Bernstein: Music for String Quartet - Copland: Elegies for Violin & Viola

Album review

A world premiere recording of a work by Leonard Bernstein isn't something that happens so much anymore, but this 17-minutes-plus EP from some young chamber players contains one: the Music for String Quartet has never been recorded before. This album actually represents the first performance of any kind of the complete work; a second movement was discovered a few months before this performance was made. Bernstein wrote it in 1936 while a student at Harvard and had some musicians run it through; one of those kept it in his family collection, where it remained until 2021. Its purpose is unknown, but the annotators here suggest as one possibility that it was for a classroom assignment. It has that flavor, but it also has hints of jazz in its middle section, and it certainly goes well with the other pieces of early Bernstein that have turned up. It is not an earth-shaker, but it has the broad, expressive quality that characterizes many of Bernstein's works, classical and popular. The Bernstein is paired with Copland's Elegies for violin and viola, also an early work, from 1932; it has never been published but has been recorded a few times. It was one of the last pieces Copland composed before turning to his more populist style, and its intensely lyrical tone perhaps adumbrates that style. The players here communicate their enthusiasm for the project, and they are backed by engineers from the small Navona label, offering excellent chamber sound from the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Massachusetts. American music enthusiasts and library collections will find this an essential release.
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