On the Road and Off the Record with Leonard Bernstein
My Years with the Exasperating Genius

By: Charlie Harmon

An intimate account of Leonard Bernstein by his former assistant, with a foreword by Broadway legend Harold Prince

Leonard Bernstein reeked of cheap cologne and obviously hadn’t showered, shaved, or slept in a while. Was he drunk to boot? He greeted his new assistant with “What are you drinking?” Yes, he was drunk.

Charlie Harmon was hired to manage the day-to-day parts of Bernstein’s life. There was one additional responsibility: make sure Bernstein met the deadline for an opera commission. But things kept getting in the way–the centenary of Igor Stravinsky, intestinal parasites picked up in Mexico, teaching all summer in Los Angeles, a baker’s dozen of young men, plus depression, exhaustion, insomnia, and cut-throat games of anagrams. Ditto half of those syndromes for the Maestro’s assistant.

For four years, Charlie saw Bernstein every day, as his social director, gatekeeper, valet, music copyist, and itinerant orchestra librarian. He packed (and unpacked) Bernstein’s umpteen pieces of luggage, got the Maestro to his concerts, kept him occupied changing planes in Zurich, Anchorage, Tokyo, or Madrid, and learned how to make small talk with mayors, ambassadors, a chancellor, a queen, and a Hollywood legend or two. How could anyone absorb all those people and places? Because there was music: late-night piano duets, or the Maestro’s command to accompany an audition, or, by the way, the greatest orchestras in the world. Charlie did it, and this is what it was like, told for the first time.

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Author & Illustrator

Charlie Harmon, author

Charlie Harmon is a music editor and arranger. He was the music editor for the estate of Leonard Bernstein, editing the first publications of full scores of West Side Story, Candide, On the Town, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and Mass. He has also served as the orchestra librarian for the New York Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He lives in Florida.

Read more about Charlie Harmon.

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

A gossip-filled memoir of life with a musical superstar.In his debut book, music editor and arranger Harmon recounts in vivid detail four exhausting, exhilarating years as assistant to the mercurial maestro Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990). At the age of 30, the author was a clerk at a music library when he answered an advertisement to work for a “world-class” musician. The applicant, the ad noted, “must read music, be free to travel,” and “possess finely-honed organizational abilities.” In the course of a three-hour interview, Harmon learned that the musician was Bernstein (called LB throughout the book), who was embarking on a strenuous schedule of performances around the world. The author was not sure he had the stamina for the job, which involved handling phone calls, mail, and appointments; packing and unpacking scores of suitcases for every trip; taking notes during rehearsals and performances; anda task that proved especially challengingmaking sure LB, infamous for his “celebrated libido” and drunken rants, did not generate negative publicity. Despite some reservations about his capabilities, in January 1982, Harmon set off with Bernstein and his entourage to Indiana University for a six-week residency, during which the composer began work on an opera. LB was a handful: demanding, impatient, and given to “bouts of fury and bratty behavior,” which Harmon attributed to his enduring grief over his wife’s death, in 1978. That behavior was exacerbated by heavy drinking and use of Dexedrine, fueling “drug-induced mania” followed by overwhelming depression. Drawing on his daybook, Harmon gives intimate accounts of LB’s performances, teaching, creative process, and uncompromising standardsin the midst of a “three-ring circus” peopled by a large and sometimes-divisive cast of characters. Most troubling to Harmon was LB’s imperious, “blatantly self-serving” manager, who wore Harmon down with cruel bullying. Exhaustion and depression eventually led Harmon to seek psychiatric help, though he admits that his intimacy with LB’s musicianship gave him “a remarkable education.” An affectionate portrait of an eminent musician who was driven by demons.

Booklist

Harmon knew that most of Leonard Bernsteins personal assistants didnt last very long on the job. He quickly learned, too, that working for Lenny meant that he would have to give up any semblance of a personal life. Putting his life on hold, though, and working alongside a creative genius game him, he writes, the strongest sense of purpose Id ever had. For four scorching years, Harmons responsibilities included answers the phones, handling Bernsteins mail and appointments, and carrying his luggage while also acting as a gatekeeper, valet, and librarian. Harmons account of life working for an exasperating genius is breezy and anecdotal even when he is discussing his own mental-health issues and self-doubt. He meets countless movers and shakers in the arts and politics as he travels with Bernstein and his entourage around the globe and works alongside Bernstein at the famous Dakota building on Manhattans Upper West Side. Harmons personable and warm account of what it was like to work for one of the twentieth centurys musical giants casts new light on Bernstein and his world.

Library Journal

Harmon, a classically trained composer and arranger, approaches his subject from an interesting point of view. For four years in the 1980s, Harmon was the maestros personal assistant, accompanying him through a punishing schedule of composing, performing, and recording. This multifaceted perspective gives readers plenty of salacious gossip paired with insight into Leonard Bernsteins remarkable artistic achievements later in life. The volume adroitly balances reporting on Bernsteins personal hygiene, profligate love live, and bouts with depression with an informed discussion of his professional output during the period. Throughout, Harmon weaves his personal experience4s as a gay man in a precarious profession. The net result is a volume that gives equal weight to Bernsteins struggles as a composer to make a deadline on a commissioned opera and his expirees in applying Right Guard to his forehead to manage the sweat collecting on his brow while he conducted. VERDICT: More memoir than biography, this engaging account will do well in general collections.

The Gay & Lesbian Review

In this tell-all book, Charlie Harmonorchestra librarian, music arranger, and editorrecounts his four exciting, draining years as assistant to Leonard Bernstein. He describes his job as manager of Bernsteins day-to-day life as a whirligig of phone calls, appointments, music scores, and traveling. But managing Bernstein involved a lot more. The maestro was demanding and prone to bouts of fury and bratty behavior. Harmon was given the job of monitoring Lennys celebrated libido for young men and keeping this information from the press.

Bernsteins manic behavior was exacerbated by the vast amounts of Dexedrine he consumed and, of course, the alcohol. These frenzied episodes were often followed by major bouts of depressing, when Bernstein wouldnt shave, shower, or sleep for days. Contributing to his frenetic behavior was grief over his wife Felicias death in 1978. According to Harmon, Lenny seemed haunted by her. He seemed at times to be pursued by demonsdriven to exhaustion by a relentless schedule of conducting, teaching, and composing. He sometimes complained that no one cared about him as a person.

We get a good sense of life with Lenny from 1982 to 86 through the lens of Charlie Harmon. We travel all over the world with the maestro, and we meet plenty of celebrities along the way. For Harmon, his time with Bernstein was a mixed blessing. He ended up suffering from severe exhaustion and depression. On the other hand, it provided him with an extraordinary education. His four years as assistant to a genius were a self-revelatory journal as well as a musical one.

Details

Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-62354-527-7

E-book
ISBN: 978-1-63289-219-5 EPUB

Page count: 272
5 1/2 x 8 1/4

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