Leonard Bernstein used to be a charismatic and flexible musiciana wonderful conductor who attained foreign super-star prestige, and a proficient composer of Broadway musicals (West facet Story), symphonies (Age of Anxiety), choral works (Chichester Psalms), movie rankings (On the Waterfront), and lots more and plenty extra. Bernstein used to be additionally an enthusiastic letter author, and this ebook is the 1st to offer a wide-ranging choice of his correspondence. The letters were chosen for the insights they give into the passions of his lifemusical and personaland the extravagant scope of his musical and extra-musical activities.
Bernstein’s letters inform a lot approximately this complicated guy, his collaborators, his mentors, and others just about him. His galaxy of correspondents encompassed, between others, Aaron Copland,Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, Thornton Wilder, Boris Pasternak, Bette Davis, Adolph eco-friendly, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and kinfolk together with his spouse Felicia and his sister Shirley. the vast majority of those letters have by no means been released sooner than. they've been conscientiously selected to illustrate the breadth of Bernstein’s musical pursuits, his consistent fight to discover the time to compose, his turbulent and intricate sexuality, his political actions, and his unending skill for exertions. past all this, those writings offer a glimpse of the guy in the back of the legends: his humanity, heat, volatility, highbrow brilliance, incredible eye for descriptive element, and humor.