Remembering JFK: 50^th Anniversary Concert
Richard Dreyfuss, narrator (Lieberson); Tzimon Barto and Earl Wild, piano (Gershwin);
National Symphony Orchestra/Christoph Eschenbach, Howard Mitchell
Ondine 1190-2D
Disc One Total Time:  77:40
Disc Two Total Time: 48:34
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Ondine’s release, Remembering JFK, commemorates the 50^th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration (January 20, 1961).  The National Symphony Orchestra’s 2011 concert marked the occasion with the premiere of a new work by Peter Lieberson.  The set includes two discs, the second with historical interest as it includes portions of the Inaugural Concert .

The primary disc opens with Leonard Bernstein’s Fanfare for the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy.  Bernstein was closely connected to the Kennedy White House and Bernstein actually conducted its premiere to kick off the Inaugural Concert (a recording that would have been great to include on the bonus disc).  Of primary interest is a moving new piece by Peter Lieberson.  Remembering JFK (An American Elegy) was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra and Eschenbach.  The piece pulls together various Kennedy speeches set chronologically as the piece unfolds and superbly read by Richard Dreyfuss.  It is quite reminiscent of Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait though the less romantic backdrop stays truthful to Lieberson at his most accessible as the music reacts and responds to the various pronouncements.  It also uses a quote of the hymn “My Heart Rejoices” (interesting choice to use a Lutheran chorale in a work about a Roman Catholic president) which speaks to the promises of renewal that are part of the chosen texts.  The fifteen minute piece is stunning, beautiful, and powerfully supportive of the Kennedy texts (included in the booklet).  It is no more a “great” piece than the aforementioned Copland, itself trotted out more for patriotic reasons than musical quality.    

These two opening works, and the historical value of disc two would be enough to recommend this release.  Disc one though includes two American orchestral jazz warhorses, Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, and Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F.  There are tons of performances of the Bernstein and Eschenbach’s is a fine one with good tempo choices (less manic in places than Bernstein’s classic recording) and a great sense of timing and phrase shaping in this piece which give a performance time that seems to be one found by most conductors these days who like to let Bernstein’s romantic melodies have a bit more emphasis.  The sound is equally clear and captures the orchestra perfectly.  It won’t replace your Bernstein recording, but it will make returning to this release an easier decision.  The disc concludes with a performance of the Gershwin piano concerto by Tzimon Barto.  It might seem a bit risky to make one’s first recording of this work a live performance one given the recorded competition.  His performance clocks a full 10 minutes longer than Wild’s 1961 recording and five minutes longer than most contemporary recorded performances—though follows tempos Eschenbach used in a rare performance recorded with Sviatoslav Richter captured last year!  The more relaxed tempos happen in the orchestral portions of the recording for the most part.  Eschenbach likes to over dramatize the opening of the first movement a bit.  Barto’s performance is sensitive where it needs to be and features a bit more rubato than some may like.  The second movement feels a bit too slow at times, almost collapsing under its own weightiness.  The overall result is that the whole concerto runs just under 40 minutes here giving it the sort of weightiness that Gershwin may have intended.  Here it sounds a bit like a Rachmaninoff piece (which it certainly shares musical language with as a contemporary work).  The most interesting thing is the way the orchestra is captured in such clear sound.  And tempos and timing aside, this is still a fascinating performance. 

As a memento of the January 2011 concert, Ondine’s release does a perfectly fine job with audience noise absent, accept for the annoying applause that follows the first movement of the Gershwin, and with a full-balanced recording.  The two larger works are the sort of popular accessible music that will help sell the disc and the performances are good.  But really it is Disc two, whose inclusion is practically buried under the rubric of “Bonus CD,” where some of the treasures are to be found.

Disc two is filled with the radio commentary that accompanied the original broadcast, which makes up about 20 minutes of its playing time.  Humorously, the day featured a bad snow storm which receives plenty of commentary in the opening 9-minute reporter’s play-by-play revolving around the festivities.  And it would seem that broadcast commentary was as innocuous in 1961 as it is today (amazing that information about the fashion designer is known over and above the musical commentary in the opening remarks).  Musically, there are reasons to check out this release.  The first is a rare recording of Montaine’s From Sea To Shining Sea (1961) commissioned for this concert (an inauspicious performance given that several orchestral players had not arrived due to the snowstorm).  Montaine won the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1959 and had an important commission for the American Bicentennial but his music is practically non-existent on disc.  The piece has a sort of Alex North/Aaron Copland quality with interesting wind coloring throughout its opening bars with quotes from America tossed in for good measure.  Another interesting inclusion is a performance by Earl Wild of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.  Hearing Wild play this work with the sort of energy that comes from a live performance will be of high interest to his fans.  The performance came on the heels of his classic recording with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops.  Almost a whole minute is shaved off the performance time in this performance. 

One can easily program out the radio commentary tracks on disc two to enjoy the music and one is reminded at how good a conductor Howard Mitchell was.  It is not often that an orchestra makes such a commercially pandering release.  But if it will help support the ensemble and new music, Remembering JFK is nothing to be sneered at.  The programming of Disc One is in some ways a historical nod to the 1960s when Gershwin’s music was being “rediscovered” as America’s first “classical” composer (an absurdity that ignored our rich musical heritage) and when Leonard Bernstein was a name everyone in America knew.  Is there some irony that disc two includes a work by a neglected and nearly forgotten composer whose fate we can hoep will not be Liebersons.  Overall an interesting release with music whose historical connections are worth a listen in what may be rare, if not single, recordings.

