Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Birth: 25th August, 1918
Place of Birth: Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA
Nationality: American
Job Title: Composer, Conductor, Pianist, Teacher
Partners: Dimitri Mitropoulos, Aaron Copland, Felicia Montealegre (wife), Tom Cochran
Died: 19th August 1990, Boston

When we think of a gay musician, chart music and cheesy boy bands usually come to mind! In recent years, it is definitely popular music in which the gay male has excelled, with lesbians cornering the folk area of the market. However, the stereotypes are somewhat unfair. Throughout the history of classical music, some highly prominent composers have been gay, some openly. Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Franz Schubert and Tchaikovsky all enjoyed the company of men. But more importantly, they also used their passion and hidden desires to fuel hours and hours of deep and moving music, much of which is still performed and loved today.

It is with such composers in mind that the London Gay Symphony Orchestra takes to the stage during London Pride Week this month, celebrating a tradition of classical queers and bringing to the fore the influence gays have had on music. Our Gay Great this month is one of the most distinguished composers, conductors and teachers of music the twentieth century had to offer.

Unlike most of the great musicians the world has produced, Bernstein’s early years were not remarkable in any way. While Bach could play the violin by the age of ten and Mozart had already composed a piano sonata by four, even up to the age of ten Bernstein couldn’t read a single note of music. His father, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, did much to curb his son’s desire to explore his musical ability. A true believer in the American dream, Sam Bernstein had worked his way up from the guy who swept the floor of the barber shop to a high flying beauty product distributor. Knowing the world revolved around business and dollars, he was keen to keep his son in a business frame of mind.

In fact, one of the greatest musicians the world has ever known may never have played a note if it were not for his aunt’s divorce. Suddenly finding herself with a lot of possessions and only a small divorcee flat to put them in, her kind brother agreed to store some for her. Among the furniture and artefacts was a battered old upright piano. Unable to resist the lure of the keys, Bernstein decided to have a few tentative goes at getting a tune out of the old piano. Naturally, for a man who would go on to produce some of the greatest modern masterpieces to date, he managed to get not only a tune out of it but some complicated harmonies too. Before long, he was giving lessons to local children in order to fund some professional lessons for himself.

As the house began to fill with beautiful music, so Sam Bernstein’s attitude began to soften. He decided to buy his son a baby grand piano and help with the funding of his lessons. He even sought one of the best teachers in Boston and stumbled upon Helen Coates, a teacher who would remain close to Bernstein for life and even take the role of his personal assistant. Together, the two spent hours learning and enjoying music. On completion of his education at Boston Latin School, the moment came when the young Bernstein had to make the choice between an uncertain life in music or the more stable world of business. The choice was simple to him and at the age of 17, Louis Bernstein, now called Leonard due to a name clash in the family, set out for Harvard.

There, he proved to be an exceptional sight reader and his talents on the piano astounded his tutors. Music became the primary focus of his life and he would often seek out extra musical experiences outside of the classroom. On one such journey into musical expression, he attended a concert conducted by the notable Dimitri Mitropoulos. He was instantly captivated by the man and his wild, passionate style of conducting, a discipline that he had not yet considered. Within a week, Bernstein had become proficient with a baton and was keen to take his new obsession further.

After moving on to the world famous and prestigious Curtis Institute, he contacted Mitropoulos who responded with $200, a gift for him to spend on taking a holiday with the great conductor if he wished. Bernstein jumped at the chance and the two began a very ‘ancient Greece’ style relationship…in every respect! Although hidden from his family and the rest of his social group, Bernstein’s relationships with his older mentors would often lead to sexual contact. How many of the great men that mentored the young Bernstein were actually his lovers, we will never know but Mitropoulos and later Alan Copland have always been named as two who were certainly more than just companions.

Working through several more ‘mentors’ on his way through Curtis, Bernstein eventually moved on to some intensive study at the Berkshire Music Centre in Tanglewood. There, he further advanced his skills in both conducting, composing and performing. While many of his tutors wished Bernstein would settle down and choose one discipline to stick with, he insisted on continuing all three skills.

It was with these skills that Bernstein set out into the professional world. At first, he took some short jobs, transcribing music and as a pianist for a dance company before he landed his first full-time job as the Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Despite the lavish title, his job simply involved learning everything the orchestra played in case whoever the conductor for the concert was couldn’t make it. With the lead conductor, Artur Rodzinski, in perfect health, the Assistant hadn’t been needed for over ten years. Although he learnt the pieces diligently, it looked unlikely that Bernstein would ever be called on.

But one Sunday afternoon, the unsuspecting Bernstein got the luckiest break of his life. Rodzinski received a call to say that the visiting conductor was ill and would not make the concert that evening. Rodzinski knew that it was to be broadcast on national radio and that millions of Americans would be listening in but he decided to hand the job to his deputy anyway. Rodzinski’s grand gesture on that day in November 1943 marked the beginning of a musical legend.

Despite a hangover from a hard night at a friend’s party, Bernstein stole the show. His lively style of conducting thrilled both the assembled audience and radio listeners alike. Suddenly everybody wanted to know who the dashing young man with the baton was. In the weeks that followed, Bernstein was inundated with offers of guest conducting performances with orchestras up and down the country. His celebrity status grew at an astonishing rate. He was even contracted to make several records of his compositions, all of which sold well, although critics now slam his early recording company for the quality of the recordings.

Bernstein was now a sought after commodity. Offering a sparkling personality, a good way with words and a handsome appearance, he was the new face of classical music. Before him, conductors and composers were grey, dull and often not the friendliest of people. He was a man who had star quality, usually the reserve of rock stars. His recording career progressed as he covered the classics in his own, lively style. He began to tour Europe and beyond, while all the time composing his own pieces which always sold well to the music hungry American public.

