Bernstein Conducts Candide

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
Additional lyrics by John LaTouche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim.

Tracks:

Candide: Act I: Overture
Candide: Act I: Westphalia Chorale
Candide: Act I: Life Is Happiness Indeed
Candide: Act I: The Best Of All Possible Worlds
Candide: Act I: Universal Good
Candide: Act I: Oh, Happy We
Candide: Act I: It Must Be So (Candide's Meditation)
Candide: Act I: Westphalia
Candide: Act I: Battle Music
Candide: Act I: Candide's Lament
Candide: Act I: Dear Boy
Candide: Act I: Auto-da-fe (What a Day)
Candide: Act I: Candide Begins His Travels; It Must Be Me (2nd Meditation)
Candide: Act I: The Paris Waltz
Candide: Act I: Glitter And Be Gay
Candide: Act I: You Were Dead, You Know
Candide: Act I: I Am Easily Assimilated (Old Lady's Tango)
Candide: Act I: Quartet Finale

Tracks:

Candide: Act II: Universal Good
Candide: Act II: My Love
Candide: Act II: We Are Women
Candide: Act II: The Pilgrim's Procession - Alleluia
Candide: Act II: Quiet
Candide: Act II: Introduction To Eldorado
Candide: Act II: The Ballad Of Eldorado
Candide: Act II: Words, Words, Words
Candide: Act II: Bon Voyage
Candide: Act II: The Kings' Barcarolle
Candide: Act II: Money, Money, Money
Candide: Act II: What's The Use
Candide: Act II: The Venice Gavotte
Candide: Act II: Nothing More Than This
Candide: Act II: Universal Good
Candide: Act II: Make Our Garden Grow

Album Description

Additional lyrics by John LaTouche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim.

Customer Reviews:

A BERNSTEIN MUST !!!!!.......2007-01-11

I have owned this recording for some time , but really enjoy giving it as a gift to those who are not aware of the work. It conveys all passion and zeal of a live performance. Only the composer , often with tongue in cheek, could extract this performance from the soloist and orchestra. you can literally feel "Lennie" dancing on the podium and mouthing the lyrics..and who else but bernstein could capture Ludwig,Hadley and Anderson to create the stellar cast.. this recording alone should create interest in a possible broadway revival

To be candid about Candide.......2006-09-06

Has anyone else noticed that as you get older somethings need a second look and they turn out better than you remember them being when you were younger? This is one of those things. For lots of reasons! I find as I get older I appreciate a great many things I did not when I was younger. How could I have missed this? Perhaps Candide just requires too much thought for youth? But this is music you have to listen to rather than just use as background music while you work. For that I still use Harry Potter sound tracks!

In response to one reviewer's comments on this CD:
I DO just give out five stars. I have learned that those who read and vote on reviews already have been attracted enough to the item to look for it and so may vote against your review if you give less! But then, I don't recall being interested in something I wouldn't give five stars to enough to think of doing a review -- which after all turns out to be a good way to help remember things! I have had this CD set for longer than I remember but now that I have listened to it again more carefully and not just to find the piece that was so lovely on the radio -- now is when it occured to me to praise it here. But I even gave Ann Coulter's new book five stars! That review has since disappeared for some reason.

If only... this isn't the recording for me.......2005-10-20

I find the operatic voices grating and the overall effect somewhat lacking, where there should be words all there is is tremolo. My appreciation of this piece is colored by my first exposure to the excellent San Francisco Symphony and Chorus production of 2002 or so. I find Candide and the Governor particularly disappointing. In the SF Symphony performance the finale was a superbly powerful and full bodied affair, if they had been allowed to record it I wouldn't be writing this review now, by contrast the finale on this production is spoiled by the excessive tremolo. As I listen while I write this I've had to take my headphones off so I can remember the way I have heard this instead of how it's performed here.

This is not the production for me.

Elders' take on a masterpiece.......2005-08-29

This is one of Bernstein's farewell productions, performed retrospectively with many old friends. "Slowly, with Love" best describes the approach.

Of the numbers that exist in both, every one except the last ("Make our garden grow") is done with more life and equal or better quality singing in the original cast (mono) recording--a MUST purchase. Only Jerry Hadley equals his counterpart in the earliest recording. All the others, while good actors, have too much vibrato.

The trouble is the original case recording has only some of the music--fortunately, most of the best. Nevertheless, until something better comes along, I will treasure this one for what it represents in Bernstein's life history, and some of the music not in the original case recording, such as the Bach-like chorales, "The Kings' Barcarolle" and the beautiful Canteloube-like orchestration for the "Introduction to Eldorado."

"Martin's Laughing Song," on the other hand, does nothing for me, well performed as it is. It is too nasty, and the tune is too similar to "Show Me" from My Fair Lady.

"Candide" is a masterpiece of sorts. Great music, but difficult to stage. Perhaps a movie with plenty of special effects might do the trick some day.

Happiness Indeed....?.......2004-09-27

While it is important to have a complete "Candide" as Bernstein intended it...it's hard to believe that this is how he intended it.

