Trouble in Tahiti - Danses Symphoniques de West Side Story

Leonard Bernstein

Released on 17-11-2009 by BR-Klassik
Main artists: Ulf Schirmer Munich Radio Orchestra
Genre: Symfonische muziek

Digital booklet

Available in

16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo

Unlimited Streaming

Listen to this album in high quality now on our apps

Start my trial period and start listening to this album

Enjoy this album on Qobuz apps with your subscription

Digital Download

Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.

Language available : english

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 Criswell, who made her career in musical theater, 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.

© TiVo

More info

Trouble in Tahiti - Danses Symphoniques de West Side Story

Ulf Schirmer

You are currently listening to samples.

Listen to over 100 million songs with an unlimited streaming plan.

Listen to this playlist and more than 100 million songs with our unlimited streaming plans.

From 13,50€/month

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (Leonard Bernstein)

I. Prologue

Ulf Schirmer

00:04:22

Orchestre Symphonique de la Radio de Munich - Ulf Schirmer, direction