At the age of 21, Leonard Bernstein wrote what he described as a ‘Hebrew song’ using a text from the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Three years later the song became the final movement of his Symphony No. 1 and in January 1944 Bernstein himself conducted the première of the work. What is being lamented is the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC, but according to the composer, he primarily wanted to convey the text’s ‘emotional quality’. The first movement thus aims to parallel in feeling the intensity of the prophet’s pleas while the scherzo gives a general sense of the destruction and chaos. Being a setting of the biblical text, the third movement is naturally more literary: the cry of Jeremiah, as he mourns his beloved Jerusalem. During the next few years, Bernstein’s career as a conductor took flight, while the musical On the Town made his name on Broadway. Towards the end of the 1940s he returned to the symphonic genre, however – once more with an extra-musical inspiration. W.H. Auden’s poem The Age of Anxiety is set during the recently concluded war, and falls – like the symphony – into six sections during which four characters express their anxieties, hopes and the quest for meaning and identity. Bernstein chose to portray all four characters via a single instrument, the piano, but he did not want to label the work a piano concerto. The instrument does however come to the fore at various points and in one of the final sections Bernstein supplies what is arguably the most exuberant and rhythmically dazzling display of piano writing in the symphonic literature. For this Christian Lindberg and the Arctic Philharmonic have enlisted the aid of Roland Pöntinen, while Anna Larsson is the soloist in Jeremiah.

Bernstein's piano output reflects the various strands of his multifaceted personality, in works as different as Touches (1981) and, at the other end of the scale, his often tender, sentimental Anniversaries. Taken together his piano works form a musical diary tracing the breadth of his experiences and ideas. Four of his Five Anniversaries (1949-51) appear as themes in his violin concerto, the Serenade after Plato’s “Symposium.” The personal commemorations he created were not portraits so much as self-portrayals, revealing different aspects of his own multi-faceted personality. To play these works well requires an understanding of the various elements that made up the Bernstein persona.

The Italian pianist Michele Tozzetti brings out the heartfelt tenderness of most of these tributes, the Jewish elements and the dance rhythms. In the Anniversary dedicated to Aaron Copland (in Seven Anniversaries, 1943), Tozzetti captures the sound and spirit of the man Bernstein called ‘my first friend in New York, my master, my idol, my sage, my shrink, my guide, my counselor, my elder brother, [and] my beloved friend.’ The pianist reveals a delicate sense of sonority along with fine dynamic control in For Paul Bowles, and brings an idiomatic edginess to For Sergei Koussevitzky. He also injects youthful vigor into Bernstein’s Sonata (1937), a probing work rich in counterpoint, written when the composer was still a student. Also on this recording are Non Troppo Presto, a manuscript discovered in the Leonard Bernstein archive at the Library of Congress; and Touches: Chorale, Eight Variations and Coda, commissioned by the Van Cliburn Piano Competition in 1981. Its bluesy chorale is identical to Virgo Blues, written for his daughter, Jamie on her twenty-sixth birthday in 1978. Bernstein dedicated this work ‘to my first love, the keyboard’. In Michele Tozzetti’s hands, that love is beautifully realized.

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REVIEW:

When you put it all together, there is a great deal to enjoy in Leonard Bernstein’s piano music. The Sonata, Music for the Dance, and Touches are strikingly stark and crunchy. The Sabras and Anniversaries are more personal and lyrical. The contrast between modernism and Bernstein’s more familiar nostalgic tunefulness is striking. The young pianist Michele Tozzetti plays with a deft touch and sharp articulation. As a bonus, one gets to read the superb program annotation of Stuart Isacoff, author of a wonderful new book on Van Cliburn.

– American Record Guide (Jack Sullivan)

Lara Downes’ new album For Lenny celebrates the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein with a special friends-and-family tribute to the man behind the music. The recording features Bernstein’s aptly-named Anniversaries for Piano, new arrangements of his songs, and world premieres of works dedicated to Bernstein by leading American composers including Stephen Sondheim, John Corigliano, and Stephen Schwartz. The album is introduced by an essay from acclaimed New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik.

