WEBVTT - From the Archives: Alex and Jamie Bernstein 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:04.320 Hey, it's Alec Baldwin here. Before we launch our next 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:08.480 season of Here's the Thing at iHeartRadio in January, I 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.440 thought I'd share a few of my favorite shows from 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:16.079 the archives. Few people could have convinced Hollywood Studios to 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.319 back a biopic about the life of the composer and 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.880 conductor Leonard Bernstein. But when its director and leading man 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:27.960 are Bradley Cooper, who could say no? His film Maestro 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:32.920 premieres tomorrow, December twentieth on Netflix. Here's my interview with 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:36.320 two of Bernstein's children, Jamie and Alex Bernstein. 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:41.159 Carnegie Hall in New York City, the home of the 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.440 world's greatest musical events. 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.200 In the nineteen fifties, television was a powerful new spotlight 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:50.840 in search of a talent that could shine back just as. 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:52.520 Bright and here is mister Bernstein. 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.480 When it landed on Leonard Bernstein, the young conductor more 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:00.960 than shined back. His primetime show, Leonard Bernstein Young People's 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:04.120 Concerts with the New York Philharmonic was a benchmark of 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.440 quality programming and seduced the entire country. 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.160 No matter how many times people tell you stories about 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:16.680 what music means, forget them. Stories aren't what music means 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:21.240 at all. Music is never about anything. Music just is 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:26.680 music is notes, beautiful notes, and songs put together in 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:29.520 such a way that we get pleasure out of listening 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:29.800 to them. 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.160 That's all there is to Bernstein was a masterful teacher, 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.240 explaining classical music with a passion and clarity that couldn't 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:41.600 help but influence an entire generation of musicians and artists. 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:45.240 In those days, there were far fewer celebrities, and Bernstein 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:48.200 was one of the biggest. He wore it well, taking 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.120 his seat at the piano at the center of the party. 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:56.240 He really enjoyed the public. Leonard Bernstein, he loved the key. 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.320 Leonard Bernstein loved and he loved being famous, and he 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.320 loved meeting everybody in the world and. 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:04.920 In fancy hotels and flying first class. And he'd take 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:06.840 us along and share it with us, like. 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:07.880 Isn't this cool. 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.120 Bernstein was a musician, a conductor, a teacher, and a 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.920 composer of classical music as well as Broadway musicals. He 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:17.440 was also a father. 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:19.360 I'm the bossy one. 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.960 Bernstein and his wife Felicia had three children, Jamie, Alexander, 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.760 and Nina, and while they knew him in the tucks 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:29.560 and tales. They also knew him as the dad who 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.440 loved games. He was a killer at anagrams and always 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:37.119 up for tennis or squash or skiing or touch football. 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.000 The word games, you have no idea. 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.840 Two of Bernstein's children, Jamie and Alexander, spoke with me 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:46.720 about their legendary father and what it was like to 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:50.080 grow up with people like Stephen Sondheim and Jerome Robbins 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:51.600 as regular HouseGuests. 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:52.800 When we were really little. 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:54.760 Alexander and I used to share a bedroom when we 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:56.480 were like, you know, really little, and we lived in 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:00.160 the Osbourne, which is that grand building, and Alexander and 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.760 I slept, you know, at sort of right angles to 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:05.480 each other in this bedroom, and we would go to 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.959 sleep listening to the grown ups carrying on downstairs. Is 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.760 what we fell asleep to the noise of the you know, 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.960 the laughing and the roaring around the piano, singing, sneaking 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:17.120 of the glasses, and the smell of the cigarette smoke 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:20.160 washing up the sas shape. We could not wait to 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:22.920 be grown ups because obviously all grown ups did was 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:23.400 have fun. 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:24.600 That's interesting. 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:26.120 That's how it seemed to us, And it seemed like 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.160 our dad certainly had fun when he was working too, 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:32.360 so we never saw anything that resembled drudgery, which is 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:36.560 probably a thing that most kids perceive in their working parents. 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:39.040 It's tough. What about your mother? 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.720 Was your mother someone who was his companion and she 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:44.320 was along for the ride and all of it and 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:44.840 loving it. 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:46.640 Or was she someone who was sitting in the room going, 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.440 when's it gonna stop my eyes? 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:53.160 The energizer bunny and the Martini in his hand and a. 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.960 Pell Mell in the other Scotch not Martinez, Scotchie, Valentine's 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:05.440 a Valentine's beer, Oh Scotch, Scotch did am and she 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:09.120 had a Chesterfield my grandfather vodka and the other. 