Leonard Bernstein: A Life by Meryle Secrest

Leonard Bernstein:  A Life by Meryl Secrest is a 470-page softcover published in 1994 by Alfred A. Knopf.  The condition is near-new. Book Summary Leonard Bernstein didn't begin piano lessons until he was nine years old, but when he first touched the keys, it "was my contract with life, with God."  In the years that followed, Bernstein became a prodigy, a superstar, and a national folk hero.  He composed our most enduring modern music and conducted the world's foremost orchestras.  He consorted with Presidents and Black Panthers, and enthralled--sometimes appalled--everyone he met with his boundless energy, flamboyance, and vulgarity.  He was, said one friend, 'a star in a constant state of explosion." This outstanding book by the acclaimed biographer Meryle Secrest captures all of Bernstein's radiance.  Here is the virtuoso who gave us On the Town and West Side Story, a devout Kaddish and a sacrilegious Mass.  Here is the conductor who brought the classics into the age of television,