Taking her inspiration from Bernstein’s boundary-breaking approach to music-making, Lara has invited a diverse group of guest artists: opera legend Thomas Hampson, roots singer Rhiannon Giddens, superstar beatboxer Kevin “K.O.” Olusola (a member of the chart-topping a cappella group Pentatonix), and Mexican/American clarinet prodigy Javier Morales-Martinez.

Describing FOR LENNY, Lara says: “Leonard Bernstein reminds me of what a musician can be. Of what music can do in this world – how it can reach and teach and make things happen. Just imagine what American music was before Lenny came along, everything he changed. I’m only here at all, I think, because of the rules he broke and the doors he knocked down. Imagine the thousands of other musicians who feel the same way.”

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REVIEW:

In the midst of all of this abundance, pianist Lara Downes seems to have homed in on the sweet spot for giving this hard-working musician with a larger-than-life reputation a tribute recording that manages to be sincere without going over the top with adulation.... Downes’ recording may well have qualities that will endure long after the celebratory shouts of “Bravo!” have evaporated into the ether.

– The Rehearsal Studio (Stephen Smoliar)

The sparkling overture to Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 musical Candide immediately found a prominent place in concert programs all over the world and is now one of his most frequently performed pieces. Many of Bernstein’s best loved works drew inspiration from the city of New York, and this is true both of the three sailors pursuing female conquest in the ballet ‘Fancy Free,’ and of the rip-roaring swing rhythm and big tunes from the musical ‘Wonderful Town.’ Bernstein celebrated his friends and family with his ‘Anniversaries’- piano vignettes heard here for the first time in colorfully expanded orchestrations. Marin Alsop is an inspiring and powerful voice in the international music scene who passionately believes that “music has the power to change lives.” She became music director of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra in 2012 and made history in 2013 as the first female conductor of the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms, which she returned to conduct in 2015. As a student of Leonard Bernstein, Alsop is central to his 100th anniversary celebrations, conducting Bernstein’s ‘Mass’ at the Ravina Festival, where she serves as musical curator for 2018 and 2019.

Few people had comparable charisma to him, few like him could blur the borders between ‘serious’ classical music and ‘entertaining’ popular music and few apart from him could find access to people of all generations like Bernstein. Living together and love instead of antagonism and hatred permeate his entire life’s work in words and notes. Many of the attributes mentioned apply to MASS, premiered in 1971. For the understanding of this unusual work, it is crucial to note that it is not really seen as a mass composition, but in keeping with Bernstein’s intentions as ‘a theatrical piece with the title ‘MASS’. So, it is perhaps the most audacious interpretation of the liturgical contents up to then and since then. The responses to the premiere were thoroughly ambivalent, as, apart from enthusiasm, there was also rejection on the part of conservative minded circles. And the clearly conveyed message of peace was partly rejected since it could be understood not least as an unmistakable indictment of the Vietnam War still in progress.

This new West Side Story, the first American-based recording to appear since DG's star-studded 1985 composer-conducted version, blessedly avoids that earlier production's operatic pretensions, returning instead to the work's Broadway roots by using young, theatrically trained singers with some genuine acting ability. Even with that, it's probably wishful thinking to expect that this cast (fine as it is) can recreate the vibrant, raw freshness and scintillating brilliance of the original. Mike Eldred's Tony comes off best; singing with a more mature sound than Larry Kert, he nonetheless creates a sense of heightened expectancy and wonder in "Something's Coming". As Maria, Betsi Morrison struggles to maintain an authentic-sounding Puerto Rican accent, but she sings beautifully throughout, especially in "Tonight" and "I Have a Love". I'm afraid Marianne Cook's Anita is no match for Chita Rivera's, but she communicates the character's feelings convincingly enough. The remainder of the ensemble consists of good, solid, legit voices, but a lot has changed on Broadway since 1957: the overall style of singing, with its occasionally overemphatic declamation (as in "A Boy Like That" and "Cool") makes clear how years of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals have influenced American performers.


This recording utilizes Bernstein's score in its original form, before it underwent the necessary revisions to make it more suitable to the needs of musical theater at the time. Actually, it sounds pretty much the same, the most obvious distinctions being a few missing bars near the end of the Prologue and the different vocal arrangement for "America".


