The nose and eyes are unmistakable. At 62 Alexander Bernstein isn’t the spitting image of his father, but there’s enough similarity to spook me when we shake hands.
I met his father, Leonard Bernstein, just once. That was in Rome in 1989, the year before he died. It was at the end of a long, hot day and Lenny (as the entire music world called him) was exhausted from rehearsing a not very good Italian orchestra. His creased, craggy face — the legacy of half a century of booze, cigarettes, 4am bedtimes and burning all available candles at all available ends — already had the pale pallor of mortality. Yet in the twilight, looking out over the Eternal City from his hotel penthouse, he astonished