Leonard Cohen Music:

Leonard Bernstein - A Portrait Reviews:
The best way to get all of Bernstein's piano recordings
2006-01-17 - Sony has scattered the performances on these 3 CDs across its catalog. The Rhapsody in Blue has been reissued in many guises, while most of the others have shown up in either the Berntein Century or Royal Edition series. At present I believe the only way to get the Schumann Piano Quintet is in a large set devoted to 50 years of the Julliard Quartet.

The recrdoing dates vary from 1958 (Ravel and Shostakovich) to 1974 (Mozart K. 503 concerto). Bernstein was such a good pianist that only the virtuoso demands of the Ravel G major force him to slow the tempo, but when he does he finds jazzy insights as conductor. Sonics are variable. The two piano quintets with the Julliard Quartet (Schumann and Mozart in G minor K. 478) are miked close up with edgy, coarse string sound. This impedes enjoyment too much, but elsewhere the recorded sound is quite good.

Bernstein was not a showman at the keyboard. He usually felt secure enough to display his usual vibrancy and enthusiasm, but I think there's a noticeable lack of brio in parts of the Mozart concerto K. 503, Ravel G major, and Shostakovich Concerto #2. A listener should be prepared to look for other virtues than supreme technique in all these recordings. Even so, Bernstein joins the ranks of accomplished pianist/conductors, which is getting thinner nowadays. Eschenbach and Levine seem to be the only ones keeping up the tradition, and then only rarely. Five stars for the best parts of this colleciton, four for the rest.

Why you should own this record:
2003-08-07 - Bernstein is a legendary conductor, famous for his interpretations of Mahler and Beethoven symphonies, among other works. But this three CD set displays his remarkable talent as a pianist. What's even more remarkable is that he didn't stop conducting the orchestra for these performances, leading them through exceptional interpretations from the piano bench.

This collection of recordings, made between 1959 and 1978, and assembled on CD in 1991, is necessarily piano-centric since the whole theme is that Bernstein "plays and conducts". Surprisingly, all of the recordings sound fresh and intimate, thanks to some good remastering by John McClure (who produced some of the original recordings) and sound engineer Charles Harbutt.

Disk two of this set boasts an empassioned and technically superb rendition of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G-major, the delicate second movement of which contains some of Bernstein's finest playing.

Also on disk two is the second best recording of Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue I've ever heard. (The very best one is on the Manhattan soundtrack by Zubin Mehta with the New York Philharmonic.)

I don't normally suggest multi-disk sets of various classical music peices. I usually favor finding individual recordings that represent the very best available for each piece in question. But this set, containing accessible and technically brilliant performances all under one consistantly good conductor, is well worth the money.

For those who need more information to shop for this CD, its cover is blue and green with a color profile photo of Bernstein at the piano. The title on the spine is "Leonard Bernstein Plays and Conducts" but the large gold lettering on the cover reads "Leonard Bernstein A Portrait". It was released on Sony Classical and is now available only as a European import.