Henried, and Claude Rains. It tells the tempestuous story of Christine (Davis) and her stormy relationship with a composer (Rains) and a cellist (Henried). Erich Wolfgang Korngold wrote the Cello Concerto by “Hollenius” performed at the film's climax.

19
This letter was written the day after the bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and two days before the bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August.

20
The famous lesbian novel by Radclyffe Hall, first published in 1928, which had been the subject of an obscenity trial in England and legal challenges in the United States.

21
Marketa Morris (1889–1965) was a psychoanalyst, known to Bernstein and his closest friends as the “Frau”. A brief article announcing her death appeared in
The New York Times
on 26 May 1965: “Milwaukee, May 25. Mrs. Marketa Theiner Morris, a psychoanalyst who practiced in New York from 1942 to 1958, died here Sunday at the age of 76. She was the wife of Prof. Rudolph E. Morris of Marquette University. Mrs. Morris, who taught child psychology to teachers in Prague from 1936 to 1938, practiced here for six years until her retirement in 1964.” The letters from Marketa Morris to Bernstein provide some insights into Bernstein's innermost thoughts from the psychoanalyst he consulted most regularly in the 1940s, including comments on his dreams and on his sexuality. It is apparent from the letters that while Morris saw Bernstein on a number of occasions, she was frustrated by his schedule, which made it impossible for him to see her on a regular basis.

22
There is no year on this letter, but it can be securely dated 1945: not only did Bernstein spend some time in Hollywood that year, but on 15 August 1945, a few days before it was written, the Japanese surrender ended the Second World War in the Pacific, the “Peace” to which Morris refers.

23
i.e.
Freedom Morning
, composed in 1943.

24
Copland's father, Harris Copland, died in 1945 (see Pollack 1999, p. 15).

25
Mildred Spiegel's pet-name for Bernstein.

26
Renée Longy Miquelle.

27
Bartók died in New York on 26 September 1945.

28
The opening concert of the New York City Symphony season. In
The New York Times
(9 October 1945), Olin Downes waxed enthusiastic: “Leonard Bernstein, with an orchestra materially improved over that of last season, conducted a concert of exceptional brilliancy last night.” The Shostakovich was a highlight: “For vividness, conviction, imagination we do not expect soon to hear this performance surpassed.” Downes also enjoyed the high spirits of what Copland called “American Brahms”: it was “a reading of high excellence. We believe Mr. Bernstein is now in a good place, with an orchestra of young musicians like himself to work with, and a repertory to mature in. Here is a conductor.”

29
Rosalyn Tureck (1913–2003), American harpsichordist and pianist noted for her Bach playing, though she made her Carnegie Hall debut playing the Theremin.

30
Harl McDonald (1899–1955), general manager of the Philadelphia Orchestra (1939–55) as well as a teacher at the University of Pennsylvania and a composer.

31
Billion Dollar Baby
opened on 21 December 1945.

32
Morton Gould (1913–96), American composer and conductor. Bernstein never had a high opinion of his music.

33
The Mozart symphony that Bernstein conducted on this occasion was No. 39 in E flat major K543, a work he performed many times subsequently, and recorded with the New York Philharmonic (1961) and Vienna Philharmonic (1981). Olin Downes reviewing the concert in
The New York Times
(6 November 1945) had some of the same criticisms of this early performance as Longy. He commented that it was played with “vigor and clarity” but that Bernstein “was inclined to drive rather than release song from the instruments.” Paul Bowles in the
New York Herald Tribune
was more enthusiastic: “The high point of sonority in last night's concert came with the Mozart Symphony. Here the orchestra showed that it was no longer ‘good, considering’, but good, period. The audience responded with rounds of applause.”

34
Copland's nickname for his car.

35
Possibly a reference to one of Erich Leinsdorf's concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra on 11 and 13 October 1945, which included
Appalachian Spring
.

36
At the end of November 1945, the Harvard Music Department put on four days of concerts to celebrate the centenary of Fauré's birth. On 25 November, Copland wrote an article in
The New York Times
previewing what he described as “a shrine for Fauré devotees.”

37
Copland was working on his Third Symphony.

38
Seymour Meyerson was a close friend of Bernstein and of David Oppenheim, but otherwise he remains a mystery. He is
not
the same Seymour Meyerson who served in the Army Signals Corps, became a scientist specializing in mass spectrometry (and also co-authored a booklet called
Folk Dancing for Fun
, which helped pay his way through university). I am most grateful to this Seymour Meyerson for taking the time to explain that he wasn't the one who knew Bernstein.

39
An abbreviation for “post exchange,” a type of store operated at US Army bases, which in turn generates income to support recreation, sports, and entertainment.

40
It was an unusual program, including Beethoven's Op. 131 String Quartet arranged by Mitropoulos for string orchestra, Ravel's
Shéhérazade
(with Jennie Tourel as the soloist) and
Alborada del gracioso
.

41
Walter Hendl was Rodzinski's 28-year-old assistant at the New York Philharmonic. When Rodzinski was taken ill, Hendl took the concert on 8 December (the Overture and Scherzo from Mendelssohn's
Midsummer Night's Dream
, Schubert's “Great” C major Symphony, and Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto) at very short notice. On 9 December 1945,
The New York Times
reported that Hendl's debut “offered a striking parallel to that of Leonard Bernstein, who first attracted wide attention, when at the last moment he was called upon to conduct the Philharmonic.”

42
The Hotel Vanderbilt in San Francisco was used by the Army's Officer Pay Section, where Oppenheim was working.

43
It's unclear what Bernstein means by “so N”.

44
Clarinet.

45
On 21 January, Bernstein conducted the City Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky's
Symphony of Psalms
, Strauss'
Don Juan
, Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, and Three Variations from
Fancy Free
.

46
Carlos Moseley (1914–2012) was to have a long association with Bernstein. In 1941, Moseley was the soloist in Brahms' Second Piano Concerto with Bernstein conducting, at Tanglewood. In 1946 he was working at the State Department, promoting American music abroad, the subject of this letter. In 1955 he joined the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, first as press officer, then associate manager in 1959 (in time for the orchestra's tour to Russia), managing director from 1961 to 1970, president from 1970 to 1978, and finally chairman.

47
Paul Feigay (1918–83), American theater and television producer. Feigay's first Broadway credit was as co-producer with Oliver Smith of
On the Town
, and his subsequent career included producing the television series
Omnibus
with Bernstein in the 1950s.
On the Town
ended its successful Broadway run on 2 February 1946, and the arrival of the tour in Chicago (including Nancy Walker and Adolph Green in the cast) was greeted enthusiastically by Claudia Cassidy in the
Chicago Daily Tribune
in her review published on 2 April. Feigay's letter is an interesting snapshot of the vicissitudes of producing a Broadway show, even one as ostensibly successful as
On the Town
.

48
David Glazer (1913–2001) had given the first performance of the Clarinet Sonata with Bernstein on 21 April 1942. From 1951 until his retirement he played in the New York Woodwind Quintet.