Leonard Bernstein
Bradley Cooper wows audiences as electrifying conductor Leonard Bernstein in a new authorized biopic. Musicians from the London Symphony Orchestra remember playing for the great man – and rate the man who plays him now
The camera, like its subject in Maestro, is hyperactive. It flies and pirouettes. It takes place in the middle of hectic conversations, with barely a pause for breath, as Bradley Cooper charms and amazes as Leonard Bernstein. This is Lenny in his prime in the 1950s and ’60s, building a life with Felicia, played by Carey Mulligan. He is astonishing in both his talent and his appetite, a man of restless contradictions.
What there is very little of is music. We rarely see him conducting, we only hear snippets of his own compositions, and there are frustratingly few glimpses into his passion for communicating the wonders and riches of classical music through performance and education. That’s why a long sequence near the end of “Maestro” is so powerful. When we finally see him conducting a performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony at Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire, Cooper shows us how Bernstein becomes the music and the music becomes him.
This monumental scene, filmed over three evenings and comprising the final ten minutes of the 90-minute symphony, was recreated by what is now the London Symphony Orchestra. With shaggy hair and wigs (more on that later) they are back in the cathedral, playing previous incarnations of themselves – for it was this orchestra that appeared with Bernstein in Ely in September 1973.
The LSO’s relationship with the American conductor began in 1966 with a Mahler symphony that the then 47-year-old guest conducted at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Two decades later the orchestra held a hugely successful Bernstein Festival at its new home in the Barbican, and the following year he was appointed president, a position he held until his death at the age of 72 in 1990. However, many would argue that the culmination of a lasting association with the orchestra came not in London but in Ely 50 years ago.
Maestro Review – Bradley Cooper’s devastatingly heartfelt Leonard Bernstein biography
Bernstein, the LSO and a 150-member choir traveled to the cathedral to perform the symphony known as the “Resurrection.” This original concert was also filmed – Bernstein recorded all nine of Mahler’s symphonies for a German company. The cycle was directed by his long-time collaborator Humphrey Burton, who later became his biographer. Other symphonies were filmed in Vienna and Berlin, but Bernstein wanted to record the Resurrection, with its special religious quality, in Ely Cathedral.
“He had studied aesthetics at Harvard 30 years ago,” Burton tells me, “and learned about Ely’s beauty and unique architecture. He had always wanted to work here.” It was hugely expensive and logistically complicated, Burton remembers, but ” as Leonard Bernstein, his word was our command.”
“It was a one-of-a-kind piece”… the real amber in Ely Cathedral. Photo: Godfrey Macdominic/Bridgeman Images
In his 1994 biography, Burton writes: “It was a traumatic weekend of filming. A camera crane collapsed. A bomb attack ruined the dress rehearsal. The soundtrack was overlaid with squeaking bats flying high in the magnificent octagonal tower and crashing into the film lights. But the performance had an epic power that Bernstein never surpassed.”
Maestro leaves out the collapsing cranes and squeaking bats, but the epic power is there. “Every orchestra loves playing this symphony, especially the last movement,” says violinist Clare Duckworth. “You can’t help but get carried away. The final shot was amazing – our facial expressions are all real! Much of the crew was in tears.” The orchestra performed the passage under the direction of Cooper and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the film’s conducting consultant, who worked with Cooper for several years and not only taught him how to conduct, but also convincingly as Lenny conducted.
Bernstein’s exuberance on the podium, an unconditional, passionate engagement with the emotional power of music, was one of his most famous characteristics. Watch footage of him conducting and you can see him in the air in a few places – the famous Lenny jumps. The LSO cellist Alastair Blayden played under Bernstein in 1990 while still studying. “When I heard he was going to conduct us,” he says, “my jaw just dropped. It was as if all my Christmases had come at once. As soon as he stood on the podium, he felt the feeling of connection that you have with a real maestro – a feeling of trust. Over 30 years later, I still consider this feeling of trust to be the mark of a true master. It’s very rare.”
He left the stage, drank a good whiskey and a cigarette – and continued like this until his death
Was Cooper convincing? Yes, he says. “I did a double take like that as he entered Ely Cathedral. The prosthetics are incredible. Aside from his height, Cooper is several inches taller.” And the conducting? Blayden and Duckworth agree that Cooper was plausible at the podium. “It’s hard enough conducting as yourself, let alone with someone else’s personality,” Blayden says. “But yeah, he did pretty well. There were clear ups and downs – he knew the gestures and he obviously knew and loved the music.”
It was cold in the cathedral, says Duckworth. “We had hand warmers hidden on our bodies, especially the women’s, since we were wearing thin clothes.” She remembers Mulligan in Ugg boots sitting and just listening when she was out of shot. Every detail of the 1973 performance has been carefully reproduced, from where each player sits (“more tense than we normally are today!”) to the recreated programs, even though these were never filmed.
Players who wore glasses were asked to provide prescriptions so they could receive new glasses with old-fashioned frames – and everyone was asked to grow out their hair. “Most guys were asked to grow beards,” says Duckworth, “and those with very short hair were asked not to cut it.”
