20th century
A01=Barry Seldes
american culture
american history
artists
Author_Barry Seldes
biography
blacklisted
career
Category=AVN
Category=AVP
Category=DNBF
Category=JP
classical music
cold war america
composer
engaging
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
exile
famous musicians
fbi files
folk heroes
iconic musicians
leonard bernstein
library of congress
maestro
modern history
music lovers
musical career
musical theater
new york
new york philharmonic
nonfiction
political activist
political outcasts
popular culture
progressive politics
retrospective
revolutionaries
state department
Product details
- ISBN 9780520257641
- Weight: 590g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 26 May 2009
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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From his dazzling conducting debut in 1943 until his death in 1990, Leonard Bernstein's star blazed brilliantly. In this fresh and revealing biography of Bernstein's political life, Barry Seldes examines Bernstein's career against the backdrop of cold war America - blacklisting by the State Department in 1950, voluntary exile from the New York Philharmonic in 1951 for fear that he might be blacklisted, signing a humiliating affidavit to regain his passport - and the factors that by the mid-1950s allowed his triumphant return to the New York Philharmonic. Seldes for the first time links Bernstein's great concert-hall and musical-theatrical achievements and his real and perceived artistic setbacks to his involvement with progressive political causes.Making extensive use of previously untapped FBI files as well as overlooked materials in the Library of Congress' Bernstein archive, Seldes illuminates the ways in which Bernstein's career intersected with the twentieth century's most momentous events.
This broadly accessible and impressively documented account of the celebrity-maestro's life deepens our understanding of an entire era as it reveals important and often ignored intersections of American culture and political power.
Barry Seldes is Professor of Political Science at Rider University and the author of a wide range of essays on politics and culture.
