Performers: The Vienna Philharmonic & London Symphony Orchestra cond. by Leonard Bernstein/Gidon Kremer, violin/Krystian Zimerman, piano
Program: Divertimento, Serenade for Violin and Orchestra, Symphony No. 2 “The Age of Anxiety”
Studio: Unitel Classica/DGG [Distr. by Universal]
Video: 4:3 color
Audio: English DTS 5.1, PCM Stereo
Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese
Extras: Bernstein documentary “Teachers and Teaching” (59 min.)
Length: 94 minutes
Rating: *****
Bernstein conducts three of his most enjoyable all-instrumental orchestral works in this fine video taped during the period when he was a most-in-demand great conductor in Europe. While just 4:3, the images are excellent quality, and the DTS surround brings the viewer into the concert halls (although the PCM stereo is more transparent). The hour-long bonus film is also a special treat if you haven’t seen it before. In it, Bernstein is shown rehearsing and working with his pupils and talking to various colleagues such as Lucas Foss and Seiji Ozawa. Michael Tilson Thomas describes an unusual coaching session they collaborated on, and Bernstein describes being the understudy to the tyrannical Fritz Reiner.
Bernstein’s light and witty Divertimento was a tribute to both the city of Boston and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Taped with the Vienna Philharmonic, Bernstein shows his obvious pleasure in leading the orchestra in his music, some of which sounds as if it came straight out of his musicals. The London Symphony Orchestra is the setting for the first of Bernstein’s serious orchestral works to gain public attention – his concerto for solo violin, strings, harp and percussion. A very young Gidon Kremer is the superb soloist in the work, and in the short interview prior to the piece, Bernstein urges everyone to read Plato’s Symposium so they’ll better understand the background to the five-movement work.
This is the only recorded performance of Bernstein conducting his Age of Anxiety Symphony with Krystian Zimerman as the piano soloist – the CDs on DGG and Sony Classical feature Lukas Foss as the soloist. The work has some jazzy sections, but its main thrust is a sort of determined Shostakovichian symphonic style.
– John Sunier
