From Publishers Weekly
With at least three other books about the late composer/conductor published in the past year, this would have to offer some startling new material to fill any kind of need, but it doesn't come close. Burton, a musician and journalist who now lives in England, has had the not very original idea of talking to fellow composers, recording engineers, orchestra members, singers, even other journalists who knew Bernstein, and transcribing the results. The picture that emerges is very much the one we have from the biographies: brilliant early promise, a profligate life, agonies about insufficient recognition as a composer and self-defeating behavior in the later years, even as his critical reputation soared. The musicians interviewed all seem to agree that there was a magnetism to a live Bernstein performance that was not reproducible; recording engineer Paul Myers is crisply dispassionate; biographer Joan Peyser insists that her emphasis on Bernstein's sexuality was intended as a compliment rather than a put-down. It's pleasant reading for Bernstein aficionados but essentially superfluous. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Leonard Bernstein liked to party, but these conversations are with colleagues, not social friends, so they are more serious commentaries than gossipy chronicles. By asking similar questions of different people, editor Burton explores several areas of Bernstein's career and personality. Which compositions will be remembered? he asks.
Jeremiah Symphony,
West Side Story, and
Serenade are common answers. What was he like as a conductor? Energetic, frenetic, introspective, fearless, and, at the end, using slow tempi to bring out details. What motivated him? He sought adulation, was extremely generous, and wanted only the best from the people with whom he worked. Giving the answers are composers, a critic, a biographer, a record producer, conducting prote{‚}ge{‚}s, a theater director, singers, a cellist, and members of three orchestras. Some famous collaborators--Comden and Green, Sondheim--do not weigh in, but their associations are covered well in Humphrey Burton's
Leonard Bernstein (1994). Carol Lawrence and Jerry Hadley contribute the most poignant interviews to a book that, though short, affords some perspectives on Bernstein not found elsewhere.
Alan Hirsch
