The Leonard Bernstein Letters (54 page)

Dear Ape,

So fine to get your last letter: you sound so much better and busier and everything despite the job-problem. Perhaps by now something is a-happen, as they say here? I have never had an answer to my last letter (since our letters cross continually, and you are a stinking correspondent) in which I talked about all other kinds of work from those we know so well. Were you at all reached by this or was it just bilge? What of the Engel sessions?

But it is still wonderful to read a cheerful letter from you, even if it is stuffed with problems about Bob C. and company. I know that one will work out all right: you sound so sensible about it, and self-knowing. It is high time that you could have a relationship with a guy that was not confined necessarily to either heaven or boredom. Just a nice relationship, with warmth and affection and companionship and even passion. And I fully understand the traumatic situation with him and me and D.O. [David Oppenheim] I know you'll lick it. Meanwhile, please, no compromises with Felicia or anyone else. I find myself missing her, though, although, Goddammit, not half so much as I do you.

I wrote Adolph and of course have no answer. What is with his opus? Bob Rossen
³⁹
arrived here again last night and just left for Mexico.
⁴⁰
He is lonely and restless and beset with all the problems of a martyr and hero without being
either of them. He is wretchedly lost, having lost Hollywood, and makes braver speeches than he feels. I think he may go back and face the Committee
⁴¹
next week. A man like him (only slightly sensitive and bright) can hold up only so long without his work or his family, and the absence of both together leaves him functionless. He talks by turns of settling here with his family, of going to Israel to live, of Rome, of England. He feels finished in the States. It's a mess, and I am very sorry for him. It can also happen to all of us, so we had better start preparing our blazing orations now. Maltz
⁴²
is also living here (Cuernavaca has become a great haven for these poor guys) and regaled us the other night with tales of his lovely year in jail. I lost my dinner. It is utterly incredible that a man of his solemnity and innocuousness and faith in Jeffersonian democracy should be put away with a raft of moonshiners in a West Virginia jail. Dimitryk
⁴³
has certainly made a ghoul of himself: and the boy in the biggest jam right now seems to me to be Garfield.
⁴⁴
He will wind up in a great perjury mess if he doesn't watch out. It may already be too late. Actually, I suppose, there is nothing to be done when your life and career are attacked but strike back with the truth and go honestly to jail if you have to. This dandling about to save a career can neither save the career no make for self-respect. I hope I'm as brave as I sound from this distance when it catches up with me.

In any case Ross Evans
⁴⁵
walked in the other day with a six-week old puppy, rescuee of an accident between a boxer and a gloomy Airedale bitch, the pup is a dream, a
Boxdale
(copyright term) and I have named him Machito because he is so macho and he has lovely fleas and will probably wind up on West 55th Street like all the rest, but I love him. The house is bedazzled with pee and shit of all colors, and the whole cycle recommences: Outside! On the paper! Not here! Who's the funniest little Ape? Who's the little Fellowuhss? Well if it isn't the little …! I am just at the crisis of deciding whether to return him or brave it through. He is always guilty and doesn't know why he is punished, and I am dienetically re-experiencing a whole lifetime of European hotels and trains and the carpet in the Israel house. Wish you were here.

By the way, might you come? Bob Presnell
⁴⁶
writes that he is coming after all, probably next week; and that should be pleasant, if I can work with someone around. The show is going great guns,
⁴⁷
and I keep wishing for you to sing it at, and get the right answers and responses. There are so many aspects of it that only you could understand, libretto-wise as well as musically, and it's a bore to have to figure everything out for myself. The two characters, by the way, have gotten themselves called Sam and Jennie, and I think you'll see why. I have about four and a half scenes sketched out of the seven, and am amazed. It should be roughly finished in a couple of weeks, and then I'll send you a sort of libretto. It's real fun to write music. You may quote. I am ruthlessly turning down offers, still. I finally refused that Harp Concerto commission for Rosenbaum in Philly, and turned down the newly-reforming Detroit Symphony, as well as a three-month stay in Australia. It's much too pleasant just to sit, and sitting here in Cuernavaca is in itself an occupation. I don't know what happens to time here: it gets destroyed, it works on a life of its own, and the days rush by so frighteningly fast that it is tiring only to think of the date. Martha [Gellhorn] and I are talking about a Caribbean jaunt in the fall. But plans in general are hard to make. And it is now time for us to go forth in her jeep to the tennis courts. So bless you and all my love. And write a guy, for cry-eye. Love from Machito, the diarrhetic darling.

X

Tell me more about the Chodorov play. Is it just a play or is there chance for real music? The idea is fine.