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.360 But your mother was his trusted companion. She was she 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:14.680 was in. She was all in, absolutely. 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:16.200 All in, and I think it drove her crazy, every 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:18.440 bit as much as she loved it all. 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.400 She was very social. Where was she from? And where 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:23.160 did they meet? 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:29.719 They met at a party given by Claudio organist and. 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:31.640 Who was her teacher because he was studying piano. 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:33.760 She had told her parents that she was coming to 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:36.880 New York to study piano, but she really wanted to 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.200 be an actress, so she came. 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.400 She's a beautiful woman, and she was beautiful, very beautiful. 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:48.600 So she had this understanding with Aral that she would 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:50.680 be sort of studying with him, But meanwhile she was 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:53.400 studying with my parents. 0:04:53.680 --> 0:05:02.840 Now make this sound of the piano. The debuts we're 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.920 like to make parents now in exactly so America. 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:08.000 I think it was very much like that. 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.920 It was, And the legend has it that our mother 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:15.039 sat at his feet and fed him shrimps one by one. 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.680 That was the beginning of the romance. Yeah, yeah, not around. 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.160 She might have been doing that and they got engaged. 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:25.000 But where was he ad in his career then? 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.680 So he had already had his big debut with the 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:30.800 New York Philharmonic, because that was in nineteen forty three. 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:32.880 Were he filled in for for he filled in the. 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.880 Ailing Bruno Vaulter, as he's always referred to in that circumstance. 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:40.000 I thought his first name was ailing anyway, So this 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.200 must have been like maybe four or five years later, 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.240 So he was riding high, but he was not yet. 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:46.360 That'll be a name. 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.160 I stay in a hotel, and from now I love 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:49.880 good names for hotels. I'm going to stay in a 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:50.680 hotel under the name. 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:55.880 Ailing e h l I aiming. Bruno Vote is the 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.920 name I would use this hotel, and so Bruno Vote. 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:07.040 The fluent year was that. That was November fourteenth, nineteen 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:07.800 forty three. 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:12.640 Wow, good afternoon, the United States Rubber Company again invites 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:14.880 you to Carnegie Hall to hear a concert of the 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.960 New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. Bruno Vaulter, who was to 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.160 have conducted this afternoon, is ill, and his place will 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.800 be taken by the young American born assistant conductor of 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:27.160 the Philharmonic Symphony, Leonard Bernstein. 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.080 And he had to get up there on a moment's notes. 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.000 And he'd been up all night the night before because 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.400 he'd had a premiere of a song cycle of his 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:37.320 called I Hate Music, and it had premiered the night before. 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.120 So of course it was a cardi a town hall 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.040 and it was very well received, and of course there 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:44.880 was a party afterwards, and they were up all the 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:46.960 livelong night. And at the time, you know, our dad 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:49.719 was living in Carnegie Hall in those little apartments they 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:52.000 used to have at the top. So he gets back 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.039 to Carnegie Hall at you know, five in the morning 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.520 and passes out and then like an hour and a 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.200 half later, the phone rings and it's Bruno Zerrato of 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:01.760 the New York Philharmonic saying, this is a. 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.520 Kid you have to go on this afternoon. And it 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.000 was on the radio. It was a national broadcast, which 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:09.040 is why it was such a big deal. 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.200 Lennard Burns, Dane has come out on the platform. 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.040 It was highly covered in the press, probably because it 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:15.720 was the middle of the war and everybody needed a 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.920 feel good story. Yes, American boy makes good kind of thing. 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.080 So one guy said, it's like a shoe string catch 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.560 in center field. Make it and you're a hero, Muffett 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:27.520 and you're a dope. Bernstein made it. 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.520 Did he ever reflect on that to you? Meaning when 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:36.280 people have that kind of debut? He came up that 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:37.920 night and everything changed after. 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:39.640 That, Right, he pretty much knew that it was a 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:41.960 sort of Cinderella tale and that he just got this 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:43.360 unbelievable lucky break. 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.160 Yeah, And did he believe was it ever discussed even 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.520 by your mother or people like that? Did your father 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.080 realize he must have that his sexuality and that his 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:55.360 good looks were as much a part of this talent 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:56.000 as anything else. 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:56.760 I think there's no. 