Music of Our Century [Import]

The performance of Ligeti's famous Atmosphères illustrates this very well. Ligeti's work (famous ever since the appearance of 2001: A Space Odyssey) is a slowly changing mass of floating atonal colours and harmonies with no melodic or rhythmic material to speak of, and thus it is rather surprising that Bernstein chooses to conduct it as if it were Mahler. His very fast, hyper-Romantic rendition does shed different light on the work than the classic recordings under Claudio Abbado and Jonathan Nott, but to me it sounds fundamentally misconceived--certainly it misses out on much of the orchestral detail that is so clear in the best of the rival readings.

Out of "Last Pieces" is Morton Feldman's second work for full orchestra (written in 1961 and not 1958 as the inlay claims). It's written in a graphical notation which gives basic details of what each instrumentalist has to play without exactly defining pitches, and will surprise those who know Feldman only from his later, slow, quiet works. Hyperactive, dense and full of detail, it's very much a work of its time, but still remains interesting today. I suspect the performance here is a little over-aggressive, but since this is the only recording this work has ever had, it remains a safe recommendation.

The Four Improvisations by the Orchestra are very sixties, very dated, and sound pre-prepared to me. Edison Denisov's early Crescendo e Diminuendo is similarly weak, and certainly shouldn't be compared to his mature masterpieces. An increasingly frantic harpsichord solo is accompanied by string parts that sound influenced by the Darmstadt serialists, before the music fades back into silence.

Distinctly superior is Gunther Schuller's orchestral triptych Triplum. Showing the dual influences of jazz and serialism, this is an ambitious, beefily orchestrated work. The first, moderately fast part is harmonically dense and gradually builds to an understated climax; the second part is faster, with vigorous rhythms and clearer textures. The slow finale brings melody to the forefront for the first time in the piece, with lyrical writing for the woodwind and solo strings against a floating tapestry of massed strings. The music gradually intensifies until it ends in a dramatic climax. This is a fine work, and its revival here is to be commended.

At one time, Bernstein had quite a close connection to the music of Olivier Messiaen (indeed, he premiered Turangalila), and it's easy to see why: the religious ecstasy present in much of Messiaen must have appealed to him. The French composer's Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine is one of Messiaen's most ecstatic works: a triptych of religious settings for womens' chorus, strings, piano, ondes martenot and percussion (unfortunately, the words are not printed in the booklet that comes with the disc). These settings are typical of 1940s Messiaen in their musical language, which combines consonant modal harmony, complex ancient rhythms, sugar-candy Hollywood cadences and occasional dissonant outbursts. Bernstein matches the religious fervour of the work with a rapid, intense reading that brings out the music's ecstatic qualities, though occasionally at the cost of a sense of repose. In some ways, though, the real star of the recording is the pianist Paul Jacobs, whose phenomenal reading of the piano part has never been bettered. Lovers of this work will want to hear this recording, even though Bernstein's rather extreme interpretation may not appeal to all (for my part, I rate it very highly).

This disc is well worth having, even though some of the recordings (particularly the Schuller) are starting to show their age. For those wanting the Feldman, the Schuller or (to a lesser extent) the Messiaen, it is a clear recommendation; those primarily in search of the Ligeti should acquire the second Ligeti Project volume instead.