Bernstein loved and recorded this music very well, and yet a little less facility wouldn t have hurt. It is curious that the version of Fanfare included here is taken from the conductor s recording of the complete Third Symphony. That, in its first appearance on CD, can be heard on SMK 63155, along with the Symphony for Organ and Orchestra, with E. Power Biggs, organist. Again, the performances are highly accomplished, if more redolent of American steely smoothness than of rusticity. Unlike what is sometimes claimed, Bernstein was not solely responsible for the Mahler revival, although his advocacy probably had a lot to do with finding a new American audience for the composer in the 1960s.
Some recordings are so good they never go away.
That s the case with the contents of SMK 63085, a document of Lenny s ebullient and infectious self-love. Surprisingly, Bernstein soft-pedals the jazz in George Gershwin. Conducting from the piano in Rhapsody in Blue , he whips up a beefy orchestral outside and a sentimental inside. Listen to the orchestra rip into the charleston in An American in Paris and you ll be convinced. Holst s suite has zip, though, as if Bernstein wanted to show that he could keep up with his younger colleagues.