Word: bernsteins
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Behind the glamourpuss, however, there stands a solid character of many-sided balance. Bernstein is a phenomenal extra vert. In his nature, to think is to act. Until recently he never seemed to tire of doing things, handling situations, arranging schedules, playing the life of the party, being all things to all people. He lives in a vague world of superficial friendliness, where charm is an easy way of life, and genuine warmth is reserved for work. And yet, at the worst of his extravertigo, Bernstein never lost sight of his first principles: truth to his word, loyalty to friends...
...Bernstein hates criticism, can quote whole paragraphs from unfavorable reviews that appeared ten years ago. He likes reassurances?the backstage compliments, the perquisite Cadillacs, the fawning headwaiters, the fluty dowagers, the company of fame. He is brash and often tactless. He suffers from what was once described as a pre-Copernican ego, i.e., seeing the whole world revolve around him. The condition was described by his onetime mentor, Conductor Artur Rodzinski, with an expressive Jewish word that means cheek, nerve, monumental gall. "He has hutzpa," says Rodzinski, and illustrates what he means with the story of how Bernstein, a mere...
Reason sometimes seems to check emotion, the head to rule the heart ? in his music as in his life. And yet, there is in Bernstein's character a power of belief, a religious strain so insistent that it drives him at times to the mystic verges. In his music, too, there can arise, like an ancestral memory, a whisper of Semitic mys tery, a shadowy Hasidic laugh...
...Discovery. If, in the minds of some, hutzpa is the key word to Leonard Bernstein, his father uses another Jewish expression to describe his hopes for his son. It is ruach Elohim, the godly spirit...
...tried to give it to him through learning, understanding and religion," says Sam Bernstein. "With ruach Elohim a man does not become dizzy when he reaches high places. Without it he is nothing, and the food in his mouth is like straw...