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November 10, 2016:

LENNY

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, as you know, I’ve been having quite the musical journey over the last few weeks. I’ve pulled lots of classical music off the shelves of the hall closet, put over a thousand tracks into iTunes and, more importantly, have rediscovered a lot of old musical friends as well as reacquainting myself with some musical friends I didn’t know that well, and that has led me to discovering some new music and composers I didn’t know at all. As I would search for more music by a favorite, I’d find on Amazon a recommendation for another composer I hadn’t heard of, I’d go to You Tube and it’s really surprising how much great stuff is up there. I found the way to save that stuff as mp3s and have had some major discoveries there. And then there’s always the odd occurrence when you come upon something in the closet that you didn’t remember you had and that you’d never even opened. Such was the case yesterday – a 10-CD box set of Bernstein Conducts Bernstein – all his Columbia albums, all housed in those wonderful mini-LP sleeves I love so much. This collection, in fact, was called the Original Jackets Collection.

Now, I had a lot of these already on CD – in fact, I’d pulled out some of those older ones because I didn’t know I had this box, and I’d transferred a couple of things. But now I can get rid of all those because while I’m not sure if these have been remastered, to my ears they do sound better than the previous CDs – that may be my ear playing tricks on me, or perhaps they were remastered back in 2008 when this release came out. In any case, I haven’t heard a lot of these albums, especially in their original configurations in ages. Leonard Bernstein, or Lenny as his friends called him, was a wonderful composer and a completely unique voice in American music. And while his conducting eventually overshadowed his composing, hearing his music now is really interesting, because it remains as fresh and vibrant as it was back when it came out. I began with an album I had as a teen that I played to death – the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, along with the Overture from Candide, selections from his ballet Fancy Free, and the Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront. It is, simply put, one of the best albums ever made. It has that amazing Columbia stereo sound, and the performance is riveting. I’m not a fan of any of Mr. Bernstein’s later recordings of his music – he’d become way too ponderous for me and none of them had that electrifying Columbia sound.

The West Side Story dances are incredible – all that fantastic music beautifully played. The Overture to Candide is my favorite recording of that piece, and the On the Waterfront Suite is brilliant and the Fancy Free selections are fine, but more about them in a minute. Then it was on to Symphony No. 1 (Jeremiah), an absolutely beautiful piece of work, again in that glorious stereo sound. It’s coupled with Symphony No. 2 (The Age of Anxiety) and that is one of my all-time favorite symphonies, in which the piano plays a very important part. For this stereo recording, Bernstein, at the insistence of pianist Phillippe Entremont, added some pianistic stuff to the final movement – about two-and-a-half minutes of it, as in the original version the piano is silent until the very last measure of the final movement. It’s a very fine performance, but again, more about that in a minute.

The next disc was also the second symphony, but this time his original mono recording with Lukas Foss on piano and obviously the original final movement. Well, it’s an absolutely brilliant performance – played faster, more detail, and that final movement is simply better without the extra minutes – it’s much more focused and dynamic. And it’s GREAT mono sound, too. It has a companion piece for violin and strings that was very good. I enjoyed Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs for Clarinet and Orchestra and the three dances from On the Town, played so beautifully, and Serenade after Plato’s Symposium, which is a very interesting piece. And then another earlier performance in mono, Fancy Free again. And again, this earlier performance is even better and the mono sound is excellent here, too. Which brings me to the piece that’s playing as I write these here notes, his ballet for Jerome Robbins, The Dybbuk. I don’t know this piece at all, but I’m really liking it a lot.

Prior to all that listening, I’d gotten eight hours of sleep, but was very groggy when I arose. I did the usual stuff – printed out orders, answered e-mails, and then we shipped all the Paris When it Sizzles CDs, so those are on their merry way. Then I went and had a pastrami sandwich with no fries or onion rings, did some banking, then came home. Once home, I buckled down, Winsocki, and wrote all the stuff I need for this morning’s commentary track for the upcoming Blu and Ray of Tom Sawyer, which I’m doing with Richard Sherman for our very own Nick Redman and Twilight Time. I have about three pages of notes and the good news about Richard is that once you get him going he can go for a very long time, and he remembers everything and will, I’m sure, cover things I don’t even know about. But I’m there to prod and keep it moving and hopefully I’ve got enough stuff so we can pace ourselves for the entire 97-minutes or whatever it runs. But the good news is, with Richard even if we exhaust Tom Sawyer stories, there are a million other things to talk about. That took a few hours. When I began I was still going through the Malcolm Arnold symphonies, most, but not all of which, I really like. At some point I began uploading the Bernstein stuff and listening as I did so. I really didn’t leave the computer for most of the day and evening.

I didn’t even have time to think about watching anything. At about nine I realized I could use a little snack, since I hadn’t eaten anything since noon, so I got a couple of small chicken tenders from Gelson’s and a little thing of their tasty stuffing. I came home and ate it all up, whilst continuing my listening to Bernstein conduct Bernstein.

I promised some photos and videos so here they are. First here is a photo of our merry Kritzerland troupe from last Sunday. Left to right we have Amy Gillette, Jenna Lea Rosen, Doug Haverty, Samantha Rosenberg, Sami Staitman, Robert Yacko, John Boswell, Carly Shukiar, li’l ol’ me and Maegan McConnell, and in front, Carly Bracco.

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Here’s Samantha, Sami, and Carly.

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And here’s the video of their number – the nightmare version of Not Getting Married Today as if channeling the Maguire Sisters – an incredibly difficult harmony, which they do really well.

Here’s the ubiquitous Sami and me photograph from Sunday night.

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And here’s one from Monday night after The Brain.

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Here’s a video of Jenna Lea Rosen doing my arrangement of You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow/Not a Day Goes By. Our own Rob Stevens raved about her performance – go read the review.

And finally, here’s Sami doing the incredibly wordy and difficult More from Dick Tracy, which she did an amazing job with, especially considering she had to learn it and all her Brain material for the back-to-back shows.

More videos in tomorrow’s notes.

Today, I’ll be up by eight, Richard will arrive at ten and we’ll mosey on over to the sound studio to do our commentary – it’s only about seven minutes from here. Afterwards, we’ll have a nice lunch with Nick. Then I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll jog (couldn’t yesterday – think I pulled a little something in my lower back, but it’s feeling a bit better now), and then maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to sit on my couch like so much fish.

Tomorrow and the weekend are unknown to me, and after the crazy week I’ve just had, I wouldn’t mind if I could just relax, but I do have to finish choosing Kritzerland songs, a set of liner notes, and getting people their material. Luckily a lot of the holiday show is stuff we’ve done before and won’t require too much new commentary.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a commentary, eat, do a jog, hopefully pick up packages, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What is your favorite music of Leonard Bernstein? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have spent most of the day with Lenny’s grand music, which kept my spirits high.

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