Montage and as the volume proceeds into the 1950s, and the composer . 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 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 , 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 Ehr­man. “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 de- gree 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