The Leonard Bernstein Letters (15 page)

Dear L,

All terribly dramatic wasn't it? I felt so sorry that your vacashe turned out so hectic. I'll be curious to hear the full story of the last night and day (I got a message to call 511 – Mr. Green – never dreaming you were there – and I just waited too late before taking the pain to call.

I'll be down on Monday. I'll take the one o'clock train. Will you be home after 2:30? If so we can have an hour together before I start my duties: Around 3:30 at the Free Library, at 5 for interviews, and at 7 for dinner at the Art Alliance. (Ain't it awful.) I won't be staying over – so may I use your room as a place to change in?

Heinsheimer says the proofs of
El Salón
are being sent me – so I may bring them with me if there are any changes needed.

I feel even closer to you after all that's happened.

Love,

A

Dear Helen,

Forgive me for not writing sooner – I have been in a messy state of mind. Last Saturday I lost one of my closest friends – Alfred Eisner. I'm sure you remember him as my roommate for two years. A malignant tumor on the brain – and it was all over. Just as he was about to reach the top – with the world before him, wonderful jobs in his hands, and 24 years old. I've been completely numb ever since: something seems to die in you, & refuses to accept a fact as cruel and unjust as that. Coming so soon after the death of David Prall, it makes me very leery of world values – so much so that at the present I find it difficult to consider anything important.

Please write soon – I know you will understand the brevity of this letter.

Love,

Lenny

Lenny dear,

I found your letter here less than an hour ago but I'm so shocked over the death of your close friend, Alfred Eisner, that I must write you at once. My heart goes out to you in the tragic loss of your very good friend, and I grieve to think that such a brilliant young person should be taken from this world. Tho I never met him, I, of course, do remember him as your roommate, and often heard you speak of him. And then when we had dinner together in New York in late November, you went on that evening to the hospital to see him. I never thought to inquire of him afterward as at the time you thought he had some sort of a throat infection, nothing serious.

Death is appalling enough at any time (except in the cases of very old people or those who are seriously incapacitated) but at your age the death of anyone so close to you strikes a particularly hard blow. I feel the keenest sympathy for you, for I had so many experiences, beginning when I was just a little older than you, that just knocked all support from under me and very nearly disillusioned me completely. All sense of values goes, and as you say, you “find it difficult to consider anything important.” There's nothing very encouraging I can say to you at such a time. Each one has to battle his own way thru the fog and find something to hold on to. I can tell you this however: that, as one gets older, the blows from any tragic experience seem to strike a little less deeply. I suppose one's senses are not quite so keen, and one's emotional nature not so easily unbalanced.

It is cruel that you have lost two such wonderful friends in so short a time. Last week in N.Y. I saw a friend from the west whom I hadn't seen for 10 years – and discovered to my amazement that he and his twin brother (whom I did not see that day) were old and very good friends of David Prall. Robert and Frederick Schlick (from Portland, Oregon) graduated from the Univ. of California and studied there with David Prall. They were very good friends – often went together to Carmel to stay with other friends. Later when the twins were in Paris and David Prall was at Oxford, he went over to stay with them in Paris. I'd like so much to have you and the Schlick twins know each other. (Their mother and my mother are very old friends, and were friends before I was born.) Frederick is a playwright. He's had one play produced on Broadway a number of years ago,
⁹⁹
and he's been writing for Paramount. Robert is a poet and has a very unique plan about his life's work.
¹⁰⁰

If you and I can hit upon another weekend in N.Y. this winter (they are there just for 4 months) I'll arrange to have you meet them (they're just 35).

Phila. must have seemed particularly gloomy after such a tragic personal experience. Somehow, I hate to have you come so close to tragedy. I'd like to protect you from such heartbreaks and disillusionment. But, unfortunately, no matter how fond we are of another, we cannot do that for anyone. The only solace I've ever found when the world looked so black I didn't see how I'd ever go on, was
work
and
more work
, and –
the passing of time
which somehow eases the keen edge of suffering.

Write me soon.

Much love,

Helen

Aaron, best of all,

Please don't think of me as a fool – I was just knocked out by the death of my friend: I didn't quite know what I was doing. I tried to get you on your return from Allentown, but apparently you didn't revisit the loft or the hotel.

I'm back, and suffering. I can't tell you how numb I feel. As if part of me had died, refusing to accept the fact. The phenomenon of music on the brain, which has always been with me (you know that) has stopped. I have no tune to sing. My head feels like dry, brown, cracking wood. I took a piano lesson tonight, & having nothing to play, did the
Variations
,
¹⁰¹
badly, & Vengerova didn't like them. Thursday night will be good. Strange – they seem like a different piece now. I see them more in formal outline.

How was the Whittemore & Lowe affair?
¹⁰²

I'm sending a pseudo-bill to Boosey.

Let me know when you arrive in Philly.

Heard Serkin in dull Reger tonight.

Saw my 16-yr-old girl
¹⁰³
– I don't know.

Much love, & apology,

Lenny

P.S. Just got yr. letter – of course I'll be on hand after 2.30 Monday. Just taxi up to the door. And you can change or anything else you want to do here (I can't decide whether to come to NYC Sunday next).

Dear Leonard,

The Stravinsky last Saturday was very swell; I want you to know how much I appreciated it, as well as the tremendous concert a week earlier. I would have written sooner, but I have been in the process of moving. I am now living in Brooklyn Heights, which is the nicest part of the city. It seems completely dominated by the bridge, the river with the endless chain of boats, and nice old streets, very quiet and full of nostalgia. I don't know why I sound so dopey. Perhaps it's because I'm freezing in this new house which is marvellous. Auden, Geo. Davis, Gypsy Rose Lee, Benj. Brittle
¹⁰⁵
live here. Miss Lee has since vacated. I think perhaps Paul and Jane [Bowles] will move in. I have two rooms, no furniture, and lots of nice drawings on the walls, a Picasso, several Bérards, a Chirico, and a Smith. Downstairs are empty rooms with rat holes, an enormous piano – I think you would sound very well on it – and books. The atmosphere is completely surrealist. I enjoyed meeting you very much, and I hope I will see you again some time.