Kenneth Schermerhorn was studying with Bernstein during the creation of West Side Story and briefly was considered as a possible conductor for the premiere. Finally getting his chance nearly 50 years later, Schermerhorn conducts the score with an authority and enthusiasm that reveals his intimate knowledge and personal conviction, even if at times his tempos drag (as in "I feel pretty" and "Gee Officer Krupke"), though not as much as the elderly Bernstein's. Then there's the somewhat obsessive concern with full note values at the expense of rhythmic flow (as in the "Jet Song", and in "Quintet", with its heavy articulation on the word "tonight") that occasionally robs the music of its spontaneity.


Throughout, the Nashville Symphony plays with an ideal blend of symphonic elegance and jazzy swagger that shows why this work is such a wonderful classic. Only the multimiked and obviously studio-bound recording, with its artificially close voices, slightly disappoints. Yet despite this and the above-noted concerns, this production faithfully recreates the magical and enthralling world that is West Side Story, and anyone coming to this piece afresh is in for a rare and special experience. [11/4/2002]
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

"The opening "Candide" Overture is particularly poignant, for it reveals a band full of life and spirit eagerly responding to Mr. Judd's forward-leaning and even accelerating tempo. But perhaps the most valuable item here is Bernstein's Symphony No. 2, "The Age of Anxiety," a strong work -- alternately atmospheric and excitable, and ultimately carefree -- that is not overrecorded. Jean Louis Steuerman is a deft piano soloist, and the orchestra again does itself proud under Mr. Judd's steady hand." - James Oestreich, NEW YORK TIMES

The New Yorker Magazine said of Sara Zahn's Leonard Bernstein tribute, "To call it the best musical theatre in town is an understatement." None other than Rex Reed proclaims: "It takes a classic singer to do justice to the classic songs of a classic composer. That's why I can think of no one more qualified to capture and honor the musical legacy of Leonard Bernstein in his centennial year than Sara Zahn."Harbinger Records is pleased to announce the long-awaited follow-up to Sara Zahn's previous release: Witch Craft: The Songs of Carolyn Leigh. That album was a smash hit with over 3,000 albums sold. Now Sara Zahn is back with another brilliant composer tribute. Leonard Bernstein was a giant of both the concert stage and Broadway. His songs are perfectly complimented by Sara's richly expressed singing. Sara Zahn is known internationally as a performer, recording artist and ASCAP songwriter, having written more than 200 songs for film and television. She has performed her solo acts to enthusiastic audiences in countries and venues as varied as Club Soda in Montreal, Canada, the Berkshire Theater Festival in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and the renowned opera house, Teatro Liceu, in Barcelona, Spain. She is the recipient of the Manhattan Association of Cabaret (MAC) Hanson Award as Outstanding Performer, and a Back Stage Bistro Award as Outstanding Vocalist. Sara has headlined throughout the years at Manhattan's top cabaret and jazz clubs, including Rainbow and Stars, The Metropolitan Room, Eighty-Eight's and The Russian Tea Room, and performed an unprecedented three-month engagement at Michael's Pub. Stephen Holden, in his rave review in The New York Times, wrote: "In a strong voice, Ms. Zahn sang everything with a clarity, assurance and measured passion that never got in the way of the material."

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

“There had never been a communicator about music with anywhere near Bernstein’s brilliance, humor, energy, reach and importance.” (The New York Times) “Leonard Bernstein did this better than anyone. He was brilliant - as a musician and as an ambassador for music.” (Whoopie Goldberg) Young People’s Concerts Vol. 1 comprises 17 episodes of the legendary series, which remains unmatched until today. Awarded three Emmys and hailed by Variety as “a rare moment in the symbiosis of the arts and broadcasting”, Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts left their mark on television history. Aired at prime-time on CBS from 1958 to 1972, 52 one-hour programs were written and hosted by Leonard Bernstein, “certainly the most influential American maestro of the 20th century” (The New York Times). With the New York Philharmonic and guest artists providing the live music, these programs brought musical concepts and music history to life for generations of viewers. Volume 1 includes 17 Episodes - The Concerts Nos. 1-14 plus Young Performers Nos. 1-3 (featuring Seiji Ozawa and Lynn Harrell)

Music pervaded by so many different influences, modern and yet rooted in tradition, assiduous and extremely cool. A Bernstein Story is an album which deals with Lenny's music the same way in which he dealt with music itself without being frightened to cross borders or snub someone. Classical Clarinettist Sebastian Manz and jazz musician Sebastian Studnitzky approach the great Leonard Bernstein in a way that illuminates every facet of his career and life. The two musicians have come to Bernstein in their own individual ways and from their respective fields- Manz as the classically trained artist, Studnitzky as a jazz man. The album they have produced, A Bernstein Story is meant to mirror the composer himself remote from any formal categorization, pluralistic in style, eclectically colorful, located somewhere between classical and jazz.

