AN AMERICAN PANORAMA
Leonard BERNSTEIN On the Waterfront
(1954)
Roy HARRIS Symphony No. 3
(1937)
Aaron COPLAND Billy the Kid
(1938)
Dallas SO/Eduardo Mata rec
1991
DORIAN DOR-90170
[60.30]
Crotchet
The Bernstein is the star of the collection. Alert and peppy it still remains
open to gentler inspiration as can be heard in the languorous saxophone part.
The music (drawn from the Elia Kazan film score) is understated with a rhapsodic
flute line and that sense of time passing sap-oozingly slow. The tenderly
spinning and leisurely love theme at 10.21 defeats all prejudices about Texans
having chrome-plated hearts. This is music both yielding and probing. Bernstein
is at his freshest with solo trumpet and solo horn in chiming sympathy. If
the busy patter that comes towards the end rings hollow the tragedy is better
reflected in the emotionally distant gamelan decay of the very final pages
presumably written with knowledge of Vaughan Williams' Eighth Symphony.
In the Harris Symphony Mata seems less at home. The key to the success in
this work is the building of an ineluctable emotional momentum. Bernstein's
own first recording, confidently revived on Sony Classics, and reviewed elsewhere
on this site, has the natural touch. Mata is far better recorded (wonderfully
so - listen to the barked out brass at the end!) but his pacing misses the
necessary gestures to secure a coherent end result; instead the denser string
writing coagulates rather than sings. On the positive side though Mata is
excellent at heart's ease - listen to the Sibelian susurration at 7.37 onwards.
There is much to relish here and you will come away with new slants on a
familiar work.
The Copland score is the only one of the three works to be multiply banded.
It is a work which I have always found less than attractive. I am afraid
that it does not rise above this impression here.
Nice documentation and design.
Rob Barnett
