Holst: The Planets, Op. 32 - Walton: Façade

At first glance, it may seem odd to couple Mahler's most exalted work with one that ranks among his most personal and tragic. Sony could have issued the symphony alone on a single disc, but chose not to for a very good reason: This is an excellent Kindertonlieder with both Lenny and Janet Baker at their absolute best. Dame Janet recorded this work earlier with Barbirolli, but here she's far more detailed in her phrasing and declamation of the text. Bernstein is also at his best - underling all of the dark, grim noises in the lower registers of the orchestra. As for the symphony, this was always considered a great performance, but had been criticized for its less than stellar sonic qualities at the climaxes (read: distortion). Sony has gone a long way towards remedying things by transferring the work at a lower level. As a result, the huge endings for both Parts I and II have much greater bloom and expanse than previously. Although Bernstein's vocalists are not as great as those in the Solti recording on an individual basis, they do work better as an ensemble -- witness the passage for the three penitent women in Part II. This is a triumph for all concerned. --Barry Guerrero, ClassicsToday.com

They're still talking about Bernstein's "Espansiva" in Denmark, and with good reason. While better known for his Mahler, Bernstein's advocacy of Nielsen arguably achieved just as much, alerting music lovers beyond Denmark of a composer of international stature. Not all of Bernstein's Nielsen was equally good. His Second and Fourth symphonies are nowhere near as fine as these two, which are stunning. The "Espansiva" has all of the openhearted warmth that Nielsen requires. Bernstein's tempo in the finale is a touch slow, but grand and celebratory. The sonics were good for their day, and they still sound well.

Bernstein's reading of the Fifth is also magnificent. For sheer excitement it has never been surpassed, particularly in the second movement, which is wildly uninhibited and urgent. In the first movement, outstanding work from the solo clarinet meets a pretty terrifying snare drum cadenza at the climax. Only the sonics, which relegate the timpani to the rear of--somewhere--let the show down a bit, but the drive and communicativeness of the music-making ultimately win the day. This is a great recording, plain and simple, now available "on demand" from Arkivmusic.com.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

BERNSTEIN FAVORITES- OPERA FOR

BERNSTEIN FAVORITES- ORCHESTRA

THE ROYAL EDITION - DEBUSSY: I

...I ought to mention the various overtures which serve as makeweights—intensely dramatic recreations these, of which The Consecration of the House struck me as particularly fine despite the constricted sonics. It comes with Stern's now classic Beethoven Violin Concerto, a warm, confident, and (on Bernstein's part) sometimes bluff rendition. There is some rapt playing from a soloist then in his prime, an intriguing textual oddity in the coda of the first movement (the familiar 'unauthentic' cello line is similarly absent from Kyung Wha Chung's recent EMI account) and some mildly distracting tape hiss (suppressed during the cadenzas where the image shifts as if Stern has been transported to another studio).

-- Gramophone [11/1992]

Sibelius's lines flow in a rich, warm glow of tone -- the whole concerto takes wings not, perhaps, as never before, but certainly as very seldom before. The Brahms is given a thorough-going romantic approach, full of feeling but also very carefully considered.

...[A] superlative version of the Sibelius... The performance Francescatti gives of the Sibelius is, technically, an impossible one: not even Heifetz plays the end of the first movement dead in tune, so it can't be done! but Francescatti does it. He also does everything else that can't be done with this concerto (as well, beginning to take things for granted, as everything that can); Sibelius's lines flow in a rich, warm glow of tone, his rhythms pulse, and, again, his chords are in tune. The orchestra are along with Francescatti, and they, too, have a rich quality of string tone and a pulsing rhythm; indeed the whole concerto takes wings not, perhaps, as never before, but certainly as very seldom before.

