Leonard Bernstein; William Bolcom - The Age of Anxiety; Piano Concerto (Marc-André Hamelin)

Information

Composer: Leonard Bernstein; William Bolcom

• Bernstein - The Age of Anxiety 'Symphony No. 2'
• Bolcom - Concerto for piano and large orchestra

Marc-André Hamelin, piano

Ulster Orchestra

Dmitry Sitkovetsky, conductor

Date: 2000

Label: Hyperion

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Review

After Hamelin’s fantastic virtuosity in the outrageously difficult Godowsky Studies on Chopin’s Etudes (Hyperion, 5/00) these two works for piano and orchestra are – for him – the merest bagatelles. But this is an impressive release since it contains the most convincing recent account of Bernstein’s Symphony No 2 (1949) I have come across, benefiting from a richer sound than Kahane under Litton.

The whole piece is Bernstein’s obsessive response to Auden’s poem The Age of Anxiety, published the year before, about four characters struggling to sort themselves out in New York City. Even though Auden apparently disliked it, I increasingly hear Bernstein’s Symphony as saturated with the poem, its ideas and atmosphere. Often programmatic, it represents a particularly original approach to piano and orchestra and is personal in countless ways – the gentleness of the soft opening and its mystical descending scale, the precisely engineered variations, memorable tunes, a splendid jazzy Scherzo and so on. Hamelin and the Ulster Orchestra in fine form under Sitkovetsky deliver a well-paced and cogent performance right up to the deliberately inflated, optimistic ending.

Bolcom is one of the most idiosyncratic American composers of the next generation. His 1976 Piano Concerto draws widely on various types of popular music, which he has always performed so superbly. The Concerto was written in memory of Bolcom’s teacher, Milhaud, who would have loved it. The opening movement is captivatingly serene until the blue notes get out of hand; the slow movement is more stable and serious; but the finale comes over as a riotous celebration of Americana. Unfortunately Bolcom intended it to be ironic as a kind of anti-bicentennial tribute. But tunes like these have a habit of occupying centre stage on their own terms. Hamelin is again utterly scrupulous and idiomatic and delivers all the musical styles with supreme confidence – nobody could have mixed them up like Bolcom.

— Peter Dickinson

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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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William Bolcom (born 26 May 1938) is an American composer and pianist known for bridging popular and classical music traditions. Educated at the University of Washington, Mills College, the Paris Conservatory and Stanford University, he later served as professor of composition at the University of Michigan. A prolific composer, Bolcom wrote works across genres, including piano études, operas, orchestral music and song cycles, and showed a particular affinity for ragtime. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and multiple Grammy Awards in 2006. Bolcom has also been active as a performer, writer, editor and educator.

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Marc-André Hamelin (born 5 September 1961 in Montreal) is a distinguished Canadian pianist and composer renowned for his exceptional technique and distinctive interpretations of the classical repertoire. Internationally acclaimed, he has earned 11 Grammy Award nominations and has recorded extensively with the Hyperion label. Hamelin is particularly noted for his commitment to exploring and performing works by lesser-known composers, especially from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as pieces by pianist-composers. He has composed several works himself, including a set of piano études in all the minor keys.

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