The premiere of this concerto took place at a marathon concert organized by Beethoven at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien on 22 December 1808. The program included the world premieres of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6, the Vienna premiere of the Piano Concerto No. 4, and excerpts from other works by Beethoven – more than four hours of demanding contemporary music by a “difficult” composer! The soloist opens the concerto with a theme that seems like a gentle echo of the forceful “Fate” theme that opens the Fifth Symphony. The Andante is a kind of dialogue between the two different temperaments: the stark and stern strings, and the gentle, pleading piano. The boisterous finale rushes through a variety of contrasting moods before bringing the piece to a rousing close. Leonard Bernstein recorded this work in an all-Beethoven concert with the Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio at Munich’s Deutsches Museum in 1976. The soloist was Claudio Arrau.
Tchaikovsky, Symphony No.5 in E minor, op.64
Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony was recorded at the Tanglewood Festival in 1974 in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Serge Koussevitzky. Leonard Bernstein conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Tchaikovsky’s Fifth was one of Koussevitzky’s warhorses during the many years in which he led the Boston Symphony. “It was like Koussevitzky’s signature, his theme song, one of his national hymns, and I felt his presence on stage very strongly.” (Leonard Bernstein)
Mozart, Requiem K. 626
The Requiem is not only Mozart’s last composition, but also the one most shrouded in mystery. The purportedly enigmatic patron who ordered the work and the fatal illness that befell Mozart while he was working on it long nurtured the macabre legend of Mozart composing his own Requiem mass commissioned by Death himself. The Requiem was completed by Mozart’s friend and pupil Franz Saver Süssmayr on the basis of Mozart’s sketches and instructions. The somber woodwinds and brass, the artless melodies and the stirring shifts from intricate contrapuntal writing to mighty homophonic blocks convey an otherworldly, apocalyptic feeling seldom encountered in Mozart’s works. Despite its almost operatic solo passages and large orchestra, the Requiem was intended for the church, and is indeed an ideal work for the theatrically sumptuous and brilliant Baroque churches of Austria and southern Germany. The abbey church in Diessen (Bavaria) is a splendid example: completely rebuilt in the early 18th century by one of the leading South-German Baroque architects, it provides an admirable setting for Leonard Bernstein’s sensitive conducting of the Requiem. This production, which the Maestro dedicated to his wife Felicia Montealegre on the tenth anniversary of her death, is a moving and memorable tribute to commemorate Mozart’s and others’ deaths.
Schumann, Cello Concerto in A minor, op.129
Recorded at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris in November 1976, Schumann’s Cello Concerto marked the high point of a concert given by the Orchestre National de France under Leonard Bernstein. The soloist was Mstislav Rostropovich, the leading cellist of our time and a talented conductor as well.
Debussy, La mer
“The sea has been very good to me”, wrote Debussy to his publisher shortly before he finished “La Mer”. “She has shown me all her moods.” Debussy began his three symphonic sketches in 1903. The work was premiered in Paris on 15 October 1905. The first piece, “From Dawn Until Noon on the Sea”, begins with low, sustained strings which give an impression of the immense power of the ocean. In the second piece, “The Play of the Waves”, the ocean whips itself into a fury, with rainbow colorings appearing and vanishing in fountains of spray. The “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea” opens on a deep, threatening note, as if announcing a coming storm. After a siren-like call, the chorale heard in the first movement returns in an exultant climax. “I truly admire this orchestra and hope it becomes better known abroad,” confided Leonard Bernstein in 1989 to the audience in Rome’s Auditorio Pio before his concert of works by Claude Debussy (1862-1918) with the prestigious “Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia.” In the words of Rome’s “Il Giornale,” Bernstein served up a “Debussy that is neither ethereal nor shapeless, but uncommonly vital, caught in the full light of noon.”
