The conductor, composer and vital life-force that was Leonard Bernstein was one of the music world’s great talkers, but rarely was he interviewed in such an informal way as revealed in a new book: ‘Dinner with Lenny’. When Jonathan Cott was invited to talk to Bernstein for Rolling Stone magazine, in what was to be the composer’s last major interview the result was a vodka and cigarette fuelled discourse on all matters musical, political, psychological and spiritual. Some 20 years after the event Cott has reworked the whole 12 hour marathon into a book which Suzy discusses with Bernstein’s pupil - conductor Marin Alsop and Nigel Simeone who has just finished editing Bernstein’s enormous correspondence. There’s also the chance to hear some of the actual recordings of the conversation made by Cott on the night.

Dinner with Lenny by Jonathan Cott