I was walking around Gramercy Park the other day when I passed Joshua Bell and my mind went reeling back to this stormy night a decade ago when tens of thousands of us put our fear of lightening on the back burner, transfixed by the lightening-fast hands of Mr. Bell as we were. Leonard Bernstein had approved a violin suite for his score to West Side Story in the same year he died. I'd never heard it until this night, and rearranged as it is, one gets a new appreciation of the complexities of Bernstein's mind in the way motifs play off one another throughout. Mr. Bell wrote the cadenza and it is a dizzying piece of virtuosity. Listen right afterwards as Mr. Bell plays the first few notes of "Somewhere." A rumble of thunder swept over Central Park as though God Himself heard the strains and wanted 'in.' Who wouldn't want to play with the New York Philharmonic? It was a very special night. And here it is for you.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Jeff's Music Corner. Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story Suite, Joshua Bell.
I was walking around Gramercy Park the other day when I passed Joshua Bell and my mind went reeling back to this stormy night a decade ago when tens of thousands of us put our fear of lightening on the back burner, transfixed by the lightening-fast hands of Mr. Bell as we were. Leonard Bernstein had approved a violin suite for his score to West Side Story in the same year he died. I'd never heard it until this night, and rearranged as it is, one gets a new appreciation of the complexities of Bernstein's mind in the way motifs play off one another throughout. Mr. Bell wrote the cadenza and it is a dizzying piece of virtuosity. Listen right afterwards as Mr. Bell plays the first few notes of "Somewhere." A rumble of thunder swept over Central Park as though God Himself heard the strains and wanted 'in.' Who wouldn't want to play with the New York Philharmonic? It was a very special night. And here it is for you.
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