This CD is a co-production
between Naxos and the Milken Archive
of American Jewish music. It is accompanied
with excellent and extensive notes by
Neil W. Levin, and a nicely written
tribute to Leonard Bernstein by Jack
Gottlieb.
Bernstein’s Kaddish
is a very personal work. The booklet
notes investigate a number of interpretations
of the word, but the opening invocation,
in Bernstein’s own text, has the moving
‘Oh my Father ... I want to say Kaddish
... there may be no-one to say it
after me.’ This the middle-aged Bernstein’s
artistic and emotional statement, in
which he sums up his relationship with
two great points of orientation to which
we can all relate in one way or another
– his own father, who died but a few
years after the first version of the
symphony was completed, and faith, represented
by God the Father.
I am generally wary
of symphonic works with declamatory
speakers – an American tradition which
includes Copland’s ‘Lincoln Portrait’
(gloriously lambasted by P.D.Q. Bach)
and with examples like Schwantner’s
dodgy ‘New Meaning for the World, "Daybreak
of Freedom"’ to make us grateful
for good old-fashioned recitative. Kaddish
is in a class of its own however,
and this performance does it justice.
To start with, the spoken part is in
the safe, if slightly other-worldly
hands of Willard White. His is inevitably
more of an ‘Uncle Tom’ reading than
a ‘Moses und Aron’ one (in fact
the original performances and Bernstein’s
own recordings were done with female
voices), but neither this nor Yvonne
Kenny’s vibrato prove problematic. The
Liverpool orchestra’s powerful playing
is well recorded, and only one or two
examples of choral indiscipline (both
here and in the Psalms) provide
fleeting aural offence.
Much of Bernstein’s
music is craggy and unsentimental, reflecting
its serial origins in searing counterpoint,
tough chords and solidly conventional
orchestration. Calum Macdonald’s LPO
concert programme notes, quoted in the
CD booklet, rightly point out this works
relationship - however uneasy - to other
vocal-orchestral symphonic pieces (Beethoven’s
ninth and Mahler’s eighth) whose basis
in faith ultimately speak to us with
a humanistic voice. Potential listeners
should not miss out on this by fearing
some kind of Jewish alienation or religious
hectoring from either the vocal text
or the musical score. It by no means
‘light’ music, despite one or two moments
of jazz inflection, but with an impassioned
performance by all concerned it is guaranteed
to leave a deep and lasting impression.
Chichester Psalms,
a choral mainstay when referring to
Judaically related programming, kicks
off with gusto, in even more than the
‘slightly popular’ style that those
who commissioned the work (the artistically
enlightened Dean of Chichester Cathedral,
the Very Reverend Dr. Walter Hussey)
might have had in mind. Dr. Hussey ensured
that Bernstein was allowed complete
artistic freedom in his composition,
and was rewarded with joy, serenity
and eloquence in a work which has already
proved its worth with a permanent place
in the concert repertoire. Bernstein
himself said that ‘the Psalms are like
an infantile version of Kaddish’,
thereby blessing the coupling on this
CD, which is of course identical to
those of his own NY Philharmonic recording.
It has been too long since hearing the
NY Phil/Bernstein record for me to make
any really useful comparison. Those
who know and love those elderly recordings
will probably find the current CD does
not replace it for musical intensity
or dramatic fervour, but with the advantage
of modern digital technology this low-price
issue has much to recommend it, and
would be a valuable addition to any
collection.
Dominy Clements
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir, Liverpool
Philharmonic Youth Choir, Liverpool Metropolitan
Cathedral Choir 
