Leonard Bernstein - Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 (Marin Alsop)

Information

Composer: Leonard Bernstein

• (01-03) Symphony No. 1 "Jeremiah"
• (04-21) Symphony No. 2 "The Age of Anxiety"

Jennifer Johnson Cano, soprano (3)
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano (4-21)
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Marin Alsop, conductor

Date: 2017
Label: Naxos
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.559790

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Review

A disc of two halves, for sure: a somewhat sober Jeremiah and a scintillating Age of Anxiety. Perhaps there is simply no reply to Bernstein’s feverish intensity in both his recordings of the former; the latter, of course, has the poetic Jean-Yves Thibaudet as protagonist, and he is very much a chip off the Bernstein block. There’s a chemistry, too, with Marin Alsop that is tangible throughout.

Both pieces deal with self-doubt – or if you prefer, a crisis of faith – in differing ways, though the First Symphony’s self-confidence could hardly have been greater, asserting itself for all to hear just months after Bernstein’s unexpected but sensational New York Philharmonic debut in 1943. A double whammy. Its rather filmic immediacy requires a degree of abandon and assurance in the way it is delivered and my impression of this performance with Alsop’s Baltimore Symphony is one of too much objectivity – a step back from what was clearly so personal a motivation for Bernstein.

There is nothing wrong with it, per se – it unfolds with direction and dignity. But you notice something withheld at the big climaxes, not least the pulverising pedal note which moves us towards that of the first movement, and even the paganistic scherzo (notwithstanding brave trumpets) tenders a somewhat muted profanity. Jennifer Johnson Cano brings depth of tone and a noble resolve to the concluding Lamentation and just for once Lenny’s cathartic pay-off is deafeningly quiet.

Never was our innate solitude as human beings more tellingly invoked than in the two-part clarinet counterpoint that opens the Second Symphony. The inspiration for it was WH Auden’s staggeringly virtuoso poem ‘The Age of Anxiety’ – a nocturnal odyssey which Bernstein ingeniously chronicles as a dark night of the soul expressed in variation form as ‘The Seven Ages’. But the trick of having each variation evolve from some aspect of the preceding one makes not only for a sense of ‘destination unknown’ but a chain reaction of new beginnings. Thibaudet is our ‘everyman’, exhibiting great flair and resilience on the journey – with the keenest partners in Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony – and in the extraordinary and quite unexpected ‘Masque’ where Bernstein takes a cut cabaret song from his first Broadway musical, On the Town, and folds it into a jazzy divertissement for piano and percussion. The Frenchman, with great lightness and piquancy, has his fingers skipping across the keys like yet another dance routine for the New York-based show.

But it is in the work’s most reflective pages at the start and towards the finish that Thibaudet unlocks the loneliness in us all. Never be deceived by his flamboyance. He is the most soulful of players. His introverted solo just prior to the work’s apotheosis is just so beautiful. And, of course, there can be no more vivid manifestation of Bernstein’s need for catharsis than the final pages, anticipating as they do Marlon Brando’s courageous walk into cinema history at the close of On the Waterfront, Bernstein’s only movie score.

The Age of Anxiety is a cracker of a piece and this excellent performance, splendidly engineered, amplifies that view in every way. Symphonic form, like musical theatre, is always hungry for a new direction.

-- Edward Seckerson, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 10 / SOUND QUALITY: 10
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Feb/Bernstein_sys_8559790.htm
http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/reviews/bernstein-symphonies-nos-1-and-2-baltimore-symphony-orchestramarin-alsop/
https://www.allmusic.com/album/bernstein-symphonies-nos-1-and-2-mw0002999753
https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.559790&languageid=EN

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Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the US to receive worldwide acclaim. His fame derived from his tenure as the music director of the New York Philharmonic, his concerts with most of the world's leading orchestras, and his composition. As a composer he wrote in many styles encompassing symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music and piano pieces. He also gave numerous television lectures on classical music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Bernstein

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Marin Alsop (born October 16, 1956 in New York) is an American conductor and violinist. She was educated at the Yale University and the Juilliard School. She was Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (2002-2008), and has been music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (since 2017) and the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra (since 2012). Highlights of Alsop’s recording collaboration with Naxos include a selection of works by Barber, several discs of music by Bernstein, a series of recordings of Dvořák and a Brahms symphony cycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_Alsop

http://www.marinalsop.com/

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