Sincerely,

Oliver Smith

Dear A,

There's a good chance of my doing
Quiet City
at a
private
concert here on Feb. 20. I want very much to do it. (Orch. from Curtis.) How much wd. we have to pay, if any? Could I get the parts & score before Feb. 18? Trumpet part sooner? Please make it go thru –

Lenny

Write writeaway

Dear L,

Heinsheimer says you can have
Quiet City
. Write to him direct. I forgot to ask him whether there would be any charge. The proofs of the score are to be ready Monday. I have a sort of a trumpet part I could let you have. OK?

Just finished
Billy
!! Mills was a big help.

El Saloon
is being held up on account of they say they want a picture on the cover.

Outdoor Overture
is being done today in Manchester by the London Philharmonic – Germans permitting.

I
still
think on you lada dia.

See you Thursday.

A

“Unless love is love is love love?” Paul Frederic Bowles.

Ken,

What's happened to you? You have a most unnerving way of dropping out of people's lives. If you live, reply!

There's much to write, but I'm taking no chances with disappearers. Reply, reply, softly, and with brittle brads.
¹⁰⁶

I've just earned a small but cozy nest-egg & am thinking
O so seriously
of an exotic trip in May – Mexico or Cuba, or maybe Palo Alto. Why don't you come with me? Please. Almost anywhere you say. Costa Rica. Guatemala. Reply, reply, gravely and with Jesuit joy.

I can't make myself say any more until I hear from you, embodied and calm.

A more than ludicrous transition, but I take it you've been informed of the wretched and tragic death of Al Eisner. Not another word about it. You understand.

Please write immediately if you can. And keep that trip seriously in mind.

Always the best,

Lenny

Dear Lenny,

Please forgive the lateness of this – but I have been working all days & nights for the last three weeks on the score of the operetta
¹⁰⁸
& I haven't had a moment for letters.

I was very, very pleased that you liked the
Sinf
[
onia
]
da Req
[
uiem
].
¹⁰⁹
Judging by your remarks you certainly “got” what I wrote, & it was extremely nice of you to take the trouble to write & say so. I am sure that it's the “best so far” – and as it's the last, that is as it should be. I might argue with you about one or two of your remarks about my earlier masterpieces – but may be there is something in what you say. The only thing is, may be those particular vices are less vicious than some others I can think of – such as inhibitions, sterility, self-conscious ideas of originality – but we won't go into that now!

How are you? I saw you were conducting on the radio on Saturday – how did it go? When do you come to New York? I shall be around until June 1st or thereabouts. Give me a call when you get here. How are your chamber concerts going? As you probably know, the Bowlesesses departed for Mexico.

The operetta is chaotic. [Max] Goberman is not doing it – Hugh Ross has taken it over – & although he has the right mentality for training choruses (entre nous) he is not so hot on orchestras. However – we shall see.

Thank you again for your note. You ask how the others liked the symphony – all the ones I respect were pleased – including Aaron, Chávez, Colin [McPhee], Lincoln [Kirstein] et. all –

Best of luck,

Yours ever,

Benjy B

Hello, you Galatea!

Time out (2 minutes) from orchestrating music for a Harvard production of
The Peace
of Aristophanes (a new headache I've contracted). My hand is numb from writing score; & to make matters worse, I bruised my metacarpal (!) playing baseball this afternoon. All of which makes good for concerto-playing the 25th! To say nothing of Scriabine-playing the 17th. And conducting the
Peace
music the 23rd & 24th. Life, dear one, is hectic plus – I really need your steadying hand on mine now. It's amazing to look back & see that it really was a steadying hand. Phenomenal effect for an adolescent Galatea to have! But then, you're you.

Of course Bill [Saputelli]
¹¹¹
has told you of our Atlantic City escapade (mostly gabbing with Curtisites). And now you're doing algebra, & going to Ivy Balls […] & putting your hair up and down according to your escort, & eating chez Saputelli, – I've completely left your mind. See? I told you so.

But make an effort anyway, & write me all – a bright moment of letter-opening in all this muddle of a bustle. And darling, take care of yourself.

All my love, to split with Rae.
¹¹²

Lenny.

Isn't it daring to do
The Peace
at a time like this? I love it – the music is good too.
¹¹³

Sweets,

It's all over & I breathe again. Quel week! The Greek show brought the house down both nights & my score was universally beloved. But at the price of awaking on Concerto day with a fine feverish cold. Hence the concerti were under par, but very exciting. Good reviews, too. Vital, vastly impressive, etc. But could have been perfect but for that damned fever.

Now I'm home nursing this lovely cold, sort of good-for-nothing & let down. No trip for me, I think – I'll spend the dough on records, raquets & phonographs. God, it's good to be home.

When do you graduate? Or do you?

Miquelle came for the concert – in fact she's dropping round this afternoon, as one might expect.

All kinds of congrats to Mel & Dot. May they grow fine grapes together.

Nothing now 'til Tanglewood; & I plan to go up next week to […] see Kouss. Will you be up this summer?

I think I'll write an orchestral piece.

Have you read Henry James? Read
The Turn of the Screw
, one of 2 stories in a book called
The Two Magics.

Write soon.

Love,

Lenny