The Leonard Bernstein Letters (82 page)

Leonard,

On one of your children's concerts I would love to conduct my version of the Haydn Toy Symphony which runs seven minutes. My salary to go to Musicians Aid Soc of N.Y. I have done the symphony on several occasions & most recently with the Philadelphia Symphony using little children to play the toy instruments in the last part. I will be in New York February 14 for two weeks – do you think you could set it up for that time?

Darling Hilee,

This is the first second I've had to write in months. I've been trying to call you for days to “be” with you at the death of Marc:
¹²²
but no answer, no answer. I called you from Paris (en route home from Israel, having just been told that our plane
would
stop in London) and then again from the London airport, but no answer, no for an answer. And the wretched luck was that my plane
to
Israel decided
not
to stop in London. And so on, for bad communications.

It's an open season on Kaddish, all right. The President. Marc. I take it you've read substantially what we've read: first an auto accident; then a new story about being beaten by three sailors; then the blessed word
robbery
reiterated by the Consul in Martinique, & now by the police.

We pray the story gets no murkier – or should I say clearer? We are all shocked and miserable, as you must be, & I wish we could be together, at last, at last.

The
Kaddish
itself gets its comeuppance in Boston this week, Friday the 31st. I wish you could be there. It will be a regular reunion: B[urton] B[ernstein]'s birthday and all. Felicia is there already, rehearsing. I'm staying out of it 'til the last minute: Münch is in love with the piece, but scared witless, & can't beat it (7/8, etc.) the chorus … Jenny T … oy. Maybe you're wise to miss it.

Marc is dead, & I've lost an arm. Felicia can't stop crying. Come home, darling Shirley – we want you with us! It's been far too long, too many distances, interruptions, silences. Please come home.

I love you as always –

L

Do you realize we have loved Marc for 25 years?

Kaddish
: they loved it in Tel-Aviv, but it may never go in English. I'm nervous.

Dear Lennie,

I couldn't get you by phone to tell you several things.

In the first place, yesterday's performance of the
Eroica
was undoubtedly the best, the most exciting and the most moving that I have ever heard. Frankly I had not expected to stay tuned in after the Varèse. You wouldn't let me get back to work.

I wanted to speak to you about Marc. Actually, you two were so close, I felt the need of making a condolence call. Schuyler Chapin tells me that you and Dave Oppenheim are planning a memorial program this spring. Of course this is wonderful, and I am wondering whether you could consider doing one or two pieces from
Sacco-Vanzetti
.
¹²³
And here, I keep wondering whether Marc finished the vocal score. In my last conversation with him – just one year ago this month – I gathered that mostly it was done. If this is the case, could not the work be completed and orchestrated by another? If this is a possibility, I am very much afraid that you are the only one who can do it. It's a thought.

And mostly, I called to wish you with all affection a stunning success with the new work this week.
¹²⁴

Yours,

Bill

Dear Dr. Bernstein,

This is splendid news! I am indeed delighted to hear that you will write something for our Festival. It will be a great privilege for us all and I can assure you that everyone will do their utmost to do justice to the work.

Yes, by all means change from the second Psalm to something more familiar if you wish. We shall be very happy to leave it to you. And as regards the time, of course, we must leave this also to you: but the joint Festival with Winchester and Salisbury goes in rotation and so is only held here once in three years. It is to be held here at the end of July, 1965, and so as you can well imagine we are very much hoping that it may be possible to perform the work then. I shall be sad for it to receive its premier[e] elsewhere! However, I am so proud and pleased that you will write something for us that it would be unfair and presumptuous to try and press further.

I will try to send you within a few days particulars as to the sort of numbers that will be available in the combined choirs, in case this should be of any assistance to you. Please let me know if there is anything further I can do.

Again, my warmest thanks,

Yours sincerely,

Walter Hussey

Dear Dr. Bernstein,

We are all tremendously looking forward to the setting of the second Psalm which you kindly said you would write for us for our three Choirs Festival next year.

This year's festival has just taken place at Salisbury and I thought perhaps you would be interested to see what has been happening, so I am sending you a copy of the programme. A tremendous lot of people turned up and it proved very successful – I think the performance of Britten's
Cantata Misericordium
was quite outstanding.

Our Choirmaster and Organist has given me one or two particulars which he thinks might be helpful to you. The string orchestra will probably be the Philomusica of London, a first rate group. In addition, there could be a piano, chamber organ, harpsichord and, if desired, a brass consort (three trumpets, three trombones). It is not really possible to have a full symphony orchestra for
reasons of space and expense and the fact that the combined strength of the three cathedral choirs is about 70 to 74 (all boys and men).

The Festival was founded a good while ago, but then lapsed for about thirty years and has recently been re-started with great success. I think it has throughout its time been of great value to English church music as a means of hearing works of large scale, impossible for any single Cathedral choir, but I am certain it must also provide new works in new idioms to keep the tradition really alive. I hope you will feel quite free to write as you wish and will in no way feel inhibited by circumstances. I think many of us would be very delighted if there was a hint of
West Side Story
about the music. I hope you will not mind my writing like this, but I talked of it with Chuck Solomon
¹²⁵
when he was here recently, and he said I was certainly to say it to you.

Once again let me say how enormously grateful I am to you for saying that you will help us in this way. It will be exactly what I should wish for when the Festival is here at Chichester next year.