“We were on tour in Japan before filming. We all came back looking like Robinson Crusoe!” laughs Blayden. “People said, ‘Wow, how long were you gone?’ The costume people tried me out with a few sideburns but decided I looked too much like a hamster. Some colleagues went from shaved heads to being completely unrecognizable in wigs.” However, one glaring difference between the LSO of 1973 and today is the players themselves. The orchestra that performed 50 years ago had only two women among 102 players: the Harpists. Today’s group is 45% women.
Leonard Bernstein conducts the LSO at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1966. Photo: LSO archives
Cooper channeled Lenny through more than just flamboyant conducting. Duckworth noted that he constantly had a cigarette in his hand or, when conducting, in his pocket. “And although none of it was caught on camera, he spoke in his amber voice when he spoke to the orchestra.”
Sue Mallet, the LSO’s planning director, has worked with the orchestra for more than 50 years, meaning there are few conducting greats she hasn’t met. But she says, “If anyone asks me who I have had the greatest privilege of working with, I say Leonard Bernstein. “He was an isolated case.”
And yes, Mallet adds, the cigarettes were a constant. There are only a few shots in the film where Cooper isn’t smoking. “He came off stage, had a glass of straight whiskey and a cigarette. And he probably continued like that until his death.”
But what about the current LSO members who played with the real Bernstein? Andrew Pollock joined in 1984 and collaborated frequently. “He was a giant of music,” says the violinist. “When he got on the podium he was phenomenal. He lived the music. He would dance along. He was a great conductor.” But away from the podium, Pollock experienced a less fabulous side. “He could be argumentative and really obnoxious,” he says.
No squeaky bats… Cooper as Bernstein in Ely Cathedral. Photo: Jason McDonald/Netflix
Pollock remembers a reception welcoming Bernstein as orchestra president. “We were all encouraged to introduce ourselves. He was sprawled out at a table, a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. I went up and said, “Hello, Mr. Bernstein, nice to have you here.” And he just looked up at me and said with complete disdain, “Who the hell are you?” He was just like that – he loved it, to belittle people. I was completely amazed.”
Burton’s biography adds some context: “There were times in the mid-1980s when his behavior was less attractive. His daughter Jamie recalls: “He drank more Scotch and relied more heavily on his Dexedrine.” When he mixed the drug and alcohol, “he had a personality change…he became sweary and irritable, swearing at people and saying terrible things and banged on the table and threw lit cigarettes at us…It got to the point where he was dad.” A pain in the ass was the norm, and when he was fun to be around, he became a nice exception. After Mom left…there was no one else to check on him other than us, and there were boundaries for us because we didn’t live with him. After that, it was just Maestro City the whole time.”
If he came up to kiss someone, he would get a slap on the lips
“He was larger than life. There is no doubt that he was in for a shock,” Mallet says, recalling the 1990 Japanese tour when his fans greeted him in his dressing room after the concert. “He would wear a man’s kimono that would be open to the navel. And all these Japanese ladies didn’t know where to stand.”
On another tour in Vienna, Mallet adds, Lenny invited some LSO employees to a Halloween party. “We entered a room full of beautiful and strange people. Lenny was lying on a chaise lounge with someone sitting at one end massaging his feet and someone feeding him grapes at the other end. He was wearing a white cashmere jumpsuit and he said to me, “You know what, Sue?” There are only two of these jumpsuits and the other one belongs to the Pope!”
She laughs and shakes her head. “Yeah, it’s crazy, isn’t it? But that was Lenny.”
Needed Ugg boots…Carey Mulligan with Cooper in Maestro. Photo: Jason McDonald/Netflix
Perhaps even more disturbing is that Pollock recalls a performance of Bernstein’s own Chichester Psalms with 15-year-old Aled Jones in London. “The way Bernstein drooled over him was disgusting. You just couldn’t behave like that today. And he kissed the people in the orchestra.”
“When he kissed someone, he got a slap on the lips,” Mallet says. No one liked it, Pollock says, but only one player ever complained. It was, both agree, a different time.
Bernstein was a complex and flawed character, but a phenomenal and sensational musician. Music, says Pollock, just seemed to flow from his every pore. And the audience loved him. “He was like a magnet for people of both sexes,” says Mallet. “I know he can be acerbic, but I have always found him charming, professional and, above all, kind. He would love to go out to dinner after a concert and have 20 people sitting at a table spellbound.” It sounds like there’s no off button? “If so, then I definitely didn’t find it.”
Duckworth is no less exuberant. “I always thought that if I could go back in time and work with one conductor,” she says, “it would be him. I guess this is as close as we’ll ever get!”
• Maestro hits UK cinemas on November 24th and on Netflix from December 20th.
{{#Ticker}}
{{top left}}
{{bottom left}}
{{top right}}
{{bottom right}}
{{#goalExceededMarkerPercentage}}{{/goalExceededMarkerPercentage}}{{/ticker}}
{{Headline}}
{{#paragraphs}}
{{.}}
{{/paragraphs}}{{highlightedText}}
{{#choiceCards}}{{/choiceCards}}We will be in touch to remind you to contribute. Watch for a message in your inbox. If you have any questions about contributing, please contact us.