Jewish Affairs 20:3 May/June 1990, pp. 2, 15, 19, 21
A Response and a Rejoinder
[ellipses were made by the magazine's editor, J. Alfred Kutzik]

Eric Gordon writes:

As author of Mark the Music: The Life and Work of Marc Blitzstein, I am deeply aggrieved by Leonard Lehrman's lengthy blast in the March/April issue of Jewish Affairs. Potential readers of my book -- and among the subscribers to Jewish Affairs this could mean several hundred people -- may well be dissuaded from looking at it, based on Lehrman's review article. I am truly sorry if that is the case. I chose to write about Marc Blitzstein because he led a vibrant, committed life in exciting times, and I wanted the world to have a solid record of it....

I have so many responses to what Lehrman did say that I can't devote much space to his omissions. Still, I find it remarkable, and sad, that in such a long article for Jewish Affairs he says nothing of substance about Blitzstein's relationship to his Jewishness. He doesn't even mention the months Blitzstein spent in Israel in 1962, toward the end of his life, which made a strong, though belated impact on his consciousness. I'm sorry readers of Lehrman's article who may never get around to the book itself learned nothing about the Jewish aspects of Blitzstein's life, values and experience....

I completely disagree that Jo Davis shared Lehrman's interest in her or her brother's "Judaic heritage." She was firmly of the old socialist, later Communist atheistic school that disparaged religion and Jewish cultural expression as superstitious and bourgeois. Her and Marc's parents and even grandparents felt that way too. If she was not too excited about Lehrman's tackling her brother's homosexuality or Communism, I suspect she must have felt repelled by an attempt to make him into a "Jewish" composer other than by birth....

The many "corrections" Lehrman presents are minuscule points. Some I passed over in my book (disregarding his notes on the typescript) because they are of no real importance; other points on which Lehrman criticizes me are really patent attempts to puff himself up. Example: the lyrics I quote on p. 429 from the song "What Is the Stars?" from Juno. Now Lehrman admits that I have spent more time in the archives than anyone else, yet he feels secure in making assertions that are simply not supportable. I pointed out to him that the lyrics in question come from the final draft of the script, whereas he must have consulted some earlier version. So why does he choose to go into print with erroneous information? For two reasons: to score another point against me (or appear to), and to support his own version of the song on his forthcoming record album "A Blitzstein Cabaret"....

Let me say something about the absence of musical examples in this biography. This is a biography, not a musicological treatise. I prominently directed readers to two doctoral dissertations which have more of that sort of thing, but I was never confused about the more general, non-academic audience I wished to reach. My literary agent and my editor... both assured me that as soon as you put musical examples in a book, most potential readers will assume it is too technical and not for them. As I say in my preface, "If this biography encourages further interest among music scholars or performers, I will feel enormously gratified." So, Leonard, go to it! Write a musicological treatise! The definitive one! See if you find a publisher for it in this age of increasing monopoly control of the presses!....

It appears that Lehrman and I disagree somewhat over the radio song play I've Got the Tune, though our disagreement is far from as great as he states. The truth -- unbeknownst to readers of his diatribe -- is that I do not describe this entire work as "banal," only the final "mass song" version of the tune. I do not hide behind a bad Variety review; rather I have several paragraphs of excerpts from wide-ranging but mostly appreciate reviews of this work, beginning with the sentence: "The immediate critical reception of I've Got the Tune was overwhelmingly positive." In any case, my job as biographer is not what a paid publicist for a forthcoming theatrical production is expected to do. Having spent ten years of my life researching and writing this book, I believe it's evident which side I am on. Fatuous, uncritical adoration of every note and word Blitzstein ever wrote, and citation in my text of only the positive critical accolades, would have made my entire project suspect and unbelievable -- worse, a laughable, monochromatic plaster statue of Saint Marc. I'm sorry, but I still think that after a series of scenes involving highly inventive variations to the basic tune in this interesting and stageworthy work, the tune itself, in its final apotheosis as a May Day marching song, could have been better....