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.200 Doubt about that, and I think played he played it 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:04.040 probably from high school on, you know, and as soon 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.560 as he started playing the piano and knew he had 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.240 this incredible talent and could play at parties and get 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:11.320 all his attention and. 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:14.800 He had a meeting out of his hands, Oh my god, 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.520 and the shrimp out of the hand. Yeah, at age 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:20.840 twenty five, he was still a little geeky. 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.120 I mean the pictures of him with the Philharmonic after 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.640 the debut, where he's all exhausted and tousled and sweaty, 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.360 he actually looks like like a bar Mitzvah. 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:30.600 Boy. 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:34.120 He was a little funny, and I think he kind 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:38.319 of grew into his grooviness over the subsequent years. 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.240 So your father, he had three children over ten years. 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.240 Yeah, yeah, And what was that like for him in 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.439 terms of were there did he have certain kind of 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.000 rules in terms of how he protected you from the 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.360 public and the schools you went to and the way 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:54.720 you lived your life, or was he just very loosey goosey? 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.160 You know, I would say that he was not your 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:57.920 mother in charge. 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:00.920 He was the one who really designed the way our 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:04.000 lives went on a day to day basis. He was 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.040 busy being the maestro, and then you would come home 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.000 and play with us and hang out, but have fun 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:10.720 and have fun. 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.520 But he was not really the designer of the domestic scene. 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.040 He was a great He was home. He was really home. 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:19.480 You know, you didn't have an office to go to. 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:22.200 And when did you get him aware of who your 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:22.839 father was? 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:25.760 You know, you when you're growing up, your family's just 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:29.480 your family. You have no objectivity about it, and your 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:31.520 parents are just your parents, and you don't really think 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.800 about how different they might be from the others until 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.240 you get older. At some point when we were pretty young, 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:40.840 there was an episode of The Flintstones. 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.240 What time is it, Betty? It's tenants to nine, Betty 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.680 and Wilma. We're going to go to the HALLI Rock Bowl. 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:54.440 I love to watch Leonard Burnstown conduct and the first 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:54.960 thing on the. 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:58.719 Program is that gorgeous symphony by Rocky Manning A. 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.160 When we were here, he had hit the big time. 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:08.199 And how old were you kids? Little kids? Yeh, like 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:12.360 you know, nine and six even less? Was there a 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:14.600 downside to it? Did you feel like there were things 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:15.920 that were tough for you with him? 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:19.920 And looking back on it now or when we got older, 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.920 probably look back and think about some downsides, but at 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:28.640 the time it really didn't seem so bad at all. 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:30.640 It was a lot of when we were really little, 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:32.400 it was just a lark. 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:36.240 I often try to think back to come on, you know, 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.439 there must have been some he was shadows, But we 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.040 had a pretty fantastic early childhood. 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:42.240 It was. 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:43.720 It was kind of wonderful. 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.200 He's not some tortured introspective. He was a happy guy, 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:47.199 and he was a celebrity. 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:51.480 Was introspective, he was, but but back in those early 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:56.319 days of our family life, that was overshadowed by the 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.920 joy and the happiness, the busyness and the family life, 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:01.079 and the kept that from you. 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.920 We are ascended he kept that from you. 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.760 I'll tell you in my memory, the moment when it 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:12.160 changed was November twenty second, nineteen sixty three, the day 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:16.480 JFK was assassinated. That was when the shadow fell over 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.360 and life became sort of real. Up until that point, 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:24.320 you know, grown ups just had fun as far as 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:26.920 we could perceive. And then that day we saw our 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:31.440 parents fall apart. They were crying because they were friends 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:33.400 of the Kennedys. They had been to the White House. 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.360 They had had dinner just the four of them. 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:41.760 Imagine they had been centerpieces of Kennedy's cultural programming in 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:42.360 the White Acci. 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:44.800 Yeah, they could. 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.199 Not have been more connected to the Kennedy administration and 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:50.520 everything that it stood for. So on that day when 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:54.800 when he was assassinated, our parents just fell apart, and 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.720 so did the whole rest of the family and all 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.199 their friends. And they pulled down the shades and out 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.199 around crying all day. And just watch TV. Now we 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:05.560 could perceive that there were shadows and that there were 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.439 ups and downs that wasn't visible to us in the world. 