GLR November-December 2024

ney, seated nearby, on endless topics: his Coast Guard service, his educational goals, whom they knew in common, whether he was an antisemite. At the piano, Bernstein habitually demon strated motifs from all manner of composition, and their deriva tions, to his visitors. For Romney, he played excerpts from Francis Poulenc’s new opéra bouffe , Les Mamelles de Tirésias . Poulenc had given him the score a few weeks earlier in Paris. Romney had recently discovered W. H. Auden’s new epic poem, The Age of Anxiety , and told Bernstein about it. This conversation would lead to the creation of Bernstein’s Sym phony No. 2. As soon as Bernstein read Auden poem, he later reported: “I began to hear the music in my head.” Romney hoped Bernstein would see it as concert music rather than a ballet, “where many different talents brush it up. It’s too good a thing for many hands.” Sexually, the visit must have been a success, judging from Romney’s leering salutation to Bernstein the following Mon day: “Dear Pappa Whore-Lady.” He went on: “You were an angel to me and I shall never forget it. And I can say ‘I love you’ without your giving a start in return.” Three friends who saw Romney that day exclaimed that he was “blossoming,” and he asked if Bernstein could guess why. “Pappa Whore-Lady” marked the beginning of their playful assumption of parent child roles, with Bernstein as “Pappy” (even though Romney was one month older). Bernstein encouraged Romney to attend his Tanglewood concerts, but the need to keep him out of Montealegre’s sight would preclude the pleasure. His conducting a student orches tra in Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring on Friday, July 18th, was a “great success,” but Romney knew that only because Coates told him so in a letter. Montealegre was in the audience, while Romney had retreated across the Massachusetts state line hours earlier. The contrast between Helen Coates’ solicitude toward Rom ney and her disdain for Montealegre was stark. Soon after the latter met Bernstein, Coates’ refusal to put her calls through, be cause Bernstein had not instructed her to do so, must have been infuriating. By the time the engagement was announced, the two women seemed to have reached a truce. “It was wonderful to get your blessing!” wrote Montealegre. “Your friendship means so much to me ... there will probably be very hard times ahead, I know that, but good times too. Please help us have them—if you can.” In April, while Bernstein conducted in Palestine, Coates sent her flowers on his behalf. However, biographer Humphrey Burton inferred that Coates regarded the engagement as a publicity stunt. For a profile on Bernstein, Coates told The

Richard Romney in Paris, 1948.

gagement to Felicia Montealegre, he was silent. He would try to accommodate his friend, but cautioned that his cottage’s “guest list [is] more than imposing.” Finding Bernstein’s invitation upon his return from Bermuda, Romney was eager to accept. “This deep-rooted af fection for you,” he wrote, “is quite a difficult thing for me.” He had just seen a news item reporting (incorrectly) that Bern stein’s engagement was over. “That presents a ‘Why?’” he wrote. “I do think you ought to marry—someone very intelli gent, well-born, and who can take the ‘part’ of the wife of a composer-conductor in the best sense of the relationship.” His comments seem surprising for someone who scarcely knew Bernstein, and he admitted it was none of his business. Finally, he got down to brass tacks: could they “sneak away from the Berkshires and get to know each other alone in Albany”? Apparently, either Bernstein or Helen Coates noticed an im minent vacancy in their guest rooms and told Romney to come right away. In Bernstein’s date book, Coates noted Romney’s arrival on Monday, July 14th, at 7:30 p.m. Only five hours ear lier, Montealegre had left for New York. While Richard Rom ney, seemingly from out of nowhere, was welcomed to Tanglewood, Felicia had to force her way in. That spring, she had complained to Ann Ronell, hostess of her engagement party, that Bernstein’s Tanglewood guest list included many of his friends and relatives—but not Montealegre. Ronell told two bi ographers that she advised Montealegre simply to show up. § R OMNEY ’ S FIRST FULL DAY at Tanglewood was his birthday, and subsequent letters imply that Helen Coates improvised a party for him. He was so touched that he later sent Coates a gift. To Bernstein he wrote: “How is that angel, Helen? Did she really not hate me for my camping—what happened to me there for a minute? It wasn’t the martini (of that I’m sure).” At Tanglewood with Romney, the maestro reclined in a ham mock outside his cottage to relieve back pain. He quizzed Rom

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