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Dearest Lenny: Letters from Japan and the Making of the World Maestro
Much has been written about Leonard Bernstein, a musician of extraordinary talent who was legendary for his passionate love of life and many relationships. In this work, Mari Yoshihara reveals the deeply emotional connections Bernstein formed with two little-known Japanese individuals, which she narrates through their personal letters that have never been seen before.
Dearest Lenny interweaves an intimate story of love and art with a history of Bernstein's transformation from an American icon to a world maestro during the second half of the twentieth century. The articulate, moving letters of Kazuko Amano--a woman who began writing fan letters to Bernstein in 1947 and became a close family friend--and Kunihiko Hashimoto--a young man who fell in love with the maestro in 1979 and later became his business representative--convey the meaning Bernstein and his music had at various stages of their lives. The letters also shed light on how Bernstein's compositions, recordings, and performances touched his audiences around the world. The book further traces the making of a global Bernstein amidst the shifting landscape of classical music that made this American celebrity turn increasingly to Europe and Japan. The dramatic change in Japan's place in the world and its relationship to the United States during the postwar decades shaped Bernstein's connection
to the country. Ultimately, Dearest Lenny is a story of relationships--between the two individuals and Bernstein, the United States and the world, art and commerce, artists and the state, private and public, conventions and transgressions, dreams and realities--that were at the core of Bernstein's greatest achievements and challenges and that made him truly a maestro of the world.
Dearest Lenny paints a poignant portrait of individuals connected across cultures, languages, age, and status through correspondence and music--and the world that shaped their relationships.
Dearest Lenny interweaves an intimate story of love and art with a history of Bernstein's transformation from an American icon to a world maestro during the second half of the twentieth century. The articulate, moving letters of Kazuko Amano--a woman who began writing fan letters to Bernstein in 1947 and became a close family friend--and Kunihiko Hashimoto--a young man who fell in love with the maestro in 1979 and later became his business representative--convey the meaning Bernstein and his music had at various stages of their lives. The letters also shed light on how Bernstein's compositions, recordings, and performances touched his audiences around the world. The book further traces the making of a global Bernstein amidst the shifting landscape of classical music that made this American celebrity turn increasingly to Europe and Japan. The dramatic change in Japan's place in the world and its relationship to the United States during the postwar decades shaped Bernstein's connection
to the country. Ultimately, Dearest Lenny is a story of relationships--between the two individuals and Bernstein, the United States and the world, art and commerce, artists and the state, private and public, conventions and transgressions, dreams and realities--that were at the core of Bernstein's greatest achievements and challenges and that made him truly a maestro of the world.
Dearest Lenny paints a poignant portrait of individuals connected across cultures, languages, age, and status through correspondence and music--and the world that shaped their relationships.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published September 3, 2019
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About the author
Mari Yoshihara
12 books3 followersMari Yoshihara was born in New York City and grew up in Tokyo. She attended high school in Yokohama and graduated from the University of Tokyo before earning a master's degree and doctorate from Brown University. Yoshihara has taught at the University of Hawaii at Manoa since 1997 and served as chief editor of the journal American Quarterly since 2014.
She played the piano since the age of three, but took a break from playing while in graduate school. As an adult, she has entered competitions like the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition as an amateur, and won in the 2014 Aloha International Piano Festival's amateur division.
She played the piano since the age of three, but took a break from playing while in graduate school. As an adult, she has entered competitions like the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition as an amateur, and won in the 2014 Aloha International Piano Festival's amateur division.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 30, 2020
good! sort of a weird intersection b/t cultural and international history of japan in the time period and an introspection on bernstein's life. i think i would have liked it more had it just stuck to one of those two genres, but still enjoyable. easy read
October 2, 2019
For most Bernstein biographers, maybe even for most English language music journalists, Japan is largely unknown territory. So it’s ignored as though it does not even exist. Fortunately, we have this book by a Japan-born professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii. Maybe the most important credential is that Mari Yoshihara is herself a musician. That, along with her understanding of Japanese and American culture, and her ability to read the Japanese press reaction and reviews to Bernstein's historic visits to Japan, bring to light significant facets of the Maestro’s life.
The book's structural scheme takes us through a series of long-term correspondences and meetings with two Japanese "fans," Kazuko Amano nee Ueno, and Kunihiko Hashimoto. Although Bernstein's homosexuality is apparently a known biographical fact, it isn't mentioned on the Leonard Bernstein website, and the only mentioned (at this date) in his Wikipedia biography is through reference to this book. Because of this the media reaction to this book has focused on Bernstein's relationship with Hashimoto and sadly neglects the narrative of Amano who we follow through her marriage and widowhood and all the domestic and professional episodes in between. Amano is the musically literate one, the one who studied at the Paris Conservatory and the one whose adoration of Bernstein is through the music itself. She takes her young daughter Kikuko to her first Bernstein performance when the child is only a year old. Kikuko becomes a musician herself, a violinist who like her mom goes to conservatory, and who also like her mom becomes a big Bernstein fan. There’s a touching picture of a birthday card Kikuko sends to Bernstein while she is studying at Toho Gakuen School of Music.
The book winds these very personal tales in time across a changing cultural backdrop of two nations in economic ascent and varying political and social trajectories. Bernstein is dangerously liberal in a dangerously conservative America. Amano and Hashimoto live in a country experiencing a rapid recovery from wartime devastation to becoming a global economic power.
A fascinating read for the Bernstein fan, Japanophile, or musical literati.
The book's structural scheme takes us through a series of long-term correspondences and meetings with two Japanese "fans," Kazuko Amano nee Ueno, and Kunihiko Hashimoto. Although Bernstein's homosexuality is apparently a known biographical fact, it isn't mentioned on the Leonard Bernstein website, and the only mentioned (at this date) in his Wikipedia biography is through reference to this book. Because of this the media reaction to this book has focused on Bernstein's relationship with Hashimoto and sadly neglects the narrative of Amano who we follow through her marriage and widowhood and all the domestic and professional episodes in between. Amano is the musically literate one, the one who studied at the Paris Conservatory and the one whose adoration of Bernstein is through the music itself. She takes her young daughter Kikuko to her first Bernstein performance when the child is only a year old. Kikuko becomes a musician herself, a violinist who like her mom goes to conservatory, and who also like her mom becomes a big Bernstein fan. There’s a touching picture of a birthday card Kikuko sends to Bernstein while she is studying at Toho Gakuen School of Music.
The book winds these very personal tales in time across a changing cultural backdrop of two nations in economic ascent and varying political and social trajectories. Bernstein is dangerously liberal in a dangerously conservative America. Amano and Hashimoto live in a country experiencing a rapid recovery from wartime devastation to becoming a global economic power.
A fascinating read for the Bernstein fan, Japanophile, or musical literati.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews