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This Issue: Inside This Issue Irving Berlin’s Musical Theater
of War Performing Hawaiian by Kevin Fellezs Celebrating African American Art Song, conference reviews by Naomi André and Ann Sears |
The Bernstein in Boston by Paul R. Laird
Leonard Bernstein, Boston to Broadway, three days of a symposium and concerts at Harvard University on 12-14 October 2006, provided a full-bodied perspective on the famed American composer-conductor and his relationship with his hometown. Although often considered a quintessential New Yorker, Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts and grew up in Boston. Many know of his lifelong ties to the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood, but this festival showed how Bernstein’s study in area schools, his membership in Boston’s Jewish community, and his undergraduate days at Harvard College helped shape his future. Certainly the luminaries present—all three of the composer’s children, Jamie Bernstein, Alexander Bernstein, and Nina Bernstein Simmons, his brother Burton Bernstein, lyricist Sheldon Harnick, singer/actress Carol Lawrence, singer Marni Nixon, director/producer Harold Prince, and others—made the event more memorable, but the principal kudos go to the Harvard faculty members, offices, and students who brought off this event beautifully. Festival co-director Professor Carol J. Oja, along with Professor Kay Kaufman Shelemay, taught a seminar in spring 2006 on “Before West Side Story: Leonard Bernstein’s Boston”; research from that class was reported at the symposium. The Harvard graduate students who took the seminar, and others, were ubiquitous during the festival. Judith Clurman, director of choral activities at Juilliard, was festival co-director in charge of two concerts given by talented Harvard students. The opening session, moderated by Oja, presented the Bernstein family in conversation about their famous relative. Though little was said that might surprise a Bernstein specialist, it was fascinating to see interaction between four people who share Bernstein’s genes. Oja’s opening remarks described Bernstein’s relationship with Harvard and the seminar that helped launch the festival. The four Bernsteins spoke of the conductor’s sense of humor and how important laughing was and is in their family. Burton remembered when his brother first became famous in 1943-44, and they all spoke poignantly of Bernstein’s last Tanglewood concert in August 1990. There were clips from the film Leonard Bernstein: A Total Embrace, made and introduced by Nina Bernstein Simmons, and considerable talk about their mother, Felicia Bernstein. Anecdotes illuminated Bernstein’s lack of mechanical understanding, his love of word games (though Alexander reports that West Side Story lyricist Stephen Sondheim was better at them), Bernstein’s parenting style, and memorable concerts. The children remember how much fun it was when he was home composing, and all recalled Bernstein’s political activism. They described their parents’s separation in 1976, and their father’s love for Israel. Jamie revealed that her father keenly felt disappointment that more people did not understand his Mass of 1971, and Alexander provided the best quotation of the session: “Everything he ever composed he adored, and when he finished it was the best thing he had ever written, and maybe better than anyone else had ever written.” They also recalled that their father listened to all kinds of music and was offended when someone would listen to music while doing something else. The first evening concert, “Bernstein’s Boston,” included works that the composer heard and performed in his youth, including synagogue music, Copland’s Piano Variations, excerpts from The Mikado, The Cradle Will Rock, and Of Thee I Sing, Harold Shapero’s Sonata for Piano Four Hands, and juvenilia by Bernstein. A highlight was an uproarious version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for flute, clarinet, accordion, voices, ukelele, piano, and percussion that Bernstein apparently arranged for a summer camp in 1939. Friday’s schedule presented five plenary sessions, the first two emphasizing Bernstein’s Boston connections. Professor Shelemay moderated “Boston’s Bernstein: Jewish Identity and Community,” featuring Jewish historian Jonathan Sarna (Brandeis University), Harvard graduate student Sheryl Kaskowitz, and musicologist David Schiller (University of Georgia). Sarna described the Boston Jewish community of Bernstein’s youth and music at his temple, Mishvan Tefila. Kaskowitz, drawing from her seminar research, spoke on Bernstein’s work at Brandeis in the 1950s. Schiller looked at how Bernstein reflected Judaism and temple music in his symphonies, in addition to other influences. Discussion included questions about why Bernstein did not write more Jewish worship music. In response, Bernstein biographer Humphrey Burton suggested that the composer wrote the religious music he wanted in Mass and elsewhere, and told how Bernstein played organ for his wedding in an Anglican church in New York, insisting that the sanctuary be closed thirty