Speaker 1: Hey, it's Alec Baldwin here. Before we launch our next
Speaker 1: season of Here's the Thing at iHeartRadio in January, I
Speaker 1: thought I'd share a few of my favorite shows from
Speaker 1: the archives. Few people could have convinced Hollywood Studios to
Speaker 1: back a biopic about the life of the composer and
Speaker 1: conductor Leonard Bernstein. But when its director and leading man
Speaker 1: are Bradley Cooper, who could say no? His film Maestro
Speaker 1: premieres tomorrow, December twentieth on Netflix. Here's my interview with
Speaker 1: two of Bernstein's children, Jamie and Alex Bernstein.
Speaker 2: Carnegie Hall in New York City, the home of the
Speaker 2: world's greatest musical events.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen fifties, television was a powerful new spotlight
Speaker 1: in search of a talent that could shine back just as.
Speaker 3: Bright and here is mister Bernstein.
Speaker 1: When it landed on Leonard Bernstein, the young conductor more
Speaker 1: than shined back. His primetime show, Leonard Bernstein Young People's
Speaker 1: Concerts with the New York Philharmonic was a benchmark of
Speaker 1: quality programming and seduced the entire country.
Speaker 4: No matter how many times people tell you stories about
Speaker 4: what music means, forget them. Stories aren't what music means
Speaker 4: at all. Music is never about anything. Music just is
Speaker 4: music is notes, beautiful notes, and songs put together in
Speaker 4: such a way that we get pleasure out of listening
Speaker 4: to them.
Speaker 1: That's all there is to Bernstein was a masterful teacher,
Speaker 1: explaining classical music with a passion and clarity that couldn't
Speaker 1: help but influence an entire generation of musicians and artists.
Speaker 1: In those days, there were far fewer celebrities, and Bernstein
Speaker 1: was one of the biggest. He wore it well, taking
Speaker 1: his seat at the piano at the center of the party.
Speaker 5: He really enjoyed the public. Leonard Bernstein, he loved the key.
Speaker 5: Leonard Bernstein loved and he loved being famous, and he
Speaker 5: loved meeting everybody in the world and.
Speaker 6: In fancy hotels and flying first class. And he'd take
Speaker 6: us along and share it with us, like.
Speaker 3: Isn't this cool.
Speaker 1: Bernstein was a musician, a conductor, a teacher, and a
Speaker 1: composer of classical music as well as Broadway musicals. He
Speaker 1: was also a father.
Speaker 3: I'm the bossy one.
Speaker 1: Bernstein and his wife Felicia had three children, Jamie, Alexander,
Speaker 1: and Nina, and while they knew him in the tucks
Speaker 1: and tales. They also knew him as the dad who
Speaker 1: loved games. He was a killer at anagrams and always
Speaker 1: up for tennis or squash or skiing or touch football.
Speaker 3: The word games, you have no idea.
Speaker 1: Two of Bernstein's children, Jamie and Alexander, spoke with me
Speaker 1: about their legendary father and what it was like to
Speaker 1: grow up with people like Stephen Sondheim and Jerome Robbins
Speaker 1: as regular HouseGuests.
Speaker 3: When we were really little.
Speaker 6: Alexander and I used to share a bedroom when we
Speaker 6: were like, you know, really little, and we lived in
Speaker 6: the Osbourne, which is that grand building, and Alexander and
Speaker 6: I slept, you know, at sort of right angles to
Speaker 6: each other in this bedroom, and we would go to
Speaker 6: sleep listening to the grown ups carrying on downstairs. Is
Speaker 6: what we fell asleep to the noise of the you know,
Speaker 6: the laughing and the roaring around the piano, singing, sneaking
Speaker 6: of the glasses, and the smell of the cigarette smoke
Speaker 6: washing up the sas shape. We could not wait to
Speaker 6: be grown ups because obviously all grown ups did was
Speaker 6: have fun.
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
Speaker 6: That's how it seemed to us, And it seemed like
Speaker 6: our dad certainly had fun when he was working too,
Speaker 6: so we never saw anything that resembled drudgery, which is
Speaker 6: probably a thing that most kids perceive in their working parents.
Speaker 3: It's tough. What about your mother?
Speaker 1: Was your mother someone who was his companion and she
Speaker 1: was along for the ride and all of it and
Speaker 1: loving it.
Speaker 3: Or was she someone who was sitting in the room going,
Speaker 3: when's it gonna stop my eyes?
Speaker 1: The energizer bunny and the Martini in his hand and a.
Speaker 7: Pell Mell in the other Scotch not Martinez, Scotchie, Valentine's
Speaker 7: a Valentine's beer, Oh Scotch, Scotch did am and she
Speaker 7: had a Chesterfield my grandfather vodka and the other.
Speaker 3: But your mother was his trusted companion. She was she
Speaker 3: was in. She was all in, absolutely.
Speaker 6: All in, and I think it drove her crazy, every
Speaker 6: bit as much as she loved it all.
Speaker 3: She was very social. Where was she from? And where
Speaker 3: did they meet?
Speaker 5: They met at a party given by Claudio organist and.
Speaker 3: Who was her teacher because he was studying piano.
Speaker 5: She had told her parents that she was coming to
Speaker 5: New York to study piano, but she really wanted to
Speaker 5: be an actress, so she came.
Speaker 3: She's a beautiful woman, and she was beautiful, very beautiful.
Speaker 5: So she had this understanding with Aral that she would
Speaker 5: be sort of studying with him, But meanwhile she was
Speaker 5: studying with my parents.
Speaker 8: Now make this sound of the piano. The debuts we're
Speaker 8: like to make parents now in exactly so America.
Speaker 3: I think it was very much like that.
Speaker 6: It was, And the legend has it that our mother
Speaker 6: sat at his feet and fed him shrimps one by one.
Speaker 3: That was the beginning of the romance. Yeah, yeah, not around.
Speaker 3: She might have been doing that and they got engaged.
Speaker 3: But where was he ad in his career then?
Speaker 6: So he had already had his big debut with the
Speaker 6: New York Philharmonic, because that was in nineteen forty three.