Recorded in: The Colosseum, Watford 24-25 October 2000 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Christopher Brooke (Assistant)

Leonard Bernstein’s legendary 1943 Carnegie Hall conducting début brought his name to national attention, and the event was followed a few months later by the triumphant reception of his Symphony No. 1 ‘Jeremiah.’ This major symphonic statement explores a crisis in faith and employs Jewish liturgical sources, its final movement, Lamentation, being an anguished cry at the destruction of Jerusalem. Sharing the theme of loss of faith, Symphony No. 2 ‘The Age of Anxiety’ takes W.H. Auden’s poem of the same name and follows its four characters in their spiritual journey to hard-won triumph.

REVIEW:

It’s great to see this music being played with such conviction. We all know that Alsop is a superb Bernstein conductor, and Naxos already has a terrific account of the First Symphony from James Judd and the New Zealand Symphony, but this newcomer is, if anything, even finer–certainly sonically–and conducted with even more pizzazz. In the central Profanation movement, Alsop really does outdo Bernstein himself; the playing of the Baltimore Symphony here is sensational, and in the finale Jennifer Johnson Cano sings with great sensitivity and a beautiful tone. The tragic climaxes hit you right in the gut.

In the Second Symphony, Jean-Yves Thibaudet offers a first class account of his solo part. The Masque is especially outstanding–virtuosic but at the same time nicely “cool.” Prior to that, in the opening variation sets, Alsop knits the music together expertly, ensuring that the glum bits never bog down, and that the entire first part builds inexorably to its exciting conclusion. The following Dirge is is a barn-burner, and somehow after all of this the Epilogue never turns hollow. Again, I don’t think that Bernstein could have done better, and as suggested above the engineering is also rock solid and brilliant by turns. A marvelous release by any standard.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz, 10/10)

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

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.

Guitarist Ben Verdery and the Ulysses Quartet release an album of music for guitar and string quartet that displays the versatility and accessibility of the combination. With music by Bryce Dessner, Javier Farías, Verdery's arrangement of Leonard Benstein's 1942 Clarinet Sonata, and two works by Verdery himself for electric guitar with quartet, A Giant Beside You presents persuasive and committed performances of several new works that provide new options for concert programming for this engaging and eminently viable instrumentation.

Each of the pieces in this programme is like an ephemeral castle that I can take refuge in when I feel like it, says Sebastien Llinares. The French guitarist, who stands at the crossroads of classical, jazz and contemporary music and also produces the programme Guitare, guitares on France Musique, here puts his playing at the service of every kind of music. Jimi Hendrix's Castle Made Of Sand was the inspiration for this programme; Sebastien Llinares hears in it the unchanging open string that the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos so often used. His journey continues with tributes to famous songs by Bernstein, Gershwin and Rodgers & Hart, an evocation of Rufus Wainwright and Baden Powell in the forms of the Habanera and Bossa Nova - not forgetting a tribute to Django by John Lewis as well as Leonard Cohen's eternal Hallelujah, which takes on the air of an ancient canario when played on the classical guitar. Two bagatelles and an impromptu composed by Llinares himself complete the family portrait.

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.

The St. Louis Symphony and their music director Stéphane Denève present a program featuring two of the most accomplished American composers in history: Leonard Bernstein with his Serenade and John Williams with his Violin Concerto, both performed by star James Ehnes, one of the most exceptional North American violinists. John Williams himself was present at the recording of his violin concerto, working together with the St. Louis Symphony, Denève, and Ehnes.

Both works evolve around love: Bernstein’s Serenade was inspired by musings on love from Plato’s Symposium while Williams’s work was arguably inspired and eventually dedicated to his suddenly deceased wife. By combining these two concert pieces, this album puts the symphonic work of Bernstein and Williams at the center, two composers who weren’t afraid of crossing the boundaries between film music and “serious” classical genres at a time when these worlds were generally kept far apart. Especially in Williams' concerto, there are still hints of his work as a film composer; the slow movement brings to mind a scene of emotional gravity.

