Bernstein's Fans

This article makes a case for the historical value of one of the most contentious letter genres: fan mail. Received in volume by celebrities of all stripes, fan mail typically lacked in literary quality, relied heavily on generic turns of phrase, and often contained emotional outpourings verging on the excessive. Tainted by such qualities, it seemed to reproduce the worst aspects of mass culture. It was derided by contemporary commentators, and subsequent generations of scholars have done little to challenge this perspective. Even the handful of scholars who have begun to reverse this trend usually justify their interests with highly selective engagement: letters of “substance” are singled out, enabling them to disregard the rest.

This article explores an alternative way of engaging with fan mail, one that carves a path between fan mail’s “mass” qualities and the individual lives documented therein. Using the vast collection of fan mail in Leonard Bernstein’s archive, it focuses on the most common epistolary trope: requests for an autograph or autographed photo. Through deep readings of letters from three correspondents – a “serious” autograph collector, a classical music aficionado, and a young admirer – it investigates the variety of meanings an autograph could hold. In reading these letters seriously, the article ultimately reveals how, beyond the sphere of public critical discourse, classical music’s meanings were more firmly tethered to the intimate, domestic contexts in which the letters were written.