Customer Reviews

Peter Pan (2005 Studio Cast) - Leonard Bernstein

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4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Lovely songs, and for those of you who are skeptical that there'snot enough to make a whole LP out of, I'm here to reassure you that you are definitely getting your money's worth. Thirty tracks (all right, some of them less than a minute long) and some of them go on and on in fully realized and orchestrated.

"Who Am I?" is almost a success, there's some wonderful writing on it, and the ideas Wendy is trying to express are grand ones, almost like the questions OUR TOWN raises. Is there a plan for us? Is it just chance I was born in July? Wendy muses about how likely it is that she has been reincarnated and next she could come back as anything-even a fly. It's just a little repetitive, and lacks that little something that would have pushed it over the edge into pure pleasure. Linda Eder seems more at home in the tumult and resounding chords of the anthemic "Build My House," which boast the best instrumentals on the whole LP. It's a great tune, and one that will stay with you. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned into a standard high school graduation number a la YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE.

The liner notes tell the whole story, but I would have liked more on the ways in which Boris Karloff and Jean Arthur did or didn't intersect with this music. There are some hints that one or the other Hollywood diva deep-sixed some of the hitherto unknown tunes. What about the gorgeous "Dream With Me"? It seems to me that if you could sing "Build My House," then "Dream With Me" would be a walk in the park. So I don't understand the implication that the music was too difficult.

Another great number is the mermaid's chorale, "Neverland." It is rather like the Jule Styne/Comden & Green number ("It might be miles beyond the moon") from the Mary Martin Peter Pan, lush and melting chords, but this one has more of a sense of humor.

Throughout the score, the wit is sharp. I love Captain Hook's soliloquy in which, after boasting of his fame, he turns depressed as he realizes that when children play Peter Pan at home, they'll do anything rather than have to be Captain Hook. Even dim Smee has more fans.

I didn't much care for "Spring Will Come Again." (This "bonus track" was intended for a Bernstein version of Wilder's SKIN OF OUR TEETH.) It has some nice passages for voice, but it is an example of a lyric which tries hard to be deep but ultimately doesn't have much to say.

All of my hats are off to Alexander Frey, who played detective and discovered all the PETER PAN music during a series of visits to New York, then corralled in some magnificent musicians and actors to perform it for us. It's like opening a pirate chest of gold!

This album is a delightful pendant to the original cast recording with Jean Arthur and Boris Karloff, with the underscoring and orchestrations the true stars of the show, as this recording is their first hearing. Most of the songs are somewhat familiar to Bernstein fans, and much of Bernstein's rendering of Barrie's story is highly sophisticated. A few texts come across as a bit preachy, especially since they are supposed to be sung by a small child, but the overall mood of sweetness tinged with melancholy is exactly right, in keeping with the more serious aspects of the original book: it's all about growing up, and how painful the experience can be. Kudos to Alexander Frey for resurrecting this neglected minor masterpiece.

Linda Eder and Daniel Narducci perform beautifully, particularly Eder (who I've never heard before! There is a touch of Barbara Cook about her). Mr. Narducci's Captain Hook is a little too bland and soft-grained for my taste -- it's difficult to top the great Boris Karloff -- but he does well in Hook's aria (yes, it's a REAL aria). This piece itself, dropped from the original show, is defeated by a text that's too good to set to music, but it's interesting to hear what Peter Pan might have sounded like if it had been turned into an opera.

There are a few surprises in this score. Some of the fight music foreshadows sections of "West Side Story," a few portions may sound a bit like "Candide," but at the point where Tink comes back to life, the orchestra plays a section of the dances from "On The Town!"