As his career progressed, a new focus came to mind. “Children must receive musical instruction as naturally as food and with as much pleasure as they derive from a ball game" Bernstein once said in an interview and when a national television company asked if he would like to record several programmes aimed at children, he jumped at the chance. Eleven years of recordings and performances and a marriage to a Chilean actress had passed since his debut as a hungover, stand-in conductor. Now he sat at his piano, America’s children hanging on his every word as he explained in detail the music he was about to play. It was the first time that the public, children and adults alike, had seen somebody explain in such simple terms the workings of classical music. The eight live broadcasts not only made Bernstein a household name but they brought classical music to the masses.

Throughout his life, Bernstein carried on his passion for teaching. In 1951, after the death of one of his favourite tutors, he returned to the Berkshire Music Centre in Tanglewood to fill the position his mentor had left behind. He would also later be invited back to Harvard to give a series of six lectures. As diligent as ever, Bernstein spent two whole years planning for them! His desire to share his passion for music was relentless. Whereas many professionals kept the secret of their success to themselves, Bernstein sought to spread the word as if music was the gospel of a new religious order.

Along with his teaching, Bernstein continued to compose. His classical pieces were still going down a storm but he moved in a new direction in 1954 when he took up the offer of writing the soundtrack for a Hollywood film. Although ‘On the Waterfront’ won a number of awards including several Oscars, Bernstein was frustrated that his music was often hidden behind the words spoken by the actors.

His frustration with composing for film and drama were met with the ultimate answer: write a musical. The idea of a show had been suggested by Jerome Robbins, a choreographer who sought to create a distinctive American ballet style musical. In the summer of 1955, when urban gang warfare was in the headlines, Robbins wanted to write about the black and white divide. However, the subject was far too emotive. Instead he settled for the Hispanic and white American tensions which were rife across the USA. Keen to keep the music authentic to its roots, Bernstein added flares of Hispanic rhythms and instruments and what emerged from the collaboration was one of the best loved all American musicals ever, West Side Story. The film debuted on Broadway to huge critical acclaim and later, in 1961, became an Oscar winning film. Later Bernstein would voice his regret that in aiming to produce the greatest American opera, he had in fact created the world’s greatest musical. Characteristically, Bernstein marked his work ‘could be better’, despite its perfection in the eyes of the world.

But despite his achievements in composition and teaching, for many he will always be remembered as a great conductor. The skills needed to command over a hundred instruments at once and to form a page of music from dots on a page into a beautiful sound was one that Bernstein possessed in abundance. In the 1950’s, his reputation spread across Europe and as far as Israel and parts of Africa. Signed to Columbia Records in the late 1950’s, he conducted recordings of everything from Shostakovich to Gershwin. By 1976, when he was released from his Columbia contract to sign with Dacca, he had covered most of the greatest composers and conducted all of the world’s greatest orchestras.

Bernstein, now a father, had one thing in his life left to achieve. The world had moved on since his early experiments with homosexuality and there were now men and women all over the world emerging from the closet to live an openly gay life. Bernstein longed to do the same. Like many married gay men, he loved his wife with a pure devotion but there were desires that she simply couldn’t meet. In 1971, on the verge of old age, he separated from his wife in order to live with his male lover, Tom Cochran. For a while, his change of life worked, but it was not to last. His wife became terminally ill. Unable to stand being apart in her final years, he returned to her less than a year after their separation. An agonising seven years later, his wife passed away.

Leonard Bernstein2

Now free to live a gay life, Bernstein should have felt a great sense of liberation but instead, his final years were blighted by bouts of depression. While enjoying men sexually, it was women that he felt emotional connected to. However, he knew how lucky he was in life and that he had a lot to be thankful for. "I was diagnosed with emphysema in my mid 20s and [was supposed] to be dead by the age of 35. Then they said I'd be dead by 45. Then 55. Well, I beat the rap. I smoke. I drink. I stay up all night. I screw around. I'm over committed on all fronts," commented Bernstein, heading for his seventieth birthday.

The last few years of his life were spent living as a legend was supposed to do, receiving numerous lifetime achievement awards and turning up to play at the biggest events in the world. When the Berlin wall fell in 1989, Bernstein led orchestras from across Europe in a massive rendition of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, sealing his mark as the greatest conductor in the world at the time. There was no disagreement; Bernstein was a master of composition, performance, teaching and conducting.

As the 80’s drew to a close, his health began to fail. Although his publicist told the press he was simply tired, by the middle of 1990 Bernstein knew that he was fatally ill. Determined to carry on, he kept an appointment at Tanglewood to celebrate the anniversary of the establishment which had become a second home to him. During the third movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, he began coughing and spluttering. He fell to the ground, the orchestra diligently playing on in the background until the very end. The dignified audience applause that followed was not just for the music but to commemorate the life of a musical great whose light had just extinguished before their eyes. Bernstein had achieved his final dream, to die on the podium in between an appreciative audience and a magnificent orchestra.

Bernstein’s life was one of relentless work. His career covered so many aspects of music that there must have been days when, tired by a full schedule of performances, he would have wished he could just spend an evening at home in front of the TV. For Bernstein, the job was too large to take a break from. He loved music, he felt music and truly believed in its power, and the mission he chose in life was to put that passion into other people, to make them hear and feel what he did. Whether he felt satisfied with his life’s work as he took the podium for the last time, nobody can tell. However, he certainly succeeded in leaving behind a generation of classical music lovers who may have never discovered such a powerful musical medium had Leonard Bernstein never opened the lid of his aunt’s piano so many years ago.