Leonard Bernstein - Symphony No. 3 'Kaddish' (Marin Alsop)

Information

Composer: Leonard Bernstein

• Missa Brevis
• Symphony No. 3 'Kaddish'
• The Lark (arr. Nathaniel G. Lew & Marin Alsop)

Paulo Mestre, countertenor

São Paulo Symphony Choir & Orchestra

Claire Bloom, narrator

Kelley Nassief, soprano

Maryland State Boychoir

Washington Chorus

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Marin Alsop, conductor

Date: 2015

Label: Naxos

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Review

There are a number of recurring themes in Bernstein’s symphonic work (indeed his works for the stage) and the most omnipresent of them is the big ‘crisis of faith’ issue. Symphony No 3, Kaddish, is (along with Mass) the most specific in that regard, but the word ‘faith’ for Bernstein was as much about cementing the belief in who he was and what he sought to achieve as in any religious ideal. He was always reaching for the unreachable and seeking an answer – any answer – to the eminently Ivesian ‘unanswered question’. Kaddish is as much about addressing the creative spirit as the spirit of creation, and as a composition it is at heart most emphatically about the struggle to express exactly who he was as a composer and consequently as a man.

For that reason I have always enjoyed his daughter Jamie Bernstein’s reworking of the narration for Kaddish – recorded for Chandos under Leonard Slatkin (a terrific performance, too) – which makes this point more pertinently and personally than one could have imagined, not least in the conceit of addressing ‘my father’ to Bernstein himself, just as he had in turn sought to address his Creator. It is a telling twist on the original narration, recorded here in a performance of great conviction from Marin Alsop, with the wonderful Claire Bloom achieving a happy medium between the declamatory and the confidential.

Kaddish may be overcooked in some respects but as an example of Bernstein’s compositional gamesmanship – the motivic manipulation for one – it can and does dazzle. It’s also fun to hear him wrestling with the tonal or atonal question: do I write what I think I should write, meaning that which might impress my peers and elevate me to the ranks of the ‘serious’, or do I write what I want to write and indeed write best? He manages both here, pitting tone-rows against the aleatoric and a big ‘rainbow’ of Brahmsian-cum-Bernsteinian tune which ultimately comes to represent his own moment of truth. And, as always, there are instances of pure gold – a consoling lullaby at the heart of the piece (featuring limpid soprano Kelley Nassief) which Bernstein called his ‘Pietà’.

The companion pieces here might well necessitate purchase for hardcore Bernstein aficionados. Just as Bernstein’s ‘voices’ fuelled his inspiration – ‘As long as I sing I shall live’ is a key line in the Kaddish narration – so Joan of Arc’s drew him to Jean Anouilh’s play L’alouette when in 1955 he made musical flesh of Joan’s ‘voices’ with his incidental music for a Broadway production starring Julie Harris, Christopher Plummer and Boris Karloff. And from this mix of French rustic and lofty medieval, he later recycled and expanded the liturgical elements into a short Mass – Missa brevis – for the occasion of Robert Shaw’s retirement from the Atlanta Symphony. This pithy but harmonically vibrant little piece is especially notable for its concluding ‘Dona nobis pacem’ – a moment that brings such outrage in his theatrical masterpiece Mass but here even manages a little dance of contrition.

— Edward Seckerson

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Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the US to receive worldwide acclaim. His fame derived from his tenure as the music director of the New York Philharmonic, his concerts with most of the world's leading orchestras, and his composition. As a composer he wrote in many styles encompassing symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music and piano pieces. He also gave numerous television lectures on classical music.

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Marin Alsop (born 16 October 1956) is an American conductor best known as the first woman to lead a major American orchestra, serving as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 2007 to 2021. Alsop has also held leading posts with orchestras in the U.S., Europe and Brazil. Raised by musician parents, she trained as a violinist at Juilliard before turning to conducting, studying with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. Renowned for championing American and contemporary music, she has earned numerous awards, including Gramophone's Artist of the Year (2003) and a MacArthur Fellowship.

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