My misgivings about the recording have to do with the liner notes. Daniel Felsenfeld refers to Bernstein's "Candide" as a forgotten show. (It has been making the rounds in the opera houses of the world for quite some time, thanks to Bernstein's final revisions; it even had a Broadway revival a few years back; the original cast album is still the best rendition of the score and readily available); also, the singers who make up the chorus, infrequent as their appearances are, remain uncredited (Perhaps it's better not to know who the ladies are. The Mermaid's Song is laden with vibrato and off-pitch sopranos. The gentlemen are great as the pirates); the photos of the recording session are uncredited, and the people in them unidentified (although Bernstein himself is pretty recognizable); Mr. Felsenfeld himself is a mystery -- there is nothing in the booklet to tell us what his part of the project was, if any.

Still, this is an excellent and important recording to have. Now that Bernstein's original music has been discovered and revealed, it's time for someone to stage it!

No one could write a melody line like Leonard Bernstein. Coupled with a gift for rhythm and harmony, he created some truly lovely moments now captured on this recording. The quasi-operetta style of "Candide" is clearly evident in Captain Hook's songs, but it is the lovely and lyrical moments of "Who am I?" and "Dream with Me" that epitomize Bernstein's gifts as a Broadway composer.

The incidental music runs a gamut of styles and moods depending on its place in the show, and all are wonderful examples of his ability to create a mood. Both the vocal and orchestral numbers demonstrate a composer beginning to come into his own, and there are bits here and there which clearly foreshadow his later Broadway and more "classical" works.

Of particular interest is the bonus track, "Spring Will Come Again," intended for a musical version of Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth." It's a gorgeous melody, and when the project was abandoned, Bernstein, like many composers, recycled it. It became the main melody of the second movement of his choral piece, the "Chichester Pslams," composed in 1963 for the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 75th anniversary. (He was a couple years late in delivering it.)

The performers, Linda Eder and Daniel Narducci do a fine job with the material. I highly recommend this.

From what I hear, this is the only recording you can find of Bernstein's Peter Pan...
Alexander Frey does a wonderful job conducting the amazing Amber Chamber Orchestra. Daniel Narducci (as Hook) has a very handsome voice and the lyric Linda Eder (as Wendy)is a pleasant surprise. The chorus pieces that include Hook's pirates are hilarious!

You won't be dissapointed!

This recording is a valuable addition to the music of Leonard Bernstein, but rather an embarassment in the scholarship of assembling a lost show. On the plus side, the music is enchanting, Linda Eder truly stunning in a mix of musical innocence and sophistication, and it is conducted and played quite well. On the negative side, Daniel Narducci's soft baritone has neither enough menace or comedy.

As to reconstructing a lost score, the scholarship is not so hot: what actually existed from the original show and orchestrations? Who orchestrated what among the new pieces? As far as that goes, what of Trude Rittmann and Hershy Kay: who orchestrated what in the original? How does the size of the orchestra on the recording compare to the original production orchestration?

On the music not used in the original, what pieces exist in full and what choices were made in completing others? The recording's notes are woefully inept.

Why use the lovely, but over-inflated, arrangement of "Dream With Me" from the 1977 BY BERNSTEIN revue at the Chelsea Theatre instead of newly orchestrating the extant song sheet? The song, written for ON THE TOWN, needs to fit the song style of PETER PAN's incidental music and not turn into a concert number. In the original production, there were only two Mermaids singing "Neverland." Why a women's chorus with a bad top soprano?

I've always felt the Bernstein score should be available for productions of the play, but this "edition" needs some thought before it's published or made available for performance.

If you don't like classical scores , then this is not the cd for you. But, if you do and you LOVE Linda Eder like I do, then you will be pleasantly surprised . You are in for a delightful treat as Eder takes on the role of Wendy.
Though she only sings 5 songs, she make a tremendous impact on this recording.
Her voice goes to new high as she shows off her lyrical soprano voice. You clearly hear the infulence of opera star Eileen Farrell in her register.
This recording will showcase what a versatile performer she is.

Please allow me to add a few comments about this recording for which Kevin Killian, Michael G. Brennan, Larry Moore and others have already written excellent reviews. I am in total agreement with most of their observations, and a say a hearty "Amen" to Mr. Moore's input regarding the lack of information in the liner notes.

