The Leonard Bernstein Letters (84 page)

My dear Walter,

Chichester seems awfully far away by now, but the memory of our days there is a glowing one, reinforced this week by the test pressing of the recording, which should be out within the month. I'll see that you get one of the first copies.

I have also been busy proofreading the vocal score, which is to appear at the same time as the record, and of course you'll get one of these too.

Apropos of the printed score, I must confess that I have yielded to a very human weakness. I could not resist sharing the dedication between you and Chuck Solomon. (You get the first credit, as having commissioned it, and there is then a line dedicating it to Chuck.) I happened to talk to him the other day, and he sounded very
down
; and in that instant it occurred to me that this dedication would set him up for at least a year. It's just what he needs – and I am sure that you, of all people, will understand the nature of this gesture, since you and Chuck are such good friends, and since he was the originator of our relationship, yours and mine. I somehow feel I owe this to him. I hope you agree.

Again, thanks from us all for your kindness and friendship.

Yours,

Lenny
¹³⁶

My dear Lenny,

I found your letter here when I returned from a fortnight's holiday, and that is the reason it has gone unanswered so long. I am very sorry.

Thank you indeed for writing it. I also carry with me the most happy memories of your visit – now we are having the most wonderful, cloudless weather that we should have had then!

Yes indeed, I entirely understand about Chuck and approve his sharing the dedication. I am sure he will, rightly, be as pleased as a dog with two tails. I sent him, some while ago, a letter thanking him for his part in the
Chichester Psalms
and telling him it would never have come about apart from him!

Of course I am only to pay the bill for the car-hire. I was only anxious that we should not
both
pay it.

I am most anxious, and so are many other people, to hear the record. It will be very exciting. It is
most
good of you to say you will send me a copy of the score and the record. It's far more than I deserve. Have you the original score you wrote? I feel awful asking, but I should love to have it if you can spare it, to put with the others. It doesn't matter how rough it is – Britten's is in pencil & a mass of scratching out!

Give my love to Felicia and the children. I look back on your visit as a great time and a very happy one.

Yours ever,

Walter

P.S. I hear rumours that the BBC want to do the
Chichester Psalms
again from here, with a different orchestra. I do hope they are true!

Dear Lenny,

Was very good to be with you, Felicia, and the Fosses. I'm now organizing a show and sale of 20th century music mss. (Stable Gallery April 1966) for the benefit of the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Inc. Gifts to the Foundation are tax-exempt. Will you give us a page of your work?
¹³⁷
Wd. be very grateful.

As ever,

John (Cage)

[Dear Walter,]

I can't describe to you the surprise and pleasure of receiving your gift. It is at least as extraordinary of you to remember my liking your pen as it is for you to have sent me one.

And, of course, the pen's first act-in-office is to write this note, sending thanks and affection.

The recording and the published score should be arriving any day now. Meanwhile I am sending you my original “fair copy” – though alas, only a
photostat of the manuscript, since the true-original is committed to the Library of Congress, as is the case with everything I write. This is the next-best; it is all in my own hand, and I hope it pleases you.

Bless you, your health, your work, and your touching generosity in sending me this treasureable pen.

Warmest greetings,

Lenny
¹³⁸

Dear Lenny,

Many many thanks for your sweet note. Your wishes for pleasure with your orchestra have already come true: I am enjoying myself with them thoroughly and find them in better shape & spirits than I can remember.
¹⁴⁰
The prospect to spend a little time with you after you return is positively
enticing
. I hope it
will
happen. Meanwhile, all good wishes for a pleasant & restful vacation.

Ever cordially,

George

Dear Mr. Bernstein,

Do you still remember me? Now I am ten years old. This year I learned with Prof. Leonard Rose three concertos: Saint-Saëns', Boccherini's and Lalo's. Last week my sister and I played in a Christmas Concert in Juilliard School. We are invited to give a joint recital in Brearley School on January 19, 1966 at 1:45 p.m.

If you have time, I would be glad to play for you.