Beethoven, Symphony No.7 in A major, op.92
The first performance of this work in 1813 was a spectacular event. The long awaited Seventh was completed in May 1812 when the Austrian capital was recovering from the French occupation. The defeat of Napoleon’s armies made the concert an occasion for celebration, and this historical event helped ensure the work’s enormous popularity and the composer’s lasting fame. The Seventh Symphony is one of the best examples of how Beethoven used simple harmonies and filled them with energetic, repetitive rhythms, which never become monotonous because of the fresh harmonic progressions that accompany them. This recording is part of Bernstein’s complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra live in Vienna. The series won the Ace Award, the U.S. Cable TV Association’s top award for outstanding quality and entertainment value. Bernstein’s impassioned renderings of Beethoven move audiences in a unique way. “Beethoven has always meant universality to me, ever since my early adolescence, when I first heard that unforgettable cry of ‘Brüder!’. From that moment on, every… symphony came to mean heart-to-heart communication, travelling satellite-fashion via the cosmos itself. I offer [this cycle] to all music-loving ears as a testament of faith and of my most profound reactions to this greatest of all composers.” (Leonard Bernstein, 1980)
Beethoven, Symphony No.9 in D minor, op.125 “Choral”
Completed in 1824, after six years of work, the Ninth is the most awesome and inspiring of Beethoven’s symphonies, employing a large orchestra, four vocal soloists and chorus. The final movement is considered by many to be the composer’s crowning glory. It had been Beethoven’s lifelong dream to set Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” to music, for the poem put into words Beethoven’s most impassioned desire: peace and brotherhood in the world. The Ninth is an affirmation of optimism and beauty, written when Beethoven was almost completely deaf. This work is part of Leonard Bernstein’s complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra live in Vienna. The series won the Ace Award, the National (U.S.) Cable TV Association’s top award for outstanding quality and entertainment value. Bernstein’s impassioned renderings of Beethoven – so transparent and contemporary in their message – move audiences in a unique way. “Beethoven has always meant universality to me, ever since my early adolescence, when I first heard that unforgettable cry of ‘Brüder!’. From that moment on, every… symphony came to mean heart-to-heart communication, travelling satellite-fashion via the cosmos itself. I offer [this cycle] to all music-loving ears as a testament of faith and of my most profound reactions to this greatest of all composers.” (Leonard Bernstein, 1980)
Tchaikovsky, Symphony No.4 in F minor, op.36
Winner of a prestigious Emmy Award in 1976, Leonard Bernstein’s recording of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony with the New York Philharmonic captures the full drama and emotional depth of the work. Filmed live at Avery Fisher Hall on 24 April 1975, the concert was an overwhelming success. Bernstein returned to the Fourth again and again, and conducted it in 1989 in his last appearance at Avery Fisher Hall. Critics called this interpretation “rivetingly, definitively manic-depressive”. He had come to identify as closely with Tchaikovsky as he had with Mahler, and gave searingly intense interpretations of both composers.
Brahms, Piano Concerto No.2 in B flat major, op.83
Between 1981 and 1984, Leonard Bernstein recorded nearly all of Brahms’s orchestral works with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra to honor the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 1983. Today, the cycle is considered as a landmark in the interpretation of Brahms’ music. For Bernstein, Brahms was “a true Romantic, containing his passions in classical garb”, but also a “North-German classicist swept away to Vienna, and fired by Danubian, Carpathian and gypsy passions”. Bearing this dualism in mind, Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic have underscored both the classicism and romanticism, the dramatic intensity and the sober restraint of Brahms’s music. The venue was Vienna’s Musikvereinssaal, where two of Brahms’s symphonies were premiered and where Brahms himself conducted. The soloist in Brahms’s concerto is the Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman, who launched his meteoric career when he won the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1975. An important influence in his youth was his friendship with Artur Rubinstein, and other landmarks in his career arose through his work with conductors such as Bernstein, Giulini and Karajan.
Beethoven, Symphony No.3 in E flat major, op.55 “Eroica”
Beethoven originally dedicated this symphony to Napoleon, whom he saw as the champion of the common man, a hero pursuing the ideals of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. However, upon hearing that Napoleon had declared himself emperor, Beethoven became furious and tore up the title page containing the dedication. The “Eroica” marks one of the turning points in music history, heralding a new age in symphonic style. Prior to this work, Beethoven had been a composer with roots in the 18th century. The Third Symphony’s length and the nature of its thematic material, emotional depth, range and harmonic daring set it apart from any earlier symphonic work. This recording is part of Bernstein’s complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra live in Vienna. The series won the Ace Award, the U.S. Cable TV Association’s top award for outstanding quality and entertainment value. Bernstein’s impassioned renderings of Beethoven move audiences in a unique way. “Beethoven has always meant universality to me, ever since my early adolescence, when I first heard that unforgettable cry of ‘Brüder!’. From that moment on, every… symphony came to mean heart-to-heart communication, travelling satellite-fashion via the cosmos itself. I offer [this cycle] to all music-loving ears as a testament of faith and of my most profound reactions to this greatest of all composers.” (Leonard Bernstein, 1980)