Speaker 3: Were he filled in for for he filled in the.
Speaker 6: Ailing Bruno Vaulter, as he's always referred to in that circumstance.
Speaker 6: I thought his first name was ailing anyway, So this
Speaker 6: must have been like maybe four or five years later,
Speaker 6: So he was riding high, but he was not yet.
Speaker 3: That'll be a name.
Speaker 1: I stay in a hotel, and from now I love
Speaker 1: good names for hotels. I'm going to stay in a
Speaker 1: hotel under the name.
Speaker 3: Ailing e h l I aiming. Bruno Vote is the
Speaker 3: name I would use this hotel, and so Bruno Vote.
Speaker 3: The fluent year was that. That was November fourteenth, nineteen
Speaker 3: forty three.
Speaker 9: Wow, good afternoon, the United States Rubber Company again invites
Speaker 9: you to Carnegie Hall to hear a concert of the
Speaker 9: New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. Bruno Vaulter, who was to
Speaker 9: have conducted this afternoon, is ill, and his place will
Speaker 9: be taken by the young American born assistant conductor of
Speaker 9: the Philharmonic Symphony, Leonard Bernstein.
Speaker 3: And he had to get up there on a moment's notes.
Speaker 6: And he'd been up all night the night before because
Speaker 6: he'd had a premiere of a song cycle of his
Speaker 6: called I Hate Music, and it had premiered the night before.
Speaker 6: So of course it was a cardi a town hall
Speaker 6: and it was very well received, and of course there
Speaker 6: was a party afterwards, and they were up all the
Speaker 6: livelong night. And at the time, you know, our dad
Speaker 6: was living in Carnegie Hall in those little apartments they
Speaker 6: used to have at the top. So he gets back
Speaker 6: to Carnegie Hall at you know, five in the morning
Speaker 6: and passes out and then like an hour and a
Speaker 6: half later, the phone rings and it's Bruno Zerrato of
Speaker 6: the New York Philharmonic saying, this is a.
Speaker 3: Kid you have to go on this afternoon. And it
Speaker 3: was on the radio. It was a national broadcast, which
Speaker 3: is why it was such a big deal.
Speaker 9: Lennard Burns, Dane has come out on the platform.
Speaker 6: It was highly covered in the press, probably because it
Speaker 6: was the middle of the war and everybody needed a
Speaker 6: feel good story. Yes, American boy makes good kind of thing.
Speaker 6: So one guy said, it's like a shoe string catch
Speaker 6: in center field. Make it and you're a hero, Muffett
Speaker 6: and you're a dope. Bernstein made it.
Speaker 1: Did he ever reflect on that to you? Meaning when
Speaker 1: people have that kind of debut? He came up that
Speaker 1: night and everything changed after.
Speaker 6: That, Right, he pretty much knew that it was a
Speaker 6: sort of Cinderella tale and that he just got this
Speaker 6: unbelievable lucky break.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And did he believe was it ever discussed even
Speaker 1: by your mother or people like that? Did your father
Speaker 1: realize he must have that his sexuality and that his
Speaker 1: good looks were as much a part of this talent
Speaker 1: as anything else.
Speaker 3: I think there's no.
Speaker 5: Doubt about that, and I think played he played it
Speaker 5: probably from high school on, you know, and as soon
Speaker 5: as he started playing the piano and knew he had
Speaker 5: this incredible talent and could play at parties and get
Speaker 5: all his attention and.
Speaker 3: He had a meeting out of his hands, Oh my god,
Speaker 3: and the shrimp out of the hand. Yeah, at age
Speaker 3: twenty five, he was still a little geeky.
Speaker 6: I mean the pictures of him with the Philharmonic after
Speaker 6: the debut, where he's all exhausted and tousled and sweaty,
Speaker 6: he actually looks like like a bar Mitzvah.
Speaker 9: Boy.
Speaker 6: He was a little funny, and I think he kind
Speaker 6: of grew into his grooviness over the subsequent years.
Speaker 3: So your father, he had three children over ten years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And what was that like for him in
Speaker 1: terms of were there did he have certain kind of
Speaker 1: rules in terms of how he protected you from the
Speaker 1: public and the schools you went to and the way
Speaker 1: you lived your life, or was he just very loosey goosey?
Speaker 3: You know, I would say that he was not your
Speaker 3: mother in charge.
Speaker 6: He was the one who really designed the way our
Speaker 6: lives went on a day to day basis. He was
Speaker 6: busy being the maestro, and then you would come home
Speaker 6: and play with us and hang out, but have fun
Speaker 6: and have fun.
Speaker 3: But he was not really the designer of the domestic scene.
Speaker 5: He was a great He was home. He was really home.
Speaker 5: You know, you didn't have an office to go to.
Speaker 3: And when did you get him aware of who your
Speaker 3: father was?
Speaker 6: You know, you when you're growing up, your family's just
Speaker 6: your family. You have no objectivity about it, and your
Speaker 6: parents are just your parents, and you don't really think
Speaker 6: about how different they might be from the others until
Speaker 6: you get older. At some point when we were pretty young,
Speaker 6: there was an episode of The Flintstones.
Speaker 3: What time is it, Betty? It's tenants to nine, Betty
Speaker 3: and Wilma. We're going to go to the HALLI Rock Bowl.
Speaker 3: I love to watch Leonard Burnstown conduct and the first
Speaker 3: thing on the.
Speaker 4: Program is that gorgeous symphony by Rocky Manning A.
Speaker 3: When we were here, he had hit the big time.
Speaker 3: And how old were you kids? Little kids? Yeh, like
Speaker 3: you know, nine and six even less? Was there a
Speaker 3: downside to it? Did you feel like there were things
Speaker 3: that were tough for you with him?
Speaker 5: And looking back on it now or when we got older,
Speaker 5: probably look back and think about some downsides, but at
Speaker 5: the time it really didn't seem so bad at all.
Speaker 3: It was a lot of when we were really little,
Speaker 3: it was just a lark.
