Sym.1 / / Overtures: Bernstein / Nyp

We tend to think of Mozart and Mendelssohn as vying for the Most Precocious Youth award among classical composers. But while it's true that both of them wrote marvelous music before they hit the ripe old age of 20, Bizet is perhaps the first composer to a write a fully-formed masterwork--his Symphony in C--at the age of seventeen. This ebullient work is captured here in a brilliant performance by Leonard Bernstein. The Adagio, which contains what is perhaps the most beautiful music ever written for oboe and orchestra, has long been a favorite of both oboists and audiences alike.
Jacques Offenbach's 'Gaite Parisienne,' a ballet score assembled from different operettas, receives a raucous performance by Bernstein. The 'Orpheus in the Underworld' overture is drawn from Offenbach's most famous operetta. Though the composer has been slighted over the years this exuberant performance from 1967 is one of the best.
Franz von Suppe was another prolific composer whose work has been unfairly marginalized. But the overture from 'The Beautiful Galatea' has become a concert mainstay and receives in Bernstein's sublime and sensitive reading one of the most memorable performances in the recorded catalog.
REVIEWS:
Fanfare (1-2/00, pp.210-211) - "...Bernstein's high-energy conducting and the fine playing of his New York musicians put these light works over with great panache. Bernstein fans and anyone who fancies a disc of these orchestral showpieces will not be disappointed."