This is not your ordinary PETER PAN, which you will see upon removing the disc from the case. You are now staring into the gaping jaws of a crocodile. Not nearly as popular as the Jule Styne/Betty Comden/Adolph Green version, and far darker, it's easy to understand why Bernstein's version is rarely staged. In fact, it's not really a musical, but rather a play with songs and incidental music. The handful of songs are all performed by Wendy, Captain Hook, and the pirates -- "none for Peter, none for Nana, none for John and Michael." Furthermore, two of the songs included on this recording ("Captain Hook's Soliloquy" and "Dream with Me") were dropped from the original production because they were too difficult for the stars. I guess Boris Karloff just didn't have the chops to sing Hook's "aria."

Bernstein's incidental music also never made it to Broadway, perhaps because of its complexity and challenge to the average Broadway pit orchestra. Instead, Alec Wilder wrote new incidental music for the play.

Alexander Frey conducts what is called the Amber Orchestra, which I assume is the orchestra of the Karlin Theater in Prague, Czechoslovakia, the ensemble he conducts as his "day job." Orchestra and conductor do great honor to the original orchestrations by Trude Rittman & Hershy Kay and also to the additional orchestrations of conductor Frey and others. But, like Larry Moore, I wish the liner notes would have told us who orchestrated what. (You can find all that information on archivmusic.com.) The voices were recorded in New York and later mixed with the orchestra. Broadway goes Eastern European! Similarly, not one, but two Eastern European orchestras ar heard on the recording of SHERRY: the Czech Philharmonic Chamber & the Bratislava Radio Symphony. Pity it's too costly to record orchestras in America.

When it comes to writing music for the theater, no one comes close to Leonard Bernstein. There are multiple recordings of ON THE TOWN, WONDERFUL TOWN, WEST SIDE STORY, & CANDIDE and now we have Alexander Frey and the folks at KOCH Classics to thank for resurrecting and preserving this little known Bernstein score. In addition to Bernstein's Broadway scores, I enthusiastically recommend "The White House Cantata" (assembled from the score of 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE), "The Chichester Psalms," the chamber opera "Trouble in Tahiti," and any of the fine recording of his songs.

I doubt if we'll ever see another composer who will write so beautifully for the American theatre.

A fabulous recording-beautifully sung, beautifully conducted
This world premiere recording of Leonard Bernstein's Peter Pan should win a Grammy. With a steller cast led by Broadway superstars Linda Eder and Daniel Narducci, and fabulously conducted by Alexander Frey (who restored and brought this lost masterpiece to life), this great music sings and dances for the first time. I'm absolutely enchanted and you will be as well.

Linda Eder never stops amazing me and just when I thought I heard everything her voice had to offer, she completely blows all expectations away and really amazes with this recording. Her rendition of 'Who am I' alone is worth buying the CD for; get ready to hear Linda as we have never heard her before !Highly recommended!!

There is much to recommend about this recording of Leonard Bernstein's incidental and vocal music written for the 1950 Broadway production of "Peter Pan," which starred Jean Arthur and Boris Karloff. Most (though not all) of the vocal music has been commercially recorded before, but the incidental music hasn't been, with one partial exception: track 20 -- "Tinkerbell Sick! Tinkerbell Lives!" -- contains a bit of ballet music from "On the Town."

As is often the case with incidental music for plays, many of the numbers are quite short. Some of the music is nothing special and can't be said to represent Bernstein at anything like his best, but some is quite lovely.

The orchestral performance here is generally very clean and the playing is nicely expressive. Conductor Alexander Frey deserves credit for that, as well for being the person who got this music back out there.

Linda Eder sings Wendy's songs. (Peter doesn't sing at all in this version, which isn't really a full musical.) She understandably eschews her usual style to try to sound like an adolescent girl, singing mostly in head voice and with little vibrato. Because of this, I find her sound rather piercing and somewhat unpleasant at times. While she's putting forth a good effort that I have to admire, I do wish that she had managed to sound less piercing. It's not as if all adolescent girls sound that way when they sing.