Yours sincerely,

Walter Hussey

Sonnet on receiving an honorary doctorate with Aaron Copland
¹²⁶

Much love,

L

Dear Dr. Bernstein,

I do apologize for burdening you with another letter. I have a horrid fear that you will be regarding me as an arch nuisance but I am most eager that we should have the work which you promised for our combined Choirs in time to learn it and rehearse it properly before the Festival. May I say again that I hope you will feel entirely free to write your setting exactly as you wish to. I hope you would not, at any rate on our behalf, feel any restrictions from the point of view of tradition or convention. The work would not be performed during any sort of religious service and I firmly believe that any work which is sincere can suitably be given in a cathedral and to the glory of God. No one feels more proud and grateful than I do of the tremendous value of the tradition of English Cathedral music, but I am sure that it is a very good thing for something like our Three Cathedrals Festival to have a sharp and vigorous push into the middle of the 20th century, and if you should feel inclined to write something that would do this I am sure nobody could do it better and we should be most happy and grateful.

It would be a great help if I could know the title and description of the work within the next six weeks as our preliminary announcements and publications will be appearing very soon after that.

Again, do let me apologize if I seem tiresomely importunate, but Chuck Solomon assures me that we shall get the work and I am most anxious that we should have it in time to prepare it properly. The prospect is a tremendous thrill to us all. I can assure you that the musicians will do their utmost to do [it] full justice, and I do not believe they will fail. I am more grateful to you than I can possibly say.

I do not suppose there is any chance of your being in England at the end of July? We should of course be delighted to welcome you to Chichester and I believe that in the place itself and the Festival Theatre as well as the Music Festival you would find much to enjoy.

With all good wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Walter Hussey

Dear Mary,

I just found a most moving note from you, dated a year ago, apropos the assassination [Letter 489]. In all the grief of those days a lot of mail went unanswered. But this one cannot go unanswered. Thank you, you dear girl, and irreplaceable assistant!

Love,

L

(If you haven't been a “children's expert” heretofore, you sure will be after the new one. Have a good one!)

Dear Dd,

Finally the date is settled for your celebration – the week of 25 April, '66, concerts on 28th, 29th, 30th and 2 May. I had planned for you to conduct the
Rounds
and the Piano Concerto (for which Schumacher is already engaged); but having since received the 5th Symphony, which I find your absolute
best
to date, I will take the occasion to open the program with it myself (sorry to
do you out of one conducting stint) – and then you can conduct the concerto with T[homas] S[chumacher]. I'm delighted and hope that you are. (The program will probably close with a staple – Sibelius #1 or something.
¹²⁷
The whole year is devoted to a survey of the symphony in the 20th century, including all 7 of Sibelius, owing to his centenary. And that's another reason for doing your 5th instead of the
Rounds
. There'll also be some others you'll love – Vaughan Williams #4, Aaron #3, Nielsen #3, Bartók 2-pno Concerto, & Webern Op. 20, Mahler #7, #8 & #9! A big year, a lot of work: I look forward to it.)

What are you doing in Florence? What has happened to the Iron Curtain trip? Last I heard, you were in Copenhagen.

You've probably heard about the collapse of
Skin of Our Teeth
: a dreadful experience, the wounds still smarting. I am suddenly a composer without a
project, with half of that golden sabbatical down the drain. Never mind, I'll survive.
¹²⁸

Good news about Aspen. But the best news is the 5th Symphony. I have the “waves” in the first part, and the end particularly. The fugue is a killer. I hereby accept the dedication with due formal ceremony and much affection.

L

Dear Dr. Bernstein,

I am very sorry to bother you with another letter and I do not want to seem impatient, but I am constantly being pressed by the Organist and Choirmaster for particulars as to title etc. of the work which you most kindly said you would write for us. He is directing the Three Choirs Festival and has got to get his publicity out and tells me that it cannot be held up any longer. I am sure you will understand.

He also tells me that the music has to be printed and then circulated to the three choirs to practice individually before they come together for common rehearsals. I am sure you are conscious of all this and please do not think me impatient; but your work would of course be the highlight of the Festival and all of us are most anxious that it should be done as well as we can possibly manage.

Again, my apologies for bothering you with a tiresome letter.

Yours sincerely,

Walter Hussey

My dear Dean Hussey,

I was on the verge of writing you a sad letter saying that I could not find in me the work for your Festival when suddenly a conception occurred to me that I find exciting. It would be a suite of Psalms, or selected verses from Psalms, and would have a general title like
Psalms of Youth
. The music is all very forthright, songful, rhythmic, youthful. The only hitch is this: I can think of these Psalms only in the original Hebrew. I realize that this may present extra difficulties of preparation; but more important, does it present difficulties of an ecclesiastical nature? That is, are there no objections, in principle, to Hebrew being sung in your Cathedral? If not, do let me know soon, so that I may plunge ahead, and have a working score for you by early April. The orchestration would follow a month or so thereafter.

If there
are
objections I should also know soon, for obvious reasons. I would be sad, but I would understand.

Faithfully yours,

Leonard Bernstein

P.S. The Psalms involved would be:

Nos. 23, 100 and 131, complete;

No. 2, vs. 1–4; No. 108, vs. 3; No. 133, vs. 1.
¹²⁹