-- Gramophone [10/1965, reviewing the original LP release of the Sibelius]

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Francescatti himself is in splendid form. He has a bad patch just before the G major episode in the finale, but otherwise his intonation is good and his tone as sweet as ever. The slow movement is rather more expressive than usual, the finale rather more fiery. Much of the credit for this must go to the conductor, Leonard Bernstein, who can get from an orchestra a degree of rubato usually expected only of pianists playing Chopin. The orchestral introduction to the slow movement is an example. Some will find the way Bernstein points the end of each two-bar phrase too mannered for their taste, but, apart from the fact that it's clever to get an orchestra to phrase so sensitively, he certainly matches the style of the solo playing. In the first movement there are no tricks to interrupt the flow of the whole, and the music is played with impressive breadth and understanding. The cadenza is Joachim's. This is without doubt one of the best available versions of the Brahms Violin Concerto, and if you like a thorough-going romantic approach, full of feeling but also very carefully considered, this may well be the one you will like best.

-- Gramophone [12/1963, reviewing the original LP release of the Brahms]

THE ROYAL EDITION - HAYDN: MAS

MENDELSSOHN: SYMPHONIES NOS. 3

A marvellously convincing performance that in its uninhibited way blows any cobwebs off one's impressions of this romantic masterpiece. Under Bernstein there is never boredom: only freshness and much excitement.

Slick, you may say from our side of the Atlantic, in a tone of old-world smugness, but what a lot there is to be said in a highpowered and quirky romantic symphony for the Bernstein touch and unlimited rehearsal time. After all Bernstein has something of the musical Byron about him, and Liszt himself was hardly a paragon of refinement.

Bernstein's is a marvellously convincing performance that in its uninhibited way blows any cobwebs off one's impressions of this romantic masterpiece. Under Bernstein there is never boredom: only freshness and much excitement. But that said one does have to tackle the inevitable question: how does Bernstein compare with Beecham ? Most of my detailed comparisons reveal exactly the contrast one would expect. In the grand enunciations of Faust's martial theme in the first movement Beecham has more swagger and panache : by comparison Bernstein seems to be driving too hard. In the delicate little passage near the beginning of the second movement where Gretchen counts the petals ("He loves me, he loves me not"), Bernstein sounds perfect until you hear Beecham. Beecham with his daring but controlled rubato conveys so much more the tentativeness, the expectancy of joy, and it is the same through much of that slow movement. The second subject, marked dolce amoroso, is so very tender in Beecham's hands, that Bernstein's idea of amoroso sounds comparatively extrovert afterwards. The latter's account of the Mephistophelian finale opens with more diabolical drive, but Beecham conveys more clearly that the first bars are a mere introduction (he comes closer to observing the instruction ironico) and when the gallumphing scherzando distortions of the Faust themes appear the Beecham panache again triumphs.

All of which suggests a clear preference in Beecham's favour, and there is no doubt that anyone who has grown to love the Beecham performance should remain with him. But Bernstein's freshness and directness have a cumulative effect whatever the detailed comparisons, and the choral ending is more expansive than with Beecham. Particularly if one does not trouble too much about what Bernstein did at a particular bar, it is a hair-raising experience he provides, and the recording, very reverberant but brilliant as well, is recognizably more modern than the Beecham. The coupling too may have an influence on choice, though for my money I find Orpheus more interesting than Les Preludes every time. Although listed I have left the DGG issue out of the comparisons: neither playing nor recording come anywhere near the other two.

One final comparison between Beecham and Bernstein: at the very opening when violas and 'cellos enunciate Faust's mystic theme (ranging over all twelve notes of the scale as Stuckenschmidt has pointed out) Beecham conveys a sense of reverie. This is Faust the philosopher, where Bernstein's reading conveys less of mysticism and magic than a confident magician after the manner of Dukas. But to go to the same theme when it returns after the development: there curiously the contrast is quite different. After the frenzy of the development Beecham somehow fails to relax completely, where Bernstein's extra tautness in the preceding argument allows a deeper sense of calm in the return to the home idea. But then when in the finale that same theme is hinted at, pizzicato over mysterious muted horns, it is Beecham who again shows a clear supremacy. It is a marvellous work whichever version you choose.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [reviewing the original LP release]