American Classics: Music for Clarinet by Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin, Gould, and Shaw
Sharon Kam, clarinet; London Symphony Orchestra/Gregor Buhl
Teldec 8573-88482-2
Total Time:  61:20
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Sharon Kam’s 2002 release of American music for clarinet features some familiar and some less familiar works.  Three of the pieces recorded here were all commissions from Benny Goodman, the great swing jazz clarinetist, who had begun appearing in classical venues in the late 1940s and 1950s.  The find here is a recording of a concerto by Artie Shaw which is paired off with several arrangements of Gershwin songs.

The disc opens with Aaron Copland’s Concerto for Clarinet (1947/48).  Copland had made his name in the 1920s with highly-angular works with jazz rhythms and by the 1940s had shifted into the style that most listeners recognize.  Often referred to as “Americana,” the music with its open intervals which Copland “discovered” to paint a picture of the open spaces of American landscapes would be explored fully in a series of ballets in the 1940s.  He had also begun trying his hand at film scoring and the concerto is interesting because these three areas of composition and style some together in this work.  The piece begins with a slow waltz given a rather languishing tempo here that is like a summer day with that humid haze in the air.  A cadenza separates this from the more angular jazzy rhythms of the “Rather Fast” concluding section.  Copland’s scoring for strings, harp and piano may seem like an odd choice for a “jazz” concerto, but this is really more a work written for a great clarinetist who happened to play jazz and Copland’s clarinet lines are not that far removed from his melodic style.   Kam’s performance feels a bit slow at first but this is part of the restraint and the way she allows the music to unfold where proper bursts of energy work well.  In comparison with some favorite recordings of the work (by Richard Stoltzman, Goodman, and a fine recent release by David Singer reviewed here) the performance falls overall on the faster side.  Especially fun to hear are the shifts in tempo in the final movement.  Overall this is a fine performance showing off Kam’s skill and warm depth of tone.  The biggest problem is that Teldec decided to lump the whole work as a single track—labels still have not quite figured out if they should track this in 1, 2, or 3 segments evidently.  But this is a minor quibble.

Leonard Bernstein’s Prelude, Fugue and Riffs (1949) had a circuitous route to its final performance with Goodman.  Bernstein intended the work for Woody Herrman’s big band, but the group disbanded before they ever played it.  Next, he tried sticking it in as a ballet sequence in the musical Wonderful Town but that got dropped as well.  Finally, he was able to have it performed on one of his TV programs and he subsequently recorded it with Goodman—the recording considered a classic.  The piece is in that jazzy style Bernstein was exploring in his New York City musicals and West Coast jazz influences.  There is a little Stravinsky thrown in for good measure as well.  The work tends to play like one big improvisational number with the clarinet winding its way through the piece.  Whenever one hears the piece, it is hard not to wonder what Herrman’s band might have made of the thing.  Still it makes for some exciting listening.  The LSO pulls in a fine group of saxophonists who get to show off their stuff.  The brass do a fine job as well and the piece swings when it needs to with Kam’s clarinet recorded in such a way that it blends very well with the ensemble.  Buhl’s tempi here are quite good overall.  This will not supplant Goodman’s recording or even Stoltzman (which is coupled with concerti by Corigliano and Copland on RCA).

The less recorded Derivations for Clarinet (1955/rev. 1965) by Morton Gould is for wind band and soloist.  Gould’s style was a combination of Copland, Roy Harris, and Ferde Grofe (especially in his orchestration).  The mix of American folk song and shifts of harmonic blocks with a little romanticism made many of Gould’s works fall into what today is referred to as “pops” music.  But this is an oversimplification.  Gould’s music is quite communicative and accessible and it is a shame it is not more popular these days.  The present work is along the lines of more serious pieces that mix the classical, folk, and popular (in this case jazz) together.  The four-movement work has a quick opening and brilliant closing movement with two “form” pieces from popular music in its center.  The second movement, “Contrapuntal Blues,” has a spun out melodic idea within a blues formula and is followed by a “Rag.”  The clarity of the lines in this recording are fascinating to hear.  The approach seems to find musical connections between the Bernstein and Copland styles in the piece that are made pointedly in the performance.  Kam’s performance is again rich and warm.

Artie Shaw’s Concerto for Clarinet (1940) actually comes from the film Second Chorus.  Shaw recorded the piece later with his own band.  Shaw’s little piece is really a swing band number in every sense with thematic ideas and improvisational cadenzas.  Sometimes the clarinet line has an almost Klezmer quality to it which is a bit interesting.  This is a welcome addition to the catalog and Kam’s style is perfect for this piece in particular with its concluding cadenza one of the disc’s highlights.

The album concludes with four arrangements (one by Buhl, and three by composer John Cameron) of Gershwin songs.  They are all fine examples of good encore material and they serve their purpose well here by helping to fill out this album of jazz-influenced concert pieces for clarinet, a bit over lush at times but no less beautiful and well-played.

Though there are plenty of recordings of the Copland, it is the collection of interesting works here that makes this disc worthy of one’s attention.  The London Symphony “jazz” band if you will acquits themselves quite well.  The recording needs perhaps to be just a bit drier stylistically for these pieces, but the warm recording of the Copland really captures the essence of that work well.  As things get a bit more jazzy towards the end the balance continues to be well-detailed.