Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op 61 (1845)
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
Divertimento for Orchestra (1980)
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/Leonard Bernstein
rec. live, 10 & 11 November, 1983, Herkulessaal der Residenz, Munich
BR Klassik 900226 [57]

I learned from Rüdiger Heinze’s booklet note that Leonard Bernstein first conducted in Germany in 1948. In 1976 he made his debut with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) in a concert, at least part of which has been issued as an earlier BR Klassik release (review). Subsequently, starting in 1983, he began a series of annual visits to conduct the orchestra and from those concerts BR Klassik has already issued a 1987 account of Schubert’s ‘Great’ C major symphony (review).

I think Bernstein played Schumann’s symphonies throughout his career. There’s a performance of the Second with the Boston Symphony dating from as far back as March 1946 in a box of historic Bernstein performances issued some years ago (review). At the other end of his career, between 1984 and 1985, DG captured live performances of all four symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic (review); earlier, he’d recorded the symphonies in New York in 1960. It’s relevant to this present release to note that the Vienna performance of the Second was given in November 1985. I’ve not heard that performance but I wasn’t surprised to see that Bernstein’s timings for all four movements were almost identical to the timings of this 1983 Munich traversal. That will be of particular relevance when we come to consider the slow movement. It’s been quite a few years since I last read Humphrey Burton’s substantial 1994 biography of Bernstein but when I consulted it, I discovered that the Schumann Second was a particular favourite of Lennie’s father, Sam. When Sam died in 1969, Bernstein altered the programme of his next New York Philharmonic concert and played the Schumann work in the second half (his own Jeremiah Symphony, dedicated to his father, occupied the first half).

This 1983 performance has a lot going for it. The Sostenuto assai introduction to the first movement is spacious – in an entirely good way – after which the main allegro is cheerful and spirited; the performance has lots of energy. The Scherzo, too, has great vitality and the trios are nicely done. It’s the reading of the Adagio espressivo that is likely to be controversial. In 1946 the young Bernstein played this in 11:15, a timing which, give or take a minute, is roughly par for the course in my experience. This present performance takes 13:28, nearly identical with his Vienna/DG reading. I’ve never heard his New York Philharmonic performance but I checked online and found that it plays for 12:52. (Interestingly, the New York and Munich timings for the other three movements were pretty similar.) Arguably, in this spacious Munich performance Bernstein overplays his hand somewhat. Having said that, the interpretation is deeply felt and the music is eloquently played by the BRSO. I found much to admire in this dedicated account of the music. The finale is joyful; the music is energetically projected and the symphony ends triumphantly. Though I could well understand if some listeners feel that the slow movement is too expansive, I enjoyed this performance of the symphony.    

 Also on the programme at this pair of Munich concerts was Bernstein’s own Divertimento. It’s an odd juxtaposition on the CD; I wonder what else was performed at the concert itself.  Divertimento was composed in 1980 for the centenary of the Boston Symphony. The booklet notes say very little indeed about the music; that’s disappointing, since purchasers of the disc may be unfamiliar with the piece. The author of the notes, Rüdiger Heinze mentions that all of the work’s eight short movements are built around the notes B and C. What he could usefully have added is that those notes were deliberately chosen since they form the initial letters of Boston Centennial. In his aforementioned biography of the composer, Humphrey Burton quotes Bernstein’s comments to the Boston Globe that the work is “a fun piece” and that it “reflects my youthful experiences here where I heard my first orchestral music”. 

I enjoyed this performance. The first movement, ‘Sennets and Tuckets’ is sharply etched and strongly projected. The following gentle ‘Waltz’, which uses only the strings, has a charmingly hesitant character occasioned by Bernstein’s use of irregular time signatures. Later on, the gawky humour of ‘Turkey Trot’ comes across well. There’s a ‘Blues’ movement which caused me to wonder if the BRSO had ever been asked to play a Blues piece prior to this; they do it convincingly. The last of the eight movements is a march, ‘The BSO forever’. But Bernstein doesn’t plunge straight into a celebratory finale. Instead, the march is preceded by a strange, rather spooky and slow canon for three flutes. Burton tells us that this was intended to evoke Koussevitsky, Munch and other members of the orchestra who had passed away; he adds that it was Bernstein’s favourite passage in the work. That episode leads straight into the uproarious march which is, I gather a pastiche of the ‘Radetzky March’, a staple of the Boston Pops concerts. The BRSO enters right into the spirit of the music.

So, this CD gives us two sides of Bernstein; the serious interpreter of the standard repertoire and the composer/conductor who could, in his own compositions, let his hair down while maintaining musical rigour. This must have been one of the first concerts – perhaps the very first – in what became Bernstein’s annual visits to the BRSO; from what I hear I’d say there was already a rapport between conductor and orchestra. It’s an enjoyable listening experience.

The 1983 sound has come up very well in this CD transfer. The booklet note is serviceable but a bit more information about the music, the Bernstein work in particular, would have been welcome.

John Quinn

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