Leonard Bernstein (con't):
Connecting the Threads
Myriad intriguing research threads emerged in the process. One has to do with shaping a regional context for Bernstein’s long and strong devotion to Israel. He first went there in 1947, traveling with his father Sam and sister Shirley to conduct the Palestine Symphony Orchestra. His concert in October 1948 for Israeli troops and settlers in Beersheba became a sensational event, attracting an audience of some 5,000 (Bernstein played Rhapsody in Blue as an encore). It was followed by a performance of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony in Jerusalem. Sam was a devoted Jew—a Talmudic scholar and descendant of a Chassidic family from the Ukraine who became a leader in his Roxbury temple. Historian Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis mused in a session with our seminar that Boston Jews had an especially strong sense of Zionism during the early-to-mid twentieth century, and he wondered how much that might have been fueled by the Irish nationalism that flourished simultaneously in Boston’s immigrant neighborhoods, where Jews lived alongside the Irish. In turn, what were the distinctive manifestations of Zionism at Congregation Mishkan Tefila during Bernstein’s youth, and how did they shape nuances of his passionate commitment to Israel?
Another set of enticing questions surrounds Bernstein’s experience as a radio listener during the 1930s. How might his life-mission of fusing opera and musical theater—of blurring the dividing lines between music of high status and that considered as popular or commercial—have been grounded in his family’s frequent sessions in front of the radio? A flick of the dial in urban America during the 1930s could turn up the likes of Lily Pons and Walter Damrosch on the one hand, or Rudy Vallee and Vincent Lopez on the other. Bernstein’s radio days pop up repeatedly in his mature work. For example, when he wrote Wonderful Town with lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green in late 1952, he sought musical signifiers to conjure up the show’s setting in the 1930s. All three later recalled that Bernstein did so by referencing the piano style of radio star Eddie Duchin. Another interesting case is the vocal trio at the opening of Trouble in Tahiti, written just before Wonderful Town. Bernstein described it in one manuscript as “a Greek Chorus born of the radio commercial,” and that’s exactly what its crooning harmonies and scat syllables evoke. (This document is now housed in the voluminous Bernstein Collection at the Library of Congress.) Finally, what did Bernstein, the future television personality, learn from radio’s populist educational mission?
Tip O’Neill, longtime Speaker of the House of Representatives and near-contemporary of Bernstein (not to mention fellow son of Massachusetts), became famous for the quip, “All politics is local.” While Bernstein’s multifaceted musical career eventually extended far beyond his home state, much remains to be gained by sifting through fertile local soil, searching for the cultural and religious roots that forged his social values and personal identity.