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.480 Itself can affect people psychologically. Yeah. 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.559 What about your mom in terms of her music appreciation? 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:17.400 I mean, she studied the piano, but did she go 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:19.480 on have any kind of a serious career even ur 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.040 in her young years when she was with Arau, did 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.839 she play? Did she study? Once she met and married 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:26.120 your father? Did all that stop? 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.960 Her piano playing stopped? She would play sometimes at home, 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.040 and quite beautifully, but she wasn't. 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.440 As passionate about it. No, what was she passionate about? 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.720 Was passionate about her acting? She kept at that sometimes 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.240 she would and what were some of the things she 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:44.480 was working on During her career. 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:46.959 She did a lot of early television Playhouse ninety and 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.280 craft Heater and all those live dramas that they had 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:52.520 in early television. 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:53.959 She did a lot of that and a lot of 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.600 stage work. Did that stop at some point? It kind of. 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.320 Receded as she came missus maestro and a mom, which 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.440 was a double job that could keep anybody. 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:08.559 Of course, when was she generally happy to do those things? 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:10.920 Did she ever a voice? Because it's interesting to me 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.880 to have someone who is in the world of music herself. 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:18.679 She was studied with raw It's a serious opportunity there. 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:21.679 She had aspirations about music and acting, and did she 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.080 miss those things? Did she ever say gosh, I fondly? 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:26.000 Did she have a little bit of a wistfulness about it? 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:28.000 She was pretty ambivalent about it. Yeah she did. 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.560 And she didn't really talk a lot about her inner 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:31.440 herself too. 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:31.760 Ah. 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:33.360 What she did tell you. 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:37.120 About a little bit was that she had some stage 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:42.920 fright issues, and so when she started performing less in public, 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.120 she would say that she was relieved, and that being 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:52.280 you know, this, this Missus Bernstein persona was a way 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:56.599 of not having to confront her fears about performing, But 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:00.160 I think you know, anybody who has performed, how a 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:01.959 part of them that still wants to perform. But she 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.120 knew that that it was just going to be too 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:09.000 hard to have these two rampant egos in the household. 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:11.520 Probably a good call. 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:21.200 Coming up more about Bernstein's early years in Massachusetts and 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.800 his final concert at Tanglewood, which his brother described as 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:26.520 Lenny coming home to die. 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:35.600 This is Alec Baldwin. 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:40.080 I'm talking with two of Leonard Bernstein's children, Jamie and Alexander. 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:05.800 I see someone like your dad who sounds very childlike 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:10.480 did the young People's concerts father, fun and joy and 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:15.160 and and family and love bursting with love. Leonard Bernstein 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:16.760 is someone to me who when he's on the podium, 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:19.800 who love is just shooting out of him like a rainbow. 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.600 Love of this and love of that, and love of life, 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:24.640 and love of sex, and love of sound, and love 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:28.080 of women and love of beauty. And I wonder was 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.920 it because as the result of his classical training, did 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:32.360 he not have enough childhood? 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:38.680 His childhood was not about music. He was raised where 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.000 he was where he was born, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.960 then shortly thereafter they moved to the Boston area. 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:52.400 First they lived in Roxburgh. He was a hair products salesman. 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.200 He was a salesman and his mom was she musical. 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:57.680 How did the music get into his life? 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:02.160 Well, here's the thing. There was this Clara who moved 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:06.320 to Florida, and so she sent all her furniture over 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:10.480 to her brother Sam's house, and along with all the 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.840 couches and breakfronts, arrived this upright piano. 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:15.760 Our dad was ten years old. 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:20.840 The piano got hauled into the house and as our 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.080 father told it, he touched the piano and that was it. 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.560 He knew it's one of those stories. And he taught 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.840 himself theory. He just played the piano. 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.840 He figured he could figure it all out late in 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:33.600 the modern world. 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:38.480 And the thing about his dad, Sam Bernstein, is that Sam, 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.480 you know, it was a depression. But Sam was very 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.040 proud that he was able to tide his family over 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:48.920 the depression because he had this very successful beauty supply business, 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:53.440 the Samuel J. Bernstein Hair Company in Boston. It's Bernstein 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:58.360 was the slogan, and he had the New England franchise 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.120 for the Frederick's Permanent Wave machine. 