A world premiere recording of a work by
Leonard Bernstein
isn't something that happens so much anymore, but this 17-minutes-plus EP from some young chamber players contains one: the
Music for String Quartet
has never been recorded before. This album actually represents the first performance of any kind of the complete work; a second movement was discovered a few months before this performance was made.
Bernstein
wrote it in 1936 while a student at Harvard and had some musicians run it through; one of those kept it in his family collection, where it remained until 2021. Its purpose is unknown, but the annotators here suggest as one possibility that it was for a classroom assignment. It has that flavor, but it also has hints of jazz in its middle section, and it certainly goes well with the other pieces of early
that have turned up. It is not an earth-shaker, but it has the broad, expressive quality that characterizes many of
's works, classical and popular. The
is paired with
Copland
's
Elegies for violin and viola
, also an early work, from 1932; it has never been published but has been recorded a few times. It was one of the last pieces
composed before turning to his more populist style, and its intensely lyrical tone perhaps adumbrates that style. The players here communicate their enthusiasm for the project, and they are backed by engineers from the small
Navona
label, offering excellent chamber sound from the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Massachusetts. American music enthusiasts and library collections will find this an essential release. ~ James Manheim