If a screenwriter working for Metro Goldwyn Meyer in the 1940s was asked to provide a character sketch of a great American classical musician (then almost a hypothetical entity), the result might have looked very much like Leonard Bernstein.
A humble background – the son of poor immigrants who sail to America in the quest for a better life. Prodigiously talented – able to compose, play and conduct with dazzling fluency. Charismatic. Dashing good looks. A man who could surmount all boundaries through sheer force of will and self-belief. The “manifest destiny” of musicians …
It sounds corny, but it’s only a few factoids short of reality. Bernstein’s parents, while not exactly penniless, were very far from the cultural patricians their son would become. Samuel Bernstein ran a hair and beauty supply business in a suburb of Boston, and...
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