My Cousin Lenny: Remembering Leonard Bernstein | Hacker News Reader

My Cousin Lenny: Remembering Leonard Bernstein

thesmartset.com

42 pointstintinnabula9 comments

Story time! My grandpa was Leonard Bernstein. Not the composer Leonard Bernstein, but another NYC Leonard Bernstein. But occasionally, there would be mixups.

They ran into each other at a restaurant once and shared a chuckle, when the staff paged Leonard Bernstein to come to the desk for a phone call.

The best was when my grandpa was harassed by the mother of a violin prodigy for a few months. She kept calling him on nights and weekends. Finally he shouted at her, "Lady, I live in the suburbs on Long Island, what makes you think I'm the composer Leonard Bernstein!?"

Ha! And let's not forget NYC co-resident Elmer Bernstein, composer of this particularly fine Western theme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuAZ4WhbI8o

So pleased to find Classical Music postings on HN!

For those interested in Bernstein's views, his last interview dubbed [Dinner With Lenny](http://a.co/j5kOMIM) is recommended.

To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.

--Leonard Bernstein

I found this segment recently where Bernstein discusses Beethoven with the actor Maximillian Schell while sitting at the piano. Loved the relaxed atmosphere (they're both smoking and looking cool) and the erudite explanations and the little quotations from pieces playing on the piano (while he apologizes for making small mistakes).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuYY1gV8jhU

For those of you that find Bernstein's later work hard to parse, I highly recommend his first symphony, written before his own style was fully developed. It's like an extended essay about everything he likes about Mahler. His recordings of Mahler's work are often criticised for not being faithful to the intent of the composer, but that's to completely miss the point: they're deliberately and wonderfully interpretive.

I wouldn't be so sure West Side Story is going to outlast Mahler 5, though. They might tie...

Interesting to read that Bernstein was a member of the Communist Party. As someone who's studied music and been a fan of Bernstein for years, I've not once heard this, despite having read quite a bit about his music.

His politics has been whitewashed so hard it's not funny, and it's never mentioned when his music is discussed.

There was a time in the US where it was more honorable to be in the Communist party, than being a member of Congress.

I Heart this!

Bernstein's rendition of Rhapsody in Blue introduced me classical piano.

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