Speaker 6: I often try to think back to come on, you know,
Speaker 6: there must have been some he was shadows, But we
Speaker 6: had a pretty fantastic early childhood.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: It was kind of wonderful.
Speaker 1: He's not some tortured introspective. He was a happy guy,
Speaker 1: and he was a celebrity.
Speaker 6: Was introspective, he was, but but back in those early
Speaker 6: days of our family life, that was overshadowed by the
Speaker 6: joy and the happiness, the busyness and the family life,
Speaker 6: and the kept that from you.
Speaker 5: We are ascended he kept that from you.
Speaker 6: I'll tell you in my memory, the moment when it
Speaker 6: changed was November twenty second, nineteen sixty three, the day
Speaker 6: JFK was assassinated. That was when the shadow fell over
Speaker 6: and life became sort of real. Up until that point,
Speaker 6: you know, grown ups just had fun as far as
Speaker 6: we could perceive. And then that day we saw our
Speaker 6: parents fall apart. They were crying because they were friends
Speaker 6: of the Kennedys. They had been to the White House.
Speaker 6: They had had dinner just the four of them.
Speaker 1: Imagine they had been centerpieces of Kennedy's cultural programming in
Speaker 1: the White Acci.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they could.
Speaker 6: Not have been more connected to the Kennedy administration and
Speaker 6: everything that it stood for. So on that day when
Speaker 6: when he was assassinated, our parents just fell apart, and
Speaker 6: so did the whole rest of the family and all
Speaker 6: their friends. And they pulled down the shades and out
Speaker 6: around crying all day. And just watch TV. Now we
Speaker 6: could perceive that there were shadows and that there were
Speaker 6: ups and downs that wasn't visible to us in the world.
Speaker 3: Itself can affect people psychologically. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What about your mom in terms of her music appreciation?
Speaker 1: I mean, she studied the piano, but did she go
Speaker 1: on have any kind of a serious career even ur
Speaker 1: in her young years when she was with Arau, did
Speaker 1: she play? Did she study? Once she met and married
Speaker 1: your father? Did all that stop?
Speaker 5: Her piano playing stopped? She would play sometimes at home,
Speaker 5: and quite beautifully, but she wasn't.
Speaker 3: As passionate about it. No, what was she passionate about?
Speaker 5: Was passionate about her acting? She kept at that sometimes
Speaker 5: she would and what were some of the things she
Speaker 5: was working on During her career.
Speaker 6: She did a lot of early television Playhouse ninety and
Speaker 6: craft Heater and all those live dramas that they had
Speaker 6: in early television.
Speaker 3: She did a lot of that and a lot of
Speaker 3: stage work. Did that stop at some point? It kind of.
Speaker 6: Receded as she came missus maestro and a mom, which
Speaker 6: was a double job that could keep anybody.
Speaker 1: Of course, when was she generally happy to do those things?
Speaker 1: Did she ever a voice? Because it's interesting to me
Speaker 1: to have someone who is in the world of music herself.
Speaker 1: She was studied with raw It's a serious opportunity there.
Speaker 1: She had aspirations about music and acting, and did she
Speaker 1: miss those things? Did she ever say gosh, I fondly?
Speaker 1: Did she have a little bit of a wistfulness about it?
Speaker 3: She was pretty ambivalent about it. Yeah she did.
Speaker 5: And she didn't really talk a lot about her inner
Speaker 5: herself too.
Speaker 9: Ah.
Speaker 3: What she did tell you.
Speaker 6: About a little bit was that she had some stage
Speaker 6: fright issues, and so when she started performing less in public,
Speaker 6: she would say that she was relieved, and that being
Speaker 6: you know, this, this Missus Bernstein persona was a way
Speaker 6: of not having to confront her fears about performing, But
Speaker 6: I think you know, anybody who has performed, how a
Speaker 6: part of them that still wants to perform. But she
Speaker 6: knew that that it was just going to be too
Speaker 6: hard to have these two rampant egos in the household.
Speaker 3: Probably a good call.
Speaker 1: Coming up more about Bernstein's early years in Massachusetts and
Speaker 1: his final concert at Tanglewood, which his brother described as
Speaker 1: Lenny coming home to die.
Speaker 3: This is Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: I'm talking with two of Leonard Bernstein's children, Jamie and Alexander.
Speaker 1: I see someone like your dad who sounds very childlike
Speaker 1: did the young People's concerts father, fun and joy and
Speaker 1: and and family and love bursting with love. Leonard Bernstein
Speaker 1: is someone to me who when he's on the podium,
Speaker 1: who love is just shooting out of him like a rainbow.
Speaker 1: Love of this and love of that, and love of life,
Speaker 1: and love of sex, and love of sound, and love
Speaker 1: of women and love of beauty. And I wonder was
Speaker 1: it because as the result of his classical training, did
Speaker 1: he not have enough childhood?
Speaker 6: His childhood was not about music. He was raised where
Speaker 6: he was where he was born, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and
Speaker 6: then shortly thereafter they moved to the Boston area.
Speaker 10: First they lived in Roxburgh. He was a hair products salesman.
Speaker 10: He was a salesman and his mom was she musical.
Speaker 10: How did the music get into his life?
Speaker 6: Well, here's the thing. There was this Clara who moved
Speaker 6: to Florida, and so she sent all her furniture over
Speaker 6: to her brother Sam's house, and along with all the
Speaker 6: couches and breakfronts, arrived this upright piano.
Speaker 3: Our dad was ten years old.
Speaker 6: The piano got hauled into the house and as our
Speaker 6: father told it, he touched the piano and that was it.
Speaker 6: He knew it's one of those stories. And he taught
Speaker 6: himself theory. He just played the piano.
Speaker 3: He figured he could figure it all out late in
Speaker 3: the modern world.
Speaker 6: And the thing about his dad, Sam Bernstein, is that Sam,
Speaker 6: you know, it was a depression. But Sam was very
Speaker 6: proud that he was able to tide his family over
Speaker 6: the depression because he had this very successful beauty supply business,
Speaker 6: the Samuel J. Bernstein Hair Company in Boston. It's Bernstein
Speaker 6: was the slogan, and he had the New England franchise
Speaker 6: for the Frederick's Permanent Wave machine.
