Can Leonard Bernstein be redeemed from himself?

Can Leonard Bernstein be redeemed from himself?

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norman lebrecht

July 20, 2018

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

Numerous bids are being made in this centennial year to redeem Leonard Bernstein’s three symphonies from their fatal flaws. None that I have heard makes a better fist of it than Antonio Pappano’s new set with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

Pappano, who met Bernstein as his would-be repetiteur on an opera production, has a keen empathy for the composer’s melting-pot background. From first note to last, he tones down gestural excesses and desperate self-borrowings. The Rome orchestra plays like a Broadway pick-up band – Broadway usually recruited the best players in New York – and the soloists are exquisitely well-chosen.

Does that redeem the symphonies? That would be an impossible dream…..

Read on here.

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