Composer: Leonard Bernstein
Performer: Kim Criswell, Rod Gilfry, Martene Grimson, Adrian Dwyer, Ronan Collett
Orchestra: Münchner Rundfunkorchester
Conductor: Ulf Schirmer
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: BR Klassik
Catalogue: 403571900300
Release: 2009
Size: 296 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
West Side Story: Symphonic Dances (Leonard Bernstein)
01. I. Prologue
02. II. Somewhere
03. III. Scherzo
04. IV. Mambo
05. V. Cha-cha
06. VI. Meeting Scene
07. VII. Cool
08. VIII. Fugue
09. IX. Rumble
10. X. Finale
Trouble in Tahiti
11. Prelude: Mornin’ Sun (Trio)
12. Scene 1: How could you say (Sam, Dinah, Trio)
13. Scene 2: Yes? Oh Mister Partridge! (Sam, Trio)
14. Scene 3: I was standing in a garden (Dinah) – Scene 2a: Miss Brown? (Sam) – Scene 3a: Then the desire took hold inside me (Dinah)
15. Scene 4: Well, of all people (Sam, Dinah)
16. Interlude: Lovely day! (Trio)
17. Scene 5: There’s a law (Sam)
18. Scene 6: What a movie (Dinah, Trio)
19. Scene 6a: There’s a law (Sam) – Scene 7: Evening Shadows (Sam, Dinah, Trio)
20. Elgin Heuerding in conversation with Ulf Schirmer
The Münchner Rundfunkorchester is continually expanding its expansive repertoire of classic-romantic orchestral music as well as the key works of the classical modern era to include compositions that build a bridge to the genre of film scores and light classics. The flexibility of the orchestra, which can adapt to the widest imaginable variety of idioms on the highest quality level, has earned it the status of an exceptional ensemble on the orchestral horizon. Under its artistic director, Ulf Schirmer, it also presents itself on this CD as a charismatic advocate for enjoyable genre cross-over. No composer fits this pattern better than Leonard Bernstein. Both his West Side Story as well as the suite of Symphonic Dances extracted from the score number amongst the absolute Bernstein classics. A rarity, on the other hand, is the short one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti. The way the gaping abyss behind an upscale bourgeois marriage is exposed both musically and dramatically is funny, striking, thrilling – and far too infrequently heard! Including a bonus: Elgin Heuerding in conversation with Ulf Schirmer.
This recording of two of Leonard Bernstein’s finest scores comes from a live 2008 performance by Ulf Schirmer and the Münchner Rundfunk Orchester. It’s gratifying when European performers take up pieces that are so idiosyncratically American, but the risk is that they may not capture the idiomatic nuances that really bring the music alive, and that’s the case, to some extent, in Schirmer’s first recorded foray into American repertoire. He comes very close, but the lack of certain details — a punchiness in the syncopations, an easy swing — reveal that this is a style that’s not in his blood. Schirmer is most successful in the least jazzy sections, the slower, poignant parts of Trouble in Tahiti, for instance, which are beautifully effective. The beginning of the opera with the vocal jazz trio lacks the necessary irreverent zing; the members of the trio sing with overly precise, correct enunciation rather than the casual slanginess the music calls for, and their intonation and even pitches are sometimes questionable. Schirmer’s tempos in the opera tend to be slow, so that the music’s built-in momentum gets dissipated. It’s a shame, because Rodney Gilfry’s emotionally complex and vocally powerful Sam may be the finest on disc. Kim Criswell, who made her career in musical theater, is a natural choice for Dinah, even though some weird pronunciations occasionally make her sound like English is not her first language. She brings oodles of character to the troubled housewife, though; the contrast between her unselfconscious exuberance in “Island Magic” and her pathetic resignation later is especially vivid, and the couple’s final spoken exchange is achingly sad.
The same strengths and deficiencies are evident in the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. The romantic, more conventionally classical moments come off very well, but Schirmer doesn’t quite get the looseness (or the snap) of the jazz-inspired sections. The CD includes an interview with Schirmer in German. The sound is lively and present.