American Classics - Leonard Bernstein - Naxos: 8559100 - CD or download

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In life, Leonard Bernstein ran into criticism for programming his own concert music. Now he's gone, it seems we can't get enough of it – and in a variety of performance styles. Latterday champions... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Release Date: 5th Jan 2004
Catalogue No: 8559100
Label: Naxos
Series: American Classics
Length: 54 minutes

Gramophone Magazine

February 2004

Editor's Choice

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Bernstein: Symphony No. 1 'Jeremiah'

Work length25:12

$6.00

$7.75

Helen Medlyn (mezzo-soprano)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
James Judd
Recorded: 13-15 August 2002
Recording Venue: Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, New Zealand

I. Prophecy

Track length7:40

$2.00

$2.60

II. Profanation

Track length6:29

$1.00

$1.30

III. Lamentation

Track length11:03

$3.00

$3.85

Bernstein: Concerto for Orchestra 'Jubilee Games' (1986-1989)

Work length29:42

$13.00

$16.90

Nathan Gunn (baritone)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
James Judd
Recorded: 13-15 August 2002
Recording Venue: Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, New Zealand

I. Free-Style Events: Allegro con brio, giocoso

Track length7:20

$2.00

$2.60

II. Mixed Doubles: Theme

Track length1:23

$1.00

$1.30

II. Variation 1

Track length1:01

$1.00

$1.30

II. Variation 2

Track length0:25

$1.00

$1.30

II. Variation 3

Track length0:39

$1.00

$1.30

II. Variation 4

Track length1:16

$1.00

$1.30

II. Variation 5

Track length0:33

$1.00

$1.30

II. Variation 6

Track length2:17

$1.00

$1.30

II. Variation 7

Track length1:15

$1.00

$1.30

II. Coda

Track length1:45

$1.00

$1.30

III. Diaspora Dances: Vivace

Track length5:36

$1.00

$1.30

IV. Benediction: Moderato, invocando

Track length6:12

$1.00

$1.30

Reviews
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Reviews

2010

In life, Leonard Bernstein ran into criticism for programming his own concert music. Now he's gone, it seems we can't get enough of it – and in a variety of performance styles. Latterday champions such as Michael Tilson Thomas and Marin Alsop still go for the idiomatic jugular.
Less extrovert interpreters – David Zinman and Kent Nagano spring to mind – downplay the bravado to discover a fresher transparency. On this disc James Judd, British-born but for many years Florida-based, seems closer to the second camp while remaining remarkably faithful to the composer's own overall timings in both pieces.
Keeping a stiff upper lip isn't an option in the Concerto for Orchestra, one of Bernstein's most exploratory and frankly uneven scores.
Some of its music is very beautiful, though it isn't easy to see what it has to do with the rest.
Judd sometimes trumps the composer's own wilder performance with his paler, more neutral tone.
Competition is fiercer in the coupling. The scherzo of the Jeremiah, rowdy, raw and rhetorical in the composer's New York recording, is brought that much closer to the symphonic mainstream here, the New Zealand winds relatively polite and in tune. The portentous, hieratic tendencies of the last movement may even be less apparent when the singer is an Australasian crossover artist rather than the customary grande dame. The sonorities are lighter and the voltage a little lower than you might be used to. A genuine bargain even so, with recorded sound way ahead of the super-budget norm. There are full if not always felicitously expressed notes. Newcomers needn't hesitate.

American Classics - Leonard Bernstein

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