Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue / Schumann: Piano Quintet / Shostakovich / Mozart / Ravel

Our Price: $40.00
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Music CD
See more CD details

CD Details

Music reviews of Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue / Schumann: Piano Quintet / Shostakovich / Mozart / Ravel

Music Review: Why you should own this record:
Rating: 5 Stars

This collection of recordings, made between 1959 and 1978, and assembled on CD in 1991, is necessarily piano-centric since the whole theme is that Bernstein "plays and conducts". Surprisingly, all of the recordings sound fresh and intimate, thanks to some good remastering by John McClure (who produced some of the original recordings) and sound engineer Charles Harbutt.

Disk two of this set boasts an empassioned and technically superb rendition of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G-major, the delicate second movement of which contains some of Bernstein's finest playing.

Also on disk two is the second best recording of Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue I've ever heard. (The very best one is on the Manhattan soundtrack by Zubin Mehta with the New York Philharmonic.)

I don't normally suggest multi-disk sets of various classical music peices. I usually favor finding individual recordings that represent the very best available for each piece in question. But this set, containing accessible and technically brilliant performances all under one consistantly good conductor, is well worth the money.

For those who need more information to shop for this CD, its cover is blue and green with a color profile photo of Bernstein at the piano. The title on the spine is "Leonard Bernstein Plays and Conducts" but the large gold lettering on the cover reads "Leonard Bernstein A Portrait". It was released on Sony Classical and is now available only as a European import.

Classical CDs

• Music > Styles