The Legend of Lenny.(Leonard Bernstein )(In memoriam)

In 1984, when I was fifteen and living in Washington, D.C., I stopped by the National Cathedral to watch Leonard Bernstein conduct a rehearsal of Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony, the "Resurrection." Bernstein was preparing for a concert sponsored by an organization called Musicians Against Nuclear Arms, or MANA. I had little faith that he would prevent Armageddon by conducting Mahler, but I idolized him nonetheless. A score of the symphony was resting on a pew, and I gawked at the "LB" scrawled across the title page. For several minutes, Bernstein busied himself with the two rumbling percussion crescendos that suggest the rending of the earth at the Last Judgment. ...