What a literature.
It's about love and death.
It’s for anybody craving for a real story of love irrelevant to classical music, as yet, a treasury of mind-blowing findings for music nerds like myself.
Should you be a Lenny aficionado, you’d repent on not reading it.
Bernstein's story of two avid but diametrically different forms of love - one intrinsically platonic, the other emotional and yet sensual - each protagonized by two extraordinary Japanese, is truly astonishing and touching.
As a classical music lover for many years, the book brought me something stronger than an insight - an Eureka!
Among a number of valuable takeaways, please allow me to concentrate on the one that really struck me as a music fan.
"Dearest Lenny" revealed Bernstein's enigmatic correlation with Mahler’s 9th Symphony. For music dilettantes, Bernstein and Mahler are like a solid molecule. Speaking of which, Bernstein was undoubtedly infatuated with this preeminent work by the Jewish-Bohemian composer at the height of his career from 1979 to 1985. Bernstein had given legendary performances and left immortal recordings of the masterpiece symphony that his "alter ego" had composed in a different era. It is a cliché of classical music lovers, to consider the 9th Symphony of Gustav Mahler, who apparently had been diagnosed with a fatal heart disease, as his farewell song, and accordingly, the work was engraved with his fear of inevitable death.
However, I've always had a different view to this and Yoshihara's meticulous study and disclosure of behind-the-scenes really have presented facsinating evidence to prove my hypothesis.
No, the symphony is not a pessimistic lament. It’s rather an homage to the indelible libido, and moreover, commemoration of the deceased loved ones (quasi requiem).
Freud would say: Eros and Thanatos. Or "Long live love!" And "Damn your death!"
1979 was an extraordinary year, not only for the classical music scene, but also for Leonard Bernstein. Having lost his beloved wife Felicia only a year ago, Maestro was apparently devastated and if it were not for Amano, his truthful friend and the most profound interpreter of his soul he would not have recovered from dismay. No one else could have been as sympathetic and empathetic to him for this loss as she was.
Then there was a serendipity with Hashimoto, a young and humble handsome young man in Tokyo. Love was the best distraction for Lenny's hollow heart. Being fervently in love with Hashimoto seems to have brought Bernstein's artistic intensity to the max when he launched a special campaign to Europe this fall. Bernstein made a sensational appearance in Karajan's circus in Berlin - one and only in his entire career - injecting an irreplaceable Mahler interpretation into the ears of Berlin and even turning the Berlin Philharmonic - a highly docile orchestra - into a shrew!
The next Tsunami of Mahler's 9th came six years later.
After re-exposed to the aura of love & death, Bernstein took the Mahler 9th again and the wave engulfed the audience in Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, and Tokyo followed by Osaka in 1985 in his epic concerts.
One is lucky today to have an opportunity to listen to the official live recordings of these concerts.
In this intense series of Mahler rituals you can hear that Bernstein had never duplicated nor mass-produced his concerts; each performance was unique and different. However, it can be said that Bernstein consistently filled the performances with his indomitable philosophy: the symphony is a hymn of love and death addressed to his entire community.
Yoshihara’s endeavour to reach out to these undercovered Japanese and bring light to the most beautiful human bondage has added extra value to Maestro’s artistic footsteps.
It's so true, immortal and moving.
A must read.