Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician [Hardcover]

Barry Seldes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 26, 2009

From his dazzling conducting debut in 1943 until his death in 1990, Leonard Bernstein's star blazed brilliantly. In this fresh and revealing biography of Bernstein's political life, Barry Seldes examines Bernstein's career against the backdrop of cold war America--blacklisting by the State Department in 1950, voluntary exile from the New York Philharmonic in 1951 for fear that he might be blacklisted, signing a humiliating affidavit to regain his passport--and the factors that by the mid-1950s allowed his triumphant return to the New York Philharmonic. Seldes for the first time links Bernstein's great concert-hall and musical-theatrical achievements and his real and perceived artistic setbacks to his involvement with progressive political causes. Making extensive use of previously untapped FBI files as well as overlooked materials in the Library of Congress's Bernstein archive, Seldes illuminates the ways in which Bernstein's career intersected with the twentieth century's most momentous events. This broadly accessible and impressively documented account of the celebrity-maestro's life deepens our understanding of an entire era as it reveals important and often ignored intersections of American culture and political power.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Almost two decades after Bernstein's death, this is the first in-depth look at the man with his politics. It was worth the wait."--Boston Globe Book Section

"The book's greatest value . . . lies not simply in shedding new and more nuanced light on the story of 'Our Lenny', but in its consistent demonstration--in accordance with Bernstein's own ideas--that any attempt to separate the musical sphere from the moral and political comes at an unconscionably high price."--The Economist

"A rich, thoroughly researched and immensely readable study."--Times Literary Supplement (Tls)

"A major contribution."--Opera News

"A remarkable new book."--Forward

From the Inside Flap

"Finally, a biography of Bernstein that does not merely chronicle his career but truly explains it. Barry Seldes argues most convincingly that Bernstein's life in music is bound up with his political perspective, and his creative commitments reflected his social ones. What emerges from this meticulously researched, engagingly written, and utterly fascinating account is a richer, truer portrait of an important American composer, conductor, and citizen."--Elizabeth Bergman, author of Music for the Common Man: Aaron Copland during the Depression and War

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (May 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520257642
• ISBN-13: 978-0520257641
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #939,182 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Life as Politics, July 4, 2009

By 

Philip Pogson (Ryde, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician (Hardcover)

Bernstein cut a swath across the US arts scene for some forty years. Here was a world class, multi-talented, media friendly figure who although working in the field of classical music at a time when atonalism was the norm amongst composers, wrote works that were largely melodic and accesible. Several of his compositions are still in the general orchestral repertoire. Yet as Seldes points out, within this brilliant, sometimes facile, at times elusive man were a number of less-known interests including his life-long pursuit of liberal political causes which led to his acculumating a large FBI file and having his passport cancelled. To re-launch his career Bernstein made a little known, humiliating mea culpa, a confession of his left wing errors which perhaps says more about the heated atmosphere of 1950s anti-communism that it does of the man. Nevertheless, it is painful to read. Seldes is in command of his political material and writes in an engaging fashion keeping the text itself to less than 200 pages. His socio-political explanation of why Bernstein never wrote his final "great work" is less convincing. It is true that life, times and talent interact in the creation of art but I suspect the real reason the great work did no emerge was as much due to the fact that the production of great works was not Bernstein's primary gift as any other explanation. Bernstein wrote the music he loved for audiences he loved for the times he lived in. I suspect the same could be said of his conducting: he loved to perform and audiences loved to love him on the podium. Perhaps we should embrace the man as he was, rather than what he was not.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Leonard Bernstein - Politics and Music-making, August 19, 2009

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A. Lesitsky (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician (Hardcover)

Professor Barry Seldes has written a book about Leonard Bernstein. Is it a complete biography or an analysis of Bernstein's musical career? No, not at all. But the book succeeds brilliantly at what it sets out to do, which is to review in depth Bernstein's political views and associations. Most of the material discussed in this book has never been presented before. Dr. Seldes has thoroughly reviewed Bernstein's FBI files and he sets the record straight on many issues, including Bernstein's blacklisting in the 1950s. Also discussed are Bernstein's accomplishments as a composer, conductor and performer and how his political views affected what Bernstein composed.

Professor Seldes' narrative is written clearly and concisely and holds one's interest from beginning to end. As a new gloss of Bernstein's career, it is absolutely essential.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars American culture and the Cold War, October 13, 2009

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Sharon Thomas - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician (Hardcover)

Leonard Bernstein was one of the most politically engaged musicians of the twentieth century, with a long history of support for liberal causes dating from the New Deal. Inevitably, this led him into conflict during the postwar period and the McCarthy witch hunts. Even readers who know he was a target of Nixon's "enemies" list and the condescension of Tom Wolfe may not be aware of how close he came to losing his career and livelihood in the early 1950s. It was Bernstein's good fortune that the State Department needed him to serve as a "cultural ambassador" for the US during the Cold War, or he might have been forced to leave the country like many others. This book details the struggles that he and other artists endured to work in their chosen fields and maintain their personal integrity during a dark time in American political life. The end notes are particularly detailed and illuminating, although I would have liked to see the infamous affidavit which Bernstein was forced to sign in 1951 to obtain a passport, a document which was held over his head for years but never made public.

Like so many books published nowadays, unfortunately, this needed a good editing job to weed out obvious errors (FDR did not die in 1944) and some repetitious writing. Nevertheless, it is a valuable addition to our knowledge of this brilliant and conflicted artist. Mr. Seldes is particularly good on the 1973 Norton Lectures which Bernstein delivered at Harvard, in which he attempted to link tonal music with Noam Chomsky's linguistic theory. Not surprisingly, this too reflected the political and spiritual concerns of this self-described "rabbi," teacher. There is nobody like Lenny in our cultural life today, and the more we learn about him, the better.