Florida Pojudd - BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 / West Side Story [CD]

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Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)Symphony No. 2: The Age of AnxietyWest Side Story Symphonic Dances • Candide Overture Although Leonard Bernstein is not generally thought of as an orchestral composer, his compositions include three symphonies, several works for solo instrument and orchestra, and a number of suites derived from his theatre and stage works. It would be more accurate to say that Bernstein never tackled a work the same way twice, giving rise to a number of hybrid compositions the ambiguity of which shows a composer caught between the European classical tradition and the American vernacular of jazz and musical. Three of the ways in which he strove to reconcile these are represented by the works here included. As originally composed, Candide was part musical, part operetta, with a book by Lilian Hellman derived from Voltaire’s eighteenth-century satire, and lyrics by Richard Wilbur. Opening at the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway on 1st December 1956, it achieved a run of only 73 performances. Bernstein began a process of revision that would last almost three decades, culminating in the near-operatic version he conducted and recorded in London not long before his death. The Overture, first heard in concert with the New York Philharmonic on 27th January 1957, is a brilliant potpourri of tunes from the show, including Dr. Pangloss’s The Best of All Possible Worlds, Candide and Cunegonde’s marriage duet Oh Happy We, and Cunegonde’s virtuoso coloratura aria Glitter and Be Gay. Opening at Broadway’s Winter Gardens Theater on 26th September 1957, West Side Story notched up a total of 1025 performances either side of its first American tour. With a book by Arthur Laurents and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, this urban update of the Romeo and Juliet story broke new ground for music theatre, not least through the extensive and virtuosic choreography of Jerome Robbins. Lukas Foss and the New York Philharmonic gave the first performance of the Symphonic Dances on 13th February 1961, Bernstein dedicating the score to Sid Ramin, who, with Irwin Kostal, prepared the orchestration under the composer’s supervision. Rather than take matters in chronological order, the Symphonic Dances freely re-order a selection of numbers from the musical, making for a coherent and satisfying suite. The Prologue graphically depicts the violence between two street gangs, the Sharks, Puerto Rican immigrants, and the Jets, native Bronx. Somewhere recalls the aspirations of the lovers Maria and Tony for a future of peaceful co-existence. A Coplandesque Scherzo leads into the testosterone- fuelled high-school dance of Mambo. It is here that Maria and Tony first meet, join together cautiously in a Cha-Cha, and realise their mutual attraction in the Meeting Scene. The antagonism of the rival gangs, however, barely suppressed in a tense fugue on the song Cool, erupts in the Rumble, during which the gang leaders are killed. After a pens

BERNSTEIN: Candide Overture - Candide Overture

BERNSTEIN: West Side Story (Symphonic Dances) - West Side Story (Symphonic Dances)

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: Prologue

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Ages: Variation I

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Ages: Variation II

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Ages: Variation III

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Ages: Variation IV

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Ages: Variation V

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Ages: Variation VI

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Ages: Variation VII

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Stages: Variation VIII

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Stages: Variation IX

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Stages: Variation X

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Stages: Variation XI

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Stages: Variation XII

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Stages: Variation XIII

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part I: The Seven Stages: Variation XIV

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part II: The Dirge

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part II: The Masque

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2 - Part II: The Epilogue