It's obvious that Lehrman has a gay problem. It accounts for his flagrant gay-baiting. First of all, he says of me that my "prime identification seems to be with the gay rights struggle," adding that I was fundamentally incapable of dealing with the life of a composer. I do not deny my years of activity on the gay front; indeed, I suspect that many readers of Jewish Affairs have in one fashion or another lent their voices and their signatures over the years to various efforts to curb the virulent anti-gay backlash in this country. I also have many other strong interests and commitments. I hate to disappoint Lehrman, but in a way I'm probably a lot like him: I identify myself primarily on the basis of my professional life as a writer, not on my sleeping habits. In the mainstream press I've published widely on a variety of musical and cultural subjects. I also publish extensively in the left-wing press. I served on the editorial board of Jewish Currents magazine before leaving New York, and I have written articles in the People's Daily World off and on for more than ten years.... Do I need... to justify my politics and my love life to the readers of Jewish Affairs?

Lehrman engages in more gay-baiting when he supposedly quotes me referring to Blitzstein's "gayness" (as I "called it proudly," he says). I don't remember the conversation in particular, and it's not really important. But Blitzstein was gay, so it's not at all unlikely that I referred to his his "gayness".... Whether I said it "proudly" or not, I can't say; that's a subjective question of how Lehrman heard it. But even to refer to it, to put the word in quotes as if I had used some kind of heroizing term, is a sign of plain old homophobia in Lehrman's mind.

He also mentions the testimonials on my book jacket "by four prominent, provocative, gay American men." He is referring to composers Ned Rorem and David Diamond, playwright/critic Eric Bentley (all of whom knew Blitzstein), and historian/biographer Martin Bauml Duberman. It does so happen that each of those well-known figures who read and appreciated my book is gay..., but what relevance is Lehrman imputing to that? Lehrman also says that "only the N.Y. Times assigned a reviewer whose field of expertise was gay drama, not music, because of the biography's supposed stress on 'homoeroticism'." (Where did Lehrman get that idea?) Personally, I would have preferred a musician myself, as that is what the book is basically about. I'm afraid the Times reviewer rather grossly missed the point, which comes as no news, I'm sure, to Jewish Affairs readers. But there have been reviews so far in ten different publications oriented toward a gay/lesbian readership, and there have been gay radio interviews as well, and all those reviewers were not musicians by any means. The N.Y. Times was hardly alone in being interested in the gay angle to this book.

I am quoted incorrectly from p. 175 about those who believed there was a homosexual network in the music world that watched out for another and excluded straights. I did not say that such a "Homintern" actually existed, and I did not say that people still feel that way. Lehrman feels that way! That's why he associates this apocryphal gay network with the incident of (straight) composer Hugo Weisgall's being turned down when he wanted to conduct a 1947 production of The Cradle Will Rock. I don't know why Weisgall was not chosen. But what was in fact the outcome of that story? Bernstein and Blitzstein chose Howard Shanet to conduct, and he is straight. And if Bernstein was part of this "Homintern," as Lehrman suggests, how come he embraced Lehrman in 1970 and endorsed his intention to complete Idiots First? By Lehrman's theory, shouldn't Bernstein have promoted a gay composer for that job?.... At the risk of sounding too pro-gay, I might remind Lehrman that if you tallied up the weight of prejudice for and against gays in the world, the pro's would not likely come out the winners.

In this day and age a biography has to take into account the whole subject. Like it or not, that includes a person's sex life. If Blitzstein had been happily married, with children and a house in the suburbs, I would have duly reported that, and tried to analyze the implications such a lifestyle might have exerted on is work.... I don't know how Lehrman feels about this, but I found it remarkable that so many important American composers of Blitzstein's generation were gay: Copland, Thomson, Barber, Menotti, Cowell, Engel, Bowles, Diamond, Bernstein, Rorem. Contrary to Lehrman's fantastic assertion, I do not "insist that their homosexuality is part of the reason for their greatness." I challenge him or any reader to produce a single syllable in my book reflecting such a position. I pay attention to it, yes, but I neither promote nor denigrate. The Boston Globe's music critic Richard Dyer seems to have appreciated my point of view. Calling my book "a considerable achievement of cultural history," he says I detail Blitzstein's involvement with the Communist Party and various social causes. "Gordon also deals openly with Blitzstein's homosexuality. It's more than being honest about the circumstances of Blitzstein's death at the hands of toughs in Martinique..., it's a question of exploring Blitzstein's sexual and emotional nature and how this affected his work. For that matter, Gordon's is probably the first book to deal with the whole matter of the major role homosexual musicians played in this era of artistic ferment." Couldn't have said it better myself. As a biographer who seriously tried to understand my subject and set him within the context of his period, I am proud to have earned Dyer's evaluation....