Widely considered one of the world's finest orchestras, the SLSO maintains its commitment to artistic excellence, educational impact, and community connections. The St. Louis Symphony, Stéphane Denève, and James Ehnes all make their Pentatone debut.

REVIEWS:

Dutch label Pentatone continues to champion American orchestras with the Saint Louis Symphony’s recording of violin concertos by John Williams and Leonard Bernstein. Williams dedicated the 1974 Violin Concerto No. 1 to his late wife, the actress Barbara Ruick. It’s a serious-minded, sometimes bleak affair, and Williams has called it atonal, though it seems harmonically straightforward enough.

With a 30-minute, three-movement sweep, Williams's concerto is expansive too. Canadian violinist James Ehnes is the thoughtful soloist, investing the music with deserved gravitas and fully on top of its technical challenges. Stéphane Denève leads a weighty reading, darkly dramatic in the opening “Moderato,” consoling in the glowing slow movement (which Ehnes plays like an angel), and incisive in the intermittently clangorous finale.

Bernstein’s Serenade has been recorded many times, but this astute interpretation is a welcome reminder of both its wistful profundity and its headstrong vigor. Ehnes and Denève open the debate spaciously with an expressive account of the “Phaedrus” movement. “Aristophanes” seems to channel graceful elements out of Candide, while a weighty “Socrates” gives way to the jazzy joie de vivre of “Alcibiades.” The violin sound is clean and clear, offset against a slightly resonant orchestra.

-- Musical America (Clive Paget)

Violinist James Ehnes’ discography is so extensive that it was only a question of when he’d get around to recording Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade, not if. What’s more striking about his new recording with Stéphane Denève and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) is that it pairs Bernstein’s 1954 effort with John Williams’ Violin Concerto No. 1.

The Williams dates from the mid-‘70s and was written right after the untimely death of his first wife, the actress Barbara Ruick. Its brooding, volatile aspect perhaps owes something to that context – the central “Slowly in peaceful concentration” unfolds like an elegiac barcarolle – though this is hardly funereal music.

In fact, the Concerto marked a turning point in Williams’ concert music, allowing him to cultivate what he called the “Romantic [Atonal], but in an American way”-style he’d long been striving for...there’s a motivic rigor here that’s straight out of the Brahms-Schoenberg line and the writing for violin and orchestra is thoroughly idiomatic...[here, it is] exceptionally well played and draws out the tight thematic relationships between each movement. The Canadian violinist makes the most of the introspective spots – the middle movement, the reflective episode in the center of the finale, especially – while also suffusing its bravura passagework with purpose and direction.

Denève and the SLSO are right with him, teasing out the music’s gentle echoes of Hollywood and sometimes mercurial shifts of character with surety and ease.

They make for an impressive combination, too, in the Bernstein. Take or leave the score’s programmatic allusions to Plato’s Symposium: the Serenade is one of the American composer’s freshest and most satisfying concert works.

Here, Ehnes plays with gorgeous tone – the clarity of his bow arm is just marvelous, as is his left hand’s ability to cleanly and purposefully get the music’s knotty double and triple stops to sing. Over the Serenade’s first three movements, too, there’s a strong sense of shape and propulsion: this is well-focused, graceful, spry Bernstein.

-- The Arts Fuse

Navona Records is proud to present MUSIC FOR STRING QUARTET; the world premiere recording of renowned composer Leonard Bernstein’s long-lost work. Composed by an 18-year-old Bernstein during his studies at Harvard; the piece has been steadfastly shepherded from its re-discovery to this historic release by former Boston Symphony Orchestra Librarian John Perkel; and is performed here by Lucia Lin; Natalie Rose Kress; Danny Kim; and Ronald Feldman. “Movement I” and the newly-discovered “Movement II,” which was found within the U.S Library of Congress; are accompanied here by the seldom-recorded duo piece Elegies for Violin and Viola by composer Aaron Copland; a musical mentor; collaborator; and dear friend of Bernstein’s.

