Barry Seldes

I took this book out from my university library in order to do a sort of biographical study of Bernstein within the academic field of History, as opposed to American Studies, Music History, and such. I think this is an important to clarify in terms of Bernstein studies. In the course of the research I did (focusing on the relationship between his sexuality and his politics within his music), I found that the rather arbitrary division between History and Music History opens quite a gulf in terms examining the politics of music. Musical politics as a field has usually been relegated to the obscure, besides dust-covered library books and deeply-buried historical studies, few venture into this field (of the few, New Yorker critic Alex Ross comes most to mind). Frankly, when it comes to academic work, historians tend to focus on more rigid accomplishments, while music historians are more concerned with the musical literature, though very often getting closer to the "mark."

To this avail, I must praise Dr. Seldes for this book, which almost acts as a growing proof that Political Science is indeed an open field (Seldes is a PolySci prof). While works like this within the sphere of "social science" would no doubt be imperfect, this biography does a good job developing a cohesive narrative and adequately isolating Bernstein the political figure.

That said, this book is early in the sense that Bernstein is a young figure. Despite his death in 1990, the sheer gravitational weight Bernstein (and his posthumous organization) holds makes him an extraordinarily relevant and current figure, especially in the American musical imagination. Thus, even after almost thirty years in a post-Lenny era, scholarship seems to lag behind.

I find this biography "incomplete" on two counts. 1) There is a need for countermeasure. While the biography is indeed "good," I would have praised Seldes for doing the work of a historian in examining post-Bernstein opinions, as well as sometimes conflicting accounts of Bernstein. While this may be outside the orthodox realm of a "biography," this no doubt would have made this book a more complete scholarly work. 2) The lack of gender theory. For a 2009 biography, the sheer lack of gender in this biography is almost damning by contemporary analysis, being that gender history is the current chic field. Personally, I find this even more important, given the enormous complexity of Bernstein's sexuality, and his political-musical-sexual persona; all intertwined together and difficult to separate or synthesize. And frankly, given this complexity, it is no wonder why Bernstein's gender has fallen into this gulf of academic neglect. Still, despite this enormity of that problem, I can only award demerit to the book.… (altro)