Passionately infatuated with Mahler to the point of often identifying with him, Leonard Bernstein left countless recordings behind, characterised by an expressive power taken to climax, if not outrageously. “When I direct the works of Mahler, I feel as if I’m playing some of my own”, he used to say. The career of Bernstein, genius conductor and composer, can indeed be compared in many ways to Mahler’s, if only for their common references to Judaism and their use of popular, almost trivial elements, which they both used to incorporate in their compositions.
This Symphony No. 3, recorded at the Manhattan Center on April 3rd, 1961, is part of Bernstein’s first Mahlerian cycle and hasn’t lost an ounce of its seductive power. Helped by a superlative sound recording and an astonishing remastering, it remains one of the American conductor’s best Mahlerian recordings.
This proper pagan ode to nature is buzzing with life. The arrival of summer, flowers in the meadow, animals in the forest, angels ringing the early morning bells and cheerful children yelling their innocent and enchanted bimm-bamm are all gathered here in a sort of imaginary film, in which the naivety of a still virgin world mixes with the discovery of Love with a great Lied for alto vocals written on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and interpreted here by Martha Lipton, who sings it with tremendous emotion. This gigantic symphony has undoubtedly found here one of its very best interpreters. © François Hudry/Qobuz