This diverse programme of works for guitar trio is bound by the common thread of music inspired by stories from literature, stage or screen. With it's rhythmic exuberance and tragic beauty, Bernstein's West Side Story has never lost it's freshness and relevance. Ensemble member Luca Isolani's Note fuori campo is a homage to the versatile Italian composer Nino Rota, who, like Manos Hadjidakis, first shot to international fame with an Oscar-winning film score. Ravel's Ma Mere l'Oye evokes the poetry of childhood with a refined expressiveness that makes it as popular and unforgettable as Grieg's music for Peer Gynt.

After releasing the complete set of Ennio Morricone's Cinema Suites for violin and orchestra on two�albums�(Cinema Suites, A495 and�Cinema Rarities, A554),�Marco Serino now presents world premiere recordings of the Maestro's own arrangements for violin and piano. Marco is joined by pianist Leandro Piccioni, who, like Marco, brings over twenty years of experience working closely with Morricone in his favoured orchestra, Roma Sinfonietta. These original arrangements, all from celebrated soundtracks,�represent the point of departure for an original anthology in which the two musicians investigate the wider repertoire connected to the cinema.�Cinema Memories�ranges from works that have since become classics such as the�Three Pieces from Schindler's List�by John Williams to Bernstein's�West Side Story Suite, one of the outright masterpieces of musicals on film, and Myroslav Skoryk's Melody in A minor, a jewel of a piece that has since become a sort of national anthem for the Ukrainian people. It is a programme that interweaves memory and imagination, melancholy and light, dreams and reality, making each listening experience a truly multifaceted experience.

He went on to head major orchestras in Dallas and Atlanta and to guest conduct leading ensembles all over the world. But before that, Louis Lane honed his craft while working in the shadow of one of the great masters: in 1947, legendary maestro George Szell chose the young, inexperienced Texan to assist him in Cleveland - "I think you will do" was the gruff maestro's verdict, exceptional praise indeed from that notorious perfectionist.

Between 1959 and 1972 - with the full Cleveland Orchestra, the somewhat smaller Cleveland Pops and the chamber-sized Cleveland Sinfonietta - Louis Lane made a series of critically acclaimed recordings for Columbia. They display the "exceptional breadth and impeccable taste" for which this gifted but perennially undervalued conductor was lauded in a tribute by the orchestra's executive director. Sony Classical is pleased to present them now - many for the first time on CD - in a new 14-disc set.

Reviewers were effusive in their praise when these albums were originally released on LP. Here is a sampling: Pop Concert U.S.A. (1959) - music by Copland, Gershwin, Bernstein and other American composers: "If only all the pops (or, for that matter, all the classics) were as good as this!. The orchestra plays splendidly" (Gramophone). On the Town with the Cleveland Pops (1960) - selections from On the Town, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, The King and I and other Broadway musicals: "Scintillating. Under Lane's enthusiastic direction, the Clevelanders play these familiar musical comedy excerpts with such precision and virtuosity that they emerge with glistening freshness" (High Fidelity). Music from the Films (1961) - Henry V, Louisiana Story, Bridge on the River Kwai, Gigi, Exodus and other motion pictures: "This concert of music from the movies is so superior to most issues of it's kind that it calls for special commendation. Lane has coaxed some beautiful playing from the Cleveland orchestra, and the engineers have provided him with rich and glorious sound" (High Fidelity).

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)

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.

Andrea Battistoni, a rising star conductor with an international reputation as one of the most important of his generation, juxtaposes two iconic 20th century dance masterpieces in this co-production by MDG and DENON. With every beat of Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps" and Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story", Battistoni's elation is audible and the immediacy of the rhythmic pulse can be felt.

This album offers a great program of works for piano trio from the 20th and 21st centuries.