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:03.520 And everybody knows it, even in a depression. There's two 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.040 things you don't like, go booze and vanity. There you go, 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:07.200 you have your hair done. 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:09.520 All those women would go in and be attached to 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:13.560 that that machine that looks like Bride of Frankenstein. They 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:15.760 were all doing it. So they got through the depression. 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:17.879 And Sam was so proud that he was able to 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.600 pass the Samuel J. Bernstein Hair Company along to his 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:25.200 eldest son to run. And of course Lenny had no 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.919 intention of running the Samuel J. Bernstein Hair Company in Boston. 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:32.680 It's Bernstein and it was a real problem between hair. 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:34.800 Yes, he did swell had of hair. 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.280 Then what Sam was not going to let him be 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:43.640 a kletzmer musician, you know, because he can't get weddings 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:45.800 and funerals. And that was it, you know, that's what 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:47.439 a musician does in the old country. 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:49.879 That a musician was a beggar, a homeless guy who 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.159 went from Stettl to Stettele playing the fiddle and. 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.240 Getting a few kopeks at the wedding you call out 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:55.640 a living. 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:59.760 So what happened so little by little it became clear 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:03.280 that he was immensely talented at this and it went 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:05.280 to the Boston Latin School and then to Harvard. 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:08.760 And he gets to Harvard to study what music. Just know, 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.760 they had no music, no music department. You couldn't major 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:13.840 in it. So he was he a literature guy. 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:16.680 She was born in nineteen eighteen eighteen. So he's there, 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.480 you know, class thirty nine. No music department at Harvard. 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.159 There and the just immediately prior of the war. And 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.440 then when he leaves Harvard, where does he go. He 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.720 goes to Curtis. So Curtis where for one he goes 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:30.200 to the next level he was. 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.399 Curtis is where the music at Harvard, he's writing music, 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:35.280 he's putting on shows constantly. 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.960 Curtis is the real temple of musical study that he enters. 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.359 And this is the real formalizing of his musical education. 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:45.480 He studies with Fritz Reiner, right, you know, studies conducting. 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.760 It all goes on a big level here, a big level. 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.000 And it was it was tough. He was very lonely. 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:51.720 It was it was a tough year or two for 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:55.960 him at Curtis. He's there for how long a little 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:56.520 over a year? 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:58.239 I think, then what happens a long time? And then 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.760 he came to New York, desperate to find work. He 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.760 was ready to hit New York and do what he started. 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:06.679 He wrote. 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:12.760 Arrangements, arrangements and stuff under an assumed name Lenny Amber. 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.320 He arranged Ornette Coleman charts. He did all sorts of 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.320 weird things he did, didn't you do? Like a fourhands 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:23.359 version of Ilsel and Mickey co for Aaron Copeland. Well 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:24.920 that was the big thing that he got to know 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:27.040 Eric Copeland to know how did that happen? 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:29.040 That he was still in college when he met Aaron 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:31.760 Harvard or Curtis Harvard, Harvard. Yeah, so at Harvard he 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.040 meets Copeland under what circumstances? Because if he's not in 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:35.960 a music program, how does he rub shoulders with? 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.040 I think he gets invited to He came to New 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:40.000 York for the weekend. 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.159 He was invited to be seeking out and sniffing out 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:44.680 the musical world, even though it was at Harvest and 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:45.520 he's an a concert. 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.280 I think it was now sitting next to Aaron and 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:50.720 they get to know each other. 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.119 And it turned out to be Aaron's birthday and Aaron 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:57.480 invited our dad back to his loft for the party. 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.320 Clara Ships the piano of the house. 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.200 That's that's ooh moment number one. He gets seated next 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.840 to Copeland Ooh moment number two, and. 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:08.680 Then goes to the birthday party and plays Copeland's piano 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.880 variations in front of the whole crowd, which our dad 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.399 was in the habit of doing and clearing rooms because 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:16.119 it's a very gnarly piece. 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:18.000 And so he said, are you sure you want me. 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:20.440 To play it at this party because it usually clears 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:22.919 the room, And Aaron said, not at this party. 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:25.200 And he played it and didn't clear the room. He 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:26.520