01. Overture to 'Candide' [4'11]
02. - 19. Symphony No.2 'The Age of Anxiety'* [34'44]
20. - 28. Fancy Free. Suite from the ballet [27'16]
Jeffrey Kahane*- piano, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton
EMI 2344612 (recorded July 1990; originally issued on CD as Virgin Classics VC791433-2 in 1991; this download 2008)
(digital download, FLACs, cover and inlay scans - no booklet)
Recording venue: Wessex Hall, Poole Arts Centre, Dorset
Recording engineer: Mike Hatch; Producer: Andrew Keener
There have been quite a few recordings of Bernstein's Second Symphony since Koussevitsky's world premiere in 1949 with Bernstein as piano soloist, including four with Bernstein conducting. Very few recordings by other conductors have come anywhere near matching Bernstein's 1965 recording with Philippe Entremont and the New York Philharmonic - but here is one that does, both as a performance and superior sound quality.
In this performance of the 1965 revised version, Jeffrey Kahane makes an electrifyingly jazzy soloist in this very "New York" music, with its dark post-war angst. Andrew Litton finds a great deal of detail in the music with excellent control of tempi.
I'm not sure that the inclusion of a dim recording of Billie Holiday singing Bernstein's Big Stuff at the beginning of an equally excellent account of the Suite from the ballet Fancy Free enhances this performance - but you can program your playlist to omit it if you prefer.
Even before being subsumed into Warner Music, EMI were plundering the Virgin catalogue for reissues. Unfortunately, as with most EMI and other large company downloads, they stingily omit the original excellent booklet with notes by Peter Dickinson.