Leonard Bernstein

“Seldes has a gift for literary counterpoint, balancing political, social, and musical story lines. . . . This is a biography with a political focus, but it’s a full biography, one that knocks over caricatures of a celebrity musician who merely played at politics. . . . Almost two decades after Bernstein’s death, this is the first in-depth look at the man with his politics. It was worth the wait.”

— Boston Globe Book Section

“Mr Seldes’s book is a masterpiece of concision, romping through background accounts of the machinations of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the collapse of post-war efforts to revive the liberal political philosophies of the New Deal generation. He turns with equally efficient grace to interpretations of Bernstein’s more enigmatic compositions, such as his theatrical setting of the “Mass” and his disillusioned follow-up to “Trouble in Tahiti” with an opera, “A Quiet Place”. The book’s greatest value, however, lies not simply in shedding new and more nuanced light on the story of “Our Lenny”, but in its consistent demonstration—in accordance with Bernstein’s own ideas—that any attempt to separate the musical sphere from the moral and political comes at an unconscionably high price.”

— The Economist

“A rich, thoroughly researched and immensely readable study.”

— Times Literary Supplement (TLS)

“There have been full-scale Bernstein biographies by Joan Peyser, Meryle Secrest and Humphrey Burton, each unsatisfying in its own way. Barry Seldes offers something different—a trim volume that concentrates on Bernstein’s politics. . . . Seldes, who has written exactly the book he set out to write, has made a major contribution.”

— Opera News