minutes for his practice. Professor Oja moderated “Boston’s Bernstein: Musical and Educational Spheres.” Harvard doctoral student Ryan Raul Bañagale spoke about Bernstein and Rhapsody in Blue, including the 1939 arrangement that he found in the Library of Congress. Another Harvard student, Drew Massey, then described Bernstein’s participation in Harvard Student Union productions, a sign of his early political activism. Musicologist Geoffrey Block (University of Puget Sound) considered in detail Bernstein’s senior honor’s thesis on jazz and other African American elements in concert music. Harvard graduate student Emily Abrams Ansari interviewed composer Harold Shapero and orchestrator and musical producer Sid Ramin, both of whom knew the young Bernstein. They described Bernstein as a consummate musician and fun-loving friend, while also dropping fascinating tidbits about his favorite 1930s jazz and what it was like to study and perform with him. Musical theater director and conductor Rob Fisher, well-known for his work with the City Center Encores! series in New York, presented a master class for Harvard student singers. An excellent session for performers, the audience enjoyed learning how Fisher develops song interpretations. Fisher then joined moderator Judith Tick (Northeastern University), lyricist Sheldon Harnick, and music professor David Schiff (Reed College) for consideration of “Ongoing Resonances of the Bernstein Shows.” Harnick described his early Broadway career in the 1950s and commented on Bernstein’s musicals, praising how “fearless” he was as a creator and how he could objectively look at his work, even on an opening night. Fisher spoke about presenting Wonderful Town in the Encore! series and how Bernstein’s musicals have aged well, perhaps because his music was more sophisticated than the Broadway standard of the time. David Schiff spoke about Bernstein’s script for the 1956 Omnibus television show on musical theater. That evening, Marie Carter and Craig Urquhart, Vice Presidents of the Leonard Bernstein Office, introduced intriguing video clips from Bernstein’s output in “Leonard Bernstein: Teaching and Television.” For the late-night crowd, soprano Marni Nixon spoke before a presentation of the film West Side Story. On Saturday, attendees had to choose between several rich sessions. In the first time block, Damian Woetzel rehearsed dancers from the Boston Ballet in Bernstein’s Fancy Free, and Professors Oja and Shelemay led a session in which four more Harvard students presented their research from the seminar. Later, Lynn Garafola moderated “Dancing the Story: Bernstein and his Choreographers” with participation by Deborah Jowitt, Grover Dale, Kathleen Marshall, Donald Saddler, and Damian Woetzel. The session opposite was “Working with Bernstein,” where moderator Richard Ortner led a discussion with biographer and film producer Humphrey Burton, composer and former Bernstein assistant Jack Gottlieb, and conductor John Mauceri. Burton described Bernstein’s perfectionism when they made films together; though there were difficult moments, they always remained friends. Mauceri recalled working with Bernstein at Tanglewood and the complicated histories of Candide and A Quiet Place. In a much-anticipated event, musicologists Ralph Locke (Eastman School of Music) and Elizabeth Wells (Mount Allison University) moderated “Revisiting the Original West Side Story on Stage and Film” with singer/actresses Carol Lawrence and Marni Nixon, producer Harold Prince, and orchestrator Sid Ramin. Lawrence shared many of the anecdotes that have appeared in print, especially the importance of Bernstein’s charm and patience as the cast worked with the uncompromising choreographer Jerome Robbins. Nixon recalled her work as a dubber of songs in Hollywood productions, including those for Natalie Wood in the West Side Story film. Prince commented on the show’s Broadway history and noted that Cheryl Crawford, the first producer, tried very hard to raise production funds for West Side Story, countering what one often reads. Sid Ramin spoke about working with Bernstein on orchestrating the show, including how actively involved the composer was in the process. In the concert that evening, “Celebrating Bernstein,” the guest performer was soprano Nicole Cabell, who sang memorably “Kaddish 2” from the Symphony No. 3 and the song cycle I Hate Music. The Harvard students acquitted themselves admirably. Judith Clurman led a sensitive performance of Chichester Psalms, and the second half presented a “Bernstein Songbook” with selections from all of the shows accompanied by a small orchestra, each introduced by Jamie Bernstein Thomas or Humphrey Burton. There were two related exhibitions: a collection of materials associated with Bernstein in Boston curated by students and shown in two Harvard libraries, and a group of photographs from the last five years of Bernstein’s life shown at Eliot House, where Bernstein lived at Harvard. That was also the site of the final reception, the last event in a stirring and sumptuous weekend. —Paul R. Laird University
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