Finding Aids to Archival Collections

The Writings series contains a diverse group of documents that reflect Bernstein's wide-ranging activities. Spanning 1928 to 1991 (when an article was published posthumously in the New York Times ), these writings might be characterized as non-music manuscripts (although many items are typescripts as opposed to manuscripts, and some items--notably transcripts of interviews--were not really "written" at all).


The Writings series is divided into four subseries. The first, General Writings Chronology, includes the bulk of the writings, arranged in date order--by date of creation, publication, performance, presentation, or other approximate date. This is followed by the Television Scripts subseries which is further subdivided into the Young People's Concerts Television Scripts (arranged chronologically by air date); Bound Television Scripts; Television Scripts Collections--Notebooks; and TelePrompTer scripts. The final two subseries are Norton Lectures/The Unanswered Question and Book Materials. The Norton lectures include not only Bernstein's manuscript notes, draft scripts, and annotated typescripts, but also notes and outlines of others who helped prepare the lectures, research materials, television production materials, TelePrompTer scripts, and correspondence relating to the production and distribution of the lectures on video. The Book Materials include typescripts, musical examples, planning materials, correspondence with the publisher, and publisher's proofs. The contents within the various subseries are not exclusive. For example, the General Writings Chronology contains Norton lecture material, book materials and television scripts.


Where titles exist, they appear as the initial entry in the "Title/Description" field in this guide. Either in place of, or following, a title, but always in square brackets, is a description of the type of work represented--article, poem, lecture, etc.--including any information known about where or for what or whom items were created, published or presented, and often a brief topic description. Most descriptions are self-explanatory; one exception is "imaginary conversation," a term created by Bernstein to describe a particular type of article. The Writings series contains sketches and/or complete drafts for twelve imaginary conversations, of which, apparently, only three or four were published. This guide can most successfully be used by those able to access it by computer and do word searches. In that way, for instance, the fifteen writings with titles or descriptions that include "Mahler" can be found in a matter of seconds. Searching for "Tanglewood" will garner the researcher not only writings about Tanglewood, but writings on various topics presented at Tanglewood.


In terms of discrete works, the largest number of items in the Writings series is contained in the General Writings Chronology list; however, in terms of the amount of space required to house material, the various groupings are roughly proportionate. For example, while the total of 37 boxes of material described in the general listing represents hundreds of titles, the 39 boxes of Norton lectures material represent a total of six lectures. The Writings series includes notes, drafts, and completed works intended for presentation before a public readership or audience: music reviews and other articles; program and liner notes; speeches and statements; lectures; concert preview/explanatory scripts; TV scripts and other TV or radio commentary; books authored by Bernstein; introductions and prefaces to books by other authors; lyrics; etc.


The General Writings Chronology list also contains manuscripts or typescripts intended for more limited readerships: school and extra-curricular work while at Boston Latin School or Harvard College (short stories, essays, work assignments and exams, college thesis, music reviews); letters, birthday poems, memos, and recommendations, written for family, friends, colleagues, proteges, or staff; and poems and poem translations, crossword puzzles and games, a sleep record from January and February 1983, annotated texts or books, and marginal notes, written by Bernstein for his own use.


Some anomalies will be found in the Writings series, among which are the following: interviews; a Charlie Harmon phone list; a transcript of a speech by Joachim Kaiser at the bestowal of the Karl Amadeus Hartmann Medal on Bernstein in 1986; a list of Bernstein's copyrighted works; and a catalog for the Museum of Broadcasting's 1985 exhibition concerning Bernstein's television work. These maladapts are housed in the Writings series both because this was where they were filed prior to coming to the Library, and because they provide important direct (interviews) or indirect (Joachim Kaiser speech) testimony concerning Bernstein's life and how it touched the lives of others. Since this is what we hope the Writings series conveys anyway, it seems not unreasonable to accept a few black sheep within its fold.


A final caveat: because certain types of material are typically found in the Writings series, please do not assume that all such items in the collection are to be found here. One should, for example, also peruse the Amberson Business Papers subseries, which is known to contain, inter alia, interviews, recommendations, correspondence (personal), and speeches.