Marin Alsop follows up her excellent Samuel Barber series for Naxos with works by her one-time mentor, Leonard Bernstein. For the most part, she and the Bournemouth Symphony deliver the goods. The suite Bernstein fashioned from his lone film score, On the Waterfront, contains some of this composer’s most vibrant and involving music, where no section of the orchestra goes under-utilized. Everything in the score clearly stands out under Alsop’s eagle eyes and ears, with syncopated rhythms and canonic passages securely aligned and the Bournemouth brass at their assertive best (especially in the final Allegro non troppo section). The polite alto sax soloist, to be certain, shirks from Bernstein’s triple-forte “crudely” directive, plus the solo percussion doesn’t match the barbarous swagger and intensity of their New York Philharmonic counterparts in the composer’s peerless recording. Likewise, the three dance episodes from On the Town, though scrupulously executed, need just a little more swing and idiomatic lilt.
The Bournemouth strings come into their own in Chichester Psalms, notably in the third-movement prelude. Alsop’s brisk tempos serve the first movement’s insouciant asymmetry well, and she makes the third movement’s lyrical points through strict dynamic gradations and steady tempos (it’s so tempting to milk this music to death!). The chorus is expertly prepared, and the small solo parts are handled as well as they can be. Boy soprano Thomas Kelly’s centered pitch and clear diction deserves more than honorable mention. My only complaint about Naxos’ wide-ranging sonics is that you can barely understand the words at loud moments–but listeners will find texts and translations are provided. Yes, no one conducts Bernstein like Lenny, but Marin Alsop manages to make this music her own. And that’s no small feat.
