Tag Archives: Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein & An American Introduction to The Gay Arts

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Leonard Bernstein’s life and dreams of music direction were supported by his talent, utter extroversion, and thoughtfulness. Bernstein however faced three points of potential controversy against himself, being a Jewish-American homosexual. While Bernstein couldn’t hide his Jewish-American heritage in a widely European and at times anti-semitic music scene, he did certainly try to hide his homosexuality. Bernstein didn’t want anything getting in the way of him and his dreams of musical direction, not even himself. And so, Bernstein went onto marry Felicia Montealegre on September 9, 19513, despite having relations to varying degrees with other composers of the time from Ned Rorem to Aaron Copland2. On the topic of his sexuality, known by his wife, she wrote thus:

“First: we are not committed to a life sentence — nothing is really irrevocable, not even marriage (though I used to think so).

Second: you are a homosexual and may never change — you don’t admit to the possibility of a double life, but if your peace of mind, your health, your whole nervous system depend on a certain sexual pattern what can you do?

Third: I am willing to accept you as you are, without being a martyr or sacrificing myself on the L.B. altar.”1

Bernstein makes less discrete nods to his sexuality in his compositions. Junior from A Quiet Place (1983) is engaged in a same-sex relationship with Francois, as is Maximillian with several partners in Candide (1956).

9780634056093: Glitter and Be Gay from Candide: Scottish Opera Edition (Scottish Opera Editions)

Bernstein’s “Glitter And Be Gay” from Candide

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Bernstein, although shaded in many respects, made the first few modern attempts at incorporating the LGBTQ’s voice into music. As a member of the LGBTQ community, I am grateful that I feel I can express myself freely in the musical culture I am surrounded in- and part of that is because of the path that Bernstein paved. Since Bernstein we have had LGBTQ conductors and composers such as Pauline Oliveros, Marin Alsop, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. It is not an understatement to stay that in the modern culture of classical music Bernstein has solidified a place in the academy for openly LGBTQ musicians in spite of his reserved legacy concerning his sexuality.

Bernstein, Leonard. Leonard Bernstein Letters. Yale University Press, 2014.

Brandon Visetchaisri IU Southeast Student Conference April 22, 2021 …, scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/26363/Visetchaisri%202021%20Student%20Conference%20Presentation.pdf?sequence=1. Accessed 4 Nov. 2023.

“Felicia Montealegre Bernstein.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Nov. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicia_Montealegre_Bernstein.

 

Copland’s El Salón México

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This letter from Leonard Bernstein was sent to Aaron Copland in October of 1938. The letter was written in response to Copland’s El Salón México.

It is important to note the effect that Copland’s piece had on Bernstein and how it reflects views of music during the time. One of the first things that Bernstein mentions is how Copland’s music got stuck in his head. He is also able to easily notate the opening theme of El Salón México. This goes to show that Copland accomplished music writing that was simple enough to be remembered, and he incorporated themes that would recognizable.

Bernstein acknowledges that he admires Copland’s work and calls him a “master in America.” Copland’s simplified style of this time period is well-known as Copland’s own sound as well as an American sound. Copland was working to move contemporary composition from appealing to a select few towards appealing to the masses. It seems that Copland accomplished this with the success of El Salón México and other works. In fact, Elizabeth B. Crist argues that Copland’s El Salón México was able to project political ideologies onto the concert public.

Crist acknowledges that, the ideological dimensions of Copland’s works have been generally lost within the music’s enduring success, obscured by the legacy of anticommunist historiography and its formalist reification of art.” Bernstein focuses on Copland’s technique and the “solid sureness of that construction.” This makes me wonder more about Copland’s other non-musical intentions.

A recording of Leonard Bernstein conducting Copland’s El Salón México:

Sources

Crawford, Richard. America’s Musical Life. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.

Crist, Elizabeth B. “Aaron Copland and the Popular Front.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 56, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 409–465.

Pollack, Howard. “Copland, Aaron.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed November 7, 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/06422.

Simeone, Nigel, ed. The Leonard Bernstein Letters. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013.

Copland and Bernstein: two friends with diverging viewpoints on ‘American music’

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Copland and Bernstein working together

It is no secret that Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland were great friends. Even though I had heard this going into my research, I had no idea to what extent the level of mutual investment and encouragement was! I was astounded and quite honestly touched to find the amount of loving correspondence that I did between the two composers. While there are extensive works devoted to both of their respective correspondences, I was particularly interested in a letter written by Copland to Bernstein that addresses their different viewpoints on American music.

In this letter, written December 7, 1938, Copland writes Bernstein with advice on Bernstein’s senior thesis at Harvard, which explores nationalism in American composition. His thesis, completed in 1939, is entitled “The Absorption of Race Elements into American Music,” in which he proposes a new American nationalism — one that is defined by the way in which the composer blends their own heritage with “Negro” and “New England” musical traditions, as these form the “sociological backbone of the country.”1

1938 correspondence from Copland to Bernstein

In all of the correspondence I’ve read between the two, Copland shows his affection for Bernstein while also giving “grandfatherly advice,” as he calls it in this particular letter. His advice regarding Bernstein’s thesis in the letter at hand is as follows:

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because a Gilbert used Negro material, there was therefore nothing American about it. There’s always a chance it might have an ‘American’ quality despite its material.

This comment made me curious — what was Bernstein’s assertion about Gilbert, and who was this Gilbert anyway?

It turns out Henry F. Gilbert (1868-1928) was a composition student of Mcdowell’s, and was particularly interested in African-American music. Bernstein cites Gilbert’s Comedy Overture on Negro Themes and The Dance in the Place Congo in his thesis to make claims about American music. He asserts that these pieces contribute to the nationalistic process beginning in 1900, a process inspired by Dvorak’s New World Symphony, by engaging in artificial representation where “new indigenous materials were merely imposed upon an otherwise neutral kind of musical scheme.” Bernstein writes that despite Gilbert being a “sensitive and sound musician,” the way in which he incorporates ‘Negro’ material in his works is not American. 1
Here is a recording of Gilbert’s Comedy Overture on Negro Themes:

He complicates the definition of American music further when he categorizes the slow and lyrical sections of  the Comedy Overture on Negro Themes as European. He even writes that “There is no consequential development emerging inevitably from the thematic ideas themselves; there is no basic American “feeling.””1
So he is in fact defining American music by its sound, which leaves me rather confused. Copland rather encourages him to look beyond the material, demonstrating that Copland has a much broader view of American music. He remarks that:

Composing in this country is still pretty young no matter how you look at it.

Copland has open arms when it comes to American compositions — an attitude which Bernstein does not share at this point in his life.

Note: The two were 18 years apart but died just 2 months apart — Bernstein at 72 and Copland at 90.

Sources

  1. Bernstein, Findings. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982.
  2. Copland, Aaron. Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein, December 7, 1938. In The Selected Correspondence of Aaron Copland, edited by Elizabeth B Crist and Wayne Shirley. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2006.