Customer Reviews

Copland: El Salon Mexico / Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra / Music for the Theatre / Connotations for Orchestra ~ Bernstein

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This recording is taken from the final concerts Leonard Bernstein gave with the New York Philharmonic in October 1989, so it is a very historical bit of musical documentation as well as a fine reading of great American music. Bernstein and Copland had a long history together, and some of LB's greatest performances were of Copland works (Appalachian Spring, Piano Concerto, et al.). This disc is no exception; it's a very lovely recounting of some of the most important music of the 20th Century. "El Salon Mexico" is given a vibrant reading to start out, one that I might suggest as being almost definitive. The first part of the Clarinet Concerto is slower than some interpretations, but beautiful all the same. The second movement is where Stanley Drucker, Lenny and friends pull out all the stops for the raucous ending. The "Music for Theater" is conversely snappy and restful, a better reading (I'd say) than the mid-60s one done by the same orchestra and conductor. Finally "Connotations", one of Copland's last great works, is given a neat run-through by the ensemble it was written for. From its opening rim-shots to the final, ear-splitting chords, "Connotations" is quite an accomplishment for a composer whose name is most often associated with softer, more "open" tonality. This is a great CD (in the truest sense of the word), and a glorious way for America's greatest conductor to end his career with one of America's greatest orchestras.

Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein died within two months of each other in 1990 after a lifelong friendship that was also a mentor and disciple relationship. This CD captures an Oct. 1989 concert that was the last time Bernstein conducted a subscription concert with his own NY PPhil. They play magnificently and at times very sensitively.

One can't help tearing up if like me you grew up on Bernstein's version of El Salon Mexico, which he recorded no less than four times. Here the music has great impact from DG's excellent digital sonics. Afflicted with emphysema--as Copland was severely afflicted with Alzhemier's from the mid-Seventies onward--Bernstein struggled bravely to keep up his old panache, but there's an air of melancholy just beneath the surface. The nostalgic slow sections seem as much a nostalgia for lost life as for old Mexico.

Everything on this disc can be heard on various Sony CDs from Bernstein's tenure with the orchestra, which are livelier. As early as the mid-Fifties the teenage Stanley Drucker sat as first-chair clarinetist with the Philharmonic (where he remains today). His version of the Clarinet Concerto is sadder than Richard Stoltzman's dreamy, suave account on RCA, but richer for that.

The next work represent Copland's very early, jazzy modernism in Music for the Theater, where the 25-year-old composer manages to evoke the chic of Paris and the homeliness of the Great Plains in the same work. This reading sounds much better, if slightly less jazzy, than Bernstein's 1958 recording on Sony. The program ends with a piece that Bernstein commissioned for the opening of Philharmonic Hall in 1962, the 12-tone Connotations for Orchestra, probably the last importance public utterance from Copland. Audiences never warmed to his difficult modernist side, but if you can get past the atonality, the underlying gestures in Connotations are remarkably similar to his populist works.

I find it hard to listen to this CD without a catch in my throat, but any listener would find it superb sheerly on musical grounds.

If you are a Copland fan then this CD is for you...couldn't find a better clarinet soloist as Stanley Drucker, our world's top Clarinetist. He can make you laugh, cry, and tap along while he amazes you with his musical abilities. This is THE Clarinet Concerto of the 20th Century! With Berstein at the head of the orchestra, Drucker is in his element of music when paired with Copland.

An excellent recording of Copland, conducted by the conductor who knew and appreciated his music best. The supplier was prompt.

This is the definitive recording of Aaron Copland's American Music. The New York Philharmonic (The oldest orchestra in North America) has done a fantastic job of getting into the essence of fine American music. My favorite is "El Salon Mexico".

Thank you again Amazon for delivering this hard to find CD in pristine condition.

A special performance by special conductor Leonard Bernstein. "El Salón México" brings us to an imaginary Mexican saloon, while in the clarinet concerto, all the technical possibilities and the wooded expressivity of the instrument are explored.