Leonard Bernstein

This week on GBW and ACDA Radio/ChoralNet, Host Stan Schmidt invites you to enjoy music by one of America’s most treasured musicians and composers…..Plus you will be treated to stunning music by Randall Thompson, Paweł Łukaszewski, Samuel Barber and a Gaelic Hymn.   This visit is called Leonard Bernstein and Friends.    Choral groups ready to serve you are Conspirare with Craig Hella Johnson, The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge with Stephen Layton, Harry Christophers and the 16, the Roberts Wesleyan College Chorale and the group Polyphony again with Stephen Layton plus a Gaelic Hymn.     Two unfamiliar Randall Thompson tracks written 1963 from Feast of Praise for voices and Brass ensemble –“The Stars in Their Watches and “God Is Gone Up With a Shout”.   Samuel Barber’s “To be Sung on Water”.   Also enriching the Program will be three very listenable selections by Paweł Łukaszewski…His “Ave Maria” for double choir and an Exceptional setting of “Psalme 102” and a respected and tranquil Nunc Dimittis.

Featured Bernstein works will be the incidental music for the Medieval Play “The Lark”.  First the French Choruses with all the Clapping that help create the feeling of the Medieval followed by the Latin Choruses.  Robert Shaw went to one of the early performances of “The Lark” and suggested to Bernstein that the incidental choruses be adapted into a unified piece to produce a compelling Missa Brevis.   Well, 33 years later Bernstein followed Shaw’s suggestion and wrote his Missa Brevis dedicated to Shaw’s Retirement.   That was the last complete choral work that Leonard Bernstein wrote as the composer died a year after completing the Mass in 1990. 

For a look at the CD’s used and a complete list of the music heard, go to the blog of WWW.GONGBEYONDWORDS.COM website and click on show 2443