This 3-CD Anniversary Edition celebrates what would have been Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday. The impressive, high calibre artist roster led by Wayne Marshall play little known works for piano and chamber music written by Bernstein over five decades.

Games with codes, cyphers, codenames and identities run through Bernstein’s entire output: references to himself, to people in his private circle, or to works by other composers from all periods and almost all genres from Baroque to jazz. They are easiest to detect in Anniversaries, a series of brief cycles he started writing in the 1940s, soon after his rapid ascension to become one of the most adulated stars on the American music scene. He finished composing the last group of Anniversary pieces in 1988, two years before his death. All in all, Anniversaries comprises a total of 29 pieces: one could affectionately describe them as rapidly sketched portraits without necessarily having to dismiss them as “sweet nothings”.

The Sabras cycle, written in four parts (originally planned as six), emerged in the early 1950s in conjunction with Bernstein’s first visits to Israel. Hailing from the name for a cactus fruit, “Sabra” designates a Jew born on Israeli territory. The Piano Sonata is a challenging, elaborate work that clearly reveals the influence of Aaron Copland.

Bernstein did not compose any other relatively extended or significant work for solo piano until 1981, when he wrote Touches as a commission for the Van Cliburn Competition. Inspired by a model by Copland, the work consists of eight variations and a coda, all based on a chorale theme borrowed from Virgo Blues, written, in turn, for his daughter Jamie’s 26th birthday in 1978.

Written during Bernstein’s days as a student, the Piano Trio is a further instance where he confronted his outlook with a traditional form - in this case, one of the most distinguished genres of chamber music. Apart from Classical- Romantic and Impressionist reminiscences, the Piano Trio also treads in the footsteps of Béla Bartók by incorporating a number of motifs from folklore. Bernstein re-used certain sections of the Piano Trio in his first musical, On the Town.

From Bernstein’s late period, the Variations on an Octatonic Scale are small miniatures he wrote at his retreat in Key West for the recorder-playing daughter of a friend.

Artists include Wayne Marshall, Fernando Nina, Jeffrey Kant, Hans Nickel, Jennifer Micallef, Maurice Steger, Paul van Zelm, Maria Kliegel, Andy Miles, Lisa Schumann, Chad Hoopes, Peter Mönkediek, Peter Roth and Benyamin Nuss.

Artists

Wayne Marshall (piano), Maria Kliegel (cello), Benyamin Nuss (piano), Maurice Steger (recorder), Chad Hoopes (clarinet), Jeffrey Kant (trombone), Jennifer Micallef (piano), Andy Miles (clarinet), Peter Monkediek (trumpet), Hans Nickel (tuba)

Fernando Nina (cello), Peter Roth (trumpet), Lisa Schumann (clarinet), Paul van Zelm (horn)