California Dreamin'

While MTT clearly benefited from the comparison, being tagged "the next Leonard Bernstein" also has to have been a burden. "He doesn't have Lenny's depth of feeling," says Harry Shapiro, who joined the BSO as a French-horn player in 1937. "But he's very wise, and he's the closest thing we'll ever get to a Bernstein protege." Some orchestra players made no secret of their dislike for MTT, whom they considered arrogant and brash. Still, says Shapiro, "we got to like him even though we thought he was a showoff. He'd listen to us."

In 1978 he took a public fall from grace when he was arrested at Kennedy airport for carrying small amounts of cocaine and marijuana. (He plea-bar-gained and was charged with disorderly conduct.) In the '70s and'80s he also lost out on a few important conducting jobs. The New York Philharmonic didn't tap him; his hometown orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, failed to make him music director even though he had spent four years as its principal guest conductor. MTT won't talk about it: "What's past is past." But, he thinks maybe not having such a consuming job so young was a godsend. "You get to the end of a certain number of years and you say, 'What happened to my life?' "

Tilson Thomas used those years to nail down core repertory, to work on highly praised projects from Gershwin and Ives to Mahler and Debussy, and to start the New World Symphony, a Miami-based training orchestra. In the past few years, several key people in his life died--his parents, Bernstein, his close friend Audrey Hepburn. It was time, he thought, "to put down some more roots." With his longtime partner and production manager, Joshua Robison, he bought an airy 1906 house in San Francisco, which they are refurbishing.

Easy exchange: The youthful arrogance is gone. "He's softer now," says Shapiro. "There's something very mysterious about his performances." Peter Pastreich, SFS executive director, says, "He's more likely to move you than he was." In rehearsal, MTT has an easy exchange with the orchestra members. "Michael requires discipline and precision," says bass trombonist John Engelkes, "but he also will encourage individuality. It's really liberating."

On the podium, Tilson Thomas leans forward almost from the ankles, like a bowsprit or an enormous friendly bird, then crouches so low that his head is actually below the music stand. But these days he's often without a stand, because he knows the music "by heart." "I've always refused to memorize pieces, because when I was working under conductors who were memory freaks, they were looking at the score in their minds. Their eyes were dead. 'By heart' is something different. The music becomes integrated into your whole physical and mental being. You're looking at the musicians and they're looking at you and something magical happens."

Tilson Thomas has survived, and ultimately thrived. "I'm the happiest I've been since I was in my 20s," he says, polishing off a bagel. "I entered the music profession with such a sense of wonder and worked with these amazing orchestras so early. Then there were some years where you get knocked around, things make you question why you started." He gazes out the dining-room window. "I came through that," he says. "And my wonder is totally intact." MTT smiles and doesn't even squint, surrounded by impossibly bright light.