Bernstein: Trouble in Tahiti & Facsimile

There's revealing diversity in these pre-'West Side Story' works of Bernstein, as well as harbingers of that landmark musical and film. Among them is the dramatic horn work in the title composition, which also certifies the classical chops and sureness in syncopation of jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman. The modernist flurries of the saxophone arrangements are evocative of the much later work by the avant-garde ROVA ensemble.
The 'Fancy Free' ballet appears along with the "Three Dance Episodes" from 'On the Town,' a 1944 show envisioned by Bernstein and choreographer Jerome Robbins as an extension of 'Fancy Free.' The ballet (reproduced here from a monaural recording) presents a remarkable array of emotional dramas - some with Coplandesque bravado, some with Latin touches of tango and fandango, some with the sassy strut which is so Manhattan. The dances showcase Bernstein's facility at reusing and combining themes, some taken from 'On the Town's' most famous number, "New York, New York" (not to be confused with the John Kander-Fred Ebb song of the same name sung by Liza Minelli in the 1977 film "New York, New York"). The composer conducts with vigor.
By contrast, the 'Serenade' lacks the expected Bernstein lyricism and clear, tight structure, but is interesting in concept and shows off the dynamic palate and authority of violinist Zino Francescatti.

It was Bernstein who introduced the Ives Second, amazingly, in 1951; the young conductor then premiered Ives's Symphony No. 1 in 1953 and No. 4 in 1965. All were worth the wait. And if the modest Ives revival has yielded other very fine recordings of the symphonies - from Michael Tilson Thomas and the Concertgebouw at their most surprising, from the sterling Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, from the inimitable Bernstein himself late in his own career - the New York Philharmonic captured with Bernstein in these recordings dating from 1958 to 1966 is in a class of its own. What a ball Lenny and his players have with the music! Everyone is at his or her spontaneous best, and while the rough edges show in ways they would not in the late Seventies or Eighties the whole affair still carries the exhilaration of discovery. There is method in all the rambunctiousness, too: Bernstein's sublime control in the Adagio cantabile central movement of the Symphony No. 2 is all the more extraordinary in the naturalness of the results. Only the Holidays symphony, recorded on different occasions before its disparate movements were called a unified work, betrays the absence of the conductor's breathtakingly organic approach. Yet the opening holiday, 'Washington's Birthday', emerges with so much joy that only a prig would complain of the lack of relation to the final 'Thanksgiving Day'. These are key recordings in understanding both Ives and Bernstein. They are also immensely enjoyable.

-- Octavio Roca, BBC Music Magazine

MAHLER: DAS LIED VON DER ERDE

THE ROYAL EDITION - WAGNER: OR

Vintage supercharged Bernstein with the New York PO on starry form. Just on the right side of self-indulgence, this is a compelling old-world view of Strauss – heroic, intimate and headily nostalgic. The pacing, climaxing and longueurs of Don Quixote (one of the best versions around), the seductive rhythms of the Dance of the Seven Veils, and the public splendour of the Festival Prelude all make for a stunning sonic experience. Demonstration remastered ‘high definition sound’ once you get used to the slightly forward separation of solo cello and viola in Don Quixote.
Performance: 5 (out of 5); Sound: 5 (out of 5)

-- Ates Orga, BBC Music Magazine

Bernstein's charisma is effectively demonstrated in a collection of Russian music... [P]redictably energetic...are Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture and Glière's Russian Sailors' Dance from The Red Poppy... But the highlights are lyrical, with Bernstein suitably atmospheric in a fine account of Borodin's In the steppes of Central Asia and giving a coolly poised reading of the beautiful Prelude to Khovantschina of Mussorgsky (with glowing orchestration from Rimsky-Korsakov).

-- Gramophone [7/1985]

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...Prokofiev's Scythian Suite, which [Bernstein] does well; I have not heard all the other available recordings but I should imagine that none surpasses this one in brilliance of colour, excitement and virtuosity.


