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~ Robert Emmett Dolan
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Track Listings
| Disc: 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Prelude | |||
| 2. Ten Square Miles by the Potomac River | |||
| 3. If I Was a Dove | |||
| 4. Welcome Home, Miz Adams | |||
| 5. Take Care of This House | |||
| 6. The President Jefferson Sunday Luncheon March | |||
| 7. Seena | |||
| 8. Sonatina | |||
| 9. Lud's Wedding | |||
| 10. The Monroviad | |||
See all 18 tracks on this disc
| |||
| Disc: 2 | |||
| 1. Bright and Black | |||
| 2. Duet for One | |||
| 3. The Money-Lovin' Minstrel Show: Minstrel Parade | |||
| 4. The Money-Lovin' Minstrel Show: Pity the Poor | |||
| 5. The Money-Lovin' Minstrel Show: The Grand Old Party | |||
| 6. To Make Us Proud | |||
On this CD:
-
A White House Cantata - Scenes from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Composed by Leonard Bernstein
Performed by London Voices
with Thomas Hampson, June Anderson, Barbara Hendricks, Kenneth Tarver, Victor Acquah, Keel Watson, Neil Jenkins
Conducted by Kent Nagano
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
There is a resurgence of interest in Bernstein the composer these days. This disc helps to readdress the hegemony of West Side Story, a piece which has tended to eclipse his remaining output. Bernstein prepared A White House Cantata as a concert version of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The cantata presents scenes centred around the White House, simultaneously exploring racial issues, in an engaging and often witty (sometimes hilarious) way. DG has assembled an all-star cast: Thomas Hampson is the perfect choice for the President, his voice deep and authoritative. The production is also blessed with the excellent chorus, London Voices, and the LSO under Kent Nagano is in top form. Special mention should also go to the 15-year-old Victor Acquah who is quite superb in "If I was a Dove". Bernstein's musical voice is as American as pumpkin pie or Hershey Bars. The country of origin is immediately apparent in the nostalgic prelude. Bernstein's send-up of perceived Englishness is deliciously witty, but it is when he is in inspirational mode that he is most successful. --Colin Clarke
BBC Music Magazine
It took a certain audacity to think that a musical on the story of the first hundred years of the White House and the abolition of slavery acted out as a rehearsal would work on stage. And Lerner and Bernstein's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue duly bombed: 'stultifyingly ponderous' came the reviews. But according to one of its first performers, Patricia Routledge, it was a 'diamond-studded dinosaur', and in the composer's concert adaptation as A White House Cantata we hear all the diamonds.
There is a resurgence of interest in Bernstein the composer these days. This disc helps to readdress the hegemony of West Side Story, a piece which has tended to eclipse his remaining output. Bernstein prepared A White House Cantata as a concert version of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The cantata presents scenes centred around the White House, simultaneously exploring racial issues, in an engaging and often witty (sometimes hilarious) way. DG has assembled an all-star cast: Thomas Hampson is the perfect choice for the President, his voice deep and authoritative. The production is also blessed with the excellent chorus, London Voices, and the LSO under Kent Nagano is in top form. Special mention should also go to the 15-year-old Victor Acquah who is quite superb in "If I was a Dove". Bernstein's musical voice is as American as pumpkin pie or Hershey Bars. The country of origin is immediately apparent in the nostalgic prelude. Bernstein's send-up of perceived Englishness is deliciously witty, but it is when he is in inspirational mode that he is most successful. --Colin Clarke
BBC Music Magazine
It took a certain audacity to think that a musical on the story of the first hundred years of the White House and the abolition of slavery acted out as a rehearsal would work on stage. And Lerner and Bernstein's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue duly bombed: 'stultifyingly ponderous' came the reviews. But according to one of its first performers, Patricia Routledge, it was a 'diamond-studded dinosaur', and in the composer's concert adaptation as A White House Cantata we hear all the diamonds.
Bernstein had a field day: musical jokes include the perfect 18th-century pastiche 'Sonatina' as the Brits storm the White House in 1812, the hilarious duet of quarrelling First Ladies (June Anderson is amusing, but Routledge must have been perfect), the exuberant waltz on the eve of the Civil War, delivered with stylish gusto by Hampson, and the ridiculous 'President Jefferson Luncheon March'. There are also some lyric gems: the love song 'Seena' and calypso 'Lud's Wedding' are given warm performances by the excellent Kenneth Tarver as the black servant. Barbara Hendricks is perhaps over-polite as his wife and the promising young Victor Acquah is also a little too careful in his delivery and un-American. Neil Jenkins and Keel Watson inject some welcome individuality into their characters, as do London Voices.
Lerner's libretto, shorn of its moralising rehearsal speeches, has a specially sophisticated comic tone achieved by cutting grand gestures down to size. The emotional heart of the work is a nighttime exchange between James Monroe and his wife, whose accusation 'You framed the blacks!' is doubly effective for being pillow talk. The side-swipes at capitalism - 'We loves de country an' de people an' such/You gotta love 'em all to screw 'em so much!' - show no signs of dating. Despite its grandly affirmative ending, the work is by no means the simplistic 'bicentennial bore' it was once dismissed as. It's a clever, biting work of great musical charm and all praise to DG, Nagano and the LSO for bringing it finally to a wider audience.
Performance *****
Sound *****
© BBC Music Magazine 2000
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