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Dinner With Lenny: The Last Long Interview With Leonard Bernstein (2013)

by Jonathan Cott(Favorite Author)

4.27 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0199858446 (ISBN13: 9780199858446)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

review 1: Light and delightful reading. Though I don't believe I followed Leonard Bernstein that closely when he was alive and never saw him in person, much less had dinner with him or read much about him, I've decided that I like him a lot as a person as well as a genius in the world of music. I don't think I could ever be a friend as his manner (as conveyed by author Jonathan Cott) is a little too frenetic and emotional for me to be able to manage for long. One might even wonder if he would, in today's society, be found somewhere on the Asperger's spectrum. I believe he's portrayed fairly in this interview/book in that several of Bernstein's comments, blurts, philosophizing, and even tirades are balanced by those of the the author, Cott. All in a fun-to-read, insightful style.... more "Lenny" as those close friends would refer to him was light a candle burning at both ends- intense in every sense of the word. But unlike Edna St.Vincent Millay's candle which she knew wouldn't last the night, we were all fortunate enough for him to be giving off "lovely light" for at least 72 years. The older I get, the younger 72 seems to be, but from my first introduction to Bernstein in about 5th grade through music appreciation classes in school and his televised series of Young People's Concerts up to my reading this last long interview, I've admired him, his work, and his absolute love of music and all the arts. He passed that feeling on to me. The arts make you _feel_ things and sense them in special ways. Jonathan Cott beautifully captures that spirit of Bernstein during his Dinner with Lenny.
review 2: This is a book, sub-titled “The Last Long Interview with Leonard Bernstein,” that is slight in size only, but which provides hefty and fascinating insight into the mind of the internationally renowned “Lenny” Bernstein, brilliant conductor, composer of orchestral works as well as legendary musical scores for Broadway, including On the Town, Wonderful Town, and West Side Story, and gave innumerable Young People’s Concerts at Carnegie Hall.The author conducted a twelve-hour interview at Bernstein’s country home in Fairfield, Connecticut in November of 1989, not long after his 71st birthday – he passed away less than a year later. The book opens, fittingly, with a Prelude, and concludes with a Postlude, in which the author discusses his subject, with many details of his career, e.g., it was on his 25th birthday that he was appointed the conducting assistant to Artur Rodzinski, then the music director of the NY Philharmonic, who told the young man that he had “gone through all the conductors I know of in my mind and I finally asked God whom I should take, and God said, “Take Bernstein.” Three months later, he made his “legendary conductorial debut with the New York Philharmonic substituting for an ailing Bruno Walter on only a few hours’ notice at a Sunday afternoon Carnegie Hall concert on November 14, 1943.”Bernstein states that he “was fourteen when I attended my first concert, and it was a revelation. It was a Boston Pops benefit for my father’s temple - - he had to go because he was vice-president of the temple.” He did jazz gigs as well as weddings and bar mitzvahs to defray the cost of his piano lessons. There is discussion on Freud; the family seders; political references, e.g., Bernstein was blacklisted for years and the FBI had a file on him 700 pages thick, and the fact that he made the front page of the NY Times and Washington Post - - which included his picture, he was quick to note - - when he refused to attend the White House luncheon awards ceremony given by President Bush; gave six lectures at Harvard University in 1973; famously took the all-Catholic Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, whose players didn’t know what a Jew was before he conducted them, to Israel; among many other anecdotes. Bernstein’s enthusiasm, erudition and brilliance shine through these pages. This is a book to be savored by musicians and non-musicians alike, and is highly recommended. less

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