Leonard Bernstein
        Modern Masters

* Lopatnikoff: Concertino for Orchestra, op. 30
* Dallapiccola: Tartiniana for violin & orchestra
* Shapero: Symphony for Classical Orchestra

Ruth Posselt (violin), Columbia Symphony Orchestra/Leonard Bernstein
Sony SMK60725 MONO Total time: 74:08

Summary for the Busy Executive: Bernstein's meat.

Early on, Bernstein had a reputation as an advocate of Modern music,
and he did his share of shocking the incredibly timid, but with such
show-biz flair that no one really minded.  He specialized in certain
Modern Americans, and I firmly believe that he single-handedly (other
than, of course, the composer himself) deserves the credit for making
Copland an almost-popular figure.  I doubt we would have had the "Beef
- It's What's for Dinner" commercials to a snippet of Rodeo, had it not
been for Bernstein.  But a lot less of this sort of thing went on than
many realize.  Other than Copland and perhaps William Schuman (and
Bernstein's terrific performances of Bernstein), I don't really think
of Bernstein as a champion of very many Modern composers.  Often, he
followed rather than led.  Nevertheless, those composers he took on,
even once, have every reason for gratitude.

Bernstein did his considerable best, I think, with the music influenced
by Stravinsky and Hindemith.  The Schoenbergians and Webernistes didn't
fit him all that well (his own twelve-tone music derived from Stravinsky
and Copland).  Although he did perform them occasionally, it was generally
speaking only once.  The ghost of Stravinsky hovers over the pieces
performed here, recordings made on March 31 and April Fool's Day, 1953.

Nikolai Lopatnikoff's music seems to have sunk almost without a trace,
although his career peaked in the early Fifties.  Whitney and the
Louisville recorded his Music for Orchestra, and that's the only other
music of his I know, although the Albany and Centaur labels have covered
other pieces.  The Concertino is vigorous, full of delightful ideas,
well worked-out.  In general strategy and in the way it treats the balance
between solo and ensemble, it reminds me a lot of something like the
third and fifth Brandenburg concerti.  You will wish there was more of
it.

Dallapiccola, of course, has the reputation of Twelve-Tone Troll among
those upset by such things, but this work is tonal, even diatonic much
of the time.  He bases his Tartiniana on the 18th-century violin sonatas
of - surprise - Tartini.  The general style of the originals consists
basically of melody with simple accompaniment.  Dallapiccola takes the
original themes and folds them in on themselves, building up a freely-canonic
texture - a contrapuntal method familiar to aficionados of dodecaphonic
writing.  It's very beautiful and very startling at the same time.  It
sounds as if someone sang in an extremely live echo chamber with a huge
delay - with the melody phasing against itself.  A diatonic melody means
a diatonic texture, with an occasional dissonance as the melodies don't
quite line up.  However, this paradoxically weakens the sense of tonality,
of functional harmony.  The music doesn't seem "anchored" in a key, even
though you can almost always find a tonic. The part-writing keeps to the
strictly melodic, with very little regard for root positions of chords
- horizontal rather than vertical writing, as they say in the trades.
Even Bach's counterpoint hangs from an harmonic skeleton.  Dallapiccola
doesn't bother, and the result is weirdly gorgeous.  I'd recommend this
piece not only for its own stunning sake, but for those who want some
clue as to what the twelve-tone school is up to.  The tonal nature of
the piece sweeps aside the tonal-atonal red herring that usually gets
in a listener's way, allowing one to dip one's toe in the water without
worrying about getting bitten.

Harold Shapero's Symphony is the big work on the program, in more ways
than one.  Shapero, hypersensitive to criticism, essentially gave up
composition, although he continued to teach.  Most people who give up
composition probably should.  Shapero is the exception.  You listen to
his work and mourn the loss of those things unwritten.  I've not heard
less than a masterpiece from him.  The Symphony counts as his most
ambitious work.  For many years, most listeners knew it only through
this recording, never truly firmly in the catalogue, and the symphony
developed a cult base of fans, as did the recording.  The symphony stands
as one of the monuments of American neo-classicism, Stravinsky branch,
and it's the equal of any symphony actually by Stravinsky, excepting the
Symphony of Psalms, which says a lot.  One notes not only the music's
visceral impact and vigor, but the tremendous erudition, the near-Schoenbergian
assimilation of the Western European musical tradition, behind it all.
I've heard the work nominated for Greatest American Symphony, and the
only doubt I have is that - superb as it is - I don't find it particularly
representative of American music, except for here and there a certain
kind of rhythmic elan, quite different from, say, Stravinsky.

Robert Simpson, in a wonderful essay, discussed why, in his opinion,
Stravinsky didn't write true symphonies - that what he titled symphonies
turned out ballet scores in disguise.  They lacked the element of symphonic
argument, of the sense of going from here to there along a bridge, rather
than from stepping-stone to stepping-stone in a pond. In this sense, we
can say that Shapero wrote a real symphony, and it's very interesting
as to what kind he wrote.  In a sense, a "shadow-symphony" clings to
this music, hidden behind the Stravinskian vocabulary, teasing the
listener with the sense of something else going on, just out of realization.
In the last movement, Shapero makes his intent plain with an unmistakable
shard of Beethoven's Seventh, which he nevertheless integrates into the
movement itself - a surprise, but not a surprise.  Suddenly, the previous
movements come into sharp focus, and you marvel at how something so
original owes so much to its predecessor.  Shapero got into trouble over
this in some rather influential corners.  Copland himself - not only the
most prominent American composer, but also a very influential booster
of American music - wrote an essay stating his concern that Shapero
seemed to act out a weird rite of ancestor-worship, rather than expressing
himself.  In my opinion, Copland missed the point.  This *was* Shapero's
self, and it was genuinely original.  Americans by environment are
musically eclectic.  We listen to all sorts of things, whether we want
to or not.  We are both part of Europe and apart from Europe.  The
American artistic tradition includes not only The Unanswered Question
and Appalachian Spring, but "Rockin' in Rhythm" and "God Only Knows."
This is why Ives is prototypically American.  As far as I know, no one
has followed Shapero in his application of Stravinskian language to the
Beethoven symphony.  I think we have less trouble with digesting this
gumbo now, since the rise and passing of Post-Modernism.  I strongly
doubt that listeners would have any problem accepting this symphony on
its own terms.

Bernstein, at more or less the beginning of his amazing career,
electrifies in the Lopatnikoff.  He succeeds on a lower level in the
Dallapiccola and the Shapero, mainly due to the scrappy playing of his
pick-up band.  I'd love to hear what someone like Boulez or Dohnanyi
could do to clarify Dallapiccola's textures and to introduce a wider
dynamic range. As for the Shapero, I cling to the heresy that Andre
Previn's account on New World 80373 supersedes Bernstein's account.
Not only do the playing and sonics outstrip this recording (although
the sound is astonishingly good for its time, despite some noticeable
tape hiss), but Previn has a stronger grip on the symphony's architecture.
Bernstein generates a lot of energy, but it tends to dissipate.  Previn
focuses the energy and thus makes a greater impact.  Also, you get
Previn's coupling of Shapero's Nine-Minute Overture - a joy.

Steve Schwartz