Joshua Bell - Joshua Bell ~ Bernstein - West Side Story Suite

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Music reviews of Joshua Bell ~ Bernstein - West Side Story Suite

Music Review: Superb marketing, solid substance
Rating: 5 Stars

Composing a virtuoso fantasy using themes from a successful work of musical theater is a time-honored tradition, brought to a peak of brilliance and musical skill by the nineteenth-century pianist and composer Franz Liszt. The title cut on Bell's new CD is not that much different from, say, Sarasate's "Carmen Fantasy," a piece respectfully treated even by the likes of the Strad. By now, "West Side Story" has established itself as one of the great works of the twentieth-century musical stage, ripe for such treatment, particularly in such a spectacularly successful rethinking by Bell and William David Brohn.

Hearing Bernstein's rich melodies in this brilliant, idiomatically composed, constantly surprising setting makes it easy to overlook the inclusion of a substantial original work for violin and orchestra, the Serenade, on this disc, as well as additional settings of his theater music by Brohn and John Corigliano. Bell plays with fiery intensity in the pryotechnical passages and sweet tone in the more lyrical moments. He is well-supported by Zinman's accompaniments, the whole recorded in lush, spacious sonics.

Never mind the Strad and other naysayers--this is a rich and rewarding album that will surprise fans and skeptics of Bell, Bernstein, and crossover alike.

Description of Joshua Bell ~ Bernstein - West Side Story Suite

Classical CDs

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