Speaker 1: And everybody knows it, even in a depression. There's two
Speaker 1: things you don't like, go booze and vanity. There you go,
Speaker 1: you have your hair done.
Speaker 6: All those women would go in and be attached to
Speaker 6: that that machine that looks like Bride of Frankenstein. They
Speaker 6: were all doing it. So they got through the depression.
Speaker 6: And Sam was so proud that he was able to
Speaker 6: pass the Samuel J. Bernstein Hair Company along to his
Speaker 6: eldest son to run. And of course Lenny had no
Speaker 6: intention of running the Samuel J. Bernstein Hair Company in Boston.
Speaker 6: It's Bernstein and it was a real problem between hair.
Speaker 3: Yes, he did swell had of hair.
Speaker 5: Then what Sam was not going to let him be
Speaker 5: a kletzmer musician, you know, because he can't get weddings
Speaker 5: and funerals. And that was it, you know, that's what
Speaker 5: a musician does in the old country.
Speaker 6: That a musician was a beggar, a homeless guy who
Speaker 6: went from Stettl to Stettele playing the fiddle and.
Speaker 3: Getting a few kopeks at the wedding you call out
Speaker 3: a living.
Speaker 5: So what happened so little by little it became clear
Speaker 5: that he was immensely talented at this and it went
Speaker 5: to the Boston Latin School and then to Harvard.
Speaker 3: And he gets to Harvard to study what music. Just know,
Speaker 3: they had no music, no music department. You couldn't major
Speaker 3: in it. So he was he a literature guy.
Speaker 1: She was born in nineteen eighteen eighteen. So he's there,
Speaker 1: you know, class thirty nine. No music department at Harvard.
Speaker 1: There and the just immediately prior of the war. And
Speaker 1: then when he leaves Harvard, where does he go. He
Speaker 1: goes to Curtis. So Curtis where for one he goes
Speaker 1: to the next level he was.
Speaker 5: Curtis is where the music at Harvard, he's writing music,
Speaker 5: he's putting on shows constantly.
Speaker 1: Curtis is the real temple of musical study that he enters.
Speaker 1: And this is the real formalizing of his musical education.
Speaker 5: He studies with Fritz Reiner, right, you know, studies conducting.
Speaker 3: It all goes on a big level here, a big level.
Speaker 3: And it was it was tough. He was very lonely.
Speaker 3: It was it was a tough year or two for
Speaker 3: him at Curtis. He's there for how long a little
Speaker 3: over a year?
Speaker 5: I think, then what happens a long time? And then
Speaker 5: he came to New York, desperate to find work. He
Speaker 5: was ready to hit New York and do what he started.
Speaker 3: He wrote.
Speaker 5: Arrangements, arrangements and stuff under an assumed name Lenny Amber.
Speaker 5: He arranged Ornette Coleman charts. He did all sorts of
Speaker 5: weird things he did, didn't you do? Like a fourhands
Speaker 5: version of Ilsel and Mickey co for Aaron Copeland. Well
Speaker 5: that was the big thing that he got to know
Speaker 5: Eric Copeland to know how did that happen?
Speaker 3: That he was still in college when he met Aaron
Speaker 3: Harvard or Curtis Harvard, Harvard. Yeah, so at Harvard he
Speaker 3: meets Copeland under what circumstances? Because if he's not in
Speaker 3: a music program, how does he rub shoulders with?
Speaker 5: I think he gets invited to He came to New
Speaker 5: York for the weekend.
Speaker 1: He was invited to be seeking out and sniffing out
Speaker 1: the musical world, even though it was at Harvest and
Speaker 1: he's an a concert.
Speaker 5: I think it was now sitting next to Aaron and
Speaker 5: they get to know each other.
Speaker 6: And it turned out to be Aaron's birthday and Aaron
Speaker 6: invited our dad back to his loft for the party.
Speaker 3: Clara Ships the piano of the house.
Speaker 1: That's that's ooh moment number one. He gets seated next
Speaker 1: to Copeland Ooh moment number two, and.
Speaker 6: Then goes to the birthday party and plays Copeland's piano
Speaker 6: variations in front of the whole crowd, which our dad
Speaker 6: was in the habit of doing and clearing rooms because
Speaker 6: it's a very gnarly piece.
Speaker 3: And so he said, are you sure you want me.
Speaker 6: To play it at this party because it usually clears
Speaker 6: the room, And Aaron said, not at this party.
Speaker 3: And he played it and didn't clear the room. He
Speaker 3: did not clear that lands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all of Copeland's contemporaries, and he plays, and
Speaker 1: a friendship and a relationship with Copeland commences there right
Speaker 1: lifelong another than I would say, probably as much, if
Speaker 1: not more than slat Can. Your father was one of
Speaker 1: the great interpreters of Copeland. I mean that the two
Speaker 1: of them were my two favorites. Bernstein and Slatkin are
Speaker 1: my two favorite Copeland isers. And then what is the
Speaker 1: quick series of steps that gets them to the associate
Speaker 1: directorship of the Philharmonic?
Speaker 5: I think an introduction to Krusoviski going to Tanglewood conducting
Speaker 5: a tangle.
Speaker 3: She was a guest conductor of tangle You know, he's
Speaker 3: a student student conductors student.
Speaker 6: Tangle would have just been invented by Krusovitski, and our
Speaker 6: dad was in that first class.
Speaker 3: And so Kruzovitski is the one who builds tango, would
Speaker 3: he he.
Speaker 1: Is, He's the music director, He's theso who oversees the
Speaker 1: construction of that. What are some of your best memories
Speaker 1: of your dad there?
Speaker 3: What would you do? Remember? What was this?
Speaker 6: If you will go ahead, give me give me here
Speaker 6: you're laughing, Well, we're laughing because our dad loved to
Speaker 6: go to tangle Wood so much his entire life. Every
Speaker 6: time he went up there, it was like he would
Speaker 6: be rejuvenated, he would turn into a kid again.
