Dinner with Lenny: The Last Long Interview with Leonard Bernstein

by Jonathan Cott

Leonard Bernstein was arguably the most highly esteemed, influential, and charismatic American classical music personality of the twentieth century. Conductor, composer, pianist, writer, educator, and human rights activist, Bernstein truly led a life of Byronic intensity-passionate, risk-taking, and convention-breaking.

In November 1989, just a year before his death, Bernstein invited writer Jonathan Cott to his country home in Fairfield, Connecticut for what turned out to be his last major interview-an unprecedented and astonishingly frank twelve-hour conversation. Now, in Dinner with Lenny, Cott provides a complete account of this remarkable dialogue in which Bernstein discourses with disarming frankness, humor, and intensity on matters musical, pedagogical, political, psychological, spiritual, and
the unabashedly personal. Bernstein comes alive again, with vodka glass in hand, singing, humming, and making pointed comments on a wide array of topics, from popular music ("the Beatles were the best songwriters since Gershwin"), to great composers ("Wagner was always in a psychotic frenzy. He was a madman,
a megalomaniac"), and politics (lamenting "the brainlessness, the mindlessness, the carelessness, and the heedlessness of the Reagans of the world"). And of course, Bernstein talks of conducting, advising students "to look at the score and make it come alive as if they were the composer. If you can do that, you're a conductorand if you can't, you're not. If I don't become Brahms or Tchaikovsky or Stravinsky when I'm conducting their works, then it won't be a great performance."

After Rolling Stone magazine published an abridged version of the conversation in 1990, the Chicago Tribune praised it as "an extraordinary interview" filled with "passion, wit, and acute analysis." Studs Terkel called the interview "astonishing and revelatory." Now, this full-length version provides the reader with a unique, you-are-there perspective on what it was like to converse with this gregarious, witty, candid, and inspiring American dynamo.

• ISBN10: 0199858446
• ISBN13: 9780199858446
• Publish Date: 28 March 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 192
• Language: English

Reviews

[wcs53]

Dinner with Lenny is one of the best books I have read so far this year. I really had no idea what to expect, feeling that I would at least find it interesting, but it was more than that and I found it really hard to put down in the end.

The book is a complete account of Leonard Bernstein's last full interview, which he gave to Jonathan Cott just a year before his death. A short version appeared in Rolling Stone, but Cott had felt at the time that it didn't really do justice, so the result was to publish it in full in book form. I'm glad that he did, because this is a very engaging and informative read. I never read the original magazine article, but it must pale in comparison to the complete interview shared in this book.

I have to admit that prior to reading this book, my knowledge of Bernstein was limited to a love of West Side Story, which is my favourite musical, along with owning a few recordings conducted by Bernstein. Since reading this book, I have been searching around for some of the recordings mentioned in the book and, although I have found a few, my search continues.

As I read the book, the preparation, along with the passion, that Cott brought to the interview became more and more evident. In the interview, which took place over what must have been a very long meal at Bernstein's house, many different topics were covered - music (obviously), politics, family, religion, popular culture, and much more. Bernstein had much to offer in all the topics covered and it must have been great to sit and listen to him. There were many heavy serious moments, but there were many light and funny moments as well. Early on in the interview he shares the story of his conducting debut and from what he shares it was obvious that he was destined for greatness.

It is not a difficult book to read, because the conversation seems to flow so easily. Cott came up with many probing questions, but through it all Bernstein seemed at ease and his knowledge, as well as deep passion, of the variety of topics covered shone through immensely.

This book is due to be published at the end of this year, or early in the next. I was only able to read an e-book ARC, which I was grateful to receive from Oxford University Press via NetGalley, and missed out on the pictures that will be included in the final edition when it comes out. I may have to buy a copy of it because of this, although even without the pictures it is definitely worth having.

Most of us probably never had the chance to sit in Bernstein's presence and never will now, but this book is the next best thing. It is worth reading and you will not be disappointed after you pick it up, and probably won't set it down again until you have reached the end.