Lenny

At the Young People's Concert this weekend BERNSTEIN'S NEW YORK (they're doing a series, next is Ravel's Paris...) we lucked ($125) into 2nd row seats which gave us a great view of the conductor reading from his script (very, very un-Lenny-like) and Bernstein's daughter singing/dancing in her seat along with the orchestra (very, very Lenny-like). The music was beautiful as usual, symphonic lushness; in a film clip above the orchestra Bernstein described American music as direct, simple and CASUAL giving examples of a trumpet portion from An American in Paris played in a German style as opposed to the jazzy jaunt Gershwin intended.

A composer influenced by Bernstein and Copeland recalled an evening sleeping over at Bernstein's in Saranac, NY and how Lenny walked around the woods, awake all night talking to himself. I identified. And when the orchestra ended the concert as they did the day after LB died in 1990 by playing the Overture to Candide without a conductor I suppressed the tears and flood of emotion not wanting to appear overwrought to the degenerate NYC-parent Saturday afternoon crowd (M&D's either underdressed or chic-ly shabby and kids slack-jawed and 'bored').