Speaker 3: It's a holy place. It's a holy place.
Speaker 1: And what he really loved was being with all those
Speaker 1: Can we say that again, that that that the Berkshires
Speaker 1: is a holy place. Your father loved it there.
Speaker 5: Tell you we both worked at Tanglewood. What did you
Speaker 5: do it for a few more years than James.
Speaker 3: We were guide.
Speaker 5: We were guides, which was a fancy name for just
Speaker 5: doing anything that they need to be done. But you know,
Speaker 5: you man the gates and you show people around. That
Speaker 5: was the guide part. Sometimes there would be tours, and
Speaker 5: also you would tend to be backstage and help the
Speaker 5: artists and move them around and pick them up at
Speaker 5: the airport stuff like that. And it was just heaven
Speaker 5: to be up there for a summer.
Speaker 3: And there was also this sense I think our dad
Speaker 3: had it from the very beginning that.
Speaker 6: You know, everybody was sort of out in this beautiful weather,
Speaker 6: in this beautiful place with all these fun people, and
Speaker 6: there would be Shenanigans. We just fell right into the
Speaker 6: Shenanigan's sensibility of the place that you know, it was
Speaker 6: just fun and everybody was partying all night and having romances.
Speaker 1: And it's funny you say that, because it is probably
Speaker 1: one of the two or three most romantic places I've
Speaker 1: ever been.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can go.
Speaker 1: For those people listening who don't know, the tangle Wood
Speaker 1: is in the Berkshires and Massachusetts and it's the it's
Speaker 1: the summer residency of the Boston in the Orchestra.
Speaker 3: And you go up there to Lennox massive piece of land.
Speaker 1: It's a massive tract of land, and in that way,
Speaker 1: in a good way that you can talk about going
Speaker 1: somewhere with someone and driving that decompressing road trip that
Speaker 1: as you drive and drive and you get closer and closer,
Speaker 1: you just feel your your body relaxing. And then you
Speaker 1: get the excitement of going to Tanglewood and you go
Speaker 1: and you get your your basket.
Speaker 3: And your food and your wine. The real fun is
Speaker 3: to be out on the lawn. The lawn.
Speaker 1: The lawn is even better in a way if you've
Speaker 1: got the basket and the girl and the wine or
Speaker 1: whatever your preference is there. And I think I've never
Speaker 1: seen more people who are getting it right, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean in terms of having a lovely evening and
Speaker 1: if they get smashed on top of it, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm saying is, there's nothing like getting
Speaker 1: smashed at Tanglewood.
Speaker 3: It's it's the best kind of thing.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: That I was a guide, there was no comment.
Speaker 6: And the year that I was a guide, there was
Speaker 6: the year the Fillmore East came up there like three
Speaker 6: different times, and I saw.
Speaker 3: And Jimmy Hendrick, you're saying that Bill.
Speaker 1: Graham, he had his production company Fillmore meaning as a
Speaker 1: production company.
Speaker 3: The Artist Boys.
Speaker 1: Played the Shed played the Shed, And I was in
Speaker 1: a bathroom. To them, we.
Speaker 3: Say, what real pleasure has to be back in Tangleod again.
Speaker 3: We were on the heir last August.
Speaker 6: They trashed that long. That's why they were never invited back.
Speaker 6: You would not have wanted.
Speaker 1: Is it funny how we've changed Back then? I would
Speaker 1: have been the who I'm like, we're not having them here.
Speaker 1: We can have that that likes Sara and Tanglewood.
Speaker 3: They tried. Who else did the Graham?
Speaker 5: Mister Kylie, who ran the head of the groundskeepers, was
Speaker 5: just beside himself.
Speaker 3: He really was. It was a disaster. Your father loved
Speaker 3: it there.
Speaker 6: Though he loved it, and you loved to stay up
Speaker 6: all night yacking with the students.
Speaker 3: That was what really did your dad admire in his constellation?
Speaker 3: Who did he? I heard a story once from someone.
Speaker 1: They said they were at your family's home and your
Speaker 1: father's standing there with a cigarette in his hand and
Speaker 1: a drink in the other. And someone says, I just
Speaker 1: came from seeing the Beatles and the and the quote
Speaker 1: was a very simple one. They said that Bernstein said
Speaker 1: turned to my friend and said.
Speaker 3: You came and sold the Beatles. He says, I can't
Speaker 3: wait to see them myself.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm mad for them, and he just had
Speaker 1: a passion for all disparate forms of music.
Speaker 3: And he really did love the Beatles a lot.
Speaker 6: And we were so lucky as we were growing up
Speaker 6: because I was a complete beatlemaniac and my dad loved
Speaker 6: their music too, So together we would discover the Beatles,
Speaker 6: and when they had a new album, I would run
Speaker 6: out and get it and go straight to my father's
Speaker 6: studio and say, look, look I've got rubbers Oll and
Speaker 6: you'd say, great, let's put it on right now, and
Speaker 6: we'd stick the echered on. And I learned more about
Speaker 6: music by listening to the Beatles with my dad than
Speaker 6: I think I did any other way.
Speaker 3: You know, my dad passed away. He was very young.
Speaker 3: My dad was only fifty five. He was a year
Speaker 3: older than I am now.
Speaker 1: He had a very rare form of cancer and he
Speaker 1: died of lung cancer when he was fifty five. And
Speaker 1: your dad didn't live a very long life either. How
Speaker 1: old were both of you when your dad passed.
Speaker 3: Away, Well, he died at seventy two, which is not five.
Speaker 3: It was you were thirty five and I was thirty nine,
Speaker 3: So you were grown a dull people.
Speaker 1: But like you.
Speaker 6: Our mother died when she was fifty six, and we
Speaker 6: were much younger when that happened. She died in nineteen
Speaker 6: seventy eight, so we were in our early twenties, and.
Speaker 3: Our dad died in what year?
Speaker 6: He died in nineteen ninety, so by then we were
Speaker 6: you know, adults more or less. But when our mother died,
Speaker 6: we were still a very young family. Nina was only
Speaker 6: fifteen or something. But did your mother die from un cancer?
