Interview Transcript
Susan was just 9 years old when she wrote her letter to Leonard Bernstein from Ossining, New York. I tracked her down via her professional internet profile and we agreed to speak in July 2024. Her husband Bob joined our conversation. We talked about letter-writing and why it mattered to her family that Bernstein was Jewish.
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March 12, 1962
Dear Mr. Bernstein,
I would like your autograph + a picture of you.
I play the piano + hope to be a great pianist like you are.
I am nine years old.
Very truly yours,
Susan Knell
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Susan: So I grew up in a suburb of New York City – Ossining, New York, is the name of the suburb – we moved there when I was about five. Went to public schools. I have an older brother who’s actually quite a bit more musical than I turned out to be. But… public schools, college, I got a PhD in psychology. I’m a practicing, but sort of semi-retired, psychologist now.
I think I started taking piano lessons … it’s hard to remember … kindergarten or first grade, and probably played through – or took lessons through – about 13 or 14. Some place in there. My father had played, I think, saxophone when he was a kid. My mother played a little piano. I mean, neither of them were … we, we listened to a lot of classical music in the house. You know, back in the day where there was, you know, you could listen to it on the radio or … you know, we did have some records. I … I don’t remember a lot about what we listened to. I just remember that if music was on, that’s usually what it was. My mother did not like opera. It would mostly have been like orchestral or … you know, solo, like violin kind of thing.
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It was a small, three bedroom ranch house. We had a baby grand piano that … I don’t know where my parents secured it, but it was a very pretty – I don’t know that it was as good an instrument as it was a pretty piano – but that’s what we played on. My brother and I both took lessons. And coincidentally, I don’t think I realized this at the time, but my piano teacher’s name was Bea Littau, L-I-T-T-A-U. And her husband was Joseph Littau, and he was a very famous conductor on Broadway. We lived about, you know, an hour train ride outside of New York City. And he was … he was the conductor of Carousel and some other yeah … I mean, at the time, I had no clue about any of that.
But she travelled around the countryside where we lived – ’cause we kind of lived out outside of town – in her little VW bug and just gave lessons, went to people’s houses and gave lessons. And then, like, once a quarter, she had piano recitals. She had this beautiful home with a beautiful piano, and, you know, she’d set up the chairs, and she gave piano lessons there.
I mean, I think it just seemed like it was something that kids were expected to take piano lessons. My parents did not want me to stop taking lessons, but I wanted to stop. I think I stopped around 13 or 14; and I convinced them to let me stop – I remember this very clearly – I promised them that I would keep playing. I promised them. I mean, I did a little bit and I can sit down at the piano now and play a few things very, very occasionally. But that promise was just … hollow. I just really didn’t want to continue.
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I remember that we had a black and white TV. It was in sort of this area that was kind of … wasn’t really a family room, but it was like a kitchen, and an area where we would sit and watch TV. I remember watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. And my father saying, ‘What’s so special about that?’
And I remember when color TVs came out. My father, who had this kind of sense of humor, would … somebody asked him what the color on his color TV was, and his answer was, ‘Black and white’. So, I imagine we might have watched concerts, but I don’t … I don’t really remember.
I remember back in the day, like a movie you really wanted to watch was on, and you couldn’t watch it unless it was on TV, you know, no videos, no … it wasn’t repeated. And if it was on, you know, on a school night, you just didn’t get to watch it – at least in my family.
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I think I started playing the flute at the end of sixth grade. The thing with the flute was that, you know, you had lessons at school. You didn’t have to take your time at home to have somebody give lessons. You were supposed to practice. I probably didn’t practice any place close to as much as I was supposed to.
The thing about the flute was that I was in the in the band, you know, so that was a very social … we had a marching band and a concert band … and that was very social, and there were a lot of, you know, friends in the band, and we would ride the bus to football games and play in the, you know – kind of an American thing – in the marching band. And in a way, it was more fun.
I also kind of remember that my parents bought me a flute, and at the time, I think I remember it being $105, which was a lot of money back then and a lot of money for my family. And I promised my father … I feel like there are a lot of promises here, but … I promised my father when they bought the flute that I would play it through high school. So I kept that promise, and then as soon as high school was over … kind of went the way of the piano. I, you know, picked it up occasionally, but just really didn’t play it anymore.
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I’m amazed that all those letters were saved. I mean it was fascinating to me. First of all, you know, I see the email, and I think it’s some kind of junk response. And then I opened up … I opened it, and, you know, I recognized my childhood handwriting immediately. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh! You know, I can’t even really believe this is real!’ I had no memory of having written it, none whatsoever, but I recognized my handwriting and the address, of course.
I remember writing a letter to the editor of our local newspaper about conservation of water, which – in 1960–whatever – would have been, like … So, you know, I think we might have been encouraged to, you know, because there wasn’t email. I wasn’t … you weren’t gonna pick up the phone and call somebody. So I think those are the only two that that really come to mind. I don’t know if I wrote to any other, you know, famous people or whatever. But I think there was certainly that encouragement to express yourself and to go on record as, you know, doing that. I don’t know if you had the same?
Bob: Um, Well, letter writing, I mean, I’m always amazed when I go through boxes of memorabilia, which I need to throw out, how many letters I wrote, because it was …
Susan: That’s what you did.
Bob: … what you did, you know, But to friends, you know, who were away at college, and to family when I was away at college, and … But writing to celebrities or, you know … no, I didn’t do that.
Susan: And I think that’s why when you came up with a letter, you know, ’cause I had no recollection of it, that was sort of like, made me think about, why did I do that? All I can really think about is my parents were very … My father had a PhD in chemistry. He was an organic chemist. My mother had a master’s degree in German linguistics – it’s kind of unusual for the late ‘40s for a woman – and had enrolled in a PhD program in German and then got married instead and didn’t finish. So, education was extremely important to them, and they were very impressed by, you know, famous people who were accomplished.
And we were Jewish. And so I think there was that connection with Bernstein, you know, that he was Jewish. We were Jewish. He was so incredibly amazing that I suspect someone encouraged me …. I … I don’t … it’s hard to remember. I doubt I wrote that letter on my own. I mean, I know I wrote it on my own, but I doubt that somebody didn’t say to me, why don’t you write to him or you know … it’s hard to, it’s hard to put that all back together, but …
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Susan: Having, you know, lived through the Holocaust, even though they were in the United States, but they … my father’s … well, some of my grandparents had immigrated from, you know, Russia, Eastern Europe, some of them were born in the United States. But I think just that whole being Jewish, trying to assimilate, you know, not wanting … like, you wanted your Jewish identity and the religion to be upheld, but you didn’t want to be … there was so much antisemitism. I mean, I think it was just that sense that here’s this incredibly accomplished person, who is Jewish. And, you know, we should be looking up to him because he’s not only really smart and really accomplished, but he’s also Jewish. I think that was sort of the mentality about that. When somebody famous was Jewish, we certainly heard from my parents about how they were Jewish. That was something that was definitely identified.
Bob: Oh, everybody knew that Leonard Bernstein was Jewish. Yeah, I mean, it was just … I think Susan put it very well when … it was a time when … Jewish identity was quite different back then than it is now. And any celebrity, you know, the two sides: if something bad happened, somebody did something bad, the first thing was, ‘Oh, thank God, they weren’t Jewish! Made national news!’ That was … and then the flip side was if something good happened, you know, if there was a celebrity or somebody to take pride in, you definitely …
Susan: There was like a pride, I think, that was almost like it was a family member. You know, a Jewish … another Jewish person – was that kind of pride.