I also wish she had managed to convey a bit more specificity in her phrasing of the lyrics. When I listen to Marcia Henderson on the recording of the 1950 production, I hear someone who wasn't much of a singer but who knew how to convey lyrics.

The other major soloist, Daniel Narducci, playing Captain Hook, sings quite well, but he isn't ideal casting. Boris Karloff on the 1950 recording makes much more of the words in the music that he sings (which doesn't include "Captain Hook's Soliloquy," heard on this recording but which was not in the 1950 Broadway production). And Karloff is funny. For one thing, he doesn't have a very pleasant voice so when he sings "Eat blood! Drink blood! Think blood! Dream blood!" to Bernstein's mellifluous melody and tries to sound beautiful, it's funny because he can't manage it. When Daniel Narducci sings it, he does sound beautiful, which is pleasant but less interesting. Narducci sings very nicely and he has the right general idea most of the time, but (as with Eder) his phrasing lacks specificity and he also lacks the sense of ridiculous seriousness that would make him funny.

The male chorus of pirates performs well, but the rougher chorus in the 1950 recording is funnier and more characterful.

"Neverland," a lovely choral number for women, sounds very pretty, but it might sound better still with a smaller chorus that conveyed the words more clearly.

I don't want to be too negative about this recording, which I'm very glad to have. It's an important document, and everyone involved is talented and accomplished and puts forth a good effort. I'm just not sure that all of them were the best choices. Still, there's some very good music here, some of which hasn't been recorded before, so if you're a Bernstein fan, you're going to want this.

Now I'll explain the "don't trust everything you read" statement above: In the booklet for this recording, Alexander Frey writes that "in the original 1950 production, most of the music was actually instrumental underscoring ... that had been composed by Alec Wilder." This is not correct. No music by Alec Wilder was heard in the 1950 Broadway production.

Some time after this recording was issued, Garth Edwin Sunderland (one of the orchestrators credited on this recording) did correct this misinformation in an article that appeared in the Bernstein Society's publication, "prelude, fugue and riffs." Sunderland wrote:

"For the original cast recording, Bernstein's instrumental numbers, for reasons unknown, were replaced with new cues by Alec Wilder (which has led to the misconception that Bernstein's incidental music was not used in the Broadway production)."

A number of people knew all along that only Bernstein's music was heard in the production, among them the writer on Broadway musicals Ken Mandelbaum, who mentioned it in his online review of the recording. It's odd that both Frey, who was said to have done years of research to restore the score, and the people in charge of the Bernstein estate didn't know such basic information. If such a basic part of the research wasn't done, it's a little hard to trust that the rest of the work was done correctly.

Making it odder is that elsewhere in the booklet, notes by Daniel Felsenfeld quote from opening night reviews that praised Bernstein for his (as one of the critics put it) "excellent musical accompaniment for the action." Surely if Wilder had written the incidental music, the critics would have mentioned Wilder (who was hardly unknown in 1950) as well as Bernstein. So it really is a bit of a mystery why Frey and the Bernstein people didn't realize that Wilder's music wasn't heard in the production.

There's also an incorrect statement in Felsenfeld's notes. He writes that "Captain Hook's Soliloquy" was one of two vocal numbers not in the Broadway production "mostly due to lack of vocal ability on the part of the actors," but the aria wasn't even written till later, specifically for Lawrence Tibbett, who played Hook in a post-Broadway tour.

And it would have been nice if the history of "Dream With Me" had been addressed. As Larry Moore mentions in his Amazon customer's review of this recording, there's reason to believe that it was written for "On the Town," although it was not used in that show. Bernstein wanted to include it in "Peter Pan," but it went unused there as well. When asked about the song many years later, Adolph Green, who wrote the lyrics for "On the Town" with Betty Comden, said that he and Comden wrote the lyric, except perhaps for a few lines that Bernstein may have contributed. Yet Comden and Green receive no credit in the booklet here.

Also, Trude Rittman made important contributions to the score, but they are not mentioned in the notes, though at least she gets credit as one of the original orchestrators.