Word: bernstein
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...goal is to have the faculty at Harvard Law School represent the world," said CCR Co-chair Inga Bernstein, one of several law students who either spoke, sang or read poetry at the rally...
...here we go! But where? What is the purpose of a vaguely necrophiliac fuss over someone so recently departed? Most revivals take a generation or more, but Bernstein Redux has happened in less than the minimum time it will take for pitcher Nolan Ryan to go from retirement (this year) into the Baseball Hall of Fame (1998). Aren't we -- no offense -- rushing...
According to his daughter Jamie Bernstein Thomas, many of the events were planned before Bernstein's death. "Maybe his sense of exuberance and serious fun was so contagious that he still elicits that reaction even in his absence," she says. "He just seems to generate a celebratory impulse from everybody." But some people find the spectacle suspiciously premature. "Unfortunately, he is being commercially exploited right now," notes another Lenny, conductor Leonard Slatkin. "There is a lot of effort and time and money being put into keeping the legend alive. I find it all a little bit sad." Says Ernest Fleischmann...
...truth is, he probably wouldn't have. Vulgarity and showmanship were always part of the Bernstein artistic ethos. Waggling his hips to Haydn, looking heavenward for motivation in Mahler, Lenny was a marketer's dream, and no one marketed himself more shrewdly than Mr. Music. It was a source of lifelong frustration to him that his serious works -- the symphonies, the operas, the Mass -- were not taken more seriously. But how could they be, when they don't add up to Tonight from West Side Story? It's as if Elvis wanted to be regarded as a troubadour...
This week's resurrection symphony may move tote bags but will do little to convince the skeptical of Bernstein's place in history; that's for succeeding generations to sort out. Less an American Mozart than a Saint-Saens, Bernstein was a glib, gifted musician whose ultimate worth seems today to be less than the sum of his many talents. "My time will come," said his favorite, Mahler, and it did. It may also for Lenny. But not just...