Bernstein: A Biography

516 Pages·1998·18.709 MB·English

by  Joan Peyser

JOAN PEYSER
Bernstein
A BIOGRAPHY
Revised & Updated

Bernstein
A BIOGRAPHY
Revised & Updated
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Bernstein
A BIOGRAPHY
Revised & Updated
JOAN PEYSER
Billboard Books
An imprint of Watson-Guptill Publications
NEW YORK
Senior Editor: Bob Nirkind
Production Manager: Ellen Greene
Cover and book design: Derek Bacchus
Copyright © by Katomo Ltd.
First published in 1998 by Billboard Books,
An imprint of Watson-Guptill Publications,
A division of BPI Communications, Inc.
1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or
used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and
retrieval systems—without written permission of the publisher.
Material from Family Matters: Sam, Jennie, and the Kids, copyright
© 1982 by Burton Bernstein, originally appeared in The New Yorker
magazine and subsequently was published by Summit Books (Simon
& Schuster). Used by permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Peyser, Joan.
Bernstein: a biography, revised and updated/Joan Peyser,
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8230-8259-8
1. Bernstein, Leonard, 1918-1990.
2. Musicians—United States—Biography.
I. Title.
ML410.B566P5 1998
780'.92—dc21
[B] 98-22551
\ CIP
MN
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Printing, 1998
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 / 06 05 04 03 02 01 99 98
First publication of this book was by Beech Tree Books/
William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1987.
To Sarah, Eric, and Leah Seligman
and
To Hannah Elizabeth Parks
v
\
\
Acknowledgments
OF THE MANY PEOPLE who have assisted me with their recollec¬
tions of Leonard Bernstein, I first want to thank those closest to him:
Jennie, his mother; Shirley, his sister; Burton, his brother; and his
children: Jamie, Alex, and Nina. They gave me interviews ranging
from lively telephone conversations to long and probing face-to-face
sessions. I also sought out Bernstein’s colleagues and friends, espe¬
cially David Diamond, the distinguished American composer who has
been close to Bernstein for almost fifty years. Diamond not only lent
me all the letters Bernstein had sent him over this period, he gave me
hours of his time.
Others who have contributed to this biography include George
Abbott, James Aliferis, Alison Ames, Arnold Arnstein, George
Avakian, Milton Babbitt, Julius Baker, Stefan Bauer-Mengelberg,
Arthur Berger, Eric Binder, Suzanne Bloch, Arthur Bloom, Daniel
Brewbaker, Florence Brooks-Dunay, Leonard Burkat, Schuyler
Chapin, Marc Cogley, Philip Conole, Frank Corsaro, Thomas
Cothran, Lester Cowan, Oliver Daniel, Arthur Davis, Lenore
DeKoven, John de Lancie, Maria DePasquale, Irene Diamond,
James Dixon, John Dunlop, Martin Eshelman, William Fertik,
Beatrice Fields, Verna Fine, Lukas Foss, Morris Golde, Albert
Goltzer, Eric Gordon, Jack Gottlieb, Morton Gottlieb, Morton
Gould, John Gruen, Philip Hart, Hans Heinsheimer, Will
Holzman, A1 Howard, Edys Merrill Hunter, Miles Kastendieck,
Peter Kazaras, Rabbi Israel Kazis, Larry Kert, Leon Kirchner,
Irving Kolodin, Louis Krasner, Harry Kraut, Herman Krawitz,
Robert Lantz, Arthur Laurents, Vera Lawrence, Richard Leacock,
Gary Lemko, Janice Levit, Peter Lieberson, Seymour Lipkin,
Joseph Machlis, John McClure, Gerald Marx, Gay Mehegan, Edna
Ocko Meyers, Vera Michaelson, Thomas Mowrey, Peter Munves,
David Oppenheim, Maurice Peress, Shirley Gabis Perle, Vincent
Persichetti, Earl Price, Harvey Probber, Douglas Pugh, Matthew
8
JOAN PEYSER
Raimondi, Phillip Ramey, Sid Ramin, Azaria Rapoport, Faith
Reed, Regina Resnick, Halina Rodzinski, Ann Ronell, Friede Rothe,
Gunther Schuller, William Schuman, Marian Seldes, Harold Shapero,
Nicolas Slonimsky, Harry Smyles, Stephen Sondheim, Jonathan
Sternberg, Howard Taubman, Michael Tilson Thomas, Charles
Turner, William van Gerven, Stephen Wadsworth, Jane Wilson, Paul
Wittke, and Mildred Spiegel Zucker. I am grateful to all of them.
Certain sources are quoted frequently in the text. They are num¬
bered in the following way:
1 Burton Bernstein, Family Matters (New York: Summit Books, 1982).
2 Leonard Bernstein, Findings (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982).
3 Peter Rosen, Reflections, a film (United States Information Agency,
1978).
4 Dimitri Mitropoulos, A Correspondence with Katy Katsoyanis:
1930-1960 (New York: Martin Dale, 1973).
5 John Gruen, The Private World of Leonard Bernstein (New York:
Viking Press, 1968).
6 Herbert Russcol and Margalit Banai, Philharmonic (New York:
Coward, McCann and Geoghegen, 1971).
7 “On the Town,” The Dramatists Guild Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2
(1971).
A note of thanks is also in order to Mark Rosenstein, a Manhattan-
based music-theater buff, who generously sent me little-known infor¬
mation on Bernstein’s Broadway shows.
Bernstein’s own voice comes through in this book not only in his
personal letters, in remarks made to me over a period of three years,
and in excerpts from his own writings, it can also be heard in idiosyn¬
cratic color and remarkable detail through those quotations taken from
the transcript of Reflections, the USIA film. Bernstein has not only given
me permission to make use of this rich material, in November 1986 he
updated it. I am grateful to him for that, as I am for his permission to
quote from his letters and from Findings, the Simon and Schuster book
that contains his poetry and prose.
Friends, not all of them in music, also played a major role.
Throughout the period of my research Joseph Wershba, a producer of