Lehrman seems to believe that reviewers of my book are not doing enough to stimulate interest in Blitzstein and Idiots First. Well, as book reviewers, I'm not at all sure that's their job, but here is a brief sampling of quotes anyway. Hartford Courant: "Gordon has given us an important document. The book will sharpen our awareness and understanding of the man; it would be nice to think it will also help to arouse a renewed interest in his music." Boulder (Colo.) Camera: "Blitzstein, Gordon convinces me, is a man who needs to be known in these days of pale patriotism and national complacency." Arizona Daily Star: "Perhaps, thanks in part to the interest this book should generate, we may eventually get to know him better through his music." Boston Globe: "Gordon leaves the reader avid to hear music that he cannot, and that's the most important thing: This examination of Blitzstein's life in Mark the Music will certainly prompt the reexamination of the music that it deserves."



Leonard Lehrman responds:

First of all, I don't think anyone will be, or should be, dissuaded by my article from reading Mark the Music. The fact is, Jewish Affairs has devoted more space to it than to any other book it has ever reviewed. And my article, though critical of Gordon's publisher's boasting of his work as "definitive," praises both his industry and the importance of his subject, in no uncertain terms. But it is important to realize that, publicity-minded implications notwithstanding, this biography of Marc Blitzstein was never authorized by the Blitzstein Estate. This fact has been confirmed in several conversations with Blitzstein's sister and nephews.

Dr. Gordon is apparently attempting to discredit me because I happen to know more about part of his subject (the musical part) than he does, and have felt compelled to correct him on points no one else has taken the trouble to. Yet he himself wrote -- in the copy of his book he inscribed to me -- that I "know Marc's music better than anyone else in the world." I would thus suggest that his trying to tear me down only diminishes himself.

Concerning Marc's Jewishness, I certainly do mention it in my article, several times, and could (indeed almost did) write nearly a whole thesis on the subject. Concerning his sister Jo's perspective on the subject, Gordon is right that she, like my family, was of the tradition that "disparaged religion," but certainly not "Jewish cultural expression" along with it (especially after WWII). That would have been throwing the baby out with the bathwater! And to put the shoe on the other foot, if Gordon were really so concerned with his Jewishness as he says he is, then why on earth did he never bother to interview the great Jewish writer Bernard Malamud, whom Ned Rorem called Blitzstein's "ideal collaborator"!?

I do not believe my statement on "What Is the Stars" is erroneous. I am going by the score, which was Marc's, not the script, which was not.

Concerning my alleged "gay problem": Let me state right now, not that "some of my best friends" are gay, but that most of my best friends are gay. Yes, it is true that the majority of the U.S. population is neither gay nor pro-gay, but in the arts community the opposite happens to be the case: Straights are a distinct minority, whose rights and feelings ought also to be respected. And fighting for minority rights should never be attacked by civil libertarians, least of all those who themselves stand to lose by their diminishment. Those on the inside may not believe in a "mafia" or a "Homintern," but those on the outside certainly do, and recognition of those beliefs certainly constitutes neither "gay-baiting" nor "homophobia."

Finally, let me express my joy that so many critics have written so well about Mark the Music. And let me, publicly, thank Dr. Eric Gordon for having helped to do something I have been trying to do for 17 years: to interest a company in doing the orchestral premiere of Tales of Malamud. Thanks in large part to his book, which called Blitzstein's work to Richard Marshall's attention, the Center for Contemporary Opera plans to present that orchestral premiere next spring in New York. Thank you, Eric. And good luck to you.