Bernstein: A White House Cantata
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Music CD Cover Composer: Leonard Bernstein Conductor: Kent Nagano Performer: Barbara Hendricks Performer: Kenneth Tarver Performer: Thomas Hampson Performer: June Anderson Performer: London Voices Edition: Music CD CD Release Date: 2000-09-12 Music Label: Deutsche Grammophon Soundtracks:
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Free Music Notes for Bernstein: A White House Cantata Album
Free Music Review: This could have been a lot better, but why quibble?
Hit: 4 Stars
A White House Cantata is actually from Leonard Bernstein's last piece for the Broadway stage, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, written in 1976. The show was a commercial disaster; in fact, during the tumultuous preview period, Bernstein rewrote or discarded so much material that, as the liner notes indicate, he eventually wrote more music for this show than for anything else he ever worked on. Of the portion that finally made it to Broadway, only about half is represented here. That alone is upsetting; this recording drops all but the historical scenes, in an attempt to give it some coherence, but really there is no coherence at all anyway. What emerges is simply a song cycle about the Presidency. Why, then, didnt they just include everything? But there isnt anything I can do about that; and what is here is often breathtaking. Bernstein's genius for blending musical literacy, fascinating dissonace, and lush melody - often in the same song - is amply evident, from the moving prelude and infectious opening march, through the brief but ravishing "If I was a Dove" and "Welcome Home Miz Adams," to the lovely "Take Care of This House" (a song which has been performed by various singers over the years.) "Seena" is a song that very nearly soars, with unexpected lilts and catches in the melody; The Jefferson March is very appealing (and funny) despite a bizarre time signature; and the Minstrel Show - despite being impaled by a bad lyric - is also very sprightly and catchy. And on and on, right to the end. His delicious talent for changing keys mid-refrain and fiddling with syncopation, creating complex yet memorable tunes, is evident everywhere, especially in "Welcome Home," "Black and Bright," and "If I Was A Dove." The lyrics are, for the most part, excellent - Lerner was a brilliant writer.
Some songs do not land quite as effectively, however. The extended Sonatina is really just a lot of dialogue set over music, with a reworked star spangled banner at the end (for thematic effect.) The Duet for One is far too busy to come across unless you listen to it over and over again several times (this is partially the quality of the recording at fault.) The same can be said of the Monroviad and "We Must Have a Ball." The finale, too, is billowy and prosaic, and far too slow. This was the phase of Bernstein's career which, Stephen Sondheim has noted, was marked by a bad case of "importantitis" - that is, he felt everything he wrote had to be his seering final statement. This heaviness is, unfortunately, also evident in places other than the finale.
The score is also marred by the fact that Bernstein - understandably upset that his score was going unnoticed - recycled the music from this show constantly. The Grand Old Party March turned into the first movement of Slava!; the Prelude was set to a Whitman poem in Songfest; This Time was used in A Quiet Place; Lud's Wedding sounds exactly like several pieces he had already written (the woodwind passages in the Somewhere Ballet, the second movement of Facsimile, the first Chichester Pslam.)And so on.
But all in all, the poor sides considered, it is a marvelous score, a must at the very least for Bernstein fans. As for the recording itself - the performers are often less than top-notch. Thomas Hampson (who was excellent singing Bernstein's Arias and Barcarolles) is in good form here as well, although the music for the President is often the least interesting. June Anderson doesn't fare quite as well; her biggest number, the Duet for One, is unclear (musically and lyrically) without multiple hearings. Kenneth Tarver as Lud is generally great, but Barbara Hendricks as Seena sounds like she has a cold at some points, especially in Black and Bright. Victor Acquah as Little Lud is somewhat hampered by his thick accent, especially when the slave dialect is written into the lyrics, but that's forgiveable; also, the range of the part forces him into falsetto many times, with bad vocal breaks. But he performs his one solo - If I Was a Dove - very well. The orchestra is fine, but the orchestrations are often incoherent, a result i assume of the extreme difficulty of the score.
As I stated already, I don;t want to quibble. This is NOT Bernstein's best work, nor is it the best possible recording of it; but it is the only one we have as of yet, and therefore it is very important, and I am in the debt of the CD's producers. IT is well worth making A White House Cantata part of your collection.