‘Mostly He Gave Off Light, So It Was Like Being In This Incredibly Powerful Beam’: Alexander Bernstein Remembers Lenny

Jamie is the Bernstein child we usually hear from, but in this interview, Alexander talks about life with his father (and his mother) as well as Lenny’s music-making, social activism, and dealing with the demands of his work. “[As] he started conducting more abroad, the entourage around him grew larger and larger, and he became more and more of an industry. That was hard for him to handle. One day I remember him shouting, ‘I hate Leonard Bernstein!'”