Speaker 3: Was a smoker? Yep?
Speaker 1: My point is that your dad didn't live a very
Speaker 1: long life. Did he die suddenly or did he get
Speaker 1: sick and he knew he was in trouble he got
Speaker 1: he was sick for like six months of being released.
Speaker 5: He was diagnosed with Uh he had all sorts of
Speaker 5: chess problems, sure, you know, through his life, but uh,
Speaker 5: it was it was not cigarette related, which was probably
Speaker 5: asbestos thing when he was a kid or who knows.
Speaker 5: I mean, it didn't help that he smoked, obviously, but
Speaker 5: but you know, just having the oxygen and stuff. That
Speaker 5: was the last, you know, a month or so. He
Speaker 5: died in October and his last concert was at Tanglewood
Speaker 5: in August that nineteen ninety's okay, so he could barely
Speaker 5: get through the.
Speaker 1: Last thing your father conducted was a public performance into
Speaker 1: the summer. He did the Beethoven seven at Tanglewood in
Speaker 1: August of nineteen ninety yep, and died that October. I
Speaker 1: think about your dad and did he just when he
Speaker 1: knew he was sick and he knew he was in
Speaker 1: trouble healthy because my dad knew he was in trouble.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a moment I had with my
Speaker 1: dad where he like, he looked at me with this
Speaker 1: look in his eye, like he knew it was over,
Speaker 1: and he and he just I mean, he had a
Speaker 1: tear one down his face. And my father said, I'll
Speaker 1: never know my grandchildren. And when I think about this
Speaker 1: with your dad, a guy like that, who had so
Speaker 1: much more he wanted to do, did.
Speaker 3: He ever express that too? Did he ever talk about
Speaker 3: that he wasn't done?
Speaker 6: Yeah, he did, you know, And I think, you know,
Speaker 6: he had this fantastic climactic moment at the very end
Speaker 6: of nineteen eighty nine, the year before he died, when
Speaker 6: he conducted at the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and
Speaker 6: he did the Ode to Joy and instead of singing Freuda,
Speaker 6: which means joy. They sang thrii height, which means freedom.
Speaker 6: It was such a big deal for him to be
Speaker 6: there when the Berlin Wall came down, and it was
Speaker 6: such a momentous occasion.
Speaker 3: Where were you when that happened?
Speaker 6: I wish I had been there, And in retrospect, I
Speaker 6: regret that I wasn't there, But I had just given
Speaker 6: birth to my son, Evan, like.
Speaker 3: Less than eight weeks earlier. Do you have an excuse?
Speaker 3: That was my excuse.
Speaker 6: So I watched it on the couch on Christmas Day
Speaker 6: while I was nursing my infant son. I watched it
Speaker 6: on TV because they showed the whole thing in the
Speaker 6: live broadcast about you.
Speaker 5: I don't even have an excuse, and I can't remember
Speaker 5: why I didn't go. I can't believe that I wasn't there.
Speaker 5: It's just unbelievable.
Speaker 6: You know, we didn't know he was going to be
Speaker 6: gone within the year, so you know, he was always there,
Speaker 6: and there were always these occasions where you could go
Speaker 6: and meet him on the road, and there were hundreds
Speaker 6: of them, and it was kind of a pain to
Speaker 6: go get in with that whole retinue and the whole
Speaker 6: madness of being of the tour thing.
Speaker 5: And so but Bill did it become entourage city.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Right after that he got really sick with a flu.
Speaker 3: And what year was that, nineteen eighty nine. It was
Speaker 3: like this at the fall.
Speaker 6: Christmas of nineteen eighty nine. And I remember visiting him
Speaker 6: about a month later, less than a month later in
Speaker 6: Key West, and he was just not feeling right and
Speaker 6: he told me so, he said, I just I'm not
Speaker 6: I don't feel right. That was the beginning of the
Speaker 6: slow decline. And then things got a lot worse in May,
Speaker 6: and then he just kind of struggle through all his
Speaker 6: gigs over the summer and then barely made it through
Speaker 6: that Beethoven seven. We were all in the audience clutching
Speaker 6: each other's hands, like, is he gonna make it?
Speaker 3: Is he gonna make it?
Speaker 1: We're taking a break, so stay with us. What was
Speaker 1: his life like after your mom passed away? He didn't remarry,
Speaker 1: did he?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 5: He did not, And it was why do you think
Speaker 5: he was so miserable for a long time after she
Speaker 5: He needed her, he needed her, and he was just
Speaker 5: a long long time until we went on vacation. Probably
Speaker 5: I don't know. Eight months later or something like that,
Speaker 5: and we sort of started seeing signs of a person again.
Speaker 6: Tell about what happened in Jamaica. After the Christmas dinner
Speaker 6: and then we went to the bar.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, this was the vacation in Jamaica. A
Speaker 5: bunch of our family and a couple of friends, and
Speaker 5: we went down to the bar and there were probably
Speaker 5: a couple of people in there. And he sits down
Speaker 5: at the piano at the bar. And this was after dinner,
Speaker 5: after you know, a lot of Scotch whatever, a lot
Speaker 5: of wine, and he plays Rhapsody in Blue from beginning
Speaker 5: to end. It was the most amazing performance you could
Speaker 5: possibly imagine. I mean, he's just ripped it. It was unforgettable.
Speaker 5: And then that's kind of when I knew he was back,
Speaker 5: And it was just through the music he was.
Speaker 3: He tells us, Oh my.
Speaker 5: God, so obviously never married again.
Speaker 3: But why do you think he never married again?
Speaker 1: You see a guy like that, You mean, my gun,
Speaker 1: he could have had any woman in New York. He
Speaker 1: didn't have room in his life for that anymore.
Speaker 5: No, And there were some men that he was very
Speaker 5: close to.
Speaker 1: And and would you say that once your mother passed
Speaker 1: away was your father's life as a bisexual man, that
Speaker 1: he just lived it more vividly once your mother was gone,
Speaker 1: was much more, much more living color about it.