This version sounds great on the stereo, but is utterly un-stageable. Most of the numbers, even the beloved overture, are conducted at a tempo that is much to slow. The operatic voices are sort of a blessing...but mostly a curse. Jerry Hadley is perfect in the title roll, but the rest of the singers are a mish-mash of thick European accents that mangle Wilbur's lyrics. Couldn't Bernstein find American, or even British, singers who could handle the lyrical requirements.

The search for the "perfect" Candide, staged and recorded, continues.....

Average customer rating:

Fair performance, lousy remaster SACD sound
Adding my five stars
Bernstein Blazes
Great performance, mediocre sound
Great performance, mediocre sound

Bernstein Conducts Bernstein [SACD]

Manufacturer: Sony
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Ballets | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B00004L8FB
Release Date: 2000-02-08

Customer Reviews:

Fair performance, lousy remaster SACD sound.......2006-05-28

These performances, dating from the early '60s, are Bernstein being Bernstein - emotional and flashy. While it's good to have the master conducting his own works for posterity, some of the performances are, truthfully, far from his best. The "Candide" Overture is far more satisfying on the original cast album - here it seems forced, rushed and fussy. The "Waterfront" music has always struck me as bombastic and treachly - I guess Lenny thought he needed to hit moviegoers over the head (this was his sole effort as a film composer), and as lovely as passages of the dance music from "West Side Story" are in this suite, the whole business seems an after-thought to a great show. That leaves "Fancy Free," and there are far better recordings, including the one (probably out of print) Lenny did a few years after the premiere in 1943. That version, with the original recorded vocal prologue by Billie Holiday, was far livelier and rang with the big-band sensiblities of the era. Also better are the old Ballet Theater Orchestra recordings of the score. As for the sound on SACD, it's pretty miserable: Columbia was doing a lot of multiple miking by the early '60s but these recordings (all from different sessions with different producers and engineers) sound weirdly distance and unfocused, as though the mikes were in the upper balcony of a vast, empty opera house. I'd suggest you skip this and get the Royal Edition Sony CD which has the same recordings of "Fancy Free" and "Waterfront" and a big bonus - a short suite of Lenny's dance music for "On The Town."

Adding my five stars.......2005-09-11

Seeing that the reviewer who inexplicably gave these great performances three stars got posted twice, I thought I'd add another five-star review to balance that error. Unbeatable recordings, and the sound is excellent for its era--big, broad, brassy stereo from the sixties.

Bernstein Blazes.......2001-12-23

Bernstein leads these performances with snap, drama and excitement. The SACD remastering improves the original sound considerably.
There may be others, but no one does it like Lenny.

Great performance, mediocre sound.......2001-11-01

This SACD is a wonderful compilation of Bernstein's works conducted by himself. The drawback of this album is the sound quality. As it is a compilation taken from various recording sessions, the sound is varied due to different microphone placement and the approach of each session's concept. Keep in mind Columbia recordings are not always up to the audiophile standard like ones from RCA or Mercury Records in the same period. Nevertheless, the DSD transfer of this SACD is superb and it allows you to hear clearly the difference of the tonal character from different recording sessions. Buy it if you're Bernstein's fan but if it's for sonic alone, you won't be satisfied with this album.

Great performance, mediocre sound.......2001-11-01

Bernstein Conducts Gershwin, Bernstein, Barber

Average customer rating:

Bernstein Conducts Gershwin, Bernstein, Barber

Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B000001GBG
Release Date: 1990-03-29

Tracks:

Rhapsody In Blue
On The Town: I The Great Lover
On The Town: II Lonely Town: Pas de deux
On The Town: Times Square: 1944
Adagio For Strings
Overture to 'Candide'
'West Side Story': Symphonic Dances: Prologue
'West Side Story': Symphonic Dances: 'Somewhere'
'West Side Story': Symphonic Dances: Scherzo
'West Side Story': Symphonic Dances: Mambo
'West Side Story': Symphonic Dances: Cha-Cha
'West Side Story': Symphonic Dances: Meeting Scene
'West Side Story': Symphonic Dances: 'Cool', Fugue
'West Side Story': Symphonic Dances: Rumble
'West Side Story': Symphonic Dances: Finale
'West Side Story': Symphonic Dances: America

Average customer rating:

Mostly valuable for what's not duplicated

Bernstein Conducts Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B00006L76Y
Release Date: 2003-04-08

Customer Reviews:

Mostly valuable for what's not duplicated.......2006-09-21

Once he departed for Europe, Bernstein rarely recorded again in the U.S. These recordings demonstrate his loyalty to the Israel Phil., with whom he duplicated many things he had already recorded in New York. This set is equally a testimonry to his love affair with the Vienna Phil, which sounds a little out of touch in American music. The original recordings from NY on Sony surpass the remakes in vigor and freshness. Even so, it's nice to get the Kaddish Sym. with revised narration, and to hear Gidon Kremer in the Serenade for violin and orchestra.

This 7-disc set also includes later Bernstein compositions that never appeared on Sony, in particular Songest and Jubilee Games. But the singers aren't particularly good in the former recording and the piece isn't very good in the latter. All in all, I think only a Bernstein completist would seek out this collection. Better to stick with the wonderful recordings originally made in New York in Bernstein's heyday.

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