-- Gramophone [10/1969, reviewing the original LP release of the Scythian Suite]

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These very popular examples of colourful Russian music are very well played and recorded in a style to emphasise brightness, thus enabling us to hear clearly some of the inner parts that are sometimes obscured.


-- Gramophone [12/1967, reviewing the original LP release of the Glinka, Mussorgsky, and Ippolitov-Ivanov works]

This was the finest performance of Mahler's Third when it was first issued back in 1962, and in some ways it has never been surpassed. Bernstein catches the riotous vulgarity of the first movement march music like no other conductor--not even his own digital remake reaches the level of sheer abandon he whips up here, and he also has the best of all fifth movements (bright and cheery, with dazzlingly prominent percussion). Other, more recent performances may match or even supercede this one in this or that detail, but on the whole the status of this performance as the reference by which all others are judged remains unchallenged. This performance also was the symphony's stereo debut, and Sony's latest remastering is a complete success. Jennie Tourel's performances of the songs are not without controversy. Her voice never was conventionally "beautiful," but her musical perceptions always were dead on the mark, and so it proves here. At mid-price, this is great listening.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This is the first authorized release of this performance. The disc also includes Bernstein's pre-performance remarks and an interview with Glenn Gould from a 1964 New York Philharmonic broadcast.
This disc should serve as an extremely important historical novelty to those listeners familiar with the players and the repertoire. The performance is taken from a 1962 radio broadcast, and Bernstein begins the program with a disclaimer. He tells the intrigued audience that while he looks upon Gould as a supreme artist, he does not agree with the soloist's interpretation of the work, that they share major interpretive discrepancies. Despite this, Bernstein opts to go along with Gould's interpretation.
And so begins this disc, followed by what Bernstein himself called one of the most "unorthodox" renditions of the Brahms he has ever heard. With its varying tempi, sometimes as slow as molasses, Gould still manages to express perfectly what this piece calls for: a sense of majesty, intensity, and delicacy all at once. Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic create an ambience that is as reflective as Gould could have asked for. This disc is indeed a fascinating tribute to the two great artists who could not agree.

REVIEWS:
New York Times (Publisher) (7/30/00, p.30) - "...An aching and apocalyptic version of this signature vehicle for Bernstein; the recording remains a touchstone..."

The excitement and passion Bernstein brought to Tchaikovsky is well known, but what strikes me even more forcibly on rehearing [this interpretation] is [the] intelligence and thoughtfulness... [W]itness the clarity of the canonic exchanges between lower strings and woodwinds in Romeo and Juliet's initial fight sequence... The New York Philharmonic also gives the conductor 100 percent effort. Ensemble isn't always perfectly tidy (note the occasionally slightly "off" cymbal crash in Romeo), but when Bernstein drives the players hard..., they respond with extreme bravura.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com [reviewing Romeo and Juliet, reissued as part of Sony 93076]

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Among Tchaikovsky's symphonies the Polish too often appears as the charmless one. I have long been hoping for a new version which would present the music with balletic flair, with a Beechamesque swagger. After Bernstein's disappointingly brutal account of the Little Russian last December (CBS 73047) I was not counting too much on this issue, but in fact far more than the two versions listed above Bernstein does give the music charm, disguises the rather square structure and encourages resilient rhythms. Bernstein is at his best in the first movement. Some may feel that after the superb panache of the first subject Bernstein relaxes too much for the second, which after all is marked merely pow meno mosso. But more than his rivals Bernstein relates this music to the Tchaikovsky ballets. That oboe melody is pure Swan Lake (a work contemporary with this), and so is the 'little swans' music of the trotting bassoon a couple of pages later. There are also hints of The Nutcracker in the delicate string scoring as the climax of the exposition is reached... Arguably Bernstein is too gentle in the second movement Alla tedesca, which is far slower than usual with a gentle flexibility which allows such moments as the reprise after the central triplet-based Trio to emerge with delightful delicacy. When for the coda Bernstein slows unashamedly, I personally am convinced by this approach, but anyone who prefers a straight approach to Tchaikovsky might object.