Yo-Yo Ma

Dear Mr. Adams,

I am touched by your intelligent letter, but hard put to answer it. When you depict me as “turning my back” on “new” musical trends you do me a disservice, to say nothing of making an irrelevancy. One writes what one hears
within
one, not without. Lord knows I am sufficiently exposed to the “influences” of non-tonal music; but obviously I have not been conditioned by them. Mahler apart, I cannot conceive music (my own music) divorced from tonality. Whether this is good or bad is, again, irrelevant. The only meaningful thing is the truth of the creative act. The rest of the chips will fall where they may.

Good luck to you.
¹⁴³

Fleshy darling,

It is a week to the hour that I am in Vienna, and this is literally the first moment free. It's been all rehearsals, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, studying at night, & trying (not too successfully) to get some sleep. The time-change threw me for a loop; I'm just now coming out of it.

But all goes well.
¹⁴⁴
The orchestra is cheering, the directors are fawning, the press is voluminous and astonishingly sympathetic. Fischer-Dieskau is a dream-singer – I've never heard anyone better.
¹⁴⁵
And the rest of the cast is superb, with a weakness here or there – but not important. Dr. Caius is a German with a frightful accent in Italian which will sound bad on the record, & Oncina's Fenton is not ideal. But you can't have everything. The Opera people have given me extra rehearsals; the orchestra goes overtime without a word of protest (never
before, since Strauss himself, says Dr. Hilbert). In short, I'm a sort of Jewish hero who has replaced Karajan – and all this at the moment of the general elections which happen tomorrow, & are full of anti-Semitic issues & overtones. It's a strange feeling …

I've just come from a place in Nussberg – a suburb – an old palais devoted to vineyard activity, where some members of the orchestra took me to play for me “Schrammelmusik” – old, authentic, “kitsch” Viennese tunes arranged for 4 instruments – the original
Rosenkavalier
stage-music. Fantastic. Lots of glorious wine, platters of hot roast chickens, hams, Gott weiss was. Very touching, from orchestra men: toasts, good feeling. As I say, a very strange moment for me.

The Kripsies
¹⁴⁶
have been here, & invited me daily to his performances & to dinner or lunch – I funked out ever time, being left with a bad conscience, especially since they sent me (us) huge lilies, & today, as a
farewell
gift (!) two boxes of Demel chocolates. They're in San Francisco now: and I've written a conscience-letter.

Maazel is also here doing
Carmen
. I heard 10 minutes & left:
bad
. But the musical life is wilder than Milan: everything seems to center around it, &
Falstaff
is the event everyone is waiting for.

Many of Willie Weissel's
¹⁴⁷
friends have written or called – I don't dare to accept or answer:
què lata
. Luchino [Visconti] is tired & morose, at once doing
Falstaff
& preparing
Rosenkavalier
for London, & cutting a movie: he's insane, & surrounded by numerous young Italian assistants, which gives him pleasure. And now I go to be fed & fêted by Regina Resnick [Resnik], who lives across the square, & has been preparing a risotto for days.

As you can see, it's a fascinating, glorious life so far. The haut-monde is yet to come. Bet you can't wait! But I'll tell you one thing: I can't wait for you to come. You'll love Vienna, somehow I smell it.

Have a great Buffalo, love to Fossies, & come soon. I miss you!

Love,

L

I read a bad Kerr notice of Mendy's
¹⁴⁸
play in the
Trib
. Are they all bad? Give him & Susan my love. And the kiddies: kiss them. And write me. And make the kiddies write me – xxx

Dear Folks,

At last I have a minute to write you. I am enjoying Vienna enormously – as much as a Jew can. There are so many sad memories here; one deals with so many ex-Nazis (and maybe still Nazis); and you never know if the public that is screaming
bravo
for you might contain someone who 25 years ago might have shot me dead. But it's better to forgive, and if possible, forget. The city is so beautiful, and so full of tradition. Everyone here lives for music, especially opera, and I seem to be the new hero. What they call the “Bernstein wave” that has swept Vienna has produced some strange results; all of a sudden it's fashionable to be Jewish.

But I work very hard, practicing & studying, recording (20 sessions!) and rehearsing. So far everything has gone brilliantly, but I'm tired – too many parties, also. Don't be upset by that bronchitis story: I had it for only two days. And I really feel very well.

