Reviews of some of the original recordings that make up this set"

"let’s not kid ourselves: there was no finer 20th century Haydn conductor than Leonard Bernstein. He has the same affinity for the composer that he did for Mahler: the music’s energy, humor, and sheer emotional range played to the conductor’s strengths, and no amount of foolishness about “period this” or “authentic that” can diminish idiomatic results that penetrate far deeper into the music’s expressive essence than issues of performance practice ever can."

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

"The competition is strong in the “London” symphonies, but Bernstein’s performances of Haydn are always among the most intriguing, the most dynamic and intense. The “Surprise” Symphony’s opening Vivace assai is played slowly, with a unique gravitas, a seemingly odd approach that—through some Bernstein magic—produces a tender, sensitive result. The surprise chord in the Andante doesn’t sneak up on us; it is just plain ff. The repeated ff chords in the rest of the movement thunder with a towering rage, and the Menuet stomps heavily. The Allegro di molto finale boils along at terrific pace, bursting with joy. This is a wildly unconventional performance of this warhorse, yet one that thrills and satisfies.

Max Goberman recorded a superb No. 98, including the violin/cembalo duet in the finale, but his Vienna State Opera Orchestra (like Scherchen’s, third-string leftovers from the Vienna Philharmonic) cannot match the New Yorkers’ power and panache. This “Military” is a lovely performance, with especially enticing wind solos; the Janissary music (triangle, cymbals, bass drum) is not overplayed, as with Scherchen. The triangle rings its own miniature cadenza in the finale’s penultimate measure. The Andante of “The Clock” ticks sweetly and gently, interrupted by thundering fortissimos. Trumpets are prominent throughout the performance, so the wrong-note joke in the (very slow) Menuet’s Trio jars the ear as never before—or since. No.102, perhaps Haydn’s greatest symphony, receives it finest performance, beginning with an almost motionless Largo and ending with a lightning-fast, spectacularly executed Presto. "

-- James H. North, Fanfare

At least one of these performances (No. 104) goes back to the Fifties, and the Paris Symphonies came out about a quarter-of-a-century ago. For some reason they caused a tremendous row in the New York press when they were issued. Part of it was my defending the performances (in a magazine called High Fidelity), saying among other things that Bernstein had gone to great pains to get his trills right, ie in strict tempo and starting on the upper note. In those days, a lot of snobs did not take Bernstein seriously – how wrong they were. Bernstein has a natural affinity for Haydn, though some of his tempi will be judged too slow: first movements of Nos. 82, 93 and 98 (an old legacy from Sir Thomas Beecham, especially in the case of No. 82), the intolerably slow minuets of some works (eg Nos. 93 and 101, also a Beecham legacy but not much better in the Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic recordings), and the slow movement of The Clock (No. 101). But when Bernstein gets it right, it is glorious. The slow movement of the Surprise (No. 94) is nowadays taken far too quickly: it is only andante, not allegretto, and Bernstein’s reading is poetic and masculine, by turns. The first movement of the great C minor Symphony No. 95 is the best reading of it that I know – listen to that hair-raising timpani part at the end: it is extraordinary, as is the ferociously slow Minuet in the same work. And while on the subject of timpani, there are splendid timpani solos in the Minuet of No. 97, the slow movement of which is also a revelation – note the careful adherence to Haydn’s markings of ‘ponticello’, on the bridge of the violins, a nasty, spiky sound which must have stunned London in 1792. If you want one perfect Haydn/Bernstein sampler, try the finale of No. 99 in E flat, the first time Haydn ever used clarinets in a symphony. The tempo and the pace are perfect. And what civilised works these are: witty, profound, dramatic, touching – there is something for everybody in them.

-- H.C. Robbins Landon, BBC Music Magazine

GERSHWIN: RHAPSODY IN BLUE AN

Classical Music

The composer’s own recordings are unsurpassed for their jazzy elan and sheer joy. The account with the New York Philharmonic, recorded in 1965, is wild, dramatic, and rhythmically charged, if a little rough around the edges. The young John Paul Bogart is absolutely sure of himself, just like the young David, and the playing of the New Yorkers is, as one would expect, perfectly idiomatic. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection, reviewing a previous release of this recording.

