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Deutsche Grammophon releases 100th Anniversary Limited Edition Leonard Bernstein: The Complete Works
Posted May 4, 2018
Leonard Bernstein unquestionably was one of the most astonishing and dazzling personalities in the world of classical music. He bestrode the musical scene in the second half of the 20th century like few others: Composer, conductor, pianist, educator; but it as a great communicator – of music and through music – that every facet of his life and legacy is bound together. He was a Renaissance man, a multifaceted genius, but it was his career as a composer that meant the very most to him. At the heart of DG’s Bernstein 100 project is Bernstein: Complete Works – The first complete edition of recordings of Bernstein’s published works, making available less familiar pieces such as his chamber music or his song cycles alongside West Side Story and the Chichester Psalms. It also includes a number of new recordings made expressly for this edition.
Bernstein: The Complete Works celebrates him as a singular compositional voice of the 20th century, whose notes laid a path for composers in the 21st century. Was he a symphonic composer? A Broadway composer? A composer of operas? Film scores? Ballets? Chamber? Bernstein’s determination to write “his” music inspired new generations of composers to break free of academic constraints, inspiring them to compose using all the styles and genres that comprise our musical language. While Bernstein conducts many of the recordings in this set, he would be overjoyed to discover all the new recordings of his works by artists of later generations. With every passing year, his legacy grows stronger.
“The greatest pianist among the conductors, the greatest conductor among composers, the greatest composer among pianists … He is a universal genius” ARTHUR RUBENSTEIN
This collection includes:
- 26 CDs + 3 DVDs Limited Edition
- Leonard Bernstein's complete published works collected together for the first time, including his music for ballet, opera and musicals, his incidental music, scores for film, orchestra and chamber ensembles, vocal scores and piano music
- The Complete Works is as complete a set as it is currently possible to assemble
- 100th Anniversary Edition assembled with the full support of the Leonard Bernstein Estate
- 140-page book (in E/F/G) with extensive documentation including:
1. A Forward by Craig Urquhart, Senior Consultant to the Leonard Bernstein Office
2. A new essay on Bernstein's composing life by Nigel Simeone, editor of The Bernstein Letters
3. Numerous photographs from the archives of Deutsche Grammophon