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Yale University Press
November 2013
On Sale: October 29, 2013
624 pages ISBN: 030017909X EAN: 9780300179095 Kindle: B00FVYPJHY Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
Leonard Bernstein was a charismatic and versatile musician—a
brilliant conductor who attained international super-star
status, and a gifted composer of Broadway musicals (West
Side Story), symphonies (Age of Anxiety), choral
works (Chichester Psalms), film scores (On the
Waterfront), and much more. Bernstein was also an
enthusiastic letter writer, and this book is the first to
present a wide-ranging selection of his correspondence. The
letters have been selected for the insights they offer into
the passions of his life—musical and personal—and the
extravagant scope of his musical and extra-musical activities. Bernstein’s letters tell much about this complex man, his
collaborators, his mentors, and others close to him. His
galaxy of correspondents encompassed, among others, Aaron
Copland,Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, Thornton Wilder,
Boris Pasternak, Bette Davis, Adolph Green, Jacqueline
Kennedy Onassis, and family members including his wife
Felicia and his sister Shirley. The majority of these
letters have never been published before. They have been
carefully chosen to demonstrate the breadth of Bernstein’s
musical interests, his constant struggle to find the time to
compose, his turbulent and complex sexuality, his political
activities, and his endless capacity for hard work. Beyond
all this, these writings provide a glimpse of the man behind
the legends: his humanity, warmth, volatility, intellectual
brilliance, wonderful eye for descriptive detail, and humor.
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