On the Road and Off the Record with Leonard Bernstein by Charlie Harmon

Author:Charlie Harmon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Published: 2018-05-08T04:00:00+00:00

Two octaves lower, but astonishingly at pitch. An endearing way to share a tune that wouldn’t leave his head.

LB often made a point of observing Rosh Hashanah at Hitler’s table—well, he claimed it was Hitler’s table—in the restaurant Zum Stadtkrug. He liked to invite members of the press so he could expound on why it mattered to be a Jewish conductor in Vienna, a city that, in LB’s opinion, would never face up to its anti-Semitic past. But in 1982, LB’s devoutness guided him to temple instead, alongside the Israeli ambassador. In a different kind of celebration, the recording crew took me out for dinner, but not at Zum Stadtkrug.

Before returning to New York, LB wanted to visit the pianist Justus Frantz, who had injured his back when he slipped on a wet bathroom floor while on a concert tour. After cancelling the remainder of his tour, Justus returned to Germany on a stretcher but then decided he’d recover just as well at his house in the Canary Islands.

On automatic pilot after nine straight months on the road, I summoned all my concentration and walked to the airline offices a couple blocks from the Hotel Sacher. The concierge could have done this for me, but the flights to the Canary Islands had to be paid separately from the hotel bill. Thank goodness for the Amberson credit cards. Meanwhile, LB called Justus Frantz, who promised that no matter what hour we arrived at Gran Canaria, somebody would meet us with a car. I arranged with John McClure for him to take most of LB’s luggage to New York, having proffered the bonus of a limo to his apartment only a few blocks from the Dakota. The travel plans fell into place quickly, though the details took up a lot of space in my datebook.

Before immersing himself in the celebrated Norton Lectures that he delivered at Harvard in 1973, LB had taken a break on Gran Canaria, where he met a striking “big blond” German aristocrat, Justus Frantz. Well-connected, blessed with charm and a formidable pianistic technique, Justus soon shone as a bright star in Bernstein’s personal firmament. They’d stayed in touch ever since.

When LB and I landed at Gran Canaria around midnight, Justus met us himself—he’d recovered enough to sit up and drive—along with Robert Dawson, who had arrived a day earlier from Berlin. Buffeted by the tropical air, we rode in Justus’s Volkswagen convertible up the precipitous byways to his hilltop villa. After a couple hours of talk, Justus showed me to a bedroom on the ground floor, where I conked out.

My bladder woke me up, but where was the bathroom? More generally, what country was I in? The bedroom’s sliding glass door looked onto a tropical landscape. I stepped outside and peed into some convenient foliage as the sun peeked over a rugged far-off ridge. For a moment, I savored the stillness, the idyllic warmth of the clean air. Such a long way from Vienna. No one else was up, so I opted to sleep one more hour.

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