Leonard Bernstein: Symphony No 3 "Kaddish"/Chichester Psalms (Naxos Audio CD)  

Yvonne Kenny (soprano)
Willard White (speaker)
Michael Small (treble)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Choir
Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Choir
Gerard Schwarz, conductor


Leonard Bernstein on his Kaddish Symphony: “You know how the more you love someone, the more you can get angry with them, and when you have reconciliation, the more close you become than ever. Something like that happens in the course of this piece.”

A compelling conductor and a uniquely gifted communicator, Leonard Bernstein was one of the iconic musical figures of our age. He left a singular legacy as a composer of classical symphonies and Broadway shows. It is in his Symphony No.3 ’Kaddish’, perhaps more than in any other of his compositions, that Bernstein brings together his Jewish spiritual roots and his lifelong concern for the plight of a floundering humanity.


The disc also includes Chichester Psalms, another Bernstein work of Judaic inspiration firmly established in the mainstream classical repertoire. Gerard Schwarz conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, with Willard White as the speaker and soprano Yvonne Kenny, on these all-new recordings.



“Gerard Schwarz leads a stimulating and fully engrossing rendition with his assembled performers. He's got Bernstein’s idiom down pat - almost as well as the composer himself—successfully conveying the work's angry first half while giving equal measure to the remainder's more serene and playful episodes. The Royal Liverpool Orchestra plays marvellously, fully capturing Bernstein's sound world, with its unique instrumental effects…”
Classics Today.com