Come to think of it, why don't you come down for a visit? Maybe drive with Presnell? It would be free! His address: 126 E 56.

X

Darling!

No word from you – and I
don't
wonder why! Let's let it lie for the nonce – this is hardly a step to take with such great vacillation – someday it may become the most natural and longed for event – if that blissful state of mind should take over (oh happy day!) and I'm still not yet wed, we'll just get on with it and be miserable for ever after!

I miss you terribly – you couldn't have been sweeter or more tender. Both of you helped me so wonderfully through what would have been otherwise a very
tough time. I love you for it. However it has made N.Y. seem so grim by comparison – thank God for Hilee [Shirley]!

Rehearsals are ginger-peachy. I have a reading for a play tomorrow – was interviewed for a movie (that old story!) which will be shot here in the East. I had my first real “sortie” with Bert the Card and Claude at Sardi's, ran into the Davids – the Diamond one looking frighteningly thin and peaked and rather cold towards me (judge of my joy!) – had a pleasant lunch with Goddard [Lieberson] (?) –

I feel very well, have had no dire accidents – that is,
yet
– and life goes on in its own plodding way – but I am strangely happy though it could be just an overwhelming sense of relief!

I'm afraid I won't be able to get there for the
Missa
⁴⁸
– it breaks my heart, but I just have to take this TV thing seriously.
⁴⁹
I hope it's going well and that it's a big smasheroo – (just don't bow this time!)

Oh sweetie!

Call me any way – I kiss you long and sweet.

Feloo

P.S. She's not yours – follow me!

Dear Fil,

Both your letters have lain, screaming for answer, for months, and everything conspires to prevent same. Tanglewood swamped me this summer, and just before the end of the season Felicia and I decided to marry, inducing further activity.

It's wonderful, & I'm deeply happy about the marriage. I've kind of rediscovered this lovely girl, and believe that we will have a fine time of it. The wedding is Sunday the 9th, & we leave straight for California to see her family, then on to Mexico for the winter, returning probably in March or April.

I'm afraid that this will rule out the 9th Symphony in Detroit. I have been so pleased with the idea, & attracted by the notion of another “special” in Detroit, that I have hesitated to write you a yes or a no. But I fear that the no triumphs. This will be a composing year. I may make an exception & do a little festival of 3 weeks at the City Center in N.Y. in the spring, but I've not yet decided. This is a crucial year, & much will be crystallized. I'll be in touch with you throughout.

Won't you & Babs say some special little prayers for us? Let me hear from you soon, via Helen Coates, 155 E. 96th St., New York.

Much love to both of you.

Lenny

Baudümü,

Every turn on this ranch makes us think of you. We almost thought of going up to Sheridan, but this took precedence – and it beats everything. We've been here two days & have to leave today and hate to. Such beauty & luxury: & the Knoxes are real pals.

Every day marriage gets better.
⁵⁰
It may take a lot of days, but I think the big crisis is over. (That took place in Detroit, but Phil & Barbara [Marcuse] were so great, as you know, & they really helped enormously.)

Now get this:

Last night
we went lionhunting
.

We really did. Mountain lions. Didn't find one. But the deer abounded. It's infinitely better than Irish deerstalking. It's civilized. We piled into a Chevvy convertible, top down, in the freezing high air, wrapped in heavy winter clothes & earmuffs and gun in hand. You drive slowly around the hills, shining a strong torch into the trees & rocks and sipping Dewar's White Label. Now there's a plan. It was marvelous, despite the lack of lion, but we did get one shot at a porcupine and missed. All in all,
we went lionhunting
.

Baudümü, be smart at school this year, and be serious and learn and become the wonderful guy you are to become. Can't wait til Xmas.

Felicia loves you & sends a big hug*, & so do I.

Ape-husband-hunter,

Lennuhtt

*She adds
undying
and
passionate
.

Dear Gentle People,

There it is, the address I mean, and now let's have words from you, lots of them. This is not a moment for lots of words from us: it is a moment of getting
installed in a new house, new life, new everything. The tensions (do you recall this word?) accumulate still, are fought, lived through. Every once in a while a state of comparative ease is reached which promises well for the future. And now we have a glorious grand huge house with a huge garden and a huge pool, and tomorrow there ought to be a huge piano and then there should be some huge work. I am not quite sure what F[elicia] is going to do all winter while I am at the piano, and in my own world, so to speak. But most of that, of course, depends on what security she will manage to find in a marriage contracted in insecurity. We hope and we pray and we wait.

What did you think of the Cadillac idea? Me, I think it's great; and it is a real come-on for me. The Buick is in fine shape (got us here safely, sans accident, sans blowout, sans being pinched).