Speaker 5: His uh, his mother was still alive. Oh, and I
Speaker 5: think that played a great role. That was kind of
Speaker 5: a governor there that for him, kind of a governor
Speaker 5: yet and then when he still had a public it
Speaker 5: was a different time.
Speaker 3: She outlived him.
Speaker 6: Yeah, she was ninety two when he died, and she
Speaker 6: said memorably, this will shorten my life.
Speaker 3: Wow. And so he and so he.
Speaker 1: You think that he kept that quiet and kept that private,
Speaker 1: not only because it was that that is nature to
Speaker 1: be a little more private.
Speaker 3: Like theatre.
Speaker 5: He sort of came out sort of a few times,
Speaker 5: and I think he was once he was hoping people
Speaker 5: would take more notice of it than they did, I think.
Speaker 5: But I think he didn't want his mother to have
Speaker 5: to deal with it with her friends and you know,
Speaker 5: people talking about it.
Speaker 3: If he was alive now, how old should that be?
Speaker 3: If he was alive now, he'd be nice.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, centennial will be twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: Who was someone?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure that we're boundless people because your
Speaker 1: father was very generous of heart, it seems very passionate.
Speaker 1: But who were some of the people other than Kuzovitski
Speaker 1: and Copen that we've covered before. Who were some of
Speaker 1: the people that were contemporaries of your father that you
Speaker 1: remember him speaking very glowingly abou Who did he admire?
Speaker 5: Lucas Voss would be one.
Speaker 6: They were a Curtis together, that's where they met, and
Speaker 6: they stayed friends and colleagues their entire lives. And Lucas
Speaker 6: was a stupendous pianist in addition to being an excellent composer.
Speaker 6: So he played our dad's Age of Anxiety, which is
Speaker 6: a sort of like a piano concerto. Older it's called
Speaker 6: a symphony, and Lucas could.
Speaker 3: Just play the hell out of it.
Speaker 6: And and our dad premiered many of Lucas's pieces with
Speaker 6: the Philharmonic, And so that was he was one of them.
Speaker 6: Michael Tilson Thomas was someone that our dad kind of
Speaker 6: nurtured along when.
Speaker 3: Hezovitsky to a degree, Yes, to a degree. Who else
Speaker 3: did who else did he mentor? Oh well, he was
Speaker 3: mister mentor to a great degree.
Speaker 10: I think yeah, John, another guy with great hair, great hair,
Speaker 10: school of conducting.
Speaker 3: Nothing like that hair flying through the air looks great.
Speaker 3: It's amazing how many great hair conductors there are, isn't
Speaker 3: that so? Right? Well, when nothing at the Philharmonic, it
Speaker 3: was his relationship with Sondheim.
Speaker 6: Oh that was a big, big relationship, big friendship and
Speaker 6: colleague ship.
Speaker 3: You know, west Side Story.
Speaker 1: Jerry Robins, all of them had this phenomenal success. Initially,
Speaker 1: West Side Story was supposed to be if I'm if
Speaker 1: I'm an Irish.
Speaker 3: Jewish gang, Yeah, a lower east Side. It was going
Speaker 3: to be east Side. It was going to be Lower
Speaker 3: east Side. Tempers would flare over the Easter passover holidays
Speaker 3: right right right right as Leles versus the Missus. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 6: And then apparently Jerry Robins saw some article about gang
Speaker 6: wars with Puerto Ricans on the Upper West.
Speaker 3: Side and he went, ding, you know the bulls, Jerry
Speaker 3: it was I think it was Jerry or was it Arthur?
Speaker 5: Always said it was Arthur, so I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was Arthur.
Speaker 1: Probably the most romantic line in the movie I've ever heard,
Speaker 1: and it always brings me to tears when he turns
Speaker 1: to her, they have the moment of the dance. Then
Speaker 1: he turns to her and says, you're not lying to me,
Speaker 1: are you? And she says, I have not yet learned
Speaker 1: to lie about such things.
Speaker 3: That's right. I have not yet learned to joke that way.
Speaker 3: I think you're not joking that what she says, you're
Speaker 3: not joking. I have not yet to give it to
Speaker 3: me again. You say it here we got rid of
Speaker 3: a live performance.
Speaker 5: Go you're not joking with me.
Speaker 3: I have not yet learned to joke that way. I
Speaker 3: think now I never will. There you go, there it is.
Speaker 6: And the reason we're laughing is because there's a recording
Speaker 6: of our dad conducting west Side Story for in a
Speaker 6: recording session, and he got Alexander and my sister Nina
Speaker 6: to do that dialogue so much to believe you're not.
Speaker 3: Joking me, I have not yet learned how to joke
Speaker 3: that way.
Speaker 8: I think no, I never will.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Speaking of films, your father only composed I mean, other
Speaker 1: than them transferring west Side to the film, your father
Speaker 1: only composed one film score, that's right, and it was
Speaker 1: a hell of a film.
Speaker 3: Score and very Wartenstein asque.
Speaker 1: And why do you think he only did? Your father someone?
Speaker 1: I mean, I see people, this is interesting because I
Speaker 1: see so many people Billy Joel Sting. I mean, you
Speaker 1: see Elton John make his fore way into that. But
Speaker 1: I see so many people who I think the mess
Speaker 1: of Billy, especially who's a friend. I say, my god,
Speaker 1: you could be doing so much music a movie score
Speaker 1: if you wanted to, and they just don't. They don't
Speaker 1: have a passion for it. Why did your father just
Speaker 1: do the one?
Speaker 6: You think, Well, because he really did not enjoy the experience.
Speaker 6: Why because he was being bossed around? Because an yeah,
Speaker 6: well what happened. For the example he gave was that
Speaker 6: he wrote, you know, the soaring music, that the dynamics
Speaker 6: that he composed were all in his head and all
Speaker 6: recorded a certain way, and then when they're mixing, they
Speaker 6: just dunk the fader on it so that, as our
Speaker 6: dad put it, so that you could hear Marlon Brando's grunt.
Speaker 6: And so just at the climactic moment of his love music,
Speaker 6: you know, in the final mix, they just dunk the fader.