This morning I went to
Shul
, imagine, with Regina Resnick [Resnik]. The old, famous Wiener Schul, restored as it used to be, on
Judengasse
(what a name for a street!). But it was warm and heartening. I ran into a Bar Mitzvah
and
a
Rosh Chodesh
, got a
Misheberach
& held the Torah for Rosh Chodesh, got a plug from the Rabbi & even attended the Kiddush afterwards. Very sweet. And tell Prof. Braslavsky that I met his old friend Rothenberg, who sends his greetings. They all remember him here.

Now I have a TV interview, a cocktail at Princess Hohenlohe, and then a dinner party with the recording people from London. So I'm off – and I send you much love. Soon you should receive some chocolates from Demel – the best on earth. Be well & take care of yourselves.

Your Wiener Schnitzel,

Lenny.

Shabbos, 19 March '66 after Havdala[h]

Jennie: Every morning I eat Vienna rolls – what you always used to call
Vianna
rolls. Remember?

Dear Leonard,

In my purest and deeply felt joy I read this very morning that
at last
you plan to write an opera. Very seldom in my life I felt so thrilled and impatient! I wish to have your new score near my heart as soon as possibly! I am sure this will enable me to plunge into
real music
, a thing that – let us be sincere! – I am vainly longing for since centuries. Useless to tell you how often I think of you and your incandescent musical vitality. To know that a Bernstein does exist helps a lot. Ciao!

Tuo affezionatissimo,

Victor de Sabata

Caro Maestro,

There is no reason why my opinion should be of especial value to you, but I can't resist sending you this note to voice my enthusiastic approval of your decision to give full time to music composition.

My opinion is not without substance because I once, when we were both much younger, tuned into a broadcast and hear a Sonata for clarinet and piano written by you, and as I turned away from the loudspeaker I said to Louise, “This is one of our big composers.” As years have gone by I felt a certain reluctance to see you pursuing the conducting, and even the composing of Broadway music, as being a waste of that precious commodity, time, when so much is needed for the full realization I had in mind. I never saw Gustav Mahler conduct. If he was as great as I have been told, he is just about the one exception that proves the rule as far as I am concerned.

I leave you to comb through the history of our profound composers and see how they fared at strictly commercial roundelays. Of course, someone will answer this remark by bringing up that innocent era of Mozart and Haydn when “popular music” was the reaction of a whole era to the deep expression of Bach, for instance. Be that as it may, you have at least one enthusiastic vote for your career as a real composer.

All the best as always,

Russell

Dear Mr. Bernstein,

I hope that you will not regard this letter as interference, but I felt that I had to write to you about Mr. Wobisch.

I first heard from John Culshaw
¹⁵²
about the reports in the Vienna Press concerning you and Wobisch. Two days later Wobisch telephoned me about another matter, at the end of the conversation he told me more about the reports and how very distressed he was about them. Afterwards, I felt that without wanting to interfere in a matter which does not concern me at all, I had to write to you for purely human reasons.

As another Jewish conductor, I understand your feelings surely better than anyone else. If somebody, after the Nazi horrors, does not want to work with a German or Austrian orchestra, as is the case with several Jewish artists, I understand only too well. I have been through great soul searching in the past about this, and several times have been on the verge of breaking contact with them. But finally I always had the conviction that one must forgive the past and try to work to help and educate the younger generation in these orchestras.

I am aware of Wobisch's political past, as surely you were before you went to Vienna. However, working with him and knowing him for the past ten years, I have come to the conviction that despite everything he is probably one of the few trustworthy members of that orchestra.

Wobisch worked very hard to bring you to Vienna and to prepare your appearances and successes there; I even heard from Mr. Rosengarten of Decca that Wobisch went as far as threatening to change the orchestra's contract from Decca to Deutsche Grammophon unless they were released to make
Rosenkavalier
with you. As you will know by now this involved the postponement of my own recording of the opera with the orchestra, which should be enough indication of my real neutrality in this issue.

If Wobisch should have to resign as a result of this controversy with you, I am convinced that not only would this be bad for the orchestra, but that both you and I might well find any replacement totally unacceptable for political and human reasons.

I hope that these few lines may have helped in some way.

With kindest regards,

Yours sincerely,

Georg Solti