Let's have a glorious letter!

Love,

Lenny

Felicia adores you both and is as grateful as I am for your presence on earth, and sends her warmest.

Dear Sorelymissed A,

First off, thanks for the delectable wire on the wedding day. If this thankyou is a bit late, fíjate, no más, the enormous automobile trip we have made from Boston to San Francisco (stopping for days at ranches on the way) to L.A. and thence to Cuernavaca. It took about a month; and we are slowly settling now into a glorious house and garden and pool. The piano has arrived, I have written an extra aria for Captain Hook (what shit!) to grace the new road production of
Peter Pan
, and am now starting on the long hard road of writing some real things. I have decided, coute que coute, to finish my little opry [
Trouble in Tahiti
] and then write a few more little opries. There may be some stray notes – like even a piano sonata, and a new idea for an orchestra piece; but the main stem is still that old devil theatre, and I have to see just what my connection with it is.

I still haven't seen the score of the Piano Quartet, and long to. Isn't there something you can do?

Write to me about your life in Boston. Did everything work out well for a house for you and E[rik]? Give him my best, and thank him also for the wire. What word from Victor? Does he find marriage as fascinating as I do (what a word for marriage)? Actually it is the most interesting thing I have ever done, though there are times when one's interest must be that of a person in an
audience, or one would go mad. It is full of compensations and rewards, and reveals more to me about myself than anything else ever has, including a spotty array of analysts.

As I say, write, long and lovingly, and give my love to Irving [Fine] and Verna [Fine] and Lukas [Foss] and Tillmange.

Dear old Judgenose, I miss you.

L

Dearest Aa,

Today is the fourteenth of November, which makes four reasons to write you. 1) that you have just written me; 2) that it's your birthday, whether you like to be reminded or not; 3) that we met on this day about fourteen years ago; and 4) that Bruno Walter celebrated your birthday most spectacularly eight years ago by getting sick.
⁵¹
So we owe each other this here Martini on this here day. With all my love.

Also, we bought a phonograph, and there in the same shop was the Clarinet Concerto and the Quartet, on both of which I am therefore now an expert.
⁵²
I am disappointed in the Concerto, and I think it may be a little on account of the performance. I remember it as being so much fun when you struggled with it on the piano (of course everything is more fun when
you
do it on the piano with your apologetic grin), and Benny [Goodman]'s performance is ghastly and student-like, I think. But there is also something that does not quite satisfy about the score, despite its evident beauties. The opening is still ravishing, and I find to my dismay that it is in places less like Satie than like the
Rosenkavalier
trio. Tant mieux, say I, though surprised not a little. Strange, in fact, how many touches of Strauss there are; there is even a slight
Don Quixote
feeling here and there. I still disapprove of the cadenza, finding it cute but arbitrary; but it is the last part that disappoints me because the last part was so much fun. Of all things, the form. Doesn't seem to work.

But the Quartet, ah, there is another matter. I rejoice particularly in the scherzo, because I think it is the longest sustained piece of continuity you have written in a long time, and it is really continuous, yes, really, and it goes and goes in a remarkably convincing way. I feel rather close to the tonal way in which you are handling tone-rows (I've done it too, here and there); and I find that this movement is a real triumph. The last movement is beautiful too in a way which has already become awfully familiar to Coplandites, so that it is not such a thrill as the second. And the first is lovely, but I never did go for you and fugues, especially here where the opening is so reminiscent of the third Hindemith Quartet. Imagine, Hindemith! Who'da thunk it? But it makes a fine piece, especially for records, because you want to hear it again and again (of course with two or three mambos in between); and I still think you are a marvelous composer.

That's the good news for today, and I seem to have started a piano sonata right in the middle of all my stage-operations, nolens volens, as Kouss used to say.

The lectures look awfully inviting, and I wish I were around. Instead I've got to start thinking up some of my own for the Brandeis festival. Let me know how they come out.

As for T'wood, I am not surprised, though a bit beset by wonderment. Yes, I suppose I'll be coming back, but don't say anything yet: I just
might
have another brainstorm. Sometimes I think I don't really understand about T'wood any more. More of this anon.

Are you really thinking of coming here in May? As far as I know, this house is available then. I think you would love it, though it's very large and expensive (2000 pezozzees a month!) But maybe now that you're rich … Let me know. Of course I'd much rather have you around Boston in June to help us out at Brandeis, but I realize that's too much to ask.

So you're a Village weekender, just like all the Harvard boys? I find it very chic, and send Eric [Erik] my best.

Dear Aa, it was a real joy to have your letter and I miss you and hope you will continue to write zillions more like that Piano Quartet.

Much love,

L