Speaker 5: They would say, okay, fifteen bars of passion and then
Speaker 5: you know, thirty seconds of you know, quick. And he
Speaker 5: just couldn't write that way. That way, it was impossible,
Speaker 5: So he he loves they but he just hated doing
Speaker 5: the work.
Speaker 3: You have children. I have a daughter. You have a
Speaker 3: daughter who's how old?
Speaker 5: She'll be fourteen in two weeks.
Speaker 3: You have a daughter that's fourteen, and what does she into?
Speaker 3: What does she do?
Speaker 5: She's into her first year of high school and loving it.
Speaker 5: And she's into theater in a big way. She loves
Speaker 5: to you're raising your kids in the city. You're outside
Speaker 5: the city in the city. You're raising your daughter inside
Speaker 5: the city. And she likes acting. She likes acting, but
Speaker 5: she's also you know, she loves her English class and
Speaker 5: history class and math, to her school and her friends
Speaker 5: and her What about you.
Speaker 3: I have two.
Speaker 6: I have ad they're in their twenties now, they're in
Speaker 6: their early t do My daughter, Frankie, lives in Brooklyn,
Speaker 6: she's a right and my son is still in school
Speaker 6: up in the Berkshires.
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, he's up and he lives
Speaker 3: in Lee, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: No, well, you know, for both of you, your children,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously they know they didn't have to watch.
Speaker 1: In their case, they weren't watching Leonard Bernstone. That wasn't
Speaker 1: the cartoon, wasn't the gateway into an understanding of who
Speaker 1: their grandfather was.
Speaker 3: But they know who he is and have you had
Speaker 3: and do they do? They have an appetite and a
Speaker 3: passion to understand who he is and see who he is.
Speaker 3: My kids don't.
Speaker 6: They're very careful about sort of keeping their distance from
Speaker 6: that whole connection. I think it makes them a little shy,
Speaker 6: a little a little anxious, and so they don't.
Speaker 3: They don't embrace.
Speaker 1: Based on without getting too personal, because I have an
Speaker 1: opinion about that because of my daughter. Oh really, well,
Speaker 1: what they want is that they sense that celebrity has
Speaker 1: become so exponentially out of control now and they prefer
Speaker 1: their privacy. If knowing that I was related directly to
Speaker 1: Leonard Bernstein was going to lead to something appropriate or
Speaker 1: comfortable or rite, there would be one thing, But nowadays
Speaker 1: everybody's after the wrong thing.
Speaker 3: And that's really interesting.
Speaker 5: I mean I think about that a lot because our
Speaker 5: father really loved being famous and we had fun with it,
Speaker 5: and it was just a different type of thing in
Speaker 5: those days.
Speaker 3: It was different.
Speaker 5: It's more of an industry now. And he started seeing
Speaker 5: that more and more starting in the eighties, and you
Speaker 5: talked about it a lot, and he once said to
Speaker 5: me I'm so sick of Leonard Bernstein.
Speaker 3: I've had it with him. I've always had a problem
Speaker 3: about time. But when I had a problem about.
Speaker 2: Time at the age of twenty five or thirty, when
Speaker 2: you're still, at least in part, thinking you're immortal and
Speaker 2: nothing's ever going to change the way you are.
Speaker 3: Abbreviated, everything's all right.
Speaker 2: I mean I would go on concert tours and compose
Speaker 2: in the airport or on the plane, or on the train,
Speaker 2: or I wrote half of the Age of Anxiety and
Speaker 2: airports and trains and hotels. I can't do that anymore,
Speaker 2: and it's been some time since I could. One of
Speaker 2: the reasons is one's standards get higher and higher. Self
Speaker 2: identification with the composer whose works you are performing become
Speaker 2: closer and closer to the point where there are performances
Speaker 2: which are the ones I call good performances, but I
Speaker 2: know it's been a really good performance. It's one in
Speaker 2: which I have the feeling I've written the piece standing there,
Speaker 2: and when it's over, I don't know where I'm standing.
Speaker 1: As he grew older, Bernstein's connection to the music of
Speaker 1: Gustav Mahler, whom he had championed throughout his career became
Speaker 1: even stronger.
Speaker 5: I think he felt a deep association I mean, apart
Speaker 5: from the music itself, obviously, an association with Mahler as
Speaker 5: a conflicted musician, Mahler being Jewish and in a Georgian
Speaker 5: Jewish world and being a tonal composer in an a
Speaker 5: more atonal world, becoming so being a European man who
Speaker 5: came to America. You know, somebody from the classical tradition
Speaker 5: coming to America and suddenly finding themselves in this crazy world.
Speaker 5: So I think there was an affinity there.
Speaker 6: Plus, he was the combination of composer and conductor, which
Speaker 6: there aren't.
Speaker 3: That many of. I would love to have known your father.
Speaker 1: Your father was so singular and remains so singular because
Speaker 1: number one, whenever he came on, I was happy, And
Speaker 1: whenever he came on, I was excited, and he never
Speaker 1: disappointed me. And when I would see him, I'd say,
Speaker 1: once you get from Bernstein, you can only get from Bernstein.
Speaker 1: He was the original in his field. Leonard Bernstein's children,
Speaker 1: Jamie and Alexander, say their father was so original in
Speaker 1: part because he just never stopped celebrating music, celebrating life.
Speaker 6: He never slept. He was a terrible insomniac. I think
Speaker 6: that's probably why I managed to squeeze in so much action.
Speaker 3: He was always at it.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: I wish he was around.
Speaker 1: He and I could have hung out together. Oh oh,
Speaker 1: I'm an insomniac. And could you imagine you're in Stein
Speaker 1: and I watching YouTube together.
Speaker 3: Would have come over at four am and you could
Speaker 3: have hung out. God, we could have been watching old
Speaker 3: movies together. And yeah, you would have gone to the
Speaker 3: piano and played all the old Hermann scores. Yes, everything.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin. To learn more about Leonard Bernstein
Speaker 1: and artful learning and educational organization that his son Alex spearheads,
Speaker 1: go to Here's the thing dot org