Respighi: Pini di Roma & Feste romane

The ICA Classics Legacy series presents a collection of historical performances by some of the world's greatest artists. These performances are released on DVD for the first time, incorporating rare archive footage that has been expertly and lovingly restored. 'Luckily for all of us, it wasn't enough for Leonard Bernstein to compose music and conduct orchestras. He felt equally compelled to talk about music - to try and explain what made it tick, what made it good, and what made it affect US in all the ways that music does. The other piece of good luck was that Leonard Bernstein and television came along at the same time. They were born for each other.' (Jamie Bernstein), the films on this DVD are taken from the 'Symphonic Twilight' series of TV programs made in the mid-Sixties that were the brainchild of Humphrey Burton, then the newly appointed Head of Music and Arts Programs for the BBC. In his booklet notes for this DVD, Burton reveals himself to have been instrumental in bringing Bernstein the conductor to the wider British public, who knew him foremost as the composer of West Side Story. In 1965 Burton persuaded Bernstein to conduct the LSO at the Royal Albert Hall and the resulting Mahler 8 was a spectacular occasion, broadcast to the nation. The following year, they put together these programs, filmed specifically for the new television audience. The works Bernstein chose to record are twentieth-century orchestral masterpieces, for which he is known to be a champion. His recordings of Sibelius's Fifth Symphony for CBS Records and Deutsche Grammophon were acclaimed by critics worldwide, and his interpretation of the Rite of Spring in 1959 elicited an enthusiastic 'Wow!' from Stravinsky himself! They are accompanied on this DVD by an in-depth interview, given here as a bonus and subtitled in French and German.

This is Leonard Bernstein's later version of Shostakovich's Fifth, captured live while the New York Philharmonic was on tour in Tokyo. It's an excellent performance, similar to Bernstein's first reading, but a bit broader on the whole, and better (or at least more closely) recorded. The finale still goes very quickly, a decision that Shostakovich himself supported, and Bernstein treats it more as an unabashed triumph than a hollow victory, which is also perfectly in keeping with the musical possibilities. Elsewhere he remains a powerful and passionate exponent of the work, turning in an exceptionally intense Largo and a take-no-prisoners first-movement development section. Of course, he's also on firm ground in the Mahlerian scherzo, and the response of the Philharmonic is all that we might reasonably ask.


The coupling is no mere make-weight. Rudolf Barshai prepared all four of Shostakovich's chamber symphonies from their various string quartets, and no one conducts them better. This one, the most popular and frequently played, comes from the tragic Eighth Quartet, and while DG also has an excellent Barshai recording of the piece, this one has nothing to fear from the competition. It's an extremely solid performance that doesn't stint on the music's dark drama. The scorching second movement, with its frantic Jewish dance music alternating with the composer's DSCH monogram, is heavier than you might be used to from the quartet original, but it's entirely logical given the larger forces used. Barshai, a string player himself, really knows how the music ought to go, and the sonics are excellent. This is a fine, very welcome reissue.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

There is hardly a singer who has sung so many and such varied (main) roles as Walter Berry - both tragic and comic, German and Italian, and with such well-loved singing partners and conductors. All this can be heard in our selection from his fifty-year career at the vienna State Opera.

This Blu-ray box contains legendary concerts from 1977 – 1990 of Leonard Bernstein conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker, Orchestre National de France and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The set also includes the Centennial Celebration Concert at Tanglewood, featuring John Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, Andris Nelsons, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tony Yazbeck and many more, performing works by Bernstein, Williams, Mahler and Copland. Notable compositions include Jean Sibelius’s Symphonies 1, 2, 5, and 7, Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 16, Haydn’s Missa in tempore beli, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, and many more.