In May 2026, Metier Records proudly presents American Ethos from acclaimed pianist Carolyn Enger, a stunning collection of works from a range of American composers, including Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, John Corigliano, Ned Rorem, William Grant Still, Florence Price, and many others. Released in time for the celebration of the 250th anniversary of America's Declaration of Independence, Carolyn Enger poses the question of how to characterise American composition over so many years and throughout times of such sharp division. How can a musical 'Ethos' be encompassed in all it's various styles, sentiments, and beliefs? "I wanted to have a broad feeling of Americana," Enger explains. "Voices that have been overlooked over the years then come to light because they influenced voices that we're very familiar with." Enger has long been a champion of the piano music of Ned Rorem, and American Ethos centers his work, The Wind Remains, alongside three selections from Soundpoints, each a brief moment of distilled emotion. Rorem then stands as a starting point for connecting Enger's vision of American composition threads. Contemporary composer Daron Hagen was Rorem's first student, and we hear his Five Nocturnes, telling of a family setting down for the night. Rorem's roots in American music go deep as well, having studied with composer Margaret Bonds, who was herself a student and friend of composer Florence Price. Enger presents the African-American sacred music traditions behind Florence Price's Adoration. Price influenced many American composers beyond Bonds and Rorem, including William Grant Still. Price's influence on Grant Still is easily heard in his evocation of the divine in Seven Traceries: A Suite for Solo Piano, of which Enger plays four. Perhaps one of the most famous of American voices is Leonard Bernstein, who spoke about the healing power of music as a response to violence, and several works in this collection connect to him. His Thirteen Anniversaries, by turn tender and whimsical, celebrates 13 family members, friends, and colleagues. One of these is composer Craig Urquhart, a former assistant, represented here by The Awakening, Urquhart's birthday offering to Bernstein, and Adieu, which followed the global pandemic and 2020 political upheavals. John Corigliano's An Anniversary for Lenny is an affectionate remembrance for a 2016 Bernstein centennial celebration, and Aaron Copland's 'Our Town' Three Piano Excerpts is similarly dedicated to Bernstein. Completing Enger's vision of a comprehensive, inclusive American ethos is 'The Vastland' from Under the Blue Dome by San Francisco-based composer of Native American descent JJ Hollingsworth, conjuring the Colorado plains, and Margaret Ruthven Lang's Twilight, the first woman to have a work performed by a major American orchestra. New York City-based writer and editor Steve Smith says in his excellent booklet notes: "What emerges in this collection of disparate yet interconnected lives and works is a patchwork quilt of individual voices, perspectives, and aspirations, woven together to form a more perfect union stronger than it's parts. The music they made, informed by shared stories and songs, brings to life the sky, stone, sinew, steel, and sentiment that make up this nation - an American ethos, expressed in sound". Internationally celebrated American pianist Carolyn Enger has gained critical acclaim for her exquisite lyrical playing and her deeply felt interpretations, with many performances across the United States and Europe. Her 2013 recording of Ned Rorem: Piano Album I was on The New York Times Best of Classical list that year, and her recent Metier recording Resonating Earth, an artistic response to the contemporary climate crisis, received glowing praise: "a thoughtful programme. Enthralling" (Nigel Simeone, International Piano). Ms Enger studied at the Manhattan School of Music and is a Steinway Performing and Recording Artist.

Let’s just do it: that was the motto when Simon Höfele and Frank Dupree decided to grab a hot potato. The two musicians, who have been making music for years, and not exclusively in the classical field they studied, love jazz as much as they love Hummel’s trumpet concerto and Beethoven’s for piano. That said, they can seldom stray far afield in their repertoire: the gap between classical music and jazz is so great; prejudices are simply insurmountable, and musical approaches too diverse. So they have done that anyway, and together with Frank’s colleague Obi Jenne on drums, Jakob Krupp on bass and the Goldmund Quartet they have produced an album that aims not to point out differences, not to emphasize what divides, but something that instead creates musical networks, music that aims to liberate us from conventions and put us in a good mood.

This CD is devoted to some of the most significant pieces for trumpet and piano, a formation that was born, literally, at the beginning of the last century. No prominent nineteenth–century composer has left us chamber pieces, let alone duo pieces, that involve the solo use of the trumpet; and it might be worth briefly questioning the reasons for the instrument’s nearly total absence from the repertoire. With this Album With this publication we will try to identify the reasons and to dis-cover some of the most evocative passages dedicated to it.

Everyone involved in Jervaulx Singers has a passion for vocal music in all it's forms. The varied repertoire of Les chansons des roses encompasses all that this choir is about - giving singers the freedom to sincerely express themselves through choral music, song and opera. This repertoire, all connected to earth and nature, reminds us to cherish the world around us. Charlie Gower-Smith, Director, Jervaulx Singers