Music Theatre of Lenny
How 25-year-old American jew changed the music world
This article originally appeared on Bravissimo magazine in September 2019, on 15min.lt, and in the booklet for the performances of Candide at Lithuanian National Opera in 2019–2020 season (in both English and Lithuanian).
The U.S. in the 1940s, a country where Leonard Bernstein belonged to. A place for dreams, a place for fears. Also a Wartime. America which had a great music culture, and yet not a single American conductor.
“What should I do?” The young musician asked his mentor, Russian-born music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Serge Koussevitzky.
“You should conduct.”
Lenny felt uncertain. How can he? What does it actually mean?
A few years later Leonard Bernstein is sitting in front of his teacher, and dearest friend — another great conductor — Greek Dimitri Mitropoulos.
“I want to talk about a very unpleasant thing, Lenny — antisemitism.”
Bernstein knew this word firsthand, being a child, he was many times beaten by Irish boys for being a jew.
Maestro was truly worried about his beloved student’s future.
“That will never happen, no matter how talented you are, that a conductor called Leonard Bernstein will conduct on the stage of Carnegie Hall.”
In a cold evening of November 14, 1943, at the Carnegie Hall, the emcee announced guest conductor Bruno Walter came down with the flu. He would be replaced with young conductor Leonard Bernstein. People groaned. The sound of disappointment would be the last moment 25 years old Lenny could remember until he finished the concert and turned to the audience, to see the entire Carnegie Hall standing, screaming and cheering the conductor.
“More than anything in the world, even more than music, I love People.”
That night with New York Philharmonic won for the young musician not just peoples hearts. It was also highly acclaimed by critics. And it was transmitted on radio across the country. Thousands of people were listening to the young conductor and falling in love. Their reaction and the wide acceptance he received instantly taught him never to underestimate the value of accessibility of his art.
“He is a man of Renaissance,” many friends said, “he never chooses one direction”. So he conducted, gave lectures, wrote, and composed. He sang, even if he couldn’t sing. Friends rated his voice in diapason from “creaking door” to “just horrible”, but he enjoyed singing in public, during his TV educational program.
In the 1950’s he already conducted every important orchestra in America, and also in Europe. In 1954 he was a principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic and he was asked to lead “Young People’s Concert”. Bernstein insisted the concerts be televised. He became a well-known figure in the United States and kids loved him a lot. You cannot find a single American conductor who hadn’t watched the program. To attend the live concert was a wish from letters to Santa Claus.
— I want to be loved by the whole world.
— But this is not possible.
— This is my tragedy.
He asked himself, what could he do more? To involve more people, to get them deeper into the musical theatre, to educate, to entertain them. He traveled and performed a lot. He conducted, lectured, and wrote music, being active for 20 hours a day and more. Bernstein suffered terrible insomnia. That was his blessing and his curse. He lived a day life, then he just continued every night.
He was very self-critical and tried to collect the best and the most acceptable from the music in his own compositions. Lecturing on Mahler, he once asked, how does a composer, moreover being a conductor, could be absolutely original, never borrowing from different styles? So his eclectic compositions fused elements of jazz, Jewish music, opera, early music, and modern popular songs.
He never felt separated from the global world of music. On the stage in Carnegie Hall back in the 1960s, conductor Leonard Bernstein challenged his young audience:
“Do you know what’s Mixolydian mode?”
Silence.
“The whole rock’n’roll is based on it,” and then he played some classics of Beatles on his piano. The public immersed in delight.
“I love the moment especially in American music when popular and serious music blend and Bernstein was an epitome of this because he not only could bridge that gap and break down the barriers, but he could also do it in the way that was extraordinarily skillful and yet very acceptable,” — one of his friends musicians noticed.
He wanted people to love music, with no rules, with no boundaries, with no regrets. It was so easy for him to love, and he felt that easiness was the way to people’s hearts. Let’s tell the story of Romeo and Juliet in New York’s blocks — so they can reflect. Let’s play a symphony to anxiety — we all feel it. Let’s bring the opera to our everyday life — let’s bring our everyday problems to the opera. Reserve a place for classical music in your heart, don’t call it classical if you don’t feel like this. Do you like musicals more?
He was making a difference for people. Would you like to attend a symphony concert? Would you like to attend Bernstein’s concert? He was teaching, learning, conveying, showing up. Winning hearts. People came to laugh and to cry with Leonard Bernstein.
And still, he remained true to himself and the fun he spread around was the exact right amount of fun for him. And his other side was craving for new. He always pushed the boundaries. As his favorite composer, Gustav Mahler did. Bernstein was always afraid that people didn’t understand Mahler’s genius, that they underestimated his music. Not the audience, but even musicians. He took this injustice very personal.
He was in Vienna, rehearsing Mahler’s 9 with the Wiener Philharmoniker. His was cheering the orchestra, lecturing them on the emotions underneath this piece. Hours later he was already shouting. “He was YOUR NATIVE! He was breathing this air!” Musicians seemed to resist Mahler’s 9. Hours. Days. And here they were. Finishing the symphony. The conductor wiped tears with a sleeve and kept conducting. By the end, he was on his knees. “Thank you,” he said without raising his head, utterly exhausted, “Thank you so much.”
Cheering kids at his concerts, writing and rewriting his operas, musicals, symphonies, conducting the most acclaimed orchestras across the globe, teaching young musicians, writing relevant articles and tender letters, singing songs, supporting festivals — with every beat of his heart Leonard Bernstein was changing the world of music for all of us. And maybe his contribution is not that easy to notice. But it’s only because there’s actually nothing left untouched by the genius of a Jewish boy, who wanted to be loved by the entire world and did not lose, as he chose the music as a key to people’s hearts.