A New Yorker review about Rudolf Serkin from 2017 states: “his performances… reflect his sense of titanic struggle to realize the ideas and emotions that he found in the words that he played. He bypassed the surface sheen of ingratiating sounds to render the beauty of that struggle; his piano tone is itself the sound of struggle filled with the meeting of metal and wood and evoking spiritual exaltation through physical and intellectual exertion.” Rudolf Serkin was born in 1903 Bohemia. His musical gifts emerged early. amd he made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at 12. His European career extended throughout the 20s and 30s. He first played in the United States in 1933, and three years later appeared with the New York Philharmonic under Toscanini, eventually performing with them over 100 times. Rudolf Serkin became one of the most admired pianists of the 20th century. He performed and recorded extensively witg the top international orchestras and conductors. This album contains live performances the two Brahms' piano concertos with Leonard Bernstein and George Szell, and excerpts from a 1974 solo recital in Toronto.

Sony Classical is pleased to present a special edition of Leonard Bernstein’s American Columbia recordings from the 1950s and 1960s. Some of the conductor-composer’s most celebrated interpretations and works are collected here on these carefully chosen 10 original albums on 11 CDs. 

There is, of course, the still-astonishing album that launched Leonard Bernstein’s international reputation as the most dynamic and charismatic conductor of his era, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring recorded in January 1958 – two months after his appointment as the youngest music director in the New York Philharmonic’s history. Reviewing a 2013 reissue, ClassicsToday.com declared: “It has an excitement, spontaneity, and primal fury that no other version quite matches.” 

The Bernstein recording that launched the “Mahler Renaissance” in the 1960s is also here: his Third Symphony with the New York Philharmonic, which has arguably never been surpassed. And while we’re talking about Third Symphonies, Bernstein’s “Eroica” still sounds “wonderfully vibrant” (Gramophone) a half century after its first release. There is also his reading of Dvořák’s most popular symphony – “There’s no such thing as a ‘definitive’ recording [of the “New World”], but if there were, this one would come close to that imagined ideal” (ClassicsToday) – and two from Haydn’s magnificent “Paris” set: “It’s debatable whether there have been better performances” (ClassicalNet).  

Bernstein himself conducts and plays Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (“The one indispensable recording of this familiar work, paired with an equally fine American in Paris” – New York Times). Bernstein the pianist also accompanies Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, at the peak of his matchless career, in an acclaimed album of Mahler lieder. The ballets Rodeo and Billy the Kid by Bernstein’s mentor and friend Aaron Copland are included: “Even the composer couldn't make [them] dance the way Bernstein does” (New York Times).  

Bernstein the composer is also generously represented. The original Broadway cast recording of Candide from 1956 is included, as is the definitive version of his most famous work: the original Broadway cast recording of West Side Story from 1957. 

The re-masterings in this new collection are the best ever issued of these thrilling recordings by one of the last century’s greatest musicians, selected from the Grammy® award-winning Leonard Bernstein – The Composer and the Leonard Bernstein – Remastered editions. Sony Classical’s new 11-CD Leonard Bernstein box set is the perfect introduction to the work of this American genius.

Past praise of previously released recordings included in this set:

Mahler: Symphony No. 3 / Lipton, Bernstein, NYP

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).

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)

Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 / Bernstein, NYP

There’s no such thing as a “definitive” recording, but if there were, this one would come close to that imagined ideal. Its special qualities haven’t dimmed a bit in decades since it was recorded, and every interpretive decision comes across with the inevitability of fate itself. First, you get the first-movement exposition repeat (very unusual for its time), then there’s the very slow (but still very flowing) Largo, gorgeously played and far from the trudge-fest that Bernstein would make of for DG. The scherzo goes like the wind, the fastest ever, and the finale offers simply the last word in excitement. If you don’t own this performance in some form, then you don’t know the “New World”.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)

Hector Berlioz, France's greatest Romantic composer, exemplifies the spirit of his age - yet his genius was also ahead of it's time. Reflecting his colourful life, his music is astonishing for it's originality and ambition, and for orchestration of groundbreaking brilliance. � J'ai la passion de la passion. � � L'amour et la musique sont les deux ailes de l'�me. � Berlioz "I have a passion for passion." "Love and music are the soul's two wings." Berlioz