Recording of the Week, Bernstein Symphonies from Simon Rattle and Antonio Pappano

Amongst the plethora of new releases and archive compilations marking the centenary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth this weekend, I must admit that I didn’t expect Krystian Zimerman to make an appearance – but his live recording of the 1948 symphony-cum-piano-concerto The Age of Anxiety (made just two months ago with Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker, and released today on Deutsche Grammophon) has to be one of the most exciting and moving tributes to ‘Lenny’ to come my way all summer.

With his unassuming, media-shy personality and infinitely subtle musicianship, the Polish pianist is in many respects the polar opposite of the larger-than-life Bernstein, but the two men admired one another immensely and collaborated on a regular basis towards the end of the composer’s life: their 1989 recordings of Beethoven’s last three piano concertos (part of a projected cycle) together was one of Bernstein’s final undertakings in the studio, and when he didn’t live to complete the series Zimerman directed the two remaining works from the keyboard as a mark of respect to his friend. There’s been much speculation over the past month or so as to how Bernstein would have orchestrated his own centenary celebrations had he still been around, and Zimerman recently revealed that the two had made a pact to perform The Age of Anxiety together in the unlikely event of the hard-living composer reaching the grand old age of 100.

As 2018 approached, Zimerman kept his side of the bargain with performances in London and Berlin, and even in the most extrovert moments of the score it’s touchingly apparent that he’s engaged in a personal memorial: the introspective opening phrases and the cadenza towards the end of the work (which Bernstein added in the 1960s) are suffused with wistful affection, and the Berlin players provide him with empathetic support (there’s some exquisitely tender playing from star woodwind principals Andreas Ottensamer and Emmanuel Pahud in the first few minutes of the performance). Zimerman’s resolutely ‘classical’ approach to phrasing and textures ensures that every detail of his late friend’s technical skill registers, from the almost Schubertian grace with which he shapes his opening solo to the clarity which he brings to the rhythmically complex and almost contrapuntal passages in The Masque: one senses that he’s mindful of Bernstein’s desire to be remembered as a ‘serious’ composer rather than a Broadway Baby, and is taking this opportunity to set the record straight.

Over on Warner Classics, Antonio Pappano’s set of the complete symphonies features the brilliant young Italian pianist Beatrice Rana as soloist for this work, and the differences are apparent from the off: if Zimerman’s first entry is all understated grace, Rana shapes it like a louche improvisation by a lounge-pianist who was destined for greater things. The work responds equally well to both approaches: Bernstein was certainly a man who ‘contained multitudes’, and would surely have applauded the extrovert theatricality which she and Pappano’s Roman orchestra (of which the composer was president towards the end of his life) bring to what Pappano calls the ‘real American frolic’ of The Masque, as well as the impassioned contribution of Canadian mezzo Marie-Nicole Lemieux in the final movement of the Jeremiah Symphony, and their anarchic brio in the riotous cross-rhythms which look back to Copland and forward to John Adams in the same work’s ‘scherzo’, Profanation.

Pappano’s other trump card is the veteran dramatic soprano Josephine Barstow, who takes on the daunting role of the narrator (created for the composer’s actress wife Felicia Montealegre, but described by Pappano in our recent interview as ‘Bernstein screaming at God’) in the Kaddish Symphony, hurling out imprecations with the same venom which made her such a celebrated Lady Macbeth in the 1970s and 80s. I’d always struggled a little with the histrionics of this score on past encounters, but the commitment which Barstow brings to the spoken passages make the most convincing case for the piece imaginable, and she has an ideal foil in the plangent soprano of Nadine Sierra (whose own solo debut album, built around one of Bernstein’s best-known songs, is released on Deutsche Grammophon today).

It’s wonderful to have two such contrasting cases made for Bernstein’s symphonies, works which have long languished in the shadows of West Side Story and Candide - especially when both exude such palpable affection for the music and its creator. Happy birthday, Lenny, indeed.