"'Unlike almost any other classical performer of recent times, Leonard Bernstein adamantly, and sometimes controversially, refused to compartmentalize and separate his emotional, intellectual, political, erotic and spiritual longings from the musical experience, ' Jonathan Cott writes in
Dinner With Lenny: The Last Long Interview with Leonard Bernstein. Mr. Cott, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, then delivers exactly what his title promises, though dinner turns out to be an understatement. It is like referring to a chef's tasting menu as fast food."–Sam Roberts,
The New York Times"A beautifully layered and symphonic conversation....Electrifying and elevating." – Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
"What Cott has achieved, through this final interview, is to make Lenny speak and sing again. It's been said that if you remember an evening with Lenny, you weren't really there. The genius of Cott's book is not only to remember but to recall with pinpoint accuracy and sympathy the flame of Leonard Bernstein that burned so brightly and so true." –
New Statesman "I found this terrific book quite impossible to put down ....Here is a vibrant and authentic Leonard Bernstein, speaking freely, frankly and extremely entertainingly, but never wavering in his raging passion for music, or his simple lust for life." –
International Record Review"Jonathan Cott is gifted at making a discussion - presented in the formatting of a play script, with occasional stage directions - feel like a live recording, while we wander from fascinating reflections about languages, the mystic number seven, and Hitler's effect on 20th-century music, to lovely anecdotes such as the one about Bernstein's late wife washing the eccentric Glenn Gould's hair." –
The Independent on Sunday"Rarely has a composer or conductor enjoyed such public adulation, and this lovely little book goes some way towards explaining why Bernstein did. A transcription of the "last long interview" with him, conducted in the year before his death, it captures Bernstein in sparkling form...
Dinner with Lenny is an evocative tribute, not just to Bernstein's musical gifts but his ever-active mind." –
The Financial Times"Perhaps the most memorable tale in this altogether readable book is offered by Cott. After hearing Bernstein conduct Beethoven's Ninth at Carnegie Hall with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1979, the author and a friend walked down to Studio 54, the late-night place to be in those days. Out on the packed dance floor, Cott was bumped from behind. When he turned to see who had crashed into him, it was, yes, Bernstein, 'wildly dancing–bare-chested under a black leather jacket.' No question about it, Lenny was determined to live large. And if you want to know what happened with Alma at the Hotel Pierre, you'll have to read the book."
–Jonathan Rosenberg,
The Christian Science Monitor"If Leonard Bernstein tested the limits of pressing the conductor's own personality into the score, he was, as a musician with a world conscience, Toscanini's successor. The political, free-associating liberated spirit comes through lyrically in Jonathan Cott's
Dinner With Lenny: The Last Long Interview With Leonard Bernstein." –Peter Dobrin,
Philadelphia Inquirer"
Dinner with Lenny is surprisingly captivating...there is something charming about the dialogue between the two men that makes the reader want to keep reading."
–Amanda Mark,
New York Journal of Books "Jonathan Cott has an extraordinary gift for getting interesting people, especially musicians, to energetically, informatively and entertainingly speak about their personal insights into music and many other matters, near and far. Read this book and see for yourself."
–Steve Reich, composer
"Jonathan Cott captures the ebullience; the enormous brilliance; and the life affirming joy that exuded from Leonard Bernstein. I could feel myself once again at the table with Bernstein, where topics, puns and postulates blazed!"–Marin Alsop, Music Director, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Chief Conductor, São Paolo Symphony Orchestra