The remaining three movements are not given quite such a distinctive reading, but they are never less than persuasive. Bernstein again opts openly for dual speeds in the slow movement (for that matter so does Maazel) and though the opening tempo is slow for Andante elegiac° it is perfectly apt for the introductory idea with its hints of lazy fanfares in the distance. The surprisingly Elgarian second idea then comes in at a genuine Andante. The scherzo brings some splendid woodwind playing (the oboe here and elsewhere outstandingly good), and the tempo allows clean definition, which is more than one can say for the HMV Russian version. The finale again has plenty of space round it, a genuine tempo di polacca. The relaxed tempo means that the contrapuntal development which immediately follows the first theme runs the risk of sagging (Maazel is altogether faster, which makes things easier). The principal theme returns with splendid swagger after a very delicate conclusion to the central episode, and the patriotic theme returns with no apology, only just skirting the cliff-edge of vulgarity.

-- Gramophone [9/1973, reviewing the LP release of the Third Symphony]

Like Brahms, Bernstein lived his life in the shadows of masters who came before him. Yet both men, despite their tendency toward self-criticism, created their own legends. Bernstein's extraordinary talent as a conductor made him so much more--he became an ambassador of music, bringing vitality and excitement to audiences young and old, from all walks of life.
Though his Symphony no. 1 is one of his most well-known compositions, Brahms was not always comfortable with the idea of writing symphonies. His deep respect for Beethoven's work is evident, and even Brahms admitted the composer's profound influence on his first symphony. This did not prevent Brahms from creating a piece that is distinctively his own, however. His sense of melody and humor infuse the composition with a lighter tone without sacrificing decorum.
Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic provide a delightful performance, as they always did. Remastered from recordings made in 1960 and 1968, the album is rich and clear while preserving the warmth of the analog originals.

Sony are now reissuing the earlier New York recordings of the Bernstein symphonies in the Bernstein Century Edition. In the case of No. 2 this is the very first (1950) mono version, with Lukas Foss as the piano soloist. Subtitled The Age of Anxiety and based on Auden's poem, this concertante work shows the composer at his most eclectic, with the stylistic contrasts emphasized by the clear, forward mono sound, the "Dirge" stridently dissonant, and the jazzy exuberance of the "Masque" contrasting boldly with the closing "Epilogue". Foss is dazzlingly idiomatic but he is too forwardly recorded; and the same has to be said of the coupled (1956) mono performance of the Serenade after Plato's "Symposium", with the violin soloist Isaac Stern on top form and naturally attuned to the score, but with the solo violin balanced way out front and the orchestral sound unrefined.

-- Ivan March, Gramophone [12/1998]

..."Dance of the Firebird"...is much more nimble and airy in Leonard Bernstein's performance, possibly because the American opts for the better-known 1919 Suite which uses a reduced orchestration... Bernstein delivers a brilliant account of the score...

-- Erik Levi, BBC Music Magazine [reviewing the Firebird Suite]

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Bernstein treats Scheherazade as the "Symphonic Suite" it's billed as, barely pausing between movements—the old Columbia LP has no bands on either side. This was the kind of personalized, excitable interpretation that made Bernstein beloved to many, though it won't be to everyone's taste... His shaping of the violin and cello statements of the theme in "The Young Prince and the Young Princess" is exquisite. The violin solos are played warmly and effectively by John Corigliano (the composer's father and, for 23 years, concertmaster of the Philharmonic.)... It's difficult to imagine Bernstein devotees not having these performances already. But for others who have missed them in their various incarnations, or want to replace aging LPs—don't deny yourself some considerable pleasure.

-- Andrew Quint, FANFARE [5/1999, reviewing Scheherazade]