Jamie Bernstein's Top Five: Bernstein the Composer
In our hit IDAGIO Interactive course, "The Lenny Lens: Bernstein's Embrace of Music", Jamie Bernstein explores the legacy of her father, Leonard Bernstein, with some of his most celebrated and special works. In this exclusive playlist, Jamie presents a selection of her all-time favourite recordings from her father's extraordinary contribution as a composer. "This was a nearly impossible list to keep down to five entries! What I wound up choosing has a lot to do with what made an impression on me in my youth."
Read more…West Side Story – original cast album (Sony)
I was very tempted to put in my father’s superb studio recording from 1984, but I cut my teeth on this cast album from 1957, and for me it remains how I hear the show in my head. What a cast: Carol Lawrence, Larry Kert, Chita Rivera... and Reri Grist singing “Somewhere.” All of it sublime.
Serenade – Gidon Kremer, Leonard Bernstein, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon)
This is my favorite of all my dad’s symphonic works. The tunes, the rollicking rhythms, the laceratingly beautiful slow movement... And believe me, you don’t have to know much, or – if you’re like me when I first heard it – really anything at all about Plato’s Symposium to enjoy this music deeply. (But Plato’s Symposium is, in fact, the literary work that provided LB with the spine of the piece.)
On the Town – Michael Tilson Thomas, London Symphony Orchestra, glorious soloists! (Deutsche Grammophon)
On the Town was a constant on my little record player that had decals of cartoon animals on it. But years later, in 1993, Michael Tilson Thomas pulled together this truly extraordinary performance. Michael does great justice to the score’s zany zing, propulsive swing, and meltingly beautiful ballads. And the soloists! Tyne Daly, Frederika von Stade, Samuel Ramey, Thomas Hampson ... 74 minutes of pure Broadway heaven.
Prelude, Fugue and Riffs – Benny Goodman and band members
Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve been a big fan of this unusual, absolutely thrilling 11-minute piece. It doesn’t get performed nearly enough, since it requires a big band configuration, and orchestras don’t like to leave their string players idle. But I wish it got around more! It’s tight, it’s loose, it’s pointillistic, it swings... Imagine Stravinsky having a three-way romantic encounter with a jazz clarinettist and a burlesque stripper, and... oh never mind. Just listen, and love!
Candide – Leonard Bernstein, London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican (Deutsche Grammophon)
In our early years, my brother and I wore out the grooves on the original cast album, I loved that recording, and still do – but in 1989, the last year of his life, my father conducted a truly historic concert performance of the work, with a stellar cast, at the Barbican Centre in London. This version of Candide contains virtually the entire score. There’s so much music in Candide that inevitably, in every version of the show (and there are many), some songs get cut. But here, on this recording, you can hear them all – with fabulous voices, and gloriously conducted by the composer himself. The finale will have you in tears.