Latest Release
- 29 NOV 2024
- 7 Songs
- Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue - An American in Paris · 1958
- Barber's Adagio and other Romantic Favorites for Strings · 1996
- Mahler: Symphony No. 5 · 1988
- Barber: Adagio for Strings - Copland: Appalachian Spring, Rodeo & Billy the Kid · 2013
- West Side Story (2021 Motion Picture Soundtrack) · 2021
- Barber: Adagio for Strings - Copland: Appalachian Spring, Rodeo & Billy the Kid · 2013
- West Side Story (2021 Motion Picture Soundtrack) · 2021
- Rhapsody in Blue - EP · 1959
- Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue - An American in Paris · 1958
- West Side Story (2021 Motion Picture Soundtrack) · 2021
Essential Albums
- The next entry in Dennis Russell Davies’ exploration of Philip Glass’ works sees two masterpieces—one by Glass, one by Bernstein—taken up by the esteemed violinist Renaud Capuçon. For the former composer’s 1987 concerto, Capuçon’s sharp, driving style is perfectly suited for the work’s elongated arpeggios and dramatic melodies.
- Samuel Barber’s heartfelt Adagio for Strings has become an elegy for the modern age and few conductors have lavished on it the love that Leonard Bernstein brings. A committed champion of music by fellow American composers, he and his superb New York Philharmonic energise the ballet music of Bernstein’s friend Aaron Copland. The pastoral simplicity of Appalachian Spring has a gorgeous sheen, while the rough-and-tumble Rodeo and Billy the Kid find conductor and ensemble at their vibrant best. Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man rounds out this incredible album.
- Mahler's Fifth Symphony is a consistent crowd-pleaser with its powerful opening funeral march and its soulful Adagietto, originally a musical love letter to the composer's wife. Leonard Bernstein had a special affinity for Mahler, perhaps because he too was torn between his talents for conducting and composing. His '60s recordings almost single-handedly rescued Mahler's then declining reputation, but the live recordings with Mahler's own Vienna Philharmonic in the final years of Bernstein's life will stand as his legacy. It is hard to imagine a more emotionally satisfying reading of the Fifth in particular, by turns desperately anxious and ecstatically jubilant.
- In many ways, Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin were very similar: both were great showmen, at ease with different kinds of music, and both were superb performers. On this essential recording, Bernstein the pianist gives a winningly loose-limbed performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, a work so fresh that it’s hard to believe it was premiered 100 years ago, in 1924. Also featured here are a near-ideal performances of Gershwin’s An American in Paris and Bernstein’s own, sizzling Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. Finally, Bernstein’s searing score to On the Waterfront, the 1954 film about life on the New Jersey docks, oozes atmosphere and angst.
Artist Playlists
- Witness the legacy of the greatest and most versatile US conductor of the 20th century.
- An original and sophisticated American voice that brilliantly fused music from all genres.
About Leonard Bernstein
One of the most prodigiously gifted musicians in American history, Leonard Bernstein was a popularising presence across many disciplines: orchestral music, Broadway musicals, ballet, film and television. Born in 1918 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, he studied composition at Harvard University and conducting at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Tanglewood Music Center. Early on, it seemed as though the concert podium would take priority. In 1943, Bernstein was summoned, without rehearsal, to fill in for an ailing Bruno Walter at the New York Philharmonic, effectively launching his global conducting career. Yet before long, he was being touted as the potential savior of the American musical, embarking on scores for On the Town (1944), Wonderful Town (1953), Candide (1956) and the future juggernaut West Side Story (1957). Bernstein explored religious and philosophical themes in his symphonic and choral music, notably the Symphony No. 3 “Kaddish” (1963), the jazzy Chichester Psalms (1965) and the freewheeling Mass (1971). Bernstein’s role as music director of the New York Philharmonic (1958-69) provided the biggest platform for his communicative talents: he championed works by Mahler and Sibelius and starred in the Philharmonic's televised Young People’s Concerts. A complicated figure offstage, Bernstein was idealistic to the core, and when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, he conducted two performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (1824) in East and West Berlin. He died in 1990.
- HOMETOWN
- Lawrence, United States of America
- BORN
- 1918
- GENRE
- Classical