December 7, 2018

  • Alsop Wraps Up Her Bernstein Survey

     

    Bernstein: CBS Music; A Bernstein Birthday Bouquet
    Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop
    Naxos 8.559813
    Total Time:  53:46
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Bernstein: Fancy Free; Anniversaries for Orchestra
    Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop
    Naxos 8.559814
    Total Time:  52:25O
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    This year marks the centenary of the American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990).  His impact on symphonic music was a result of his long tenure at the New York Philharmonic where he would champion Mahler, modern American music, create programs for young audiences, and work to establish the orchestra as the best in the nation.  He would become a major advocate for Copland’s music.  As a composer, Bernstein would try his hand at every genre from Broadway theater to film music, opera to hybrids of religious texts and musical styles, ballet, and orchestral music.  Of the many protégés he mentored, one is Marin Alsop who has in many ways continued this legacy with her own dedication to American music.  Alsop has been recording Bernstein’s music for Naxos between the Baltimore and Sao Paulo orchestras.  The two discs presented here were recorded mostly in December 2016 with the two primary works on 8.559814 recorded in 2017.  Both albums bring together some peripheral extras from Bernstein’s catalog, including some world premieres.  They are both quite short though by modern CD standards.

    In the first of these albums (8.559813), we are treated to a host of treasures in what reveals itself as a quite intelligently-chosen program.  There are some brief selections from Broadway.  The album opens with the “Mambo” from West Side Story with its concert ending.  It receives a crisp and clean exciting performance.  The “Times Square Ballet” from On the Town is the other end of the miniature Bernstein program here which sets up the final set of variations on the release.  In between we are treated to his gift to his close friend Mstislav Rostropovich, Slava! A Political Overture (1977). The piece has a blend of Shostakovich and reworks two pieces from Bernstein’s failed opera, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Some of the music here would also be reused in other pieces and has been crafted into a cantata as well.  Charlie Harmon put together an orchestral suite that further illustrates the tenuous straddling of Neo-Classicism and American musical theater.  The five segments woven together here include a march, gavotte, calypso, a ballad, a chorale, and a finale that is essentially a reworking of Candide’s “Make Our Garden Grow”.  The orchestrations are quite beautiful.  One of the more interesting and welcome additions is the premiere recording of Bernstein’s CBS Music (1978).  This was written to accompany a retrospective for the network’s 50th anniversary and accompanied a collage of photos to this music for the finale which aired on April 1, 1978.  In many ways, the five sections here are good companions to the earlier suite.  They illustrate this blend of Bernstein’s integrated modern jazz, sense of dance, and updated modernism that always feels like the next step after Gershwin’s artistic jazz works.

    The real charm of this album though lies in the collection of A Bernstein Birthday Bouquet (1988).  Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra had a celebration of the composer at Tanglewood for his 70th birthday.  To mark the occasion, eight composers were chosen to create a set of variations on “New York, New York” from On the Town.  This is the reason the “Times Square Ballet” number appears as it was used to open that part of the program to help the audience familiarize themselves with the tune.  Each of the composers chosen had a connection to Bernstein having family connections to the NY Philharmonic, a composition either commissioned or performed by Bernstein, or connections to Tanglewood and the BSO.  The composers (Luciano Berio, Leon Kirchner, Jacob Druckman, Lukas Foss, John Corigliano, John Williams, Toru Takemitsu, and William Schuman) are almost a Who’s Who of late 20th Century composition.  This is the first time the pieces have been heard together since the original concert.  Williams would record his contribution (“To Lenny! To Lenny!”) more recently as the piece For New York.  Kirchner would further expand his “N.Y.-Connotations-N.Y” into his Music for Orchestra II.  But the real delight is the way each composer uses quotation both of Bernstein’s own music as well as some of the many pieces of classical music that he was famous for conducting.  Herein lies the sheer delight in this collection that amounts to just over 20 minutes.  It makes this a must-have disc and the performances are stunning here.

    The second of these two new releases (8.559814) also features the composer’s lighter and more intimate sides.  The album is bookended by two overtures.  It opens with one of his most popular works, the “Overture” to Candide and concludes with the one to 1953’s Wonderful Town.  The latter is one of the composer’s many pieces that share his love for New York.  Fancy Free (1944) is one of the pieces that exhibits the composer’s integration of urban Americana and jazz in his favorite city.  It melds a host of musical influences from Offenbach to Shostakovich with a little Billie Holiday thrown in for good measure.  The jazz piano makes this an almost concertante work.  This recording omits the jukebox tune (“Big Stuff”) which seems a bit odd as there is plenty of time for it on the CD (though it is a common practice).  This aside, this is just a stunning performance that should become one of the standards in the catalogue (holding its own against critical favorites by Leonard Slatkin, and Andrew Litton which pop up in re-issues along with the composer’s own required version).  The orchestra manages to really nail the rhythmic vitality of the piece and maintains a steady sense of fun and excitement.  The album also includes the Anniversaries for Orchestra.  Garth Edwin Sunderland collected and orchestrated this set of eleven remembrances that Bernstein wrote piano vignettes for over the course of his life.  They are a very personal collection of pieces that honor composers, family, performers, and assistants in his life.  It is a sort of peripheral picture of the composer.  These manage to honor their piano versions in more intimate writing here as well.  Still, it would be nice to have the originals to better compare someday.  That said, Bernstein fans, will find them intriguing at the very least.  The real reason to grab this disc is for Fancy Free.

    These two releases are both excellent additions to the Bernstein catalogue and are just more amazing examples of Marin Alsop’s ability to draw invigorating performances from her orchestras. Each work receives committed performances with excellent detail and a real sense of Bernstein’s style.