Bernstein, Beethoven, Berlin, Bruce!

UPDATE:   New book just published this weekcharts 1988 incident when Bruce Springsteen played to 300,000 East Germans, gave speech against The Wall, supposedly putting the final nail in the Communists' coffin.  I don't know about that, but sounds interesting.  Author is American who has lived in Germany for 25 years. 

Earlier:  My new piece at The Nation--an excerpt from updated edition of my Journeys With Beethoven book with Kerry Candaele on Leonard Bernstein conducting the Ninth Symphony in 1989 to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall.   Reminder: Kerry's great film Following the Ninth, which I helped with a bit, gets world premiere Tuesday night in Santa Barbara, then 20 other cities, including NYC in early October.