Album

This recording of two of Leonard Bernstein's finest scores comes from a live 2008 performance by Ulf Schirmer and the Münchner Rundfunk Orchester. It's gratifying when European performers take up pieces that are so idiosyncratically American, but the risk is that they may not capture the idiomatic nuances that really bring the music alive, and that's the case, to some extent, in Schirmer's first recorded foray into American repertoire. He comes very close, but the lack of certain details—a punchiness in the syncopations, an easy swing—reveal that this is a style that's not in his blood. Schirmer is most successful in the least jazzy sections, the slower, poignant parts of Trouble in Tahiti, for instance, which are beautifully effective. The beginning of the opera with the vocal jazz trio lacks the necessary irreverent zing; the members of the trio sing with overly precise, correct enunciation rather than the casual slanginess the music calls for, and their intonation and even pitches are sometimes questionable. Schirmer's tempos in the opera tend to be slow, so that the music's built-in momentum gets dissipated. It's a shame, because Rodney Gilfry's emotionally complex and vocally powerful Sam may be the finest on disc. Kim Crisswell, who made her career in musical theatre, is a natural choice for Dinah, even though some weird pronunciations occasionally make her sound like English is not her first language. She brings oodles of character to the troubled housewife, though; the contrast between her unselfconscious exuberance in "Island Magic" and her pathetic resignation later is especially vivid, and the couple's final spoken exchange is achingly sad.

The same strengths and deficiencies are evident in the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. The romantic, more conventionally classical moments come off very well, but Schirmer doesn't quite get the looseness (or the snap) of the jazz-inspired sections. The CD includes an interview with Schirmer in German. The sound is lively and present.

© Stephen Eddins, All Music Guide

CD 1
Leonard Bernstein Composer Symphonic Dances from 'West Side Story' Work 23:09 Ulf Schirmer Conductor, Münchner Rundfunkorchester Orchestra
1	1.Prologue	4:22			$0.99
2	2.Somewhere	4:26			$0.99
3	3.Scherzo	1:21			$0.99
4	4.Mambo	2:18			$0.99
5	5.Cha-Cha	0:57			$0.99
6	6.Meeting Scene	0:35			$0.99
7	7a.'Cool'	0:51			$0.99
8	7b.Fugue	2:54			$0.99
9	8.Rumble	1:55			$0.99
10	9.Finale	3:30			$0.99
Leonard Bernstein Composer Trouble in Tahiti (opera) Work 43:51 Ronan Collett Baritone, Rodney Gilfry Baritone, Ulf Schirmer Conductor, Martene Grimson Soprano, Münchner Rundfunkorchester Orchestra, Adrian Dwyer Tenor, Kim Criswell Mezzo-Soprano
11	Prelude	3:23			$0.99
12	Scene 1	5:34			$0.99
13	Scene 2	2:56			$0.99
14	Scene 3	7:52			$1.49
15	Scene 4	5:09			$0.99
16	Interlude	1:51			$0.99
17	Scene 5	4:12			$0.99
18	Scene 6	4:53			$0.99
19	Scene 6 A & Scene 7	8:01			$1.49
Spoken Word (No Composer) Composer Elgin Heuerding in Gespräch mit Ulf Schirmer Work Elgin Heuerding Speech, Ulf Schirmer Speech
20	Elgin Heuerding in Gespräch mit Ulf Schirmer	10:12			$1.99