Leonard Bernstein: A Research and Information Guide, Second Edition, by Paul R. Laird, and Hsun Lin (review)

Writing of Leonard Bernstein in 2009, Nadine Hubbs described “the difficulties of placing him in relation to the categories by which musicological discourse proceeds” (Nadine Hubbs, ‘Bernstein, Homophobia, Historiography’, Women in Music 13 [2009]: 24). What made Bern stein a challenge to pin down, Hubbs suggested, were in part his apparent contradictions: he was a composer who was also, or perhaps primarily, a conductor; an eclectic innovator who held tight to an old-fashioned romanticist aesthetic; a crusader for high art who was also a guru of popular music; and a gay man who was also a dedicated husband to his wife Felicia.

The multi-faceted nature of Bernstein’s life and work are reflected in the impressive scope of Paul R. Laird’s and Hsun Lin’s Leonard Bernstein: A Research and Information Guide, which reveals a recent explosion of interest in Bernstein’s life and work. In addition to serving as a comprehensive annotated bibliography, this research guide provides a thorough biographical sketch, detailed discussions of Bernstein’s compositional style, synopses of his works, and a catalogue of his own writings. An updated second edition of a guide first published in 2002, it appears just in time to help steer what promises to be a busy season of Bernstein research as the hundredth anniversary of his birth approaches in 2018.

Laird’s summary of Bernstein’s life and work (Chapter 1) is at once concise and wide-ranging, admirably contending with Bernstein’s varied work as a composer, conductor, educator, and pianist. Laird’s division of the chapter into such categories will prove a sensible starting point for future work as long as researchers keep in mind the possible intersections among these interconnected spheres. The biographical sketch does feature a new section, “Lenny of the Letters: The Man Behind the Musician”, which draws on the recent and widely-discussed volume The Leonard Bernstein Letters (2014), edited by Nigel Simeone. Here, Laird provides a useful and thorough map of these letters, commenting on what they reveal about Bernstein’s sexuality, spiritual life, musical ancestry, and creative process. Especially fascinating is an extended account of “abandoned projects”, including ideas that were circulated for films and operas.

Aside from this new section, the biographical sketch is almost wholly identical to that in the first edition. One small but noteworthy change, however, relates to the newly published letters. In discussing the early 1950s, around the time of Trouble in Tahiti, Laird added the crucial sentence that Bernstein’s marriage to Felicia “probably helped legitimize Bernstein as an acceptable cultural figure in the conservative 1950s, but his homosexuality is well known today and he pursued affairs with men throughout his life” (p. 6). Today’s musicologists are better positioned than ever before to explore Bernstein’s sexuality and its relevance to music history in the twentieth century, thanks in part to the work of scholars like Nadine Hubbs. It is encouraging to see that the newest edition of the research guide—a book that promises to help direct Bern stein scholarship for years to come—reflects the very latest perspectives.

Also largely carried over from the first edition is the outline of Bernstein’s compositional style (Chapter 2)—an outline that is both useful for scholars already steeped in Bernstein’s music and accessible to Bernstein neophytes. Here Laird carefully selects and highlights examples from Bernstein’s oeuvre of his melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic language, as well as his eclecticism and uses of vernacular materials. Again, recent research helpfully informs the discourse; a new section called “Jewish Elements and Sensibility” draws on Jack Gottlieb’s 2010 memoir Working with Bernstein, which posits tantalising links between Bernstein’s music and his Jewish identity.

An inventory of selected compositions by Bernstein (Chapter 3), slightly expanded from the first edition, is followed...