Leonard Bernstein's political life: who knew?

[Sara S]

from delancyplace.com:

In today's excerpt - President Dwight Eisenhower and iconic American composer Leonard
Bernstein shook hands at the ground-breaking ceremony for New York's Lincoln Center,
which was destined to become the performing arts center of the world. In the Cold
War paranoia of the time, that handshake masked the animosity the U.S. government
had shown to Bernstein, Aaron Copland and myriads of other artists who had shown
sympathy and involvement with socialist and communists causes during the despairing
days of the Great Depression:

"On the morning of May 14,1959, an excited crowd of thousands gathered at Broadway
and West 64th Street to witness ground-breaking ceremo*nies for the Lincoln Center
for the Performing Arts. The day was a glori*ous one for New Yorkers, for their
new complex-concentrating in one place the city's world-class dance, orchestral,
and operatic ensembles and a new repertory theater - would be proof visible of
New York's cultural ascendancy. In the words of urban-planning czar Robert Moses,
Lincoln Center would make the city the 'World Center of the Performing Arts,' a
complement to its place as 'World Political Capital.'

"Festivities began at 11 a.m. with master of ceremonies Leonard Bern*stein leading
the New York Philharmonic in a performance of Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common
Man. Bernstein then introduced the guest of honor, President Eisenhower, who thanked
the artists and praised the many people within government, labor, business, and
chari*table foundations who had worked to make Lincoln Center possible. He predicted
that the 'increasing interest in America in cultural matters' would 'influence .
. . peace and understanding throughout the world.' The president then dug up a
shovelful of earth to inaugurate construc*tion of the center's first building, Philharmonic
Hall, and turned to shake Bernstein's hand.

"This handshake was a fitting way to celebrate the partnership between American
political aspiration and high culture. For some years, Bernstein had been a cultural
ambassador for the United States. He had toured Latin America with the New York
Philharmonic in 1958 and, at the behest of the State Department, was about to go
on tour to the Soviet Union, a trip that had great significance in the administration's
quest for a thaw in the otherwise glacial Cold War. ...

"Leonard Bernstein ... was the composer [for] the great New York ballet Fancy Free
and the New York musicals On the Town (1944), Wonderful Town (1953), and West Side
Story (composed in 1957 and just coming to the end of its great Broadway run at
the time of the Lincoln Center ground- breaking), and he had been the principal
conductor of the New York Philharmonic in 1957 and music director since 1958. He
was a Columbia Records star performer; a gifted television educator; a celebrity
much photographed and lionized by Time, Life, and other mass-circula*tion magazines;
and a man at home in both highbrow and middle-brow worlds. Now, on this day of celebration,
the already formidable Bernstein, the most magisterial of New York's creative and
performing artists, was receiving the president's personal recognition as the sovereign
of this new center for the performing arts.

"Yet this seemingly unambiguously celebratory day had interesting ironies, known
only by Bernstein and a few others. For example, as the maestro gave the downbeat
to the Philharmonic's brass section to begin Copland's Fanfare, only a tiny minority
of the onlookers were likely aware, as Bernstein certainly was, that only six years
before, in 1953, Eisenhower had banned a performance of Copland's Lincoln Portrait
at his inaugura*tion because Copland was a supporter of left-wing causes. Did the
crowd know that President Truman, in February 1950, had banned Bernstein's music
from overseas State Department libraries and functions? Or that in 1953, Eisenhower's
State Department had revoked Bernstein's passport on the grounds that the maestro
was a security risk, returning it only after Bernstein, his conducting career on
the verge of wreckage, agreed to sign an affidavit confessing to political sins?
These darker events were cer*tainly in Bernstein's mind, and perhaps Eisenhower's,
as the two Olympi*ans shook hands in joint celebration.

"Such were the paradoxes and ironies of that day: the fanfare, waving flags, and
hearty handshakes masking a closely guarded tale of presidentially authorized censorship,
intimidation, and humiliation ... [and Bernstein's] blacklisting by CBS in 1950."

Author: Barry Seldes

Title: Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician

Publisher: University of California Press
Date: Copyright 2009 by the Regents of the University of California
Pages: 1-3
Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician
by Barry Seldes by University of California Press
Hardcover

[neil]

I understand that Leonard Bernstein was a supporter of the Black Panther Party, holding a fundraiser for them in his home. All of which makes his music sound just a little sweeter to me.
Neil