BERNSTEIN in the 1940s Volume 2: His Debut (1943) - PASC533

This concert preserves Leonard Bernstein’s headline-making professional conducting debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 25. At the time Bernstein was the orchestra’s official assistant conductor under principal conductor Artur Rodziński. Bruno Walter was scheduled to conduct. The evening before, Bernstein attended a concert by mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel, which included a performance of his own song cycle I Hate Music. Despite being advised during the concert that Walter was not feeling well and to be on standby, he went to an all-night party afterwards at Tourel’s apartment, staying until somewhere between 4:30 am and dawn. He returned to his own flat, flipped through the scores again, fell asleep, and was awakened at 9:00 am by a phone call advising him that Walter was sick with the flu and that he would have to conduct the concert—a Sunday afternoon national broadcast over CBS Radio—with no time for a rehearsal. Unnerved, Bernstein asked if he at least could meet with Walter to go over the scores with him. This was arranged, and Bernstein was brought up to Walter’s hotel room. As he later recounted in an oral interview:

“He was very, very gracious. He was sitting huddled up in a blanket, poor man, sweating and shivering and what-not. And in the midst of all that misery of his, he was so kind and so helpful to me. I was there an hour, in the course of which he showed me various places [in Don Quixote] where he cut off first and made a Luftpause and then gave an extra upbeat here, and therefore I could be helped and in front of the orchestra wouldn’t be ragged. He was very helpful; I don’t know what I would have done without that hour with him and he gave it to me under great duress.”

Bernstein’s family, already in town for Tourel’s performance, was seated in the conductor’s box. No-one told him that Rodziński, who was in Stockbridge, CT and could have returned in time to lead the concert, had declined to do so, curtly responding when contacted, “Call Bernstein. That’s why we hired him.” (Rodziński actually did return in time to hear the second half of the program.) Although a friendly druggist had given Bernstein two pills for nerves and energy, Bernstein flung them away just before walking out on stage, saying to himself, “I’m going to do this on my own.”

With a supportive orchestra and sympathetic audience pulling for him, Bernstein’s debut was a triumph. The next day the New York Times ran the debut as a headline story, “Young Aide Leads Philharmonic; Steps in When Bruno Walter is Ill,” and an accompanying editorial remarked: “It’s a good American success story. The warm, friendly triumph of it filled Carnegie Hall and spread far over the air waves.” And, to invoke the old cliché, the rest is history.

This disc presents the broadcast portion of the complete concert. The final work on the program, the Overture to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, was not broadcast due to time constraints, and with that also was lost the tumultuous ovation that the Carnegie Hall audience gave Bernstein at its finish. Certainly, though, the ovation after the Don Quixote is enthusiastic enough to give an idea of what occurred at the concert’s close.

Three key questions that arise here. How good are the performances? How good is the sound quality? How much of what is heard is genuine Bernstein, and how much is the orchestra playing for Walter with Bernstein primarily directing traffic?

To address those in reverse order, the third question is essentially unanswerable. Surely, a good deal of what is heard must necessarily be what the musicians imbibed from Walter in the course of rehearsal, and one can hear characteristically Walterian lyrical phrasing and weighty sonorities in many places. (To cite just one example, listen to the opening bars of the Langsam introduction to the Manfred Overture, where the almost sighing expression of grief in the violins, and the warmly supple tones and subtle swells in the lower strings, immediately speak of Walter’s handiwork.) Yet, just as surely, Bernstein was doing much more than just beating time (even if, by his own account, in the Strauss he had to work hard just to “hang on”), and much of the febrile energy of the playing must surely be due to his own skill. Even if he did largely preserve Walter’s coaching in the piece, that in and of itself would be no small accomplishment.

The sound quality is above average for a broadcast of this period, though there is some background shellac noise at points and some congestion and distortion at climaxes in the Don Quixote. The New York Philharmonic previously issued the virtually identical contents (Pristine preserves about two additional minutes of the closing station announcements) on a promotional CD in late 1996 to benefit the orchestra’s pension fund, but that disc has of course long been unavailable. This new version from Pristine clearly comes from a comparable source. It is remastered at a noticeably higher level, and also is slightly less filtered in the treble frequencies. The result is a trade-off according to tastes; Pristine’s sound is more forward and slightly more open, but also retains more harshness. If you are one of the fortunate few who owns the original NYP issue, I wouldn’t see a need to trade that in for this one; but if you don’t have it, there’s likewise no need to pay a premium price on the used CD market for that older issue when this one is readily available at a reasonable price.

Finally, as for the performances themselves, they are all simply terrific. The Manfred Overture has a nervous, even whiplash intensity, as the doomed protagonist confronts his earthly end. Miklós Rózsa’s Theme, Variations and Finale is an early work (op. 13) originally dating from 1933 and dedicated to the composer’s wife; he later revised it, mostly by way of small excisions, and the latter version is heard here. (The Chandos recording led by Ramon Gamba, the only other one currently in print, presents the uncut original. Out of print recordings include ones led by James Sedares on Koch and two on LP—mono Decca and stereo RCA—conducted by Rózsa.) A melancholy theme of an unmistakably Hungarian folk music stamp is introduced by the oboe, and then taken through eight colorful variations of varying characters before a fugal finale brings the proceedings to a close. All in all, it sounds very much akin to Kodály. The Strauss tone poem receives the most dynamic and compelling reading of that work I’ve ever heard (though I admit it’s not a work I turn to often). The orchestra plays at the top of its game, and first-chair players Joseph Shuster and William Lincer excel as the elderly knight and his faithful squire. This is a very brisk reading—whereas most performances come in about 41 to 45 minutes, this times out at a mere 38:05—which in my book is all to the good.

In sum, we have here not just a truly historic occasion, but also a set of first-rate performances. Pristine is especially to be commended for providing 10 separate track points in the Rózsa work and 14 for the Strauss (the NYP issue allots each only one track). Enthusiastically recommended.

James A. Altena