This remarkably original work, with its recurring quotations from the composer’s own songs, notably Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) and Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn), is the perfect expression of one of Mahler’s most quoted sayings, “The symphony is a world; it must contain everything”. The opening movement, filled with sounds that Mahler remembered from his childhood, depicts “Nature’s awakening from the long sleep of winter”, and is followed by an exuberant scherzo and trio based on a Ländler. The disturbing slow movement funeral march, based on the children’s song Frère Jacques, is unlike anything that had been heard before, and the symphony concludes with music of thrilling dramatic intensity.

REVIEWS:

In the finale the brass section is given its opportunity to step forward and they really deliver the goods. The trumpets, tuba, braying horns and tam-tam are thrilling in their impact. There is no distracting applause at the end of the symphony, thank goodness, and this allows for a few seconds thought before realising what a cracking performance has just taken place.

–MusicWeb International

This is a thoughtful performance, very reined-in for the most part, though when Alsop finally lets her Baltimore forces off the leash in the closing peroration the effect is so starling that it blows you away. Earlier on, there are moments when you feel she’s held too much back, particularly in the scherzo, which is overly deliberate. But the sense of wonder of the first movement, together with the ironies of the later funeral march, are breathtakingly done, and all that hard to balance counter-point is beautifully clear.

– Guardian (UK)

Three examples of Leonard Bernstein’s vocal art can be heard in this recording. His Symphony No. 3 ‘Kaddish’ shuns traditional symphonic ideas in favor of an eclectic theatrical and oratorio-like form with a prominent rôle for speaker. For this recording, Marin Alsop has returned to the work’s original narrative text, heard before the 1977 revision. The Lark – heard in a concert version with added narration – derives from Lillian Hellman’s adaptation of L’Alouette on the life of Joan of Arc, and it was this music that Bernstein reworked into his Missa Brevis many years later. Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony since 2007 and Principal Conductor the São Paulo Symphony since 2013, the NYC-born Marin Alsop is recognized across the world for her innovative programming as well as her bold, audience-expanding community and education outreach initiatives.

REVIEWS:

Under Alsop's baton, the Baltimore Symphony realizes Bernstein’s extraordinary orchestral effects in ways that will both scarify you and tug at your heartstrings; and while the text is still the embarrassment it always was, narrator Claire Bloom delivers it as if it were Shakespearian prose. She believes in the part and gives it a powerful reading. Soprano Kelley Nassief will melt your heart in her “Kaddish 2” movement solo, and both the boy and adult choirs are superb. I’m really glad to have this performance, especially since my Columbia LP has disappeared and this is now the only recording I have of the original 1963 work. It’s a fantastic performance and a spectacular recording.

– Fanfare

Kaddish is recorded here in a performance of great conviction from Marin Alsop, with the wonderful Claire Bloom achieving a happy medium between the declamatory and the confidential. There are instances of pure gold - a consoling lullaby at the heart of the piece (featuring limpid soprano Kelley Nassief) which Bernstein called his 'Pietà'.

- Gramophone Magazine

Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, one of his greatest works, was written in the United States after the composer was forced to flee Hungary during World War II. It is not only a brilliant display vehicle for each instrumental section but a work of considerable structural ingenuity that unites classical forms and sonorities with the pungency of folk rhythms and harmonies. Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta explores darker moods through a score of marvellously poised symmetry. This release follows Marin Alsop’s ‘riveting’ (Gramophone) Baltimore Symphony recordings of Dvorák’s symphonies.

REVIEW:

Marin Alsop leads a splendid performance of the oft-recorded Concerto for Orchestra, full of character, whether in the jocular “games of pairs” second movement, the ensuing spooky elegy, or the finale that begins (seemingly) a touch reserved but takes off like a shot in the coda. It’s a memorable and wholly successful effort, excellently engineered to boot.

– ClassicsToday.com (D. Hurwitz)