‘Late Night’ takes a spin through Leonard Bernstein’s big brain
APRIL 22, 2018
by Peter Dobrin, Classical Music Critic
Most families have their share of photos ready to show to visitors. Jamie Bernstein’s family album just happens to be more musical than most.
Lights down, soundtrack up: Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas jousting for elbow room while playing a four-hand “The Rite of Spring.” Bernstein’s voice on a piece of 78 rpm acetate, sending a message to Jerome Robbins about progress on a new work and apologizing for the sloppy playing. Here’s one of his favorite tunes, Noel Coward’s “If Love Were All,” performed live and quite movingly by pianist John Musto and soprano Amy Burton.
Jamie Bernstein summons forces musical and archival in Late Night with Leonard Bernstein, which made a one-night-only appearance (and ran not so late) Saturday at the National Museum of American Jewish History on Independence Mall. The script by Bernstein’s daughter and George Steel (the show is produced by Copland House) isn’t linear biography or musicological investigation. More of a musical séance, it’s probably the most haimisch two hours (to borrow from the Yiddish for “homey”) anyone will spend in the presence of the composer-conductor-musical explainer this centenary year.
The show ends with “Some Other Time” from On the Town, which, after all we’ve heard and learned, arrives like a moment of distillation. Musto, Boriskin and Burton gave it a marvelous sense of tranquility and unwinding. But it’s also a piece about grappling with unfinished business in life.
“Oh well, we’ll catch up some other time,” says the lyric. The music, though, isn’t so sure, and it’s that complexity and contradiction that helps to explain what made Bernstein a musician of remarkable layers, like all the greats.
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