Chapter & Verse

MONTAGE and as the volume proceeds into the 1950s, and the composer Aaron Copland. stitute of Music with a master’s degree in a dizzyingly packed performance schedule Bernstein struggled with Harvard’s conducting. Two years later, Bernstein was and easy access to the telephone take a toll: music department, which was then quite appointed assistant conductor of the New the letters grow short, with major gaps in conservative. “[Tillman] Merritt hates York Philharmonic and wrote a beguil- time, and they yield a less coherent story. me, but Mother loves me. [Walter] Piston ing account of his ineffectual negotiations As a result, the first half of the book pro- doubts me, but Copland encourages me,” with Arthur Judson, the Philharmonic’s vides the most gratifying experience for he lamented in 1938 to Kenneth Ehrman, a powerful manager, in a letter to his men- the reader. Yet there are gems from the later friend from Eliot House. “I hate the Har- tor Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the years as well, especially in Bernstein’s long vard Music Department. You can quote Boston Symphony Orchestra. “Believe me, and loving correspondence with his wife. that…. I hate it because it is stupid & high- I tried very hard to feel like Koussevitzky Bernstein’s undergraduate experience schoolish and ‘disciplinary’ and prim and while I was in the Judson office,” the young at Harvard is chronicled vividly. Writing foolish and academic and stolid and fussy.” musician declared, “but I was only Leonard in 1937 to Sid Ramin, a childhood friend Yet Bernstein already had a knack for seiz- Bernstein, and I had to act as I did.” That from Roxbury who later became the or- ing the limelight, which trumped his frus- same fall, he described his modest apart- chestrator of West Side Story, he described trations. “I’ve graduated with a bang,” he ment in the Carnegie Hall studios, which how to reach his room in Eliot House from reported in another letter to Ehr man. “An at that point had no furniture. “My shirts the Harvard Square T stop. Walk down incredible A in the Government course, are all in suitcases,” he reported to his Dunster Street “as far as you can,” Bernstein and a cum laude. A great class day skit friend Renée Longy Miquelle, director of directed Ramin. “Go to G (gee) entry, walk which I performed to a roaring crowd the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, up to Room 41 (all doors are marked) and through a mike, and got in some parting which had been founded by her father. knock vigorously. Voilà.” Even at this early cracks…at the old school and its officials.” Within a few months of signing a contract date, a solid network of personal relation- By his early twenties, Bernstein was with the Philharmonic—while still living ships was in place, whether with child- still a kid in many ways, yet on the verge out of a suitcase—Bernstein famously sub- hood friends like Ramin, Beatrice Gordon, of becoming a household name. “I bruised stituted for Bruno Walter and made such a or Mildred Spiegel; the piano teacher Hel- my metacarpal (!) playing baseball this af- splash that he inspired a rave review on the en Coates (who later became Bernstein’s ternoon. All of which makes good for con- front page of the The New York Times. lifelong personal assistant); or a growing certo-playing the 25th!” he wrote in 1941 to Correspondence with Aaron Copland number of professional musicians, includ- Shirley Gabis, a close friend from Philadel- threads through the book, starting with ing the conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos phia, as he graduated from the Curtis In- Bernstein’s Harvard years. An intense ro- mantic liaison existed alongside a reward- ing professional partnership. “What terri- fying letters you write,” declared Copland C hapter & Verse in 1940, “fit for the flames is what they Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words are.” Those letters also chronicle the degree to which Bernstein served as a central advocate for Copland’s music, conduct- Thomas Gutheil seeks the name “of a vile world?/ When my body and soul ing it around the world and eventually (regrettably not recent) science-fiction fade away/ and the night of death sets programming it frequently with the Phil- story in which it is proposed that cancers in,/ you are yet my life.// Happy the man harmonic. In 1947, as part of an important exert psychological as well as physical who carries Jesus/ Deep in the chamber series of postwar concerts that helped re- damage and the physician has to enter of his heart!/ He will have fulfillment,/ open transatlantic musical networks, Ber- into essentially telepathic contact with He will lack no treasure,/ So long as he nstein conducted the European premiere the patient to combat this.” finds shelter and protection/ In God the of Copland’s Third Symphony in Prague Lord.” with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Robert Kemp would like to learn the “First I must say it’s a wonderful work,” he origin of an expression frequently used by Eliot Kieval asks when the late Pete reported to Copland. “Coming to know it his father: “Such is life in a large city with Seeger ’40 first emblazoned on his ban- so much better I find in it new lights and many inhabitants.” jo the declaration, “This machine sur- shades—and new faults,” launching an rounds hate and forces it to surrender,” audacious critique. “Sweetie, the end is a Bill Hopkins hopes someone can iden- and whether that saying was original with sin. You’ve got to change….We must talk – tify this prayer: “Lord, if only I have you,/ him or derived in part or in whole from about the whole last movement, in fact.” I make no demands of Heaven and Earth./ someone else. As time passed, the emotional intensity of When my body and soul fade away,/ You, Bernstein’s correspondence with Copland God, are ever my heart’s comfort, and Send inquiries and answers to “Chapter dimmed, even as the fundamental tie re- my portion.// When I have you, Lord Je- and Verse,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware mained strong. Yet there were ambivalenc- sus,/ What should I ask of Heaven?/ How Street, Cambridge 02138, or via e-mail es on both sides. When Felicia Bernstein could I find delight/ in the turmoil of this to [email protected]. died of cancer in 1978—a loss from which Bernstein never fully recovered—Cop- 68 May - June 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746.

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